The news giveth, the news taketh away...

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

??

I'm asking joblack to expand upon his comment. It's too cryptic for me to decide which interpretation (I can imagine more than one) is meant.

[garo]

Thanks for the explanation Uncwilly.

[Freightyard]

Originally Posted by NBtarheel_33

it's really quite surprising that *only* 100,000 have signed up for GIMPS. Suppose we could swell that number even just by a factor of 10...

But then my "rank" might go down with all the competition!!

Originally Posted by Morseman

...my rational is deeply rooted in the saving money part of energy efficiency rather than the 'save the planet' bit..

So, you're a bean-counter, not an eco-tard, then?

Originally Posted by petrw1

I propose a different twist on this...we need to tell people that if they are going to leave their PC on all night anyway, at least have it doing something useful ...

Slap an Obama screen saver on prime95 and tell people Barry needs their spare CPU cycles to calculate the national deficit.

Originally Posted by cheesehead

I'm asking joblack to expand upon his comment. It's too cryptic for me to decide which interpretation (I can imagine more than one) is meant.

My take: How do you best guarantee there will always be plentiful fresh food in your refrigerator? Eat it as fast as you can.

[flouran]

I think that we should try and do our part in helping the environment. Yes, it is necessary to leave computers on all night for prime crunching, but we can (somehow) be *more* energy efficient. How that will happen, I have no freaking clue (perhaps have an energy efficient computer? lol). But seriously, that news article should be somewhat of a wake-up call, and I think this thread would be a great place for discussion/brainstorm on how to save more energy (w/o turning off our computers of course); hell, in this economy, it would be great to save a few bucks!

[NBtarheel_33]

...you can switch your peripherals off. Monitors, printers, external drives, speakers, modems, etc. etc. are not needed for prime-crunching, after all.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by flouran

I think that we should try and do our part in helping the environment. Yes, it is necessary to leave computers on all night for prime crunching, but we can (somehow) be *more* energy efficient. How that will happen, I have no freaking clue (perhaps have an energy efficient computer? lol). But seriously, that news article should be somewhat of a wake-up call, and I think this thread would be a great place for discussion/brainstorm on how to save more energy (w/o turning off our computers of course); hell, in this economy, it would be great to save a few bucks!

You also live in an environment where it can be cold in winter. (Over here, it can be distinctly cool even in summer.)

Suggestion: turn crunching into a seasonal activity. Use lots of computers as fan heaters when you need heating but relatively few when you don't.

That's been my approach for years.

The Microsoft Research lab in Cambridge was designed to re-use otherwise waste heat from people and machines to keep the building warm. Very little additional heating is required, other than in corner offices where there are two exterior walls, and then only when the weather is particularly chilly.


Paul

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by xilman

The Microsoft Research lab in Cambridge was designed to re-use otherwise waste heat from people and machines to keep the building warm. Very little additional heating is required, other than in corner offices where there are two exterior walls, and then only when the weather is particularly chilly.

Reminds me of a building where I used to work. After one winter weekend when the outside temperature dipped into the twenties-below-zero-F, we came to work Monday morning to find interior temperatures in the eighties/nineties F. The water-tower cooling system had frozen because it had insufficient antifreeze, we were told, and the heat from idling terminals and Tandem mainframes inside had built up.