Shaving And The Environment

I know this might be a stupid post, but as I was shaving the other day, I started to get ideas about how shaving can impact the environment, so in someway, this is not so different than my previous post on hair.

For starters, I think using disposable razors is a big no no. Probably as I write this, millions of these went into the trash. And I somehow doubt that the plastic in them is being recycled.

The second piece of advice that I wanted to mention is choosing a none disposable razor. And here, I would recommend choosing a current generation one as cartridges would be available for many years to come and they tend to last longer. Not to mention the fact that current generation razors tend to produce a smoother shave.

I really do not feel comfortable in recommending an electric shaver on two grounds: a) the price and b) the fact that it uses electricity or batteries. I would like to see an environmental impact study for both electric and regular razors. On the good side, electric shavers do make use of shaving a cream so there is some sort of saving there.

Speaking of shaving cream, one should get the largest size available largely due to fact that a larger size would use less packaging materials.

One last thing that I should mention is doing away with shaving all together and letting your beard grow, this might sound like good advice, but in reality you would use more soap to wash your face. So this actually needs further study.

Green Computing

I have been using computers for the last 22 years, so I know a thing or two about them. Here is my own guide to green computing.

• If you have a single core 90nm P4 Prescott or an Athlon XP, now might be a good time to replace your processor/computer.
• Choose a green operating system that is low on CPU usage and has good power management features. For servers, Red hat Linux is an excellent choice.
• If you are just an occasional gamer who does not mind playing games at lower quality settings, chose a computer with integrated graphics. At the time of this writing the best integrated graphics chipset is AMD's 780G.
• Chose a computer with an energy efficient processor, this costs only 10-20$ more.
• If your CRT monitor is 5yrs old, now is a good time to replace it with a lower power LCD. However, resist the temptation to oversize your LCD, unless your work demands it. For most people a 17-19" LCD should be fine.
  
• Chose a medium end dual core CPU or a low end quad core CPU. Unless you run scientific software, or games, these processors should be more than adequate for years to come.
  
• Set the power management on your computer to max. Have the shut down of the monitor occur only after 5-10min of no usage.
• If you can wait to buy a new computer, wait until early next year. By then all CPUs from Intel and AMD should be built using a more power efficient 45nm process. Furthermore DD3 should be cheaper, but more importantly should consume less power than DD2.
• Get a laptop instead of a desktop if your work does not require a lot of horse power.
• Chose software that is low on CPU utilization. This would require some trial and error, as currently there is no standard that tells you how many CPU cycles each program consumes on each processor model or the total average energy in watts per task(for example a virus scan or watching a movie.)
• If you have multiple servers, go for virtualization and server consolidation. Additionally, make sure that the platform you purchase will have socket/memory type longevity.
• Chose computer RAM that has a low voltage rating.
• If money is not an issue, go for a high efficiency power supply.
• Buy computers and LCD panels with an energy star compliant rating.
• Choose a chipset or graphics card that can do HD(HD and Blu ray) decoding. GPUs are more efficient at HD video decoding than CPUs. Nvidia and AMD offer very efficient decoding in this regard.
  

Cars

Every green/enviro site has their own set of recommendations for car energy saving, so I wanted to mention a few of my own:

*Nitrogen tire filling. This is somewhat controversial, some studies show it does not work while others do, it is really hard to tell, but on the off chance that it might work, I would recommend it.

*Energy saving tires, these can actually work. Not sure if there would be any additional savings if these are combined with nitrogen tire filling. But if there is, the total would be 7-10% more mileage.

*I have seen very few sites mention the change of spark plugs, but with current fuel prices, it might not be a bad idea to change them before they are due for change.

*If your car is 10 years old, and you drive in the city more than you do on the highways, then now might be a good time to get either a compact car with a small 1.4-1.6ltr engine or a hybrid. Hybrids from Toyota and Honda are an excellent choice.

From a few article I read, I have already seen a shift in demand to smaller engine cars and Hybrids. I hope that car factories can keep up with this shift.

Car Longevity

Say that I buy a computer today, for example an Athlon 64 5200+ x2, I can upgrade it in a couple of years with a somewhat faster CPU that consumes less power. Similarly I can replace the graphics card inside the computer within 12-18 months with a twice as fast card that consumes less that what I currently have in terms of energy. The only worthy component that I can not replace is the chipset, and I really think that replacing it should be an option.

Anyway, what I would like to see is a similar upgrade path for cars, the ability, every 5-7 years, to replace the engine with a 15-30% more efficient engine. And I think this retrofitting should cost something like 1000-2000$ max. Such an upgrade path would be welcomed by a lot of people because they would not need to dump their "old" car every so many years or sell for peanuts.

