• kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      22 hours ago

      A brushless motor only converts ~5% of its input to heat. That’s low enough that you can reasonably call it a side effect.

      Now, a computer, that’s a heater that happens to produce math as a side effect. 100% of its input ends up as heat.

      • Tiger_Man_@szmer.info
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        11 hours ago

        if you dont count powering i/o devices (other heaters) (or electromagnetic wave emmiters so heaters with extra steps)

      • lonefighter@sh.itjust.works
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        21 hours ago

        I love firing up my PC and gaming on cold winter nights. A well placed fan or two and I can spread it through my entire apartment and the heat won’t kick on all night. Ends up saving me money, my heater costs way more than my PC to run.

            • merc@sh.itjust.works
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              13 hours ago

              By “well below” do you mean -30? Or do you mean -5? Either way, you must have much better insulation than I do, because I have multi-kilowatt heaters and even on not-so-cold days my poor PC can’t compete, no matter how hard I game.

              • lonefighter@sh.itjust.works
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                10 hours ago

                Like anywhere from -15 to -4 C (around 5-25 F). I also keep it around 15 C (60 F) in my apartment to keep heating costs lower so it doesn’t need to get super warm to keep my thermostat from kicking on.

      • BradleyUffner@lemmy.world
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        19 hours ago

        It all becomes heat eventually in the end though. Sometimes it’s just a multi step complex process outside the physical bounds of the heater.

        Wait a sec, is the universe just God’s space heater?

        • merc@sh.itjust.works
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          13 hours ago

          Yes, what is that motor doing? If it’s a drill, it’s spinning a drill bit and that drill bit generates a lot of friction when it tries to make a hole in something, and that friction generates heat. If it’s spinning a tire, that tire generates a lot of friction with the road.

        • potpotato@lemmy.world
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          19 hours ago

          In god’s universe it is winter and that’s why the earth is heating up. It says so right in Ecclesiasties. Boom, toasted climate change nerds.

    • SorryQuick@lemmy.ca
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      16 hours ago

      Indeed we’ve plugged in a bitcoin miner to our central heating and now heating is “free”. I’m not sure how profitable it is when you’re not using the heat though.