Welcome to the Mind Fuzz newsletter, a recap of three things that are on my mind this week.
1. Plastic (Again)
What contributes more plastic waste to our oceans?
Plastic straws, or your weekly load of washing?
I’ll give you some time to decide, because it’s a close one.
Well, actually, it’s not… like, at all.
Plastic straws – 0.025%.
Synthetic fibres from your clothes – up to 35%.
You might remember this newsletter I wrote last year about how we all have microplastics in our breasts, breast milk, testicles and sperm (remember that cute fun one hehe).
Polyester (the devil), nylon and acrylic – avoid them wherever you can, but particularly when buying clothes.
2. Being Polite
You know what else has a carbon footprint?
Being polite.
OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman said users saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to ChatGPT are costing the company tens of millions of dollars in energy.
Again with the foreshadowing… I wrote about why it’s important to say thank you to ChatGPT in this article earlier this year.
So do I still recommend it?
You’re damn right I do.
I crunched the numbers, and it’s still a net positive guys, don’t worry.
An average response uses about 0.3 watt-hours, so 10 responses would use about 3 Wh total, about the same to toast a slice of bread.
Watching a 22-minute episode of The Office uses around 56 Wh, about 18 times more energy.
Keep using your manners soldiers, and you’ll have a much comfier place in the AI army when it takes over.
3. Law of Three
“Fate gives all of us three teachers, three friends, three enemies, and three great loves in our lives. But these twelve are always disguised, and we can never know which one is which until we’ve loved them, left them, or fought them.”
Gregory David Roberts – Shantaram
There were so many numbers in this newsletter, so I thought I’d add some more.
But these don’t need my words added, just your own thoughts.
