Google-white=blackle???

July 27, 2007 6:04 AM

Google goes to the dark side. Meet Blackle.
posted by nevercalm (65 comments total)

Apparently, an all white computer screen, such as an empty Word page, or the Google page, uses 74 watts to display, whereas a black screen consumes only 59 watts. So claimed Mark Ontkush in a post on the ecoIron blog in January. Doing a few back of the envelope calculations based on numbers of users per day and wattage for different coloured screen from EnergyStar, Ontkush figured that the energy saving would be 750 Megawatt hours per year if Google had a black screen. (from the first link)
posted by nevercalm at 6:05 AM on July 27, 2007

Metafilter and Ask Metafilter seem pretty energy efficient, using mostly one RGB screen color instead of three. Metatalk is not as energy efficient as it could be.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:09 AM on July 27, 2007

It's about damn time the Man got his ghost hands off my google!
posted by Pollomacho at 6:09 AM on July 27, 2007

That was supposed to read:

[Huey Newton] It's about damn time the Man got his ghost hands off my google! [/Huey Newton]
posted by Pollomacho at 6:11 AM on July 27, 2007

Apparently, an all white computer screen, such as an empty Word page, or the Google page, uses 74 watts to display, whereas a black screen consumes only 59 watts. So claimed Mark Ontkush in a post on the ecoIron blog

That might be true of CRTs, but not of LCDs. In fact, LCDs use slightly more energy to display dark pixels.
posted by delmoi at 6:11 AM on July 27, 2007 [4 favorites]

Or you could just stop using that old CRT monitor.

Also, don't forget to get your new Google power supply.
posted by furtive at 6:12 AM on July 27, 2007

Black face went out of style with Al Jolson.
posted by three blind mice at 6:15 AM on July 27, 2007

I don't actually think Google had anything to do with this, but what have you.

I found this comment on the Climate Feedback entry amusing:

You guys are not looking at the big picture. If I look at a black screen all day I am going to get seriously depressed. That means I will get in my car and drive to a doctor. Possibly several. Now think of all the CO2 I just dumped in the air due to this black screen. A crime.
posted by ikebowen at 6:16 AM on July 27, 2007

That said I think darker colors look nicer then white backgrounds. I think some people are just more used to white backgrounds from reading paper and freak out at darkness.
posted by delmoi at 6:20 AM on July 27, 2007

That might be true of CRTs, but not of LCDs. In fact, LCDs use slightly more energy to display dark pixels.

Do they? I always thought a dark pixel is just an inactive point on the screen, which is why you never really get a dark pixel, but a pixel with a greyish tinge from the backlight.

Anyway, LCDs use a third of the energy of CRTs to begin with (cite), so significant energy savings would be gained simply from replacing CRTs with LCDs.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:21 AM on July 27, 2007

Blazecock,

That depends on your definition of sufficient... Yeah, LCDs use less, but wouldn't using EVEN LESS be better?
posted by CharlesV42 at 6:24 AM on July 27, 2007

What happened to the days when anything other than white looked unprofessional?
posted by OmieWise at 6:25 AM on July 27, 2007

There are probably still more crts running, worldwide.
posted by chuckdarwin at 6:25 AM on July 27, 2007

I always think light text on a dark background, particularly white text on a black background, looks best and is easiest to read, but I'm known to be a little... off, sensorily.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:28 AM on July 27, 2007

blazecock -- LCD's are transparent by default, allowing the backlight to shine through. You have to energize the pixel to turn it dark.
posted by localroger at 6:35 AM on July 27, 2007

What happened to the days when anything other than white looked unprofessional?

The civil rights movement.
posted by Pollomacho at 6:35 AM on July 27, 2007 [14 favorites]

Do they? I always thought a dark pixel is just an inactive point on the screen, which is why you never really get a dark pixel, but a pixel with a greyish tinge from the backlight.

It actually takes extra current to hold an LCD pixel in its dark state, whereas an illuminated pixel uses no extra current. See this Wikipedia article, specifically paragraph 4 of the overview section for an explanation.

So, presumably, whilst there may well be more CRTs than LCDs nowadays, at some point the principle behind Blackle will actually waste more energy by flipping more LCD pixels off than can be offset by the energy saving dark CRT pixels.

