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Good. I have publicly been on the record as being against proof-of-work based consensus since 2018, when we implemented Monero in our apps briefly: https://ars
by EGreg 3y ago
Good. I have publicly been on the record as being against proof-of-work based consensus since 2018, when we implemented Monero in our apps briefly:
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/03/theres-a-currency-miner-in-the-mac-app-store-and-apple-seems-ok-with-it/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/03/there...
My own personal feeling that Proof of Work has a dangerous set of incentives which can lead to electricity waste on a global scale we've never seen before. We don't want to get sucked into this set of incentives, and hopefully our decision to ultimately remove the miner will set some sort of precedent for other apps as well.
Ultimately, even though we technically could have remedied the situation and continued on benefiting from the pretty large income such a miner generates, we took the above as a sign that we should get out of the "mining business" before we get sucked into the Proof of Work morass of incentives.
The only place I might be OK with it is in really cold places for actually heating a room.
- whimsicalism 3y agoA sauna in Brooklyn is powered by crypto mining.
- optimalsolver 3y agoNothing healthier than breathing in dusty mining rig fumes.
- whimsicalism 3y agoi don't think they are located in the same room :)
- saintfire 3y agoI'm certain they use heat exchangers and don't just pipe computer exhaust in. I hope they do, at least.
- arcticbull 3y agoA sauna in Brookyln would save a lot on their electric bill if they switched to heat pumps.
- whimsicalism 3y agoA heat pump would likely not work for a sauna due to the temps required, do you know of a single instance of this being done successfully? I don't think it was a gimmick anyways - they were doing this for a long time non-publicly before it came out and when it did a lot of people said they no longer wanted to be customers.
- arcticbull 3y agoI don't know if there's currently a solution for spas that incorporates a heat pump - Purdue has a paper on it [1] - my point was more that incorporating a false economic signal allows maintaining the status quo instead of leading to improvement in efficiency. [1] > I don't think it was a gimmick anyways - they were doing this for a long time non-publicly before it came out and when it did a lot of people said they no longer wanted to be customers. Seems plausible. [1] https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2932&context=iracc https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2932...
- 8note 3y agoIf I were to design such a system, it would have a heat pump between the crypto boxes and the sauna insides. That way you've got some isolation between the possibly steamy air in the sauna and the chips, and you can run the chips cooler
- arcticbull 3y agoIf you were to design an optimal system it just wouldn't have the crypto boxes in the first place. You're starting from a solution and working your way back to a problem. That's a great way to land on a poor solution to the problem as it unnecessarily constraints your search space and installs false constraints. Crypto is not by any means unique in this regard but boy does it happen often. "Assuming I spent $20,000 on a box that converts all electricity fed into it directly into heat, and once in a while, in the process of guessing random numbers, facilitates some very questionable transactions and poops out a magic bean I can sell (only 3% of the time once in its useful life), how can I use it to heat a sauna?" -- is a pretty strange place to start an exploration on the best way to heat saunas. Yes if you start there, a heat exchanger or a heat pump is not a bad idea. But why on earth are we starting there, lol, and you really sure there isn't a better way? If a resistive heater on one side were useful that’s just how it would be done, with or without the false economic incentive.