4 ms·

This is hardly the most frivolous thing humanity does. It's ok if it never has any practical applications.

by eloff 5y ago

ramraj07 5y ago
On a different eon that might be true but nowadays compute power - electricity - global warming. Given that, “frivolous” work that just burns energy could be potentially postponed until we go fully renewable in our energy stack.
- medo-bear 5y ago
  lol ... bless you
- f-jin 5y ago
  You're in for a tough one once you find out that reality TV and video-games exist.
  - mrpopo 5y ago
    Or calculating SHA-256 hashes (ok this one already gets bashed out appropriately). Or running AC until you need a jacket.
- eesmith 5y ago
  There seem to be many frivolous uses of power to complain about when you get to this level of power use. GIMPS' ~1PetaFLOPS[1] uses no more than a megawatt [2]. That's about 10 Gigawatt-hours (GWh) over a year [3]. The average US house uses about 10 MWh in a year [4] so GIMPS = the electrical power use of ~1,000 households. Portland reduced their power consumption by 20 GWh by switching their street lights to LEDs[5]. The electrical consumption for Superbowl parties is an estimated 75 GWh [6]. (I think Superbowl parties are far more frivolous.) [1] - https://www.mersenne.org/primenet/ https://www.mersenne.org/primenet/ [2] from 2012, "HP plans to deliver a full peak petaflop with just a single megawatt" - https://www.hpcwire.com/2012/09/05/hp_intel_score_petaflop_supercomputer_at_doe_lab/ https://www.hpcwire.com/2012/09/05/hp_intel_score_petaflop_s... [3] 365.25days * 24hours/day * 1MW / 1000 = 8.8 GWh [4] "In 2020, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 10,715 kilowatthours (kWh)" https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3 [5] https://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/article/678781 https://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/article/678781 [6] https://www.americasgenerators.com/blog/post/2017/02/15/What-it-Takes-to-Power-Up-the-Super-Bowl.aspx https://www.americasgenerators.com/blog/post/2017/02/15/What...

This is hardly the most frivolous thing humanity does. It's ok if it never has any practical applications.

by eloff 5y ago

This is hardly the most frivolous thing humanity does. It's ok if it never has any practical applications.

On a different eon that might be true but nowadays compute power - electricity - global warming. Given that, “frivolous” work that just burns energy could be potentially postponed until we go fully renewable in our energy stack.

medo-bear 5y ago
lol ... bless you
f-jin 5y ago
You're in for a tough one once you find out that reality TV and video-games exist.
- mrpopo 5y ago
  Or calculating SHA-256 hashes (ok this one already gets bashed out appropriately). Or running AC until you need a jacket.
eesmith 5y ago
There seem to be many frivolous uses of power to complain about when you get to this level of power use. GIMPS' ~1PetaFLOPS[1] uses no more than a megawatt [2]. That's about 10 Gigawatt-hours (GWh) over a year [3]. The average US house uses about 10 MWh in a year [4] so GIMPS = the electrical power use of ~1,000 households. Portland reduced their power consumption by 20 GWh by switching their street lights to LEDs[5]. The electrical consumption for Superbowl parties is an estimated 75 GWh [6]. (I think Superbowl parties are far more frivolous.) [1] - https://www.mersenne.org/primenet/ https://www.mersenne.org/primenet/ [2] from 2012, "HP plans to deliver a full peak petaflop with just a single megawatt" - https://www.hpcwire.com/2012/09/05/hp_intel_score_petaflop_supercomputer_at_doe_lab/ https://www.hpcwire.com/2012/09/05/hp_intel_score_petaflop_s... [3] 365.25days * 24hours/day * 1MW / 1000 = 8.8 GWh [4] "In 2020, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 10,715 kilowatthours (kWh)" https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3 [5] https://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/article/678781 https://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/article/678781 [6] https://www.americasgenerators.com/blog/post/2017/02/15/What-it-Takes-to-Power-Up-the-Super-Bowl.aspx https://www.americasgenerators.com/blog/post/2017/02/15/What...