BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
I do want to hear from Sparks on this one... something doesn't seem right.
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
LOL. Sparks is going to tell you to listen to Lister.gnome wrote:I do want to hear from Sparks on this one... something doesn't seem right.
How the fuck do otherwise intelligent people graduate high school without learning basic thermodynamics?
What "doesn't seem right" to you? Where do you think that energy goes if not to heating your CPU and thus the room?
If it turned into light it might escape your room and warm the environment, or space, or whatever. If you open the door to your room it might escape and warm some other room. If you have windows then they'll get warm and warm the outside. If you get all warm and toasty by it and then walk to your ugly neighbor's house it might leak a little to them.
Where does the watt go if not to heat?
If you turn a fan on in your room does the room get warmer or cooler? Warmer. Warmer by the exact wattage of the fan.
If you leave your refrigerator door open does the room get warmer or cooler? Warmer. Warmer by the exact wattage of the fridge.
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
They say:Rob Lister wrote:I will ask without reading the article, what was their return on the dollar?Pyrrho wrote:https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2017/12 ... um-heater/
We used a cryptocurrency miner as a heater this winter and it really worked
As far as the rest of the innards go, the Comino N1 (the model we had a chance to test) boasts eight ASUS P106-100 6G graphic cards mounted on an ASUS PRIME Z270-A Motherboard, as well as 3 NOCTUA NF-A14 PPC-2000 PWM fans, a customized Black Ice NEMESIS GTX420 radiator and 2 Chieftech PROTON BDF-750C 750W power supply units.
All of this oomph amounts to about 1kW of power consumption per hour. Make sure to check your local electricity rates to get an idea of how much that will add up to your energy bills.
The contraption stands 63.5cm tall, with a length of 45.9cm and a width of17.5cm, which means you could easily fit it in an idle corner of your room and forget about it, while it does the mining for you. And this is precisely what we did.
Because if you have to heat your house anyway, and you don't access to cheaper alternatives like gas or oil, you might as well run a miner. I can't think of a single disadvantage. An electric heater running at X watts uses the same watts as a miner. The amount lost to uploading/downloading crypto data is too insignificant to bother with. The only downside is the cost of the equipment.
I use NG to heat my home and the cost of that fuel plus the cost of the unit is not trivial; probably more than a decent miner. If there's a decent return on the dollar it might be a worthy investment.
He doesn't say how much more he paid for electricity.Since installing the miner on November 16, it has so far transferred a total of little over 1.2 ETH to my designated wallet – this equals to roughly 1 ETH per month. At the time of writing, my mining returns amount to about $814, according to CoinGecko.
Each of those machines costs $5,000.00
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
Do you think sparks is going to tell you that your CPU/GPU watts are somehow magical?Abdul Alhazred wrote:Waiting for sparks before further comment. :)
See if you can guess what he will say. Other than Listen to Lister.
Last edited by Rob Lister on Wed Dec 27, 2017 11:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
If one is trying to heat one's home to a comfortable temp, then one should pay attention to where the Watts are going. If they're staying in the domicile, one may take that as a WIN.
If some of them go out the webz, that would constitute a FAIL.
But, it is, after all, a matter of intent.
Fuds Law, damnit!
ETA: Just ask ed. He invented this shit!!
If some of them go out the webz, that would constitute a FAIL.
But, it is, after all, a matter of intent.
Fuds Law, damnit!
ETA: Just ask ed. He invented this shit!!
Last edited by sparks on Wed Dec 27, 2017 11:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
So there you go Abdul and Gnome. You have spark's almost comprehensible reply.sparks wrote:If one is trying to heat one's home to a comfortable temp, then one should pay attention to where the Watts are going. If they're staying in the domicile, one may take that as a WIN.
If some of them go out the webz, that would constitute a FAIL.
But, it is, after all, a matter of intent.
Fuds Law, damnit!
To be pedantic ...
Nothing goes out to the webz but 1's (I submit a fraction of a picowatt to you) and 0's (I absorb a fraction of a picowatt from you). Assuming an even distribution of each, the net is zero. With fiber, those picowatts turn into femtowatts.
Last edited by Rob Lister on Thu Dec 28, 2017 12:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
Yet, energy must be expended to produce the 1's and 0's going out the webz. Net (no pun intended) energy going away from the appliance you are running.
Further, it (your appliance) is not 100% efficient, therefore your home will be heated. but in a small way.
