Refreshed the calculator interface and gaming starter mix
Reorganized the calculator around clearer activity groups, compact energy and water summaries, and live contribution bars, while adding one hour of the existing Xbox Series X plus television reference to the Gen Z no-AI starter.
- Simplified the primary activity rows to show the activity, quantity, unit, and relevant device control
- Moved starter mixes above the activity groups and added active-row counts to each group
- Paired energy and water totals with their everyday-use equivalents
- Added live contribution bars for broader-system energy and total water
- Added one hour of the existing fixed Xbox Series X plus reference television row to Gen Z (no AI use)
- Kept the detailed assumptions, confidence labels, system boundaries, and source links in the evidence table below the tool
Reason: The earlier interface exposed too much methodological detail in the main input flow and made it difficult to see which activities drove a result. The revised layout separates calculation from evidence review without removing either.
Public impact: The calculator now presents its controls and totals in a clearer visual hierarchy. The Gen Z no-AI teaching starter includes one hour of gaming, but the underlying gaming coefficients and all other calculator values remain unchanged.
Renamed the gaming starter mix
Renamed the existing Gen Z no-AI starter mix to Gen Z (Gamer) without changing its activities or calculation.
- Changed the visible starter-mix label from Gen Z (no AI use) to Gen Z (Gamer)
- Preserved the starter mix's stable ID, one hour of Xbox Series X plus television gaming, other activities, device selections, and totals
Reason: The shorter label describes the distinguishing activity in this starter mix more directly.
Public impact: Only the starter-mix label changes. Calculator coefficients, formulas, quantities, source relationships, and system boundaries remain unchanged.
Clarified the What Uses More? credit and lineage
Clarified Jon Ippolito's influence on the site's comparison frame while distinguishing Your Digital Life's independent codebase, data, and methodology.
- Added the CC BY 4.0 license for What Uses More? to the Credit and lineage section
- Clarified that What Uses More? was an early blueprint for the comparison frame
- Distinguished Your Digital Life's separate codebase, independently maintained data, and methodology
- Identified Jon Ippolito's work as a secondary comparator used during source review
Reason: The existing acknowledgment described the family resemblance but did not state the source site's license or clearly distinguish inspiration from independent implementation and maintenance.
Public impact: The About This Site page now gives fuller credit to What Uses More? while making the projects' technical and methodological separation explicit.
Made the contribution path visible on Sources and Method
Added a prominent contribution callout near the top of Sources and Method so readers can quickly find the public review workflow.
- Added a How to Contribute link inside the Sources and Method opening section
- Explained that readers can suggest calculator activities or fields, provide stronger sources, or correct calculations
- Pointed readers to the existing contribution guide, which links to the public GitHub Issue forms and lists the evidence needed for review
Reason: The contribution workflow was available in the site navigation and contribution page, but it was easy to miss while reviewing the calculator's sources and calculations.
Public impact: Sources and Method now invites corrections and additions before the detailed activity, source, and method records.
Revised image generation and documented the Ippolito water comparison
Replaced the previous image-generation coefficient with a pinned IEA benchmark and added a repeatable evidence crosswalk for external feedback.
- Changed image generation from 0.48 Wh to 1.7 Wh for SD-XL 1.0-base under controlled H100 GPU-only test conditions
- Recalculated image direct water from 0.48 to 1.7 mL and broader water from 2.88 to 10.2 mL under the retained water rule
- Credited Jon Ippolito's What Uses More? source sheet for prompting the comparison while attributing the adopted value to the underlying IEA report
- Documented Jon's 7 mL/Wh water synthesis, the corrected 11.84 mL/Wh cross-metric arithmetic, and the decision to retain the current split water method
- Added versioned external-comparison and release-decision workflows for future feedback
Reason: The existing image coefficient could not be reproduced from its included source chain. The Ippolito comparison exposed a stronger pinned benchmark and also showed why external synthesis, underlying evidence, and adopted project values need separate provenance.
Public impact: The calculator and Sources & Method page now show the revised image values, the IEA boundary, Jon Ippolito's role in the review, and the retained water-method decision.
Added an Xbox Series X plus TV gaming reference
Added a fixed one-hour reference for locally rendered Xbox Series X online multiplayer, including the console, one named television, networking, and modeled server infrastructure.
