5 ms·

They're cheap enough that my first thought was to pick up a couple and figure out what I'd do with them later, but the disadvantage here is that they're older b

by egd 12y ago

They're cheap enough that my first thought was to pick up a couple and figure out what I'd do with them later, but the disadvantage here is that they're older boxes, which means they're going to be energy hogs (for the performance point, at least). That's what makes the eco pitch interesting - they're reducing e-waste, which is good, but energy efficiency on newer boxes (especially if you just need minimal performance) is worlds better than what these are offering. On the one hand, the recycling is great, but on the other hand, it's like putting a 1953 Chevy back on the road - sure, we didn't have to manufacture another one, but it still might not be the best thing for the environment.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
dorfsmay 12y ago
I agree, I love the concept, but you also have to add the cost of a monitor + keyboard + mouse AND the fact that everybody wants (needs?) a laptop these days.
- wernercd 12y ago
  "you also have to add the cost of a monitor + keyboard + mouse AND the fact that everybody wants (needs?) a laptop these days." Not really... with RDP/SSH/Telnet/etc, you can access this without the need a dedicated keyboard/mouse/monitor. Also, I can live without a laptop due to my "phablet". I already have a desktop. Something like this would be a good for hiding a server (or two) somewhere. The question is... the energy saved by reusing this. The energy saved by not destroying this. The landfill space not taken up by this... Is it enough to offset the energy savings on newer pc's that are more powerful but use less energy? What is the tipping point that makes a new machine better?
  - chrisBob 12y ago
    >with RDP/SSH/Telnet/etc, you can access this without the need a dedicated keyboard/mouse/monitor. I think the target is to make this the terminal. I don't see too many people going out of their way to remote into a low spec machine like this.
jiggy2011 12y ago
That depends on how much time it spends powered up. Someone in the market for a PC this cheap is probably not a heavy computer user.
martinald 12y ago
I agree, this is a dreadful idea. The CPUs are going to hog a whole load of energy (as are the motherboards). The HDDs are going to be seriously used and probably prone to complete breakdown. An ARM SoC would do this same job much faster probably at much less cost, with FAR less energy consumption.
- switchbak 12y ago
  That's very true - one of those mini Linux sticks would fit the bill nicely, for example: http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Original-authentic-RKM-MK802IV-LE-Quad-Core-RK3188-2GB-8GB-Ubuntu-Linux-MINI-PC-WIFI-Bluetooth/1403049_32268439359.html http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Original-authentic-R... And apparently Intel has the same thing with it's atom chip: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/intels-compute-stick-is-a-full-windows-or-linux-pc-in-an-hdmi-dongle/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/intels-compute-stick-... With high capacity flash getting fast-enough for real use, I don't see much of a need for spinning platters anymore. It's seems like a shame to give up on all that old hardware, but technology marches on I suppose.
sitkack 12y ago
I deleted a post about the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox and how these machines were in fact not green. I was wrong. Given the right uses, like an elementary school computer lab for learning Scratch, Logo, etc; they would be fine. The problem is they are right on the cusp of the next cycle of Moore's Law, Raspberry Pi is now quad core and 1GB, it puts it in the same class as this machine. The cost of "good enough" compute hardware is going to zero (shipping, financial trans cost will dominate).
- dangerlibrary 12y ago
  Until Raspberry Pi can get their power supply problems under control, they really aren't good enough to use as any kind of workstation.
  - pjc50 12y ago
    First I've heard of this; it does need a decent USB power supply, but that's a consequence of not shipping one and expecting the user to supply one of suitable quality.
    - sliverstorm 12y ago
      I found the first model would sometimes brownout when trying to maximally utilize the ethernet. Which was not a big deal for a hobby device, but it did eliminate a number of possibilities.
  - morganvachon 12y ago
    They did, with the B+ in mid 2014, and the current Pi 2 with the same power design. The B+ and newer boards don't suffer the odd power supply issues that the older boards (even the B rev2) suffered. And I'm not just rehashing what someone else said; I've had one each of the original B, a rev 2 B, a B+, and now a Pi 2. I've used the same power supply on all four, and on the B+ and Pi 2 I don't have any issues with hotplugging flash drives and wifi adapters whereas I did on the original and rev 2 models. I've had my B+ running 24/7 since August as a webcam server to watch my dog in the back yard, and I've only had to reboot it once for an update. It's running a Microsoft USB-powered 720p webcam and an Edimax wifi adapter directly off of the built in USB, and it hasn't once had a power issue. I've had my Pi 2 running 24/7 since I got it a couple of weeks ago, as a "light" GNU/Linux workstation I can switch to and use when my main workstation is otherwise occupied. Again, no power issues on that board.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
This has been one of the most amazingly non-intuitive things for me over the years. That operating a computer that is older can be so much more inefficient than operating one that is newer, that it isn't worth it. Literally the best thing you can do is crush the chips and mine the result for gold, silver, and the few rare earths that are left over. That at least puts a finite limit on the energy consumed over it, and the value returned from it.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Not sending it to places like the e-waste dump in Agbogbloshie, Accra, Ghana is a benefit. I'm not sure how to weight each thing - the increased CO2 emmissions are bad; not poisoning poor people who do things like burn the PVC insulation off cables to get the copper is a good thing.
  - ChuckMcM 12y ago
    Certainly agree with that sentiment! We are getting to the point where it makes sense to have 'disassembly' robots, this paper (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967066108001056 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967066108...) looked at that (it wasn't the focus per se but an example). I can clearly see that 'anti-factories' where raw materials are recovered and unrecoverable materials made inert will be a thing.
    - e12e 12y ago
      Still, the market isn't going to solve this on it's own. Other peoples children are going to be cheaper than robots for the foreseeable future. In fact, poisoning the local population could be considered a minor issue compared to contaminating the water tables. Sick people die, but a contaminated water table keeps killing people for generations. I think strong local regulations, as well as an emphasis of recycling locally is the best short-term solution. It does expose the actual cost of recycling (safely) -- but also cuts energy to shipping, and can be used as a stimuli for a more re-cycle friendly value chain (eg: make sellers of electronics take the bill for recycling, and demand local, safe recycling) -- which in turn puts pressure on suppliers to deliver items that are cheaper to recycle safely.
pervycreeper 12y ago
That depends. If they happen to heat a small area around the user, then it will allow the ambient room to be at a lower temperature overall, leading to a net power savings because (counterintuitively) of lower efficiency.
- Nzen 12y ago
  There are a number of factors influencing that conclusion. Many people opined on this issue a little while ago, "heating people rather than spaces" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9034678 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9034678
  - pervycreeper 12y ago
    Could be. I'm just observing that there is a law of conservation of energy and that heat can be useful, so the question of using old computers in terms of environmental impact is not as clear cut as many internet comments suggest.
    - nitrogen 12y ago
      Heat from natural gas is typically cheaper than heat from electricity, so unless you can get away with heating a much smaller area, the gas will win.
erose 12y ago
I'm shipping a 1953 from Cuba via airplane to be green!
tbob22 12y ago
Core 2 Duos and Pentium Dual Cores under 3ghz are fairly energy efficient chips (~65w) and they use Speedstep, etc to keep power consumption low at idle. Of course newer dual cores and more modern chipsets will use less power overall, although for less demanding uses (web, word processing) I'm not sure if there would be a huge difference. P4's on the other hand...
CalRobert 12y ago
Heh, where they might make sense is in old apartments in northern Europe. My ancient building in Dublin uses resistive electric heat (about the worst kind of heating you can have unless you have abundant renewable energy). Really, I suppose I might as well be very slowly mining bitcoins or running servers instead of just getting no work at all for the heat I'm making.