Continue to pay your gas bill. Or learn to love your CPU like a shape-shifter.
It is NOT a nice thing and therefore allowed.
ed lives in Florida. ed? Is it right, is it right, or is it right?
Further, it (your appliance) is not 100% efficient, therefore your home will be heated. but in a small way.
Continue to pay your gas bill. Or learn to love your CPU like a shape-shifter.
It is NOT a nice thing and therefore allowed.
ed lives in Florida. ed? Is it right, is it right, or is it right?
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
I don't get that dude. It is your fail.Abdul Alhazred wrote:Hey Lister:
To quote my knowledgeable buddy sparks "FAIL". :De_Bunk:
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
Are you being glib? It all leaves the house eventually. Through the windows, the walls, the ground. Not so much through the internets.Abdul Alhazred wrote:Sure.
If you are somehow mining bitcoins with zero energy leaving the house ... which is to say you're not really mining bitcoins.
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
Listy has a new word: Glib. He's used it twice today.
Good boy Rob.
Those self help books are really paying off! :)
Yes it all leaves the house eventually. But if you have good windows, walls and a decently insulated basement, then you have a chance of staying comfy. But not on the energy it takes to run a single confuser, let alone the energy leaving the house through the 1's and 0's you are transmitting to the webz.
Admittedly, very little energy leaves the 'hood through the webz. But SCIENCE!!! says that a small, yet definable amount does.
Eat that, skeptics!
Good boy Rob.
Those self help books are really paying off! :)
Yes it all leaves the house eventually. But if you have good windows, walls and a decently insulated basement, then you have a chance of staying comfy. But not on the energy it takes to run a single confuser, let alone the energy leaving the house through the 1's and 0's you are transmitting to the webz.
Admittedly, very little energy leaves the 'hood through the webz. But SCIENCE!!! says that a small, yet definable amount does.
Eat that, skeptics!
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
But that's just the networking side. These rigs chew through kilowatts of power running GPUs and CPUs, not for talking over ethernet or wifi.
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
The application doesn't matter. Mining certain currencies is just a reliable way to keep most of the computing cores busy all day.
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
A space heater of the same wattage would cost maybe 100 bucks, maybe less or more, but close enough, so obviously this is a secondary use. And it's only going to be helpful for maybe 4 or 5 months of the year. The rest of the year you either don't need more heat or you actually want to cool things down. And you can't just put it outside. If you have a shed or a garage you could put it there maybe, if there's a power outlet, but I wouldn't have a good place in my house to put it in the summer.
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
Episode 816: Bitcoin Losers (Planet Money podcast, NPR)
Rob, you ever find your lost bitcoin? :notsure:Plenty of people will tell you they're getting rich off of Bitcoin. They could be right. But there's another group of Bitcoin owners that aren't so ecstatic. Because they might be rich, too, but they lost the passkey that would let them get at their digital fortune. Syl Turner is in that second, less glamorous group. When he got around one-and-a-half Bitcoins seven or eight years ago, they were nearly worthless. So worthless he bunked the hard drive that held the key somewhere and now he can't remember where.
Today on the show, we join Syl on a digital treasure hunt, as he ventures into his attic looking for what could be the key to his Bitcoin wallet, and tens of thousands of dollars. It's all or nothing. In the decentralized anti-governmental world of Bitcoin, you can't file a claim for damaged or lost currency. You've either got the key, or you don't.
Then Kimberly Grauer and Jonathan Levin of Chainalysis help us figure out how much Bitcoin has been lost and why it's so difficult to track down, and try to figure out if there's any way to find Syl's vanished riches.
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
https://www.duffelblog.com/2018/01/bitc ... diers-say/
FORT JACKSON, S.C. – Bitcoin futures today suffered from heightened volatility due to rumors of a possible two-day extension of MRE rations, soldiers on a field exercise reported.
“I thought that trading my jalapeño cheese for .00000387 Bitcoin was a good choice three days ago,” said Pfc. Josh Warner. “But now that there are rumors that we’ll have MREs instead of mermites tomorrow and the end of FIELDEX BBQ is cancelled because of a DUI from another unit, I’m realizing that the value of that MRE cheese would have tripled if I held onto it until tomorrow.”
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
The Daily Express announces the "end" of cryptocurrencies.
https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/ ... outh-korea
I think that may be premature.
https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/ ... outh-korea
I think that may be premature.
