turn off or pollute? 5

[lionelhill]

Reading in New Scientist, I see someone's come up with a super-fast boot-up system, targetted towards the multi-function multi-media/television/homePC/internet market. The business argument is that people don't want to hang around several minutes for their system to boot before they can watch that DVD.

Microsoft's response is that most of the multimedia users they've asked never turn their system off anyway, so it is always booted and ready; boot time is not an issue.

I notice the trend to leave things turned on has spread hugely in IT, not just in multimedia things.

(1) Is it morally acceptable to leave your system turned on all the while; even with reduced power consumption in sleep modes, it doesn't take much thought to work out that the world-wide power consumption of idling computer systems is vast? And all this contributes to global warming, pollution and all the rest.

(2) Is it morally acceptable to design products/offer services that encourage the user to leave them turned on? (be that hardware or software)?

I'd be interested to hear what others think (but mostly interested in the actual question rather than microsoft fan/hate postings...)

(my personal bias is towards turning off, and shortening boot times as far as possible. Whatever Microsoft say, I'm certain they're aware of people like me, because XP for the first time in Msoft history booted faster than its predecessors, something which no doubt took a great deal of ingenuity and skill from its creators. I'll be interested to see what longhorn or whatever it's called will do?)

 

[MakeItSo]

Why make a problem a certainty in 50 years when it could be a possibility in 200?
Excellent statement lionel.
Unfortunately the trend is towards individuality and egoism, so many people do not waste a thought for anything but their own wealth and comfort. And if they do think about negative consequences of the ever-growing energy consumption (although energy is never consumed, just transformed), they do not act to reduce it and at the same time move away from fossil energy sources.

This also includes shutting down computers. Let's be honest: how often do we leave the computer/TV/stereo... turned on just because we're too lazy? It's so easy just to hit the remote to send the device to standby and leave it like this. We often do not think of it as of a dripping water tap - but that's what it is.


Concerning energy sources in general:
Surely, wind farms, solar cells and other technologies are far from perfect and worth being improved. But I have personally experienced, how hard it is to get through with improvements and innovations.
They have to be implemented step by step (so you can make more money with 'em) although several steps could be skipped/combined to achieve greater improvement.
And if people do invent processes or devices that lead to an essential cutback of the use of oil, it's the oil companies who use all their power to undermine these inventions - by buying the technology or their inventors (or both) and/or by threatening the inventors.

Strange, what thoughts can be triggered by the simple question whether or not to turn off your computer...

 

[zeitghost]

I very rarely throw bits of computery away.

You just never know when you might need an XT.

On the odd occasion I turn it on, I'm always struck by how wonderfully clearly the monochrome monitor displays text.

And it's green, just like code always used to be.

When it wasn't on punched cards or paper tape of course.

I'm a dedicated switcher offer too. Don't like seeing monitors busy displaying screen savers for the 16 hours that noone is looking at them.

Or for the entire 14 days of one chap's vacation at one place.

rgds
Zeit.