Some Random Dude is a blog by P.J. Onori that covers design & technology in the broadest sense possible.

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Posts Tagged ‘environment’

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New Beginnings

Posted on 2 March, 2010 at 9:17am with 13 comments

Since sometime in 2007, I have had the fortune to be self-employed. The process was at first frightening, quickly evolved into empowering and eventually phased into a quite comfortable space. Like all things, the work had its ups and downs, but when everything was added up, it definitely netted positive. If you asked me a few months ago if I saw myself moving back into an employed role, I would have laughed it off. Things change. Read the rest of this post…

somerandomdude: I am more and more concerned about the iPad’s closed environment. I am *seriously* considering blocking iPad/iPhone users from SRD. No joke.

Posted on 1 February, 2010 at 8:50pm with Comments Off

I am more and more concerned about the iPad’s closed environment. I am *seriously* considering blocking iPad/iPhone users from SRD. No joke.

Making a Reusable Cup Sleeve

Posted on 28 January, 2008 at 6:00am with 7 comments

Cup SleeveIf you have spent any time talking with me, you are probably well aware that I am putting significant time into lowering my environmental footprint. This is a pretty common sentiment nowadays, with everyone taking a different path to achieve their goal. One day, on a walk with my wife after getting a remarkably hot cup of coffee, I took notice of the generic cardboard cup sleeve on my cup. It dawned on me that, along with the cup, there was no reason why a sleeve to insulate your hand had to be disposable. While it is easy to find a non-disposable cup (duh), I have yet to run into a reusable cup sleeve. I soon thought, why the hell not make my own? Then I thought, why not share the template so anyone can make one (hopefully better than mine)?
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Some Random Dude Plays the CFL Fairy.

Posted on 29 March, 2007 at 11:49am with 4 comments

CFL

My wife and I have extra CFLs when we purchased a whole boatload of them from a Costco run. The spare lights were literally collecting dust around the apartment, so I decided to be the environmental equivalent of the tooth fairy around the neighborhood. The photo above shows a light that was running on your traditional bulb which was replaced by one of our CFLs. This is not going to save the world, but it will make someone’s electricity bill a little lower and save some carbon going into the atmosphere. If you have some extra CFLs around the house, I suggest you do the same thing – it will make somebody’s day (whether they notice it or not).

I missed a day of posting because I have been ridiculously sick. This is the second time I have gotten sick this season – I do not remember the last time that has happened. This blog (and myself) should get back to normal by tomorrow or Monday.

Daily Delicious – A Black Google Saves Energy

Posted on 22 February, 2007 at 2:36pm with 13 comments

TreeHugger has an excellent article about how a website’s color scheme can actually impact power usage of its audience. Actually, it makes perfect sense, I just had never really thought about it. If Google switched their background to black, it would have 750 Megawatt-Hours a year. According to the Department of Energy, this would roughly be enough to power the state of Pennsylvania for an average month of consumption. Frankly, I never would have thought the numbers would be so staggering.

As can be expected, some eco-minded folks are already changing their bright-color-schemed ways – such as ecoIron with an energy efficient color scheme. Even the slightest glance at this blog’s design shows how energy inefficient it is. White is by far the highest consumer of energy with red not too far behind. All of this is spelled out very clearly from another DOE page. Some Random Dude is the web equivalent to the Hummer. Yeah, this all sounds funny to myself as well.

So what to do? Do we all change our vibrant ways? I would like to scale things back a tad from this site, but I am very cautious of ruining the site’s identity. Either way, this is an interesting topic in the theoretical sense. Does design on the web need to start accounting for energy efficiency for the end user? Perhaps it is just me, but it seems that with every passing day, web design becomes more and more like industrial design.

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