Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

luiscruz.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 72 posts

Re: Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

#51

Post by pjc50 »

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…

Last time the Mossmorran flare went off ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c6wk2ml6gwzt/mossmorran-fl... ), I ran the numbers and estimated that it was consuming as much ethylene as one hundred plastic straws per second. I can't out-conserve a hundred foot high column of flame.

Individual behaviour is the weakest of possible pressures on inefficient processes. And as you point out it's a collective action problem - people aren't going to be the only one changing their behavior, that's obviously ineffective, they want a behavior change to be coerced on everyone at the same time so there aren't any free riders.

Largely it's a "yes and" situation; we have to push for everything, because we'll only get a tiny fraction of the changes we ask for.

Re: Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

#52

Post by globular-toast »

beckman466 wrote: post #44
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…

> 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 gen…

> Oil companies like BP and Shell blocked the dissemination of vital scientific research on climate change.

I was taught about global warming as a child at school in the 90s. Are we going to keep blaming it on suppression of information for another 30 years?

> They also blocked the development of electric cars, or alternatives in general.

Electric cars don't solve any problems apart from reduce pollution in cities maybe. The change that is required includes not using 2 tonne vehicles to move around everywhere. Electric cars are just another example of people refusing to change their behaviour.

> 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.

There has never been a better time in history for finding information or becoming scientifically literate. I'm not sure what you're talking about here.

But none of this will help us anyway. Capitalism keeps us divided and divided we will fall. There's simply no way that any large-scale change is going to happen without coordinated, top-down, systematic enforcement from governments. We need to make people realise that we're all in this together. But this isn't how animal brains operate, unfortunately.

Re: Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

#53

Post by globular-toast »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #50
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.

Or the USA, whose per capita emissions are still double that of China.

Re: Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

#54

Post by matheusmoreira »

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…

> That's far and away the most impactful thing you can do to cut your personal contribution to carbon emissions.

Yeah, and it's also the fastest way to put an end to your nation. Without people, there's no nation.

Re: Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

#55

Post by ZeroGravitas »

pjc50 wrote: post #51
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…

Last time the Mossmorran flare went off ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c6wk2ml6gwzt/mossmorran-fl... ), I ran the numbers and estimated that it was consuming as much ethylene as one hundred plastic straws per second . I can't out-conserve a hundred foot high column of flame. Individual behaviour is the weakest of possible pressures on inefficient processes. And as you point out it's a collective action problem -…

I agree with your general point, I just want to note one of my pet peeves, which is people talking about the straw thing as if it was ever intended to do anything but reduce discarded single use plastic items.

The framing if it not being a useful contribution to climate change appears to be used to undermine people's confidence that anything can be done about anything.

But we can and are making progress on plastic litter going into oceans and carbon intensity generally. Very slow progress in some cases but still, its not hopeless or impossible.

And yes, generally we should do the most impactful things first, and we generally are. Most of the eco "whataboutism" seems designed to derail rather than illuminate.

Re: Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

#56

Post by matheusmoreira »

tjoff wrote: post #30
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. HALLELUJAH! It sure is measured. If web developers where a fraction of as wasteful with server resources as they are with client resources the world would instantly be measurably better for it. I'd bet that a significant portion of the energy and waste from…

> I'd bet that a significant portion of the energy and waste from computers are from viewing ads.

Yet another reason to block all ads and make no exceptions. Advertising itself should probably be banned.

Re: Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

#57

Post by gameswithgo »

relyks wrote: post #28

This made me think: On a smaller scale, should code that uses more efficient algorithms and data structure in terms of computational complexity (both time and space) also be more efficient in terms of energy usage? If the code in its most frequent use cases uses less instructions and memory swaps, wouldn't that lead to less energy usage?

The fastest code is almost always the most energy efficient code yes. Not a perfect correlation but close.

Re: Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

#58

Post by ZeroGravitas »

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…

I like your enthusiasm, but I feel simple regulation should achieve most of these benefits. Yeah it would be good to move faster, but nationalising isn't strictly necessary, and the planning already happens for most things anyway and is already in place for most things.

I agree that most of the resistance is financed by powerful corporates who don't want to be regulated and nationalisation is one way to cut that Gordian knot, but not the only one.

Re: Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

#59

Post by lozenge »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #55
pjc50 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time the Mossmorran flare went off ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c6wk2ml6gwzt/mossmorran-fl... ), I ran the numbers and estimated that it was consuming as much ethylene as one hundred plastic straws per second . I can't out-conserve a hundred foot high column of flame. Individual behaviour is the weakest of possible pressures on inefficient processes. And as you point out it's a collective action problem -…

I agree with your general point, I just want to note one of my pet peeves, which is people talking about the straw thing as if it was ever intended to do anything but reduce discarded single use plastic items. The framing if it not being a useful contribution to climate change appears to be used to undermine people's confidence that anything can be done about anything. But we can and are making progress on plastic li…

It's used to let governments that aren't interested in being green, look green.

Here in the UK it's a slow drip of initiatives that catch the public eye. Microplastics, single use bags, straws, now they're looking at coffee stirrers, and bags again as the law had an obvious unintended consequence. I just know the next things will be plastic plates and some absurdly overcomplicated deposit scheme.

They'll also ban new ICE cars which will have a clear unintended consequence in driving people to upgrade their cars early for their "last ICE car", creating more manufacturing emissions. But it sounds good.

The "big stuff" goes ignored, in fact our current PM is contemptuous of the environment. There isn't going to be any action on meat, aviation... actually they're building new runways.

It's as if we are asking for work life balance and we get given our birthdays off. All PR and no actual progress.

Re: Tools to measure software energy consumption from your computer

#60

Post by ceejayoz »

xyzelement wrote: post #13
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…

>> nationalize and seize energy corporations and whip them into shape under planned economic management. Can you imagine not being able to heat your apartment/home, or your stores being empty because there's no fuel for trucks? Unless you can really picture that and still tell yourself "yup, I really do want that," you shouldn't be excited/confident about what you're proposing. I suspect you can't really imagine what…

> Can you imagine not being able to heat your apartment/home, or your stores being empty because there's no fuel for trucks?

If these are disqualifying, capitalism's out too.

Heat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis

Empty stores via fuel shortage: https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/28/business/brexit-fuel-food-sho...

Post reply on HN