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Environmental Costs of Computer Use?
arhines asks: "I'm working on a little research project to figure out what the environmental cost of heavy technological reliance is, and want any suggestions Slashdot has for factors to consider. My school has started requiring students to own and use laptops in all of their classes, under the pretext of saving paper. Having read about the problems with computer recycling on Slashdot, I've become suspicious of the true effect of having several hundred computers thrown out each year. What statistics should I focus on, and are there any definitive studies on the topic you could point me to?"
Abacus:
* Requires no power.
* Portable.
* Scalable. Just add more beads.
* Ultra-stable.
* Low cost of entry.
* Lasts indefinitely.
* Reboots by shaking!
* Completely royalty free. Open Source.
* Recyclable. Pass it down to your kids!
* Secure. No one can hack your abacus.
* No need to localize to other languages.
* No install package needed.
* One interface to learn (forget Aqua, Luna, KDE, Gnome, etc).
* Friendly to modders (wood, bamboo, aluminum?).
No internet access or Office-like apps though.
Damn straight. If you want to save paper, force all students to use 9 pin dot matrix printers. That way .. the noise and time consumption of printing ANYTHING will make them think twice about frivously printing unnecessary crap. Not like laser printers where it takes only seconds and is silent.
I would buy myself a laptop just to save all the time, soap, and water I use washing off the side of my left hand after writing with pencil. I need to save those whales, you know.
Required to bring a laptop to every class? to save the trees?!? more likely to gently persuade "those" kids to choose another school.
What's the most popular thing to do on a computer?
That's right. Look at pr0n.
What do you need to look at pr0n?
Lots of tissue paper.
What are tissue papers made of?
Trees.
What do trees do?
Take Carbon Dioxide out the air.
What's Carbon Dioxide responsible for?
Global Warming.
Thus, computers are responsible for Global Warming. QED.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Stuffing all the latest Microsoft bugfixes would be more than useful.
just FTP his lecture PDF over an IR connection or have the file avaliable over the inter/intranet so that students can DL it then and there over thier wireless connections? Then use thier tablet PCs, convert the PDF to a bitmap, take notes directly on the tablet PC, and then do a image->text conversion to save your notes onto your computer.
:)
/., so we can extrapolate technology some!
Seems rather simple to me. Just gotta make sure the image->text converter translates integral symbols as such and not as capitol "S"'s.
It is
I'm going to make a very un-PC like statement and come out and say if I had a choice between a notebook and a notebook laptop, I'm taking the hardware each and every time. I mean... it's a friggin' laptop! C'mon! I would have killed for one when I was in school.