[LINK] How many Newspapers does it take to build Ayers Rock?

[Tom Koltai]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: link-bounces at mailman1.anu.edu.au 
> [mailto:link-bounces at mailman1.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Stephen Wilson
> Sent: Wednesday, 13 May 2009 5:00 PM
> To: 'link'
> Subject: Re: [LINK] How many Newspapers does it take to build 
> Ayers Rock?
<snip>
> Like Jan, I seem to be missing some of the posts, which might explain 
> the comedy.
> 
> But are you talking about landfill (where it might make sense 
> to compare 
> the volume of newspapers to Ayers Rock)?  Or CO2 sequestration?  Or 
> something else, where it makes some kinda sense to compare coal and 
> sandstone??? 
> 
> Anyone looking for an Ig Nobel Prize nomination? ;-)
 
OK - from the top.
It was a blog posting. Readership target audience age = 15+

The Perceptric Blog has readers that are degree qualified. Some who have
even been granted PhD level degrees.
But we generally write for a readership level below physics anything
degree and quite often use anecdotes rather than empirical data to get
our point across.

So.... Take the output of News Limited in tons of CO2 convert it to an
object people are familiar with.

A ton of CO2 = a Ton of coal = a ton of sandstone.

Forget density, but lets use mass.

The mass of a ton of coal is easy to understand if you have shovelled
it.
The mass of a ton of limestone is easy to understand if you had to lay
it paver by paver.

But how big is it to the man in the street? 

If we convert output of newspaper production given in tons to something
people are familiar with - like ayers rock - more people understand that
than know what 47,742 tons of anything looks like.

So basically todays discussion seemed to have centered around several
points incidental to my blog posting, but relevent to physics, geology
and spam.

So the posting - which was proved incorrect by Richard drawing my
attention to the disparity of the two organisations quoted; taught me
that I should double check my data before posting.

However, we appear to have concensus on.....

Most rocks are denser than co2.
Coal is denser than sandstone.
Digital delivery is most defintely more environmentally friendly than
paper via trucks.
Co-Lo's (server farms) use varying power - and routers are the secret of
future CO2 savings.
Koltai is not a physicist
Koltai has Halitosis

And - News Limited will probably take their news delivery purely digital
within the next two years. (Snuck that one in.)

And we all had something to read.... On an otherwise slow news day.
(Budget wasn't really that newsworthy. Besides TomW wrapped that up
quite succinctly.)

Does that help ?

Tom.


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