Kirk Thoughts

I’m not getting much blogging done here lately because I am focused on getting people to vote for change in the upcoming electoral referendum in Ontario, Canada. Elections Ontario is trying so hard to be neutral, in my opinion that it is not doing its job to educate voters, so it’s up to ordinary citizens to make this happen. This is an historic opportunity for Ontarians to finally say farewell to its antiquated First Past the Post voting system and join most of the world’s democracies who dropped it 50 to 100 years ago. It’s also the first referendum since Ontario joined the Confederation in 1792. That’s heavy, important stuff, and why I’m using whatever free time I have to organize a local campaign.

Here are my latest articles:

• The new voting system - more or less representation for the North?
• The most important vote you’ll ever make
• Back to school: a crash course on MMP, the new voting system proposed
• 5 easy things you can do to promote ‘yes’ to election reform on Oct 10.
• This week: Marie and David are on EZ Rock

Technorati Tags: Citizens Assembly, electoral reform, MMP, Ontario, referendum

Data centres consume vast amounts of energy, and the situation is only getting worse. Luiz Andre Barraso of Google stated in a published paper last year that every gain in performance has been accompanied by a proportional increase in overall platform power consumption. ZDNet UK reports that the average energy costs of running a data centre in the UK will double over the next five years. The European Commission is now considering a voluntary code of conduct on energy efficiency for data centre operators to help address this issue.

No wonder consumers are looking for greener hosting choices. A potential client of mine is interested in hosting his site with a provider that uses green energy. This interests me as well, in my pursuit of leaving a smaller footprint on our planet.

The one he found uses 100% renewable energy (wind and solar), plants a new tree for each client, and believes in social responsibility through how they work, including telecommuting and a mostly paperless office. Unfortunately, their offerings aren’t suitable for Plone, and that is the same story with every other hosting provider I found, including ones listed at TreeHugger.com. If there is a “green” option out there for Plone, I haven’t found it.

So, is there an option for environmentally conscious organizations / individuals who want their Plone site consuming less of our natural resources? Let me know by posting your comments.

Technorati Tags: environment