Charles Roper charlesroper

Summary of Andy Masley’s AI articles

A cheat sheet for why using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

Here’s a detailed summary of Andy Masley’s post “Why using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment – a cheat sheet”, which distils his core arguments, data points, and rhetorical strategies:

🧭 Main Argument

How much bandwidth and CO₂e does an adblocker save?

ChatGPT o4-mini-high; 2025-05-17

On average, studies show that a heavyweight ad- and tracker-blocker like uBlock Origin saves around a third of the data you’d otherwise download – and in concrete terms:

Bandwidth saved per page load
In a diverse set of real-world tests on hundreds of popular sites, the average bandwidth saving from ad- and tracker-blocking was 899 KB (with a median of just under 500 KB and a 95th-percentile of 2.76 MB) (Brave). This corresponds to roughly 25–34 % less data transferred compared with no blocker (arXiv).
CO₂e saved per page load

Comparing Email to Other Energy Expenses

3–5 kg CO₂e per year (email footprint) ≈

Activity	CO₂e produced	Notes
Boiling a full kettle ~60–100 times	~50–70 g each	3 000–5 000 g = ~70 kettles
Driving a petrol car ~15–25 miles	~0.2–0.3 kg CO₂e per mile	UK average car
1–2 roast dinners	~2–3 kg each	Meat-heavy meal (esp. lamb/beef)

The Energy of an Email

Produced by ChatGPT o3; 2025-05-16; thought for 1m28s – see Appendix

Question

Explore the veracity of this claim:

Based on the older figures, some people have estimated that their own emails will generate 1.6kg (3.5lb) CO2e in a single day. Berners-Lee himself also calculated that a typical business user creates 135kg (298lbs) CO2e from sending emails every year, which is the equivalent of driving 200 miles in a family car.

Name	Age	Years left	Market value (in €)
Levi Colwill	21	5	50,000,000
Reece James	24	4	40,000,000
Conor Gallagher	24	1	32,000,000
Armando Broja	22	4	22,000,000
Ian Maatsen	21	2	18,000,000
Lewis Hall	19	1	15,000,000
Trevoh Chalobah	24	4	13,000,000

Here are some more creative uses for the Array.prototype.with() method:

Creating a new array with a different value at a random index. This can be useful when you want to simulate a random change in an array.

const arr = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
const randomIndex = Math.floor(Math.random() * arr.length);
const randomValue = Math.floor(Math.random() * 10);
const withRandom = arr.with(randomIndex, randomValue);
console.log(withRandom); // e.g. [1, 2, 7, 4, 5]

	<#
	eza-completion.ps1
	──────────────────
	Native tab-completion for eza on PowerShell 7+

	Drop this file in your $PROFILE directory and source it:

	. (Join-Path (Split-Path $PROFILE -Parent) "eza-completion.ps1")

	Make sure the following PSReadLine options are set:


	<!DOCTYPE html>
	<html>
	<head>
	<style>
	/* Define colour variables in the :root scope for easy reuse throughout the stylesheet */
	:root {
	/* Grouped blue colours */
	--blue-brand-color: hsl(231, 53%, 14%); /* Brand's main dark blue colour */
	--blue-brand-dark-color: hsl(231, 40%, 9%); /* Darker variant of the brand's blue */

	# Start the SSH command in the background
	$sshProcess = Start-Process -FilePath "ssh" -ArgumentList "-v -D 1080 -N -C <SSH_SERVER>" -PassThru

	# Wait for the SSH process to start
	Start-Sleep -Seconds 2

	# Start browser
	Start-Process -FilePath "librewolf" -NoNewWindow

	# Wait for browser to close

	# Import requests library
	import requests
	import time
	import constants

	# Define the collection ID and the access token
	# collection_id = 33417911
	collection_id = None
	live_run = False
	access_token = constants.RAINDROP_TOKEN