Take a look at this photo by Niall Kennedy, highlighted by Valleywag:

So, not only does Google have a fake space ship, now they’ve got a fake (and very angry-looking) dinosaur. What’s next? My guess: A replica of the Titanic.

There’s been an interesting discussion on Digg about how the color of webpages affects the amount of power consumed, with the discussion centering on just how much power would be saved if Google switched to an all-black layout. The theory goes that black webpages use 59 watts of power, 15 watts less than a white webpage does, and calculating that with 200 million queries a day, you get 8.3 Megawatt-hours per day, or 3 gigawatts (Marty!) per year, all of which means Black Google saves $300,000 per year.

Of course, the theory doesn’t hold up under more advanced analysis. Turns out that this only really applies to CRT monitors, and with LCDs cheap and popular, and installed in all laptops (which make up over 50% of computers sold every year), the Black Google theory may only be true for a quarter, or less of all computer monitors in the United States. Or, as this guy says:

The US alone generates 4,100,000,000 Megawatt hours per year. 3,000 Megawatt hours amount to about 0.00007% of US energy consumption. Reduce that number by 75% (because it only applies to CRTs), and we’re talking about 0.00001% of the US energy generation for a year.

Still, it’s a pretty cool idea, at the very least it makes me think about how we can conserve energy by doing little things. I’m moving to a new place this week, and I’m going to make sure it’s easy for me to unplug my TV when I’m not watching it. And if you have a CRT and want to do a little to help (and drop your monthly bill, here’s a Black Google you can bookmark, and I’m sure there’s a Greasemonkey script that can make it even better.

• Yahoo expands finance section - Yahoo! News
  Quote: “The personal finance section will include tips and tools for household budgeting, tax planning, careers, real estate and debt management. Most of the content will be provided by other sources, including The Wall Street Journal, The Motley Fool, Co
  (tags: yahoo finance verticals)

Download Squad’s Jordan Running took upon the task of discovering which stores, beyond the 15 listed on the promo page, are participating in Google Checkout’s deal that gives ten dollars off the first purchase a new Google Checkout user makes. Turns out there are a ton of them, 234 in all! I had no idea Google Checkout had so many partners, all of which makes me wonder if the service might be reaching further than I thought.

All I know is, I am going to have to find a decent way to track stores signing up with and dumping Google Checkout. Right now, the most interesting stores on the full list of Google Checkout stores are:

• Buy.com
• Toys R’ Us
• Sports Authority
• Zales
• Ace Hardware
• Dick’s Sporting Goods
• PetCo
• Linens N’ Things
• Starbucks Store
• Aeropostale
• Bluefly
• Dockers
• PBS
• Timberland (not in $10 promo)
• GNC (not in $10 promo)
• GameFly (not in $10 promo)
• uBid (not in $10 promo)

What’s the most reliable way of comparing changes in a webpage so I can track this?

Here’s a cool development: Google changed the program policies for AdSense this past week, with the most significant change being that you can now run different contextual ad programs on the same page. The old policy said that you can’t run competing contextually targeted ads on the same page as Google AdSense, now you can, but you can’t run ads that look similar on the same website. That means that, as far as AdSense is concerned, you can use any ad program you damn well please, so long as the other programs use different colors.

Well, groovy!

What’s available now: Yahoo Publisher Network, Amazon contextual product boxes, and Chitika contextual eMiniMall ads.

Oh, scratch the Yahoo part. Yahoo has the same rule Google used to have, so even though Google’s being super-promiscuous, Yahoo doesn’t want to be a good sport and jump under the covers. Luckily, Yahoo’s considering relaxing the same rule, mostly because it doesn’t want to lose any of it’s hard-fought gains on publisher websites.

Hmm… Is anyone running hard figures on how many websites use Google or Yahoo? Inquiring minds want to know!

In other ad news, Google has added Google AdWords to your search history. Kewl! Now you can go back and see which ads you’ve clicked on while searching Google. Turns out since they added this feature, my account has clicked on exactly one ad, and it was my wife’s finger doing the clicking. “Find local daycare”? Is she trying to send me a message?