Green, green, my world is green
By Hawke Knows
HUM, hum, hum, mumble, mumble —I don’t know the rest of the lyrics.
There I was, just minding my own business — unlike my erstwhile fellow irregular columnist and all-round kay-po-chee C. Lee Kon. I was working on my keyboard, plumbing the depths (or shallows) of my creativity to come out with another exciting (yawn) article.
Then it happened. A sudden hush in the room, and all Those ln.Tech Weirdos quickly quit the games they were playing and switched to their word processors. Some picked up phones to pretend they were talking to members of the industry, sniffing for scoops.
The In.Tech editor (shudder) walked in.
The only sound in the room, except for the false chatter of some of Those ln.Tech Weirdos, was the ping-ping-whirr of the Macintosh. Somebody had been too slow to get out of Tristan, the pinball arcade game that had once — in those long ago pre-X-Wing days — made writers miss their deadlines.
"All of you did good work on our environment focus," he rumbled. "That is, almost all of you."
The room had got colder, and now, you could even hear a disk drive reading data. It was as if the world ran on IBM internal speakers, not SoundBlasters. It was that quiet.
I unsuspectingly looked up, wondering what was wrong, to see each and every one of the ln.Tech crew looking at me. A snigger or two escaped some lips.
"Ulp," I swallowed, by way of protesting my innocence. "Are you talking to me?"
Guide to green PC use
So what can one do when faced with such overwhelming odds? I stretched the rigid, cloying and suffocating bounds of reality, breaking free of limits and constraints.
"Actually, I was saving it all for Part II of your Focus," I lied.
Okay, okay. So after all that talk about peace, women’s rights and brotherhood amongst all mankind —er, I mean siblinghood amongst all person kind — I had not written anything special about the environment.
To make up for this, I am. going to give all you PC users out there some tips on how you too can be an environmentally-safe PC user.
You, too, can make sure your PC is more than just user-friendly, but also environment-friendly.
First, get a PC like mine. It’s always breaking down, and thus spends more time being repaired than being used. You know how much power that saves?
Second, never get games like Dark-lands, Space Quest 5 and Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender. These games are addictive, which means you play them a lot, using up more power and .thus destroying more of the environment (I think).
Come to think of it, don’t get games like Aces of the Pacific, Task Force 1942 and Red Baron for the wife either, for the same reason.
Third, never leave your computer on when you’re not using it. Not only does it use up unnecessary power, but one of your 101 cats may walk across the keyboard and send amazing commands to your intrepid adventurer Roger Wilco.
Not that I should complain too much, since that’s how I solved that tricky part with the killer android. I mean, I just went to the washroom after giving up, when I came back to find one of my cats licking her paws near the mouse.
I looked at the screen to see Roger Wilco flying away after he had just dispatched the killer android. Suspicious, huh?
Fourth, don’t get any word processors. Let’s face it. Once you get a word processor, you’d probably start writing all those letters you’ve been meaning to write but were never going to anyway. Like letters to your mum, for one.
But now, with a word processor, you’re probably going to write those letters, which means paper is going to be used up.
And you’re probably going to write longer letters, since you won’t tire as quickly, which means that more paper would be used up.
And since you probably want to show off your spanking-new PC, complete with its smashing new software, you’ll probably write to people you never intended to write to, which means that even more paper would be used up.
Remember, word processing programs. kill off more trees per year than all the forest fires, or at least drunken lumberjacks. (Come to think of it, perhaps you should put drunken lumberjacks next to forest fires.)
Fifth, don’t use original software.
No, don’t stop reading! The facts are pretty obvious. I know the Four Horsemen of the Business Software Alliance may call death and damnation upon you, but there’s good reason.
I mean, look at it. Every time you order an original software package, a few trees are killed somewhere to provide the packaging. Let’s not even bring the styrofoam packing into it.
And when you talk about manuals, hoo boy. One IBM manual probably takes up a whole football field of forest.
There’s probably one IBM manual being produced every minute, if you know what I mean.
Now, with pirated software, you don’t even get a manual usually, so you can be safe in your conscience, knowing that no tree died for the sake of your productivity.
And if you’re as lucky as I am, you’ll probably get hit by a PC virus as soon as you start using pirated software.
Which means (altogether now) you won’t be able to use your PC, and would have to switch it off, saving energy and giving Tenaga Nasional fewer excuses for load-shedding.
Finally, get a typewriter. If you’re like me, and make a lot of mistakes, you’ll probably get so fed up one day that you’ll heave the typewriter out of the window and into your backyard.
With that, your attempts to write letters, articles, memos and whatever will cease, saving many more trees in the process.
Let’s just hope the typewriter, rotting and rusting away in your backyard. is biodegradable.
Source : The Star, June 8, 1993
Recycling Point Dot Com
(C) 2000 All Rights Reserved