Aquila Online

How eco-friendly is your online presence?

// January 12th, 2009 // 9 Comments » // Environment

“So it’s Sunday morning, you’re sitting down at the computer with your cup of coffee, and you decide to search for the latest YouTube hit. You groan. That video is taking too long to load. You open a new window and decide to read the morning paper while you wait for the video to download. This scene may seem innocent enough, but were you aware of the fact that your websurfing has an impact on the environment? Would you be surprised to know that it contributes to a greater global carbon footprint than the whole of the aviation industry? “

According to The Times Online every time you switch on your computer, browse the internet and connect to servers around the world, you are contributing to the 2% of international emissions each year.

Considering that a simple Google search could generate around 7g of CO2 and boiling a kettle about 15g, we need to start thinking of ways to reduce our online carbon footprint.

One way you can take an overall view of your carbon footprint is to use the Food & Trees For Africa Carbon Standard Calculator. Once you know how much carbon dioxide emissions you produce, you can offset these by planting and equivalent amount of trees. In my mind this is an awesome South African initiative.

If you are internationally based, you could also check out www.co2stats.com, for ways to make your website greener in an auditable way.

I already calculated the amount of trees required to reduce my specific Volvo’s carbon footprint and made my donation. What have you done?

JPG Magazine closes down

// January 2nd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // News, Photos

On 5 January 2009, JPG Magazine will be no more. In an email sent to site users it was announced that the publication and website will shut down for good. JPG weren’t able to raise the money needed to keep the business model afloat in these extraordinary economic times.

Unfortunately even the site will be taken down, which means you have only have until the 5th of January 2009 to download PDF’s of back issues, outtakes, and photo challenge selections.

The news came as a bit of a shock for me and I must admit that I’m quite sad. I submitted a few photographs to JPG Magazine in the hope of getting published. Although this never happened, the site has proven an invaluable source of inspiration for me.

So, with a sadness I bid JPG Magazine adieu.

Update: It appears that the JPG community pulled together and voila, JPG magazine is back! Yup on 27 February 2009, they announced that the magazine has a new owner and will not be shutting down. Yay!

One giant slot car track

// January 1st, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Cars & Bikes

Following some comments received on my previous post “S is for slot cars (and super stoked)” I did some more research and found the following two bits of interestingness to share with you.

The first is a video of a giant indoor slot car track, at one point the largest in America. The clip is also presented by none other than our favourite Dirty Jobs presenter, Mike Rowe.

Giant slot car track on YouTube

Update: The guys from Zoo magazine apparently built the largest slot car track in the world (as recognised by Guinness World Records).

Then, if you’re short on space and don’t like to disassemble the track all the time, why not turn it into a wall sculpture? This guy did just that and it’s pretty neat.