Also white text on black is ugly and your favourite webdesign preferences suck etc. etc.
posted by tomsk at 6:37 AM on July 27, 2007

I thought this was Blackle.
posted by dhartung at 6:39 AM on July 27, 2007

It actually takes extra current to hold an LCD pixel in its dark state, whereas an illuminated pixel uses no extra current. See this Wikipedia article, specifically paragraph 4 of the overview section for an explanation.

Well, color me stupid, but informed.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:43 AM on July 27, 2007

Um, has anyone let Blackle know they're helping LCD users destroy the planet?
posted by Deathalicious at 6:45 AM on July 27, 2007

Ninja.com got there first. Ninjas tend to do things like that.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:47 AM on July 27, 2007

You could also just turn down the brightness on your monitor.
posted by DU at 6:51 AM on July 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

I always think light text on a dark background, particularly white text on a black background, looks best and is easiest to read, but I'm known to be a little... off, sensorily.

I find a light text on a dark background easier to read for longer. It doesn't burnout my eyes as bad as dark on a light background.
posted by SpannerX at 6:52 AM on July 27, 2007

It's debatable which would use more pixels, tho, blackle or this.
posted by nevercalm at 6:53 AM on July 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

YAY! We get to start using the term "raster burn" in casual conversation again.
posted by jrb at 6:58 AM on July 27, 2007

Every time I test a new search engine, for some reason I instinctively search the term "monkeys." Am I alone here?
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 7:01 AM on July 27, 2007

Google. Black Like Me

(why am i reminded of the Darlie toothpaste my clueless chinese bride uses???)
posted by djrock3k at 7:11 AM on July 27, 2007

M.C. L-C: yes.

Also, what's with the power supply in furtive's link. Why would a single-voltage PS be so much more efficient?
posted by MtDewd at 7:18 AM on July 27, 2007

I find white/light pages more difficult to read because they make floaters more visible. They're also just ugly to me. Blackle it is!
posted by Drexen at 7:18 AM on July 27, 2007

Black is the new white.

Anyway, let me throw my 2 cents into the whole CRT/LCD energy debate. I put it to you that, if you are currently using a CRT, you should keep using it until it dies, because discarding a perfectly useful CRT before the end of its life is not going to yield a net reduction in energy use. The energy needed to produce the new LCD monitor is considerable. Eventually, you will have to replace the CRT, as nothing lasts forever, but if you are in the habit of replacing appliances because something more efficient comes along, you are wasting a heck of a lot of energy. It's more efficient to amortize the amount of energy put into manufacturing a device over the longest possible period of time.

And black web sites suck. Turn the comp off if you want to save energy. Yes I know, it's as much about the "reminder" thing as it is about actual energy. Still sucks tho.
posted by Mister_A at 7:24 AM on July 27, 2007

couldn't someone just create a greasemonkey script that could do the same?
posted by malaprohibita at 7:31 AM on July 27, 2007

Also, what's with the power supply in furtive's link. Why would a single-voltage PS be so much more efficient?

I should be able to answer this a lot better, but.. I think it is mostly in the transformer design, which is limited by the packing of copper wire into a limited space. If you have to give up some of that space to windings for different turns ratios (voltages, basically), you can't do as well as possible on any single winding (the term Transformer Utilization Factor comes to mind, but I can't find a good definition online).
posted by Chuckles at 7:54 AM on July 27, 2007

Not us:

$ whois blackle.com

Registrant:
Mikibo
PO Box 4078
Castlecrag, New South Wales 2068
Australia

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: BLACKLE.COM
Created on: 24-Jan-07
Expires on: 24-Jan-08
Last Updated on: 22-Jun-07

Silly idea as many posters have correctly commented. You'd do much better to simply turn off all your devices when you left for the day.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 7:54 AM on July 27, 2007

Did anyone try to use it? Unpleasant. Especially the white autosuggestion boxes on firefox popping up when you type.

Strangely, studies show green on yellow is best for reading.
posted by blahblahblah at 7:56 AM on July 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

That's not like a maillot jaune yellow tho, it's almost a parchment. And I'll be hanged if I'm going to use green text.
posted by Mister_A at 8:03 AM on July 27, 2007

Also, here is an interesting look at the inner workings of a PC power supply.

Apparently, some ATX supplies use a linear voltage regulator to produce 3.3V from 5V - pretty wasteful!
posted by Chuckles at 8:03 AM on July 27, 2007

Unimpressed.
/Went to Blackle.
//Hit ctrl-opt-cmd-8.
posted by spaceman_spiff at 8:07 AM on July 27, 2007

Are we sure this isn't a double? I'm terrible at finding them, but I know I saw this about 8 months ago. Maybe it was on digg. Ridiculous idea.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 8:08 AM on July 27, 2007

Strangely, studies show green on yellow is best for reading.

