Greenpeace: Amazon Fire Burns More Coal and Gas Than It Should

Clever editors. by penguinoid · 2014-07-26 04:21 · Score: 1

It's funny because "fire" and "coal". /sarcasm

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Re: Clever editors. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:15 · Score: 1

I think "it's" funny because isn't it the greenpeace CEO the one commuting to work in a private jet?
Or is that some other Enviromental group ?
Re: Clever editors. by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2014-07-26 06:42 · Score: 3, Informative

So you have no idea if it's true, and you haven't bothered to check - or you just made it up and figured you'd throw it out there anonymously because hey, this is Slashdot and there are always at least a few guys of most any political bent willing to run with absurd stories.
Don't be lazy - if you have evidence, at least post a link so people can discuss it.

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Re: Clever editors. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 06:59 · Score: 5, Informative

Here you go. Greenpeace exec commuting on commercial air every week between Amsterdam and Luxembourg. Until he was shamed, then made it every other week.
http://www.nltimes.nl/2014/06/24/greenpeace-director-hypocrisy-scandal-takes-plane-work/
Staff revolts
http://www.nltimes.nl/2014/07/23/greenpeace-staff-want-director-dismissed/
See, like most liberal assholes, it is do as i say not as I do. Anyone who give Greenpeace another nickel is a fool.
Re: Clever editors. by ShanghaiBill · 2014-07-26 07:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

Here you go. Greenpeace exec commuting on commercial air every week between Amsterdam and Luxembourg.
That was not a "private jet". Adding yet-another-passenger to a commercial flight emits about as much CO2 as driving the same distance. How far is it from Amsterdam to Luxembourg anyway?

See, like most liberal assholes, it is do as i say not as I do.
That is a dumb standard. You should do what someone says, or not, depending on whether their argument makes sense. That they are hypocrites is irrelevant. In this case, Greenpeace's argument is silly. Electricity is fungible, and it doesn't really mean anything to say that the source of power for one particular use is "clean". All that really matters is the overall emissions. But even that is silly, since subsidizing clean energy is a pretty dumb way to combat global warming. A far better way to reduce CO2 emissions would be to buy condoms for Nigerians. People that are never born emit far less CO2 than those that are. Long term problems require long term solutions.
Re: Clever editors. by __aaclcg7560 · 2014-07-26 09:27 · Score: 1

How far is it from Amsterdam to Luxembourg anyway?
A four-hour drive by car (359.5 km), according to Google. I'm curious to know if taking a plane is more energy efficient than a car or train.
Re: Clever editors. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 09:55 · Score: 0

Here you go. Greenpeace exec commuting on commercial air every week between Amsterdam and Luxembourg.
That was not a "private jet". Adding yet-another-passenger to a commercial flight emits about as much CO2 as driving the same distance. How far is it from Amsterdam to Luxembourg anyway?
Care to provide a citation for this? Seeing as how you have no clue how far it is, I suspect this is BS.

See, like most liberal assholes, it is do as i say not as I do.
That is a dumb standard. You should do what someone says, or not, depending on whether their argument makes sense. That they are hypocrites is irrelevant. In this case, Greenpeace's argument is silly. Electricity is fungible, and it doesn't really mean anything to say that the source of power for one particular use is "clean". All that really matters is the overall emissions. But even that is silly, since subsidizing clean energy is a pretty dumb way to combat global warming. A far better way to reduce CO2 emissions would be to buy condoms for Nigerians. People that are never born emit far less CO2 than those that are. Long term problems require long term solutions.
Re: Clever editors. by Bing+Tsher+E · 2014-07-26 10:47 · Score: 2

I'm curious to know why Greenpeace would put up with a high level exec commuting that distance regularly. The guy should move to live closer to work, is how I would think the rank-and-file greenpeace activists would think it. Why do they need to employ a CEO who clearly thinks of himself as a jet-setter?
Re: Clever editors. by rubycodez · 2014-07-26 10:52 · Score: 1

The Greenpeace CEO rides a 40 car train, with lignite coal burning steam locomotive, 50 miles each way to work. It is air conditioned with a leaky halon driven system. The menu in the diner car features marbled blue whale steak and fried Goliath frog legs.
Re: Clever editors. by MisterSquid · 2014-07-26 11:14 · Score: 2

[. . .]A far better way to reduce CO2 emissions would be to buy condoms for Nigerians. People that are never born emit far less CO2 than those that are. Long term problems require long term solutions.
Well that's quite a foolish (and probably racist) thing to say. According to wikipedia, Nigeria puts out less CO2 than 42 other countries, while China, the US, the EU, India, and Russia top the list in that order. I'm willing to bet that Nigerians also probably aren't particularly high-carbon emissions per capita compared to people in my country, the United States.
But this is all a bit much because you probably don't really want to control the population of the biggest CO2 emitters, do you? You're more likely interested in using any convenient and sloppy excuse to call for population control for nations whose citizens you don't particularly care for.
You wouldn't happen to be ethincally Chinese by any chance, would you, ShanghaiBill? Because if so, according to your own logic and wikipedia, you should hand out condoms to yourself.

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Re: Clever editors. by Christian+Smith · 2014-07-26 11:45 · Score: 2

How far is it from Amsterdam to Luxembourg anyway?
A four-hour drive by car (359.5 km), according to Google. I'm curious to know if taking a plane is more energy efficient than a car or train.
Depends on how full the plane, train and car are. A single person in a largish car (he's a CEO, remember) probably won't beat a full short haul flight for the same distance.
Trains are among the most efficient transportation methods (hard wheels on smooth rails = low rolling resistance) but the journey may not be the fastest nor most direct.
Re: Clever editors. by zieroh · 2014-07-26 11:59 · Score: 2

See, like most liberal assholes, it is do as i say not as I do. Anyone who give Greenpeace another nickel is a fool.
I think you will find that most liberal assholes (myself included) happen to hold a very dim view of Greenpeace.
Also, fuck you.

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Re: Clever editors. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 12:08 · Score: 0

Most people have at least a passing interest in the news and the story about the Greenpeace CEO was covered fairly well.
So unlike you pedantic fucking morons, we read his post and said, "oh, yeah, I recall reading that". You, on the other hand are not paying attention or you just wanted to be a dick on Slashdot.
Re: Clever editors. by Pino+Grigio · 2014-07-26 12:48 · Score: 1

No he's right you complete fucking cretin. Perhaps you need to BOTHER TO CHECK before you comment about things you don't fucking understand.
Re: Clever editors. by Pino+Grigio · 2014-07-26 12:51 · Score: 3, Insightful

Why are you even curious about it? It's because "big charity" and Greenpeace particularly, don't give a flying fuck about the environment. They're Marxists and like good Marxists they've implemented a good Marxist model internally with their CEO getting paid a thick wedge of cash and flying to work. What they want is to carry on their pissy little lives promoting policies to prevent you from doing the same.

The CEO of Greenpeace is on my list of people to punch.
Re: Clever editors. by __aaclcg7560 · 2014-07-26 14:10 · Score: 1

They're Marxists and like good Marxists they've implemented a good Marxist model internally with their CEO getting paid a thick wedge of cash and flying to work. What they want is to carry on their pissy little lives promoting policies to prevent you from doing the same.
Not much difference between a Marxist CEO and a Capitalist CEO when it comes to perks. CEO's are more equal than the rest of humanity.
Re: Clever editors. by __aaclcg7560 · 2014-07-26 14:18 · Score: 1

Trains are among the most efficient transportation methods (hard wheels on smooth rails = low rolling resistance) but the journey may not be the fastest nor most direct.
I just started a job at a hospital. The fastest route to the hospital in the morning is a two-hour bus trip (four connections). Not being a major tech employer, its the last stop for the buses and shuttles after winding through all the nearby tech companies. The fastest route home in the afternoon is a one-hour trip via two buses, a commuter train and a light rail train. Taking the train is an extra five bucks per day that I'm not sure if I want to do on a regular basis.
Re: Clever editors. by Dan541 · 2014-07-26 14:55 · Score: 1

Greenpeace also opposes Nuclear power. Which hardly puts them in a position to be pointing fingers.

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Re: Clever editors. by jayveekay · 2014-07-26 15:14 · Score: 1

"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite." - John Kenneth Galbraith
Re: Clever editors. by khallow · 2014-07-26 20:49 · Score: 1

According to wikipedia, Nigeria puts out less CO2 than 42 other countries, while China, the US, the EU, India, and Russia top the list in that order. I'm willing to bet that Nigerians also probably aren't particularly high-carbon emissions per capita compared to people in my country, the United States.

But this is all a bit much because you probably don't really want to control the population of the biggest CO2 emitters, do you?
The thing is, he doesn't have to think about it. India is the only country on your list that doesn't have a native population with fertility at or below replacement rate.
Re: Clever editors. by SuricouRaven · 2014-07-26 21:10 · Score: 1

The good news there is that the developing world, while experiencing a population boom, is also experiencing declining fertility as a consequence of cultural change. It's difficult to estimate, but depending which statistician you ask it's probably going to stabilise at a peak of 10-20 billion globally.
Nothing destroys fertility quite like gender equality combined with access to contraception. Getting women into education and the workplace takes them out of the breeding game for a few years and reduces average family size.
Re: Clever editors. by SuricouRaven · 2014-07-26 21:13 · Score: 1

Many environmental activists now regard nuclear as a suitable solution for baseload power, on the grounds that it may still have some pollution and safely issues but it's far superior in those aspects to fossil fuels. You are correct though: Greenpeace still remains in opposition.
Re: Clever editors. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 22:18 · Score: 0

That, and in some developed countries, it's very expensive to raise a child.
Re: Clever editors. by Kijori · 2014-07-26 22:37 · Score: 3, Insightful

I think you've managed the trifecta there:
1. Sweeping statements without any explanation or evidence.
2. Use of the word "marxism" in a way that means nothing at all.
3. Claim that those on the left are just trying to oppress you (again without any explanation or evidence, obviously).
Re: Clever editors. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 23:31 · Score: 0

No he's right
He didn't seem very sure of himself though did he, you complete and utter fuckwit.

It's the equivalent of posting "I'm sure there's like, uh, some guy who uh, like, did this thing this one time, but it might have been some other guy. Anyway I don't know man." and then claiming that was what you meant all along.

Perhaps you need to BOTHER TO CHECK
Why should anyone bother to check someone else's vague and unsubstantiated claims? That's fucking retarded, and you're a retard.

Here's one for you. I can't be bothered to find proof and by your logic everyone else can just accept it face value or spend their time investigating if it's true or not:

I heard that a Slashdot poster who might post under the name "Pino Grigio" has multiple criminal convictions for stalking celebrities and old women, but it might be some other guy. I dunno man.
Re: Clever editors. by delt0r · 2014-07-27 01:27 · Score: 1

You should do what someone says, or not, depending on whether their argument makes sense.
Greenpeace doesn't make any sense half the time they open their mouth, the rest is just anti corporate feel good Luddite bullshit. And i will take someones actions into account before i even bother to listen to them.

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Re: Clever editors. by delt0r · 2014-07-27 01:29 · Score: 1

Its funny cus is true marge.

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Re: Clever editors. by Pino+Grigio · 2014-07-27 03:47 · Score: 1

The word "Marxism" means quite a lot to the founder of Greenpeace.

Sweeping statements... let me think, it was all over the newspapers and in the news that this sanctimonious little prick was flying to and from work several hundred miles away.

Yes, Greenpeace want to prevent you from making certain choices, like driving a car (it's OK to drive a car if you're doing important work trying to stop other people driving cars, obviously), having children or eating efficiently produced food.

Wake the fuck up.
Re: Clever editors. by Pino+Grigio · 2014-07-27 03:51 · Score: 1

There is a difference. The Capitalist CEO acquires his wealth by making and selling things, or providing a service to other people, or managing an organisation that does this. If people don't like his product or service, he doesn't make any money.

Whereas a Marxist CEO makes his wealth by conning gullible pricks into donating money to him so he can flounce around the world in a fucking Boeing (made by capitalists, please note) telling other people not to fly and suggesting that one solution to all of the worlds ills is for the people who made his Boeing and all of the hundreds of thousands of other companies that made the parts of his Boeing, to start growing fucking turnips instead.

And if he can't achieve that, he'd quite like much higher taxes on "the little people" to persuade them that he's right.
Re: Clever editors. by __aaclcg7560 · 2014-07-27 04:23 · Score: 1

The Capitalist CEO acquires his wealth by making and selling things, or providing a service to other people, or managing an organisation that does this. If people don't like his product or service, he doesn't make any money.
According to a recent study, there's no connection between a CEO's performance and pay. The last Fortune 500 company I worked for laid me off along with 10% of the workforce so the CEO could give himself a 66% raise for having a lousy fiscal year from selling fewer techie widgets than expected. Neither the board nor Wall Street punished him for his mismanagement. He bought another vacation home to keep up with all the other CEO Jones.
That's not Capitalism, that's Marxism.
Re: Clever editors. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-27 04:27 · Score: 0

Except Capitalist CEOs can are are fired for incompetence. Maxists are more entrenched. Need to be shot to be removed.
Re: Clever editors. by Kijori · 2014-07-27 04:44 · Score: 1

The sweeping statement was that Greenpeace "don't give a flying fuck about the environment". That the CEO flies to work seems pretty hypocritical to me, I just don't think it means that the whole organisation is ambivalent about the environment.
That article only mentions the word Marx once and doesn't use it to describe the founder's views - not really sure what you were trying to prove with it?
Maybe you could point me to Greenpeace's campaign to stop you driving a car. Their website specifically says they aren't anti car, and they are campaigning for cleaner cars (which isn't really consistent with not wanting any cars at all) but I suppose you'd say that that's what they would say...
Re: Clever editors. by lucien86 · 2014-07-27 05:27 · Score: 1

So you have no idea if it's true, and you haven't bothered to check - or you just made it up and figured you'd throw it out there anonymously because hey, this is Slashdot and there are always at least a few guys of most any political bent willing to run with absurd stories.
. . .
That's Greenpeace's mandate, make up everything and lie as you go.

