BCB IT Stuff recording 29 May 2019 transmission 30/31 May 2019 [0] Welcome once again to IT Stuff, the monthly opinion show about technology here on BCB Radio, we are the scared wireless operator on the ocean liner of progress as it meets the climate emergency melted iceberg of reality with not even a squelch. Here queued up for the lifeboats are Kriss and Shi, and this month by special request we've got a specially requested IT Stuff for World World World Day month environment recycle bin thing. [2 Min] So let's start with a pretend email question from Mrs Trellis of North Wibsey. She wants to know if it's true that the worldwide electricity consumption of Bitcoin is more than Ireland. Well that's true, it was true five years ago but in fact these days it's maybe 63 terawatts per year, which is more than twice Ireland (25). Meanwhile this month there are reports that Facebook is going to start its own currency. [5 Min] Moving on, we've got another pretend email question, Mrs Trellis of North Bowling wants to know if there's a website that can calculate your personal environmental footprint, well funnily enough there is, the World Wildlife Fund has an environment footprint calculator at footprint.wwf.org.uk, so let's have a go! [9 Min] Another pretend listener email, this time it's from Mrs Trellis of North Girlington who wants to know what happens to electronic equipment when it dies. Well basically we just chuck 40 million tons a year into Africa and South-east Asia and forget about it. Ghana, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and China are all starting to push back. The obvious thing is to make our gadgets repairable and recyclable, are you listening Apple? [12 Min] You're listening to a special edition of IT Stuff on BCB Radio 106.6fm, let's take a quick break from our environment special with a newsdump. • Bye bye grumpy cat, and Facebook could be more dead people than living by 2100 • If you've ever wondered about the crud in your keyboard, Hackaday reports that somebody in Californing restoring an old Buchla model 100 synth ended up on a nightmare 9 hour LSD trip after cleaning crud from under the knobs with his bare fingers • Mini World of Stuff, the Snapmaker 2.0 combined 3d printer/CNC/laser cutter launched on Kickstarter with a $100,000 goal, it actually raised $1m in 7 minutes and currently over $4M - no doubt it helps that they delivered the 1.0 in 2017 • Nearly back to the environment, the domain name tussle between Amazon the company and Amazon the rainforest is pretty much over and the rainforest lost. Meanwhile things might go the other way for the Chagos Islanders, infamously evicted by Britain, but the dot io domain (Indian Ocean) might get taken away following a recent decolonisation vote in the UN. Dot io is popular for lots of tech sites, including our very own Bradford dash coderdojo dot github dot io - next one 29 June by the way. • And there was environmental concerns at Feral Vector last weekend, Cyclops Pedal Power has been building an interactive model house and model city which shows players how their energy use and lifestyles contribute to global warming https://chuffed.org/project/build-your-own-sustainable-city-game [17 Min] Let's have another dip in our pretend emailbag, er, here's Mrs Trellis of North Bierley. She wants to know if it's true about the UK electric grid going a whole week without coal, well we know lots of websites about that grid.iamkate.com/ www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ gridwatch.co.uk/ currently 12 days. The international equivalent is www.electricitymap.org [19 Min] Two more quickie things, electric motorbikes are going to be a thing (Triumph with Warwick Uni) and electric flying cars might be a thing (Lilium in Germany) [21 Min] Time for another pretend email, this one is from Mrs Trellis of North Five Lane Ends. She says “I am a climate change denier, is there any research about how I could see sense?” well its funny you should say that cos this month a study from North Carolina State University showed that teaching kids had a significant effect on the attitudes of their parents, indeed it was the most boneheaded parents that came round the most. In this social media world it seems that proper face to face interaction with your family is still far more influential than all that online cobblers. [22 Min] Go Home Elon Following US stock market fines for inappropriate business tweets Elon has recruited a social media consultant, he's poached the bloke from the English Museum of Rural Life, what's going on there? well you've probably forgotten but this is the bloke who tweeted an archive picture of a very big sheep with the caption 'look at this absolute unit' and it went viral. Also, we had this interesting moment from an interview with Lex Fridman of MIT. Trigger warning, there's a very long pause. [OUTSIDE.WAV] [24 Min] Time for our closing music Even here there's an environment angle, the vinyl revival in music is just another way of saying PVC, it's energy intensive, recycled PVC makes terrible records, it puts loads of nasty chlorine and pfthalates into the environment. No wonder the EU is cracking down on it. So hipsters, get off the vinyl and onto the youtubes!