The Story Of Stuff

[Serge]

I have seen this floating around facebook for a while, decided to watch it. Apparently this lady believes that she knows everything (10 years spent traveling the world) and knows how everything works.

http://storyofstuff.com/

Some of the things she mentioned re untrue and not only that, she only focuses on the United State's influence on it. She forgets that China is has a much larger population that is consuming at a rapidly increasing rate and on top of that have much lower standards and regulations.

She is right, for instance, about the fact the world's largest economies are corporations. But she over-dramatizes some of the things. For instance, that it costs a lot to ship things. It has never been cheaper to ship things over seas. These days the cost of shipping can be as little as 1% of the retail price. On top of that she forgets simple economics (such as economies of scale, etc).

I just watched the very end and she is right about all of the efforts made to reduce waste and the impact on the environment. Her entire video, however, does a horrible job at showing that all of these efforts are being made by the corporations themselves (and the governments).

I'm not starting an argument or anything. Just want to see what others think of this movie.

[Fudge_Brownie]

Alarmist and vague. I'll leave it at that. Wait, no, I'll counter with : http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseacti...eoID=2028375596

Oh, heres a good arguing point she has, kids in the congo dropped out of school to mine for goal to make my $5 radio. Yes, because it's my fault as a consumer that some congo kid dropped out.

I'll fess up to being too pissed off to listen past 14 minutes.

The computer argument was absolutely priceless. Wow.

[matt1122]

So uh... you like stuff?

[matt1122]

First Quotable Line -> "Breast is best!"

[matt1122]

As my final post in this topic for the night, I will state the following:

Anyone who still goes out to buy an AM/FM radio and uses a CRT monitor is not cool.

[Serge]

Alarmist and vague. I'll leave it at that. Wait, no, I'll counter with : http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseacti...eoID=2028375596

Oh, heres a good arguing point she has, kids in the congo dropped out of school to mine for goal to make my $5 radio. Yes, because it's my fault as a consumer that some congo kid dropped out.

I'll fess up to being too pissed off to listen past 14 minutes.

The computer argument was absolutely priceless. Wow.

The computer argument was extremely stupid. I especially love her illustration of only piece that changes and doesn't fit. If she did any research at all she'd know that's not the case. My God, how many years did we have Slot 1 and Socket 370 for? Hell, we even had Socket 370 -> Slot 1 converters just for the same reason so people don't need to buy a different motherboard.

The LCD vs. CRT argument was retarded. I'd like to show her how much power the CRT consumes versus an LCD, and tell her that she is in effect polluting the environment with excessive electricity usage. Some-odd 20-30W for a LCD versus 150W+ for a CRT of similar size.

[Serge]

Good article that takes on this movie's points:

http://www.andybrain.com/qna/2007/12/07/an...w-and-analysis/

[matt1122]

I'd like to show her how much power the CRT consumes versus an LCD, and tell her that she is in effect polluting the environment with excessive electricity usage. Some-odd 20-30W for a LCD versus 150W+ for a CRT of similar size.

Not to mention CRTs contain considerably more mercury and also contain lead and barium which aren't present in an LCD.

They're also flicker free, which is probably good for your eyes.

This reminds me of Blackle.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're using an LCD you don't save any power using this site. The back light is still on behind the black.

375,830.857 Watt hours saved my ass.

[matt1122]

I guess it's important to note she has a point if she focuses on the wastefulness. CRTs are worse for the environment, but if you have a good working one with no issues and you throw it in the garbage to get a pretty new LCD, the environmental cost of the new materials for the LCD and the amount of toxins in the CRT which are released into the landfill could in theory *maybe* outweigh the benefits of lower power consumption?

[Serge]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're using an LCD you don't save any power using this site. The back light is still on behind the black.

375,830.857 Watt hours saved my ass.

LCDs in general use less power, either nominal or peak usage, CRTs will always use much more.

[Che'_Moderator]

Shes a hippy.

But she does have a little republican in her: http://storyofstuff.com/dvd.html

[matt1122]

LCDs in general use less power, either nominal or peak usage, CRTs will always use much more.

I meant if you are using an LCD you won't save much if any power using blackle over google.com.