szescstopni @szescstopni@social.cleverlibre.org

Windows 10 end of life costs more CO2 than Greece produces in a year

Microsoft will end of life Windows 10 in October 2025. At that point a lot of computers will need to be replaced if people want to continue to use Windows.

Software companies end long term support for software all the time. This isn’t news in itself.

The problem arises when minimum requirements for the next version of Windows forces people to also upgrade their computers.

According to Canalys 240 million computers will be impacted by this forced upgrade.

Looking at the CO2-eq emissions in the lifetime of a computer, including the production, transportation, and end of life in a landfill, this comes to about 331kg.

The math is simple enough to do at this point: 331kg CO2-eq per computer times 240 million computers, which comes to about 80 million tonnes CO2-eq.

This is more CO2 than all of Greece produces in an entire year.

(Average CO2-eq emissions per capita is 5.6t, their population is 10.3 million, for a total of 57,7 million tonnes CO2-eq).

References:

1. https://www.itpro.com/software/windows/windows-10-end-of-life-could-prompt-torrent-of-e-waste-as-240-million-devices-set-for-scrapheap
2. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370158642_Sustainability_Assessment_of_Electronic_Waste_Remanufacturing_The_Case_of_Laptop

#Climate #ClimateChange #eWaste #Microsoft #Windows #ClimateCrisis #Emissions

I have interviewed 100s of candidates for software engineering positions.

I’ve done take-home tests, in person challenges, pair programming with the candidates.

All of them were awful experiences for me and especially for the candidate.

I can only think of a single instance where a code challenge exposed a poor software engineer and I could definitely have made the same assessment just by talking to them.

Lately I’ve stopped doing any software or mental puzzles.

I don’t do any of that when I interview designers or QA people or HR people, so why would I be particularly toxic towards software engineers during the hiring process?

Instead, I actually read their resumes (which is significantly quicker than doing interviews, asking them to repeat the same information), and then I ask them questions like:

- Where do you get your tech news?
- How do you learn about new technologies?
- What do you most appreciate in your coworkers today?
- What is a perfect workday like for you?

I specifically avoid trap-style questions like “what is your greatest weakness?” or “why are you leaving your current job?”

I recommend that you make a plan for what you want to learn about the candidate, e.g. “are they good at acquiring new skills?” or “do they share the same values as the team?” and then structure the interview around that.

Be a non-toxic manager. Make your company look good during the interview process. Get better candidates.

#jobs

. #silentsunday
#Hills #Mulmur #Nature #Trees #Scenic #Trail

Jaśnie panienka uwielbia śnieg, ja za nim nie przepadam. Obie lubimy długie spacery.
A najfajniejsze w spacerach zimowych jest to, że wracamy z nich do ciepłego domu.

Z okazji świąt, dni wolnych, zimowego przesilenia lub dowolnej innej okazji (bo każda jest dobra, żeby życzyć komuś dobrze) życzę Wam, żeby Wasze spacery, wędrówki, wyprawy i podróże zawsze prowadziły Was do miejsca, gdzie czeka na Was ciepło, miłość i smaczki.
(i książki;)

Milena

Wow this is fascinating and counterintuitive: people don't just prefer sloppily wrapped presents, but they prefer what's inside the package "significantly" more when it is sloppily wrapped. What a COOL experiment https://theconversation.com/the-science-of-gift-wrapping-explains-why-sloppy-is-better-128506

Tag 24 und finish: eine Erinnerung an den Sommer 2021 #trailbound24
Großer Dank geht an Max Romey für die inspirierende Reisebegleitung durch den Dezember
#watercolour #MastoArt #KleineKunstklasse

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should return to their home towns to fix their parents’ mobile phone, email and computer problems.

In a landmark move, Italian energy giant ENEL is forced to remove 84 wind turbines it placed illegally on Osage nation land. An expensive lesson, costing them hundreds of millions.

Mark Nelson made the point elsewhere, but the idea that renewables go well with the interests of native tribes is a misguided city dweller myth. Energy density matters, also in the case of social justice.

https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/federal-judge-sides-with-osage-tribe

I got a scope out to prove it, but the Xmas tree lights are blinking around 500Hz 50% duty and nobody else can see it!

@revk@toot.me.uk I modified one of those cheap pocket oscilloscope kits (bashed the centre pin of the BNC input socket, spray-painted the shell black, and fitted an appropriately-biased phototransistor in its place) to do this for @NatalyaD@disabled.social, so she can tell which room lights are likely to trigger her migraines.

I can see (but am not particularly bothered by) flicker up to about 1kHz, which includes most things with microcontroller-controlled PWM dimming. She's sensitive up to 6kHz or so!

Given how problematic flicker can be for people on the autism spectrum, those with some visual impairments and photosensitive migraine/epilepsy, we could really do with requiring that manufacturers of light sources and display devices specify how much they flicker, so you aren't relying on buying them and testing with an oscilloscope to work out which light bulbs etc are safe.

(If I had my way I'd ban light sources PWMing at less than 20kHz - if we need 10kHz or so to avoid perceptible flicker, might as well get high enough to avoid audible inductor whine. Which is another one of those things that's everywhere but too many people seem not to believe in.)

A rare legal toot from me!

If you’re thinking of doing jokes about Santa, cookies, and the #GDPR, you probably mean the ePrivacy directive.

If you’re thinking of doing jokes about Santa, lists of children, and the GDPR, the realistic answer is that he is not in breach / the activities are not prohibited, but that Santa would have some compliance obligations.

I hope this helps :)

#silentsunday #photography #landscape #winter

Świąteczne dodatkowe nakrycie, oczekiwanie na zbłąkanego wędrowca, niespodziewanego gościa...

Poszukiwanie schronienia i bezpieczeństwa...

Putin posługuje się ludźmi, nie bronią...

I was weak and I bought something from eBay. A $47 LEGO interface A box. It has support for the BBC Micro 😀

In the far future, when mankind develops the technology to spread across the galaxy, out intrepid pioneers will carry with them in their starships innumerable pots containing saplings to establish forests in their new homes and buckets of moss to establish mossy coverings for rocks in those forests, all of which will have been harvested somewhere near Vancouver, BC.

Watching scifi movies and seeing a character ask an AI to do or evaluate something hits different now.

I'm watching Alien: Covenant and the pilot just asked the spaceship AI how close they could get to the storm in the planet's atmosphere.

The AI answered 80 kilometres, which I assume at this point is a confidently wrong answer, probably pulled from an unattributed blogpost systems away about a different ship, different atmosphere, and different storm.

So, my wife has just visited Poland. And some friends. And she's passed me a feedback of my coming out from some of them. On a scale it is somewhere between "we are not surprised" to "JFC, finally".
I feel like I'm the last one to get the memo :D

Przedświąteczne porządki? A na co to komu?

#dogsofmastodon