Apple invites Today Show to tell its Green Data Center story

The green data center story is well known in the data center industry.  Google had 60 minutes tell its data center story.  Apple had Today TV show tell its green data center story.

TODAY   |  April 24, 2014

Tech giant goes green with renewable energy

Apple is moving to shrink its carbon footprint, building the nation’s largest privately owned solar farm to run its data center. NBC chief environmental correspondent  Anne Thompson reports.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Skiing, Beer, Software - three of my favorite things to do

I am at Mt Bachelor ski area in Bend, OR for the kids ski race.

First stop was Boneyard Beer to fill the growlers.

NewImage

Talking software is kind of easy with a bunch of other skiers who are Microsoft working in Xbox, Office, and Windows.  This trip I went to see a software company HQ in Bend, OR that does some cool 3D graphics.

Kids will have three days of skiing and part of my job is take pictures.

Vic Gundotra Leaves Google, where will he go next?

Vic Gundotra’s departure from Google has hit the news today.  One day after Facebook announces record profits.  A coincidence or time to change to someone who can compete against Facebook?  It’s time to loop back to some ex-Microsoft friends who I worked with and reported to Vic at Microsoft and exchange some views.  Many of us have a different view of Vic working in his organization at Microsoft than his bigger than Life at Google.

New York Times (blog)

 

Google+ Head Vic Gundotra Leaving Company

Re/code-2 hours agoShare
Vic Gundotra, who aggressively led Google into the social world with the creation of Google+, is leaving the company. A Google spokesperson ...

Re/code hints at some of the issues.

Key to Gundotra’s often pugnacious approach with Google+ was the wonky idea of “circles,” where people could define who they want to share information with in different contexts, rather than all relationships being equal and two-sided, like Facebook’s notion of friends.

...

While no Facebook killer, Google+ has most definitely become a powerful sharing and identification tool for users and, most of all, for Google. It, along with the success of Google I/O, also vaulted Gundotra into the powerful inner circle of Page, from which he now departs.

Where will Vic go next?  Re/code closes asking the same.

On his Google+ page, Gundotra’s introduction notes: “Fell in love with the power of software at age 11, and am still in love.” But in love with what now?

Presumably, we’ll see soon enough.

Greenpeace says Apple has done the most to Green its Data Center & Internet Ecosystem

Forbes has a post on Apple, Earth Day and Leadership.  In the post is a reference to Greenpeace.

Greenpeace spokesman and ‘Clicking Green’ Report co-author, David Pomerantz, states, “Apple has done the most of any data center operator to make its part of the internet green,”

Apple has chosen to take a leadership position and it looks like its PR machine is behind it as well.  Google’s data center footprint is bigger which makes it harder and its PR machine is not like Apple’s.  So much of the media are fanatical Apple users.  Don’t know many media people who are fanatical Android users. 

A World of Friends in the Data Center Industry

I was talking to a friend who has taken on a new job.  Today movers are coming and tomorrow he will get on a plane.  He’ll be working as a data center analyst and we have had a good time discussing ideas.  In the past I’ve introduced him to some other friends who are forward thinkers, and we have discussed some new ideas.

One way to judge a person’s abilities is by their friends and who they hang out with.  The good ones have good friends.  

Making new things is hard, but much easier if you have good friends.

I can’t help but think of one of my favorite moments in any Pixar movie, when Anton Ego, the jaded and much-feared food critic in Ratatouille, delivers his review of Gusteau’s, the restaurant run by our hero Remy, a rat. Voiced by the great Peter O’Toole, Ego says that Remy’s talents have “challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking … [and] have rocked me to my core.” His speech, written by Brad Bird, similarly rocked me—and, to this day, sticks with me as I think about my work.

“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy,” Ego says. “We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends.”

Catmull, Ed; Wallace, Amy (2014-04-08). Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration (Kindle Locations 2257-2265). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.