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Re: Clever editors. by __aaclcg7560 · 2014-07-27 06:03 · Score: 1

For every Capitalist CEO who gets fired for incompetence, there are dozens of entrenched Capitalist CEOs who deserve to be shot.
Re: Clever editors. by ShanghaiBill · 2014-07-27 06:55 · Score: 1

According to wikipedia, Nigeria puts out less CO2 than 42 other countries
You are still thinking short term. It doesn't matter how much CO2 they emit today. It matters how much CO2 their children and grandchildren will emit when they grow up. Nigeria's economy is growing rapidly, as is the per capita CO2 emissions. More importantly, most Nigerian women have more children than they desire. So more convenient and available contraception will have a big effect.
Re: Clever editors. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-27 08:25 · Score: 0

Agreed. Don't they know that Amazon uses the excess heat from those servers to roast the freshly slaughtered animals that they feed to their slaves?
Re: Clever editors. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-28 02:40 · Score: 0

...but the journey may not be the fastest nor most direct.

The fastest route to the hospital... ...The fastest route home...
Glad you found a job. Sorry you're jealous of the routes that the public transportation system has developed, probably in the interest of serving the highest percentage of riders in the most efficient way possible (most likely those damn tech employees), thus ensuring the riders will continue using the service and hopefully making it profitable to continue providing the service.

Now, on to the problem that I have with your statements:

What you quoted actually removes the time factor from the discussion and emphasizes efficiency in people moving... but "fastest" is your main point of contention. Please, if you are going to argue with a statement, read and understand the statement fully before responding, and be logical in your response. Otherwise STFU and let the adults talk.

Oh, I forgot this is /. Continue with your whining.
Re: Clever editors. by __aaclcg7560 · 2014-07-29 03:03 · Score: 1

Continue with your whining.
The only whining I hear about transportation are the poor techies who have commute 30 minutes from San Francisco in their car. Cry me a river!

Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 04:27 · Score: 4, Insightful

This whole "I buy my energy from green sources" crap is hipsterism at its finest. It's even more hipster than goddamn "walled garden" cell phones with unusable flat UIs, glasses with no lenses, and fedora hats.

It represents everything that's fucked up about hipsters and their toxic attitude:

1) They think they're "making a difference" without actually doing anything beneficial at all.

2) They brag about how they're "making a difference", when they obviously aren't.

3) They feel good about how they're "making a difference", when they haven't done a goddamn thing.

4) They think they care about the environment, when they clearly don't.

5) They subject the rest of us to their "environmental justice" and "social justice" crap without end.

These hipsters make me sick. Give me back the hippies of the 1960s, or the real environmentalists of the 1970s! As obnoxious as they often were, at least they weren't filthy hypocrites like today's hipsters are. They actually managed to practice what they preached, even if they were out of touch with reality. Hipsters today are totally out of touch, and can't even be assed to live by how they say everyone should should be living.

Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by CastrTroy · 2014-07-26 04:42 · Score: 3, Insightful

What would be even more green is having a phone with an SD card slot so that you wouldn't need to be connected to "the cloud" to have a reasonable amount of content stored on it.

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Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:00 · Score: 1

And this excerpt from the article succinctly summarizes your point.

Maybe Amazon or some other provider could take a page from some local utilities and let users signal their own preferences with a (surcharged) "clean energy" option.

Why should we have to pay a surcharge for "clean energy"; clean energy should be the default and "dirty energy" needs the surcharge.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by phantomfive · 2014-07-26 05:06 · Score: 2

I don't know, building your datacenter near a hydro-electric dam or a wind farm, or in a cool place so it doesn't need as much cooling, seems like it actually does make a difference.

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Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by David_Hart · 2014-07-26 05:06 · Score: 3, Insightful

SD slots on every phone would be worse for the environment. In the cloud, you can store everyones data efficiently instead of using millions of inefficient SD cards. Plus the the SD card approach will create more waste as cars go bad or break.
LOL.... What? Have you had your coffee or energy drink today?
1. Having stuff that you can download and keep on SD cards uses a TON less energy than having to stream it every time. You are missing the energy required to transmit packets, to run routers and switches, etc...
2. Obviously you "know nothing, John Snow...." I've never had a SD card break, let alone stop working. My biggest fear with the MicroSD cards is that I will lose them, they are so tiny... So far so good...
3. Maybe this was meant as sarcasm and I missed it entirely.... doubtful though....
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:12 · Score: 0

I doubt that. SD cards require much less power to operate than the servers required for the cloud. And servers generate a lot more waste than micro SD cards.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:13 · Score: 1

You are not accounting for the energy required to transport the sad car from the point of manufacture to the point of use.
You fail to account for how slow SD cards are so that they need to be powered longer to extract data off them.
You missed the added ewaste of having to get a new phone when the sd cart slot breaks.
It's a sample fact having everything centralized is always more effiecent than having something distributed.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:16 · Score: 0

This is 100% wrong.
It's more efficient to store 1 file on a central hard drive than store millions of redundant copies on millions of SD cards.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by LoRdTAW · 2014-07-26 05:18 · Score: 0, Troll

2. Obviously you "know nothing, John Snow...." I've never had a SD card break, let alone stop working. My biggest fear with the MicroSD cards is that I will lose them, they are so tiny... So far so good...
Oh thank god. All this time I was thinking that no storage device is 100% reliable and here you come along and shatter that view. Thank you David_Hart for assuring me that SD cards are 100% reliable and never experience data loss. I am switching to SD cards for all of my backups from now on; both at home and at work! I am sure my boss will love how much money I saved him by switching from costly tape and off site providers to simple SD cards. THANK YOU!
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:19 · Score: 0

Memory cards are extremely resilient and I've been using is 4GB SD card for the past 10 years in my cameras. I'm pretty sure I've thrown a non-ruggedized USB memory stick into the wash as well and it's come out fine the other end.
The two 32GB cards that I have and use (one is in my phone at the moment) have been used reasonably extensively for the past few years as well.
The carbon footprint of a 32GB card once it hits store shelves is 0. The failure rate is incredibly low since there's no moving parts.
Compare to "cloud": the extra battery power used to shuttle possibly GBs of data over Wifi or LTE. The power hundreds of thousands of servers require.
This, of course, doesn't count the carbon cost of manufacturing all the components of a computer. How man tiny 1cmx1cm card (that's doing the same thing over and over again - it's mostly just memory "chips") are needed to compensate for the manufacturing of the power supply, CPU, hard drive and motherboard.
You're pretty much wrong. lol
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by ganjadude · 2014-07-26 05:38 · Score: 1

no one made that argument though..... stop pushing goalposts

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Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Nukenbar · 2014-07-26 05:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

Oh thank god. All this time I was thinking that no storage device is 100% reliable and here you come along and shatter that view. Thank you David_Hart for assuring me that SD cards are 100% reliable and never experience data loss. I am switching to SD cards for all of my backups from now on; both at home and at work! I am sure my boss will love how much money I saved him by switching from costly tape and off site providers to simple SD cards. THANK YOU!
Don't be a tool.
No one is saying you keep your one copy of the nuclear launch codes on a SD card. He is saying they have become relatively inexpensive removable storage and that most phone makers outside of apple have acknowledged this.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by jez9999 · 2014-07-26 05:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

And they tend to oppose nucelar power which is our best way of actually getting enough "clean energy" for modern society.

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Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:40 · Score: 1

Memory cards are extremely resilient and I've been using is 4GB SD card for the past 10 years in my cameras. I'm pretty sure I've thrown a non-ruggedized USB memory stick into the wash as well and it's come out fine the other end.
And I have ones that have failed.

The carbon footprint of a 32GB card once it hits store shelves is 0.
This is a completely wrong statement. Needs to be powered to operate. It needs to be transported. The store shelf it is sitting has a carbon foot print.

The failure rate is incredibly low since there's no moving parts.
If they are so reliable, why don't they just use these in servers? They don't use them in servers because they're extremely unreliable and incredibly inefficient.

The power hundreds of thousands of servers require.
First of all they are not using hundreds of thousands of servers. Second the energy to run 100,000 servers is way more efficient than the energy required to operate 7,000,000,000 cell phones in use throughout the world. Third those servers need to exist anyways otherwise you could not have digital stores.

This, of course, doesn't count the carbon cost of manufacturing all the components of a computer. How man tiny 1cmx1cm card (that's doing the same thing over and over again - it's mostly just memory "chips") are needed to compensate for the manufacturing of the power supply, CPU, hard drive and motherboard.
You completely ignore manufacturing and transportation of billions of SD cards that would need to be manufactured, transported and eventually disposed of.
In short you are wrong.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:43 · Score: 0

In the cloud, you can store everyones data efficiently instead of using millions of inefficient SD cards.
Learn to read.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:43 · Score: 0

Or, you know, don't own a cell phone.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by LoRdTAW · 2014-07-26 05:45 · Score: 1

I too thought Apple was "buying" clean energy. But it turns out they have actually built a solar plant at their datacenter along with fuel cell backups.
http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/05/17/apples_icloud_data_center_to_use_100_renewable_energy_by_end_of_year
http://www.cleanenergyactionproject.com/CleanEnergyActionProject/CS.Apple_Maiden_iCloud_Data_Center___Hybrid_Renewable_Energy_Systems_Case_Studies.html
This article peaked my interest though:
http://www.imore.com/apple-google-microsoft-come-out-clean-greenpeace-cloud-rankings-amazon-dirty
How exactly do they measure energy consumption from a particular power source? If the data center is grid connected the current will flow based on path of least resistance, loads and other factors. How can they be sure a load used 20% coal 30% nuclear and 50% natural gas? Did this information come from the power companies who can estimate the demands and current flows based on grid load? I read the linked Greenpeace report and nothing was made clear about how this was done.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by AmiMoJo · 2014-07-26 05:48 · Score: 1

Nice rant about hipsters, but do you have any actual arguments against what Greenpeace is saying?
I'm actually surprised that Amazon is doing so badly. Most large data centres realized that since energy is one of their biggest costs and they have all that otherwise unused roof space they might as well rake in some solar power. The up-front cost is relatively minimal and the pay off term pretty short for heavy users. Even fairly far north it's worth doing.

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Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:57 · Score: 0

Be careful -- The TVA has a wind farm. They turned it off because it took more to run the wind farm than the value of the energy it produced. Going after these lovely Liberal ideas of "Green Power" can put you and your business at risk when the "Green Stuff" runs out or fails to produce.
The local power company sells "Green Power" but, as best as I can find out, they just shove the "Green Power" into the lines and everybody gets some of it. The people who pay the inflated price don't actually get "Green Power"--false advertising and a bait-and-switch.
Regrettably, this dandy, new "Green Power" sources aren't up to snuff yet. It is wiser to run redundant systems and actually change to the "Green Power" when it really is developed and efficient (if ever).
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by jedidiah · 2014-07-26 06:02 · Score: 1

> And I have ones that have failed.
My last Archos 5 with spinny rust inside of it refuses to die. It's fortunate too since no other device I've seen can match it for local storage and disconnected (from the cloud) operation.
I've yet to have an SD card fail. If anything they will become obsoletely-tiny before actually breaking.
It's funny that someone thinks that multiple redundant server farms and the entire network infastructure of the internet and all the phone providers is less of a resource hog than a few tiny bits of electronics.

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A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Sqr(twg) · 2014-07-26 06:04 · Score: 1

The main way to make datacenters environmentally friendly is to build them near windfarms, and to build more capacity than you need. Then process data in the center where electricity is the cheapest, i.e. where there is an excess of wind at the moment. This increases the profitability of windfarms and leads to more investment.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by afgun · 2014-07-26 06:11 · Score: 1

Amen. I'm amazed that people still argue about this shit; if you want to really make a difference, stop driving your fucking car. Buying a "green" phone indeed.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by jones_supa · 2014-07-26 06:15 · Score: 1

It's more efficient to store 1 file on a central hard drive than store millions of redundant copies on millions of SD cards.
Transmitting a copy of that 1 file every time when it is accessed consumes enormous amount of energy.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 06:33 · Score: 0

Depends on how popular the file is. The latest Tom Cruise (or whoever the kids today think is "cool") fiasco or the US Constitution? I'd bet one is cheaper than the other.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by ganjadude · 2014-07-26 06:34 · Score: 3, Insightful

learn to pay attention, we are talking about the individual when talking about SD cards, therefore we need to do a 1 on 1 comparo. Is it cheaper and or greener for me, a single person to store my single photo on a SD card or on a file server. No one in their right mind would say the fileserver.*

* I hate the term cloud, I will continue to call it what it is, a file server.

