I wrote 11 November 2008 4:13:59 PM:

> symposium at ANU on Friday ...
> http://tomw.net.au/moodle/course/view.php?id=10

Some responses to the comments:

"one under god" 8:59:16 PM:

> i am on my 5 th computer [in 4 years]

My laptops last two years of being carted on bicycles. The low cost Twinhead I bought February 2007 is going okay: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2007/02/new-notebook-computer.html

Also nettops look reasonably solid: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2008/10/aldi-netbook-computer.html

> uploading every virus ever invented.

Keep virus checkers up to date and use an email service which filters out viruses before they reach your computer.

> ... make the damm things able to be serviced

Yes. Also a heat glue gun fixes many computer problems. ;-)

>[i want a refund on my vista]

I didn't install Vista. Windows 7 might be okay, but I might switch to Linux instead.

Posted by Ludwig, 9:41:39 PM:

>Your key questions …are entirely concerned with climate change ...

Yes, but we have to start somewhere.

Posted by one under god, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 1:09:06 AM:

>seems the computer industry just adopted the green theme

There is "green-washing" in the ICT industry, but also people genuinely concerned.

Posted by Forrest Gumpp, 12 November 2008 8:32:48 AM:

>... governments ... taking the view that ICT has enabled
> the ordinary computer user too much ...

Not all in government are afraid of the Internet. The Finance Minister wants to do social networking: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2008/11/australian-government-20.html

> Sir Peter Gershon's report ... centralization ...

Yes, simply centralising everything doesn't make sense. The web can be used to centralise some functions and decentralise others.

>Ludwig's exposition ...

The hard part is actually doing it. Having been a less than successful technocrat in government, I have found education can achieve change. In teaching accessible web design, for example, I like to think I helped change the design of federal government web sites for the better: http://www.tomw.net.au/2008/wd/

In teaching Green ICT, I hope to change the way ICT is done. The draft course web site, using Australian Moodle software, is at:

http://tomw.net.au/moodle/course/view.php?id=11

The my Blog postings on how this is being produced is at:

http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2008/11/e-learning-course-on-green-ict_09.html

Great,

I'll just fly in from Perth to see how I can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from my computer.

Sylvia.

Posted by Sylvia Else, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 3:31:00 PM:

>I'll just fly in from Perth to see how I can help reduce
>greenhouse gas emissions from my computer.

I have noticed a lot of events like that. I turn up at the convention centre by tram and folding bicycle <http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2005/09/live-from-searcc-2005-in-sydney.html> and find everyone else took a taxi from the airport. ;-(

As far as I know no one is travelling from interstate to attend the event. We have one interstate presenter who is attending via the Internet. The overseas presenter happens to be in Australia anyway on other business.

Someone mentioned Linux.
I have Linux running on really old machines quite comfortably.

You do need 20Gbyte hard drives though. You can certainly use much
smaller hard drives so long as you don't want stacks of programs.
For word processors, email, web surfing three or four GByte works fine.
I certainly won't be chasing the upgraded m/cs needed for Vista.
Think of all the co2 saved by not upgrading computers.

You can use the power management to shut things down after no activity.

When you see the shutdown air conditioning and the whole telephone
exchange in one corner of one floor think about how much power they
are now saving.
The real question is how long will the internet keep running during
energy power down ? I think it will graduaqlly become unreliable.

Ludwig; “Your key questions …are entirely concerned with climate change ...”

Tomw; “Yes, but we have to start somewhere.”

But is it a start? Do you intend to take it further? Are you or any of your colleagues going to run another symposium to follow this one up, in which you explore my all-important fourth question?

My guess would be; no, not at all.

Don’t you think that at this point in time we should be along way past the ‘start’ and getting well and truly stuck into the big components of overall sustainability?

Are you going to lobby for your university or your government to get an urgent move-on in addressing the big picture….or are you operating completely in isolation and just assuming that you are doing your little bit for the common good, without even attempting to really tie it in to the holistic view?

Having witnessed the latter hundreds of times, I suspect it is the case here too.

“Ludwig's exposition ...

The hard part is actually doing it.”

I presume you are referring to ‘doing’ real sustainability Tom?

Well it sure would help if it was on the agenda in the first place!

Sure, education and improved web design can achieve change. But we need to promote the sort of change that we want it to achieve. It could easily be used for the wrong purposes. For example; to promote the interests of big business and free market ideology as opposed to limits to human expansion and better wealth distribution and thus be used to take us even more rapidly away from a sustainable and equitable world.

'Technocrats' can't just assume that their changes will be for the better. We've all got to work solidly to make sure they are.

yeah tom [i tried keeping the updates with my first two computers]
virus are planted via the backdoors windows installs just to keep its control over its users ,

its just that most users remain ignorant in just how exposed they are to snooppers in real time ,as well as that saved in the digestised format [built in obsolesance
#
i noted you only bothered to reply the fluff issues and chose to side step the relitive comment's ,which is a typical short cut ,that gives the appearance of but is not a fulsome response

,it is futile listing them again as you will just dance arround the real issues with some flippant reply

enron was the first to limit the web stream
[reportedly]with stream restriction ,that now has flowed through into real time monitoring ,and a rewal inside trading based on our web searches

searches that supposedly get 3 million results
[but we are allowed to acces only 1000][or less than 100 pages of it

because some computer teq has prioritised even the search to acces only those favoured 1000

but the model isnt sustainable ,nor fair [and deliberatly made more useless[it would be so easy to have us weight the search results for you ,that rates the contents [multiple contents the search schoses to reply

but go ahead prove how clever you are by picking on selective words
just like your words search

[this gross proffiteering while stealing our origonal content is a thing that in time will see the web killed off as it dosnt represent true worth of this 'ser-vice'

in time it will be revaealed that micro soft is the equivelent of a virus stealing others ideas with omnipotant oppressive powers ,
#
# able to limit free speech at will
with the us the user monkeys using it only able to spell check their way through it by hitting the right buttons ,they [we] are able to acces only by debit card and its selective monopoly