Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What's that touchscreen in my room?

laplab.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

561–570 of 576 posts

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#561

Post by concordDance »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #499
concordDance wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> total amount of carbon we as a country want to emit And my point above was that this is not a single number. It varies depending on what we want to use the CO2 emitting stuff for.

My point was, maybe it is a single number! It's whatever We The People decide, and it doesn't vary: a ton of CO2 released into the air does the same damage no matter what released it. You could spend it saving orphans, and it wouldn't make the CO2 heat the planet any less, and it wouldn't remove the need to find a new way to save orphans that doesn't emit CO2. Indeed, examining the quote below... > So you either get…

No CO2 emissions is not the terminal value of the human race. It is a means, not an ends. The damage of that extra ton of CO2 is not infinite.

If releasing a marginal megaton of CO2 caused climate issues that cost a thousand lives over the next 200 years but we want to release that marginal megaton because it let's us save ten thousand orphans than we should release that CO2.

It might be that in the world we live in the correct CO2 per ton tax that takes into account externalities is literally greater than the price of capturing a ton of CO2, in which case all but niche cases (antique car drivers and space launchers probably) will stop producing CO2. But I don't know that and the estimates I've seen have a CO2 tax that pays for the climate externalities at less than a quarter of the price of atmospheric carbon capture (and thats the top end of CO2 tax estimates!).

The optimal level of fraud is not zero and all that. https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra...

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#562

Post by Narishma »

lynguist wrote: post #276
fortran77 wrote: post #103

From the article: > I am not an embedded Linux expert, but this does seem like a lot after tinkering with Raspberry Pi Pico and such. ...but of course the Pi Pico doesn't run Linux and doesn't need a lot of memory

Yes, the Pico cannot run an operating system as it has a -M (microcontroller) processor and not an -A (application) processor. It has no MMU etc etc. It is built to just run one process in essence with minuscule amounts of RAM.

It can run operating systems, just not Linux.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#563

Post by dihrbtk »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #450
gambiting wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a weird point to make - I'm just saying 120kWh a month for a house with no one in it and just some basic appliances and network equipment is a LOT - in developing countries 120kWh would be the average energy consumption of the entire house with people living in it, and we just "waste" that because I couldn't be bothered to switch off some devices in my house. It's not about whether I can afford it or not.

But in developing countries thats exactly what you would use power for - internet, minimal LED lighting and refrigeration. If you are lucky you got AC on, but that will blow thru 120kwh in a day.

in developing countries you'd probably have AC in a single room of the house, usually the bedroom. Having AC in the whole house is very much a luxury.

source: I live in Brazil

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#564

Post by sofixa »

didntcheck wrote: post #557
sofixa wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe your installation is different, but usually the electricity meter uses normal GPRS to talk to the electricity company. They literally have SIM cards inside. Where? In France the devices, called Linky and manufactured to a common standard by a few different companies, and mandatory, communicate via the grid itself over the CPL protocol. There are no SIM cards inside, and thankfully, lunatics have been suing to…

> BECAUSE WAVES 5G COVID CHIPS Is that really the main line, or is that just the media smear being used against a majority who have fair concerns, such as privacy or a move to phase out fixed-rate tariffs? This Wikipedia article has a good summary, and while the "Health" section is bullshit, the rest is mostly valid points https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_meter#Opposition_and_con...

Yes, that has been the main line in public discourse and court actions, people screaming that the electromagnetic waves are disturbing them (again, the meter communicates with the operator via the grid's own electric cables, so there are no more 'waves' than before). Flat-rate tariffs still exist and are the default option here in France.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#565

Post by 31337Logic »

jonathanlydall wrote: post #128

A few years ago I came to the realisation that if you want people to be more environmentally conscious or economical in terms of utility consumption, (electricity, water, gas, etc), they need far better data than a single figure per month. You want to be able to see usage to a resolution of at most 5 minutes. That way people can spot things like “having my electric heater on for those couple of hours used more electr…

Great post! Also, TIL that South Africans call their water heaters "geysers". ;-)

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#566

Post by MichaelZuo »

patates wrote: post #540
MichaelZuo wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually competent microcontroller programmers definitely earn way more then bargain barrel front end devs.

