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We are now Solar Powered

andrewjvpowell.com

71–80 of 83 posts

Re: We are now Solar Powered

#71
post #2

What caught my attention the most was the usage of 1-bit images. Clever restrain of resource usage, and interesting in its own right.

Dithered images won't be for everyone. I'm sure if I shrunk down a full colour JPEG to a very small size I could have used those rather than my dithered images, but I figure I could have a bit extra size (dimensions) with the dithered images. Also, yeah, I was totally going for the Solar version of Low Tech Magazine's aesthetic too...

Re: We are now Solar Powered

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there's one thing you can do to save energy, it's probably to dry your clothes on a rack outside Here in NM, you can take a load of athletic gear laundry outside to hang up and by the time you're done hanging it, the first items are already dry :) In winter, it takes about twice as long, indoors. So .. yeah.

Dry it inside in summer for the free cooling.

The added humidity will make it not worth it in most places.

OTOH in Winter you may want the extra humidity.

Re: We are now Solar Powered

#73
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "port blocking" may just be a symptom of how the modem connects to the internet, rather than being a malicious act by the ISP. CGNAT is becoming a common way for ISPs to connect consumers to the internet, even here in NZ many ISPs use this. It basically puts a bunch of consumers behind the same NAT interface meaning that port-forwarding no longer works.

He's an Australian, and so am I. His ISP (Optus) doesn't go out their way to block ports. However, he says he's using a AC800s 4G/LTE modem and backs that up by saying is using mobile data. The default mobile data service from all telco's will use CGNAT and will hand him some 10.0.0.0 address. I presume that's because mobile phones don't run servers as a rule, so no one notices and it saves them a bit of money. They…

Depending how v4 over v6 implemented. NAT64/DNS64 don't use CGNAT for v4/v4 (but use v4/v6 NAT, may call proxy), but 464XLAT, MAP-E, and DS-lite is still CGNAT. I prefer v4/v4 CGNAT over NAT64/DNS64 for transparency. Some CGNAT allow to forward port (but on limited range).

Re: We are now Solar Powered

#75
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wait, but it already physically moves to track the satellite It doesn't. It moves to be in the same plane as the satellite, but it doesn't actually track the satellite. The phased array can only track a single line across the sky. The dish moves so that line is parallel with the satellites orbit.

Ah, so if I understand it correctly they (motor and phase array) basically each do one axis?

No, the motor basically aligns the satellite for the optimal phased array 'aim' (and can rotate and tilt the dish).

But after an initial aiming, the motors basically lock in place and the dish stays still. The phased array then tracks individual sats in orbit.

Re: We are now Solar Powered

#77

> …bit of reverse proxying with Nginx is needed also… Nginx reverse proxy has capability of caching static assets, does it mean most of the website is actually being served by cloud? So, technically raspberry pie should be consuming power only when cache timesout.

Article author here, your question is actually a really good one as I'm a bit of an Nginx newb and your comment had me wondering that too. However for the past few hours since this article has been shared the hits have gone quite crazy according to the Raspberry Pis access.log, and the Pagekite.py process is constantly around 30-70% CPU usage, implying a heavy load as normally it uses nearly nothing. Does Nginx rever…

Not by default.

Re: We are now Solar Powered

#78

Second blog post is about how great Gab is? yikes.

To be fair, after a bit more time on there my opinion on Gab changed a fair bit (not in a good way). And my encouraging people on there was precisely to try prevent it being a massive echo chamber, and I did admire the fact they have withstood pressure by Big Tech and kept their servers alive. Nowadays though I generally am all for self-hosting as much as possible and staying away from these silos.

Re: We are now Solar Powered

#79
post #62

Very cool, though I'd imagine you'd have a pretty good chance of success at just sending the power over that 110m ethernet span.

Could, but it should be mentioned that power outages can and do happen where I am, so on a few occasions having this solar setup actually meant even when my house had absolutely no power (and there's no phone signal at the house), we could still have internet connectivity.

Re: We are now Solar Powered

#80

Not directly related to solar-powered-servers, but rather power-involved-in-computing ... I have a solar powered van (not the engine, alas), and it has been amazing to understand how a day of my kind of computing (edit/compile/debug cycle with C++) uses more power than the 12VDC refridgerator in the van. The computer is a small custom built direct-to-12VDC miniITX with an i5 processor. The refridgerator literally has…

I've got a PowerWall and the Tesla app (which shows up-to-the-second readouts of your home's production & consumption), and it was shocking how little energy refrigerators and freezers use. Apparently it's because they're extremely well insulated; the compressor only needs to go on to adjust to changes in temperature, and if you don't open the door the temperature won't change much. There were a bunch of other surpri…

One can purchase more efficient clothes dryers which use a heat pump.

They use only about half the energy.

If you want one, head to any shop that sells appliances, and search "heat pump". Mine paid for itself within a year. You can also buy one 2nd hand for faster payback.

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