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Google's buckyballs doodle KILLED THE PLANET
I can't quite believe I'm writing this, but: Google's buckyball doodle probably did enough harm to the planet to counteract every 'carbon offset' initiative the big G has ever been involved in. A plucky investigative journalist over on ZDNet, irked by one of his computers locking up at 100% CPU utilization after loading the Google homepage, decided to do a little research to see just how malevolent this buckyball was. He turned up some disgruntled users on the Google help forum, but it pales in comparison to what one of his Twitter followers discovered: he checked his household electricity monitor and -- get this -- the buckyball doodle, coded in JavaScript, requires a massive 15 to 20 watts.
Now I'm going to add a little of my own hyperbolic, Monday-morning tabloidery. Early reports would suggest that lots (hundreds of millions) of people sat and played with their buckyball for minutes. If you consider that the Pac-Man game caused the average user to spend 36 seconds longer on Google, you can begin to appreciate just how many extra kilowatt hours were used by Google's buckyball doodle. I lack the cranial capacity to work out the exact figure (I'm a blogger, not a bona fide investigative journalist!), but I reckon we're talking about 'more electricity than Wyoming uses in a year'.
(Yes, it's a slow news day.)
Comments
17
Subscribe to commentsmazzthepianomanSep 6th 2010 10:51AM
I bet that is nothing compared the power used up by when they did Pacman.
GeorgeSep 6th 2010 10:56AM
Javascript sucks, but just imagine how bad it would have been if they'd used Flash!
Sebastian AnthonySep 6th 2010 11:34AM
Ha... ha... ha. (But, true...)
WombatSep 6th 2010 11:08AM
18,750 kwh
100000000people * .015 kwh/hr * (1hr / 3600s) * 45s per person.
So that's less than half what my neighborhood subdivision uses in a single month.
I know it's hyperbole, but really. Wow.
Sebastian AnthonySep 6th 2010 11:34AM
They have about 500,000,000 daily users, I think.
But that's not as big a number as I had hoped... alas.
TaaiSep 6th 2010 1:09PM
This buzz about electricity is ridiculous!
If you want to save your money, disable flash (ads), switch your TV off while not watching it, turn off lights in other rooms and buy a new refrigerator!
But if you don't like the (Google's) thingie, use search bar in your browser's right top corner.
Javascript doesn't suck, it's just that the game is heavy and computer has to do a huge work to make that object so alive and iteractive... I'm sure that there could be done some improvements in that code so the ball wouldn't suck that much power from your computer.
Better blame gamers for their willing to play heavy games like Crysis! - They spend a lot of electricity!
Blah, I could keep talking, but enough is enough...
cyberguy91Sep 6th 2010 5:55PM
Don't forget to unplug the plasma tv as well. I've been told the plasma ones draw a good amount of power even while off.
SpexSep 6th 2010 2:10PM
Another attempt to push an article for sensationalism when you don't really need to, dude. This could have just as easily been an article about the buckyball being an inefficient CPU hog but you really tried to turn it into issue with Google and being a green energy saver?
Besides the fact how much you want to bet a vast number of other very popular websites use MORE power then that being covered in arrays of flash banner ads or video streaming? Mountains out of molehills, man. Just to make Google look bad when they really didn't do that much at all this time.
SilverWaveSep 6th 2010 5:39PM
Well the next Extinction Event is due RSN so... between 95-98% of everything will die. So, big picture, whatever we do wont really matter in the slightest.
:-)
TagbertSep 14th 2010 1:01AM
Dude, we ARE the next big extinction event.
SilverWaveSep 14th 2010 1:29PM
@Tagbert
Nope :-) Whatever we do the earth will clean its self up in about 10,000 year after humanity ends.
100,000 tops.
RaithSep 7th 2010 5:59AM
This makes me laugh. Sure, Google made every computer run hot for a while and waste electricity. Yes, the simple arithmetic stacks up and shows that x gigawatts has been used where previously our computers would have sat idle. But before the lynch mob get too carried away, let us consider the possible enjoyment that this little google misadventure provided to the geeky many. I loved it. I spent AGES taking it apart. I am a javascript coder and I learned from it. It was much more educational than the hundreds of hours I spent playing Far Cry games with my computer fan struggling to keep the heat down.
Now that we are all aware of the global effect of our rash electricity use may I ask what impact 20 years of Friends repeats (re-runs) have had? Have a guess at the viewing hours, multiply by millions of brainless, pick some arbitrary 'tricity rate, and then send the eco vengeance death squad round to Ross' house (he simply HAS to die first). It's "The one where they all get their comeuppance for destroying the planet".
Sitting here enjoying my hot coffee (I do enjoy COLD coffee) and toast (bread which has been cooked TWICE) makes me more guilty today, than that time I sat and played with Google's buckyball. Shame, coz that was going to be something I told my Grand-children, "tell us Grampy what you were doing when the Google buckyball destroyed our ecological inheritance."
Load of hot fucking air about nothing. And I'm no bloody exception. See? It brings out the worst in all of us! ;)
AurrinSep 7th 2010 7:43AM
Yep. Now tell me again why it was that interpreted multilanguage programs inside a hosting program are going to out-compete native code again...?
PaulSep 7th 2010 12:00PM
How about an article on the number of cpu cycles spent on farmville updates...
Sebastian AnthonySep 7th 2010 1:03PM
That's not a bad idea... :P
PaulSep 7th 2010 1:07PM
*Patiently waits for 'Farmville killed my marraige' article :)
YouTube InventorSep 8th 2010 11:41PM
no person committee dot org ... google blows its cover, yes it's the lamest collection of software nazis on the planet