Lifestyle Upgrades

It may be possible to reduce our energy consumption simply by doing our Google searches in black.  The basic idea is that it may consume less energy to render a black web page than a white web page, and since Google is used so frequently, all those little bits of energy savings add up.  The full story and further subsequent research on the subject seems to say searching in black can’t hurt, and it may in fact help reduce energy consumption as originally hypothesized.  There are a few places where black versions of Google Custom Search are already available, but I couldn’t help but put up my own, since it was just so easy. 

All of us can make “free” donations to charity every day by visiting The Hunger Site and its sister sites.  Once each day, in less than 30 seconds, we can visit these sites and make small contributions to help alleviate hunger, provide free mamograms to low-income women, provide health care for needy children, provide books to promote literacy, preserve rainforest land, and feed animals in shelters.  All we have to do is visit the sites and click the button on each site that say “Click here to give — it’s FREE”.  Corporate sponsors make the donations on a pay per click basis, so we can increase our impact by spreading the word.

The concept behind these sites is fantastic.  It allows us to feel like we’re actively making a positive impact on the world each day, however small, and serves to remind us of how fortunate we are to be in the position of the donor rather than the recipient.  Just as all the parts of our lives are interconnected, so too are we interconnected with the world that surrounds us.  These sites remind us of that, and benefit all of us positively.