This is inefficient compared to evaporation cooling, so the data centre's power usage effectiveness goes up. The result is that it uses more energy for the same compute task. And in the short term, that energy is still majority from fossil fuel and increasingly likely to be provided by gas rather than by renewables, in particular in the US. So overall CO2 emissions will increase as a result.

#FrugalComputing #DataCentres #datacenters (2/2)

Although it is important to oppose data centres based on the detrimental effect of their water usage on local communities, in the end I fear this will simply lead to an increase in CO2 emissions: the data centres will still be built but they will be cooled using a closed circuit so that the water usage is no longer an issue.
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#FrugalComputing #DataCentres #datacenters

Al blog: Computació frugal per reduir l'impacte digital?
https://www.manelguerra.com/blog/computacio-frugal-impacte-digital/

#blog #programacio #frugalcomputing

…Although Stewart’s point about *pace* is well-observed, what we’ll see more acutely as things go into reverse, is *persistence* or the lack of it.

We have no option but to get back closer to that which has always been there but which we have severely diminished.

More severely than most are aware.

In terms of Jeremy’s talk, while we still have a lot, we can start doing #frugalComputing… or keep pushing towards bigger collapse, which will have the weird quality of being both quick and slow

…I’ve either come up with an alternative but still accessible and semantic markup, or rethought the design approach.

There are remaining frustrations with CSS limits, especially with regard to layout, but tbh they’re not really deal breakers.

I’d much rather we focus on the vital importance of #frugalComputing than incrementing design fetish

@bohwaz
Il y a l'écosystème #uxn, et y'a plein de choses à faire et à discuter autour de ça : #permacomputing, #frugalcomputing, limiter volontairement la puissance des ordi et imaginer une société qui en tire parti, la notion de réseau spécialisés optimisés pour chaque type de donné et leurs interactions possibles, réfléchir au nombre de couleurs nécessaires pour faire une interface graphique efficiente et agréable, faire de l'électronique peu puissante, qui dure plus d'une génération, qui pourrait se faire en limitant l'extractivisme colonial (#z80 like), son recyclage, bref des sujets dont je rêverait voir les chercheurs du #cnrs par exemple s'emparer)..

@w84death @whitequark @landley the idea behind @OS1337 is not dissimilar from #VxWorks and #WindRiverLinux in that one can build their own #custom minimalist #Linux...

• It's still in early concept but longterm I do intent to flesh it out into something more useful, maximizing the abilities one has with #Frugalcomputing, because an 80x25 #Terminal should be all that's needed still...

https://os1337.com

Een simpele manier om energie te besparen in ict-apparatuur? Geen power over ethernet gebruiken, en geen power adapters gebruiken. Hoe? Veel apparatuur kun je prima rechtstreeks vanaf 12VDC voeden. Bijvoorbeeld via een powerstation met een zonnepaneel eraan gekoppeld. Leuk project voor IT-enthousiastelingen die voor zuinig willen gaan. Wij gebruiken zo’n opstelling sinds vorig jaar, met goede resultaten. #frugalcomputing #solar

RE: https://mastodon.nl/@techwerkers/115883301090543591

I've been experimenting with LoRa & Meshtastic since early 2023 and also covered it as part of a 3-day #FrugalComputing uni workshop that year. For events like the below, I think it's important to set realistic expectations (esp. in Europe) and also talk about the technical and legal/regulatory limitations of this tech, i.e. the generally very low data rates, line-of-sight and hop limits (imposing distance ranges) and hourly duty cycles limits (10% in EU, 1% in Ukraine) which devices can use. The chattiness of the MT protocol itself means a considerable amount of the allowed duty cycle (obviously depending on local network density) is spent on just relaying messages from others. Also, since LoRA is limited to very narrow regulated frequency bands per jurisdiction, should the internet be taken down (as is currently happening in Iran), it's very likely these bands would be jammed just as well in these situations...

Regardless, I think LoRa/Meshtastic is super interesting and has some really great uses (also in contexts other than internet shutdowns, e.g. off-grid comms, environmental sensing etc.), but I think it's important to be realistic & critical about the possibilities and limitations, even for just plain text messaging. By no means is it designed as a replacement for internet services...

Ps. This is no direct commentary on the event below!