--
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 06:46 · Score: 0

You need to learn to pay attention we are taking about the collective total.
An SD card requires 1 watt to read and transfers at a rate of 25 MB/s. That means a 1000MB file takes 40s to transfer and 40 joules to read. Now there are 7,000,000,000 cellphones in the world. If every one read a 1000 MB file, it will require 2.8E11 joules of energy.
Individually we might not seem like much but there are billions of us.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Cederic · 2014-07-26 06:48 · Score: 1

Given that 'green' energy can't meeting total demands anyway, switching to 'green' energy merely relocates the issue.
Total energy use = green + dirty, and your specific part of that equation doesn't change the equation.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2014-07-26 06:51 · Score: 1

Nice rant about hipsters, but do you have any actual arguments against what Greenpeace is saying?
Given he felt he had to invoke the same angry and vague rant five slightly different ways - and even numbered them for some bizarre reason - it's obvious he does not.

--
#DeleteChrome
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by AchilleTalon · 2014-07-26 06:52 · Score: 1

Sigh!

--
Achille Talon
Hop!
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Random+Destruction · 2014-07-26 07:08 · Score: 1

The local power company sells "Green Power" but, as best as I can find out, they just shove the "Green Power" into the lines and everybody gets some of it. The people who pay the inflated price don't actually get "Green Power"--false advertising and a bait-and-switch.
Do you expect them to track the individual electrons or something? This is exactly how a system like this should work.

Users purchase x kWh of 'green' energy, so the company produces x kWh and puts it on the grid. Sure "everybody gets that energy", but it was funded by and produced for those subscribing to the 'green' power service.

It's about producing power the way a customer wants, not tracking individual joules as they float through wires. That would be madness of the highest order.

--
:x
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by ganjadude · 2014-07-26 07:23 · Score: 1

but we were not speaking of collectives, we were talking about individuals. I may agree with you on the collectives, but on an individual basis, plain and simple it makes more sense for me to use an SD card (not even bringing into play the fact that if i store it on SD, its only mine where if i share it to a file server anyone could theoretically get it)

--
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 07:32 · Score: 0, Informative

When it comes to climate change and the environment what's good for the individual is irrelevant. You will either need to be broken to change your ways or exterminated.
The choice is yours.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 07:35 · Score: 0

You are the idiot tool.
He never said SD cards never failed, just that he never had 1 fail and implied high reliability.
And his comment about the power savings were spot on.
Your sarcasm does not even apply to the situation.
Chew your cud with the other butthurt hipsters.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by spire3661 · 2014-07-26 07:36 · Score: 1

As someone who has been intensely studying sneakernet/internet parallelism i can tell you SD cards are not a great panacea. The best replacement for 3rd party clouds is PERSONAL clouds running a server at your house, over SSL. I like having the option of SD, dont get me wrong, but im not running banks of SD cards like i thought i would.

--
Good-bye
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Nethead · 2014-07-26 07:42 · Score: 1

Please DO keep your one copy of the nuclear launch codes on a breakable media. In fact put them on an old punch card and run it through the laundry a few times. We don't want you using those codes!

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-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by jones_supa · 2014-07-26 07:57 · Score: 1

It does not depend on that, because then the amount of copies stored on SD cards would also be higher or lower.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by ganjadude · 2014-07-26 08:18 · Score: 1

so nice to know that environazis want to "break me down" or "exterminate me". im glad I have such a great choice.....

you are the reason people like me dont take environmentalists seriously.

--
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by TheGavster · 2014-07-26 10:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

You fail to account for how slow SD cards are so that they need to be powered longer to extract data off them.
Every so often, this argument is brought up. What universe do you live in where the wireless interface is faster than the local storage? MicroSDHC cards read at 832Mb/s (104MB/s = 832Mb/s). 4G LTE tops out at 300Mb/s (wiki). And that's optimal speed, not accounting for latency. On my personal mobile device, playing a 5 minute song from Amazon's cloud service takes 1-2 minutes to buffer and then keeps the radio going the rest of the 5 minute song. From local storage, that song would load into working memory in less than a second.
Regardless of the net energy usage, the propagation of cloud services for things that could very easily be handled locally is completely insane.

--
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Bing+Tsher+E · 2014-07-26 10:53 · Score: 1

It doesn't make any difference, since the nuclear launch code is all zeros anyway. Store it on a piece of paper, or whatever. Make sure you remember how many zeros, of course.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 11:57 · Score: 0

Can we please have a moratorium on the word "hipster"? It has lost all meaning.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by sumdumass · 2014-07-26 12:54 · Score: 1

The telephone companies have the ability to route each signal to and from specific points. I'm betting plenty of people purchasing green power think something along those lines are happening and they are actually using green power in their home.
So in essence, yes, people expect them to track individual electrons- or to be more specific, route them directly to the house. That's what the people I know who purchase the green power think anyways.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by kwbauer · 2014-07-26 18:17 · Score: 1

Having it all centrally located also makes it easier to take away if you are "misusing' it.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by kwbauer · 2014-07-26 18:20 · Score: 1

A fairly decent summation of the enviro attitude.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by kwbauer · 2014-07-26 18:22 · Score: 1

"Why should we have to pay a surcharge for "clean energy"; clean energy should be the default and "dirty energy" needs the surcharge." Uh, because it costs more...
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by kwbauer · 2014-07-26 18:25 · Score: 1

They oppose modern society would be closer to the truth.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by kwbauer · 2014-07-26 18:38 · Score: 1

They lost all meaning the minute they started thinking they have meaning, but the word is very useful to describe them.
Re: Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by thesupraman · 2014-07-26 19:29 · Score: 1

Wow there was just so much completely made up and utterly wrong 'information' in that post you should win a prize!
And that's before we look at the fact that you must believe long range radio signally and their associated power comes for free.
You are a complete fucking moron. You do realize that.. Right?
IF you cared about actual numbers, which you quite obviously do not, you would find out that cloud storage consumes several orders of magnitude more power per round trip store/retrieve than local SD storage. It's not even close.
Idiot.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by khallow · 2014-07-26 20:41 · Score: 1

Is it cheaper and or greener for me, a single person to store my single photo on a SD card or on a file server.
File server is clearly better in that case because it can store a lot of other peoples' single photos too while you're wasting a whole SD card on one user. The file server is somewhat more resources consumed than that SD card, but those resources are split over a large number of people, while the SD card only supports one person. That's not even getting to the functionality aspect.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by SuricouRaven · 2014-07-26 21:15 · Score: 1

Business reasons. You can sell a card or a download, but a cloud service is a recurring payment.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by SuricouRaven · 2014-07-26 21:17 · Score: 1

Rules of Data:
1. If you don't have it twice, you don't have it.
2. If you can't find it, you don't have it.
3. If you can't read it, you don't have it.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by SuricouRaven · 2014-07-26 21:20 · Score: 1

But you need to account for getting the data there and back too. Radio power, network equipment power consumption. I don't know how much energy it takes to build, ship and operate an SD card - but it doesn't sound implausible that it could save as much or more over the course of a three-year usage life. People listen to a lot of music on their phones - how much power is taken to stream some music for a hour's commuting five days a week/
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by AmiMoJo · 2014-07-26 22:48 · Score: 1

It's not really clean if it generates waste that you currently have no long term storage policy for, and no way to recycle into something useful. Yes, you could pull a thorium reactor out of your ass to reprocess it, but until you do I'm not convinced that is an economically viable plan. If it were, why is no-one doing it and making a fortune?

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by jez9999 · 2014-07-26 23:04 · Score: 1

If it were, why is no-one doing it and making a fortune?
Opposition from the greens, and lazy people who buy into their BS?

--
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by khallow · 2014-07-26 23:25 · Score: 1

I don't know how much energy it takes to build, ship and operate an SD card - but it doesn't sound implausible that it could save as much or more over the course of a three-year usage life. People listen to a lot of music on their phones - how much power is taken to stream some music for a hour's commuting five days a week/
So they have to stream the music at least once in order for it to get to the SD card. That implies the existence of all that power consuming infrastructure, whether or not it gets used to stream music 5 days a week.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-27 01:42 · Score: 0

So they have to stream the music at least once in order for it to get to the SD card.
Or, they could simply place the SD card in their computer and copy the file.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by SuricouRaven · 2014-07-27 05:18 · Score: 1

Power consumption is proportional to usage, plus a constant. It takes up a little power every time the file is streamed - and it also uses up precious network capacity, which on a larger scale means the network provider has to install more cells and more equipment.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by bingoUV · 2014-07-27 22:26 · Score: 1

With alternating current, the electrons are not leaving the houses of the people. Except by diffusion of electrons, which would happen even when zero electric power is consumed without airgap.

--
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by khallow · 2014-07-27 22:58 · Score: 1

How did the music get on that SD?
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by khallow · 2014-07-27 23:44 · Score: 1

Power consumption is proportional to usage, plus a constant.

But that is the case whether one downloads the music or buys a SD. The latter requires actual movement of physical objects, which I think is more costly relatively speaking.
Re: Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-29 05:51 · Score: 0

Wow... I don't know if any more bull shit can fit in this thread. First off a hard drive powered on for 24/7 (hence the cloud... You know "always on") is always going to take more power than an sd card. You can be sure you are not the only retarded tool in the thread nor will you be the last... but I do suspect that you are a democrat or at least lean more in that direction as centralizing things is the democrat way (as I am also assuming ( and yes I know that assuming makes an ass out of you and me) that you are from the USA... if you are not please feel free to put your countries equivalent in place).
Re:Hipsterism at its finest (worst?) by khallow · 2014-07-30 15:09 · Score: 1

To elaborate, my view on this is that moving bytes just doesn't take that much energy. A heavily loaded network doesn't consume much more energy than a lightly loaded network.

In hindsight there are other issues. For example, you have to set up what you have on that SD. If you're downloading music on demand from the network, you can just change your demands in order to change what you hear. For an SD, you have to manage it, adding and removing stuff. Sure, you get more control over what you hear, but similarly, you get more work.

Finally, there's the matter of what happens when the SD gets destroyed. A server farm with backup and redundancy takes a lot less work to set up per person it serves than individual people managing SDs with redundancy.

As soon as greenpeace touches it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 04:27 · Score: 4, Insightful

It loses all credibility. perhaps its true, but once they make a claim i almost always assume that its another exaggeration or outright lie.

I don't hate the environment, i just don't believe anything those idealistic eco hippies say.

Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by mdsolar · 2014-07-26 04:38 · Score: 1

Maybe you don't know their history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by jones_supa · 2014-07-26 04:51 · Score: 3, Informative

Greenpeace is like vegetarianism: in principle a great idea but ruined by too many fanatics.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 04:57 · Score: 0

embrace beign an omnivore
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:02 · Score: 1

Greenpeace is like vegetarianism: in principle a great idea but ruined by too many fanatics.
Except in principal vegetarianism is not great. It is scientifically proven to be unhealthy.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:06 · Score: 0, Insightful

Maybe you don't know their history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

So what? They got their boat sunk when they pissed off powerful people.
That in no way refutes GP's claim that Greenpeace is full of self-absorbed, clueless, preaching narcissists. Hell, if anything it reinforces the GPs point by showing how pie-in-the-sky living-in-Fantasyland Greenpeace types are.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by ganjadude · 2014-07-26 05:45 · Score: 1

obvious troll is obvious

--
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by Mr+D+from+63 · 2014-07-26 05:46 · Score: 1

Exactly. Greenpeace activism, though well intended, isn't based on solutions. They rely on manufacturing 'bad guys' and the FUD accepting naivety of youth.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by mattwarden · 2014-07-26 05:51 · Score: 1

This was my thought exactly. I thought it was odd that the title makes "Greenpeace" so prominent. Author (or editor) seems to think that adds credibility.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by AmiMoJo · 2014-07-26 05:54 · Score: 4, Insightful

i just don't believe anything those idealistic eco hippies say.
Do you realize how stupid that is?
John Stewart Mill made the point that you should consider every argument, even if only one person in the entire world is making it against the consensus of everyone else, on its merits. The person speaking does not matter, only the merits of the argument.
Effectively you harm yourself by dismissing things that could be beneficial for you, simply because you dislike the messenger.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:57 · Score: 0

I've been a vegetarian for 15 years and can run a marathon. How about you?
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 06:02 · Score: 0

I think you've giving vegetarianism a bad name there. Done properly, vegetarianism can be a fully healthy alternative to omnivorism. However, it requires a lot of work to get the proper balance of nutrients, micronutrients, and calories. Most folks don't want to bother with that, or they skip certain foods and end up hurting themselves slowly. It also depends on what culture you're starting from. If you're from India, or say, Mexico, you've got a lot of dishes that are vegetarian and time-tested. If you're coming from say, British or German culture, well you better pick up some cookbooks in a hurry, because cabbage soup isn't going to feed you much.
No, Greenpeace is more like veganism: unhealthy on every level. My proof? When was the last time you saw a healthy looking vegan? They've always got that half-starved look about them. Poor devils don't know to listen to what their body is screaming at them.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 06:08 · Score: 1

Congratulations on your misleading generalization of the provided link.
The link you provide illustrates a specific vegetarian diet deficient in vitamin B12.
Does it talk about healthy vegetarian diets that are not deficient in vitamin B12?
Unhealthy vegetarian diet is unhealthy. Unhealthy non-vegetarian diet is unhealthy.
Obvious troll is obvious.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by jones_supa · 2014-07-26 06:10 · Score: 1

I think you've giving vegetarianism a bad name there.
Bad name? I said that it is in principle a great idea.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 06:20 · Score: 0

i just don't believe anything those idealistic eco hippies say.
Do you realize how stupid that is?
John Stewart Mill made the point that you should consider every argument, even if only one person in the entire world is making it against the consensus of everyone else, on its merits. The person speaking does not matter, only the merits of the argument.
Effectively you harm yourself by dismissing things that could be beneficial for you, simply because you dislike the messenger.
In theory, yes, given infinite time.
However, in day to day life, we have to make judgments on what will merit our time and attention.
I take the poster's meaning in that context.
Disclaimer: I can tolerate Al Gore. Hell, I can even tolerate David Suzuki and I'm not even going to say personal opinion of him. I take public transit despite the inconvenience and I believe in environmental taxes and levies (in theory), and a cap and trade system on carbon. I do not, however, take anything that Greenpeace says at face value. Just my personal opinion of Greenpeace.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 06:37 · Score: 1

I can run one a lot faster than you can.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2014-07-26 06:54 · Score: 1

I've been a vegetarian for 15 years and can run a marathon. How about you?
Well, for starters, obviously vegetarianism causes insanity.

