I suggest again that you read the views and writings of some of those organisations listed
I doubt they'll give a rational reason why killing animals is bad. All they offer is a simple appeal to emotions. We hate to see animals suffer because of our mirror neurons. Seeing someone suffer, makes us feel the pain, and that's unpleasant, so we try to stop it.
There is no absolute good or bad. The question whether something is absolutely good is therefore pointless.
Why is "minimization of exploitation" good ? And even if we assume it's good, it still doesn't tell us much. For instance, we could minimize the exploitation of whales by killing every single one them, therefore reducing the sum of their future exploitation to zero. If we do it swiftly, they won't even suffer. They're going to all die anyway, and natural deaths aren't usually pretty.
My netbook also has an ethernet port, 3 USB ports, and a slot for an SD card. I use all of those on a regular basis.
I use it for programming, and for that purpose, it works a lot better than a tablet. It's also much easier to carry around in a back pack than a full size laptop, while offering almost the same usability.
Like I said, feel free to come up with a better rational reason. After all, without some axioms ("my survival is good for me"), it's impossible to create any meaningful rational framework at all.
I wouldn't say it was rationally important. It's just the fundamental thing that drives all living species, including determining every action they take (directly or indirectly). In other words, if you didn't think your survival mattered, you might as well end it right now.
Your careful and informed rational choice is still based on primitive emotions that you can't control.
What's the rational reason killing is bad in the first place ? I can only think of one: killing is bad if it negatively affects your own survival. Feel free to come up with others (just make sure they are rational).
Power supplies that provide 90+% efficiency at 20% of their max rated load already exist. On the other hand, there are also still power supplies with only 75% efficiency at the optimal load.
For weight concerns I agree that having different power levels would be a great idea. You don't even need different plugs, if you have smart power supply that can communicate with the device. That way, you can still use a 240W brick to power a 20W device, but not the other way around. Or a smaller brick could still be used to power a big laptop in an emergency, but force it into a lower power level.
Hmm... I have a hard time imagining replacing 30-ton transport trucks with a flimsy tricycle, so unless you adopt a dual road system, you'll be stuck with mixed traffic.
Which has more than likely done exactly the same thing
I see laptops getting cheaper and better every year. Apparently, competition is still working around here. My last printer that I recently bought (for less than the price of a toner cartridge of the previous one) still had a USB cable, and my SMS rate has not gone up.
Maybe, but the same pissing contest could also be done with something a bit more useful. For instance a competition could be organized where the requirements include that the vehicle has been approved to drive on public roads and freeways.
If you don't have enough power supplies, you can buy an extra one. Once there is a standard, generic power supplies should be cheap enough that laptop + power supply will cost you about the same as they do now with the vendor including a proprietary one.
It would be stupid if the standard would exclude 50W power supply options, but there's no reason it should. It's certainly possible to standardize a range of different sizes and power levels, and provide a mechanism where an underpowered brick would simply refuse to work, instead of overheating.
Of course, if you really try, you can come up with a botched standard, and maybe that's what they're doing. On the other hand, it could simply avoid all the problems you mention.
USB also has 4 pins, and I wouldn't call it fragile on both ends. In fact, I cannot remember a single time where the USB connector was the problem.
Most power supplies already have a digital controller inside, so the incremental cost to add some extra logic for the protocol is negligible.
What extra safety equipment ? Higher wattage needs some beefier components, but the price difference is minimal. Safety is mostly determined by providing enough insulation to the mains voltage, which doesn't depend on the wattage.
I could imagine that efficiency will improve. Right now, a laptop manufacturer that includes their own power brick has not much incentive to make it really efficient. It's easier just to make a bigger one with a cheaper design.
With a standard connector, there will be 3rd party vendors that offer standard bricks, and some vendors will aim for the highest efficiency as a selling point.
That's what computers are for. To augment the brain. They are growing in capability that will eclipse our puny biologically driven brains pretty soon. Maybe not as soon as Ray Kurzweil thinks, but probably within the next 100 year for sure.
Lol. In that case, we'll put these computers in a data center with a high bandwidth link to the content server next to it. No need for our puny brains with their tiny little bandwidths to get involved at all.
Slashdot Mirror
The next step is to block encrypted data, unless the server is on an approved white list (banks, big e-mail providers, etc)
I doubt they'll give a rational reason why killing animals is bad. All they offer is a simple appeal to emotions. We hate to see animals suffer because of our mirror neurons. Seeing someone suffer, makes us feel the pain, and that's unpleasant, so we try to stop it.
