I was reminded last night that volunteer computing projects are a thing, and so I ran some rough numbers out of curiosity, and it turns out power doesn't cost all that much here? The average cost last year was 8 cents per kWh. If I ran my beefy work computer's CPU at full load that's like 25 bucks a month.
So that got me thinking, I could set up a dedicated machine for running, folding@home or something, and just set a fixed monthly budget for it.
Well, butts. My wife reminded me that comed mostly powers Chicago with nuclear and wind power, so given that and the fact that I don't drive or willingly enter airplanes anymore, my carbon footprint is basically nothing. There goes my Conceptual Art project idea.
@aeva There's an ad around here by Puget Sound Energy "We plan to be coal-free by 2025" and I was like
"...
that's.... next year? I'm used to reading 2035 for such things"
@aeva@TomF but also also 46 BCE, the "year of confusion", had 445 days so we did get around a fifth of the missing year as bonus year anyhow, technically*
*the only problem that the reason 46 BCE was that long was because they had been (largely intentionally) screwing up their timekeeping before then to make years shorter which is what caused that mess to begin with, so then again, maybe that fifth of a year was just paying off debt accrued earlier
This whole "who was in charge" was a lot of the reason for the futzing with the lengths of years. (To futz with term lengths, essentially.)
They were also the geniuses who managed to name the back third of the year as months 7 through 10 and then counting them as 9-12.
This whole thing would make so much more sense if February was month 12 (and hence the dumping group for spare days), but no, by the time we have useful records, December was already the 12th month.
@aeva@TomF It's all very suggestive of the year originally starting in spring (which makes sense especially in an agrarian society) but either they always named things weird or at some point changed their mind and didn't record the reasons why in writing
@rygorous@aeva@TomF yep, the original Roman calendar started in March (spring) and ended in December (last harvest), and was only ~300 days long (10 solar months). The winter want counted because there was nothing to do. Then they switched to a 12 lunar months calendar adding January (middle of winter, facing both old and new) and February, but year still started in March. Julius Caesar changed the starting month. 1/2
@rygorous@aeva@TomF The Julian calendar is also the one that destroyed the religious “we control the time and if we like the leader we get a full extra month” control of the timekeeping, and introduced the leap day every for years. It was designed by an Alexandrian astronomer (don't remember the name) and lacked the “no leap day every 400 years”. Also a lot of people still used March as first month until Gregory XIII.
@aeva@rygorous Of course if you are going to be screwing with the calendar, it's unclear why you wouldn't ACTUALLY fix it and make 13 months of 28 days you know so it actually agrees with the big rock in the sky that they're named after.
@TomF@aeva@rygorous because 13 is an unlucky number* and you need way more than a leap day every 4 years except 400 to start in sync with that other big ball of fire in the sky.
@aeva This reminds me that last week, Texas set the national benchmark for most amount of energy generated by non-carbon footprint means. Due to usually windy day during the week, 80% of all of Texas' energy was non-carbon, an astonishing and honestly impressive feat. Basically, 49 of the 50 other states in the country would have trumpeted this achievement as a monuments feat... except Texas. Greg Abbott was embarrassed about it and down played it, because we're an "oil" state.
@aeva (was this from our conversation?) I’m super excited to learn the power rates here! And then to learn whether our AC is efficient. Then to learn how safe leaving a server on the porch during the summer is…
@aeva also quite a lot of that consumed energy turns to heat - and can be used to reduce the need of regular (electricity driven?) house or condo heating. Most effective during winters ofc but might be significant depending on location and building tech.
@rpsu True. I've found opening the unreal engine editor to be a moderately effective space heater in my home office. I think for a volunteer computing thingy I could just turn it down or off when it's too hot in the summer.
Add comment