--
#DeleteChrome
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 07:09 · Score: 0

From the paper

Vitamin B12 is only provided in animal derived proteins
By definition there is no vegetarian or vegan diet that is not deficient in B12.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by Kjella · 2014-07-26 08:48 · Score: 1

John Stewart Mill made the point that you should consider every argument, even if only one person in the entire world is making it against the consensus of everyone else, on its merits. The person speaking does not matter, only the merits of the argument.
Knowing that someone has a very warped perception of reality - at least from your point of view - pretty much destroys all their credibility to make arguments about the real world. If the argument had any merit then "normal people" would use it too, it's not worth the effort to track every argument back to the underlying root causes. Very often it boils down to "that's not the way real people act or the real world works" because so many get caught up in an ideology and forget to ground their beliefs in reality. They're immune to normal feedback mechanisms, it's like watching people cut themselves and if it hurts the solution is to cut more. I suppose if you cut yourself enough the pain may stop permanently, but it still seems a rather bad idea.

--
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by AthanasiusKircher · 2014-07-26 09:08 · Score: 1

From the paper

Vitamin B12 is only provided in animal derived proteins
By definition there is no vegetarian or vegan diet that is not deficient in B12.
By definition, the difference between a vegan and a vegetarian is that a vegetarian will consume animal derived products (including proteins), just not animals themselves. Hence your statement is correct for vegans, false for vegetarians.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by ChromeAeonium · 2014-07-26 09:16 · Score: 1

Do you realize how stupid that is?
No. Let's just say you have someone who you know lies, and lies often. The last thing the said was a blatant lie, the thing they said before that was also a lie. Now they make a new claim. Do you run out and put time and effort investigating the claim, or just assume that, given the history of falsehoods and deceit, this is also likely a lie. Greenpeace lies. A lot.
Now, you're right, what they say here could be truthful, they could very well be right, but I see no reason to assume this is anything but yet another hit piece in a long line of deception, and as such, I'm going to default to making the safe assumption that this is not true. It's a boy who cried wolf situation. I'm not going to evaluate every questionable claim biased and frequently unscientific organizations like Greenpeace make. If someone with an ounce of credibility supports these claims, then maybe this will be worth thinking about. In the meantime, it's just Greenpeace being Greenpeace.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 09:58 · Score: 0

Great, you have been a vegetarian for 15 years.
How does that relate to humans eating meat for tens of thousands of years?
Perhaps you can explain why humans have Canine teeth?

You have to notch it up, Vegetarian is "old school", the new in thing are "raw foods only" (never cooked above 48C) and "gluten free diet".
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 10:47 · Score: 0

I don't hate the environment, i just don't care.
Fix'd. At least be honest.
Greenpeace's claim is easily verifiable. Considering most of Amazon's servers are located in a country with an atrocious environmental record instead of, say, Germany, we both know Greenpeace is right.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by zieroh · 2014-07-26 12:24 · Score: 1

So you support state sponsored terrorism. Tyranny, fun for the whole country....
If the state-sponsored terrorism is applied to Greenpeace, then yes. Yes I do. Wholeheartedly and enthusiastically. I think someone ought to sink another one of their boats, just so they get the fucking message.

--
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by DNS-and-BIND · 2014-07-26 14:38 · Score: 1

Funny how this only applies to far-left organizations and not to mainstream conservatives. Hypocrisy.

--
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by mdsolar · 2014-07-26 15:48 · Score: 1

You condone murder.... King George felt that way too.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by kwbauer · 2014-07-26 18:43 · Score: 1

So how much protein do you get out of their shit and fur? Any other "animal derived product" I can think of comes from the parts of the animal we use after killing it. Or do you keep a cow around and just slice off a bit of meat every now and then and then bandage it up to heal?
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by Kijori · 2014-07-26 22:46 · Score: 1

When I think of products derived from animals I tend to think of things like milk and eggs - both sources of B12, both things that vegetarians eat - not "shit and fur".
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 23:20 · Score: 0

Milk and dairy, and eggs.
Milk doesn't involve killing the cow itself. And dairy products such as cheese and yogurt can be made without killing the animal itself.
That being said, in order to produce milk, a calf is born and quite frequently slaughtered shortly thereafter.
And some (but not all) cheese is made with rennet.
Eggs are also another source of vitamin B12 that does not necessitate the death of the animal itself.
And then there are the non-animal (bacterial) sources of vitamin B12 but that's not relevant to your point.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 23:29 · Score: 0

The vitamin B12 comment is an interesting one... Isn't vitamin B12 produced by bacteria?
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-27 00:01 · Score: 0

I'm not a vegetarian and I'm getting older and I'm out of shape.
It wouldn't be terribly difficult for me to run a marathon. Hell, I bet I can spend the rest of my life running that marathon. ;)
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by simm_s · 2014-07-27 00:17 · Score: 1

Vegans/Vegetarians use a semi-synthetic form of B12 called cyanocobalamin. No animals needed in the process.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by delt0r · 2014-07-27 01:35 · Score: 1

You mite what to check a few more sources. These days is quite easy to be a healthy vegetarianism. Mostly because you can have all year access to foods that 100 years ago you could not. Vegan diets are harder to get right. But again in modern society it can be done with a bit of care.

--
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by delt0r · 2014-07-27 01:38 · Score: 1

That is just plain stupid. If i have listened to someone in the past, and they have always given poor, uninformed, retarded bullshit ideas. Then i would be an idiot to keep wasting my time listening to further ideas from these idiots.

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If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by ultranova · 2014-07-27 02:32 · Score: 1

John Stewart Mill made the point that you should consider every argument, even if only one person in the entire world is making it against the consensus of everyone else, on its merits. The person speaking does not matter, only the merits of the argument.

Which is fine if you have the resources to consider it right down to first principles and performing any relevant experiments yourself. If you don't, which is usually the case, then trust enters the picture. And that means an argument by Greenpeace has a high cost - they're untrustworthy, so you need to fact-check very thoroughly before accepting anything they say - and low expected return - they're untrustworthy, so an argument by them has a low chance of actually being correct - of consideration.

Effectively you harm yourself by dismissing things that could be beneficial for you, simply because you dislike the messenger.

Only until you take into account the opportunity cost. There are plenty of messengers so you have to decide how much of your limited resources to invest into considering each one's argument.
Greenpeace is crying wolf again, and maybe this time there really is one there, but is that likely enough to justify dropping what you're doing to go investigate?

--
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-27 08:09 · Score: 0

Vegans/Vegetarians use a unsuitable replacement of B12 called cyanocobalamin. No animals needed in the process.
Fixed that for you.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-27 08:12 · Score: 0

I only need one source do disprove something.
It is a scientific fact that vegetarian and vegan diets are not healthy.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by delt0r · 2014-07-27 21:31 · Score: 1

Science does not work that way. Ever. And even then you don't even have one source.

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If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by bingoUV · 2014-07-27 21:48 · Score: 1

Effectively you harm yourself by dismissing things that could be beneficial for you
Here, it is not primarily about what is beneficial to oneself. It is like doing something benefits oneself greatly, but harms everyone, including oneself, a little bit.
There the benchmark you put out does not hold.

--
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by whodunit · 2014-07-29 22:21 · Score: 1

Even John Stuart Mill closed the door on Jehovah's Witness.
Re:As soon as greenpeace touches it by zieroh · 2014-07-30 03:54 · Score: 1

No, I condone sinking their ships. Read my comment again.

--
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.

dirtiest by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 04:28 · Score: 1

"Amazon, meanwhile, operates the dirtiest servers "

I dunno about you, but I haven't been able to find much pr0n in Amazons Prime Instant Video collection

Greenpeace... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 04:28 · Score: 3, Insightful

Greenpeace are those hippies that told us nuclear power is bad, so we should keep using coal and gas power, right?

Re:Greenpeace... by mcleaver · 2014-07-26 04:44 · Score: 1

Right! And Greenpeace wants us to use wind and solar which are also dirtier and more lethal than nuclear!
Re:Greenpeace... by AchilleTalon · 2014-07-26 06:59 · Score: 1

No, they are these hippies that prevented Shell to sink an old oil reservoir deep in the North Sea to take rid of it an minimize pollution. They claimed the reservoir contained toxic heavy metal, they chained themselves to the reservoir to prevent Shell to sink it and eventually the public opinion was on their side and Shell was mandate to dissassemble the reservoir on land to find out there was no toxic heavy metal in it and the operation proven to be way more polluting on land than if they had sunken the reservoir at 4 000 meters deep in sea as intent originally.
These guys are getting too much attention for what they worth.

--
Achille Talon
Hop!
Re:Greenpeace... by FireFury03 · 2014-07-26 08:39 · Score: 1

Right! And Greenpeace wants us to use wind and solar which are also dirtier and more lethal than nuclear!
And also aren't great at providing base load supply.
Don't get me wrong, I think wind(*) and solar are good ideas, but pushing for them to be our *only* source of power is a pretty good example of why the political "environmentalists" like Greenpeace are a problem.
(* But I tend to think that the variability of wind power should be coupled with a load that can be varied to match rather than trying to balance wind power against other generators. For example, when there's an excess of power being produced, utilise some of it to do stuff like cracking water into hydrogen, etc. for use in cars; then when the wind drops just cut production of hydrogen rather than having to deal with a shortfall on the grid at large.)

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http://blog.nexusuk.org
Re:Greenpeace... by brambus · 2014-07-26 09:44 · Score: 1

For example, when there's an excess of power being produced, utilise some of it to do stuff like cracking water into hydrogen, etc. for use in cars; then when the wind drops just cut production of hydrogen rather than having to deal with a shortfall on the grid at large.
Good luck with that. Wind has been shown to vary by at least 30x on a day-to-day basis even at national scale(*) (and much more on an hour-by-hour or minute-by-minute scale) and solar obviously varies by infinity (zero output at night). There's two solutions: either massive energy storage on a scale not seen before, or never let intermittent power sources climb over some small percentage of supply (~25%-30% seems to be the threshold). The former requires fundamental breakthroughs which have yet to materialize and may never arrive. The latter requires deployment of nuclear to offset the CO2 emissions from the remaining 3/4 of the power mix and has already been done (France's grid is ~3/4 nuclear). Greenpeace - a religious cult at this point - prefers the former. Pragmatic environmentalists - such as George Monbiot and James Hansen - prefer the latter.
(*) In case you don't speak german, this graph shows german wind power production at daily resolution for 2011. Nameplate installed capacity: 29GW. Maximum output with 99% availability: 0.9GW.
Re:Greenpeace... by brambus · 2014-07-26 11:57 · Score: 1

"Dirty" is a very loose term without a rigorous definition, so you can make it be pretty much anything you like. For example, both wind and solar PV have a pretty serious environmental impact just from a raw materials mining perspective, only you don't see it, because most of it happens in places populated by people of a different skin color. Regardless, compared to fossil fuels (mostly coal), it's impact is pretty reserved, so I'm willing to give it a pass. Nuclear is similar, unless something goes really wrong, and even then the impacted areas are mostly deserted of people, not nature (which quite happily trades that niche in exchange for being pushed out of their natural habitats by people).
As for lethality, that is actually an understood and quantifiable factor and indeed nuclear comes out on top and that's even assuming the worst-case deaths from Chernobyl (4000 excess deaths over the next 25 years, 50 confirmed so far) and the linear-no-threshold model of radiation exposure risks. How can renewables be worse? Quite simply because wind and solar are extremely diffuse power sources, so they require lots of manpower to install. This typically takes place at elevated places and a non-trivial amount of people fall to their deaths.
Re:Greenpeace... by geekoid · 2014-07-26 15:21 · Score: 1

"The former requires fundamental breakthroughs which have yet to materialize and may never arriv"
what? I thought dam technology was already here. Are you telling me I get to invent pumping water into a reservoirs to store potential energy and the release it when the is a higher demand?
Sweet.
I can think of many ways to store the surplus energy.

