There is something that OG and eve forums could do RIGHT NOW that would save a bit of energy.

The forums currently appear as black text on a white background, which means that our computers are burning up a lot of power just keeping the background white. If this was switched around so that we saw white text on a black background, it would save some power.

Now I'm not suggesting that it would save vast amounts of power, but it would save some, enough maybe to give those of us with laptop computers a bit more time on our batteries anyway.

Also, according to my optometrist, it would be better for our eyes. Our eyes really aren't made for staring into a bright white light for a long time. White text on black (remember WordPerfect anyone?) would be gentler on the eyes.

I was pondering the subject earlier today. I'm beginning to think energy consumption and oil prices aren't that big of a deal. I offer a few anecdotal observations to support my hypothesis. When you're driving tomorrow accelerate slowly from red lights and see how many cars beside and in front of you leave you in their dust. Drive a few mph below the posted speed limit and check for the same thing. Guesstimate how many of those people leaving you don't have a problem with paying $4.00/gallon for gas, obviously not many or you'd be keeping up with them. A little late in the season but how many school buses have you noticed conserving fuel? Check out how your county employees are spending your tax dollars as a result of their driving habits. How much energy is required to produce a pack of cigarettes? Double whammy! In a crowded parking lot see how many people will sit with their cars idling waiting 10 minutes for a space (and blocking traffic) when they could be parked and walk to the store in 3 minutes (and might get some benefit from the exertion - definitely help lower my blood pressure). Starting tonight I'm going to do a little extra to save the planet, I'm going to turn off my Daffy Duck night light. If I wake up dead in the morning because the boogey man got out of the closet I'm going to be real PO'd. Tomorrow I'm not going to have any beans and hopefully help out by not adding any undue burden on the environment with trying to get rid of any methane gas.

Dirt

LOL. I hear you dirt, I am vegan, meaning I don't eat any meat or dairy and that is supposedly supposed to be wonderful for the planet. But does that take into account all the methane that all those beans produce? I'd say there's probably a big hole in the ozone layer above my house.
And yes, all our efforts do seem pretty futile when I consider that everyone else I know and see are just ledfooting it all over the country and burning lights like there is no tomorrow.

quote:

Originally posted by ctdahle:
There is something that OG and eve forums could do RIGHT NOW that would save a bit of energy.

The forums currently appear as black text on a white background, which means that our computers are burning up a lot of power just keeping the background white. If this was switched around so that we saw white text on a black background, it would save some power.

Now I'm not suggesting that it would save vast amounts of power, but it would save some, enough maybe to give those of us with laptop computers a bit more time on our batteries anyway.

I'm also wondering why OG/Eve doesn't set limitations for picture sizes posted on the forum? I've wondered that, actually, for a long time. Many forums specifically limit the size (pixels) of posted pictures. It saves them bandwith (and energy I imagine) and in line w/what you suggested ctdahle, it'd save those folks on dial up - using battery-charged laptops - time and energy to download a picture on a thread...or several pictures if those pictures weren't so gigantic! Many posters still don't know how to downsize their pictures, and the sad fact is, they don't even have to know. They just have to let their online album do it for them!

I feel like a broken record, but everytime I click on a thread or a post that's got a picture which scrolls off my 20" screen, I roll my eyes and sigh out loud and really feel for dialuppers. I can't imagine the time and energy they have to waste while waiting for some ginormous, monitor-filling picture to load.

Since pleas to the contrary don't seem to work, I think OG ought to put it in their "by-laws" or "rules" or whatever that "only pictures of X pixels can be loaded on/in a post". Is that, like, rocket science or something?

I actually did a little research and found a couple of people who have compared power consumption of monitors when the computer is set up to display white text on black compared to the conventional black on white.

There is actually a power savings significant enough to add a quarter or more to the charge life of a laptop.

Dirt, I have been pretty diligent lately about slowing the heck down, sauntering away when the light changes, and coasting to a stop sign in a more leisurely fashion, and I have noticed that very few people are passing me. Traffic seems to be quite content to drive pretty slowly. But I live in one of those rural areas where we all have really long commutes and we are really slammed by high fuel costs.

Our schools are all looking a going to a four day school week to cut their transportation fuel costs.

BTW: Ctdahale, I don't know if any of your broswers have the capability, but in Firefox I can change the colors of text, background, link, visited link, etc. and opt out of viewing a page in its original formatted colors. So, right now, I'm viewing OG in black.

(Anything like Men In Black? Because I do see references to very large bugs in other threads. )

Yup, gardenz nailed it. You can usually set you computer to view most sites the way you want to see them depending on your main operating system. I like the pale blue hues myself.

I did look at changing the settings (firefox on windows 2000 is better than ie on vista for this) to make it white on black, and it works reasonably well, but a lot of the hyperlink icons disappear, which is problematic because I also let my kids use the computer. The sites for Thomas the Tank Engine and Dora the Explorer become unreadable!

The savings, particulary on laptops, is almost unmeasurable. Over 2/3rds of the power consumed by a LCD display is used for the backlighting, and dimming your screen (it's Function F8 on my laptop) actually has a very measurable impact on power consumption and battery life.

Black does save on CRT monitors, but those are becoming fewer and fewer (side note: the cheapest TVs you see in WalMart, etc are probably made with tubes that where salvaged from old computer CRTs...).

Back when LCDs where becoming common but not yet standard you could make a business case it was cheaper to convert to LCDs despite their higher initial costs based on both their direct energy consumption (LCDs use a fraction of the watts), and their indirect consumption (less money spent during the summer on air conditioning). My experience is that LCDs are also much less prone to failure both new out of the box and a few years down the road...most LCDs now get replaced for technological obsolence (people want a 21" monitor instead of a 17"...) rather then being worn out and the quality of the image is degrading like a few year old CRT.

The next big increase in energy savings will come with further advances in "e-paper" technology that allows pixels to be set once and no more power be used until that pixel changes again.