Month: January 2007

iTunes = Green and Vista = Pollution?

- Adam Clare 6 Comments

Two interesting takes on software popped up on the interweb recently. I find it interesting the potential that using software has for reducing pollution thanks to digitization.

First, we have a blogger arguing that iTunes saves the environment because less people are buying CDs (and the CDs don’t need to be shipped).
“Steve Jobs also announced that Apple is currently selling 5,000,000 songs per day. This is about 416,000 CD’s per day. By buying your music from the Apple Store, you are helping to prevent a stack of CD’s 2.6 miles high from having to be manufactured PER DAY.”

Apple uses DRM (Digital Rights Management, which is bad), and so does Microsoft Vista. Vista, the new windows, will harm the environment thanks to DRM (see why it’s bad?).
“There will be thousands of tonnes of dumped monitors, video cards, and whole computers that are perfectly capable of running Vista — except for the fact they lack the paranoid lock down mechanisms Vista forces you to use. That’s an offensive cost to the environment. Future archaeologists will be able to identify a “Vista Upgrade Layer” when they go through our landfill sites”

Be lazy and don’t upgrade to the awful Windows Vista.

Narcolepsy Insomnia Link

- Agasel 2 Comments

Can’t sleep? Take heart in a recent study of insomnia: researchers at Actelion Pharmaceuticals found that blocking brain receptors to the blood peptide orexin promoted sleep in rats, dogs and humans, according to a paper in the online issue of Nature Medicine.

In an ironic link, orexin is absent in the brains of people who have narcolepsy, the disorder that causes some people to fall asleep.

Although the company doing the research is a pharmaceutical company (which normally raises red flags as to the reliability of the results), more studies may be done to analyze the quality of sleep that the subjects experienced.

Organization to Help Green PCs

- Adam Clare

The Green Advisory Service has set out to help PC firms do less environmental damage. In the UK a PC left on overnight can cost upwards of £53 in electricity. The cost of running a PC is not cheap for the pocketbook or for the environment and this is what the Green Advisory Service will help change.

“Organisations are increasingly focused on their environmental profile and are beginning to recognise the reputation and cost advantages of a green approach,” said Heidi-Lynn Mitchell, product services director for Computacenter.

This is partly thanks to a major European Union directive – The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive (WEEE).”

Energy Storage

- Cam Proctor 2 Comments

IceCycle is a neat idea of storing energy at off peak times to use during peak periods. I believe Energy storage technology goes hand in hand with renewables. To bad nobody has a lead on storing heat energy. I would love a device that cools my house in the summer and stores that heat for the winter. See the article here.

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