Constant upgrading technologies will be the death of the planet..rant

Bear with me on this rather short short rant. As we start the new year, and I look around at the old computers, monitors, DVD's, VHS, never mind Blu Ray, HD, vs analog.. self cleaning ovens, refrigerators that spit ice, ipods, mepods , u-pods , we all pods... onward and upward, I am overwhelmed.

The first thing that keeps coming to mind, is the waste being created, and landfills that are so full that we export our garbage.

It is so over the top, every time we get a new "must" have technology on the market, it is already out dated, with the upgrade waiting in the wings to come out next year.

At some point, enough is enough and we need to focus all that energy that we are using for "entertainment" on green energies, and stop the need to feed our selves excessive foods, and latest and greatest in high speed anything.

What would a couple of years of focusing on planet stabilization be like, and what it would do for future generations? Just to cut back on the waste we are creating by one bag a week.. putting off that latest and greatest upgrade for a year, investing in a green technology to produce new jobs that go beyond feed and greed.

I wonder if we could?

:rant:

OFF RANT.. Happy New Year everyone

it's just a matter of IF they will be recycled

I read an article about the barges of our castoff crap that is sent to China for recycling, and the villages who are doing this job are now nothing more than a toxic stew.

Just look at the auto industry, for a perfect example of intentional planned obsolescence. As little as 20 years ago, people could actually work on their cars THEMSELVES and save themselves money on cost of upkeep. But, with the computer chips installed you are now required to go to the dealership or some other mechanic that has the tools to diagnose (at a HEFTY price) what the problem is, and then pay (usually) bigger prices to have that problem fixed.

People are programmed to *need* the latest toy, the latest piece of plastic, because there is no REAL competition left to take on the ipods, or microsoft. Government deregulation, and lobbying by these companies has effectively killed that.

Where's your patriotism to the country and loyalty to our financial overlords?

No more TV for us...

tightening their budgets and just reigning in the spending, I really wonder if this "upgrade" to hd will be all that? frankly, I think it will be dead on arrival.

How in hell can Microsoft ship an OS so fundamentally flawed that it has absolutely no error recovery mechanism?

I know, better marketing.

actually with macs if your computer ever freezes up your power button won't even turn it off; you'll have to unplug it. With a desktop that's not such a big deal; if you are using a mac book you have to take out the battery which can be a pain in the ass in itself.

If a Mac book hangs, press power button continuously until it goes off (a few seconds). No need to remove battery.

I had Windows for 15 years. About 3 crashes a week. Catastrophes (hard disk failure, major data loss, failure forcing complete reformatting and the like) came an average of once a year during that time. Others corroborate this experience.

I've had a Mac book for 3 years. About 1 crash a week, never a catastrophe, never any data loss due to a crash. Have yet to hear of a catastrophic crash happening to anyone I know.

so for me to assume this problem still exists was a bit silly. I'm glad they imporved on it.

But if you are getting 3 crashes a week on your windows PC then you have some serious problems with your hardware or with the people operating your system. I leave my desktops, both at home and work, running 24/7. I can't recall the last time I had the OS crash on me. Sure, application hangs happen from time to time (not anywhere near 3 times a week) but that's to be expected. So if you are seeing that many problems with your windows computer you will want to get it checked out; there is something wrong there and it's not Windows. Do you have kids that browse on this computer a lot?

One is good, the other is bad, and never the twain shall meet.

But I also think we need to create a world where we can have green technologies and technological improvements. Or to put it another way, the Apple Guys who are making the next I-Pod, I Don't know if those particular guys would be as effective if transferred over to working on green technologies. Rather we as a society need to reward the creators of green technologies the way we do i-pod inventors.

Bryant

but I benefit from those who do, because they sell their "old" stuff to people like me.

Ya don't get 'new&improved' out of the kindness of their hearts, they gotta keep you buying.

It's all about capitalist profits, to hell with you, me & the planet.

I would add that to di this or think this way will put a lot of people in an uproar because they just can't wait for the latest new thing.

I was fine with my old computer of 10 years with windows SE and when it broke all I could get was a used one with 2000 ME and it is fine . If i went with XP which is already out dated then my camera won't work with that system and then I should be forced to get a new camera which I can't possibly afford or do without it.

It was the same thing with LP's to 8 tracks to CD's now MP3 and I could not afford to keep up and thank g_d my old cassette car player still works because I don;t see them for sale anymore.

And my cell phone just does the phone which is all I need it for.

Many people cannot offord to be forced out of the past even when these old items worked quite well and did for decades.

My car is old too 1973 and I can repair it myself otherwise I would be without one.

I feel the tech takes the humanity out of people and that's the truely sad part.

I just stick with used stuff now and hope it keeps working and if not I guess I do without.

That's certainly a benefit of PC home-brew.

And self-cleaning ovens are great. They certainly can't be worse than using that toxic oven cleaner. Actually most large home appliances (fridges, washing machines, etc) tend to last longer than I expect, it's the small ones (coffee makers, toasters, etc) that seem to break after only a year of use.

but our 20+ yr old console is still working so he's out of luck.

Assuming you go for LCD over plasma (which almost everyone has). Your 20 year old TV probably consumes 250+ watts, whereas an LCD of equivalent or larger size will pull something like 50. Older TVs (unsurprisingly) consume more. Electricity cost 10c/kwh on average, so you're looking at 0.5c per hour vs 2.5c. This seems like chump change, but over a year it adds up to about $50 in a typical family home.

and the Energy Star rating on them only refers to when they are turned off. We are actually holding off buying until they improve.