- Added Gaming Console (Xbox Series X + TV) as an estimated one-player-hour calculator row
- Included a 127 W Xbox Series X shooter average and a 79.5 W ENERGY STAR-certified 54.7-inch television in the central estimate
- Published 7.7 Wh of off-prem network and server energy, 220 Wh of broader-system energy, 0.32 mL of direct game-server data-center water, and 960 mL of broader U.S.-average operational water
- Clarified that the row is locally rendered online multiplayer, not cloud gaming
- Excluded downloads, patches, manufacturing, standby, and optional texture streaming from the reference boundary
Reason: Gaming needed a reviewable fixed reference before adding device choices. The fixed row keeps the console and television assumptions visible while the weaker networking and server assumptions remain explicitly estimated.
Public impact: The calculator now names the television in the activity label and explains the included components, exclusions, water boundaries, and evidence limitations on the Sources & Method page.
Calculator switched to canonical open data
The website calculator now consumes a generated JSON snapshot from canonical root data, with versioned public downloads and contribution pages.
- Replaced the hand-maintained calculator Markdown entry with a generated JSON entry.
- Published matching latest and v0.1.0 JSON, CSV, schema, checksum, and ZIP downloads.
- Added public Data and Contribute pages.
- Replaced the scenario-methods placeholder URL with the public Sources & Method page.
Reason: Establish one inspectable update authority and a reproducible path from reviewed records to the website and portable releases.
Public impact: Calculator numbers, preset totals, order, methods, and device behavior are unchanged. Public navigation, downloads, contribution guidance, and the scenario-methods link are new.
Replaced the blanket site license with a precise license map
Clarified that original prose is CC BY 4.0, project-created data is CC0, website code is MIT licensed, and third-party material retains its original terms.
- Replaced the broad footer license statement with separate prose, data, code, and third-party terms
- Expanded About This Site with mixed-content and source-rights guidance
- Added repository-level license, attribution, contribution, governance, security, support, conduct, and citation documents
Reason: The site combines original explanation, structured data, software, and cited third-party material, so one blanket content license was inaccurate and unsafe for reuse.
Public impact: Visitors can now distinguish reusable project material from quotations, source works, images, and other material the project does not relicense.
Added public credit, license, and calculator-lineage note
Added an explicit acknowledgment of Jon Ippolito's What Uses More?, added CC BY 4.0 reuse guidance for original site prose, and documented how the live calculator differs from Jon's comparator.
- Added site-wide footer language linking the CC BY 4.0 prose license and the What Uses More? acknowledgment
- Expanded About This Site with public credit and reuse guidance
- Expanded Sources & Method with a source-overlap and tradeoff explanation comparing the two calculators
- Added calculator-page copy clarifying the daily-inventory angle
Reason: The site needed a clear public statement about inspiration, licensing, and methodological difference so the calculator's lineage would stay visible without blurring the differences between the two projects.
Public impact: Visitors now see explicit credit to Jon Ippolito's What Uses More?, CC BY 4.0 reuse guidance for original prose, and a clearer explanation of how this calculator differs from the earlier blueprint.
Device-aware streaming rows in the calculator
The calculator now lets YouTube and Netflix switch total-system energy by device and stores device intent inside the starter mixes.
- Added device selectors for YouTube and Netflix in the live calculator
- Lowered the default YouTube row to a phone-style total and the default Netflix row to a laptop-style total
- Stored row-level and preset-level device assumptions in the calculator source-of-truth file
Reason: Streaming rows were carrying one-size-fits-all total-system values even though the scenario work already showed that device choice changes those totals substantially.
Public impact: Visitors now see device selectors on the high-impact streaming rows, and the starter mixes apply the scenario-aligned device context for those rows automatically.
Moved calculator data into one canonical markdown record
Replaced the inventory tool's hardcoded activity rows and presets with a single markdown-backed calculator record derived from Section 2 and Section 3.
- Added a calculators content collection with a canonical digital inventory markdown record
- Rewired the inventory tool to load activities and presets from that record
- Added a calculator source-of-truth section to the public Sources & Method page
- Updated internal method metadata so the scenario synthesis record now points to the calculator method layer as well
Reason: The calculator had become the focus of the site, but its live numbers still lived in component code instead of one editable content record.
Public impact: Visitors now see the calculator's activity table and method notes rendered from the same markdown record that drives the live tool values.
Moved calculator citations into the calculator markdown record
Embedded the calculator's citation catalog directly into the digital inventory markdown file so values, method notes, and source metadata can now be updated together.