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
https://s9.postimg.org/x21vrjzgv/995312 ... 2e0767.jpg
And for a contrasting opinion:
The two points which apparently make it a scam: 1. Mining gets more and more difficult and 2. Nothing guarantees a continued rise of the Bitcoin. Details at the link.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42630136BBC wrote:CES 2018: Kodak soars on KodakCoin and Bitcoin mining plans
Shares in photo firm Eastman Kodak soared nearly 120% after it revealed plans to mint its own crypto-currency, the KodakCoin.
The US firm said it was teaming up with London-based Wenn Media Group to carry out the initial coin offering (ICO).
It is part of a blockchain-based initiative to help photographers control their image rights.
Kodak also detailed plans to install rows of Bitcoin mining rigs at its headquarters in Rochester, New York.
Details of this second scheme - which is being branded the Kodak KashMiner - were outlined at the CES tech show in Las Vegas.
Customers will pay up-front to rent mining capacity.
And for a contrasting opinion:
https://lifehacker.com/why-kodaks-bitco ... 1821957658lifehacker wrote:Why Kodak's Bitcoin Scheme Is a Scam You Should Avoid
Just like your friend from college who won’t stop posting about it on Facebook, Kodak is really into cryptocurrencies. During CES 2018, the company announced a two-pronged blockchain strategy: 1) its own cryptocurrency called KodakCoin designed to improve image rights for photographers and 2) a Bitcoin mining scheme called KashMiner where customers can rent equipment and allegedly make money over a two-year period.
That first one isn’t a terrible idea. It uses blockchain technology to solve a legitimate issue, and Kodak’s well-established brand could help popularize the idea of a public ledger for image rights to ensure that photographers get paid for their work. However, the second announcement is quickly being written off as a scam and proof that the Bitcoin bubble is dangerously close to popping.
The two points which apparently make it a scam: 1. Mining gets more and more difficult and 2. Nothing guarantees a continued rise of the Bitcoin. Details at the link.
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
1. appears to be a feature. I've got nothing on 2.Witness wrote:The two points which apparently make it a scam: 1. Mining gets more and more difficult and 2. Nothing guarantees a continued rise of the Bitcoin. Details at the link.
But assuming bitcoin is currently a bubble, what would have to pop down to for it not to be a bubble?
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
My stab at it: a "bubble" would mean that speculators are overvaluing the commodity--so in theory, for it not to be a bubble the value increase should be matched by an evident increase in the demand for its usage.
Does that fly?
Does that fly?
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
Seems like it should fly but how do you value that usage? How do you even define that usage? If I trade a bitcoin for a commodity that is demand. But the ability to store value is also a commodity. And when SK became a threat to that specific end, the price tumbled. I have little doubt it will rebound but not enough confidence to invest in chasing this bottom.gnome wrote:My stab at it: a "bubble" would mean that speculators are overvaluing the commodity--so in theory, for it not to be a bubble the value increase should be matched by an evident increase in the demand for its usage.
Does that fly?
Here's a fair article on the bubble issue
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/16/skeptic ... wrong.html
Gold remains a good example. 15% of newly mined gold goes to work in industry (electronics, primarily). That is the only true utility. The other 85% goes to jewelry and coins as a value store. Nobody is using it to buy groceries. But as a store it is about as solid a store as there is.
That's a long way of me saying I don't fucking know what flies.
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
You mean 1.3 kilos of gold can buy a bitcoin. That's right, for the low price of 5.4 kilos of gold, you can buy just one bitcoin! Come in now, before the price changes from 2.7 kilos.Abdul Alhazred wrote:As of right now, 3.55 kilos of gold per Bitcoin.
Based on:
1 BTC = $11995.00
1 Kg of gold = $42,593.28
Aside from fluctuation, there may be some sort of arbitrage if dollars are not used as an intermediate.
