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   Mallory's Musings & Mischief (malcircuit@thingy.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Oct-2024 00:33:23 JST Mallory's Musings & Mischief

   Something no one talks about enough:

   CPU cycles aren't free.
   Memory reads and writes aren't free.

   That shit takes power. A miniscule amount per instance, yes, but it adds up quick if it's from an app that everyone uses constantly. All that power comes from somewhere, and right now that's mostly fossil fuels.

   When people complain about software bloat, it's not just a UX problem, it's an environmental one too.

   • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     Mallory's Musings & Mischief (malcircuit@thingy.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Oct-2024 00:56:01 JST Mallory's Musings & Mischief

     in reply to

     Putting advertising on everything takes power.
     Making everything internet connected takes power.
     Pushing notifications takes power.
     Autoplaying videos and sound takes power.
     Tracking and data collection systems take power.
     New "features" take power.

     Don't even get me started on all this new "AI" bullshit.

     Aral Balkan and alcinnz repeated this.
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     Mallory's Musings & Mischief (malcircuit@thingy.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Oct-2024 00:56:10 JST Mallory's Musings & Mischief

     in reply to

     I get that there are more impactful changes to society that can be made that would reduce our environmental impact more than writing better software. But it's still a thing that matters and should improve.

     pettter, Aral Balkan and alcinnz repeated this.
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     Mallory's Musings & Mischief (malcircuit@thingy.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Oct-2024 00:56:12 JST Mallory's Musings & Mischief

     in reply to

     Manufacturing new computing hardware is an enormously energy and resource intensive process. Having to make hardware obsolete because the *software* isn't efficient is an absurd waste.

     alcinnz repeated this.
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     Mallory's Musings & Mischief (malcircuit@thingy.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Oct-2024 06:29:27 JST Mallory's Musings & Mischief

     in reply to

     This goes back to something I've ranted about in the past. Capitalism is incapable of comprehending the idea of a solved problem.

     There is a class of problems for which optimal (or nearly optimal) solutions exist or could exist. Some of those solutions have existed for decades. But capitalism is never satisfied — growth must continue. So people keep trying to reinvent the wheel, making solutions that are more profitable but also more abstracted and inefficient.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     Mallory's Musings & Mischief (malcircuit@thingy.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Oct-2024 06:30:35 JST Mallory's Musings & Mischief

     in reply to

     When you live in a system that is always pushing for growth, your perspective becomes skewed. There are problems that we deal with everyday that probably could be solved — permanently (or at least for a long time) — but to do so would eliminate an entire cascade of profit, which is considered unacceptable.

     So we continue to try to reinvent the wheel, or add features, or enshittify to increase profits.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.