i want a $100 laptop. i will wrestle a starving child for one. "Laptop batteries can be recharged using a rip cord, a crank, a pedal, a car battery, or solar panels"
are they going on sale in the west? On Thu, 26 Jul 2007 10:54:30 +0200, "Julian Oliver" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > ..on or around Wed, Jul 25, 2007 at 05:10:11PM +1200, Douglas > Bagnall said: > > Julian Oliver wrote: > > > > > to summarise: > > > > > > if you're using a CRT you shouldn't be. > > > > > > LCD users can dress in white. > > > > > > ah, but LCDs don't look the same. > > > > BTW, this 750 megawatt-hours/year is not actually very much at all. > > If you convert it to megawatt hours per hour, which is to say, > > megawatts: > > > > 750 / (365 * 24) = 0.0856 > > > > you get 85 kW. Heaters, kettles, and vacuum cleaners use in the > > order of 2kW each. Hot water cylinders and ovens use more. So a > > power cut in a tiny place like Otira or Ophir, where everyone is > > sitting in front of their heaters drinking tea, will save more power > > than blacking out google for the whole world. > > that may be true. i suppose what this points to is the need for a > sense of scale where power consumption is concerned. i could certainly > do with a big colourful graph pairing objects based on mean power > consumption. > > moreso, perhaps it is far too easy to ignore the T.V in conversations > about screens and power consumption: they are still far more > ubiquitous and consume around 10w more power than a CRT on average > (apparently). > > > There are other effects to consider too. In winter the 15 extra > > watts from a white screen are not entirely wasted. The power ends > > up as heat, and you're warmer for it (huddle close to your monitor). > > > > relatedly, i remember reading that one intended secondary function of > the OLPC was as a lightsource in regions with poor electricity > distribution. > > > Another perspective is that an ordinary car engine will generate > > about 85kW when it is going fast. > > > > Nonetheless, before that, Julian also wrote: > > > > > i've argued for years that working in a terminal environment with > > > white text on a black background gives me more battery life on my > > > laptops. perhaps we'll see 'Carbon Offsetting' in the context of > > > high-traffic sites in future.. > > > > > > this principle could even be extended further to software design: > > > bad software design can lead to unneccesary loads on the system > > > (redundant clock-cycles, memory leakage, bloated file formats): an > > > MS Word document is typically much larger than other document > > > formats of similar features and so requires more hard-disk useage. > > > this is multiplied when sent over a network: how many millions of > > > watts would be gain a day if using the Open Document Format > > > instead? > > > > > > similarly user interfaces with excessive eye-candy (animated > > > toolbars, panels and windows) could be seen to be less > > > environmentally friendly. > > > > > > There is increasingly something in this. In the last few months, > > even weeks, a lot has been done to the Linux kernel and various > > parts of the X desktop to save power. For example, this page shows > > a few patches giving a 25% power saving: > > > > http://www.linuxpowertop.org/results.php > > > > hah, i didn't know this was actually going into the mainline kernel so > soon. that is great news (even if just selfishly from a laptop user's > perspective). > > > This works by doing nothing in longer stretches than before, so > > the CPU can get better sleep. Desktop animations continually wake > > it up, so your plain desktop *is* friendlier, and it will be more > > so soon. > > > > I think this has partly been spurred on by the OLPC project, whose > > laptop is supposed to go completely to sleep between keystrokes. > > i was fortunate enough to get a close look at one of these machines > recently and was really impressed. at US200.00 (coming soon to a > developed country near you) i'll be buying one. > > if camping and hacking should ever find themselves together.. > > cheers, > > julian > > -- > http://julianoliver.com http://selectparks.net emails containing HTML > will not be read. > > > _______________________________________________ > Ada_list mailing list [email protected] > http://aotearoadigitalarts.org.nz/ _______________________________________________ Ada_list mailing list [email protected] http://aotearoadigitalarts.org.nz/
