5 ms·

Yes. Having access to a few hundred computers that sit in computer labs all day mostly doing nothing, I used to fold proteins or search for Yeti. Now I mine. B

by drakaal 13y ago

Yes. Having access to a few hundred computers that sit in computer labs all day mostly doing nothing, I used to fold proteins or search for Yeti. Now I mine. But profit is kind of relative. I have made money. It is bankable, but I probably had more time in doing the initial setup than what I would have made if I had taken that same time and spent it doing something related to my primary job. There is "Profit" there is "Revenue" and there is "a smart spend of my time". This met two of the three.

zapt02 13y ago
that sounds illegal.
- philsnow 13y ago
  certainly unethical. though if he's asked the university or whatever and they don't care, it's their money to piss away.
gojomo 13y ago
Even if those lab computers have GPUs, at current difficulty, whoever is paying the power bills is almost certainly paying more for the incremental electricity-use than the value of coins you're collecting. So if you're doing this "now", you're not really making money from 'mining', but from theft. The mining is just obscuring the theft enough to allow it to continue. Perhaps there's some copper wiring or tubing on premises you could also take and resell while they're not looking?
- drakaal 13y ago
  As it happens they are in buildings where they are the primary heat source, and we first started protein folding to keep the CPU's over 50% so the room wouldn't freeze in the winter. Students Remote access the desktops so they have to be always on, and they pop in and out at all hours of the day and night we did the math heating the room with PC's was cheaper than keeping the boiler on for the entire building. Believe it or not there are people in this world who aren't thieves.
  - lgieron 13y ago
    That is so cool. Did you do any research on increased wear of the hardware under load? That could be an additional cost that would start showing up only after a period of time.
    - drakaal 13y ago
      Servers do this all the time. Temperature change is harder on hardware than electrons flowing through it. They get replaced every 4 years or so, so very few die of chip failure. It is not like we are overclocking them.
    - williadc 13y ago
      I work at Intel, and am involved with the "Reliability Verification" team for some of our client products. We design our chips to last 7 years when run well over the specced frequency on "viruses" that are much harder on the hardware than any realistic workload. Server teams have even stricter requirements. If any hardware is going to see increased failure, I'm guessing it's the hard drives.
  - purerandomness 13y ago
    So, instead of folding proteins, which eventually results in benefits for all of humanity in the long term, the machines are now doing work that benefits only one person short-term. Isn't this the exact same thought pattern we find in bank owners people protest against all around the world? But let's not exaggerate - after all, it's just you and a handful devices. What difference would that make, right?
    - drakaal 13y ago
      Folding proteins tends to benefit big Pharma, I don't feel so bad about that. Who did SETI benefit? The Aliens? Bit Coin which I don't really put much stock in, but thought it was fun to play with is in my mind a bad investment long term. I cash out the coins pretty regularly. But I like the idea of a unified currency. I don't like the idea of a currency you can make more of. In my perfect world there is a single currency backed by Gold that the entire world uses and you can trade your 1oz mark for 1oz of gold when ever you want. BitCoin is closer to that than most anything else. So I like to support BitCoin for the benefit of humanity. Not because I believe it is the solution, but because I think those who think it is the solution will talk about it enough to convince those who can build the solution to do so.
teraflop 13y ago
If those aren't computers that you personally own, please be careful to get the proper authorization and cover your ass. This reminds me of the David McOwen case from a decade ago: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1782050.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1782050.stm

by drakaal 13y ago

zapt02 13y ago

that sounds illegal.

philsnow 13y ago
certainly unethical. though if he's asked the university or whatever and they don't care, it's their money to piss away.

gojomo 13y ago

Even if those lab computers have GPUs, at current difficulty, whoever is paying the power bills is almost certainly paying more for the incremental electricity-use than the value of coins you're collecting. So if you're doing this "now", you're not really making money from 'mining', but from theft. The mining is just obscuring the theft enough to allow it to continue. Perhaps there's some copper wiring or tubing on premises you could also take and resell while they're not looking?

drakaal 13y ago
As it happens they are in buildings where they are the primary heat source, and we first started protein folding to keep the CPU's over 50% so the room wouldn't freeze in the winter. Students Remote access the desktops so they have to be always on, and they pop in and out at all hours of the day and night we did the math heating the room with PC's was cheaper than keeping the boiler on for the entire building. Believe it or not there are people in this world who aren't thieves.
- lgieron 13y ago
  That is so cool. Did you do any research on increased wear of the hardware under load? That could be an additional cost that would start showing up only after a period of time.
  - drakaal 13y ago
    Servers do this all the time. Temperature change is harder on hardware than electrons flowing through it. They get replaced every 4 years or so, so very few die of chip failure. It is not like we are overclocking them.
  - williadc 13y ago
    I work at Intel, and am involved with the "Reliability Verification" team for some of our client products. We design our chips to last 7 years when run well over the specced frequency on "viruses" that are much harder on the hardware than any realistic workload. Server teams have even stricter requirements. If any hardware is going to see increased failure, I'm guessing it's the hard drives.
- purerandomness 13y ago
  So, instead of folding proteins, which eventually results in benefits for all of humanity in the long term, the machines are now doing work that benefits only one person short-term. Isn't this the exact same thought pattern we find in bank owners people protest against all around the world? But let's not exaggerate - after all, it's just you and a handful devices. What difference would that make, right?
  - drakaal 13y ago
    Folding proteins tends to benefit big Pharma, I don't feel so bad about that. Who did SETI benefit? The Aliens? Bit Coin which I don't really put much stock in, but thought it was fun to play with is in my mind a bad investment long term. I cash out the coins pretty regularly. But I like the idea of a unified currency. I don't like the idea of a currency you can make more of. In my perfect world there is a single currency backed by Gold that the entire world uses and you can trade your 1oz mark for 1oz of gold when ever you want. BitCoin is closer to that than most anything else. So I like to support BitCoin for the benefit of humanity. Not because I believe it is the solution, but because I think those who think it is the solution will talk about it enough to convince those who can build the solution to do so.

teraflop 13y ago

If those aren't computers that you personally own, please be careful to get the proper authorization and cover your ass. This reminds me of the David McOwen case from a decade ago: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1782050.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1782050.stm