Bryn's blog » environment

Queensland Floods and the Web

Bryn — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 12:53:17 +0000

Floods have devastated Queensland and other parts of Australia. The area underwater is greater than France and Germany. At times like these I am always amazed at the great and positive ways how Web 2.0 technologies are used; whether social networking to match people needing accommodation with people who are offering space to stay or how people have used the twitter hash tags such as #qldfloods to follow breaking news.

NearMap, an Australian based map/aerial photography company, was remarkable quite in updating their site with very recent aerial photography showing the extent floods. The ABC, who regularly make excellent use of the web, have used the NearMap images before and after the flooding to created an excellent infographics of the devastation.

I also think it is worth noting that the inactive infographics are made using HTML and JavaScript not Flash.

Broadband for Arnhem Land

Bryn — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 11:35:36 +0000

From the ABC’s 7:30 report, a good news story about the Broadband Revolution coming to Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. A fibre optic cable has be laid into Arnhem Land. This is great story in so many ways:

The technical hurdles that needed to be over come in laying cable in a harsh environment including under a crocodile infected river.
The positive social impact for education and health resulting from broadband.
How culturally sensitively the whole project was managed, with traditional owners from the local Aboriginal communities being consulted and involved in the project.

Telecom revolution for Arnhem Land (video from abc.net.au)

Google's Photovoltaic System

Bryn — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:13:33 +0000

This is kind of a follow up to my previous post on Green Computing. IT Conversations has posted a talk by Anthony Ravitz, Project Coordinator, Real Estate & Workplace Services, Google, about Google’s installation of photovoltaic cells on the roof of the Googleplex. Google’s significant size and wealth would allow them to be a leader and implement this type of project based purely environmental/ethical grounds, in the near future I hope to see many organisation around the world implementing similar projects and environmental, ethical and economic grounds.

Green Computing

Bryn — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 10:10:46 +0000

From IT Conversations Phil Windley’s interview with Jeremy Faludi about Green Computing. I highly recommend listening to this. They address the environmental aspects of computing from the massive amount of power used by data centers to the chemicals used in the production of computing equipment.

Jeremy Faludi has written a 4 part article on green computing

The show was also the first time I had heard of The Green500 that ranks systems by MFLOPS/Watt. I am interested in both environment and tech issues so I have found the issues of Green Computing very interesting. Tech is so much part of the world, the impact this tech has on the environment is going to become more and more important in to the future.