--
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Re:Greenpeace... by kwbauer · 2014-07-26 18:48 · Score: 1

And Greenpeace opposes a whole lot of those projects as well as they tend to submerse large areas of native habitat for various non aquatic species.
Re:Greenpeace... by brambus · 2014-07-26 22:50 · Score: 1
what? I thought dam technology was already here. Are you telling me I get to invent pumping water into a reservoirs to store potential energy and the release it when the is a higher demand?
Dam hydroelectric power is already pretty much maxed out globally, since there's only limited numbers of suitable sites and flows.
Pumped hydro, meanwhile, cannot scale to the required energy volumes and is excessively expensive (despite being the cheapest storage option yet). It really falls apart when you consider the problem quantitatively (using Germany as an example here):
- Germany averages ~60GW of power use over the course of a day.
- They have 36 pumped storage plants with a total capacity of ~37.7GWh, which means they could power their existing grid for ~30 minutes before running out of water.
- Variability in wind & solar resources means that in order to approach a 100% renewable grid you'll need at least 1-2 week's worth of storage, but at 60GW average per day, this means ~20000TWh total storage capacity. So far, they've got ~1/500th of that, so they'd need to build ~18000 new pumped hydro plants. This is quite simply not going to happen (there aren't that many sites or that much money in their economy to do that).
- Aha! But wind & solar will cover each other and with smart grids & stuff we can lower the energy storage demand dramatically! Right? Well, no. To reliably back up 4GW even taking wind & solar complements into account would require ~440 pumped hydro plants, which when extrapolated out to 60GW still boosts this number back ~7000 and a rough cost of 1.44 trillion Euros (about 1/2 of Germany's yearly 2.73 trillion Euro GDP, or ~5x the German federal budget of $250 billion Euros) - and keep in mind this is without any transmission upgrades and without putting a single kW of generation capacity on the grid, just the storage to solve the intermittency problem.
Put simply, this cannot and will not be built.
Re:Greenpeace... by AmiMoJo · 2014-07-26 22:54 · Score: 1

Er, no. Apparently you were not listening. Greenpeace is for a move away from nuclear, coal and gas towards renewable energy sources. Like what Germany is doing. In 30 or 40 years they will be nuclear and probably coal free as well.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Greenpeace... by ultranova · 2014-07-27 02:52 · Score: 1

Greenpeace is for a move away from nuclear, coal and gas towards renewable energy sources.

But those renewable energy sources can't take the load, so in reality they're causing a move from nuclear to coal and gas.

Like what Germany is doing. In 30 or 40 years they will be nuclear and probably coal free as well.

And running on what? Hot air from election promises?
Just because you like what a politician is saying doesn't mean they're able to actually deliver. And just because you don't like an option doesn't mean there are better alternatives. Renewables cannot produce energy at a guaranteed rate, which means using them exclusively will result in rolling blackouts. I doubt germans are willing to put up with those, so either they return to nuclear power or continue using coal.

--
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

And Greenpeace runs its ships on pure sunshine by DiamondGeezer · 2014-07-26 04:29 · Score: 2, Funny

...although that sunshine was 100 million years ago which was then coverted into fossil fuels.

--
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question

Re:And Greenpeace runs its ships on pure sunshine by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 04:46 · Score: 4, Funny

They use 100% organic whale oil - a fully renewable fuel!
Re:And Greenpeace runs its ships on pure sunshine by mattwarden · 2014-07-26 05:52 · Score: 1

They offset it by buying magic unicorn credits
Re:And Greenpeace runs its ships on pure sunshine by AmiMoJo · 2014-07-26 06:00 · Score: 2

Straw man. Greenpeace do not argue that all fossil fuel use is automatically bad and should be avoided, they simply argue that the current massive scale of use is bad.
I'm really starting to dislike the way every debate about the environment, women, nuclear power, guns and many other topics instantly gets flooded with ad hominem attacks, straw men and other logical fallacies. It's like a tabloid newspaper or low quality TV news channel. I'm sure Slashdot wasn't like this a few years back.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:And Greenpeace runs its ships on pure sunshine by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 06:32 · Score: 0

Greenpeace and their ilk are the ones who have started this silly arms race to the bottom. A long time ago, perhaps, they were an organization worthy of more serious treatment. They did not resort to insane propaganda shock pieces to try to make some hamfisted point that offends more people than it informs. They have solved nothing tangible in the last 20 years and only added cultural detritus, while STILL using the same amount of damage to the environment in their mad quest to feel superior to others.
Re: And Greenpeace runs its ships on pure sunshine by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 06:36 · Score: 0

Look, we need to have this conversation. People like you just want to stick your head in the sand.
Re:And Greenpeace runs its ships on pure sunshine by DiamondGeezer · 2014-07-26 09:22 · Score: 1, Insightful

Actually Greenpeace is about the white middle-class telling everyone else that they can't develop because they will cook the planet. And every argument they make about the cooking of the planet is couched in ad hominem attacks against people who disbelieve everything that comes from their mouths.
What exactly does Greenpeace do running these ships? It ain't useful to the planet that's for sure.

--
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
Re:And Greenpeace runs its ships on pure sunshine by ComputersKai · 2014-07-26 12:19 · Score: 1

Do't conversations like these get them more attention?
Re:And Greenpeace runs its ships on pure sunshine by kwbauer · 2014-07-26 18:50 · Score: 1

Correct. The world should produce only the amount of fossil fuel use that Greenpeace needs to support Greenpeace's mission.

Not always. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 04:30 · Score: 0

I have a solar phone charger which obviously doesn't burn any coal.

Re:Not always. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 04:56 · Score: 0

We're mostly talking about the cloud servers chewing power. Although a solar phone charger is certainly a nice thing to have. :)

"jaundiced eye" is spot on. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 04:32 · Score: 0

And to be fair, I don't think Apple was always so green. Typically, tech companies muscle into a new market any way they can, then get greener as they streamline their processes. Amazon's devices groups may well do the same.

Re:"jaundiced eye" is spot on. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 04:35 · Score: 0

Typically, tech companies muscle into a new market any way they can, then get greener as they streamline their processes.
I think it has more to do with them finally 'making it' into the market they're attacking, then once adopted its scrutinized by everyone with an agenda so they need to go green because hippies always complain first and loudest
Re:"jaundiced eye" is spot on. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:42 · Score: 0

Considering how often they lie (just google "britain tablet LTE" or the many other commercials where they've just outright lied to consumers about their capabilities), I wonder how much power they use is actually clean?
Or perhaps they made a subsidiary called "Clean Energy" with one minimum wage staffer in it and buy their power through that one guy to say "omg clean!"
I mean, who can doublecheck this? Privacy laws specifically prevent anyone else from knowing.

Oh, come on. by seebs · 2014-07-26 04:41 · Score: 1

Greenpeace is to the ecology roughly what Autism Speaks is to the autistic community, or what Bennett Haselton is to articles that aren't painfully stupid.

This is not news, and it does not deserve attention or reporting.

--
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/

the members of Greenpeace by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 04:42 · Score: 0

breathe more O2 than than they should, as well.

Everyone realizes that put in simple terms, the Greens are Communists, yes?

Re: the members of Greenpeace by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:09 · Score: 1

I don't know about everybody, but I realized long ago that calling somebody a communist was a red flag for somebody who is using empty labels rather than genuine discourse.
Re: the members of Greenpeace by sumdumass · 2014-07-26 13:19 · Score: 1

http://dailycaller.com/2014/07...
Except when it is true or always?

Wrong by mdsolar · 2014-07-26 04:42 · Score: 1

They did anticipate renewable energy making nuclear power uneconomic though. https://will.illinois.edu/nfs/...

Re:Wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 21:43 · Score: 0

Not only did they anticipate it, their concerted and persisting efforts actually caused it. Nuclear was, and could again be the most economical source of power if not for the endless lawsuits, delays, and oppressive regulatory environment. It is only expensive in the west because we don't build it anymore. (An increasing problem these days, not limited to nuclear.) History shows us that completing a plant is also no guarantee that it will ever be switched on. There is simply too much uncertainty surrounding nuclear without a supportive government and regulatory environment. (No subsidies would even be needed, just get the hell out of the way.)
The AEC was an effective regulatory agency. Nothing good has come out of the NRC since its inception, and favoring license extensions over granting new licenses and encouraging modern technology is a dead end. No one wants 1950s cars or computers, why would we want 1950s reactors?
Re:Wrong by mdsolar · 2014-07-26 22:10 · Score: 1

By all means, repeal the Price Anderson subsidy and require market insurance rates be paid.
Re:Wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-28 02:55 · Score: 0

How do you figure? Sure, solar arrays have a peak output per acre that's getting really close to surpassing the output per acre of nuclear plants made 50 years ago, but yearly output is still a fraction of what nuclear can do.
Re:Wrong by mdsolar · 2014-07-28 03:31 · Score: 1

RTFA

OH SHUT UP ALREADY by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 04:43 · Score: 0

When clean power is standard you can start bitching about the offenders

Greenpeace Blecchhh by the+eric+conspiracy · 2014-07-26 04:44 · Score: 2

No credibility whatsoever. I've caught them in outright lies far too often.

Re:Greenpeace Blecchhh by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:12 · Score: 1

Is there any other pro-environment agency that I could follow? I personally am also full of Greenpeace's lies but still am an eco-nerd and interested in these kind of issues. Anyone?
Re:Greenpeace Blecchhh by ganjadude · 2014-07-26 05:48 · Score: 3, Insightful

start one

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have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Re:Greenpeace Blecchhh by ChromeAeonium · 2014-07-26 09:41 · Score: 1

Yep. I see them blatantly lying about my field (plant science) all the time, sometimes even attacking research, and their efforts have helped set it back by at least a decade. I have a very hard time trusting them about anything else when they so readily disregard facts to drum up controversy.
Re:Greenpeace Blecchhh by rubycodez · 2014-07-26 11:12 · Score: 1

Green Party, if you're in the USA. Not that I agree with them on everything...
Re:Greenpeace Blecchhh by geekoid · 2014-07-26 15:24 · Score: 1

When they lied about apples products.
The stopped being about the environment around '82.

--
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Objective Assessment by lazarith · 2014-07-26 04:45 · Score: 1

I would like to see a calculation of how much CO2 is emitted by uploading a photo compared to, say, driving to the grocery store.

The calculation would take the CO2 emitted by powering the servers, divided by the number of users of the servers, divided by the number of photos a user is expected to upload over a given time period.

I would imagine that heating your home or driving would be much worse, and the time spent uploading the photos would be better for the environment than driving to the movies. But this is speculation until someone does the calculations.

This link may help:
http://www.manicore.com/anglai...

Re:Objective Assessment by LynnwoodRooster · 2014-07-26 12:01 · Score: 1

But that misses the point: trying to publicly shame Amazon into making a pro-Greenpeace statement and giving them a few hundred thousand dollars as penance...

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Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Re:Objective Assessment by kwbauer · 2014-07-26 18:54 · Score: 1

Are you trying to say that Greenpeace is nothing more than a liberal protection racket?
Re:Objective Assessment by LynnwoodRooster · 2014-07-27 02:07 · Score: 1

Well, if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck... Their actions do tend to look a lot like Jesse Jackson's "Rainbow Coalition", in that righteous indignation is aimed at a given highly valuable entity until said entity donates a lot of money, and then another entity is targeted - regardless of any real changes.

--
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Re:Objective Assessment by lazarith · 2014-07-27 14:44 · Score: 1

If not for a bribe (or increased public awareness/donations), then Greenpeace is doing it as a show of unearned power.
That being said, their statement is scientifically meaningless without such calculations, and if Slashdot is going to have a discussion about pollution from Amazon Fire devices, then I would like to see such a discussion have scientific meaning.
Then we can discuss politics if there even is significant scientific meaning to it.

Time to start building more nuke plants as long as by Joe_Dragon · 2014-07-26 04:45 · Score: 1

Time to start building more nuke plants as long as they are not.

SNPP
chernobyl
3 mile island
Fukushima

they are safe.

Legacy by djupedal · 2014-07-26 04:52 · Score: 1

Amazon put their infrastructure in place long ago so as to be first into a market they helped pioneer. Projected profits were based on that equipment and how long it was to remain in place.

Fast forward to today and that legacy commitment is a yoke around their corporate neck that creeps toward a negative aspect.

Reminds me of how the large telcos want to squeeze every last penny out of all that copper still in the ground.

Please STFU and show yourself out by Just+Some+Guy · 2014-07-26 04:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

I support Apple's initiatives and I'm glad they're setting a good example as an industry leader. However, I could not possibly care less that a given cell phone might be accessing a server that isn't "green". Yes, Amazon Fire will be running "on top of" AWS. This is an absolute given. It will also be leaning on servers from Google, Apple, Rackspace, and Joe's Server Shack.

Greenpeace, shoo. You're not involved in these discussions and you're not relevant to the task at hand. It's cute that you want to be a part of the conversation, but this is the adult table.

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Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?

Re:Please STFU and show yourself out by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:47 · Score: 0

Did you support their initiatives when the first ithingy came out and they used BPA (I forget if this is the specific chemical, but it was something really hazardous to the environment) when the entire cellphone industry had already banned it?
I didn't.
I wonder what initiatives they really take since practically all their PR/ads are lies ("there's nothing wrong with our antennas, but here's a rubber bumper to fix the problem", or "hey look, learn to play a guitar using a voice assistant" LOL)
Re:Please STFU and show yourself out by jimbo · 2014-07-26 18:01 · Score: 1

Samsung devices have also had their share of problems but the press wasn't interested in those.
That ads or the claimed capability or benefits of their products are lies applies not only to Apple but also to their competitors and indeed most industries on the face of the planet.

Re:Apple no saint with 2 year disposable iPads by timmyf2371 · 2014-07-26 04:57 · Score: 2

Turns out the iPad still worked after two years, only for the user to feel that they had to replace it.

