Want to save energy? Yea, I’d say don’t buy this…
February 2nd, 2008
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Did you know that computers now contribute significantly to energy usage in industrial countries? Did you know there’s an easy way to help lower your computer’s energy usage? Well, there is. It’s called sleep mode. But how do you do this? Well, you can set it so that when you pres the power button for a second or less it will go into sleep mode. This is pretty easy to do in Windows in the “Power Options” in Control Panel. You can also set it up to automatically go into sleep mode when you don’t do anything for several minutes. Alternatively you could just click the mouse over to shutdown and then click the “standby” option. Or you could program a button on your keyboard to do this.
You won’t be saving that much energy but by putting the computer into hibernation you’ll shut off the hard drives and some other processes and thus reduce unnecessary power usage. But if you really care about the environment this is likely not enough for you. So instead, you can buy this little led-illuminated button made out of petrochemical-derived plastics (likely in China or some place else where they’re cheap to manufacture) and then have it express-shipped by air directly to your home with a CD, complete instructions, packaging and everything else you can imagine that will completely negate the relatively small contribution to energy effeciency this damn little thing does. Hypocritical, yes? But environmentalism is, after all, about getting attention, and nobody is likely to notice you pressing the power button when you walk away from your computer. But with this obnoxious and unnecessary little thing flashing on your desk, you can clearly broadcast the message to all “I care about the earth and also I’m a complete and utter idiot.”
It’s from the UK and only£8.99, but if you happen to live elsewhere that’s okay because they will surely be willing to ship it by air from Brittan, thus adding to this stupid little button’s around-the-world saga of Jet-A fuel, poorly regulated factories, packaging, advertising and yuppies who like to pretend they’re doing something useful.
This entry was posted on Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 at 7:28 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Culture, Enviornment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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February 2nd, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Just one of the many stupid ideas that so-called “green” and “enviornmental awareness” has generated.
This one made me laugh!
Thomas
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February 2nd, 2008 at 8:31 pm
No, no, you don’t understand: more visible activities can serve to raise awareness and build towards a critical mass, you’re missing the larger point don’t you see.
You must be some sort of neo-conservative tool of the capitalists.
Christ
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February 2nd, 2008 at 8:32 pm
“What’s the point of doing something good if people don’t know about it”…
Indeed.
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February 2nd, 2008 at 10:03 pm
God I love this blog’s style of writing. It’s such a back-handed insult at something so obviously idiotic with that wonderful dry sense of humor. It made my day!
And no, I’m not going to order one of those. I went to the page though and it is laughable. it’s a useless piece of crap that is blatently unnecessary as a piece of material goes and they make it out like it’s saving the world. Christ, just click the little tab that tells the computer to go into sleep mode when it turns on the screen saver and you won’t need this piece of junk.
Then again, maybe I will get it. The only problem.. I’m out of USB ports. I think I’ll need another USB hub and also a usb extension and one of those wall-wort transformers to power it. Also, a new power strip to plug it into (I’m out of plugs). I’ll just chuck the old one into a landfill along with the box and bag and instructions from the new one!
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February 2nd, 2008 at 11:23 pm
And while there is an iMac in the front page, it does not work with macs, only XP.
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February 3rd, 2008 at 6:32 am
Well I think it brings attention to a very important issue and it encourages you by making you realize you’ve done something good. This gets the word out and that’s the most important thing. People need to be reminded and have their attention grabbed.
I’d be proud to own one. Maybe I’ll order it
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February 3rd, 2008 at 10:05 am
or… you could properly configure the power settings on your computer to achieve the same result, which would:
1: not require shipping, and therefore not leave hydrocarbon residues in the upper atmosphere, which would accelerate “Global Warming” and ozone depletion.
B: Not consume hydrocarbons for its manufacture.
This solution is to straightforward for the “Environmentalists”
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February 4th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Gosh, Todd, thanks so much for providing us with the alternative, unfunny version. Proves it’s not just environuts who are po-faced twats.
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February 5th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Who says consumerism can’t save the environment? With products like this, how can it not?
I hope they use all their profits to buy green energy credits, plant trees and donate solar panels to low-income homes otherwise they’re just being greedy capitalist pigs. And everybody knows being selfish is bad for the environment!
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February 5th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
yeah. even if they donated all their profits to that it would do zilch. If people wanted to make a difference they would be better off donating money themselves and just correctly setting their computer.
Oh also, I’m a greedy capitalist pig myself. Oink oink
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February 6th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Speaking of “better off donating money themselves,” do you know of any environmental charities where donations might actually do some real good?
Personally, I think green energy credits are a scam (and more that a little reminiscent of Indulgences during the Middle Ages), especially since most of the programs I’ve seen supposedly direct the money towards wind farms, cow methane projects or reforestation, the ‘feel good’ solutions that have questionable overall impacts. What if I want my green energy dollars going towards other carbon displacing technologies like nuclear or carbon reducing technologies like IGCC or even carbon capture technologies (granted there aren’t any major deployed capture tech out there but isn’t that what these credits are supposed to help with…)? Plus how do I know those dollars are going where they’re supposed to and actually performing as suggested (meaning the 5 ton credit I bought actually offsets 5 tons)?
For the hell of it, I did a quick search for ‘carbon offset credits’ and came up with this web site:
http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/carbon_offset_wind_credits_carbon_reduction.htm
It lists over 20 different carbon offset services with prices ranging from $4/ton to $40/ton. One company, TerraPass, claims to have reduced about 743 million lbs of CO2. At ~$10/ton, that’s $3.7 million worth of credits. Seems like quite the racket…
Speaking of which, any one interesting in creating a new carbon offset service offering Cerenkov-blue energy credits with the money going to build new nuclear plants? I figure we’ve got ‘Go Green!’ and ‘Go Yellow!’ eco-campaigns and blue is probably feeling a little left out. Or would that be eco-ethically wrong since nuclear isn’t a ‘feel good’ technology like wind, solar, etc.?
I know I’ve wandered a little off the original post topic but is it just me or is this another example of consumerism and capitalism trying (in perhaps a misguided attempt) to save the environment? Or was it inevitable as environmentalism became more mainstream and flavored the thinking of consumers to the point that these credits became an acceptable (if not necessary) addition to their regular purchases?
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February 7th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Geez that’s a good question right there. I’ll have to add that to my list of stuff to research
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