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the Phantom Menace: an Earth Day post

Virtual worlds may one day reduce our fuel consumption by enabling us to substitute virtual for physical meetings, but even then, our virtual travel will not be costless. Computers draw considerable power from the grid, and their thirst for electricity is growing rapidly as CPUs and GPUs crank up.

Machines in the ghosts

These ghosts present a true menace.

I took the above picture from outside a certain office last Friday. I saw three CRT monitors burning away energy, unproductively, for an entire weekend. Using a “screensaver” is no solution. Please, set your computers to turn off your monitors after 10-15 minutes, and shut down your computer when you’re not using it!

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{ 1 } Comments

  1. roger | May 23, 2007 at 12:31 am | Permalink

    Never let the computer running without using it, it will damage the monitor and the power supply if done everyday.