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Paper Manufacturer Launches "Print More" Campaign
innocent_white_lamb writes "Domtar, a major North American paper manufacturer, has launched an advertising campaign to encourage people to print more documents on paper. Domtar CEO John Williams opposes campaigns by other companies asking employees to be responsible with what they print. 'Young people really are not printers. When was the last time your children demanded a printer?' Mr. Williams said ... 'We've got to do some work about having them believe and feel that printing isn't a sort of environmental negative.' The industry expects that, absent this campaign, paper demand will decrease by 4% annually. Williams's comments did not go down well in some environmental circles."
This is a perfect storm. These two Italians are trying to subvert America gfreatness by foisting their totalitarian vision of Italian islamo-communism on our wives, daughters and sons. They way they will do this is to destroy our lush forest cover in America for "paper" and then zap us with islamo-communist brain rays. Stop them now! Stop them now!!!!!!
UNITE with the Campaign for a Free Internet because today, our future begins with tomorrow!
FTA:
'We've got to do some work about having them believe and feel that printing isn't a sort of environmental negative.'
But it is an environmental negative.
Ahahahahahaha! Mod article +5 Funny. I haven't laughed that much all day! BTW, you owe me a new keyboard. 'We've got to do some work about having them believe and feel that printing isn't a sort of environmental negative.' What? Cutting down trees is an environmental POSITIVE? Seriously, It isn't April 1st anymore. My sides hurt.
Cheers, Chris
It's made from fast growing wood that is grown on farms for the express purpose of making paper, so it's not like they're not chopping down old growth forests. And offices around the country routinely recycle their paper, which make a whiter pulp that requires even less bleach than raw wood.
It's just not that big of a deal to me if it gets the point across better.
I certainly don't print just to print, but I don't feel like I have to stop and pity the poor trees that gave their lives for my TPS cover sheets.
John
If ANYONE in power had balls and brains, we'd be using hemp paper instead of wood-based pulp paper. That is all.
The continued government assisted prop-up of industries unwilling to evolve with technology, or environmental social concerns, is why we have half the problems we do. Why must this behavior persist?
It's not individuals that paper companies need to worry about in my opinion. When you have major gaming companies like Ubisoft claiming that they will no longer manufacture paper game manuals then you have a the beginnings of a major problem (at least if you are in the paper industry or whatever). If large companies stop printing manuals for games, or software, or stop printing instruction manuals for home appliances, and so on, you'll probably see an even bigger impact on paper companies than the losses of individuals skimping on paper use.
I don't print anything anymore. I don't own a printer. And I doubt that I will need one in the future. However I buy tons of video games, movies, appliances, and so on. If those things stop coming with paper manuals and books then it will make a difference.
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/108/1084491p1.html [Ubisoft Removing Paper Game Manuals]
Paper is a renewable resource. Printing documents doesn't destroy forests, because most paper comes from tree farms. If you don't print out this Slashdot article, the tree you think you're saving will just get cut down for someone else. Then, another tree will be planted to replace it. Your paper doesn't come from ancient trees in the South American rainforest.
Why do environmental groups get upset by paper? Paper is a very renewable resource. Trees get cut down, and grow back. When I'm done with it, it rots (I happen to compost mine). With this computer I'm typing on, rare metals had to be mined to make it, and when I'm done with it, it sits around for at least a few thousand years (or more?). I have no problem with paper.
I don't respond to AC's.
feeling like a karma whore right now so I'll compare this to a puppy mill launching a campaign encouraging people to run over their neighbors dogs increasing the demand for puppies. /ducks
every anarchist is a baffled dictator. Benito_Mussolini
Setting aside the fact that this is just clearly a marketing campaign that doesn't really care about environmental issues and such, the environmentalists are just too stupid to recognize that paper is a carbon dioxide SINK. Paper is produced from low-grade fast growing trees and if we stop doing that, simply less CO2 will be absorbed from the atmosphere.
They merely keep making products that make you print more. Software, mostly. HP smart web print for example, to encourage you to print webpages.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
I have to print out homework for my college classes. I don't print too much, although today was an exception. Had to write to someone in gov't who I couldn't find an email for. Actually had to lookup on line how to address an envelope.
every anarchist is a baffled dictator. Benito_Mussolini
And a thousand trees cried out in agony, suddenly stilled.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Trees are a very important part of the ecosystem. We should leave them be. There has been enough destruction of natural resources already.
Hemp paper is cheaper, more abundant, and environmentally friendly.
Also, industrial hemp does not get you 'stoned'. It is said that you would need to smoke a football field of industrial hemp before you began to feel any effects of THC....
I wonder why we don't make paper from hemp then?
One of the reasons i recently picked up an e-reader was to avoid collecting more books, and even printing up longer online articles (can easily copy to e-reader, and read at my leisure.) Quite happy with it so far.
It takes the accumulation of 35+ years of squinting at monitors, TV screens, game consoles, and books/newspapers in poorly lit rooms before people generally decide that they would prefer hardcopy for a significant percentage of their reading.
Michelin and Goodyear are teaming up to produce a series of PSAs aimed at getting young people to increase the rate at which they burn tires. The ads will consist of "hip" actors like Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Mayim Bialik addressing kids with "rad" lingo, and talking about how awesome it is sit around the tire fire with your "buds" and drink a cold Ovaltine.
