Like hosted a website or a server for your personal needs, or taken a smartphone given to you for work or something like that.

  • Star@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    That’s funny and cool! Do you know if it’s using roughly the same amount of electricity as a space heater would? Idk if that’s possible to know.

    • CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Most of the space heaters that I’ve seen are like 1,500 watts. According to the UPS this computer is plugged into, it consumes around 650 watts. So it’s not as powerful as a space heater, but when the exhaust is pointed directly at your legs, it gets plenty warm.

      • Star@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        I wonder if one could create a computer that generates the heat while doing that cool computing stuff, but also have it regulate the temperature so that it slows down when it hits, say, 65 degrees in the room. I’m intrigued very much by this idea.

        • CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Assuming Folding@Home has some sort of API or if it can be started and stopped from the command line, it should be fairly straightforward with an Arduino a simple script.

        • Dogeek@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          It already exists. There is a company that sells a space heater that mines crypto currency. You get like 50% or the profits which sucks, but you at least recoup a bit of the cost of the electricity to run the heater.

          I think we should try to heat ourselves with computing as much as we can since the side effect of computing is heat generation (and minor RF losses). How cool would it be to make a large supercomputer out of millions of homes heating up in the winter?

          • Star@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            1 year ago

            “The winter discovery boost”! I can imagine that. It would be so cool if humans cooperated together for these cool projects. Maybe if society was more like a beehive; meaning the way that everybee does some part to help out the whole hive instead of the widespread me-first individualism that neglects the problems they don’t have.