Is this an Apple issue, or a user issue?

--

Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic

Amazon Responses by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 04:58 · Score: 0

Or....

Amazon (and to the same extent, each of us) could just tell Greenpeace - each in our own special way - to bugger right off as a bunch of pseudo-religious fanatics with fetishistic tendencies.

Re:Apple no saint with 2 year disposable iPads by danbob999 · 2014-07-26 05:04 · Score: 2

It's an Apple issue, beacause they make it hard to replace the battery, which is probably what is going to fail after 2 years

Apple uses Azure and Amazon... by longstream · 2014-07-26 05:16 · Score: 1

As far as I know, Apple makes extensive use of Azure and Amazon cloud-services to run their iCloud. So it's not really fair to call Apples energy consumption 100% renewable, since they rely so heavily on third parties...

Re:Apple uses Azure and Amazon... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:17 · Score: 1

No they don't.
Re:Apple uses Azure and Amazon... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:35 · Score: 0

Yes they do.
Re:Apple uses Azure and Amazon... by longstream · 2014-07-26 05:45 · Score: 1

I'm pretty sure they do. They definitely did in 2011 or whenever iCloud with Photostream was released. There is simply no way that Apples little datacenter in NC can handle all that traffic. I'm sure they are planning to one day run it all by themselves (or maybe not). But I think their datacenter capacity is far from able to handle all of the iCloud services...
Re:Apple uses Azure and Amazon... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:49 · Score: 0

I'm pretty sure they don't. They definitely did in 2011 or whenever iCloud with Photostream was under development but not anymore.
Fixed that for you.
Re:Apple uses Azure and Amazon... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:49 · Score: 0

Citation needed
Re:Apple uses Azure and Amazon... by longstream · 2014-07-26 06:21 · Score: 1

Just tried to do a Photostream sync to my PC while running Wireshark. Guess where the HTTP-GET requests point? http://eu-irl-00001.s3.amazona... so yeah, they are definitely still not able to handle their own cloud-business, but instead relies on Amazons dirty cloud... So much for their 100% renewable BS.
Re:Apple uses Azure and Amazon... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 06:30 · Score: 0

Completely made up URLs are not valid evidence.
Re:Apple uses Azure and Amazon... by jcr · 2014-07-26 16:48 · Score: 1

From the top, there is a great hatred of technical people there
You need to consult your doctor and get your meds adjusted. I've worked at Apple several times, and I sure didn't feel any "hatred of technical people" from anyone at any level of Apple's management chain.
-jcr

--
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."

Hit a few golfballs for me pal... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:18 · Score: 0

I don't remember when greenpeace was elected or overthrew world governments?
LOL

Fair enough, as far as I'm concerned by GenaTrius · 2014-07-26 05:19 · Score: 1

Everyone has to play a part if we want to end our reliance on fossil fuels, especially big companies that actually have buying power. Greenpeace may be a bunch of sensationalist hypocrits, but that doesn't mean Amazon couldn't stand to try and source more of their power from renewables.

Re:Apple no saint with 2 year disposable iPads by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:20 · Score: 0

It's an Apple issue, beacause they make it hard to replace the battery

Looks pretty simple to replace to me

lol by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:22 · Score: 0

Thanks for the laugh

Re:Apple no saint with 2 year disposable iPads by LoRdTAW · 2014-07-26 05:24 · Score: 1

Oh come on. By the time the battery is half dead it will be replaced by the latest iPad lest the user be seen with last years model in public. Oh the shame that would bring them.

Re:Time to start building more nuke plants as long by GenaTrius · 2014-07-26 05:27 · Score: 3, Informative

Did you know 3 Mile Island is still manned, operating, and producing power? Evacuation was not mandatory, there is no exclusion zone, and the surrounding area is still populated. The reactor that melted down isn't in operation, of course, but the safety checks worked and no one died. I am consistently amazed at hoe many people do not know this.

Might isn't Should isn't Could by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:29 · Score: 0

Amazon doesn't use all the "green" energy sources it could - A sentence that presses no judgements.
Amazon doesn't use all the "green" energy sources it might - A sentence that acknowledges that Amazon has made choices about energy supplies.
Amazon doesn't use all the "green" energy sources it should - A sentence that judges (and disapproves) of Amazon's choices.

The writer of this piece should learn the limits of telling others what to do.

Using clean energy or papal indulgences by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:30 · Score: 0

All this talk about choosing the green option is just marketing speak. The utilities produce energy and pool it on the grid. They can't guarantee that their "green" electrons produced in their green plant go to some consumers. The only thing they can guarantee is that the sum of electricity consumed by their clients who signed the green option is lower than their total production of clean energy. They're not going to produce more clean energy if you take the green option, they'll just pretend you get 100% clean energy and to compensate, they will pretend those who didn't get the green option are actually using more "dirty" energy.

To illustrate this, I'll present a simple example. Suppose you have one utility in a monopoly who produce 100 units of energy per year, 20 of which are clean, 80 of which aren't. Suppose also that they have 100 consumers who each consume 1 unit of energy per year. If no one takes the "green option", then each consumer "receives" 0.2 unit of clean energy and 0.8 of dirty energy per year. If 20 take the option then those 20 are counted as receiving "100% clean energy" and the other 80 are counted as receiving as receiving "100% dirty energy". End result, nothing changes for the environment, but those who took the option get in exchange of money the equivalent of a papal indulgence, a piece of paper on which it is written they have only used clean energy.

I had a Greenpeace membership once... by Ecuador · 2014-07-26 05:33 · Score: 1

Being a geek kid I used part of my allowance for good, such as a Greenpeace membership. But, being a geek kid I had to look into exactly what they were doing with my money and found out there were much better ways to spend if you want to protect the environment. I was 14 at the time IIRC. So, I probably would say it doesn't take a genius to figure Greenpeace out, but I can't be sure. I mean the local Mensa told me I scored the max of the preliminary test (around 140?) so according to them I was some sort of genius, but then said I would have to pay them monthly for the privilege of me being a genius (after "verifying" with their longer non-free test), which made me doubt their finding. So it does or does not take a genius to figure out Greenpeace for the posers they are.

--
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS

It's a shame by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

Give me back the hippies of the 1960s, or the real environmentalists of the 1970s! As obnoxious as they often were, ....

It's a shame with all this hostility towards environmentalists.

They were the ones who pushed for cleaner air and water. They were the ones who helped get lead out of gasoline.

If it weren't for them, we'd have the environment of China because businesses do not care. Pollution is the tradgedy of the commons - folks pollute and the rest of society pays for the costs.

During the Summer here in coal powered Metro Atlanta, air quality gets so bad that it kills suseptable young children and the elderly.

But use cleaner and more expensive energy?! Fuck no!

Gotta power all those Chinese made electronic gadgets - especially the big screen TV plugged into the overpriced cable because we gotta have our sports!

And of course there are the gas guzzling SUVs and "manly" pickup trucks - many driven by "No-noes" (folks who drive a truck just to be manly and NEVER actually use it to haul anything). Oh no! Cannot look like a fag driving something a bit more sensible and perfectly adequate with 4 cyclinders.

But I actually walk the walk - and I save a shit load of money.

That's right. Living "green" is CHEAP!

Cheaper cars, lower fuel expenses, no cable bill, no expensive cell phone bills because I don't have a smart phone, cheaper electricity because I don't have a TV in every room or any other energy sucking toys.

I walk to local stores - they're less than half a mile away. See, being "green" also saves money on exercise. Why pay hundreds of dollars and get locked into a shitty gym contract when walking and carrying packages is great exercise?

Much our polution is because of our insane consumerist culture. Buy, buy, buy! Spend money! Go into debt! Sign away your freedom and enslave ourselves with debt because we gotta have those electronic toys, big trucks, cable TV, etc ...

If we learned to live simpler and deeper, we'd be much happier as a society and things would clean up on their own because we would spend time doing important things instead of wasting it on shit doing shit.

Re:It's a shame by MrL0G1C · 2014-07-26 07:57 · Score: 1

I'm an environmentalist, and I agree, there are a lot of people who say they care about the environment but if you suggest any lifestyle changes they immediately dismiss the idea without accepting that supporting the environment might mean some small compromises. Like a person who owned 10ish properties but wouldn't buy an environmentally cleaning product because of the price is a bit more.
You ask a person with a large SUV is they 'support the environment'.

--
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Re:It's a shame by FireFury03 · 2014-07-26 08:25 · Score: 1

It's a shame with all this hostility towards environmentalists.
They were the ones who pushed for cleaner air and water. They were the ones who helped get lead out of gasoline.
The problem is people conflating environmentalists (people who actually give a crap about the environment, learn and understand the problems and try to figure out a sensible way to make our lives cleaner) with "environmentalists" (the likes of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth who make a lot of noise about saving the planet but don't bother to actually learn about the problems and end up blocking every solution that isn't (in their eyes) perfect, failing to realise that there are no perfect solutions and an imperfect one is better than doing nothing).

--
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Re:It's a shame by ChromeAeonium · 2014-07-26 10:00 · Score: 2

It's a shame with all this hostility towards environmentalists.
Greenpeace is not an environmentalist group.

But use cleaner and more expensive energy?! Fuck no!
Right there, that's your problem. Better has to come at a cost. It's like a religion, and you have to pay for your sin. We could have nuclear, but nope. We have to convince people to live, as you put it, 'simpler and deeper,' change their lifestyles to match what you find aesthetic, rather than improve the means of production.

Cheaper cars, lower fuel expenses, no cable bill, no expensive cell phone bills because I don't have a smart phone, cheaper electricity because I don't have a TV in every room or any other energy sucking toys.

Found that guy. Okay, you like that, fine, do your own thing. Acknowledge that not everyone wants to live the same way.

I walk to local stores - they're less than half a mile away. See, being "green" also saves money on exercise. Why pay hundreds of dollars and get locked into a shitty gym contract when walking and carrying packages is great exercise?
Unless you've been working all day, you're tired, it could rain at any moment, you have more to carry than you can, ect. Then your activity becomes a privilege, which as it turns out is one of the main criticisms of the pseudo-environmentalism movement. Ever lived like that by necessity? I have, it sucks.

things would clean up on their own because we would spend time doing important things instead of wasting it on shit doing shit.
And of course, you know what the important things are. Have you ever considered that, maybe, the reason people dismiss environmentalists is because so many people who take up the mantle of 'environmentalist' are only using pseudo-environmentalist ideas to justify their own sanctimonious self righteous superiority. A different approach is needed.
Re:It's a shame by _Sharp'r_ · 2014-07-26 10:48 · Score: 1

If it weren't for them, we'd have the environment of China because businesses do not care. Pollution is the tradgedy of the commons - folks pollute and the rest of society pays for the costs.
The "businesses" in China, in contrast to the environmentally cleaner portions of the world, are essentially part of the government. Chernobyl wasn't exactly a private enterprise either.
The solution to the tragedy of the commons is private ownership and liability in order to change the incentives, not more government government regulations. You complain about the Atlanta area, but last time I checked, Georgia Power was a regulated government-granted monopoly.
I agree that it makes sense for people to do things that save them money (and resources in the process), but I object to the idea that solutions to environmental problems is what more government control produces. The worst environmental offenders are government agencies and tightly government controlled industries around the world.
Who do you think takes better care of a forest? Tree farmers who own the land and want to get the most long term value out of it, or government bureaucrats who are marking time until their pension kicks in?
Most of the current fashion in environmentalism is a way for some people to tell themselves they're morally superior to the less "environmentally conscious" while they do ridiculous things like sorting and recycling glass, with the other side of the movement profiting handsomely by selling them what they want to hear and using it all as an excuse for the government officials to reward their friends.

--
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
Re:It's a shame by rubycodez · 2014-07-26 11:11 · Score: 1

so the environmentalists made the USA cleaner but pushed the pollution generation to China which where the devastation is to much larger land and water areas, and threat to more people. mission accomplished?
Re:It's a shame by zieroh · 2014-07-26 12:20 · Score: 2

The solution to the tragedy of the commons is private ownership and liability in order to change the incentives, not more government government regulations.
Just because you say it doesn't make it so. Government regulations on energy production are the only thing that's keeping the US from looking like China.

--
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
Re:It's a shame by khallow · 2014-07-26 15:38 · Score: 1

because businesses do not care
Pretty much sums up the problems with environmentalism. It's "us versus them" with clearly identified hate targets like businesses and gas-guzzling SUVs. For example, do you really think that environmentalists never start their own businesses?

Much our polution is because of our insane consumerist culture.
If this is what people want (and for a lot of people, yes, this is what they want), then I'm not going to take it away from them.
Re:It's a shame by khallow · 2014-07-26 16:05 · Score: 1

but if you suggest any lifestyle changes they immediately dismiss the idea without accepting that supporting the environment might mean some small compromises.
Three common problems with these "small compromises" is that a) the proposer is often entirely clueless about the issue, b) the "compromises" aren't small, and c) they often don't actually do anything for the environment.

