Mark Ontkush
Latest Stories from Mark Ontkush - Page 8
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Walmart Follows The Computing Plan
Some folks think that the US doesn't have a plan to deal with global warming because we didn't ratify Kyoto. In fact, we do have a plan and it's called the market economy. Now that might be a bad plan, and in fact I think we will ultimately regret
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Time to Vacuum Up the Nickels
I was reading about prioritizing green projects today, and was struck by how many of them don't get off the ground because "they save no money". For example, a bank might save millions implementing a energy efficiency program but, compared to the
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Built on Guilt - Carbon Offsets
Carbon offsets are making the rounds. The idea is to balance out the carbon generated by an electronic device by paying for an effort to reduce that carbon; the most common offset method is to plant trees, although you can buy credits through the
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My Coffee Maker is Demanding a Vacation
Here's a juicy one. Apparently the Government of South Korea is developing a Robot Ethics Charter which will lay out the roles and responsibilities of our new friends. It's not too crazy, as South Korea expects that every Korean household will have a
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UN StEPs Up, Japan Down
The UN is moving forward on developing worldwide eScrap standards. The program, called Solving the Ewaste Problem (the StEP initiative) has its own site and an impressive list of charter members - Microsoft, Ericson, Dell, blah, blah, blah. And with
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The View From the Bottom
Several organizations are working to produce efficient technology at fairly basic levels - the part, the chip, the protocol. Some of the work, such as IBM's constructural theory or reversible computing in general, is still highly theoretical. Others
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Sharing - It's The Party Line
Sharing is defined as non-exclusive access to a resource. As expected, sharing pops up pretty much everywhere - Chimps share meat, teenagers share music, toddlers teach themselves to share as they move out of parallel play. My grandma had a shared party
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The Giant Resource Grab
Remember that scene in Titanic where Cal tries to bribe Murdoch to get a seat on one of the lifeboats? Murdoch throws the cash back at him, telling Cal that "it can't save you, anymore than it can save me." The scene is indicative of market dynamics
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eWaste - Curse, Commodity
There's been a slew of recent ideas on how to address the global eWaste problem. Mike Thompson (D-Calif) has proposed a national 'e-Fee' on electronic devices. This model is called the Advance Recovery Fee (ARF), and it will cost consumers about $10
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Now's Your Chance to Install Linux
No surprises here, Microsoft's Vista is taking a beating. Brits think it's too expensive. Greenpeace says it's going to generate mountains of eWaste by trashing at least 10 million PCs with its heavy hardware requirements. It's tough to virtualize.
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Please, No More IT Charity
There seems to be this unshakeable belief in Western culture that Africa and ilk are simply dying to get a hold of our used electronic gear. With a few exceptions, nothing could be further from the truth; everyone who wants a cell phone in Africa
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Computer Addiction Not Rational, Sustainable
The last thing on the mind of any addict is the external costs of their actions. Internet addiction has been with us for years but it has yet to make it into the DSM-V. Email addicts are abundant; theres even a 12-step program specifically designed
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EnergyStar vs. EnergyBlackHole
What happens when an impossibly bright light enters an impossibly dark place? We are about to find out when the EPA releases version 4 of their EnergyStar standard in a few short months. It's the first time the standard has been updated in 15 years;
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Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-Hours a Year
From the lights out department - did you know that a cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor uses about 74 watts to display an all white web page, but only uses 59 watts to display an all black page? Yes, there all still plenty of these still in use,
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TreeHugger Welcomes Writer Mark Ontkush
Mark has been in IT for over a decade, working for leading universities and in the environmental consulting space. He is convinced that the only viable future - financially, socially, environmentally - for every business is one that is bright green.
