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Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

luiscruz.github.io

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Re: Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

#41

Post by maccard »

frashelaw wrote: post #2

Westerners really will do literally anything about climate change except reckon with their corporate overlords who by far are the biggest contributors to climate destruction. Get real, your app using 15% less power makes literally zero difference. If you want to make a real difference, nationalize and seize energy corporations and whip them into shape under planned economic management. Anything short of that and clim…

> Westerners really will do literally anything about climate change except reckon with their corporate overlords who by far are the biggest contributors to climate destruction.

Disagree. Westerners will do literally anything except make any changes to their behavior. You even see it here whenever these threads come up - "why should I do anything while china is emitting X times more than the US".

These companies don't exist in a vacuum. BP aren't pumping up oil and hoping that an evil megacorp will just buy it. People like you and me are driving the demand for products with huge amounts of waste and dirty manufacturing processes.

Sure, for a random web app with 30 users a small increase in efficiency is likely meaningless, but if that improvement is in a server side framework widely deployed on AWS, that has the potential to save tonnes of carbon

These tools can also be used by said megacorps for scheduling. Personally, I would love it if we could hook into an API in aws that says "hey, demand is low right now and we have wind power to spare, do you want to run your nightly CI build now?"

Re: Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

#42

Post by maccard »

anonporridge wrote: post #4
frashelaw wrote: post #2

Westerners really will do literally anything about climate change except reckon with their corporate overlords who by far are the biggest contributors to climate destruction. Get real, your app using 15% less power makes literally zero difference. If you want to make a real difference, nationalize and seize energy corporations and whip them into shape under planned economic management. Anything short of that and clim…

To be fair, westerners are cutting down their reproduction below replacement rate. That's far and away the most impactful thing you can do to cut your personal contribution to carbon emissions. But yeah, fretting about energy efficiency on the margins is a waste of time and cognitive effort. The world economy and travel largely shut down last year and it barely made a dent in global emissions. Our choice is rapidly d…

The only reason the reproduction rate matters so much in the west is because of the impact of each individual person. If we systemically reduced the CO2 per Capita by half, having as many children wouldn't be a problem. There are many other things you can do that have a massive impact; things that are magnified you have any kids, like eating meat weekly instead of 2x per day, or turning down your home thermostat. On an individual and a population level just those two changes can have enormous effects

Re: Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

#43

Post by dragonelite »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #14
frashelaw wrote: post #2

Westerners really will do literally anything about climate change except reckon with their corporate overlords who by far are the biggest contributors to climate destruction. Get real, your app using 15% less power makes literally zero difference. If you want to make a real difference, nationalize and seize energy corporations and whip them into shape under planned economic management. Anything short of that and clim…

are easterners doing something different?

Not comparable most if not all of Asia is a developing region. Maybe the western allied oil and gas nations in the west Asia and Singapore, Korea and Japan in the east Asia could be qualified as developed nations the rest is still in development.

The only big example is China that puts resources in innovating their way into a carbon neutral economy in 2060 and making sure they peak at around 2030. That because the Chinese citizens demand a better environment and blue skies and their governments actually listens and creates plans.

Re: Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

#44

Post by beckman466 »

maccard wrote: post #41
frashelaw wrote: post #2

Westerners really will do literally anything about climate change except reckon with their corporate overlords who by far are the biggest contributors to climate destruction. Get real, your app using 15% less power makes literally zero difference. If you want to make a real difference, nationalize and seize energy corporations and whip them into shape under planned economic management. Anything short of that and clim…

> Westerners really will do literally anything about climate change except reckon with their corporate overlords who by far are the biggest contributors to climate destruction. Disagree. Westerners will do literally anything except make any changes to their behavior. You even see it here whenever these threads come up - "why should I do anything while china is emitting X times more than the US". These companies don't…

> These companies don't exist in a vacuum. BP aren't pumping up oil and hoping that an evil megacorp will just buy it. People like you and me are driving the demand for products with huge amounts of waste and dirty manufacturing processes.