--Obyron
I'm in the same boat. I printed so infrequently that about 4 years ago when my printer ink dried up from lack of use I didn't bother to replace it. Literally, the only thing I was ever printing was Mapquest directions. Eventually I decided that it just wasn't worth the printer and ink cost to print 10-15 pages per year and I just started jotting the directions down in a notebook when I needed them. A bit more hassle, sure, but given the limited occurrences it was worth it. Now, portable GPS systems have eliminated the need for even that. All in all, I just have absolutely no use for printed material in my personal life anymore. The only thing I use it even at work for anymore is to print out something that I can hold in my hands while I compare it to something elsewhere on screen (as flipping back and forth breaks concentration). And honestly, if my boss ever breaks down and buys me a dual-monitor setup, I doubt even that will remain.
If the entire medium of paper were eliminated tomorrow I'd bet I could adjust within a matter of months.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Clearly this person has never had little children. Try getting them one of those Spongebob or Reader Rabbit games. Almost all of them offer B&W line drawings that kids are supposed to print out and color.We were out of ink when my little girl wanted to print hers off and, I swear, I thought she was going shiv me.
I guess I could buy her something like a "My First Wacom Tablet" (tm) and let her color paper-free, but I think that would be a bit cost prohibitive (but also awesome).
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
"The announcement was made over a fine dinner of Dodo Parmesan and roasted Tasmanian Tiger. "
Where's the link to the Onion? There has to be a link to the Onion. There was another article lacking an Onion link, about how coon meat is making a comeback in Detroit. Abandoned neighborhoods are reverting to wilderness and the hunting's getting better. Again, where's the Onion link? I don't want this to be real.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I figured it would link to an article by The Onion.
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
I'm pro-paperless because it's a blasted mess.
I am a science fantasy fan
From a little bit of web surfing ([1], [2]), the impression I get is that there is a huge range of variability in how ecologically good or bad paper production is. Recycled paper (like newsprint) is much better than non-recycled, because it costs a lot less energy to produce, causes a lot less water pollution to produce, and keeps more paper out of landfills. Loggers like to say that they practice sustainable forestry, but some logging operations are actually a lot more sustainable than others. In some cases, the amount of carbon being sequestered in trees is kept constant, because the trees of a certain size are just being steadily replaced with more trees that grow to the same size before being harvested; but in other cases, older, larger trees are harvested, and replaced with young ones that contain a lot less carbon.
Find free books.
Asbestos producers launch campaign: Insulate your home with asbestos!
Coal Companies launch campaign: Produce your energy from coal!
Catholic Priests say: All your children are belong to us!!!
and how that's supposedly good because the carbon is sequestered, etc. Not many posts about the chemical nasties involved in converting trees to pulp to paper, or where those nasties end up, or how much energy is required to harvest the wood, convert it, and deliver it, or how much waste is in the manufacturing of printers, ink cartridges, and ink.
If demand for paper continues to fall, know what that land will be used for? Growing trees. Instead of using that timber for paper, it'll be used for lumber or for biomass electricity generation (which has a net zero carbon emission).
So yeah, trust your instincts on this one... like nearly every processed item, wasting less paper is better for the environment.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Although there's a lot more technology in the classroom today, things like essays are still printed out, for the most part. In my college English classes, even if you emailed the professor your paper (because you missed class or something), he still wanted a hardcopy the next class. In fact, every normal, face to face class I've had so far (in ~ 2.5 years in college) has required hardcopies of all papers/slideshows/etc.
The only time I don't have to print things out for school is for my online classes (for obvious reasons). It really is nicer for us students to not worry about getting to class on time and making sure we have a hardcopy of our papers, but tbh the prof's always prefer the real thing. I'm sure this kind of printing is a small fraction of a fraction of overall paper sales, but college papers are responsible for at least 90% of my printing.
Imagine all those poor tree farms that will now be cut down to create data centers.
I would expand on the campaign by proposing more flip-book porn.
Considering the size of the market on the internet, I predict this will be a huge success, especially in the multi-angle productions. DVD and Blue-Ray quality? Eat your heart out with awesome 600dpi print on 8x10 super-thick glossy paper for extra flip control!
Need special features? Check the pop-up section!
or telegraph operators, or typewriter users, or newspaper readers. Somebody should get on that.
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
My company is a collector of used electronic devices in Hong Kong. Once we received call from a division of the government to collect used printers. To our astonishment, we found a 10 meter sq. room full of used HP 1100 printers stacking to the roof. Turn out it's a result of some idiotic environmentalists attempt to use used papers in printing to "save the environment", which wore out the rubber rollers in the printers pretty quickly. Since the cost to repair is too high (thanks to HP!) they've to discard them.
How many papers they've been saving? Approx. a box or two. How many printers they destroyed and ended up in the field? Hundreds in a year.
Recycled printer papers that are loved by many environmentalists are also a major environment hazard. Ten times more water is needed to be consumed in order to bleach recycle papers than that of bleaching normal papers, not to mention the dumping ten times more of bleaching reagent into the water system.
While paper manufacturer's advocacy might not be welcomed by the mass, it's true that most people has wrong concepts in saving environment.
I think, this is a business model problem, not a environmental problem, do you believe that environmental campaign will that people leave printing? i dont think so, always you have billions of printing papers, books, or whatever. Will papers demand decrease? Yes, but it will not disappear, for goodness sake
Stop recycling the stuff!
1) Raise trees on tree farms with land that would be marginal for food crops.
2) Use as paper.
3) Pyrolize it into "biochar", generating power.
4) Bury the biochar.
5) Environmental profit!
