[ale] linking MS to E-waste

[Charles Shapiro]

And what's more, the death penalty could ELIMINATE double-parking overnight!
We'd only have to execute a couple of people!

Seriously, much computer e-waste is simply a function of rapidly advancing
technology.  I love Bill Gates and Winders for the same reason you do (as I
am happily swimming in a sea of very cheap and advanced hardware), but it's
naive to think that if the world switched to linux there'd be fewer machines
upgraded and then thrown out.  It seems to me that as standards solidify
perhaps this trouble will be less severe. There's simply nothing you can do
today with a 1990's era machine, but the Lian Li case I have sitting beside
me is probably good for a couple more generations of motherboards. Heck,
I've been gonna put a new, more advanced video card which I bought for $25
into that machine. And USB devices are still good on later versions of the
standard.

-- CHS


On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 4:19 PM, Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 11:00 AM, Atlanta Geek <atlantageek at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > I've been reading 'Hot Flat and Crowded' by Thomas Friedman and a
> > point was made that we should design for sustanibility. Appliances
> > should never go into the dump. Government policies should be such that
> > it makes more sense to refurbish and reuse rather than to just buy a
> > new appliance. (Maybe a huge sales tax on new goods)
>
> Huge sales tax on disposable goods coupled with a huge tax on
> packaging and escalating disposal fees and truly crushing prison terms
> for people involved in dumping. Fines based on income not flat dollar
> amounts. Would anyone really toss a cup out the window knowing it will
> cost you 20 hours pay for the first offence? Stores no longer provide
> disposable shopping bags. My favourite waste is the grocery bagger
> puts a gallon of milk into a bag alone. That jug handle is NOT going
> to fail but that bag might.
>
> > Anyway I thought the same case could be made about PCs. How many old
> > PCs have been sent to the dump just because they got so loaded with
> > viruses the user just decided to get a new PC with the newer MS OS.
> > PCs seem to have a 3-4 year replace cycle which somewhat corresponds
> > to the release of OSes by Microsoft.
> >
> > So what's your opinion. Anyone more articulate than me find this
> > remotely interesting.
>
> I have seen that process and find it beneficial (for me!). Once the
> sheeple all upgrade to the new dung heap from Redmond, they have no
> need for their prior system and I can often get them for free or
> nearly free. Wipe drives, install Linux of choice and blow out the
> dust bunnies and deliver a newly working machine to someone who has
> nothing like it. Every release of Linux also take more system
> resources (128MB RAM is really BARE MINIMUM these days) but the system
> resources lag micropoop by at least one generation.
>
> Sadly, techno-waste is a rapidly growing component of the waste stream
> and it is often toxic to process. Another thing that might help to
> slow the trash pile growth is to include a disposal fee in the
> purchase price. Arriving at that price will be a challenge as there
> are many things in tech trash we really have no mechanism to process
> the waste with. What _does_ happen to old circuit boards, fluorescent
> bulbs, cell phones, burned CD's, etc?
>
> > --
> > http://www.atlantageek.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ale mailing list
> > Ale at ale.org
> > http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> >
>
>
>
> --
> --
> James P. Kinney III
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20090116/87edde00/attachment-0001.html