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UK Greens Declare Vista Bad For Environment
schwaang writes "The UK Green Party says that Vista's DRM requirements will force many unnecessary hardware upgrades. Quoting: 'There will be thousands of tonnes of dumped monitors, video cards, and whole computers that are perfectly capable of running Vista — except for the fact they lack the paranoid lock down mechanisms Vista forces you to use. That's an offensive cost to the environment. Future archaeologists will be able to identify a "Vista Upgrade Layer" when they go through our landfill sites.'"
Linux users probably use more CD-Rs because versions of Linux have come out more frequently than versions of Windows. Think of how many Linux CD-Rs you've written since Windows XP came out years ago. Probably enough to make plastic to make a monitor casing?
I didn't have to upgrade a damn thing... on a two year old Celeron system.
Maybe MSDN Vista is missing the "upgrade all your crap" bit being set.
that running a desktop in hardware accelerated 3d mode all the time also means more power consumption...
Because of the foulness of HDCP and friends
I'm kind of confused. You see, the laptop I bought a couple years ago, which apparently has no support for HDCP or any of those other copy-protection measures, actually runs Vista _just fine_. In fact, my desktop, which is a relatively old AthlonXP 2500+ machine, ALSO doesn't need to be upgraded, beyond maybe getting a little more memory.
Look, DRM sucks. But DRM is no excuse to just start making up FUD. Vista is a hog, but blaming it all on DRM seems pretty inaccurate. Saying that everyone is going to start filling landfills just because their video card doesn't support HDCP seems like it's crossing over into "deliberately lying".
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
or it could be that nothing is found indicating the mass XP to Linux switch..
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
Future archaeologists will be able to identify a "Vista Upgrade Layer" when they go through our landfill sites
Number of people wo will buy Vista retail - tiny
Number of people who will upgrade an old PC just to run Vista that they just bought - tinier
Number of people upgrading who will toss out perfectly good vid cards/monitors rather than building a secondary PC - all 3 of you.
The "Shutdown" icon in Vista no longer shuts down the computer -- it just puts it into standby! To shutdown properly you have to select the option from a tiny menu. This is going to waste a lot of energy, since people won't realise the difference.
Free linux workstations coming soon to a dumpster near you!!!
(Worked for my Masters, could work for you, too...)
Red to red, black to black. Switch it on, but stand well back.
Vista's DRM will support High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) which will regulate what types of periferals (monitors, sound cards, video cards, etc.) that can show, play, encode, decode, etc. the content. For example, you may not be able to watch a movie (or only be able to watch it at lower definition) unless your video card monitor and sound card are all approved by Mircosoft. HDCP will only be supported by new components hence the need to upgrade. Monitors are paricularly harmful to the environment because they contain quite a bit of lead. http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question678.h tm
Why would a landfill upgrade to Vista? Are they currently on XP? Are they even x86 architecture? I could see putting Java on them, for the garbage collection.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
As if being bad foor the environment wasn't bad enough, everytime someone upgrades to Vista God kills a kitten.
Vista isn't negating all that hardware, the Movie Studios are. You have the same problem of not being able to run protected content no matter WHICH platform you choose. If Linux ever gets High Def DVD or if MAC's ever get Hi-Def DVD you bet they too will be DRM'd
They might have a point if millions of people were going to rush out and buy Vista. But thats not going to happen, so the Green Party is, sadly, talking rubbish.
Far and away the vast majority of PC users will be sticking with their current XP install until they buy a new PC, which will come pre-loaded with Vista. And even then, people don't tend to throw away their old PCs if they still work. They tend to keep it around as a second machine, or pass it on to a relative (instant recycling).
I hate DRM as much as the next Slashbot, but come on. Thousand of people dumping perfectly good hardware so they can watch HD-DVD movies? I don't think so.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks
Vista isn't stopping you
Incorrect. It is stopping you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_Video_Path
I managed to change it back to shutdown by going through the advanced options in Power Options in the control panel. I'm not in front of my Vista machine right now so I can't give you the details, but you should be able to find it.
It seems to me that faster PCs in the past have brought them more and better functionality, making them replace other, potentially more enviromentally unfriendly technology. Not sure how the math on this works out tho'.
Since good Europeans would be buying the -N editions without media player, they can't play DRM content anyway!
;)
So why would they need to upgrade their monitor?
--I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
I hate sensationalist crap like this. Vista won't require a hardware upgrade for relatively new systems unless you want to experience all of it's bells and whistles. IMHO that's beside the point completely since most consumers will stick with the operating system they have until they buy a new PC that will be preloaded with Vista anyway. I know I'm in no rush to upgrade our systems where I work (and I'll never do it at home since I ditched my PC a year ago in favor of a Mac). I won't even bother taking a look at Vista until it's been on the market for two years. Let others deal with the inevitable bugs, security issues, driver problems and software compatibility issues. I'll stick with XP as long as possible. I just don't see very compelling businesses reasons to justify an upgrade to Vista. I see a lot more reasons for consumers to make the leap but as I mentioned above they'll do so whether they need to or not when they buy their next PC.