There is no absolute good or bad. The question whether something is absolutely good is therefore pointless.
Why is "minimization of exploitation" good ? And even if we assume it's good, it still doesn't tell us much. For instance, we could minimize the exploitation of whales by killing every single one them, therefore reducing the sum of their future exploitation to zero. If we do it swiftly, they won't even suffer.
They're going to all die anyway, and natural deaths aren't usually pretty.
My netbook also has an ethernet port, 3 USB ports, and a slot for an SD card. I use all of those on a regular basis.
I use it for programming, and for that purpose, it works a lot better than a tablet. It's also much easier to carry around in a back pack than a full size laptop, while offering almost the same usability.
Like I said, feel free to come up with a better rational reason. After all, without some axioms ("my survival is good for me"), it's impossible to create any meaningful rational framework at all.
I wouldn't say it was rationally important. It's just the fundamental thing that drives all living species, including determining every action they take (directly or indirectly). In other words, if you didn't think your survival mattered, you might as well end it right now.
Your careful and informed rational choice is still based on primitive emotions that you can't control.
What's the rational reason killing is bad in the first place ? I can only think of one: killing is bad if it negatively affects your own survival. Feel free to come up with others (just make sure they are rational).
Evolution. Genes that do not maximize chances of survival get replaced by genes that do.
Any animals kills if it helps its own survival. We are no exception. The question if this is okay is pointless.
I suppose you never clean anything either. Imagine torturing those poor bacteria with soap.
If you don't mind pedaling a little bit, you can already buy one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velomobile
Power supplies that provide 90+% efficiency at 20% of their max rated load already exist. On the other hand, there are also still power supplies with only 75% efficiency at the optimal load.
For weight concerns I agree that having different power levels would be a great idea. You don't even need different plugs, if you have smart power supply that can communicate with the device. That way, you can still use a 240W brick to power a 20W device, but not the other way around. Or a smaller brick could still be used to power a big laptop in an emergency, but force it into a lower power level.
Hmm... I have a hard time imagining replacing 30-ton transport trucks with a flimsy tricycle, so unless you adopt a dual road system, you'll be stuck with mixed traffic.
I see laptops getting cheaper and better every year. Apparently, competition is still working around here. My last printer that I recently bought (for less than the price of a toner cartridge of the previous one) still had a USB cable, and my SMS rate has not gone up.
Maybe, but the same pissing contest could also be done with something a bit more useful. For instance a competition could be organized where the requirements include that the vehicle has been approved to drive on public roads and freeways.
Not likely, for the same reason the vendor doesn't just add $20 to the price of the original laptop: I'll just buy a competing brand.
Exactly. Instead of improving useless 'concept cars', effort would be better invested in producing something that could actually be useful.
If you don't have enough power supplies, you can buy an extra one. Once there is a standard, generic power supplies should be cheap enough that laptop + power supply will cost you about the same as they do now with the vendor including a proprietary one.
It would be stupid if the standard would exclude 50W power supply options, but there's no reason it should. It's certainly possible to standardize a range of different sizes and power levels, and provide a mechanism where an underpowered brick would simply refuse to work, instead of overheating.
Of course, if you really try, you can come up with a botched standard, and maybe that's what they're doing. On the other hand, it could simply avoid all the problems you mention.
USB also has 4 pins, and I wouldn't call it fragile on both ends. In fact, I cannot remember a single time where the USB connector was the problem.
Most power supplies already have a digital controller inside, so the incremental cost to add some extra logic for the protocol is negligible.
If the laptop can be $20 cheaper without a power supply, while I still have 3 functional bricks at home from previous laptops ? Sure.
What extra safety equipment ? Higher wattage needs some beefier components, but the price difference is minimal. Safety is mostly determined by providing enough insulation to the mains voltage, which doesn't depend on the wattage.
I could imagine that efficiency will improve. Right now, a laptop manufacturer that includes their own power brick has not much incentive to make it really efficient. It's easier just to make a bigger one with a cheaper design.
With a standard connector, there will be 3rd party vendors that offer standard bricks, and some vendors will aim for the highest efficiency as a selling point.
A standard connector and voltage, and a choice between a small number of different power levels would solve that.
Lol. In that case, we'll put these computers in a data center with a high bandwidth link to the content server next to it. No need for our puny brains with their tiny little bandwidths to get involved at all.