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Comment by reazalun | Hacker News Reader

Environmentalists care. The more bloated a software is, the more power it uses, the less greener it becomes.

"Bloat" typically means profligate memory consumption and unnecessary features, not rampant CPU usage: using a lot of virtual memory wouldn't significantly effect power consumption (unless you end up spinning up the hard disk to swap stuff out, but even then it should be marginal).

This has to be one of the more idiotic statements I've read on here. Sure, crappy software that uses more disk space, memory and CPU cycles probably requires more power, but you can't seriously believe this is a real issue. If you do, in fact, believe this nonsense then saying your priorities and efforts are misguided would be the understatement of the millenium. There are plenty more environmental issues that need to be tackled before even speculating about the power consumption of bloated software.

I'm still holding out hope that your comment was a joke gone awry.

Expect more comments like the GP on the back of reports like this:

    The global information and communications technology 
    industry accounts for approximately 2 percent of 
    global carbon dioxide emissions, a figure equivalent to
    aviation, according to a new estimate by Gartner, Inc.

despite software itself being accountable for only a small portion of that 2%.

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=503867

I don't find that report the least bit surprising. I would only expect that figure to increase. But it's completely ludicrous for anyone to suggest that it's the result of bloated operating systems. I'm not surprised I was modded down given my tone, but I don't why on earth anyone modded up the GP.

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