As of tonight the Scratch Poop I've been working on is finished, and it will be released on the first of October.
Wow, that was quick. Usually something like that would make a great subject for a blog post, but there is hardly anything to talk about it. So instead I have this to fill the rest of this post.
You see, I have an old beige tower that I amazingly still use (in fact, I typed this post on that computer). It doesn't have great specs: a 1.8 GHz Intel Celeron and a mere 487 MB of memory. That was not a typo, it really is measured in Megabytes. Despite only having a tiny amount of RAM it still feels responsive in core areas, mainly due to the fact that I removed the memory hog that is Windows on this computer and made it a dual-boot Linux machine instead.
This got me thinking. Linux desktops have made great leaps and bounds in terms of usability over the years, and sport apps that cater for the needs for the average computer user. Couple that with the fact that a Linux-based OS made an old computer feel like new, it is clear that most of these machines still have a useful life in them. Of course, those machines get thrown away.
This is where we get to the issue at hand: e-waste. It is an ever increasing problem as people keep throwing away perfectly good tech just because they they feel it is too slow. Now I can't change human psychology, but I believe I have a solution that works with those people, not against them. Instead of throwing them away, people should give their old computers to me. I'll remove their Windows installation and replace it with a custom Linux distro, and resell those computers. The old owners still get to buy a new machine, but their old kit avoids the landfill and into the hands of a new owner.
Of course you'll say it's a stupid idea, as people don't want old computers. If you have an old machine lying about, go install a Linux OS on it and see what you think, because I believe this idea could work.
Wow, that was quick. Usually something like that would make a great subject for a blog post, but there is hardly anything to talk about it. So instead I have this to fill the rest of this post.
You see, I have an old beige tower that I amazingly still use (in fact, I typed this post on that computer). It doesn't have great specs: a 1.8 GHz Intel Celeron and a mere 487 MB of memory. That was not a typo, it really is measured in Megabytes. Despite only having a tiny amount of RAM it still feels responsive in core areas, mainly due to the fact that I removed the memory hog that is Windows on this computer and made it a dual-boot Linux machine instead.
This got me thinking. Linux desktops have made great leaps and bounds in terms of usability over the years, and sport apps that cater for the needs for the average computer user. Couple that with the fact that a Linux-based OS made an old computer feel like new, it is clear that most of these machines still have a useful life in them. Of course, those machines get thrown away.
This is where we get to the issue at hand: e-waste. It is an ever increasing problem as people keep throwing away perfectly good tech just because they they feel it is too slow. Now I can't change human psychology, but I believe I have a solution that works with those people, not against them. Instead of throwing them away, people should give their old computers to me. I'll remove their Windows installation and replace it with a custom Linux distro, and resell those computers. The old owners still get to buy a new machine, but their old kit avoids the landfill and into the hands of a new owner.
Of course you'll say it's a stupid idea, as people don't want old computers. If you have an old machine lying about, go install a Linux OS on it and see what you think, because I believe this idea could work.