Considering your example of the SUV driver, why should their need to prove their manliness be less important than your feelings about the environment? Merely, being slightly more polluting than alternatives is not IMHO compelling.
Re:It's a shame by khallow · 2014-07-26 16:14 · Score: 1

Government regulations on energy production are the only thing that's keeping the US from looking like China.
In what ways? Obviously, we're not choking on high levels of smog. But neither are we enjoying the fruits of economic success compared to China. Regulation is responsible for both the cleaner environment and the killing of the economic golden goose.
Re:It's a shame by kwbauer · 2014-07-26 18:33 · Score: 1

"important things" like walking three miles to and from work and the grocery store instead of spending time on the lake fishing and developing a deeper friendship with my fishing partners? Or spending evenings holed up alone instead of driving 15 miles to another couple's house to spend time and develop deeper friendships. Oh sure, we could spend our weekend walking there, sleeping one night and then walking home again and never actually spend time with them. Maybe my important things are different than your important things and maybe I'll convince you that my important things are actually the correct important things.
Re:It's a shame by dasunt · 2014-07-28 00:51 · Score: 1

"important things" like walking three miles to and from work and the grocery store instead of spending time on the lake fishing and developing a deeper friendship with my fishing partners?
Or, of course, you could just use this amazing, cheap invention called a bicycle and do the route in an easy 15 minutes.
If you did it twice a day, to and from work, that would be 30 minutes of exercise. Depending on the traffic, it could take very little additional time for your commute.
And since driving a car tends to be a lot more expensive per mile than most people realize, you'd save a decent chunk of change.

GREENPEACE ARE DISHONEST, AS WELL AS INCOMPETENT by Mike+Greaves · 2014-07-26 05:46 · Score: 5, Informative

Last time they ranked Amazon poorly for datacenter power, I checked some numbers and compared with other agencies rankings.

Amazon got about 27% of it's power from nuclear.
No CO2, but Greenpeace didn't credit anything for it.

Dell's datacenters had higher CO2 emissions, only ~7% nuclear, but a little more renewables.
The anti-nuclear geniuses at Greenpeace gave Dell a cleaner ranking than Amazon.

They only credit CO2 abatement, if they agree with the method.
Not only that, they don't even MENTION all CO2 abatements.

In fact, I found that Amazon's emissions were far better than average.
I think they had the 2nd lowest fossil generating share of about 10 US datacenter operators compared.

In addition, Amazon was investing heavily in PSU, rack density, and cooling improvements, and virtualization is a known resource saver across all components. Ever heard of virtualization at Amazon?

I doubt that anyone at Greenpeace understands any of this.
Any electrical engineers there? HVAC engineers? POWERPLANT engineers?

Greenpeace are dishonest, technically ignorant, and thoroughly foolhardy;
and will destroy your World if you let them.

TFA shouldn't have even been posted here.

--
-- Mike Greaves

Why does anyone listen to Greenpeace? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 05:51 · Score: 1

This is the same group that in June, 2006 released a press release decrying President Bush visiting a nuclear reactor with the following text...

"In the twenty years since the Chernobyl tragedy, the world's worst nuclear accident, there have been nearly [FILL IN ALARMIST AND ARMAGEDDONIST FACTOID HERE]."

They tried to downplay it as a joke.

This is also the same group who pays an exec to commute 250 miles to work by plane.

Bottom line is Greenpeace exists to raise funds so it can exist to raise funds.

The Device does not burn anything by YoungManKlaus · 2014-07-26 06:03 · Score: 1

its the cloud-sync that is bad!

Re:GREENPEACE ARE DISHONEST, AS WELL AS INCOMPETEN by rainer_d · 2014-07-26 06:17 · Score: 1

Virtualization does not save you anything, once you run a big enough infrastructure.
In fact, it will just generate useless overhead (unless you use a light-weight "virtualization" like FreeBSD Jails, LXC, Solaris Containers).

--
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin

Exteremists at work by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 06:20 · Score: 0

So waht?

whoosh by mdsolar · 2014-07-26 06:23 · Score: 1

Didn't catch the murder in there I guess.

Re:whoosh by ganjadude · 2014-07-26 06:43 · Score: 2

as the democrats love to tell me when reminding them that the KKK was founded by democrats, and or that the democrats blocked civil rights, it happened along time ago, thats not who they are now

Or ill go with the hillary soundbyte of "what difference does it make!~"

greenpeace IS a terrorist org, they may not have always been that way, its possible, hell probable that our government pushed them to become so, but the fact is that they are, regardless of what atrocities have happened.

--
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Re:whoosh by mdsolar · 2014-07-26 06:52 · Score: 0

You should look at the second part of their name. They oppose violence.
Re:whoosh by ganjadude · 2014-07-26 07:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

right, and north korea is "democratic"

--
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Re:whoosh by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-27 01:21 · Score: 0

Here's a history lesson for you. Google "Southern Strategy". The old KKK Democrats became Republicans post desegregation. These old KKK democrats turned into the political base of the republican party in the south. "States' rights" became a dog whistle for Republicans overturning the civil rights act and reinstating Jim Crow laws. People with your political views embraced the white supremacists with open arms.
But as usual you are an completely ignorant fool.
The white supremacists are now describing themselves as libertarians. You'll find them rallying around Ron or Rand Paul.

Re:Time to start building more nuke plants as long by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 06:30 · Score: 1

Actually, the safety checks at 3 Mile Island failed. Maybe even made things worse, since the release of radioactivity was because of a mistaken interpretation of conditions that lead to human actions.

Fortunately, those were interface problems, not fundamental design errors like at Chernobyl or SNPP, so they could be remedied and TM-2 could be put back into operation, if it were desired.

Re:Time to start building more nuke plants as long by gewalker · 2014-07-26 07:05 · Score: 3, Insightful

TMI safety both failed and succeeded depending upon how you look at things.

It failed to prevent a partial meltdown of the reactor core.

It failed to prevent a significant release of radiation to the general environment as 15 curies (560 GBq) of iodine-131 (the most concering portion due to biological uptake to the thyroid)

It succeeded in terms of avoiding the wide-scale problems of Fukushima or Chernobyl

It failed in terms of public opinion of nuclear power being a reasonably source of energy production. Nuclear plant construction in US was virtually shut down after this, no new licenses till 2012.

Greenpeace is my go-to guide on enviro issues by Applehu+Akbar · 2014-07-26 07:09 · Score: 2

When an environmental issue comes up, I look up the Greenpeace position on it and automatically know that the opposite must be true. For example, the Amazon Fire 'burns coal' because Greenpeace wouldn't let us have nuclear.

The most pressing environmental issue in my area currently is the impending shortage of water. So I looked up the Greenpeace platform on drought. Presto! Now I know that the ultimate solution to our shortage will de desalination.

Wise trust fund kiddies! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 08:09 · Score: 0

Um, listen carefully to these wise trust fund kiddies with time on their hands. Hah!

More ammo for debbie downer by Eravnrekaree · 2014-07-26 08:22 · Score: 1

When you give your spouse one at Christmas, Debbie Downer will be there to remind you of he ecological implications. :-). Out of all seriousness, its not bad to have an interest in efficiency, but, does a phone really consume so much power that it would make much of a differece, You could save a heck of a lot more using a clothesline.

Re:More ammo for debbie downer by ComputersKai · 2014-07-26 12:36 · Score: 1

well, if there are a lot of people doing the same...
Re:More ammo for debbie downer by jcr · 2014-07-26 16:50 · Score: 1

The appropriate response to Debbie Downer, or any other flavor of guilt-peddler, is to firmly and emphatically reject the guilt they're trying to peddle. E.G: "fuck you Debbie, who died appointed you the environmental guilt police?"
-jcr

--
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."

compromises? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 08:23 · Score: 0

I appreciate what you are saying and for sticking up for me on this website. Yes....there's a but ... sorry .....

....the idea without accepting that supporting the environment might mean some small compromises.

My dear, I made no compromises. I wanted to save money and cut the bullshit out of my life.

It just so happened that I lived "green"

Nothing lost or given up - just burdens and bullshit.

All the major religions talk about giving about possessions and non-sense.

It really de-stresses life. All the Yoga, Meditation, prayer in the World doesn't compensate not having loans or stuff.

Living "green" makes me happy in the short term and long term. And if it helps the planet, so much for the better!

Hipsterism? You just defined the whole .... by King_TJ · 2014-07-26 08:29 · Score: 1

... environmental movement in a nutshell!

Seriously, I think most sane human beings DO care about trying not to trash up the only planet we've got. But that thinking doesn't require big special interest groups pushing agendas! It doesn't even require our schools to waste valuable classroom time teaching recycling and shoving feel good eco/Green stuff down our kid's throats!

If companies see a true FINANCIAL benefit to using clean energy, they'll willingly and even happily switch to it. I'm pretty sure Amazon's upper management isn't sitting in a boardroom, saying "Yeah... we could install solar panels for our server rooms and save many thousands per year on power per building, but we'd rather spend more for our power, as long as it's helping pollute the planet! Muahahah!"

Groups like Greenpeace are just struggling to justify their own existence in a world that gets along just fine without them. They try to vilify any business with deep enough pockets who does something "less Green" than the absolute "most Green, at ANY cost" solution they can come up with as an alternative.

Personally? I'm *really* tired of our government handing out incentives to switch to Green energy or mandating recycling. These are all things which should be self-sustaining and desirable to do on their own accord! (For example, our local recycling program provides you a large blue roll-away can free of charge, as well as a second plastic basket if you request it. They come by every other week to pick up your recyclables with a single-stream recycling system in place, making it pretty easy to do it. The county makes quite a bit of extra money reselling the recycled materials, so it's a win for them financially-speaking. Residents have very little to lose by participating because there are limits to how much trash the garbage truck will pick up each week without charging you extra. It's a free way to get rid of a lot more of your junk without even having to use your own additional can or plastic trash bags!)

Switching to solar (or wind) energy is still an "iffy" proposition. If you live in the right geographical area, it probably makes long-term financial sense to do it. BUT, the current state of the technology makes it relatively unaffordable to actually STORE your own energy you generate. That means you're still typically tied to the public utility company for power, and wind up having to do the round-about thing of selling electricity back to them (which they may or may not even really WANT from you in the first place), and still using their generated electricity whenever it's dark out or your needs exceed your ability to generate on your own. I'd bet that a good 50% or so of the residential solar installations wouldn't even happen right now if it weren't for government interference artificially sweetening the deal to force adoption. (You literally stand to get $6,000 or more back in tax rebates over the first 5 years or so you own the panels. Again, nice if you're on the receiving end, but means you might have just invested in something that makes no good financial sense on its own.)

article kinda misleading by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 08:41 · Score: 0

I thought the article was talking about the battery inside the Amazon Fire or the AC charger, not the servers. Yes, I am nit picking.

Re:Apple no saint with 2 year disposable iPads by FireFury03 · 2014-07-26 08:55 · Score: 1

Oh come on. By the time the battery is half dead it will be replaced by the latest iPad lest the user be seen with last years model in public. Oh the shame that would bring them.

I still don't get the whole throw-away culture... People seem to think I'm nuts because I don't have the latest everything..

Examples: up until recently I had a ~12 year old ADSL modem running my internet connection. At one point my ISP expressed surprise about this and suggested that I should upgrade it. I have no idea why - a new one would do *exactly the same job* as the old one, which still worked fine(*), so what's to be gained in me spending money to replace it?
(* ok, it was a buggy piece of shit; but since every other consumer grade ADSL modem I've ever seen, including brand new ones, is also a buggy piece shit, an "upgrade" would simply be trading one set of bugs for another set of bugs).

I still have a CRT TV. It works fine, it gives a good picture, it sits in the corner of the room. Various people have said I should replace it with a flatscreen. Why? In the corner position it's in, I would gain no more space, a flatscreen would just have more useless space behind it.

My laptop is now 7 years old. It's got plenty of memory and a CPU that's fast enough to do everything I need it to do... Yet people take the piss out of me having an "old" laptop.

Hell, when my wife lost her iPhone 3GS a few years back, she *wanted* to replace it with another 3GS because she had been completely happy with it and it did everything she wanted. But the 3GS was no longer sold - she would've had to get an iPhone 5 instead. And the only reason I replaced my last phone (HTC Dream) was because it died - the one I replaced it with (Samsung Captivate Glide) may be faster, but the form factor is nowhere near as nice to use and the support is abysmal.

I just don't get the pressure to have the latest gadget - if what you've already got still works and still fulfills your needs then why the hell would anyone replace it? People think I'm weird for repairing stuff that breaks instead of throwing it away and buying a new one...

--
http://blog.nexusuk.org

alternative energy by confused+one · 2014-07-26 09:52 · Score: 1

If they don't like people burning coal for power, perhaps they should promote an alternative.... like nuclear.

Re:alternative energy by geekoid · 2014-07-26 15:34 · Score: 1

They used to, but the people who started it that wan't a balance forward thinking approach to moving away from coal where ousted and replace with scientifically illiterate alarmist that only want to make money for greenpeace.

--
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Re:alternative energy by confused+one · 2014-07-27 03:12 · Score: 1

I've seen one too many scientifically illiterate alarmists who only want to protest for protest sake. "Let's go party at the Greenpeace protest"

and the point of this is...? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 10:40 · Score: 0

I wouldn't trust a Greenpeace activist to design a smartphone any more than I would trust Barack Obama to sell me medical insurance.

Green energy is a scam by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 11:00 · Score: 0

Yeah, 100% green energy. When utilities sell 24 times as much wind and solar power as is generated, you know something is wrong.

Re:GREENPEACE ARE DISHONEST, AS WELL AS INCOMPETEN by rubycodez · 2014-07-26 11:19 · Score: 1

assertions without proof. Running 30 virtual machines in one physical blade is the norm, virtualization helps over no virtualization.

