A Day in the Life: Taking notes
Jessica Vogt
Issue date: 5/2/08 Section: Opinions & Editorials
8:29 a.m.: You arrive in class and begin to get ready to hear the latest lecture on determinism and free will, 18th century Spanish literature, or whatever. What do you get out to take notes on? (a) a PC laptop, (b) an Apple MacBook, (c) a spiral notebook you just bought at Conkey's yesterday, (d) a notebook you used last term for Freshman Studies and has blank pages left, or (e) some paper only used on one side that you just nicked from the recycle bin. Let's have a quick look at the drawbacks and advantages of each of these before the Prof comes in.
A PC laptop or MacBook. There are actually differences in the "greenness" of PCs versus Mac computers. Unfortunately, little information was available specifically on laptops, so I've used desktops as a surrogate comparison. The typical laptop of either flavor uses energy at anywhere from 15 to 45 watts (W, or joules of energy per second, a lightbulb uses 60). A PC desktop computer uses at minimum 95 but up to 330W. On the other side of the street, there's iMacs, which use 97 to 120W at the most. Extrapolating these numbers to laptops, MacBooks are more energy efficient -- use less energy to do the same task -- than PC notebooks.
However, there are computers that are much more energy efficient than a Mac. Two companies offer alternatives: Linutop makes tiny computers (sans monitor) that use only 5 to 8 watts. And Zonbu makes a laptop that has uses only 15 watts. That's pretty impressive!
Still, computers do use power, end of story, whether it's temporarily battery powered and will need to be recharged through the outlet later, or you plug in during class. But I'm lacking space in this column to talk about power generation, so we'll save that argument for another week.
Let's move on to spiral notebooks. There are several issues to consider: origin of paper pulp, percent recycled content, manufacturing process, the color of paper and processing location. Paper comes from wood and wood comes from forests: virgin forests, rainforests, managed forests, etc. We all learned in fifth grade that cutting down the rainforest destroys plants and animal habitat. Sustainably managed forests, however, create habitat and promote re-growth of a renewable resource. Some notebooks say on the front or back cover that they are made from timber from a sustainably managed forest, or made of "wood-free" paper, such as banana fibers. Some are made with some or all recycled content. Mead makes notebooks with 30% recycled content. Ampad manufactures Champion with all their products "made with recycled material" -- though if it doesn't say how much is recycled, it's probably not enough to matter.
A PC laptop or MacBook. There are actually differences in the "greenness" of PCs versus Mac computers. Unfortunately, little information was available specifically on laptops, so I've used desktops as a surrogate comparison. The typical laptop of either flavor uses energy at anywhere from 15 to 45 watts (W, or joules of energy per second, a lightbulb uses 60). A PC desktop computer uses at minimum 95 but up to 330W. On the other side of the street, there's iMacs, which use 97 to 120W at the most. Extrapolating these numbers to laptops, MacBooks are more energy efficient -- use less energy to do the same task -- than PC notebooks.
However, there are computers that are much more energy efficient than a Mac. Two companies offer alternatives: Linutop makes tiny computers (sans monitor) that use only 5 to 8 watts. And Zonbu makes a laptop that has uses only 15 watts. That's pretty impressive!
Still, computers do use power, end of story, whether it's temporarily battery powered and will need to be recharged through the outlet later, or you plug in during class. But I'm lacking space in this column to talk about power generation, so we'll save that argument for another week.
Let's move on to spiral notebooks. There are several issues to consider: origin of paper pulp, percent recycled content, manufacturing process, the color of paper and processing location. Paper comes from wood and wood comes from forests: virgin forests, rainforests, managed forests, etc. We all learned in fifth grade that cutting down the rainforest destroys plants and animal habitat. Sustainably managed forests, however, create habitat and promote re-growth of a renewable resource. Some notebooks say on the front or back cover that they are made from timber from a sustainably managed forest, or made of "wood-free" paper, such as banana fibers. Some are made with some or all recycled content. Mead makes notebooks with 30% recycled content. Ampad manufactures Champion with all their products "made with recycled material" -- though if it doesn't say how much is recycled, it's probably not enough to matter.
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