Oil companies like BP and Shell blocked the dissemination of vital scientific research on climate change. They also blocked the development of electric cars, or alternatives in general. [1] Executives in the car industry also hold back the development of high speed rail networks through lobbying.

> Westerners will do literally anything except make any changes to their behavior.

It's hard for the working class to see the full picture when we live in a proprietary, black box -world that only allows a small group of people to become science literate. A society where the propertied class undemocratically charts the direction for science through 'intellectual property' claims, which blocks scientific progress as it commoditizes and removes important feedback loops/learnings from the commons. [2]

[1] https://archive.org/details/vimeo-210171457

[2] https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/01/abolish-silicon-valley

Re: Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

#45

Post by ZeroGravitas »

maccard wrote: post #41
frashelaw wrote: post #2

Westerners really will do literally anything about climate change except reckon with their corporate overlords who by far are the biggest contributors to climate destruction. Get real, your app using 15% less power makes literally zero difference. If you want to make a real difference, nationalize and seize energy corporations and whip them into shape under planned economic management. Anything short of that and clim…

> Westerners really will do literally anything about climate change except reckon with their corporate overlords who by far are the biggest contributors to climate destruction. Disagree. Westerners will do literally anything except make any changes to their behavior. You even see it here whenever these threads come up - "why should I do anything while china is emitting X times more than the US". These companies don't…

That API exists btw.

https://www.watttime.org/api-documentation/#introduction

There's other local ones too.

Re: Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

#46

Post by detaro »

gpvos wrote: post #24
bserge wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are energy companies doing that's worth nationalizing them over? Whip into shape how? They're energy providers, not users.

They are still investing into fossil fuels instead of sustainable production methods.

And many governments are happily subsidizing fossil fuels.

Re: Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

#47

Post by jamil7 »

frashelaw wrote: post #2

Westerners really will do literally anything about climate change except reckon with their corporate overlords who by far are the biggest contributors to climate destruction. Get real, your app using 15% less power makes literally zero difference. If you want to make a real difference, nationalize and seize energy corporations and whip them into shape under planned economic management. Anything short of that and clim…

Why can’t we do both? 15% less energy use for our software, scaled up actually sounds like a pretty big win. Less charge cycles also means a battery lasts longer before needing to be replaced.

If programmers have the tools to easily profile and fix low-hanging fruit in this area it’s a positive to society.

Re: Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

#48

Post by thefr0g »

fzaninotto wrote: post #27

These tools are great, but aren't enough to get a full picture, and not accurate enough to give actionable insights. Most of the quoted tools measure the CPU or GPU consumption. But in a laptop, about half of the energy consumption comes from the screen. And the consumption computers & smartphones represents only 20% of the CO2 emitted by digital activities - the vast majority lies elsewhere, in networks, in datacent…

> Worse, focusing on the computer consumption may push web developers to just move computations to the server side, where the energy consumption is not measured.

Server side energy consumption is directly measured by how much money it costs to run the servers. The only reason web devs waste client processing power like there is no tomorrow is that it doesn't cost anything.

Re: Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

#49

Post by maccard »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #45
maccard wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Westerners really will do literally anything about climate change except reckon with their corporate overlords who by far are the biggest contributors to climate destruction. Disagree. Westerners will do literally anything except make any changes to their behavior. You even see it here whenever these threads come up - "why should I do anything while china is emitting X times more than the US". These companies don't…

That API exists btw. https://www.watttime.org/api-documentation/#introduction There's other local ones too.

TIL. That's really cool!

Re: Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

#50

Post by matheusmoreira »

frashelaw wrote: post #2

Westerners really will do literally anything about climate change except reckon with their corporate overlords who by far are the biggest contributors to climate destruction. Get real, your app using 15% less power makes literally zero difference. If you want to make a real difference, nationalize and seize energy corporations and whip them into shape under planned economic management. Anything short of that and clim…

Westerners will also never stop trading with China, the biggest polluters in the world.
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