Those other solutions are useless to a business that requires a supported OS for there applications.

Re:Time to start building more nuke plants as long by jbeaupre · 2014-07-26 11:46 · Score: 1

Funny fact: 3 Mile failed because of a safety procedure. When a gage went bad, it was red tagged. Good idea ... unless it hangs over the gage that would have warned the operators the reactor was going wonky. So, as you say, they interpreted the conditions on the gages they could see, not the critical one the couldn't, and made the wrong call.

--
The world is made by those who show up for the job.

Any 100% nuclear DC? by Skylinux · 2014-07-26 12:23 · Score: 1

Amazon, .... only 15 percent of its energy comes from clean sources, which is about the default national average.

Well that sucks!
Are there any 100% nuclear powered DCs out there?

--
Everyone who buys Wild Hunt will receive 16 specially prepared DLCs absolutely for free, regardless of platform.

Apple 100% renewable? by brambus · 2014-07-26 12:28 · Score: 1

Really? Solar is being mentioned a lot in the report with respect to Apple. So I presume, their datacenters have "cut the cord" and run completely off of their rooftop solar installations? Or is it simply installing solar panels offsite and doing net metering, "100% renewable" being hit when their grid feed-in is equivalent to their consumption? If so, then this is pure greenwashing, since they're still using the external electrical grid, which is most notably nowhere near 100% renewable, because it needs to be reliable. It's classic externalizing of the storage cost to somebody else and ignoring it, while feeling good about oneself.

Re:Apple 100% renewable? by geekoid · 2014-07-26 15:35 · Score: 1

Strawman much?

--
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Re:Apple 100% renewable? by brambus · 2014-07-26 22:09 · Score: 1

How so?

Re:Time to start building more nuke plants as long by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 12:48 · Score: 0

It succeeded in terms of avoiding the wide-scale problems of Fukushima or Chernobyl

By sheer luck, of not having the same events occur.

Fukushima's problems were both external, and a bit fundamental. The earthquake was a severe disruption, but it had systems in place to deal with the problems it caused, unfortunately the tsunami broke those systems. The systems could be better protected, or the design of the BWR could be modified. Well, actually, it has been, the Fukushima reactors were several generations old. In a lot of ways, even the earlier ones were better than TMI's PWR though. I think if TMI had been in the same place, it'd have the same thing happen, but I'm not sure.

Chernobyl's RBMK design is just scary though, and the experimental protocols they were using, made it even worse. The only reason it exists was due to its cheapness, not because it's a good or safe design. Only an authoritarian government would put such things into production, and it's a bit of a concern that the remaining ones have not been shut down. But at least some of the issues have been alleviated, and the one test that caused Cherynobyl won't repeated.

It failed in terms of public opinion of nuclear power being a reasonably source of energy production.

Public opinion's not the half of it. Nuclear plants have high capital costs, but low operation costs. This isn't good for the profiteering energy companies, who much prefer demand-cycle production that they can manipulate more easily.

Didn't RTFS by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 12:51 · Score: 0

I was reading the summary, then the Slashdot homepage auto-refreshed, took me back to the top story. How fuckin' stooooopid.

Greenpeace = fake environmentalists. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 13:53 · Score: 0

Environmentalists don't encourage the destruction of the environment by blocking nuclear power.
Environmentalists don't discourage renewable energy by blocking wind turbines by falsifying data.
Environmentalists don't try to block the equipment upgrades on hydroelectric dams that enable fish-run protection.

Re:Time to start building more nuke plants as long by geekoid · 2014-07-26 15:31 · Score: 1

"It failed to prevent a partial meltdown of the reactor core."
I succeeded on repvents a full meltdown, as designed.

"It failed to prevent a significant release of radiation to the general environment as 15 curies (560 GBq) of iodine-131 (the most concering portion due to biological uptake to the thyroid)":
According to the official figures, as compiled by the 1979 Kemeny Commission from Metropolitan Edison and NRC data, a maximum of 480 petabecquerels (13 million curies) of radioactive noble gases (primarily xenon) were released by the event.[45] However, these noble gases were considered relatively harmless,[46] and only 481–629 GBq (13–17 curies) of thyroid cancer-causing iodine-131 were released.[45] Total releases according to these figures were a relatively small proportion of the estimated 370 EBq (10 billion curies) in the reactor.[46]

i.e. Not Much.

--
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Come again? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-26 16:27 · Score: 0

Where are you claiming this TVA wind farm that was shut down is?

Buffalo Mountain isn't a big site(Wind power is almost nonexistent in the Southeast anyway), but it is still running. The original three turbines may be off, but those were the original experimental units so that hardly proves anything. Maybe it is becuase they went with another model and didn't want to support two different ones.

The only thing they're shutting down now is the coal plants. They have plans to expand their wind and solar profile. Also nuclear. Bellefonte will finally be useful.

Seriously, fuck Greenpeace. by jcr · 2014-07-26 16:45 · Score: 1

They're like the goddamned Westboro Baptist Church, trying to leech publicity from anything that makes the news. They are not, and have never been an environmentalist organization. They're a marketing organization, that sucks up money by guilt peddling.

If you want to help the environment, then donate to a local group in your area, the Sierra Club, Ducks Unlimited, or any of dozens of others.

-jcr

--
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."

Re:Apple no saint with 2 year disposable iPads by jimbo · 2014-07-26 17:52 · Score: 1

I could be wrong but I'm guessing it has to do with age, younger people tend to be more aggressive on getting new stuff. I used to do that too. I've thrown a lot of money out on endless desktop PC upgrades that really made little difference.

As it stands my wife is still perfectly happy with her 2006 MacBook Pro. It's great for Office stuff, GIMP and Firefox and it's still plenty fast. We had to get a new battery for it two years ago though.

I got a new laptop last year but only because I wanted to play Guild Wars, it replaced a six year old one which now has found a new home with a friend.

So this is news now? by Krigl · 2014-07-26 19:40 · Score: 1

Maybe Amazon or some other provider could take a page from some local utilities and let users signal their own preferences with a (surcharged) "clean energy" option.

Meh, I'd like them more, if they started a better trend - ignore Greenpeace altogether. What's next? We're gonna have posts about Westboro Baptist Church's stance on computers, presented as a valid opinion? Fuck you, Jason, your submission is lamer than your hockey mask.

--
Troll 2.0 Fear my asocial networking!

Re:GREENPEACE ARE DISHONEST, AS WELL AS INCOMPETEN by AmiMoJo · 2014-07-26 23:00 · Score: 1

You didn't read their report, did you? They ranked Dell very slightly higher because although their CO2 emissions at the time were a little higher, they were making a credible effort to increase clean renewable energy use. Greenpeace give points for making an effort to improve.

Any electrical engineers there? HVAC engineers? POWERPLANT engineers?

Why yes, actually. You really didn't read that report, did you?

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC

Also... by kuzb · 2014-07-26 23:46 · Score: 1

...Apple has made a commitment to force you to pay a massive premium for using their products. It's great that they're doing this, but they're forcing the consumer to pay for it, then they turn around and try to act like they're awesome.

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BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.

Surcharges for renewable energy are a crock by davidannis · 2014-07-27 01:21 · Score: 1

Here in Michigan, where the law says utilities must produce 10% of electricity from renewable sources by 2015 (a low standard compared to other states) I am constantly offered an opportunity to pay extra for my energy to be renewable. Since the utilities are ramping up to the 10% minimum anyway they'll produce no more renewable energy if I pay the premium and no less if I don't. They produced about 4% from renewable sources in 2013. Hence, all the surcharges are is a marketing gimmick and all subscribing does is allow them to sell me the same power at a higher profit margin.

Disappointing. by tenco · 2014-07-27 01:48 · Score: 1

Expected article on huge fire in south america, which ignites more natural gas and coal deposits than it should, hinting at larger deposits than previously expected.

Left disappointed.

Ironic product name hurts Amazon rain forrest... by jtara · 2014-07-27 05:25 · Score: 1

Calling this product "Amazon Fire" was just wrong, IMO. They were asking for it.

There's an unintended secondary consequence of the name itself, aside from any issues related to the production of the product. The product buzz, has, unfortunately, hijacked the search term "Amazon fire", which may result in lower awareness of and difficultly getting information about, wait for it....

Amazon fires

This will get just information about the phone.

You know, fires in the Amazon rain forrest. A major problem. Now you have to search for:

"fires in the Amazon"

Supreme Irony, Greenpeace accuse Amazon over Coal. by lucien86 · 2014-07-27 06:09 · Score: 1

This has to be a joke surely. Over the last ~40 years almost no one in the world has done more to promote the burning of coal than Greenpeace. The campaign against nuclear power has been the best thing the coal and oil industries have ever had, saving a global industry on the brink of failure. A figure calculated from WHO and other statistics is that Coal is some 1,000 to 10,000 times more dangerous than nuclear per unit of energy produced and that adds up to some 5 to 10 million extra people killed (indirectly) by the anti-nuclear campaign globally since the mid 1970's. Greenpeace were and are a big part of that campaign, Amazon should be pointing the figure at them...

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Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..

All that really matters is...what? by BenderTheRobot · 2014-07-27 06:14 · Score: 0

That is a dumb standard. You should do what someone says, or not, depending on whether their argument makes sense. That they are hypocrites is irrelevant. In this case, Greenpeace's argument is silly.

So then should you should ignore the silly argument process?

That is neither sensible nor reasonable. The moral compass greenies and environ-wackos use to elevate their superiority and shame others is particularly foolish. To disregard it is ignorant.

When greenies practice hypocrisy is absolutely relevant. It is very easy to promote ideas that make sense in an unreasonable context. As a result their proposal is not sensible.

Electricity during the day is not fungible with electricity at night. It is very difficult if not impossible practically to store power plant-hours worth of electricity.

Clean vehicles are not equivalent to other Motor vehicles (especially aircraft) that operate with fossil fuels.

Mr Greenpeace, you and others committed to saving the planet should only use resources that utilize renewable energy sources.

To say ostensibly by one's actions, "I pledge to save the planet only when it's convenient." deserves a reply of STFU

It's about politics. Greenies and environ-wackos hypocrisy must not be deemed irrelevant, especially "for the greater good".

Controlling "the others" is what it's about. Never forget that.

At last.... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-27 07:53 · Score: 0

At last, something to like about Amazon. They're not letting Green Fascism bully them around.

Greenpeace needs to expend its energies getting it's jet-set members to go green leave everyone else along.

Like most? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-27 07:57 · Score: 0

You give one example, and then decide it enough to declare millions - actually billions - assholes?

Fuck you.

Re:GREENPEACE ARE DISHONEST, AS WELL AS INCOMPETEN by bingoUV · 2014-07-27 23:11 · Score: 1

Overhead the GP is talking about is probably the operating systems that those 30 virtual machines are running, which is a huge duplication of effort.

Big enough infrastructure probably means that (say) the virtual machines are running web servers - you could run just one big web server on an operating system instead of 30 operating systems AND 30 web servers.

And failover advantages of virtualization don't apply to this because even such big web servers should be run in a cluster - as the assumption of "big enough" infrastructure probably enables.

And power saving by consolidating services and switching off servers in low load periods is not really an argument because during low load periods some of the blades running some web servers could be shut down.

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Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.

"I only buy clean energy" is pure hypocrisy. by GuB-42 · 2014-07-28 06:12 · Score: 1

Imagine I am a provider of electricity, 20% of my energy comes from clean sources, 80% from dirty sources.
I supply factories, datacenters, homes, etc... they all get the same electricity, after all, there is no such thing as clean electrons and dirty electrons. Now let say one of my client (that buys 6% of my production) says "I want 100% clean energy", what will I do ?
Simple : I don't change anything in the way I produce electricity, I just say "OK, you now have 100% clean energy" and my other client now get 85% dirty energy.

If it is too obvious, there is always the option of splitting my company into two : one that only makes clean electricity, the other does does almost only dirty electricity. "Green" clients buy from my clean branch and others buy from my dirty branch, and if there is an excess of clean electricity, it is bought by my dirty branch.

Re:GREENPEACE ARE DISHONEST, AS WELL AS INCOMPETEN by rubycodez · 2014-07-28 13:23 · Score: 1

completely wrong, big infrastructure will have different groups of web servers with queries sent to them by proxies that split on context root and other criteria, and those groups will deal with various middleware and database servers. Failover advantages of virtualization are used at middleware and database tiers, and templating and replication advantages of virtualization are used at all levels.

Re:GREENPEACE ARE DISHONEST, AS WELL AS INCOMPETEN by bingoUV · 2014-07-28 17:22 · Score: 1

You say "completely wrong", but not provide any argument against any of my statements.

Failover is used, but cluster solved it already, 30 years ago. You make no argument against any statement of mine in this context.

Overhead of multiple operating systems is well known. You make no argument against any statement of mine in this context either.

Power saving is something I added extra, but I don't see any argument from you about it either.

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Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.

My oh my... You have got to teach me that trick. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-29 05:36 · Score: 0

So... Greenpeace is professing to know where each electron in the grid comes from. They should share that information on how to do it with all of us. Alas... it would seem that they can't do their own research before inserting foot in mouth. iCloud is powered by both Microsoft and Amazon equally http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/02/icloud_runs_on_microsoft_azure_and_amazon/

Silly twerps... foot in mouth is no good.

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Greenpeace: Amazon Fire Burns More Coal and Gas Than It Should

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