I've never quite understood all of the concern about monitors and lead. Almost all of that lead is vitrified in the glass, just the same way that leaded crystal drinking glasses are chock full of lead. If the lead is immobilized enough to drink out of, it wouldn't seem that monitor glass would pose a major threat.
Moreover, monitors would generally end up in a landfill with some kind of containment system. People fret about the 5 pounds of lead frozen in glass and buried in a landfill, yet anybody can go down to Wal-Mart, plop down a couple of bucks for a pound of lead airgun pellets, and indiscriminately scatter them around the environment. Why no comparable outcry about that?
Reduce, reuse, cycle
I would suggest, given the comments about your sig above my reply, that you may want to insert the missing comma. Unless you have been Linux free for over 10 years.
:)
I am assuming you really meant: Linux, free for over 10 years.
Apologies if I'm wrong and you really don't like Linux.
Almost all of that lead is vitrified in the glass, just the same way that leaded crystal drinking glasses are chock full of lead. If the lead is immobilized enough to drink out of, it wouldn't seem that monitor glass would pose a major threat.
If the monitors were crushed in the trash compacting process the glass may become shatter and/or more powder like. Most land fill companies don't really sort monitors or at least the curbside trash pickup guys mostly don't. There might be a group down the line that attempt to remove as much metal as possible for the scrap heap but their high power magnets might not pick up monitors and tv etc.
Moreover, monitors would generally end up in a landfill with some kind of containment system.
Which is the key problem. Since not all land fills follow hard line specs depending on which state you live in.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Windows Vista -- Our OS boots up so slowly that shutting down the computer is an advanced option.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
While their claims MAY be a bit exaggerated, you have to look back and see how destructive widespread computer use has really been. Remember 10 years ago or so everyone was saying more computers would = paperless society? Quite the opposite has happened, actually. The use of paper has skyrocketed to new proportions since 1995. Billions of tons of computer scrap has already been dumped, but mostly in China because they'll take anything we send over there. There have been plenty of articles about the mercury-laden landfills and communities there, with people scavenging around looking for valuable metals, etc. while the environment is ravaged by all the contaminants present in older computers that have been dumped.
I still don't see why the world is going to rush out and buy Vista. I wouldn't recommend to ANY of my customers to even consider upgrading for a minimum of six months because there is going to be quite the bug-fest with Vista 1.0. Besides, what's the real upside over XP? Security? Ha!
We all know what Vista is stated to require, but I would really be interested to find out what the minimum anyone has been able to run Vista on, while still have a satisfactory experience. For example has anyone managed to get it running on P3 with 512MB RAM.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
nah, stallman is god the father, torvolds is god the son, and the GPL is god the holy spirit.
sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
Not that I agree that so many people will suddenly dispose of their old computers, but if that were the case, why not establish some incentives for donating them instead of throwing them away? Give the original owner a free/discounted copy of Vista Home Basic or a free/discounted hardware upgrade (RAM/Monitor/Larger HDD/etc...) with the purchase of a new Vista-ready machine if they ship their old PC in (sort-of like replacing a car battery - you get the discount/refund when they get the old battery).
Think about it - if that were the case, companies like Dell and HP could possibly work with an institution (be it academic, charitable, or whatever) to start a ODPC (one desktop per child) project, where old PCs that would otherwise be completely trashed would be reformatted, have a free OS installed, and then sold at a very low price for similar uses as the OLPC machines. Granted, there's no spiffy hand-crank, but you have to admit it would have its benefits for education! Kids could still learn to type using these computers.
I got Vista as a free trial a few days ago, and it's the first Microsoft OS I've run on a desktop that actually supports sleep/suspend mode properly. I keep my PC on 24/7 because I don't want to wait for it to boot to get some simple task done. Until now that's meant full power on at about 110 watts idle. But Vista actually supports sleep mode properly. Sleep mode, if you didn't know, turns off the processor, hard drive, and suspends everything to memory. It consumes about 10 watts. My PC comes back to a fully operational state in about 2-3 seconds. It's also on by default in Vista. Previously there's always been some component (usually my video card) that didn't support it properly.
So the dumb-ass greens should be ENCOURAGING Vista use, because there's a LOT of people that just keep their machines on 24/7 for the same reasons I do. Instead they get all caught up about DRM on HD-DVD and Blueray (which almost no one has anyway, so no one is going to throw away) and a little more power usage from Aero. If you don't like the increased power usage from Aero, turn it off.
AccountKiller
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