by egd 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

dorfsmay 12y ago

I agree, I love the concept, but you also have to add the cost of a monitor + keyboard + mouse AND the fact that everybody wants (needs?) a laptop these days.

wernercd 12y ago
"you also have to add the cost of a monitor + keyboard + mouse AND the fact that everybody wants (needs?) a laptop these days." Not really... with RDP/SSH/Telnet/etc, you can access this without the need a dedicated keyboard/mouse/monitor. Also, I can live without a laptop due to my "phablet". I already have a desktop. Something like this would be a good for hiding a server (or two) somewhere. The question is... the energy saved by reusing this. The energy saved by not destroying this. The landfill space not taken up by this... Is it enough to offset the energy savings on newer pc's that are more powerful but use less energy? What is the tipping point that makes a new machine better?
- chrisBob 12y ago
  >with RDP/SSH/Telnet/etc, you can access this without the need a dedicated keyboard/mouse/monitor. I think the target is to make this the terminal. I don't see too many people going out of their way to remote into a low spec machine like this.

jiggy2011 12y ago

That depends on how much time it spends powered up. Someone in the market for a PC this cheap is probably not a heavy computer user.

martinald 12y ago

I agree, this is a dreadful idea. The CPUs are going to hog a whole load of energy (as are the motherboards). The HDDs are going to be seriously used and probably prone to complete breakdown. An ARM SoC would do this same job much faster probably at much less cost, with FAR less energy consumption.

switchbak 12y ago
That's very true - one of those mini Linux sticks would fit the bill nicely, for example: http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Original-authentic-RKM-MK802IV-LE-Quad-Core-RK3188-2GB-8GB-Ubuntu-Linux-MINI-PC-WIFI-Bluetooth/1403049_32268439359.html http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Original-authentic-R... And apparently Intel has the same thing with it's atom chip: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/intels-compute-stick-is-a-full-windows-or-linux-pc-in-an-hdmi-dongle/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/intels-compute-stick-... With high capacity flash getting fast-enough for real use, I don't see much of a need for spinning platters anymore. It's seems like a shame to give up on all that old hardware, but technology marches on I suppose.