We could probably be burying hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon annually, world-wide, just biochar-ing the paper we use.
The wikipedia article on "biochar" seems to think it would even have commercial profit, if you could sell your "carbon credits" for something over $37 per tonne.
Mr. Williams said ... 'We've got to do some work about having them believe and feel that printing isn't a sort of environmental negative.'
OK, well;
1: Explain to me why "printing isn't a sort of environmental negative." Start by explaining how using energy and materials in cases where it is not worthwhile to do so is environmentally (or even economically) neutral or positive.
2: If step 1 proves to be impossible or tortured at best, tell me why you think your customers should be misinformed.
3: Re-read the section on free market economics about the importance of informed consumers.
4: Apologize for being an enemy of the benevolent ideals of the free market.
This is why people have problems with the free market. Not because an efficient free market is bad, but because oligopolist assholes like this guy work so hard to harm the free market. Even aside from whether he succeeds in damaging the free market, he is creating harmful imagery of what the free market is, which harms us all.
Of course, it is easy to throw stones. The harder question for me is: How do you fix it?
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Paper: it's what books were made of before DRM.
I've realized it's no longer economical to print. Every time I print, I need to spend $50 for a new set of ink cartridges. In contrast, it's cheaper to pay to overnight concert tickets and e-file taxes. In short, there needs to be a printer that can run forever on a $10 ink cartridge in order to get me to print again.
No, I will not work for your startup
If this doesn't work they can always try their other idea to sell paper, "Poop more!"
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I present Trevor Blackwell's theory on how printing and then putting the paper in landfills may actually stop global warming:
http://www.tlb.org/faq.html (scroll to the bottom)
Every article from slashdot before I read it.
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
After you write "That is all." you are supposed to stop writing. That is all.
Do you see how it sort of loses the effect when you keep right on going like this? Also we can pretty much tell when you're done by the period and then the lack of any more words.
By what criteria for success has capitalism, as practiced today through the legal construct of a corporation, failed?
I used to be the sole IT guy at a busy real estate office where 40+ agents were constantly printing things off of their computer in order to feed it into the fax machine, which would indicate a successful transmission by printing out a note to that effect.
In the first two weeks I was there I proposed setting up a system where agents could "print" a fax from their desk and save a bundle on toner and paper. The boss wasn't interested, and in the scheme of things this was one of the less idiotic situations to deal with.
If demand for paper continues to fall, know what that land will be used for? Growing trees. Instead of using that timber for paper, it'll be used for lumber or for biomass electricity generation (which has a net zero carbon emission).
What makes you think the trees wouldn't be cut down to make way for whatever passes for "the future" these days?
Sorry, boss. The office printer is out of paper.
... is this one:
Translation: Williams' comments are his personal campaign to distinguish himself in his new job and impress the bored and shareholders, so he can justify a bit fat bonus - or golden parachute. Williams isn't a paper industry veteran or a "Priest of the Pulp", he's just another ambitious twit who leaps from one unrelated CEO job to another, collecting big fat checks along the way. Much like those folks over the in financial industry, perhaps he just sits and downloads porn Torrents all day while he's accruing those bonuses?
From the article, a statement from Domtar CEO...
"No one is more interested in the well-managed forest than the paper industry."
I live in the Pacfic Northwest and I am surrounded by "managed" clearcuts.
The forestry industry has this odd idea that "managed" means planting one species, equally spaced for easy harvesting, and often not even a species native to the region. "Grow it fast, grow it thick" is the rule, not the exception.
The "managed" forests out here feel "dead". There is very little diversity in flora on the floor of the forest and I can only assume that is why it feels "dead". The animal life that depended on that diversity is absent. I remember walking through a "managed" re-forested area one time and it suddenly dawned on me that I wasn't being pestered by mosquitos or gnats. Odd. It wasn't until later that I realized that the stuff they feed on was missing from the forest--no food, no bugs. The diversity had been 'managed" right out of the forest.
"Managed" is a relative term, and open to damn near any interpretation you wish.
I seriously doubt that a paper manufacturer and an environmentalist would agree on those interpretations, especially when a dipshit like John Williams is involved.
> Instead of using that timber for paper, it'll be used for lumber or for biomass electricity generation (which has a net zero carbon emission).
Perhaps, perhaps not. Take your example of biomass. Think that doesn't have as much pollution as paper production? Hint: it ain't carbon neutral anymore than paper production is. To get decent land utilization you will be growing something faster growing than trees, probably with fertilizer. Then there is the energy to irrigate it, plant and harvest and there still isn't a biomass to usable fuel cycle that doesn't waste close to as much energy as it produces.
But regardless, land must produce more revenue than the property taxes so one way or another value WILL be reaped, regardless the environmental impact. Some will get flattened for development, some will become pasture land, farmland, whatever. That law of unintended consequences always bits ya. Ponder that before dreaming of a world without paper.
Democrat delenda est
know what that land will be used for? Growing trees
Nah, I'd just grow cows on it instead. Yum ... methane.
This is not the law in Delaware, nor is it the law of the Model Business Corporation Act, (which are the only two corporate laws that matter in the US). Maybe some state somewhere still uses this principle, probably not. Corporations in the US are not restricted to acts that increase shareholder value.
-ac
Printing isn't on the decline because of environmental concerns, it is on the decline because you don't need it as much anymore, especially for the younger crowd. Who needs printouts when your phone can pull up Google docs, wikipedia and your pictures? Who needs printouts when so much is digitized? Who needs paper when all of your bills are paid electronically? When your books are on a e-reader? The paperless office and home are not here, and they might never be. But paper is certainly less relevant today than it was twenty years ago, and it will continue to become less relevant as time goes on.