Such an approach would also be helpful for the environment as the number of new cars produced would decrease. In this scenario the only people who would be slightly unhappy would be the automakers. But I do not think their profit margins would decrease much because they probably depend more on the spare parts business, and an older car is likely to need more spare parts than a new one.

Overpopulation

The estimates vary from source to source, but there is generally an agreement that earth can not support more than 5 billion people, however most estimates fall between 1 and 3 billions. I put my own estimate at 1 billion.

How do I arrive at this 1 billion figure? For starters, I want everyone to have a good living standard and to have an amount of unemployment of no more than 5%; currently world wide unemployment is 30%, so based on unemployment alone, the number of people on planet earth should be less than 4.5 billions. Further more, not only do I want a very low rate of unemployment, but also I would like to eliminate meaningless jobs, these are easily more than 50% of the jobs in the market. Another 20% of the jobs can be eliminated due to a smaller market when humanity down sizes and also due to technical innovations.

So how will we get from almost 7 billion people to just 1 billion? Well, I doubt that any thing can be done about China in the short run, as it already has a one child per family law. As for India, I think a lot can be done; a combination of financial incentives, family planning programs, education, and a two child per family law might be able to slow down the population explosion. If this is successful, maybe 10 years later a one child per family law can be enacted.

As for the muselm world, the same tactics can be used as I suggested for India, however a big problem is the opposition of religious authorties to family planning and abortion. From an Islamic jurisprudence point of view, there is a loophole that can be exploited, exceptions and reverasl of fatwas can be done if the clerics are convinced that humanity is heading for distatser and that there is no otherway but to issue new fatwas that not only allow family planning but encourage it. Once this is done, the various governements can start a two child per family limit program, or financial incentives for people not to have more kids, or to have them later than sooner.

Similarly, in south america and other areas under the hold of the catholic church, the catholic church needs to see the light and reconsider it positions in view of the iminemnt threat. I think the pope is a reasonable person and someone might be able to talk the him out of his position.

Reducing the population of humans is not a hopeless case, at least a dozen countries with a good living standard are having their populations decrease(not on purpose,) so clearly it is doable.

So once the population starts to decrease, it would be a great opportunity to redraw the map of the world in an envirnemtally smart manner; most people would live in areas with moderate climates. To me it makes no sense that people live in countries were you need to have the AC on 24/7, or where you need to keep the heating on most of the year. The greatest hurdles are natinalism and the fact that people would not be happy about leaving their own country, just for envirnmental reasons.

Can Microsoft save the day? part 2

Previously I wondered if Microsoft would ever save the day for humanity by supporting none x86 CPU architectures, and today in a similar vein I will argue that it should include GPGPU support for acceleration of current/future applications and create some sort of longevity for computer owners.

Just a week after I wrote my "Can Microsoft save the day" post, this article was published on toms hardware:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-cuda-gpu,1954.html

The article is very interesting in that a) was skeptical of the claimed performance gains B) did not have high expectations c) the expectations were exceeded d) it showed that even with a crude quick test, that there is tons of juice to be milked from the GPU.

Basically, according to the article, in some cases making use of a mid range GPU for application accelartion can even beat an upgrade from a 2 core CPU to a 4 core CPU. Now what is more interesting is it that might be achieved with higher energy efficiency and performance per watt.

If this is implemented at the OS level, I see the possibility of saving of millions of Kilowatts per year. I can imagine a situation where a single or dual with a 30-45W TDP would be offloading all sorts of stuff to a 45 W midrange GPU and beating a 4 core 130 W CPU.

Then What?

I could not help but write this blog post despite it's political nature; the solution provided by the presumptive republican nominee senator John McCain for decreasing oil prices got me fuming on the inside.

McCain's solution for the short to medium term relief from high oil prices is to increase the supply side by drilling in Alaska and offshore while doing nothing on the demand side. This is a partially flawed proposal in several ways.

First of all, increasing the supply would shift the short and medium term focus away from renewable energy and improvements in efficiency and other related research. This will produce devastating results in the medium and long term.

Secondly, drilling in Alaska and off shore would almost surly harm the ecosystem, and drive many species extinct.

Finally, and this can not be stressed enough, this is only a short term solution, a quick fix if you will, that will last for the next 10-20years. Then what? What will happen when the oil dries up? It would seem that just like with social security, Iraq or the budget deficit, the modus operandi here is to leave the problem for the the next president or next generation to deal with.