Perhaps I skimmed too quickly, but that study seems to say that black Arial on white background is one of the best performers, but black Arial on grey is one of the worst. Something isn't quite right there..
posted by Chuckles at 8:17 AM on July 27, 2007

For CRTs, running at lower resolutions and lower refreshes also helps. Here's one I prepared earlier...

SetupWatts$/Hr$/Day$/Week$/Month$/YearIdle, Suspend Mode20.000.010.050.222.59640x480, 60 Hz, Black730.010.251.787.7392.80640x480, 75 Hz, Black780.010.271.908.2699.161024x768, 60Hz, Black810.010.281.978.58102.971024x768, 120Hz, Black920.010.322.249.75116.951792x1344, 75Hz, Black1130.020.392.7511.97143.651024x768, 60Hz, White1190.020.412.9012.61151.281024x768, 120Hz, White1250.020.443.0513.24158.911792x1344, 75Hz, White1270.020.443.1013.45161.45

I was wondering how much energy my old-yet-huge CRT consumes, probably subconsciously to justify purchasing an LCD screen. It's a Viewsonic P815, a wonderfully crisp 21" professional behemoth that sold for $1,500 in its prime. Current kWh cost in New Jersey is $0.15. Running at the highest supported resolution of 1792x1344, I save $18 by using a dark background instead of a light background. Assuming I'm using it 24x7 of course. Desktop backgrounds matter!posted by meehawl at 8:23 AM on July 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

SPANs and TABLEs are stripped after preview? Of course, if we let people use styling then the terrorists would win.
posted by meehawl at 8:25 AM on July 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Dear lord, are you people actually concerned about how much energy you monitor uses when it displays certain colors???

Here's a thought: stop using your computer altogether. You'll save even more energy, and the rest of us won't have to hear about it.
posted by tadellin at 8:34 AM on July 27, 2007

Yeah, but you're forgetting that websites with dark backgrounds are awful and horrible and should be sent back to 1995 where they belong.
posted by Afroblanco

Yeah, all websites today should have tiny fonts in light gray text on an off-white background, because visual contrast is so 1995. Who needs to actually be able to read the page?

...and spaceman_spiff - holy crap. Here I am sitting on my MacBook and never realized that I could invert the colors... Now if I can only use that somehow to trick my wife into thinking she broke the machine....
posted by caution live frogs at 8:56 AM on July 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

So that's what, less than one tenth of a megawatt round the clock? Yawn.
posted by Pants! at 8:58 AM on July 27, 2007

According to the Wall Street Journal, which got Energy Star to do some unofficial tests, Blackie doesn't actually save power.
posted by honest knave at 9:34 AM on July 27, 2007

The real savings will come when blackle goes to black type as well.
posted by Mister_A at 9:37 AM on July 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

M.C. Lo-Carb! : Every time I test a new search engine, for some reason I instinctively search the term "monkeys." Am I alone here?

You are not! Though I tend to use "zombie" a lot as well. If I really want to see the engines chops, I look for "zombie monkey".

I also tend to prefer light text on a darker background. One of the first things I do whenever I configure any kind of console or terminal program is to switch out the color scheme.
posted by quin at 9:49 AM on July 27, 2007

meehawl writes "For CRTs, running at lower resolutions and lower refreshes also helps" gives me a headache.
posted by krinklyfig at 10:08 AM on July 27, 2007

This is like the third time i've seen this on metafilter. Eveytime those with a clue mention the differences between crts and lcds.

Frankly, I'm not surprised hardcore environmentalists are usually ignorant of the technologies they claim they have solutions for.

I also dont like the idea that's there's some magic bullet that will fix everything along with the assumption that some big evil corporation is holding everyhing back (fords water powered car, google's white pages, etc). There is no clever fix some environmentalist blogger will come up with that is credible.There's just "stop leaving all the damn lights on, turn off the computer, and turn down the AC." Sorry, but you'll have to do a lot than just petition google to change some colors.
posted by damn dirty ape at 10:11 AM on July 27, 2007

honest knave writes "According to the Wall Street Journal, which got Energy Star to do some unofficial tests, Blackie doesn't actually save power"

That's not clear from the article:

"The bulkier CRT screen did see savings with Blackle of between 5% and 20%. Mr. Korn emphasized that this was a quick test, not a rigorous study."