sitkack 12y ago

I deleted a post about the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox and how these machines were in fact not green. I was wrong. Given the right uses, like an elementary school computer lab for learning Scratch, Logo, etc; they would be fine. The problem is they are right on the cusp of the next cycle of Moore's Law, Raspberry Pi is now quad core and 1GB, it puts it in the same class as this machine. The cost of "good enough" compute hardware is going to zero (shipping, financial trans cost will dominate).

dangerlibrary 12y ago
Until Raspberry Pi can get their power supply problems under control, they really aren't good enough to use as any kind of workstation.
- pjc50 12y ago
  First I've heard of this; it does need a decent USB power supply, but that's a consequence of not shipping one and expecting the user to supply one of suitable quality.
  - sliverstorm 12y ago
    I found the first model would sometimes brownout when trying to maximally utilize the ethernet. Which was not a big deal for a hobby device, but it did eliminate a number of possibilities.
- morganvachon 12y ago
  They did, with the B+ in mid 2014, and the current Pi 2 with the same power design. The B+ and newer boards don't suffer the odd power supply issues that the older boards (even the B rev2) suffered. And I'm not just rehashing what someone else said; I've had one each of the original B, a rev 2 B, a B+, and now a Pi 2. I've used the same power supply on all four, and on the B+ and Pi 2 I don't have any issues with hotplugging flash drives and wifi adapters whereas I did on the original and rev 2 models. I've had my B+ running 24/7 since August as a webcam server to watch my dog in the back yard, and I've only had to reboot it once for an update. It's running a Microsoft USB-powered 720p webcam and an Edimax wifi adapter directly off of the built in USB, and it hasn't once had a power issue. I've had my Pi 2 running 24/7 since I got it a couple of weeks ago, as a "light" GNU/Linux workstation I can switch to and use when my main workstation is otherwise occupied. Again, no power issues on that board.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

This has been one of the most amazingly non-intuitive things for me over the years. That operating a computer that is older can be so much more inefficient than operating one that is newer, that it isn't worth it. Literally the best thing you can do is crush the chips and mine the result for gold, silver, and the few rare earths that are left over. That at least puts a finite limit on the energy consumed over it, and the value returned from it.

DanBC 12y ago
Not sending it to places like the e-waste dump in Agbogbloshie, Accra, Ghana is a benefit. I'm not sure how to weight each thing - the increased CO2 emmissions are bad; not poisoning poor people who do things like burn the PVC insulation off cables to get the copper is a good thing.
- ChuckMcM 12y ago
  Certainly agree with that sentiment! We are getting to the point where it makes sense to have 'disassembly' robots, this paper (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967066108001056 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967066108...) looked at that (it wasn't the focus per se but an example). I can clearly see that 'anti-factories' where raw materials are recovered and unrecoverable materials made inert will be a thing.
  - e12e 12y ago
    Still, the market isn't going to solve this on it's own. Other peoples children are going to be cheaper than robots for the foreseeable future. In fact, poisoning the local population could be considered a minor issue compared to contaminating the water tables. Sick people die, but a contaminated water table keeps killing people for generations. I think strong local regulations, as well as an emphasis of recycling locally is the best short-term solution. It does expose the actual cost of recycling (safely) -- but also cuts energy to shipping, and can be used as a stimuli for a more re-cycle friendly value chain (eg: make sellers of electronics take the bill for recycling, and demand local, safe recycling) -- which in turn puts pressure on suppliers to deliver items that are cheaper to recycle safely.

pervycreeper 12y ago

That depends. If they happen to heat a small area around the user, then it will allow the ambient room to be at a lower temperature overall, leading to a net power savings because (counterintuitively) of lower efficiency.

Nzen 12y ago
There are a number of factors influencing that conclusion. Many people opined on this issue a little while ago, "heating people rather than spaces" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9034678 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9034678
- pervycreeper 12y ago
  Could be. I'm just observing that there is a law of conservation of energy and that heat can be useful, so the question of using old computers in terms of environmental impact is not as clear cut as many internet comments suggest.
  - nitrogen 12y ago
    Heat from natural gas is typically cheaper than heat from electricity, so unless you can get away with heating a much smaller area, the gas will win.

erose 12y ago

I'm shipping a 1953 from Cuba via airplane to be green!

tbob22 12y ago

Core 2 Duos and Pentium Dual Cores under 3ghz are fairly energy efficient chips (~65w) and they use Speedstep, etc to keep power consumption low at idle. Of course newer dual cores and more modern chipsets will use less power overall, although for less demanding uses (web, word processing) I'm not sure if there would be a huge difference. P4's on the other hand...

CalRobert 12y ago

Heh, where they might make sense is in old apartments in northern Europe. My ancient building in Dublin uses resistive electric heat (about the worst kind of heating you can have unless you have abundant renewable energy). Really, I suppose I might as well be very slowly mining bitcoins or running servers instead of just getting no work at all for the heat I'm making.