Subject:  Viridian Note 00073:  Viridian Commentary

Key concepts:  household localizers, the coal-burning net, 
energy consumption practices

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Viridian commentary is ruthlessly edited for reader 
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Links: http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades/

From: Pete Kaiser (kaiser@acm.org^*)
Subject: Re: Viridian Note 00068: Household Localizers


"Bruce:

"Your household localizers actually have existed for 
years, even though they're rather large and they cost more 
than ten cents.  I have experience with one variety, the 
ones called 'active badges,' developed by Olivetti at its
Cambridge (UK) research lab and elaborated by Olivetti and 
Digital Equipment.

   "The classic active badge has about the area of a 
credit card and is about 8mm thick, in a housing of black 
plastic.  It has a single button on the front, plus an 
almost unnoticeable little infrared emitter and a similar 
little receiver.  Inside is a battery and a tiny circuit 
consisting mostly of a unique identity number in ROM. The 
badge responds with that number when it gets a signal, or 
when the button is pressed.

    "Every second or so a ceiling-mounted box emits a low-
powered infrared pulse, and every active badge in range 
responds with its identity.  The box then emits a message 
that says "I'm box A, and I have these badge identities in 
range: x, y, z, ...".  A computer collects that 
information and, on request, can tell you "Bruce Sterling 
[wearer of badge x] is in his living room [near detector 
box A]."

     "People can be tracked all over a campus or factory; 
and since the computer knows where you are, it can see to 
it that your incoming phone calls ring where you *are.*  
Suppose you don't *want* people to know where you are?  
Simple: you hide your badge in your pocket, and you become 
invisible to the system. 

     "You can also glue active badges to valuable pieces 
of equipment, or better yet, build badges into their 
housings.

     "This technology is quite old.  When last I was in 
contact with it, they were trying to make the devices 
smarter and smaller.  

     "So much for the Oh-Wow! factor.  Active badges 
haven't been a market success because, it turns out, 
people don't *want* to be locatable all the time.  People 
want to be able to be unlocatable without explicitly 
signalling that they're unlocatable, for reasons that may 
range from the mundane (using the toilet) to the 
clandestine (eating at restaurants instead of the company 
cafeteria).

     "We have to think seriously about whether we really 
want to know where all our stuff is.  Suppose one's spouse 
discovers the existence of certain small, prized objects 
you've kept hidden since you bought them out of the petty 
cash.

     "What would be the real repercussions of knowing 
where everything is?  There must be any number of second 
and third-order social problems that we would never 
discover without performing the experiment.

    "Finally: real Viridian localizers would be 
intrinsically part of the objects localized, and would 
have more than one function.  In many cases, like the 
Viridian teapot, the tags would grow along with the 
object, or form within it like the crystalline interior of 
a geode.  They might cover the exterior like tiny buds.  
The same for locator detectors.  After all, biology is 
much better at producing emitters and detectors than we 
are at designing them from scratch."

(((bruces remarks:  No wonder these clunky "active badges" 
were a market failure: why the heck should I pay one thin 
dime to let *Olivetti* know where *I* am?   Furthermore, 
if some political regime dares to put an Orwellian locator 
dog-tag on me, then it's obviously time to raise the black 
flag and start shooting.  This "market problem" is a 
straightforward power question of who owns the means of 
information.  Power may be subtler nowadays, but  beware 
any digital consumer-marketing company that blithely 
offers to cheaply catalog everything you possess.)))

(((Viridian Note 00070: The Coal-Burning Net, on the 
subject of how much CO2 is produced by the Net, aroused 
much response.)))

From: Peter Denning (pjd@cne.gmu.edu^^^^^^^^*)

"In Viridian Note 00070, you quoted a Forbes piece  
quantifying the electrical consumption of computers. I've 
seen one or two other papers recently of the same ilk.  
Many years ago, when people proposed founding paper 
journals about the coming age of paperless offices, I said 
'The only difference between a computer and a book is the 
age of the trees.'  Others heard that as a quip, but now 
they are measuring it.


From: Charles Raymond (craymond@northweb.com^*)

    "I've never read Forbes magazine, but after this 
Viridian Note, I don't think I ever will.   *My* power is 
generated solely by moving water. Sixteen concrete-
enclosed turbines, half of the project.  The other half 
serves Ontario.  

     "I have to wonder how many cubic tons of poison gas, 
liquid and solid pollutants are produced each month for 
the production of Forbes magazine. Not to mention the co-
author's  personal web page, which wastes all that 
electricity.  And what happens to their publication after 
use?  Is every issue is recycled from the previous issue?  
When incinerated, do the inks burn clean?  Ha!"

From: Matthew Rubenstein (Matt@MediaServ.com^^^^^^*) 

    "The supposed scientific basis for that Forbes article 
is the 10/16/1998 *Science* paper titled "A Large 
Terrestrial Carbon Sink in North America Implied by 
Atmospheric and Oceanic Carbon Dioxide Data and Models."   
But as even James Watt noted, trees (and the rest of 
nature) are a leading source of greenhouse gases.   Forest  
that sink carbon  can also produce carbon (just as I live 
and breathe). 