But replacing your light bulbs with lower wattage or fluorescent would probably save more energy anyway. Sounds like a marketing gimmick more than a sincere effort, particularly considering the ad revenue model of Blackle.
posted by krinklyfig at 10:15 AM on July 27, 2007

Someone besides me must, as a kid, have flipped or replaced the polaroid filter in their LCD calculator to make a "black with grey numbers" display.

That this is possible suggests that it is feasible to make black=low-power or white=low-power versions of LCD screens, simply by installing the polaroid filter parallel to the energized LCD elements, or orthagonal to them.

But if black=low-power on your monitor, why not use a tool like Nocturne(mac), which favours black backgrounds for the entire desktop, not just one web-page?
posted by Crosius at 10:26 AM on July 27, 2007

damn dirty ape writes "Frankly, I'm not surprised hardcore environmentalists are usually ignorant of the technologies they claim they have solutions for."

Hardcore environmentalists? I don't think that's the driving force behind this site. I think it's a bit much to draw some grand inference from one poorly thought out idea.
posted by krinklyfig at 10:27 AM on July 27, 2007

Hardcore environmentalists? I don't think that's the driving force behind this site.

No, I'll defend calling ecolron a hardcore environmentalistic site. I dont think a practical person would have a whole bit about 'OMG MICHAEL DELL DRIVES A HUMMER. HE SHOULD BE DRIVING A PRUIS.' That doesnt help green computing. That's shrill nonsense. Just like the blackle idea. Or the guy who thinks MS should push out a mandatory update that will make all computers go into standby mode after 5 minutes. sigh
posted by damn dirty ape at 10:37 AM on July 27, 2007

A color scheme that involves dark backgrounds and light-colored fonts detracts from readability. 5000 years of document design agree with me.

Bullshit. That's just because it's easier to make dark pigmented inks and light shades if paper, not a design preference.

When it comes to CRTs and LCDs, light on dark all the way, pal.
posted by loquacious at 11:24 AM on July 27, 2007

Live frogs: when you're done freaking her out Command-Option-Control-8, hit up some Control+mousewheel rolling action.

Trippy. Also nice on the eyes sometimes.
posted by rokusan at 11:32 AM on July 27, 2007

Wanna REALLY save energy? Kill yourself.
posted by metasonix at 12:06 PM on July 27, 2007

LCDs use slightly more energy to display dark pixels...
This comment brought to you with 50% less power!

Since we can't know whether users are reading a site with an LCD or CRT monitor, clearly the only environmentally responsible solution is for all websites to blink back and forth between a positive and negative version of their color schemes, saving 50% power across the board.

posted by straight at 12:25 PM on July 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

damn dirty ape writes "No, I'll defend calling ecolron a hardcore environmentalistic site. I dont think a practical person would have a whole bit about ..."

Ah, OK, I didn't realize that by "hardcore environmentalist" you mean impractical and naiive. I rather thought the term "hardcore" would refer to people who were serious and competent.
posted by krinklyfig at 1:16 PM on July 27, 2007

"Well, color me stupid, but informed."

Is that a maroon?
posted by klangklangston at 1:36 PM on July 27, 2007

Is that a maroon?

I don't think maroon saves energy. Let's call it a blush.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:54 PM on July 27, 2007

Previously on AskMefi
posted by atbash at 3:34 PM on July 27, 2007

The fourth pot on the left, yellow rose. Same time as last week.
posted by Samuel Farrow at 7:52 PM on July 27, 2007

A color scheme that involves dark backgrounds and light-colored fonts detracts from readability. 5000 years of document design agree with me.

The amount of time that we've had documents where the light areas are actually light sources is significantly less than 5000 years. Reading something on a screen is different from reading it on paper.
posted by Many bubbles at 8:29 PM on July 27, 2007

OO oo oo I know.

How much electricity would be saved if all of Bush's radio and TV appearances were presented without modulation? (TV=white, radio=dead air)
posted by Twang at 9:56 PM on July 27, 2007

I think a primary reason that I'm addicted to mefi is the color scheme. Black-on-white websites are simply exhausting to read for any extended period of time. It's like trying to read the wattage symbol on a light bulb with the thing burning. Blackle is my new google frontend of choice.
posted by bunnytricks at 10:43 AM on August 12, 2007