- Added an inline sourceCatalog to the digital inventory calculator record
- Rewired calculator citations on the live tool and Sources & Method page to resolve from that local catalog
- Added a public calculator source registry table derived from the same markdown record
- Updated maintenance notes so calculator updates now happen in one file
Reason: The first source-of-truth refactor still split calculator values from their full citation metadata, which made future research updates harder to manage safely.
Public impact: Visitors now see calculator citations and method references rendered from the same markdown record that drives the live calculator values.
Added built-in digital inventory page
Added a Section 4 inventory tool so the site now offers its own assumption-aware classroom calculator rather than relying only on external resources.
- Added a new Inventory Your Day page with interactive activity inputs
- Kept server-only versus total-system energy visible in the tool output
- Kept direct versus total water visible in the tool output
- Updated homepage and resource framing to point users toward the built-in inventory first
Reason: Section 4 needed a classroom-facing tool that preserved the site's caveats around scope, confidence, and fast-changing estimates.
Public impact: Visitors can now model a day of digital activity on-site while seeing which rows are verified, inferred, estimated, or contested.
Resynced site to the revised legacy research set
Updated the site after the private research files changed, including new scenario totals, restructured tradeoff material, and revised pedagogy framing.
- Updated all four scenario records and the scenario comparison chart
- Reframed the inventory page as the broader Your Cloud Footprint section
- Retired unsupported Archived Section 4 benefit and risk cards from public display
- Resynced the remaining public pages to the revised evidence review
Reason: The private research set changed and the site was still carrying older scenario totals plus a stale Archived Section 4 layer.
Public impact: Visitors now see the updated 132/119/402/223 scenario set, a Your Cloud Footprint page aligned to the current teaching activities, and a cleaner public structure without the older Archived Section 4 layer.
Added the initial Git-first Cloudflare deployment setup
Documented the initial Cloudflare deployment approach. The current production contract was later corrected to Cloudflare Workers with static assets and `site/` as the build root.
- Added a Pages-ready `wrangler` config and Node version pin
- Added `cf:preview` and `cf:deploy` scripts for local Cloudflare workflows
- Added deployment documentation for a Git-connected Cloudflare Pages setup
Reason: Complete the initial launch setup so the site could be published from Git without changing its content workflow.
Public impact: No visible content changed, but the site now has a defined deployment path for previews and production publishing.
Expanded Section 1-4 fact migration
Added a second wave of derived fact records from the private research set then in use, including definitions, tradeoffs, rate impacts, and additional task comparisons.
- Added more data-center fact records
- Added more prompt-cost fact records
- Added additional Section 4 rate-impact and risk records
- Corrected the OPB The Dalles source link to the January 15, 2026 article
Reason: Move more of the high-value research claims into structured site content without editing the source markdown files.
Public impact: The site pages exposed a broader share of the reviewed evidence and gained better coverage of definitions, caveats, and macro-risk claims.
Launch scaffold created
Initial Astro scaffold added with content collections, starter routes, and a first batch of fact and scenario records based on the source files that were active at launch.
- Added site architecture and navigation
- Added fact, scenario, chart, resource, source, and update collections
- Seeded homepage and core page content
Reason: Establish the implementation baseline before migrating more source material.
Public impact: Creates the first public-ready structure but still needs more fact records and chart rendering before publication.
Synced legacy data-centre framing
Pulled the latest private research corrections and infrastructure context into the derived site data, including the corrected Google WUE framing, revised AI-share outlook, and additional U.S. concentration and growth-context facts.
- Corrected the old Google WUE framing to 1.15 L/kWh and added metric-scope caveat
- Updated PUE framing to hyperscale versus enterprise values
- Updated AI 2030 share framing to roughly 35-44%
- Added non-AI workload, crypto, historical-growth, and U.S. concentration facts
- Added Microsoft zero-water cooling as a derived fact and source record
Reason: Keep the site's derived content aligned with the research review current at that time.
Public impact: The data-centre page now matches the corrected WUE/PUE story and better reflects the updated source framing around non-AI demand, historical context, and U.S.-specific concentration.
Synced legacy Section 4 benefit and rate-impact material
At the time, pulled the latest private Section 4 research additions into the site data, including new clean-energy benefit claims and additional PJM/rate-impact material.
- Added new clean-energy benefit facts from the legacy research review
- Added current household-bill and Virginia rate-class risk facts
- Expanded Google emissions fact to include the 2020-2024 doubling frame
Reason: Keep the derived site data aligned with the research review current at that time.
Public impact: The site's benefit and rate-impact records reflected the expanded clean-energy upside material and the more current consumer-cost framing.