In other news OOPC, the Organization of Oxygen Producing Creatures, has decided to respond to cut backs in production of carbon dioxide by producing less oxygen.
One spokesman stated "their anti CO2 policies are making it harder for our members to breath, in fact we're beginning to see our elderly members suffocate to death for lack of CO2, so after careful consideration we've decided to cut back on O2 production both to ease stress on our more vulnerable members, and to illustrate to the CO2 producers what we are going through. In short we'll lift our caps when they lift theirs"
Imagine that beer brewers start to advertise "Drink More" with arguments such as, "It makes your life more amusing" and "It just tastes better than water".
Or that car companies start to advertise "Drive More" with arguments such as, "Walking is for Hippies", "Let's exhaust all Gasoline and Oil resources from the Middle East as quickly as possible".
I wonder whether this is all legally accepted in the US...
Embarrassing to be Canadian. Well, at least the Pope isn't Canadian, although to hear what he had to say about the internet, he might be on board this paper thing.
What the Domtar dipshit didn't take into account is embodied energy. People tend to have wacky ideas about embodied energy, unless you bother to work the numbers.
Catherine Mohr builds green
Next time I see a solar powered logging truck, I'll think "damn, John Williams was so right".
What's that funny metal pipe, daddy? That's called a muffler, Sally. Back in the day, most logging trucks had one.
Here are some nice photos about how the logging industry used to look before petroleum was banned.
TJ's Woodshop - Logging Photos
Printing requires a certain overhead cost. Once that overhead cost is met, the cost of printing drops dramatically. But for many years my printing threshold has been far below that overhead cost.
See, to print, you have to have a printer. I'm often mobile; I sure don't want to carry another 15 pound device plus supplies. And printing is unreliable. Ink cartridges are expensive, and prone to drying out and frequent replacement and the associated trip to the office supplies store. Printing is SLOW. You have to set up drivers, you have to plug stuff in, you have to dicker with drivers and print queues when paper doesn't feed properly. Printing over a network is a pain. You have to have drivers for the network printer, and you have to spend anywhere from 10 to 45 minutes setting it all up in the first place.
And then, when you are done, you have a document in your hand. You can't instantly send it *anywhere* save by digitizing it. (EG: faxing, or scan/email) Sure, you might need a signature on it, but once it's digitized, a signature is easily pasted on the document in its original (soft copy) format anyway.
So, why did you do all that, again?
And then there's quality! When I print, it's highly likely to be because I'm making a presentation. To produce *nice* high quality prints, you need a nice, high quality printer, preferably color. For somebody for whom a ream lasts for at least a year, it's hard to justify spending hundreds of dollars in order to print on $5 of paper. So I find that it's easier and cheaper to print to PDF and then email it that to the local Kinko's or other store. I get the best quality prints in color, on demand, without dickering with drivers, and just having to drive about 1/4 mile to get it, on the one or two days in a quarter I might need it. Queue it up around lunch, and it's a quick stop on the way back with my sammich.
I could go on with faxes - receiving faxes with a "fax machine" has a slew of problems. If your paper jams, your fax is hosed. Since the fax may well be a contract worth many thousands of dollars, this is a non-starter. Also, paper faxes can be lost. They can't be reprinted without the original. They aren't automatically archived for later review. They can't be easily viewed in a remote office without being faxed again, along with the problems of quality degradation, etc.
But soft-copy faxes carry NONE of these problems. Done right, a soft-copy fax system is redundant, multi-point, and accessible from anywhere with proper security authentication. We made this switch years ago, and never looked back!
Printing sucks. I do everything I can to eliminate paper!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
There is still no technology that is superior to paper when it comes to reading and reviewing articles.
Although I write on the computer all day, when it comes to giving my full attention to reading a complex paper, I cannot do it without printing it out. Somehow the ability to find a comfortable position and scribble all over it with the freedom of an actual pencil allows me to relax and go into deep-thinking mode much better.
Ebook readers just aren't anywhere near what they need to be in order to replace paper for reading PDFs.
And I see nothing wrong with a company that sells paper launching an advertising campaign encouraging people to use their product. They are just a business trying to make a profit at what they do. If you think printing on paper needs to be cut back, then lobby for some new laws to limit how much paper can be produced, but attacking the paper companies for trying to make a profit is not the right way to go about it.
I still can't believe that supposedly intelligent people which we know as geeks believe the utter tripe of the "Global Warming" scare and that CO2 is a problem. Be thankful that the Earth is still heating up because when it stops heating up, we enter the next phase; something we will most definitely NOT like - something called the ice age. Also, CO2 is NOT a problem, its a solution.
As the CEO of Xerox once said, "we'll have the paperless office around the same time we have the paperless bathroom" For a Semi serious take on this http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/22/it_equals_lavatory_horror/
This is really just a clever cross-promotion by NBC for The Office, right?
I keep expecting Michael Scott to pop up somewhere.
It's because printers are crap. Nobody wants to own something that *never* works the few times of year you need it. Fuck that.
If they want people to print stuff, they should make it 'cool' to print stuff. Like if Apple came out with a printer that 'just worked'. Yeah, maybe then I would print things.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
Zig-zag and all those other supporters of "reefer madness" must be suffering dearly too. Back when Earth Day was a new idea, I preferred a bong. I guess I was ahead of my time ecology-wise. Of course, Wall Street papering over the biggest scam since the Depression must have used a lots of trees. One hand taketh away, and the other hand shoves it up your ass. Alas, I digress again.
