Förra helgen ordnade jag vår senaste novellfika, och temat var “Robotar”.

En av novellerna var faktiskt min gamla favorit: Robot Dreams av Isaac Asimov. Den andra novellen var EPICAC av Kurt Vonnegut. Det var första gången jag läste EPICAC. Den handlar om en AI som blir kär i en mänsklig kvinna.

Förra helgen ordnade jag vår senaste novellfika, och temat var “Robotar”.

En av novellerna var faktiskt min gamla favorit: Robot Dreams av Isaac Asimov. Den andra novellen var EPICAC av Kurt Vonnegut. Det var första gången jag läste EPICAC. Den handlar om en AI som blir kär i en mänsklig kvinna.

People have been blogging about questions about blogging. Steve tagged me. There are multiple projects I haven't procrastinated on nearly enough, so let's go!

Why did you start blogging in the first place?

When I went on a one year trip and had been asked by worried family members to provide regular updates on my whereabouts. I ended up really enjoying capturing moments, surprises and stories.

Later, I loved the idea of having a place of my own to put my (mostly) tech-related thoughts, learnings, notes… to refer back to at a later time. By making it a public place I could also send links to others and get feedback.

What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it? Have you blogged on other platforms before?

My blog is basically a lot of Markdown files in a folder. I currently use Eleventy to turn that into HTML files and wrap the rest of a website around the blog. I keep a very minimal approach to adding other things to the mix, no preprocessors,

Previously, I used the Perch CMS.

I try not to focus too much on process and tools, at the expense of actually writing, I wanted my process as simple as possible. To have very little between my writing and the publishing.

Various times, I resisted the urge to make my own blogging platform.

How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that’s part of your blog?

Most posts start off as Markdown files in iA Writer. This is usually on a phone, waiting for a bus or something. They end up in my text editor whenever I'm close to publishing and ready to add images or other illustrations.

I have a folder for blog posts that contains many drafts, that I return to every once in a while. Many never make it to live, some do after a while.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

It's a cliche, but this is usually when I am doing something else. During a walk, swim or shower, for instance.

I can also feel inspired to write if I figure something out that seems useful for later, or for others. Or when I am working on something that puts me in the position to have information that isn't readily available elsewhere… not secrets, but the kind of thing that could be hard to piece together.

Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?

It stays in draft until it's finished, but when it's finished, I publish it almost immediately, except for when I need to ask help from others to factcheck.

What are you generally interested in writing about?

The web platform, and front-end development, but also the ethics of technology, and things I learned about web accessibility. Sometimes about something more personal.

What’s your favourite post on your blog?

This is so hard to say.

The one I return to most is Console logging the focused element as it changes, because I'll never remember.

Maybe as a favourite, I'll nominate this one: The web is fast by default, let's keep it fast, as I remember being baffled at the time that something that could be 2KB was 1.3 MB. I still struggle to accept that organisations have $reasons, however real, to overcomplicate their websites to such degrees.

Who are you writing for?

Similar to Steve, I write mostly for myself. It does depend on the post though… some of my posts are intended for a broader audience.

Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?

When I find the time, I want to expand my log part of my blog. On my regular blog, I want to add more ways to comment. I will try hard not to update the architecture, because it's working fine.

Next?

The format dictates I nominate other people to write a post like this. I'd like to tag Hui Jing, Bruce, Sara and Kilian.

Originally posted as Tag, you're it on Hidde's blog.

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Today, the ICT sector accounts for about 1–2% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That’s more than aviation, and the number is growing. These statistics may be unnerving, but they do mean that we can make a lot of impact at work.

I wrote this as an aricle for the latest edition of The Service Gazette, a newspaper that has been in print for 10 years now, collecting stories for and from over service innovators from more than 20 countries. Republished here with permission. Added links only.

The Service Gazette

Individually, we can use trains instead of planes, hold on to stuff longer and switch to plant-based diets. These personal practices help reduce emissions. But what is our impact if we improve the sustainability of our products? For anyone who works on government services, there is a potential to reduce emissions at scale. Lots of people use our services, after all. And if your team is in one of the 195 countries that signed the 2015 Paris Agreement, your green efforts are aligned with policy.

The footprint of digital services is largely in three areas: energy used by data centres, energy used by networks and energy used by our users’ devices. My recommendations are based on reducing each pillar.

Be picky about hosting

“The cloud” might be merely a metaphor, but the data centres that host your services are real. Not all providers are green. It’s a start when they offset emissions. It’s better when they reduce them, by implementing efficiency measures. It’s best when they manage to avoid emissions altogether, for instance by building their own green energy supply (this is rare but it exists). Physical location of data centres, specifically proximity to renewable energy, can make a huge difference.

According to the HTTPArchive, around 15% of websites currently use green hosting. That means there is still a lot of room to improve. Find out if your hosting is green and plan to switch if not.

Make everything smaller

In 2011, the median page weight for desktop sites was 467 kB. It’s 2678 kB today. In those years, we’ve added magnitudes more images, more JavaScript, more videos and more fonts to our web pages.

It’s important to consider what we add to our pages. Text is lighter than images, images are lighter than videos. Your developers likely can and should ship less CSS and JavaScript. Set aside time for them to reduce existing bloat and agree on a budget. On websitecarbon.com, you can check your own site for size and more.

Ship only necessary features

Do you need that AI-powered widget, or can a well-written FAQ cover the same basic needs? Is it necessary to show all locations on a map, or does a simple list suffice? Must you experiment with the blockchain, or is an old-school database fine? There are significant differences between features in their need for data or computing power.

Be frugal about the amount and complexity of new features, and avoid the ones that are emission-heavy. ai-powered features deserve a special mention: Training and using large language models is magnitudes worse for the environment than building features without them. We can’t afford to just add LLMs to everything, we must weigh their utility against added emissions.

Support older devices

It’s estimated that 70–95% of emissions associated with personal devices is due to manufacturing and disposal, not their usage. This means that purchasing a new phone or laptop is by far the most “expensive” part in terms of climate impact. The longer a device is used instead of replaced, the better.

We can help with this when building digital services: by not being the one that makes users upgrade. Developers usually maintain a list of browsers and systems they support: make the case to add support for older devices. Make the ui smooth on old devices, too.

Demand sustainability from suppliers

If you work for a government service, you have power. Especially if you are involved with procurement or are friendly with the people who are. Ask questions about sustainability when procuring new products and services. Do they follow best practices, is there a plan for emissions reduction and is the necessity of data stored assessed regularly?

Conclusion

Above, we’ve looked at five different ways that people who work on digital services for the government can try and reduce emissions. You can look at hosting, file sizes, feature scoping, device support and the power you have to ask questions. Hopefully, these recommendations help you to build more sustainable digital services.

Originally posted as The future of government is green: five ways to make a sustainable difference today on Hidde's blog.

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Highlights

• My book’s pre-sale succeeded (just barely).
• I wrote a bunch of blog posts, and I was bad at predicting their performance.
• Now, I need to pick a markup language for writing my book.

Goal grades

At the start of each month, I declare what I’d like to accomplish. Here’s how I did against those goals:

Reach my $5k Kickstarter goal for Refactoring English.

• Result: The Kickstarter reached $6,701 from 196 backers.
• Grade: A+

The Kickstarter did better than I expected, making a last-minute comeback.