Green up my Mac

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Is this merely Apple patting itself on the back or a genuine effort to lessen the environmental impact of their products? Aside from the lower use of toxic materials (which is to be applauded), Steve Jobs claims that Apple recycled 13 million pounds of “ewaste” last year (9.5% of the weight of product sold 7 years ago) and plans to improve on it. It raises the question of what the 13 million pounds refers to: starting weight of the products or actual weight of suitably reused/recycled material? This comparison suggests the 13 million refers to total product weight and not weight of material recycled. (Actually, while I’m wondering out loud about the validity of the comparison, how about making the products last longer so there’s less frequent turnover? Ah… It doesn’t make business sense, that’s why…)

Anyway, it’s an effort to be encouraged and not to put down too much. Perhaps this little piece of PR will encourage the other major computer manufacturers to put some of this in practice themselves (unless they already do, but just haven’t come out and said so). I wonder if there are smaller manufacturers out there who are already making greener machines but just not shouting loud enough for a deaf person like me to hear (whatever happened to that $100 laptop project, and will they be recycling the end-of-life products too?).

And speaking of recycling, back to Apple’s announcement of their greenhood. If you are one of the many people hanging on to a defunct 2G or 3G iPod with a failed battery, perhaps this 10%-off-future-purchase-unless-you’ve-already-given-up-and-switched-to-a-Zune offer will appeal:

Let me take a moment to talk specifically about iPods, even though they are included in the above data. All of Apple’s U.S. retail stores, which now number more than 150, take back unwanted iPods for environmentally friendly disposal free of charge. As an incentive, we even offer customers a 10% discount on a new iPod when they bring their old iPod to our stores for proper disposal. This summer we’re expanding it to Apple retail stores worldwide, and we’re also extending it to include free shipping from anywhere in the U.S. No product purchases are required for any of our free take back programs. In a few months, we think we’ll have ‘best of breed’ iPod recycling programs in the U.S., and we plan to continue to expand our free iPod recycling programs globally in the future.

Incidentally, over at treehugger.com, they’re promoting an energy-saving alternative google search page, which is not green in the sense of the colour spectrum. Unfortunately, going by the stream of comments at the end of the post, it sounds like this is only useful for CRT monitors and will make no perceptible energy savings on LCD screens. I wonder if lower page load times on the more popular sites (like the Beeb’s news page) would help save energy. Or browsing via RSS feeds instead. Or blogging less. That last one I can definitely do.

Disclaimer: I currently love Apple products and own a Powerbook, 3 iPods (don’t ask… I’m not as green as I’d like to be), 1 AirTunes router and a small smattering of accessories. So I might be considered somewhat biased.

More votes for Scots

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“Either we re-run the election or the returning officer contacts these 10,000 people who had their ballot treated as spoiled to ascertain their actual preference.“We need to do that, otherwise democracy is in crisis in Scotland.” (via)

Sure. And open the process to bribery of said 10,000 people? I think not.

If there was a re-election, perhaps folk will finally cast their TRUE vote. Methinks that in the future, Scotland should hold practice runs.

I am one monkey in a billion1

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I am a self-confessed billion monkey* (via). Even worse, I am a billion monkey who snaps her monkey nuts before she eats them. See the other very crappy results of my billion monkey machine here.

Incidentally, I know a Real PhotographerTM who enjoys a spot of self photo-ing.

1That means there are 6 more of me on this planet; if one of you reads this, get in touch. Starting to feel like I’ve been spread too thin.

Scottish (Muckadidoodah) Elections 2007

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What a dickadeedoodah the elections have been this year! I’ve missed out on all the fun. Followed doctorvee‘s twittering and subsequent indignation at the mess made by the decision makers:

Some people wonder what the Scotland Office is for these days. Obviously they are looking for stuff to do, so have been busybodying with this e-counting stuff. The e-counting systems might have been desirable for the local councils, but they did not need to be used for the Scottish Parliament elections.

I was feeling a small amount of sympathy for the poor electorate, expected to cope with oh-so-many ballot papers, until I saw a photo of the ballot sheet (or rather a photo of the poster explaining the ballot sheet). Honestly, it’s not that difficult.* Maybe they could have hired some expensive design agency to make the parliament ballot a little clearer (maybe some dozy-brains didn’t register the split arrow), but that poster is education enough not to screw up.If you’ve made the effort to go out and vote, surely you’re invested enough in the process to make the even smaller effort to read the instructions. I don’t think the blame can be laid on the Westminster or Scottish Parliaments (maybe apart from the decision to have both local and Holyrood elections on the same day). More and earlier voter education? Maybe not. A redesign of the ballot sheets? Ach, I hope they’re going to have a good look at the spoiled ballots and work out what went wrong or there’s no point in suffrage and we’ll have to start testing voters for mental competency before elections.** Ha.

*I would be interested to learn how many of those were true protest votes or if anyone scribbled stuff like “anyone but labour” or crap like that. Don’t waste your vote, dammit. At least vote for some small crappy party if you don’t like the major ones.

**Disclaimer. Joking, OK? Not proposing this or calling the electorate stupid. Maybe a little bit lazy or dozy or confused, but not stupid. I pretty much agree with what was said here.

Mair on the sorry tale. I like this interpretation :

Electoral systems suffer the same problems as bad software – they are dominated by geeks with no understanding that users have to be able to understand the system you are designing and bolt on a shoddy interface as an afterthought – and by marketing departments/politicians who have a very different agenda from the rest of the industry and force bad design decisions from the word go. (via)

The revelation that the Scotland Office were advised not to hold both elections on the same day is no surprise to me. A department controlled by a party that started its first few years in government spinning and managing the media will take any little advantage they can get to stay in power. Another example of disgusting NuLab behaviour.

(Needs), Wants and Desires

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Ach, I have to contend with so many other folks’ wants and desires everyday, but no one ever asks what I want. Well, right now, if anyone is paying any attention (hint, hint, P; if you don’t listen over brekkie, at least read the blog) I am deeply in love with this glorious type-set map of London (via). If they cannot/will not ship the US, perhaps my ever-loving bro will send it to me via Parcelforce (hint, hint, bro; if you don’t reply to my emails, at least read the stupid food blog).