Google is green, but not just with money from their higher stock price (disclaimer: I own GOOG stock), they also dig solar power.
As mentioned last October 30% of Google’s power needs at its home office in Mountain View, CA are handled by the solar panels it installed on the rooftops. Check out their Google Solar Power web page (gotta love the solar panel over the logo) which shares comparable energy stats like how many loads of laundry or dishwasher cycles one could do with the power from the panels.
My Library
For those who want to keep track of the books owned by ISBN number, Google now offers My Library available through books.google.com in your account. My Library allows import and export (extra points there).
We don’t have many books any more. Most have been given away or donated. My favorite Mac program, by far, for inventorying CDs, games, movies and books is still Delicious Library (no relation to the Delicious bookmark program from Yahoo).
Google Reader adds search
Strange as it may sound a comprehensive search feature for Google Reader wasn’t made available until this week. I continue to be a Google Reader holdout, preferring reBlog and my own server. I like the idea that when I click through to a site the referrer is one of our sites and not Google, as well as being able to keep track in my own database the posts and pages I’m most interested in.
You can search keywords by folder, all items, shared items and starred items. It seems to work fairly well although when you have a lot of results it doesn’t return an accurate number, instead showing the rather worthless “thousands” result.
If you ever said there was no business model for MySpace, time to start chomping on those words right about now. Ashley Qualls, age 17, the founder of the site Whateverlife.com (pictured) has a free MySpace layouts website that has seven million monthly visitors and does 60 million page views. Where does all that traffic lead in the current web world where eyeballs attract sponsor dollars?
Her first Adsense paycheck was $2,790 and she has already rejected a $1.5 million buyout offer.
DoshDosh picked up on the Fastcompany article that shares more details of young Ms. Qualls like she hails from Detroit, doesn’t have a driver’s license yet, the probate courts have ruled that neither her parents or her can manage her finances, dropped out of high school, has a lawyer and wants to become emancipated.
And she’s only 17?! Yikes, our oldest teen is her age and he still hasn’t gotten his first job (he’s looking). Hopefully somebody in Ms. Qualls’ financial camp is telling her to invest wisely. Sounds like a lot to juggle at her age.
Remember my problem with bees building hives (#152) in our eaves? I learned that rubbing soap under the eaves (#153) would deter the bees from rebuilding hives. I tried it out and over a week later it’s time to see if it actually worked.
How about that, a green-friendly way to keep bees away from building hives on your house.
Do you live your life ecological friendly or unfriendly? Until this morning, I’d never taken any test to find out how green I am. Here is my eco footprint:
3 1/2 planets? That doesn’t seem good until reading: “THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 24 ACRES PER PERSON.” 24 acres per person?
The test consists of roughly 15 short choose an answer questions and will take a few minutes to complete. How do you compare?
Once upon a time I took a personality test at a sales conference. I don’t remember what classification it was, but recently I came across a similar test, composed of 70 or so questions. It doesn’t take too long to complete.
… general, universal personality ID that divides people into one of sixteen distinct personality types, along axes if introverted (I) or extroverted (E), Sensing (S) or Intuitive (N), Thinking (T) or Feeling (F), and Judging (J) or Perceiving (P).
Hat tip to Xeromag.com who labels me and all other INFJ’s conspiracy theorists. Not a chance.
gentle, caring, complex and highly intuitive individuals. Artistic and creative, they live in a world of hidden meanings and possibilities. Only one percent of the population has an INFJ Personality Type, making it the most rare of all the types.
Any readers part of the INFJ club? Not sure about the whole “living in a world of hidden meanings” part (???), but it sounds like 007 which is true. How much do I seriously buy into this stuff? About as much as horoscopes (I’m a Libra, BTW), but they are fun for water cooler conversation and comparison, kind of like the Walk Score for our homes.
The Piss-Screen - a pressure-sensitive inlay set within urinals, enabling users to play while they pee. We installed this newfangled creation in male restrooms across Frankfurt, teaming up with a variety of bars, clubs and cafés. The game itself was displayed on a screen above each urinal, and would automatically start as soon as someone began to pee. The player could then control the car whilst relieving himself – if they wanted the car to go right, they simply peed to the right (and visa versa).
Now why don’t we see more Piss-Screens in the US? Sounds like a good way to combat drunk driving. Why not go further? Test the blood alcohol level in the urine and text message the cab numbers to their cell phone. And if the BAC is too high, cut them off.
Talk about all new type of game controller, eat your Wiimote out, Nintendo. I better bail from this one before it gets ugly …
Perhaps my timing sucks or this is a really popular online application, but a couple different times I attempted to check the Walk Score in our area, the service errors out with messages like the one pictured above.
The Walk Score:
… helps people find walkable places to live. Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc.
We live very close to a trail and within walking distance to both our offices just off the main street in town. Recently, we’ve been doing more biking since my wife and I bought bikes.
Try. Service. Again. Once more before publishing and woohoo! Everything finally worked.
The Walk Score where we live is 69 out of 100. That didn’t seem very good or realistic until being compared that against Bill Gates house which scores a miserable 6 out of 100.
No need to feel for Bill, he can do plenty of walking around his home, and a chopper or limo to any services he needs.
Our score isn’t as good as the Brady Bunch house which boasts an 80 walk score. Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!
By now you’ve heard about the bridge collapsing in Minneapolis. Terrible thing that could have been prevented by tax dollars being put to the right use: fixing a deficient bridge.
Tacoma Narrows bridge, new toll bridge shortly before opening in July 2007 (does old bridge need work?)
[sigh]
Today my RSS reader carries me the sobering news that 20 bridges in our area alone — Pierce County — are in need of repair. One or two that I’ll probably be near and possibly crossing today. Um, not.
According to the federal data, 381 Washington bridges were structurally deficient as of 2006. That’s more than 5 percent of the more than 7,500 bridges in the state. Nationally, about 12 percent of bridges are structurally deficient.
Get that if you live in the US, there’s a 12% chance some of the bridges in your neighborhood need work too. This is comforting. Not.
