..on or around Thu, Jul 26, 2007 at 10:48:27PM +1200, Luke Duncalfe said: > > i want a $100 laptop. i will wrestle a starving child for one.
yeah but you have to fly there and that's not cheap. i'm just going to declare myself a third-world country and stage a hunger-strike on YouTube until someone gives me one. it'll be bloody nasty of them if they don't sort something out fast. not pretty at all. > > "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? apparently so.. http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/28/quanta-planning-200-olpc-for-developed-nations/ i think the specs here: http://laptop.org/ .. and here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Home .. are pretty current with what will ship in the things though Quanta has spoken about price-stepping the machines around the absense or addition of various elements (like flash-memory size). regardless it will be a kinetically rechargeable, waterproof, ultra-portable laptop with a screen can be clearly read in broad daylight. geeks will tan afterall. julian -- http://julianoliver.com http://selectparks.net emails containing HTML will not be read. > > 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/ -- http://julianoliver.com http://selectparks.net emails containing HTML will not be read. _______________________________________________ Ada_list mailing list [email protected] http://aotearoadigitalarts.org.nz/