If you let me know your number I will fax you some blank paper. (:
... it's quite easy: we need an internet tax and for every click in the internet you pay 2c to the paper industry to sustain their business.
stop the internet pirating our books and newspapers!
a.
"This page intentionally left black." - sponsored by HP Toner and Ink Division.
Anybody want a peanut?
I save energy by reading printed copies of tough to understand/digest articles, rather than running my computer till I understand what it is. NO NO I didn't print this article, as this is very light
As the CEO of Xerox once said, "we'll have the paperless office around the same time we have the paperless bathroom"
Actually, a paperless bathroom would be an improvement. Imagine if people cleaned their hands solely by wiping their hands with a dry piece of toilet paper. Not very effective, right? Well, the same logic applies elsewhere, if you take my meaning.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
fuck paper, let it die. Sure, for things that need to be kept physically secure, a (or multiple, even) paper copy makes sense - but thats less than 1% of the information I deal with, personally.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
"Smithers,bring out my life sucking device".
Yes sir.
I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.
I tried printing youtube video to see in the subway... the job is simply too complicated...
If we all stopped eating meat would there be more/fewer cows in the world? If we stopped using trees for paper would there be more/fewer trees in the world? We aren't cutting down rain forests for paper (at least not in my country) - they tend to come from managed forestry that would just get turned over to grazing land if paper wasn't required any more.
Really which of the available browsers is able to make decent printouts?
You can be happy, if the printed pages don't have large areas of white because of sidebars that make no sense in a printout. That is of course partly to web sites not providing special print pages (although if the web site designers did it right, they wouldn't need to such pages), but also simple table-less html pages look awful printed.
I know very well that web layout and print layout differ significantly. But that makes downloading a web page and manually tweaking it so it doesn't look printed as ugly as it would unchanged less annoying.
UnNetHack: NetHack Improved!
Instead of using that timber for paper, it'll be used for lumber or for biomass electricity generation (which has a net zero carbon emission).
Paper production has a negative one. If that is your only metric, paper wins. Anyway the most efficient way to capture CO2 that we know today is to grow tree, cut them, repeat. Activities that involve that are good with respect to CO2. Nasty chemicals are indeed another problem.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Every document read on screen is a lost sale to the paper companies. The paper companies should of lobbied with the rest of them for inclusion in the Digitial Economy Act. I think Mr Williams missed a trick there.
This guy needs a new business, because an iPad has replaced my printer. Does all the same things, even uses the same USB port. There's no going back for me.
Your argument is similar to saying that eating veal is negative to the population of cows, because we are killing them. No, we are *growing* them; if we all stopped eating veal one day, the cows as a biological species would disappear.
The shit printer manufacturers put us through. Smaller ink cartridges, no refill, timed killswitch, DRM, "need ink to scan" and the shit of "cheap printer, expensive cartridges" they put us through. People see it and avoid it. They realize a page printed in the home printer is about $0.50, so a booklet of 50 pages will be $25. I have no qualms printing 100 pages at $0.03 per page on my old laser printer. But I see how people wince when an ink printer spits out a full-color test page at a wrong press of a button. And endless problems - drying up ink, printers failing and so on.
Take a step back towards printers with reasonable cost per page, and the paper sales will increase...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Well then, I guess it's time to break out the wire brush and some Crack of Dawn® asswashing detergent!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
We're doing our part. We're putting new coversheets on all the TPS reports before they go out now.
Reply to That ||
"Domtar, a major North American stone tablet manufacturer, has launched an advertising campaign to encourage people to carve more documents in stone. Domtar CEO John Williams opposes campaigns by other companies asking employees to be responsible with what they carve. 'Young people really are not carvers. When was the last time your children demanded a tablet?' Mr. Williams said ... 'We've got to do some work about having them believe and feel that carving isn't a sort of environmental negative.' The industry expects that, absent this campaign, tablet demand will decrease by 4% annually. Williams's comments did not go down well in some environmental circles."
Uh... you get the part about requiring energy to turn trees in the forest into paper in your hand, right? They don't pulp themselves, you know.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Try handing in a thesis without printing it.... and try paying for the cost of that!!! pheeewww... don't even get me started on government forms... job applications... etceteras.. THOSE are a COMPLETE waste of paper!!!
RRR... RRR... I still like to print thigns out once in a while, but unless you NEED to, what's the point? Might as well read it as many times as needed on a computer... plus, how many times hace you repeated the phrase... "where did I leave that piece of paper"???
I am pro hemp paper!!!!!!!!!!! or bannanna peel paper... I had a notebook of that once... smells nice too.. and it's thicker paper.
Effective at what?
I clean my hands because I am bent on choosing the things that end up in my mouth, even though I just use a dry piece of toilet paper to wipe it, I keep my anus out of my mouth just fine.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I started emailing all my problemsets smore year and never looked back.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
To all the wise asses claiming paper is made only from tree farms.... You obviously haven't been hiking in the North of Québec. Here I am, walking in a millenia old forest, when suddenly we are greeted by the sound of heavy machinery. there was a tree less clearing about a mile wide, smack in the middle of this immensly complex eco-system. The land (governmental park) had just been sold to...you guessed it: Domtar.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Take your example of biomass. Think that doesn't have as much pollution as paper production? Hint: it ain't carbon neutral anymore than paper production is.
