Google Turns Out the Lights

Google turned the lights out. Now it’s your turn – Earth Hour.
Google users in the United States will notice today that we “turned the lights out” on the Google.com homepage as a gesture to raise awareness of a worldwide energy conservation effort called Earth Hour. As to why we don’t do this permanently – it saves no energy; modern displays use the same amount of power regardless of what they display. However, you can do something to reduce the energy consumption of your home PC by joining the Climate Savers Computing Initiative.
On Saturday, March 29, 2008, Earth Hour invites people around the world to turn off their lights for one hour – from 8:00pm to 9:00pm in their local time zone. On this day, cities around the world, including Copenhagen, Chicago, Melbourne, Dubai, and Tel Aviv, will hold events to acknowledge their commitment to energy conservation.
Given our company’s commitment to environmental awareness and energy efficiency, we strongly support the Earth Hour campaign, and have darkened our homepage today to help spread awareness of what we hope will be a highly successful global event.
Why did Google choose this specific organization?We believe in doing our part to help combat climate change, and found the Earth Hour initiative to be a timely, important event. Further, we think the “lights out” idea’s individual-centered nature is something that millions of people worldwide can participate in. In short, we really like it. So we did something about it.
How can I get Google to do something similar for my organization or project? We welcome your ideas on how we can become more socially and environmentally responsible. Although we can’t guarantee either a placement on the Google homepage or even a response to every query, we do read every email we receive and welcome your ideas of organizations that you believe we should feature. If you’d like to submit a proposal, please send it to us at proposals@google.com.

Space Shuttle ISS Fly By

Wow…I remember when the Air Force One flew into David Monthan Air Force Base a few years ago. It was thrilling to see the plane which represented the highest office in America on final approach. I was on the rooftop of the old Arizona Honda building with my good friend Tom Matte who owned the place and we tried all morning to spot the plane. At the end of the Morning Show shift, we had noticed a plane flying along the edge of the Catalina Mountains. I grabbed the super powerful binoculars we had and saw the outline of the 747. As we watched the plane continue to desend and head towards Marana, it turned and began its final approach over Tucson. It was hair standing on the back of the neck as the majestic aircraft flew over our heads. It was pretty damn cool to watch.

I just had another one of those moments in the skies above tucson as the International Space Station and shuttle took a flight over the city. I had been scanning the skies for about 10 minutes when I saw a light moving across the sky, no flashing beacon, no landing light, and it was going at quite a clip. Behind it, moving at about the same velocity was a fainter light,moving along the same path. It was visable for about 3 minutes and soon was out of sight. Seeing it though was a thrill. There is still time to check it out, Thursday will be another 3 min pass. Check out the website at http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/view.cgi?country=United_States&region=Arizona&city=Tucson

Andy

Recycling Event in Tucson

Tucson-based Nextrio and the Arizona Small Business Association are hosting a computer-recycling event…

Anyone with an old computer, monitor, printer or piece of network equipment can bring it to the Crossroads Shopping Center, 4811 E.
Grant Road, for disposal. Pima Computer Recycling will refurbish salvageable computers and donate them to charity.

The service, on April 10 (Thursday) between 8 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., is free and donations are tax-deductible. More information is available at www.nextrio.com/clean.

WordPress 2.5 Update

Has anyone heard the official release date of WordPress 2.5? It was officially supposed to be released March 10 then was pushed back another week to March 17. I have downloaded the “beta” version. A client of ours wants to integrate a blog to their website so I was going to attempt to use it, but started searching to find out when the “official” download was going to be released and found no information. Anybody know? If you “stumble” upon it, send us the link!