You can easily say the same for the actually competent front-end devs.

Yes but the original point is that 'competent front-end devs' aren't needed in this case, so they can get away with the bottom of the barrel.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#567

Post by ghostly_s »

lazide wrote: post #430
philwelch wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I should make the obvious reason more explicit. If you have something designed to operate on 120V and plug it into a 240V outlet, there will be safety issues. It might even catch on fire. So the two voltages have to use different outlet and plug shapes for safety reasons. An outlet is not “randomly” going to be one voltage or the other because that would be a terrible idea. And yes, the 240V outlets are set up…

Uh, you might want to reconsider who you’re talking to. I’ve run 40 amp 240v split phase and 3 phase in North America (permitted) for personal projects. I’m well aware. No one installs L30R/L6-30R receptacles in the US for ‘normal’ (as in used by a human for random stuff) use as standard practice, because yes - most of the time no one needs it. Maximum power for a normal 120/20 amp branch circuit is 2.4kw, and that’s…

> The most I’ve ever actually had a use for in a residential building was 50 amp @ 240v (arc gouging)

Having never heard of it until now I’m very curious what the use-case for a residential arc gouging machine is.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#568

Post by BizarroLand »

wolpoli wrote: post #214
bradley13 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to see your usage is helpful - at least, for those of us interested. For example, I was surprised to see how much our electronics (stereo, amplifier, TV, etc.) in the living room use, even when off (some devices are older, with high standby currents). It motivated me to put everything on a timer that only turns power own in the evenings, since that's the only time they get used. It's a small thing, but sma…

> It motivated me to put everything on a timer that only turns power own in the evenings, since that's the only time they get used. I was surprised to learn that a timer itself also uses power. I borrowed a Kill-a-watt from the library and found that an 2 decades old timer uses 2.3W while a newer one uses 0.6W. That tells me that I should just keep the old timer for the rare occasions.

I suppose you should consider the cost of the new timer vs the cost of the electricity at that point.

If a new timer is $20, and you're paying the US National Average for electricity of $0.165 / kwh. The new one is 0.6 and the old one is 2.3, for a 1.7 watt difference.

Doing the math, $20/$0.165=121.212kwh, or 121212 watt hours / 1.7 watts per hour = 71301.2 hours / 8760 hours in a year (not counting leap hours) = ~8.1 years for the device to pay for itself in savings.

If you're worried about the environment, then it's wasteful to take a moderately efficient system and upgrade it. If you're worried about cost, then you're not saving that much money. If you're worried about overall value for your effort, there are better things to focus on.

Even if it were perfectly efficient (0 watt standby) then it would still take 6 years to pay for itself if it were $20.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#569

Post by bdavbdav »

dijit wrote: post #353
gabrielhidasy wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really a problem? An ESP8266 (which is not the most efficient thing, but is very cheap) uses about 0.5W while transmitting, much less most of the time. For reference, I have some smart outlets that I measured using a while ago, pulling about 0.05W on average from the wall, or 36Wh a month. That's about as much energy as making 500ml of coffee or charging a phone 2-3x.

not sure if its a problem in reality, radios are the second most power consuming subsystem of my laptop at idle. (first being screen due to the backlight).

At idle? I didn’t think they consumed anything at all really at rest.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#570

Post by gretch »

fulladder wrote: post #536
gretch wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See this is the kind of thing I’m talking about. To me, you’re like a digital prepper. You have a bunker full of canned food and guns because you think “you’re gonna wake up one day and …” So be it. The way you live your life doesn’t negatively affect me so do what you gotta do. But maybe you don’t have to prep. Btw, rationally speaking, those who opt into monitoring their glucose are going to be much healthier by se…

I understand what you mean and I agree with you that one cannot prepare for, and shouldn't worry about, every possible future scenario. But is the scenario I'm describing really that far fetched? I'm honestly not sure.

No one can predict the future. But here’s some data we can look at.

In the US currently, you cannot be barred from buying health insurance even if you are an active smoker. And we’ve known about the dangers of smoking for a long time.

So even for these people that are actively harming themselves, we have a law that says they can do this. Now think about how far things have to move before we say “you can’t buy health insurance if you eat too much”.

Post reply on HN