Actually, it is. It takes energy to make the paper, but if you're just burning the wood, you're just burning the wood, you're not shredding it, boiling it, mixing it, bleaching it which is one of the worst parts of the process... and the bleach itself is made by dumping chemicals in a vat and running current through them. It's trivial to see that making paper consumes more energy and produces more pollution than simply burning it.
But regardless, land must produce more revenue than the property taxes so one way or another value WILL be reaped, regardless the environmental impact. Some will get flattened for development, some will become pasture land, farmland, whatever. That law of unintended consequences always bits ya. Ponder that before dreaming of a world without paper.
There are numerous methods of land use which improve the land, rather than harming it. Permacultural farming, for example, builds soil. Unlike so-called "green revolution" farming, which destroys it and turns it into basically a hydroponic growing medium incapable of supporting healthy crops. Or grazing of buffalo (not cows, for obvious reasons) on native grasses; same thing. Both are profitable exercises.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Perhaps if printer ink were affordable, we would be more interested in printing?
Seriously, I do my best to draw on real paper but I can barely afford to print on it.
It seems to me paper would use less energy than looking at a document/book on PDF. You spend the energy making paper, printing a book, binding the pages, and sit it on a shelf and there's on batteries required for the life of the book. On the other hand, charging your iPad, Kindle, etc. costs energy and the cost of manufacturing those devices is more. You could grow new trees within the lifespan of a book. This makes me thing of why I don't print things and when it comes down to it, I think it's because I don't want to store the paper, go by new paper, etc. I'm lazy.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Something occurrs to me. What is the problem with making paper out of bamboo rather than trees? It grows fast and you can grow it just about anywhere.
Technoli
The issue isn't nice and neat.
Carbon
When it comes to carbon everything depends on its origin and its destination. Carbon only exists in the earth, in the biosphere, and in the atmosphere. That's it. It transfers easily between the biosphere and the atmosphere, not so with the earth. The environmental problem results from digging up lots of carbon and having it end up in the atmosphere. When making paper, carbon becomes an issue when it is dug out of the ground and burned to make electricity to make the paper. That's the only carbon that counts. This use of carbon can be mitigated by printing telephone books and burying them in the ground. This takes carbon out of the atmosphere/biosphere for a long time, not geologically long, but long.
Water
Water stays water. Production of paper can result in water pollution, but not water loss. There are two types of water pollution, chemical and heat (hot water can be environmentally bad). Paper mills result in less water pollution than people think and keeping the water clean is a matter of legislation, not one of paper production.
Chemicals
Making paper uses chemicals. Most chemicals are recycled. When you see a pulp mill where logs go in and pulp and paper comes out, the big majority of the equipment and processes are dedicated to recycling the chemicals. Making paper isn't hard, its separating the fibers which takes all the work. Chemicals are expensive and the paper industry does its best not to lose any.
Heat
Definitely a waste byproduct. Nature likes to produce heat and anything we do has that result. The human body generates plenty of heat while sound asleep. That said, a pulp mill (people use bad terminology, paper mills aren't an issue) does its best to get as much work from the heat as possible. More and more mills have installed electrical turbines and some come close to generating all their own power. The electricity produced comes at a low cost. The mills already are using the steam, heating it up and cooling it down to make electricity is quite efficient.
Other issues such as old-growth are in pretty much the same boat.
There are problems with everything, once you decide to not live by chasing the migrating herds. I read all the nonsense about electronic books. What can you do? People want to make money and think selling everyone on the next best thing is the way to go. The human being is quite adaptable and can live with all sorts of stupid ideas. Is there too much waste paper in the world? Yes. Does anyone really think the human race is healthier for the invention of television?
Currently environmentalism is the hot secular religion. In another day and age building paper mills had the same cachet.
I use as much paper as I can in order to encourage the planting of trees. Someone's got to do it. If not, what do you think would happen to all those acres of trees you see in Google earth? Yep, they would be cut down and concreted over, new housing, offices, car parks, landscaping, railways, airports, quarries, roads. At least with trees there is a habitat for wild animals and somewhere to walk to get away from it all.
I'll be ordering more paper this evening and printing loads of stuff over the next few days. You could help too. Just print more. 38ppm! Brilliant.
Yesterday I noticed an advertisement in a printed copy of the economist magazine/newspaper with the tagline, "hit print", with text indicating that it costs less to print on HP printers. As someone who is at least slightly environmentally conscious, I was really shocked and actually somewhat offended - this is the opposite direction of where things are and should be going. These companies must be a little worried - 4% yearly is very significant. It's not just trees - pulping is bad for the environment (even recycled paper), and ink is not good either.
Some time ago I heard that an executive at the company for which I worked at the time had his admin print all of his email every moring. Also shocking.
I do generally listen to the economist instead of reading, and often leave my copy in the post office for someone to "reuse", but I don't think I can subscribe to audio only - they push the paper, probably to make their advertisers happy. Capitalism works against us in so many ways...
Call me an old school fart, or a Luddite, but I often think for me if it's not printed, it does not exist. Examples:
a) My daily to-do list. I cannot trust my PC for holding my appointments and errand lists. Moreover, when I'm on the move in the building, I cannot have my calendar with me. I cannot easily mirror my calendar on my smartphone, and I also tend to forget it behind during my trips. So the only solution that works is a printed calendar, which is bulky and easily lost, so the ideal solution is just a sheet of paper, handwritten or printed.
b) I have hundreds of research papers or pdf books that I can't seem to find the time to read. If I print them, they pile on my desk and their chances of being read increase a hundredfold.
c) Important emails and documents have to be printed so they stay on top of the pile of papers on my desk, or get into my bag when I go home. Otherwise they get buried to the point they are not important any more.
