this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024
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Less plastic being manufactured? Sounds good to me. :)
Seriously. Let’s light a fire under this trend. I will spend twice as much on a thing if it’s metal instead of plastic.
While we're at it, let's get back to all metal phones! Screw this glass back shit.
For the "Wireless" charging people:
It's a gimmick, nothing of value is lost
“All right team this is the single most dropped item in the history of mankind we need to make this thing tough what are we gonna manufacture the backing out of?”
“Glass?”
“…….Brilliant!! You’ve got upper management written all over you, Jacobs!”
Wireless charging rocks, dude
True wireless charging would definitely, the kind where your phone being in the mere vicinity of the "base station" allows it to start charging. From an actual distance larger than a handful of centimeters. That would be a feature worthy of the sacrifice of a metal body and being stuck with glass
The "Wireless" charging marketing gimmick is just as bad as the "Hoverboard" gimmick vs a real Hoverboard a la Back to the Future.
Its basically just a plug shifted from a socket to the back of the phone, but worse. It's almost always slower and saves a second or 2 at most from having to plug/unplug it. Some minor pros, but not worth having to be saddled with annoying and fragile glass backs. You still need to take it out of your pocket, place it in a designated spot, and can't use it all that well while in the designated spot and still have it charge.
It's a gimmick so companies could say their phones totally have wireless charging so they didn't have to spend the R&D money to develop actual wireless charging and you bought into it hook, line and sinker.
There were some promising developments on real wireless charging, but ever since the fake gimmick caught hold it's been awfully quiet. Another victim of marketing I suppose.
What a weird think to insult someone over. It does what it says it does and I don't get why you're drawing the line on what "true" wireless charging is when I'm not plugging a wire into my phone. You think I "fell for a marketing gimmick" despite using the feature almost exclusively for the past 12 years? How is it a gimmick if I get value out of it?
I like having a clean desk and not accidentally yoinking my phone off. I like not adding wear and tear to the USB port because it sucks when they break. I like that I've had a dozen or USB cords die but never once had to toss a wireless charger.
You aren't the arbiter of what's useful. You not finding value in wireless charging doesn't mean it's a useless gimmick. Get off damn your high horse
Lol never said it was useless, only the value doesn't outweigh the sacrifices. Gimmicks can have some usefulness and utility and still be gimmicks.
The gimmicky part is that smartphone companies got you hooked into a product that barely fills just enough peoples value thresholds that they could avoid developing real wireless charging.
In a world where this fake shit didn't take hold we could have had real wireless charging by now, if you think the "wireless" charging is good now, just think what true wireless would be like. You could walk into a room and your phone just starts charging with 0 effort. None.
But all the major companies stopped their R&D on it because consumers like you lapped the gimmick up and continue to. All that's left are a handful of startups working on it, so it's going to be years still.
You know this is possible how exactly? Wireless power distribution has been considered since Tesla's time. Yet it still hasn't been done outside of laboratory environments or very short distances. It's definitely possible, but making it practical might not even be possible within physics as we currently understand it.
For example a very power light beam like for example a laser beam can transfer a lot of power over some distance. It would also cook you, burn you, or make you go blind. It would also require precise alignment between transmitter and receiver, as well as very expensive transmission equipment.
From your first comment:
You're right, you didn't say it was useless! You said it was valueless. My bad, huge difference...
I use a magsafe charger in both the vehicles I drive on a regular basis, and a charging mat at home, both are extremely useful.
You're talking absolute nonsense.
I know it's counter to what the thread is saying but I really miss plastic phones. They allowed for wireless charging and don't shatter so easily. Lumias had amazing designs and were built like a brick.
Likely far more energy and pollution needed to manufacture this though so overall a loss for the earth.
But most steel is recycled and most plastic is not.
You still need a lot of energy to recycle steel. Less than mining by far but still a lot.
In a sustainable world, energy can and should be cheaper than raw materials. We are only harvesting a tiny fraction of the solar energy hitting the earth, to say nothing of wind and geothermal power. Rolling out more renewables and energy storage and using some of the surplus power to switch from extracting new resources to recycling our waste would greatly lower our footprint.
But compared to plastic from virgin fossil fuels?
We as a society are going to need memory cards.
What do you think they should be made out of?
chitin
Need to be examined on e case by case basis but plastic often comes out aheadi
If you penny pinch and don’t want to pay the environmental cost, sure plastic might come out cheaper.
But when you take into account the triple bottom line, plastic comes out behind.
Plastic in a landfill is a lot less harmful than co2 in the atmosphere.
Which is why you use renewable green energy.
Sure but do you have any proof they are doing that? some places are really good and others really bad. Overall my guess is iron is still worse than plastic but there are exceptions.
Is anyone going to bother recycling the one gram of metal in this card though?
Energy needs can be met and shouldn't be an argument for using plastic.
The pollution could be more dependending on how you look at that statement, but making something without plastic results in less plastic pollution and you can't claim that to be an overall loss for the earth.
You can swap out centralized energy sources (relatively speaking) overnight as greener sources become cheaper/more available compared to retooling whole industries away from plastic
It's the same thing with electric cars, yea it might plug in now to a dirty energy source, but that energy source could be a green energy source tomorrow without you ever knowing and importantly not having to buy a new car or change any other infrastructure to take advantage of it
A power line is a power line, it doesn't care if the electricity going through it was derived from a dirty power plant or solar or nuclear
I respect the sentiment, but is the amount of plastic in an SD card really that significant? There's probably more in just the packaging alone.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
This is more like taking the first step, getting distracted by a cool bug, finding an interesting stick, and going home to show Mum your cool stick.
An SD card lasts for years, and the amount of plastic in one is negligible. It's just not an issue.
Hark! The ghosts of countless generations of short-sighted polluters cry out in complacent, rationalizing unison!
It's not about expecting one model of memory card to save the Earth. It's about moving away from needless production of toxic materials, everywhere.
And if you don't care, nobody's going to force you to read The Lorax, but please don't go around shitting on people's appreciation for even the small things.
Worrying about the plastic in an SD card just feels like bike-shedding to me, but keep up the good fight, I guess.
Yeah it's the equivalent of finding two dollars on the ground and getting excited because at this rate you'll be a billionaire soon enough. There's less than 2g of plastic in an SD card - the buttons on your shirt probably weigh more.
Any reduction in plastic is a good thing.
Very nuanced view of the world you have.