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"Don't do things that harm the biosphere" and "maximize the lifespans of hardware components" seem to be in conflict with each other. Post 2008, CPU typical us

"Don't do things that harm the biosphere" and "maximize the lifespans of hardware components" seem to be in conflict with each other. Post 2008, CPU typical use efficiency per Watt has doubled every 1.5 years [1]. This means that your decade old machine is probably burning a lot of coal and dumping heavy metals into the atmosphere. Doesn't sound too green to me. [1] https://www.koomey.com/post/153838038643 https://www.koomey.com/post/153838038643

JoshCole 4y ago
A lot of the principles they give are of the in dying you shall die variety of errors. Learning is counterintuitive. There are a lot of times in learning where getting what you want means intentionally getting what you don't want. As you've said, though with different words, their second principle doesn't respect that. It is near-term thinking masquerading as a long-term concept; myopia, not wisdom. At the root of the error in short term thinking is pride. You think you know, but you don't know - not as you ought to know. So you stay trapped in a local minima. That local minima comes with unforced error. Which means a potential stochastic chance for extinction. Geometric probability distributions drives this to certainty. So in dying you die forever. Notice - nature doesn't optimize for longevity. Thus, it gains it. The biospheres actual version of what they are trying to get at is absurdly different. Remember I said learning was counterintuitive? The actual solution was to "eat shit" and "die". If they were really taking advice from permaculture the idea of eating our own shit would have taken center stage. Manure isn't exactly an unfamiliar concept in that world. It is foundational. Literally, not figuratively, but literally. It is the dirt.
criddell 4y ago
Maybe they should say optimize rather than maximize, but then it's pretty hard for me as a consumer to know when it makes sense to upgrade.
mikepurvis 4y ago
I think to truly advance this discussion in good faith (as opposed to just as a general snow against e-waste concerns), you have to look at the full lifespan story. Like, yeah, that computer that's 10 years old maybe shouldn't be running any more, but do the gains associated with annual replacement justify the production and e-waste cost of all the intermediate ones? What about a 2- or 3-year replacement cadence? How does the calculus change if the computer is being operated somewhere where it's cold most of the year and so the "waste" heat still has a useful function? How does it change if throwing out the computer also means throwing out a battery and screen, as is the case for laptops and phones? Does the extra mass of a tower pay for itself in terms of longer lifespan as people upgrade those systems piecemeal?
efsavage 4y ago
For many devices (e.g. a power tool, or part of a vehicle) making a chip that lasts for many years would be more efficient than replacing it with one that drew less power but required a large batch of power to manufacture, plus the cost to dispose of the old one. Also, there are many hardware components besides CPUs where durability and repurposability would far outweigh operating efficiency.
pmoriarty 4y ago
On the other hand, creating a new computer and throwing out the old might be a lot more harmful to the environment than just continuing to use the old computer.
simonh 4y ago
There's going to be break even point where it's worth doing the replacement. Manufacturing a modern laptop produces around 360 kg of CO2, while energy utilisation operating it for 8 hours a day for a year produces roughly 15 kg of CO2. So in CO2 terms manufacturing costs dominate massively over operating costs. Even if you run the computer for 10 years the energy consumption comes to less than half of the manufacturing footprint. That's for modern laptops though, so I suppose if a 10 year old computer uses vastly more energy its possible it's energy consumption dominates over it's manufacturing footprint in a much shorter period. https://circularcomputing.com/news/carbon-footprint-laptop/#:~:text=Through%20our%20research%20of%20230,bed%20house%20with%20CO2%20equivalent https://circularcomputing.com/news/carbon-footprint-laptop/#....
- deleted 4y ago
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- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Largely this. The older laptop isn't likely to draw much more power. It will run far slower, however, most especially if it utilises spinning rust rather than SSD. But net draw will probably be 15--45 watts or so at load. Check your power unit rating. For many tasks ... this doesn't matter. At the shell, I rarely notice the difference between running commands on a seven-year-old Android system vs. a ... somewhat similarly-aged iMac, despite the fact that the latter is literally an order of magnitude faster. There's simply not enough load on either system to make a difference between a command completing in 0.01s vs. 0.1s, both being below my perception threshold. I do see the difference when, say, prodcessing larger JSON archives with jq, but that's really the only major differenct for direct interactive use. A heavily-loaded server is of course a different matter. As is running a full-fledged GUI desktop browser (this makes older desktop bend and break, even with only 2--3 tabs open). The other big difference is in going from classic desktop/laptop x86 architectures to low-power ARM or RISC-V, which can run on very minimal power --- most < 15 watts, some considerably less than this. Performance will vary, and many of these systems are 32 bit rather than 64 (which has major impacts on data and computational throughput), some lack maths coprocessors (which slows crypto). But again, the systems themselves are often surprisingly capable, with a verylow power budget.
floren 4y ago
I could run my 38 year old Macintosh off solar panels if I wanted to. In contrast, I'm not aware of any currently-produced computers made from completely-recycled materials, so any new hardware you buy will have components made of materials dug out of the earth & processed.
pantalaimon 4y ago
But power use per CPU has increased in general.
tiagod 4y ago
If you bought a raspberry pi, a solar panel, controller and a lead acid battery and maintained them well, wouldn't it be more efficient to use the compute (and the other stuff) until it stops working permanently?
zekrioca 4y ago
It is interesting to think about energy efficiency, but we should also consider carbon efficiency, which often conflicts with energy efficiency. For instance, if this old machine is connected to a solar panel, then its operational emissions will be 0 gCO2eq/kWh (grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour of electricity) if its consumption is kept lower than the solar generation. If it is connected to a greener grid like CAISO, its emissions will be mostly green (~ 0 gCOeq/kWh) during afternoons (~ 12-6pm). Sure, at browner times (6pm - 6am), this old machine should be turned off (unless there is wind coming to the rescue). But at greener times, it should use the excess energy that comes from renewables and that can't be stored to be useful elsewhere.