To summarise, my point of view is that for important tasks, the crucial information, if in digital form, gets buried under the tons of digital noise in my PC. IT is not suitable for critical tasks, at least for me. If I don't see in print, it can wait, and until it gets printed, it's just an avatar of the real necessity.
I have no obsession with non-angel white virgin paper - gray paper like the one used by the administration in Germany will do. So the answer for me is decentralised, small and efficient paper recycling facilities, that produce paper for the paper-hungry sectors, like education, administration etc.
To be honest, I find the older generation tends to enjoy material on paper more than the younger generation who is more use to reading information on computer screens. Heck, I'm the only IT Tech for my company and I print far less than anyone else I know in the office. You would think that the computer expert on site would burn through more paper but that is simply not the case. I suspect with the coming of usable E-paper and more advanced tablet and display technologies that we will one day find ourselves relying less on paper. In the meantime, he has a point. I mean if you make cars for a living would you encourage people to buy less cars? It's like saying computers are bad for the environment (they are) but buy less so I can be out of a job! As for those who would argue paper is less green, the electronics unfortunately are not much better. Either way still has it's environmental impacts.
ROTFL! So we have to print more?? Lovely!! Sure I'd never bet we would have ended up saying so when the whole information technology revolution starting from the 80s emphasized the "no paper at all" eco-compatible point of it. And, you know? Before the digital transition was complete, we already printed way too much, in the eighties and the nineties. Now, thanks to the ubiquity of our portable digital devices and the ease of accessing every document through the Internet, printed medias are finally becoming a thing of the past. Even State bureaucracy here in Italy has gone digital now, that's true progress and we don't absolutely need to go back. Printers' manufacturers should better resign themselves.
You can be happy, if the printed pages don't have large areas of white because of sidebars that make no sense in a printout. That is of course partly to web sites not providing special print pages (although if the web site designers did it right, they wouldn't need to such pages), but also simple table-less html pages look awful printed.
The problem is that the United States drove forward a model in the nineties where it wasn't about the content printed on the pages. The content is secondary to annoying frames, because navigation became somewhat more important than content. Another problem that plagues our web 2.0 world today making printing a pain is that ads are embedded all over the content. If you think about geocities pages before the yahoo buyout, they had maybe 2 ads, near the top. They are the epitome of what a content-focused page is supposed to be: just that... a tableless freeform flow of text that is reminiscent of a book. Eventually we got frames just so companies could throw ads on the left, right, top and bottom of pages (not counting popups.)
Fact: Your mouth has more bacteria than your anus. News at 11.
Wow, CEO John Williams even looks like a Grade A wanker.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
Falcondouche, we know you got 'hard up' for a puff of that funny stuff, so you smoked your hemp pants. No wonder you're so stupid.
LMAO!
Not hardup sunshine, I have plenty of the real green goodness, South Aust grown, best in the world!
Does it make you feel tough adding douche to someones name? It definatly makes you look juvenile!
"I qualified as a Telecommunications tech in 1979" by FalconDOUCHE (1289630)
on Tuesday April 27, @11:42PM (#32008806)
LMAO -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1619750&cid=32008590 see subject above, read url, and rinse-lather-repeat, falconDOUCHE... how stupid can you be? LOL, I bet you did that MERE TECHIE job on lol, telegraphs. I mean based on your dimwit reply in the url above, where you called others names no less?? Please, falconDOUCHE - do you think ANYONE believes that which I quote of you above, after reading the URL below it? LOL, not.
Go on, smoke some more dope pal, because I love watching you fuckup constantly. It's too easy to rattle your game.
Now about weed? Just judging by your "fine performance" as a "telecommunications tech" (not) 'back in the dinosaur days' no less as you stated above in quote, which we all know is b.s. based on your screwup in the url below it? I bet, lol, that some chump sold you lawn grass shavings and told you it was pot, and back in '79 too, and he's still (lol) selling it to you, telling you it is "the best there is", lmao... which is WHY you are so damned stupid now, lmao!
"I qualified as a Telecommunications tech in 1979" by FalconDOUCHE (1289630)
on Tuesday April 27, @11:42PM (#32008806)
LMAO -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1619750&cid=32008590 see subject above, read url, and rinse-lather-repeat, falconDOUCHE... how stupid can you be? LOL, I bet you did that MERE TECHIE job on lol, telegraphs. I mean based on your dimwit reply in the url above, where you called others names no less?? Please, falconDOUCHE - do you think ANYONE believes that which I quote of you above, after reading the URL below it? LOL, not. Chump YOU make it "too easy" to make you look like a FOOL... you can't even get email right (see url to anyone reading, lol), so you're far from a "telecom tech".
"you do realise that there was no email in 1979 dont you? Oh of course being 10 you wouldnt" by Falconhell (1289630)
on Wednesday April 28, @12:35AM (#32009320)
Dimwit, there's been email systems since before ARPANET http://www.nethistory.info/History%20of%20the%20Internet/email.html ... utterly unbelievable: Here's a quote from said "HISTORY OF EMAIL":
***
Email is much older than ARPANet or the Internet. It was never invented; it evolved from very simple beginnings.
