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A dude I know has cheap electricity on his allotment garden where he built a wooden hut/cabin. He uses three PCs built from throwaway parts to heat the hut in t

A dude I know has cheap electricity on his allotment garden where he built a wooden hut/cabin. He uses three PCs built from throwaway parts to heat the hut in the autumn and early spring (in winter there's nothing to do there). On the PCs he runs an app that basically manages the mining for you, automatically switching between cryptos to get the most microcents per watt per second. I have no idea why the allotment gardens got the cheap deal on electricity and I don't know if the mining gives him a significant "discount" on the heating.

latchkey 4y ago
That auto switching software is a joke. It doesn't actually get any more profit and likely costs money.
- tarsinge 4y ago
  I had a setup like this back in 2013 and it worked very well, mining profitability changed everyday between altcoins.
  - latchkey 4y ago
    You have to assume that the cost of switching is less than the difference in profitability. Computing that is nearly impossible. It is a case of not knowing what you're losing, but feeling like you got a good deal at the same time. At least for GPUs, the cost of switching workloads on the fly, is actually quite high.
- cypress66 4y ago
  You got downvoted by people that know nothing about mining it seems. And yes the auto switching which in this case is almost certainly nice hash is a joke. For years the only thing you would mine on a gpu has been ethereum. Nicehash takes an absurd fee and their software might as well be return "Ethereum".
  - latchkey 4y ago
    Nicehash got "hacked" [1] for 60m (at the time). Some claim they just "hacked" themselves, but nobody really knows. For some reason, people kept using them, but I wouldn't trust their stuff at all. A lot of GPU miners really believe that since they are paid in bitcoin, they are mining bitcoin. Just look at any FB group of GPU miners. It goes to show that a lot of people really don't understand what they are doing at all, which is kind of neat actually... all this stuff still works even though the underlying infrastructure is run by people who don't even fully understand it. [1] https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/66417/hacking/nicehash-data-breach.html https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/66417/hacking/nicehash-...
TomSwirly 4y ago
He's stealing from society to feather his own nest. I'll bet he also thinks this makes him smarter than other people.
- asddubs 4y ago
  well, if he was going to be running a space heater otherwise then this is basically the least harmful instance of mining
  - bastawhiz 4y ago
    That's a pretty inefficient space heater
    - praptak 4y ago
      It's close to 100% efficient in converting electricity to heat.
    - asddubs 4y ago
      anything that converts electricity to heat, by whatever means, is essentially equally efficient in doing so.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  In a society as large as ours, I think it generally is strictly smarter. Personally I think it’s detestable for ethical reasons.
- SturgeonsLaw 4y ago
  How is paying for electricity, at the price the provider offered, stealing?
  - joepie91_ 4y ago
    Because the electricity was almost certainly offered for a specific subsidized purpose, likely being funded by a grant of some sort, and thus it is being misused?

latchkey 4y ago

That auto switching software is a joke. It doesn't actually get any more profit and likely costs money.

tarsinge 4y ago
I had a setup like this back in 2013 and it worked very well, mining profitability changed everyday between altcoins.
- latchkey 4y ago
  You have to assume that the cost of switching is less than the difference in profitability. Computing that is nearly impossible. It is a case of not knowing what you're losing, but feeling like you got a good deal at the same time. At least for GPUs, the cost of switching workloads on the fly, is actually quite high.
cypress66 4y ago
You got downvoted by people that know nothing about mining it seems. And yes the auto switching which in this case is almost certainly nice hash is a joke. For years the only thing you would mine on a gpu has been ethereum. Nicehash takes an absurd fee and their software might as well be return "Ethereum".
- latchkey 4y ago
  Nicehash got "hacked" [1] for 60m (at the time). Some claim they just "hacked" themselves, but nobody really knows. For some reason, people kept using them, but I wouldn't trust their stuff at all. A lot of GPU miners really believe that since they are paid in bitcoin, they are mining bitcoin. Just look at any FB group of GPU miners. It goes to show that a lot of people really don't understand what they are doing at all, which is kind of neat actually... all this stuff still works even though the underlying infrastructure is run by people who don't even fully understand it. [1] https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/66417/hacking/nicehash-data-breach.html https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/66417/hacking/nicehash-...

TomSwirly 4y ago

He's stealing from society to feather his own nest. I'll bet he also thinks this makes him smarter than other people.

asddubs 4y ago
well, if he was going to be running a space heater otherwise then this is basically the least harmful instance of mining
- bastawhiz 4y ago
  That's a pretty inefficient space heater
  - praptak 4y ago
    It's close to 100% efficient in converting electricity to heat.
  - asddubs 4y ago
    anything that converts electricity to heat, by whatever means, is essentially equally efficient in doing so.
Aeolun 4y ago
In a society as large as ours, I think it generally is strictly smarter. Personally I think it’s detestable for ethical reasons.
SturgeonsLaw 4y ago
How is paying for electricity, at the price the provider offered, stealing?
- joepie91_ 4y ago
  Because the electricity was almost certainly offered for a specific subsidized purpose, likely being funded by a grant of some sort, and thus it is being misused?