Sorry for being skeptical, but the energy draw of a cathode ray tube is a LOT bigger than that of an LCD screen. You can verify this sort of thing pretty easily with a meter plugged into the outlet between the power source and the appliance. After~20 years of working with both computers and professional audio/video/film gear, I consider myself reasonably well informed on things like power consumption. It's not that hard to measure.

This reminds me of the BS spouted by people who hate compact flourescent light bulbs and were trying to make out that they're a much bigger environmental hazard, it's a conspiracy of the manufacturers to drain your pocket etc. etc.

http://www.wapa.gov/ES/pubs/esb/2008/nov/nov084.htm - A good general (governmet) introduction to the issue of domestic power consumption
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6475_7-6400401-3.html 140 flat screen TVs compared. As I pointed out above, Plasmas do not deliver good energy efficiency, but LCDs generally do...which is why they're outselling plasmas.
http://probonostats.wordpress.com/2008/02/01/display-power-consumption/ some statistical comparisons with CRT monitors and TVs

when does it ever end? My parents bought me a new computer for Christmas but I was happy with my old one with a Windows 2000 operating system. I guess I get to look forward to Vista-hell now.

It's smaller, runs longer and has better diagnostics.

I'm glad she upgraded it; we grew tired of rebooting her every morning.

and much metal is recycled.


In short, I think your argument is crap.

Maybe it's true of computers but how about such mundane items as dishwashers? I've been looking for a new dishwasher and the salesmen themselves tell me that the quality of the big name brands is nowhere near what it was even 10 years ago. Whereas in yesteryear I could expect my dishwasher to easily last 10 to 15 years, I'm being told not to expect more than 3-6.

Or how about furnaces? I live in an old house divided into four apartments with four natural gas furnaces. Two furnaces are from the 1930's!!! and two from the early 1990's. Guess which ones just went tits up? Yeah, the new and improved ones.

I hate all the useless new technology like HD TV. Like I need to see some drop of sweat on an armpit follicle of an NBA star. Or who the fuck needs a 20 mega pixel digital camera? Or the grand daddy of new is always worse: MICROSHIT err Microsoft, where the new windows is always slower and more difficult to operate.

Will try to find the link.

/edit

here ya go - his name is Bill Joy

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-future-of-humankind

Excerpt:

"There is also a Hell Scenario. The chief talking head assigned to this scenario is Bill Joy, who was a co-founder of Sun Microsystems. In April 2000 Joy published a bombshell article in Wired entitled "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us," which described how the author had come to the realization that advances in genetics, nanotechnology and robotics will eventually pose grave threats to human survival. The article argued for the relinquishment of some lines of research in these fields. Since then, we learn, Joy has got divorced, quit Sun, and put the book he was preparing on hold. "Overall his affect was markedly flat," Garreau writes.

One of the early warning signs that we are entering Hell is that "almost unimaginably bad things are happening, destroying large chunks of the human race or the biosphere, at an accelerating pace." Aside from Bill Joy, the chapter on the Hell Scenario features appearances by Francis Fukuyama, Martin Rees, Bill McKibben, Leon Kass and Frankenstein. The common denominator of these fellows is that they have confronted the potential for catastrophic technological downsides. But their worries are not all of the same kind. For example, while Joy focuses on direct threats to human survival (such as bioterrorism), Kass, who is chairman of President Bush's Council on Bioethics, is more concerned about subtle ways in which our quest for technological mastery could undermine the foundations of human dignity. These very different sorts of concerns could have been kept more clearly distinct. "

It used to be that when you bought a stereo, it would last for decades.

No, no, no. Not anymore. Gotta have that planned obsolescence. You'll be lucky to get two years out of a modern stereo before it craps out. You can't get them fixed anymore - there are no local repair shops (remember when you took your broken TV to the repair shop?) Cheaper and easier to just buy a new one.

You ask me, I would like a few things done.

Increase durability standards for consumer goods, especially electronics, and make it mandatory that they last at least five years, nah, make it ten years, under conditions of normal use. Also make some repairability standards - you should be able to take your gadgets apart and fix them when something breaks. Not just replace the whole damned thing, but narrow the problem down to a component, and replace the component. Interoperability standards should be implemented, so parts are more interchangeable. Standard locations for screw holes, standard connectors & so on. If your cell phone breaks, you should be able to replace the motherboard, or replace the keypad, or replace the screen or speaker or mike, and get it up & running again.

Couldn't agree with you more! And it IS a tremendous waste, junking things after a short time - both for the planet, and for us financially. It's such a rip off! It's as if there's a conspiracy to make sure we never get anything of any actual value.

Of course if companies cared about what consumers want, it would be different. The idea that the "market" responds to that is a joke. I wish some company would try it - that would give the others something to think about.

Overall sales would be the same, it's that they want to sell us the same few products over and over again.

more and more-

Just saw a show on the Discovery channel last week showing a plant in England where a machine grinds the fridge/freezer one at a time to pieces and everything is sorted and sent to be reprocessed....

just ignoring it in favor of a snarky, wiseass retort. enjoy!

The price of a mammogram tripled for me this year. I realized it was their new machine, which didn't have tapes.

I get where you are coming from, though. Some of it seems just too planned to keep us buying. The TV thing really bugs me, too. Does it all have to be one way? Is it still possible to set up a TV with an antennae and get the major networks only? Though watching less TV is likely to be a good thing.