Pps. This article has some more information: https://www.disk91.com/2024/technology/lora/critical-analysis-of-the-meshtastic-protocol/

#Meshtastic #LoRa

Do you have surveillance cameras? A network-attached surveillance camera can consume a sizeable amount of energy. It's not just the camera but also the NAS or NVR for storage, software for image analysis, and network equipment that's loaded continuously because of the recorded streams. Simple tip to reduce power consumption: just store the event recordings on an SD card in the camera unit. It has downsides, but it's very efficient. #energyefficient #nas #surveillance #frugalcomputing #locaverdi

Al blog: 512kb.club
https://www.manelguerra.com/blog/512kb_club/

#blog #programacio #frugalcomputing #web

RSS Podcast Feed Inefficiency - Climate cost of handling feeds ineptly... #RSS #podcast #FrugalComputing #LowCarbonComputing #greenSoftware - https://m.earth.org.uk/RSS-efficiency.html

To start the new year, I wrote a summary of what I did as a researcher in computer science and professor in 2025. FWIW.

https://people.irisa.fr/Martin.Quinson/blog/251231/Status_update:_2025

I speak of #SimGrid, software model-checking and exhaustive testing of digital infrastructures, #csUnplugged, #SmolPhone, #FrugalComputing and #DeuxFleurs among other things.

RSS Podcast Feed Inefficiency - Climate cost of handling feeds ineptly... #RSS #podcast #FrugalComputing #LowCarbonComputing #greenSoftware - https://m.earth.org.uk/RSS-efficiency.html

Came across this 2010 blog post about mindfulness in computing and so much of these behaviors have only intensified to new extremes with LLM usage. So much so that not only is the process of software creation being quickly supplanted by prompts and (stochastic) "search" assemblies, but more generally the kind of mindfulness talked about in the post (here meaning thinking through & solving a problem yourself[1]) is now being openly discouraged by industry and forcefully delegated out to a fuzzy pattern-match search megastructure, producing equally fuzzy results, uncaring of correctness or consequences[2] and requiring more resources than anything else ever built, regardless of problem scope/complexity.

Mindlessness.
Mindnumbness.

https://nf.wh3rd.net/space/posts/2010/08/the-invaluable-trait-of-mindfulness.html

"Later on, I thought about the strange thing that happened when I’d pulled out my phone. A modern smartphone is an impressive computer. My Nexus One is more powerful than my state-of-the-art desktop PC was 10 years ago, and is perfectly capable of factorizing a small number. But I didn’t ask it to. Instead, I told it to make a request that traversed a mobile network (comprised of tens of computers or routers), the open internet (20-50 computers), and into Google’s search infrastructure (thousands). There, in vast indexes, a reference was found to a site that could answer my question. The page at WikiAnswers clearly states “The factors of 91 are 1, 7, 13, and 91.” [...]

My request directly invoked the resources of thousands of computers, and indirectly used the energies of at least two other human beings (plus their supporting infrastructure). All to answer a question that could have been solved by my 8-bit ZX Spectrum (circa 1983) in the blink of an eye, or, simpler still, by thinking about it slightly longer than I had bothered to. I had to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

We do stuff like this with technology all the time. By its very nature, technology makes it easy to solve trivial problems, even we don’t arrive at the solution by the most efficient (or reliable) means. A solution that works is, more often than not, good enough. Until it isn’t.

A poor algorithm will go unnoticed as long as it is fast enough to run within the available resources. Too often in this industry hardware is used to solve software problems."

[1] This also implies paying attention to resource & infrastructure usage required

[2] Limited Liability Machines: https://social.coop/@shauna/115787899531998860

#AI #LLM #Mindfulness #FrugalComputing

2025 was a year with lots of AI. Can we make 2026 a year of open source frugal, minimalist computing? Less is more! #ai #frugalcomputing #sustainableIT

…I suppose I’m meandering into a “Where is web dev going?” train of thought.

I think we’ll see a greater realisation of the need for #frugalComputing and more efforts to *look* like we’re taking it seriously, while continuing to leverage that which is most egregiously unsustainable (like I’m doing).

But mostly, as the realisation that none of this can stand up seeps more into collective awareness, we’ll see a “Fuck it, go crazy while we can, let’s be Nero” vibe

@ThisGuyThat @Arghblarg

Excellent. Hopefully some of them will have hardware that supports #openBSD that I can pick up for pennies on the dollar. I believe the #thinkpad x1 carbon is already on soldered RAM. I can see many in the #Linux crowd stand to profit handsomely from this, given their much more broad hardware support 😜

#frugalComputing #BSD #recycle

@meluzzy personally I think we need more #FrugalComputing instead of wasteful bloat!

I think the seminars of my Low Carbon and Sustainable Computing (LOCOS) group might be of interest to many of you.

The seminar series is fully online and as long as you have something interesting to tell related to low carbon and sustainable computing, #FrugalComputing, #Permacomputing etc, I'd love to hear from you.

Here are recordings and slides of this semester's talks. Thanks to all the speakers! @SylviaFysica @danmcquillan @ana_valdi @thomasfricke

https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/computing/research/researchthemes/lowcarbon/
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