Flash Carbon Footprint of NYTimes.com

http://blog.kalio.net/post/400184540/flash-carbon-footprint-of-nytimes-com-100-toyota

by giu • 16 years ago

36 31 16 years ago

blog.kalio.net

grinich• 16 years ago

= 100 Toyota Prius.

It's OK to leave that in the title.

giu• 16 years ago

Thanks for the hint. I classified that part of the title as punchline and omitted it, since a) I didn't know how HN would react if I would've added it and b) I didn't want to give too much away in the submission title :)

nir2• 16 years ago

OMG Flash kills the planet too!!! (BTW, wonder what would be the carbon footprint if NYT switches its background to black? All these #ffffff pixels burning bright..)

kasterma2• 16 years ago

I distinctly remember claims that for modern monitors the color does not change energy use.

meroliph• 16 years ago

This is true for LCDs, but plasma TVs consume a lot less on a completely black background as opposed to a completely white one.

mey• 16 years ago

It depends on the display type. Some displays emit energy based on the intensity of the image (CRT, Plasma). Others always generate light but then mask out the light with a matrix display which typically has a pretty constant energy usage (LCD, Projection). Still others only require energy only when they change (eInk, future color pigmentation eInk variations).

And of course power variations in each technology, FL LCD v LED LCD. Older Plasma displays vs newer Plasma displays. The size of the display, (your 52" TV v 3" cellphone)

For CRT/Plasma there is also refresh rate to consider...

etc etc etc.

kqr2• 16 years ago

According to google:

on flat-panel monitors (already estimated to be 75% of the market), displaying black may actually increase energy usage

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/is-black-new-green.ht...

dabeeeenster• 16 years ago

Be interested to see the power consumption figures on a windows machine as opposed to a mac...

brutimus• 16 years ago

That was my exact thought. I doubt his numbers are even close to accurate as Flash doesn't stress windows machines like it does linux and osx. And given that most NYT users are probably windows users, I'd bet the real statistic would be way lower.

ff0066mote• 16 years ago

I would think it would be lower.

It's at least a popular belief, if not completely true, that Mac+flash is slow because of apple's uncooperative behavior, and Linux+flash is slow because adobe doesn't care.

See these discussions: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1075440 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1139393 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1138266 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1100189

dmillar• 16 years ago

Would also like to see HTML5/JS data. Or, even animated GIFs.

sp3322• 16 years ago

This article raises a very interesting question: WTH is the plural of Prius? What should the plural be?

axod3• 16 years ago

The plural of radius is radii, so I'd assume Prii? (Pronounced Pree-eye)

edit: Because someone doesn't think Radii is the plural of Radius :/

From maths.org, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY.

http://thesaurus.maths.org/mmkb/entry.html?action=entryByCon...

From the BBC,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/tutors/lessonplans/spelling/...

From the Oxford dictionary,

http://www.askoxford.com:80/concise_oed/radii?view=uk

From the Chambers dictionary,

http://www.chambersharrap.co.uk/chambers/features/chref/chre...

codyrobbins4• 16 years ago

The plural of radius is radiuses, and the plural of Prius is Priuses. I am so tired of comments where people make up ‘funny’ pseudo-Latinate plurals.

kasterma2• 16 years ago

Anyone any idea how these energy measurements were made?

codyrobbins4• 16 years ago

Except those blinking ads aren’t useless—they bring in substantial amounts of ad revenue for the New York Times. So what is OP’s point, exactly?

Semiapies4• 16 years ago

Presumably they'd burn even less fossil fuel if they went out of business.

nir2• 16 years ago

Or at least shut down their website - and, obviously, their even more wasteful print edition.

amadiver• 16 years ago

I think the article is a bit disingenuous. It's actually finding the carbon footprint of animated banner ads (since the only Flash content on the page right now seems to be a lone video player that does not autoplay). A more interesting test would be a comparison between these Flash ads and their equivalent HTML5/Canvas ads.

mjgoins• 16 years ago

Can anyone point to why flash is so processor-intensive?

Is it a necessary property of doing what flash does, or is flash implemented inefficiently?

Flash Carbon Footprint of NYTimes.com

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