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

  • CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Instead of using a space heater like everyone else, I run Folding@Home on one of my work machines to pump out a few hundred watts of heat. That way at least someone is getting some Alzheimer’s research out of burning that electricity.

      • CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world
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        11 months 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.

          • CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world
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            11 months 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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            11 months 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?

    • weeeeum@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Haha this is actually an awesome idea. My work has a bunch of super cheap servers for sale that could totally be used as a space heater. Actually a super cool concept because there are so many good servers and cpus being thrown out that could legitimately be used as a space heater.