Early email was just a small advance on what we know these days as a file directory - it just put a message in another user's directory in a spot where they could see it when they logged in. Simple as that. Just like leaving a note on someone's desk.
Probably the first email system of this type was MAILBOX, used at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1965. Another early program to send messages on the same computer was called SNDMSG.
Some of the mainframe computers of this era might have had up to one hundred users -often they used what are called "dumb terminals" to access the mainframe from their work desks. Dumb terminals just connected to the mainframe - they had no storage or memory of their own, they did all their work on the remote mainframe computer.
Before internetworking began, therefore, email could only be used to send messages to various users of the same computer. Once computers began to talk to each other over networks, however, the problem became a little more complex - We needed to be able to put a message in an envelope and address it. To do this, we needed a means to indicate to whom letters should go that the electronic posties understood - just like the postal system, we needed a way to indicate an address.
This is why Ray Tomlinson is credited with inventing email in 1972
***
LMAO, wait wait... it gets BETTER next, below (so "play it again, SAM"):
"I qualified as a Telecommunications tech in 1979" by FalconDOUCHE (1289630)
on Tuesday April 27, @11:42PM (#32008806)
LMAO -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1619750&cid=32008590 see subject above, read url, and rinse-lather-repeat, falconDOUCHE... how stupid can you be? LOL, I bet you did that MERE TECHIE job on lol, telegraphs. I mean based on your dimwit reply in the url above, where you called others names no less?? Please, falconDOUCHE - do you think ANYONE believes that which I quote of you above, after reading the URL below it? LOL, not. Chump YOU make it "too easy" to make you look like a FOOL... you can't even get email right (see url to anyone reading, lol), so you're far from a "telecom tech".
I'm glad you get your mod points back because the next time you call anyone names like you did in the url above? That quotes above, your screwups in it, and in the ones you screwed up on in the url below it, will come to light about your non-existent telecom tech skills (Lol, no way you are or were, because you can't even get simple facts about email right).
"you do realise that there was no email in 1979 dont you? Oh of course being 10 you wouldnt" by FalconDOUCHE (1289630)
on Wednesday April 28, @12:35AM (#32009320)
Dimwit, there's been email systems since before ARPANET http://www.nethistory.info/History%20of%20the%20Internet/email.html ... utterly unbelievable: Here's a quote from said "HISTORY OF EMAIL":
***
Email is much older than ARPANet or the Internet. It was never invented; it evolved from very simple beginnings.
This is why Ray Tomlinson is credited with inventing email in 1972
***
LMAO, wait wait... it gets BETTER next, below (so "play it again, SAM"):
"I qualified as a Telecommunications tech in 1979" by FalconDOUCHE (1289630)
on Tuesday April 27, @11:42PM (#32008806)
LMAO -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1619750&cid=32008590 see subject above, read url, and rinse-lather-repeat, falconDOUCHE... how stupid can you be? LOL, I bet you did that MERE TECHIE job on lol, telegraphs.
I mean based on your dimwit reply in the url above, where you messed up on the fact that hotmail does give away your IP address, and where YOU called others names no less?? LMAO!
(Man - Please, falconDOUCHE - do you think ANYONE believes that which I quote of you above, after reading the URL below it? LOL, not! LMAO... you can't even get email right (see url to anyone reading, lol), so you're far from a "telecom tech").
Effective at what?
Effective at removing viscous substances.
I keep my anus out of my mouth just fine.
The point was, wiping your anus with a dry piece of paper won't make it clean, any more than wiping your hands with a dry piece of paper would make them clean.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Yawn just another copy pasta. Very weak AC Very weak indeed.
I don't need to be strong, you do the job SO WELL, that you KNOCKED YOURSELF OUT below (lmao, hilarious shit):
"you do realise that there was no email in 1979 dont you? Oh of course being 10 you wouldnt" by FalconDOUCHE (1289630)
on Wednesday April 28, @12:35AM (#32009320)
Dimwit, there's been email systems since before ARPANET http://www.nethistory.info/History%20of%20the%20Internet/email.html ... utterly unbelievable: Here's a quote from said "HISTORY OF EMAIL":
***
Email is much older than ARPANet or the Internet. It was never invented; it evolved from very simple beginnings.
This is why Ray Tomlinson is credited with inventing email in 1972
***
LMAO, wait wait... it gets BETTER next, below (so "play it again, SAM"):
"I qualified as a Telecommunications tech in 1979" by FalconDOUCHE (1289630)
on Tuesday April 27, @11:42PM (#32008806)
LMAO -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1619750&cid=32008590 see subject above, read url, and rinse-lather-repeat, falconDOUCHE... how stupid can you be? LOL, I bet you did that MERE TECHIE job on lol, telegraphs.
I mean based on your dimwit reply in the url above, where you messed up on the fact that hotmail does give away your IP address, and where YOU called others names no less?? LMAO!
(Man - Please, falconDOUCHE - do you think ANYONE believes that which I quote of you above, after reading the URL below it? LOL, not! LMAO... you can't even get email right (see url to anyone reading, lol), so you're far from a "telecom tech").
About "landing a blow"? Hell, I didn't even HAVE TO TAKE A SWING, lol... you KNOCKED YOURSELF RIGHT OUT with what's above, lmao!
A guy doesn't even NEED to try to get the "better of you" - heck, you do the job FOR ME, lmao!
And the reply was that it seems to make it clean enough for millions of people (it isn't as if showering removes all the bacteria from your skin...).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.