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Hey CO2Stats - A couple questions for you: How do you account for different monitor sizes, types and brands and poor wasteful electricity in older buildings?

by colvt 18y ago

Hey CO2Stats - A couple questions for you: How do you account for different monitor sizes, types and brands and poor wasteful electricity in older buildings? Thanks!

fluidrazor 18y ago
There is no way they could account for the types and brands of the monitor, the efficiency of the individual computers, etc. They also cannot make an accurate assumption about where the power is coming from because there is such a thing as an electric grid, which draws power from a variety of sources. Furthermore, the calculations to determine what goes in to processing a page have to be almost comical. For example, if it was Google, one search request can take thousands of machines, not to mention all the crawling required to produce those pages. Good luck getting that information. There are so many holes that need to be filled here that their calculations cannot even be remotely accurate. CO2Stats is bogus. I hope they don't charge anybody, because that would be fraud. Perhaps they should publish their algorithm, to provide a little transparency and openness.
- Alex3917 18y ago
  You ever notice that whenever you walk into a 7/11 at 2am there's always at least one carton of orange juice there waiting for you, even if you've never been there before? I think you're missing the forest for the trees, so to speak.
  - fluidrazor 18y ago
    I understand what they are trying to do. But the sheer inaccuracy of what they provide clearly negates the supposed benefits. Would you donate to a charity that mismanaged or wasted most of your money, if only just because donating to charities is good? Or wouldn't that mismanagement negate most of what is good about donating to that particular charity. I'm sure the people behind CO2Stats are not stupid. So they must be aware of the shortcomings and limitations of their service. Yet they continue to run the service anyways, calling it accurate. That is dishonest. (and no, questioning CO2Stats does not make me a conspiracy theorist)
    - Alex3917 18y ago
      "But the sheer inaccuracy of what they provide clearly negates the supposed benefits." How? Do you understand what it is that they do?
      - fluidrazor 18y ago
        People pay them to offset the carbon footprint of their site. Except if they are paying them an amount based on an inaccurately calculated footprint, that's a problem. If you wish to continue drinking the Kool-Aid, go ahead! It sure is tasty! But don't blame me when your teeth fall out.
        lliiffee 18y ago
        Problems like this need to be solved. That is, the real world demands that we estimate things that cannot be estimated reliably. To take a less controversial example than global warming, consider the risk of avian flu. Clearly, we cannot get a reasonable quantitative estimate of the chance of a flu epidemic, or how many people it would kill, etc. Nevertheless, we are forced to decide what preparations (if any) to make anyway. Just because the problem is hard, doesn't mean it isn't worth attempting. I see no problem with what they are doing, as long as they are honest about the uncertainty in the estimates they hand to you.
        fluidrazor 18y ago
        Putting the global warming debate aside, I totally agree with you. However, I don't see them being transparent. Furthermore, I think given the complexity of determining what they claim, the simplicity of their model is almost certainly not adequate. I like your Avian Flu example. I think in that case, we would both agree that there is a point at which preparations for such an event would be almost useless when there is a certain lack of information, when what we do know and what we don't know is so muddled that we are not even sure what direction to take. Obviously doctors and scientists are not blind here and know generally what direction to take in their preparations, just not to what scale. What I am arguing in terms of CO2Stats here is that the likely inaccuracy of their calculations just about voids what they are offering because you don't know that what you are getting is in the proper proportion or even that it actually helps to the degree that they say it does.

by colvt 18y ago

Hey CO2Stats - A couple questions for you: How do you account for different monitor sizes, types and brands and poor wasteful electricity in older buildings? Thanks!

fluidrazor 18y ago

There is no way they could account for the types and brands of the monitor, the efficiency of the individual computers, etc. They also cannot make an accurate assumption about where the power is coming from because there is such a thing as an electric grid, which draws power from a variety of sources. Furthermore, the calculations to determine what goes in to processing a page have to be almost comical. For example, if it was Google, one search request can take thousands of machines, not to mention all the crawling required to produce those pages. Good luck getting that information. There are so many holes that need to be filled here that their calculations cannot even be remotely accurate. CO2Stats is bogus. I hope they don't charge anybody, because that would be fraud. Perhaps they should publish their algorithm, to provide a little transparency and openness.

Alex3917 18y ago
You ever notice that whenever you walk into a 7/11 at 2am there's always at least one carton of orange juice there waiting for you, even if you've never been there before? I think you're missing the forest for the trees, so to speak.
- fluidrazor 18y ago
  I understand what they are trying to do. But the sheer inaccuracy of what they provide clearly negates the supposed benefits. Would you donate to a charity that mismanaged or wasted most of your money, if only just because donating to charities is good? Or wouldn't that mismanagement negate most of what is good about donating to that particular charity. I'm sure the people behind CO2Stats are not stupid. So they must be aware of the shortcomings and limitations of their service. Yet they continue to run the service anyways, calling it accurate. That is dishonest. (and no, questioning CO2Stats does not make me a conspiracy theorist)
  - Alex3917 18y ago
    "But the sheer inaccuracy of what they provide clearly negates the supposed benefits." How? Do you understand what it is that they do?
    - fluidrazor 18y ago
      People pay them to offset the carbon footprint of their site. Except if they are paying them an amount based on an inaccurately calculated footprint, that's a problem. If you wish to continue drinking the Kool-Aid, go ahead! It sure is tasty! But don't blame me when your teeth fall out.
      - lliiffee 18y ago
        Problems like this need to be solved. That is, the real world demands that we estimate things that cannot be estimated reliably. To take a less controversial example than global warming, consider the risk of avian flu. Clearly, we cannot get a reasonable quantitative estimate of the chance of a flu epidemic, or how many people it would kill, etc. Nevertheless, we are forced to decide what preparations (if any) to make anyway. Just because the problem is hard, doesn't mean it isn't worth attempting. I see no problem with what they are doing, as long as they are honest about the uncertainty in the estimates they hand to you.
        fluidrazor 18y ago
        Putting the global warming debate aside, I totally agree with you. However, I don't see them being transparent. Furthermore, I think given the complexity of determining what they claim, the simplicity of their model is almost certainly not adequate. I like your Avian Flu example. I think in that case, we would both agree that there is a point at which preparations for such an event would be almost useless when there is a certain lack of information, when what we do know and what we don't know is so muddled that we are not even sure what direction to take. Obviously doctors and scientists are not blind here and know generally what direction to take in their preparations, just not to what scale. What I am arguing in terms of CO2Stats here is that the likely inaccuracy of their calculations just about voids what they are offering because you don't know that what you are getting is in the proper proportion or even that it actually helps to the degree that they say it does.