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
One thing like gold is a mining GPU
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/201 ... -shortage/
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/201 ... -shortage/
Spoiler:
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
https://twitter.com/thelateempire/statu ... 1221028865
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUnR8ffXkAAnsHM.jpg@thelateempire
a shitcoin startup called Prodeum just exitscammed with millions of investor dollars and left them the following message on their site
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
I heard eleven dollars.Pyrrho wrote:https://twitter.com/thelateempire/statu ... 1221028865
@thelateempire
a shitcoin startup called Prodeum just exitscammed with millions of investor dollars and left them the following message on their site
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
Considering that it probably took many hours of work (more likely weeks) to set up the scam, I guess the joke's on them. They made less than minimum wage.Rob Lister wrote:I heard eleven dollars.Pyrrho wrote:https://twitter.com/thelateempire/statu ... 1221028865
@thelateempire
a shitcoin startup called Prodeum just exitscammed with millions of investor dollars and left them the following message on their site
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/arti ... sage-penis
The Prodeum website, for what it’s worth, is flashy and overall very well done. To throw off the suspicious, if you click a photo of any of Prodeum’s staff, you’re taken to that person’s associated LinkedIn profile. It also appears, as Buzzfeed journalist Ryan Mac noted on Twitter, that the startup was paying people on Fiverr to promote the ICO by writing “Prodeum” on their bodies. Still, it doesn’t seem like all the promotion was enough to make Prodeum’s crowdsale profitable.
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
From his Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramatik"Groundbreaking producer and technological advocate, Gramatik, raised the maximum amount of $2.48 million (7500 ETH) in under 24 hours during his GRMTK token sale in Zurich on November 9th, 2017, as he became the first artist in history to ‘tokenize’ his intellectual property–meaning, he created his own form of cryptocurrency that will represent his IP."
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
That's pitiful whining. That playing field is perfectly level. But here's a great take-away quoteAbdul Alhazred wrote:Women in Cryptocurrencies Push Back Against ‘Blockchain Bros’
The New York Times
:lmao:
That's what Hillary said.“Women always question if they’re qualified,” she said. “But look at these clowns around us.”
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies ... in-robberySouth China Morning Post wrote:Man mugged in Taiwan's first bitcoin robbery
Taiwan police have arrested four men over a bitcoin robbery worth NT$5 million (US$170,000) in what they said was the first case of its kind on the island.
[…]
Taiwan police said three men in their early twenties lured a man surnamed Tai to the central city of Taichung, pretending to be interested in buying bitcoins.
After Tai showed proof of his bitcoins on his phone, the scammers assaulted him and his friend, then transferred 18 bitcoins worth NT$5 million from Tai’s account via his phone.
The suspects attempted to pass off the heist as a drunken row by forcing the victim to drink Kaoliang, a strong Taiwanese liquor, Taichung city police said in a statement.
Police arrived at the scene after receiving a call about a dispute and one man was detained. The other two had fled.
The old methods still work, sorta. :mrgreen:
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
Out of curiosity-- I've wondered before about ATM robberies. Often I figure it's just a target of opportunity--someone visiting an ATM probably just got money that the robber can take. How common is someone being forced to operate the ATM to withdraw money (presumably at gunpoint)?Witness wrote:http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies ... in-robberySouth China Morning Post wrote:Man mugged in Taiwan's first bitcoin robbery
Taiwan police have arrested four men over a bitcoin robbery worth NT$5 million (US$170,000) in what they said was the first case of its kind on the island.
[…]
Taiwan police said three men in their early twenties lured a man surnamed Tai to the central city of Taichung, pretending to be interested in buying bitcoins.
After Tai showed proof of his bitcoins on his phone, the scammers assaulted him and his friend, then transferred 18 bitcoins worth NT$5 million from Tai’s account via his phone.
The suspects attempted to pass off the heist as a drunken row by forcing the victim to drink Kaoliang, a strong Taiwanese liquor, Taichung city police said in a statement.
Police arrived at the scene after receiving a call about a dispute and one man was detained. The other two had fled.
The old methods still work, sorta. :mrgreen:
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
Gun? Too Murican. One of my (ex) colleagues got mugged with the cash out of the machine still in her hands: a spurt of alcohol (kirsch, apparently :mrgreen: ) into the eyes and you're helpless. :(gnome wrote:(presumably at gunpoint)?
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
http://www.dw.com/en/foxconns-entry-hea ... a-43320990Foxconn's entry heats up race for first mass-market Bitcoin-friendly phone
Raising the stakes is Taiwan's Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker and a key Apple and Amazon supplier.
A Foxconn unit has agreed to develop and produce a blockchain-based smartphone from Swiss-Israeli technology startup Sirin Labs, Bloomberg reported last week.
The new smartphone, called the Finney, will let users "shop on crypto friendly sites like Overstock.com and Expedia, converting cash into specialized tokens if needed," Bloomberg said.
Users may also trade battery power with others and get paid in tokens or earn by simply allowing a tourist to browse the internet using their phone's Wi-Fi.
"Blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies are considered to be too complex for 99.99 percent of the population," Sirin said in a white paper, adding that Finney will help bring cryptocurrencies to the masses.