     "Nutty amelioration schemes that teach a fish to 
bicycle seem to be the rising message of polluters.   A 
two-page glossy Chevron ad in a recent issue of *Harpers* 
magazine suggests that we should colonize undersea deserts 
with carbon-sucking lifeforms. This is clearly the way to 
follow up our success with rabbits in Australia and 
lampreys in the Great Lakes."

From: Raul Miller (rdm@test.legislate.com^^^^^*)

     "I noticed that this Forbes article assumes that 
there are several routers and such for each personal 
computer.  So why are PCs cheap commodity items while 
routers aren't?"

From: "Laura Stinson" (lstinson@empathy.com^^^^^^^**?)

"You know, I tire of this computer bashing, and I deem the 
stats quoted at Forbes to be of dubious credibility. Try 
these stats instead:

"'...a heated water bed can consume more electricity than 
an efficient refrigerator. Altogether, the nation's water 
beds consume the electricity produced by two large power 
plants.'

   "'Aquariums can be huge energy guzzlers == a 180-gallon 
coral reef tank can use more energy than a residential 
central electric heating system and refrigerator 
combined.'

    "'We project that consumer electronics and halogen 
torchiere lamps together will account for 70 percent of 
the forecasted miscellaneous growth,' says Jonathan 
Koomey, leader of the Energy End-Use Forecasting Group....
(http://www.ucsf.edu/daybreak/1998/08/25_elec.html)

   "'The following ten product types (listed in priority 
order based on absolute projected growth==the first 
product listed having the highest forecasted energy 
growth) are projected to account for 60% of forecasted 
miscellaneous growth from 1996 to 2010:
        Torchiere lamp
        Color television
        Dehumidifier
        Security system
        Compact audio system
        Microwave oven
        Projection television
        Satellite television
        Pool pump
        Home computer ..."
(http://enduse.lbl.gov/Info/LBNL-40295.pdf)

(Note the absence of waterbeds and aquaria on the above
list.)

    "Seems to me that even if the dismal Forbes statistics 
were remotely close, we could still easily pay for our 
digital vice by giving up a few torchieres and 
televisions. (Don't even talk to me about heated swimming 
pools.)"

From:  Jeremy Porter (jerry@freeside.fc.net*)

      "This Note hits close to home, so I will admit to a 
bias here.  I worked at a Fortune 500 computer company not 
too long ago, and I worked with the  EPA 'Energy 
Star/Green PC program' at that company.

      "This Forbes chart you cited declares  that non-
Internet computer usage remains constant, while Internet 
computer usage grows.  How could that be?    Also, 
Internet use directly competes with other energy-using 
activities, such as automobiles and television.  If 
leisure time is constant, then Forbes fails to show that 
total CO2 levels are increased by Internet use.

      "Forbes also declares:  'Under the PC's hood, demand 
for horsepower doubles every couple of years.'  This fails 
under the most simplistic examination.  PC's in 1994 
before Energy Star mandates:  average power used by 
operational system, 50-100 watts.  Average power used by 
operational PCs today: 50-100 watts.   

        "At 17 watts, integrated chips give off so much 
waste heat that their ceramic carriers can crack from 
thermal expansion.  There are real limits to the amount of 
energy that cheap, lightweight, mostly plastic personal 
computers can use and burn off safely.  Power utilization 
has not increased in computers.  As for special purpose 
micro-controllers (which Forbes also decries).  these 
chips tend to dramatically increase energy efficiency in 
any machine they are installed in.

     Forbes says 'Your typical PC and its peripherals 
require about 1,000 watts of power.(...) That kind of 
usage implies about 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electrical 
consumption in a year.'   

      "A normal PC power supply is rated at a maximum 
capacity of about 200 watts, and a large monitor (17in-
19in) is about 100 watts maximum.  Typical utilization is 
about 25% when active, and power consumption can drop by 
50% or more when idle.  Expected power utilization of a PC 
based on the (Forbes-estimated) 12 hour week (at 100 watts 
active) is 4,320,000 joules.  I  work this out to 1.2 
kilowatt hours /week, or 62.4 kilowatt/hours/year.  

      "In other words, Forbes is  off by a factor of 16.   
We should throw out their figures at this point.

      "But there's better news yet.  Since most modern 
computers are Energy Star rated, idle power MUST drop to 
less than 50 watts for the chassis, 50 watts for the 
monitor and 25 watts for the printer, when idle.  I've 
seen designs that easily drop to 5 watts for the monitor, 
2 for the printer, and about 10 for the PC.  Not only 
that, unlike a light bulb, the PC knows when it's idle and 
turns itself off.  You want to save energy?  Turn off your 
computer's energy-gobbling screen-saver, and  when you 
surf, turn off a light bulb and surf in the dark!

    "If we had clean, smart Viridian power, Internet sites 
wouldn't need today's huge, uninterruptible power 
supplies.  They wouldn't need distant generators with 
tremendous conversion losses (10-20% or more).  Putting 
smart power into the electric grid would mean big savings 
in coal and oil.

    "The old-fashioned electric utility grid has the same 
problems competing with the Internet that phone companies 
do.  Big centralized control networks  cannot be upgraded 
in a piecemeal fashion.  The control theory used for 
congestion avoidance and control is fundamentally 
incompatible with decentralized control.

    "We need a Viridian Windows desktop theme with the 
trash can as a coal bucket."

O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O
SURF IN THE DARK
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