[ILUG] Switch off - leave on?

[Conor Wynne]

On 27/03/2007 23:01, "Ciaran Johnston" <cj at nologic.org> wrote:

> On Tuesday 27 March 2007 21:07, Conor Wynne wrote:
>> Timothy Murphy wrote:
>>> Also surely you have had power outages in the last 5 years?
>>> I think we average just under one per year.
>> 
>> Indeed, my bleached coral (SPS) are testament to this. Power went out
>> during the night (typical),
>> and now they are struggling to recover!
>> 
>> I even lost my beautiful Copperband Butterfly, and the kids loved her -
>> although not as much as power rangers mystic force.
> 
> Are these "bleached coral" as in "stressed, overheated and overexposed to
> light" coral? I'm not surprised they're struggling ...

No, the drop in temp caused shock for the SPS corals, and they are now
recovering well.  

> 
> Did you not realise that there are screen-savers available that do much the
> same thing as a tropical tank these days, but they are:
> * Cheaper and more energy-efficient to run
> * You can turn them off when you aren't looking at them, and
> * They have no problems recovering from a power outage.

:-0
 
> Unfortunately most of the really good ones only run on Windows - but for the
> price of Windows Vista Ultimate what sort of an aquarium setup would you get
> anyway?
> 
>> Oh and please switch off your PC's when they are not required, think
>> about the environment!
> 
> Coral harvesting for aquariums has a fairly noticeable impact on the
> sustainability of coral reefs. Not to mention the carbon footprint of their
> transportation, storage and so on. Eventually I assume a small percentage
> must survive this trauma well enough to be maintained in some remote
> semblence of health in a 24-7-365 electricity-consuming bubble in Ireland. Is
> this the same environment, or a different one?

Agreed, that is why I only use home grown coral --> frags as they are
called. 
 
>> I could not care less how much they cost in ESB terms to run, if you do
>> not need them, then switch them off.
> 
> Why exactly does "need" apply to our PCs, but not to your coral?

To make me not feel as guilty as I do for running 300 watts of metal halides
;-0 And that is the bare minimum. Anyway

>> 
>> If not for your ESB bill, then do it for my Coral - they are more
>> expensive than high-end desktops & laptops, way more in fact.
>> I know of a guy in Holland who estimated that he could have bought two
>> new Ferrari's with the cost of his tank setup, not to mention the
>> running costs
> 
> Aren't these things priced according to how endangered they are? (Coral, not
> ferraris).
> 
> Regards,
> Ciaran.

I was being tongue in cheek, but I really do go around the office switching
things off to offset my carbon usage. Lights in meeting rooms, monitors etc.

Later
Conor.