What the hell is this even supposed to mean

Global shutdown day...this is supposed to accomplish what exactly

Look I'm as critical of the internet, and I mean the whole notion of making what could have been a perfectly nice closed-user defense network available to the public, but...really why the hell am I even being asked to shut it off for a day? You have to explain your goals, you aren't going to draw people in with the mystique of some cause with no apparent objective.

What little third-world civil war is this supposed to halt, or is it something to do with the whales or...CFC emissions. Is this some sort of experiment, if so how much useful or even marginally interesting data could this hope to yield or...yeah this isn't very well thought out.

Seriously. Last decade it was the whales...then they tried selling me a phone I had no interest in, except this time its red and is supposed to cure AIDS...now if I push a button on my cable modem its supposed to solve the worlds ills. What the hell do you people even want anymore, honestly, just tell me what it is this week.

And if its saving electricity, then...wouldn't the surge of the accumulated modems (I'm assuming predominately external dsl/cable ones. If you have the free time needed to care about vaguely defined crusades you probably own or have access to cable) would probably waste more power than was saved. Also yeah, nothing inspires me to "take action" more than generic rock,

God I hate activists sometimes.

edit: Apparently this is some sort of ill-defined, poorly concieved experiment that will result in nothing of any remote value. Grade school science projects contribute more, using a potato as some sort of battery is at least a skill.

Saving electricity/energy is bound to be a good thing, but yes this is very vague. Are you meant to not go on a computer or not the internet for a day?
It's not as if it's a super challenge or anything. I didn't go on a PC for a week during my France trip last year and survived- so have I completed 7 'shutdown days' already?

Actually someone's comment on YouTube pretty much sums things up:

quote:

doing that accomplishes nothing, and it is very ironic that this video is on the internet, this idea is stupid, and this video is pointless, plus the music sucked

one month ago in Europe there was 5 minutes of 'blackout' in the main capitals of my continent.
All the main symbolic and public structures got their lights shut off. And if we, the consumers, were invited to shut off our lights during those 5 minutes, just a little bit of us respected this engagement.
This initiative came from the Global environment program, all the reliefs and organisations which try to protect our planet and our fragile environment. It was a failure because just 5 % of the European population shut off their lights by symbolism. We have great efforts to do to prove that the environment is our priority.

PS: sorry if my reply is out of subject.

quote:

Originally posted by samirsouleyman one month ago in Europe there was 5 minutes of 'blackout' in the main capitals of my continent. All the main symbolic and public structures got their lights shut off. And if we, the consumers, were invited to shut off our lights during those 5 minutes, just a little bit of us respected this engagement. This initiative came from the Global environment program, all the reliefs and organisations which try to protect our planet and our fragile environment. It was a failure because just 5 % of the European population shut off their lights by symbolism. We have great efforts to do to prove that the environment is our priority. PS: sorry if my reply is out of subject.

I remember hearing about that.

At least with that though, it was a case of the symbolism being very clear, there was a well defined message that was being spread. This is..just some really really ill-concieved experiment which theres no real way to measure the effects of.

I mean maybe they could measure the loads on servers that day, but I'd assume that theres already been measures taken to at least approximate the amounts of data transferred, or energy used, and so on. They even had that estimate in the video (unless that was just completely pulled out of nowhere)

I think this is one of those half-baked ideas that sounds good when you've had a few beers with your friends:

"Hey, dude, I'll bet you couldn't last 24 hours without your computer."

"Like totally I could."

"Oh, yeah? Whaddaya wanna bet?"

"How about a keg?"

"Done!"

In the news the next day after this experiment the report was deceiving. On a monitor of a big Power Plant we could see the graph of the energy used that day. We see the graph falling just for 5%. The responsibles of the ecology programs who launched that experiment were disappointed for they hoped to touch nearby 25% of us. We really don't care of the environment, that's what they said.

Those scientists lost their time, and their hope, unfortunately.

I think its just some uppity kids.

Uppity kids who should shut up.


I'm pretty sure I'm going to purposely spend as much time as I can tolerate online that day.