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
2145. This graph goes to 2033Abdul Alhazred wrote:How close are we to the point where the maximum number of bitcoins has been "mined"?
https://i.imgur.com/SNLuaml.png
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
https://www.livemint.com/Money/3wU3b1Iu ... -2018.htmlBitcoin to use 0.5% of world’s electricity by end of 2018
London: Bitcoin, one of the most popular cryptocurrencies, currently uses almost as much power as Ireland does, and could be consuming about 0.5% of the world’s total electricity by the end of this year, a study has found.
Bitcoin’s burgeoning electricity demands have attracted almost as much attention as the cryptocurrency’s wildly fluctuating value. However, estimating exactly how much electricity the bitcoin network uses, necessary for understanding its impact and implementing policy, remains a challenge.
“We’ve seen a lot of back-of-the-envelope calculations, but we need more scientific discussion on where this network is headed. Right now, the information available is pretty poor quality overall, so I’m hoping that people will use this paper as a foundation for more research,” said economist and blockchain specialist Alex de Vries, who works at PwC in the Netherlands.
The estimates, based in economics, put the minimum current usage of the bitcoin network at 2.55 gigawatts, which means it uses almost as much electricity as Ireland. A single transaction uses as much electricity as an average household in the Netherlands uses in a month. By the end of this year, he predicts the network could be using as much as 7.7 gigawatts—as much as Austria and 0.5% of the world’s total consumption.
“To me, half a per cent is already quite shocking. It’s an extreme difference compared to the regular financial system, and this increasing electricity demand is definitely not going to help us reach our climate goals,” he said. If the price of bitcoin continues to increase the way some experts have predicted, De Vries believes the network could someday consume 5% of the world’s electricity.
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
Jesus, that's a lot of electricity.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christophe ... dd9ef41fff
I don't know, but somebody has calculated how much electricity it takes to run the Internet.Abdul Alhazred wrote:How does that compare to the amount of electricity used by cam whores?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christophe ... dd9ef41fff
And that's just for America. According to another article I found, porn accounts for about 30% of internet traffic, so you can do the math. As of now porn probably uses more electricity than bitcoin, but they're in the same ballpark.America’s myriad server farms and data centers operate 100 million drives that hold 350 million terabytes of data — everything from your decade-old emails to lolcat videos and the collected offerings of Netflix NFLX -0.3%.
A new report from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory figures that those data centers use an enormous amount of energy — some 70 billion kilowatt hours per year. That amounts to 1.8% of total American electricity consumption. At an average cost of 10 cents per kwh, the annual cost of all that juice is on the order of $7 billion.
Seventy billion kilowatt hours is such a giant number that it’s helpful to put it into some other terms. For comparison purposes, 1 kwh is enough power to keep ten 100-watt lightbulbs illuminated for one hour, or to keep your smartphone charged for an entire year.
To generate 70 billion kwh you’d need power plants with a baseload capacity of 8,000 megawatts — equivalent to about 8 big nuclear reactors, or twice the output of all the nation’s solar panels.
Sliced up per capita, the average American uses about 200 kwh a year for his or her internet use, costing about $20. For those of you obsessed with carbon footprints, your internet use is responsible for the emission of about 300 pounds of carbon dioxide per year.
But our internet addiction is only growing. According to Nielsen, the average adult in the United States spends 10 hours and 39 minutes a day consuming digital media. That’s up an hour a day in the past year. And we’re spending most of that additional time peering at our smart phones, which now occupy us for an hour and a half each day.
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Re: BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?
This growing consumption is not reflected as growth in total consumption.Anaxagoras wrote:Jesus, that's a lot of electricity.
I don't know, but somebody has calculated how much electricity it takes to run the Internet.Abdul Alhazred wrote:How does that compare to the amount of electricity used by cam whores?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christophe ... dd9ef41fff
And that's just for America. According to another article I found, porn accounts for about 30% of internet traffic, so you can do the math. As of now porn probably uses more electricity than bitcoin, but they're in the same ballpark.... Sliced up per capita, the average American uses about 200 kwh a year for his or her internet use, costing about $20. ...
https://i.imgur.com/uFHE8kP.png
I'm going to consume energy no matter what I do. The only thing I could do that is less of a load than surfing the internet or watching Netflix is perhaps reading a book.
One conclusion: Given the choice of watching porn or ironing clothes, we're all very wrinkled.