JoshCole 4y ago

A lot of the principles they give are of the in dying you shall die variety of errors. Learning is counterintuitive. There are a lot of times in learning where getting what you want means intentionally getting what you don't want. As you've said, though with different words, their second principle doesn't respect that. It is near-term thinking masquerading as a long-term concept; myopia, not wisdom. At the root of the error in short term thinking is pride. You think you know, but you don't know - not as you ought to know. So you stay trapped in a local minima. That local minima comes with unforced error. Which means a potential stochastic chance for extinction. Geometric probability distributions drives this to certainty. So in dying you die forever. Notice - nature doesn't optimize for longevity. Thus, it gains it. The biospheres actual version of what they are trying to get at is absurdly different. Remember I said learning was counterintuitive? The actual solution was to "eat shit" and "die". If they were really taking advice from permaculture the idea of eating our own shit would have taken center stage. Manure isn't exactly an unfamiliar concept in that world. It is foundational. Literally, not figuratively, but literally. It is the dirt.

criddell 4y ago

Maybe they should say optimize rather than maximize, but then it's pretty hard for me as a consumer to know when it makes sense to upgrade.

mikepurvis 4y ago

I think to truly advance this discussion in good faith (as opposed to just as a general snow against e-waste concerns), you have to look at the full lifespan story. Like, yeah, that computer that's 10 years old maybe shouldn't be running any more, but do the gains associated with annual replacement justify the production and e-waste cost of all the intermediate ones? What about a 2- or 3-year replacement cadence? How does the calculus change if the computer is being operated somewhere where it's cold most of the year and so the "waste" heat still has a useful function? How does it change if throwing out the computer also means throwing out a battery and screen, as is the case for laptops and phones? Does the extra mass of a tower pay for itself in terms of longer lifespan as people upgrade those systems piecemeal?

efsavage 4y ago

For many devices (e.g. a power tool, or part of a vehicle) making a chip that lasts for many years would be more efficient than replacing it with one that drew less power but required a large batch of power to manufacture, plus the cost to dispose of the old one. Also, there are many hardware components besides CPUs where durability and repurposability would far outweigh operating efficiency.

pmoriarty 4y ago

On the other hand, creating a new computer and throwing out the old might be a lot more harmful to the environment than just continuing to use the old computer.

simonh 4y ago

There's going to be break even point where it's worth doing the replacement. Manufacturing a modern laptop produces around 360 kg of CO2, while energy utilisation operating it for 8 hours a day for a year produces roughly 15 kg of CO2. So in CO2 terms manufacturing costs dominate massively over operating costs. Even if you run the computer for 10 years the energy consumption comes to less than half of the manufacturing footprint. That's for modern laptops though, so I suppose if a 10 year old computer uses vastly more energy its possible it's energy consumption dominates over it's manufacturing footprint in a much shorter period. https://circularcomputing.com/news/carbon-footprint-laptop/#:~:text=Through%20our%20research%20of%20230,bed%20house%20with%20CO2%20equivalent https://circularcomputing.com/news/carbon-footprint-laptop/#....

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dredmorbius 4y ago
Largely this. The older laptop isn't likely to draw much more power. It will run far slower, however, most especially if it utilises spinning rust rather than SSD. But net draw will probably be 15--45 watts or so at load. Check your power unit rating. For many tasks ... this doesn't matter. At the shell, I rarely notice the difference between running commands on a seven-year-old Android system vs. a ... somewhat similarly-aged iMac, despite the fact that the latter is literally an order of magnitude faster. There's simply not enough load on either system to make a difference between a command completing in 0.01s vs. 0.1s, both being below my perception threshold. I do see the difference when, say, prodcessing larger JSON archives with jq, but that's really the only major differenct for direct interactive use. A heavily-loaded server is of course a different matter. As is running a full-fledged GUI desktop browser (this makes older desktop bend and break, even with only 2--3 tabs open). The other big difference is in going from classic desktop/laptop x86 architectures to low-power ARM or RISC-V, which can run on very minimal power --- most < 15 watts, some considerably less than this. Performance will vary, and many of these systems are 32 bit rather than 64 (which has major impacts on data and computational throughput), some lack maths coprocessors (which slows crypto). But again, the systems themselves are often surprisingly capable, with a verylow power budget.

floren 4y ago

I could run my 38 year old Macintosh off solar panels if I wanted to. In contrast, I'm not aware of any currently-produced computers made from completely-recycled materials, so any new hardware you buy will have components made of materials dug out of the earth & processed.

pantalaimon 4y ago

But power use per CPU has increased in general.

tiagod 4y ago

If you bought a raspberry pi, a solar panel, controller and a lead acid battery and maintained them well, wouldn't it be more efficient to use the compute (and the other stuff) until it stops working permanently?

zekrioca 4y ago

It is interesting to think about energy efficiency, but we should also consider carbon efficiency, which often conflicts with energy efficiency. For instance, if this old machine is connected to a solar panel, then its operational emissions will be 0 gCO2eq/kWh (grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour of electricity) if its consumption is kept lower than the solar generation. If it is connected to a greener grid like CAISO, its emissions will be mostly green (~ 0 gCOeq/kWh) during afternoons (~ 12-6pm). Sure, at browner times (6pm - 6am), this old machine should be turned off (unless there is wind coming to the rescue). But at greener times, it should use the excess energy that comes from renewables and that can't be stored to be useful elsewhere.