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#frugalcomputing

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J$<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@macrumors" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>macrumors</span></a></span> Sadly, these five reasons not to don’t even include <a href="https://mastodon.nl/tags/sustainability" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sustainability</span></a>, <a href="https://mastodon.nl/tags/degrowth" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>degrowth</span></a>, <a href="https://mastodon.nl/tags/frugalcomputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>frugalcomputing</span></a>, <a href="https://mastodon.nl/tags/DigitalAutonomy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>DigitalAutonomy</span></a>. What a miss.</p>
Wim🧮<p>This is in reaction to that article by Tim Bray. </p><p>"The real problem with the AI hype"</p><p><a href="https://wimvanderbauwhede.codeberg.page/articles/the-real-problem-with-AI/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">wimvanderbauwhede.codeberg.pag</span><span class="invisible">e/articles/the-real-problem-with-AI/</span></a></p><p>I wrote that 6 months ago.</p><p><a href="https://scholar.social/tags/FrugalComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>FrugalComputing</span></a></p>
Earth Notes<p>RSS Podcast Feed Inefficiency - Climate cost of handling feeds ineptly... <a href="https://mastodon.energy/tags/RSS" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSS</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.energy/tags/podcast" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>podcast</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.energy/tags/FrugalComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>FrugalComputing</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.energy/tags/LowCarbonComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>LowCarbonComputing</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.energy/tags/greenSoftware" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>greenSoftware</span></a> - <a href="https://www.earth.org.uk/RSS-efficiency.html" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">earth.org.uk/RSS-efficiency.ht</span><span class="invisible">ml</span></a></p>
Wim🧮<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.acc.sunet.se/@maswan" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>maswan</span></a></span> and I wrote a paper in which we develop a detailed model for the LCA of HPC centres, including embodied carbon, server replacement and expansion. It is also applicable to other data centres. We also share the source code.</p><p>It shows how important embodied carbon becomes when the grid has more renewables.</p><p><a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.14365" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="">arxiv.org/abs/2506.14365</span><span class="invisible"></span></a></p><p><a href="https://scholar.social/tags/FrugalComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>FrugalComputing</span></a></p>
Wim🧮<p>"in the long run economic considerations are partly a function of culture, as preferences and social concerns come to be expressed in the form of market conditions."</p><p><a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429047053-2/scale-acceptability-nuclear-energy-thomas-wilbanks" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edi</span><span class="invisible">t/10.4324/9780429047053-2/scale-acceptability-nuclear-energy-thomas-wilbanks</span></a></p><p><a href="https://scholar.social/tags/FrugalComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>FrugalComputing</span></a></p>
Wim🧮<p>It is naive to think that fusion will provide the world with limitless energy. </p><p>According to the paper "Can fusion energy be cost-competitive and commercially viable? An analysis of magnetically confined reactors" (from 2023), the cost of a 1 GW fusion plant is of the same order as a comparable fission plant. In other words, per plant order of £10 billion. Construction times are order of a decade, also comparable.</p><p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421523000964" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">sciencedirect.com/science/arti</span><span class="invisible">cle/abs/pii/S0301421523000964</span></a></p><p><a href="https://scholar.social/tags/FrugalComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>FrugalComputing</span></a></p>
Wim🧮<p>Let's assume this data centre actually draws 300 MW all the time then it consumes 2.628 TWh/year. At a typical Water Usage Effectiveness of 0.3 l/kWh it would need 788 thousand m³ of water for cooling. </p><p>The site for the data centre, Ravenscraig, is in Motherwell (near Glasgow). That is a town of 33,000 people. The households of such a town consume 2 million m³ of water per year. So that data centre will consume 40% of that. (3/3)</p><p><a href="https://scholar.social/tags/FrugalComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>FrugalComputing</span></a> <a href="https://scholar.social/tags/GenAI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>GenAI</span></a></p>
Wim🧮<p>The article calls the developing company, Apatura, a "renewable energy developer", but the reality is that they specialise in the land acquisition, design, planning, and operation of large-scale Battery Energy Storage Systems for hyperscale data centres. (2/3)</p><p><a href="https://scholar.social/tags/FrugalComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>FrugalComputing</span></a> <a href="https://scholar.social/tags/GenAI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>GenAI</span></a></p><p><a href="https://www.itpro.com/infrastructure/data-centres/plans-announced-to-resurrect-former-steelworks-as-a-green-data-center" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">itpro.com/infrastructure/data-</span><span class="invisible">centres/plans-announced-to-resurrect-former-steelworks-as-a-green-data-center</span></a></p>
Wim🧮<p>The Whitelee wind farm near Glasgow, the largest on-shore wind farm in the UK and one of the largest in Europe, has a maximum generative capacity of 539 MW and covers an area of 55 km² (about the size of Manhattan).</p><p>Plans have been announced for an AI data centre of 550 MW, and this is one of five such sites planned in central Scotland. (1/3)</p><p><a href="https://scholar.social/tags/FrugalComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>FrugalComputing</span></a> <a href="https://scholar.social/tags/GenAI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>GenAI</span></a></p>
Wim🧮<p>From <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@ana_valdi" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>ana_valdi</span></a></span>'s paper on "Data Ecofeminism":</p><p>Principles of Data Ecofeminism </p><p>Principle 1: Examine power structures within the climate crisis<br>Principle 2: Consider digital materiality and its supply chains<br>Principle 3: Make visible and accountable AI environmental impacts<br>Principle 4: Prioritise frugal AI computing<br>Principle 5: Reclaim digital sovereignty<br>Principle 6: Foster the commons through mutual aid<br>Principle 7: Weave the pluriverse</p><p><a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/epdf/10.1145/3715275.3732027" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">dl.acm.org/doi/epdf/10.1145/37</span><span class="invisible">15275.3732027</span></a></p><p><a href="https://scholar.social/tags/FrugalComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>FrugalComputing</span></a> <a href="https://scholar.social/tags/genAI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>genAI</span></a> <a href="https://scholar.social/tags/AI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>AI</span></a></p>
Wim🧮<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@ana_valdi" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>ana_valdi</span></a></span> Just read your paper on Data Ecofeminism, I liked it a lot. These are principles I can very much stand behind.</p><p>(And wow, 145 references! I don't think I ever wrote anything that thorough)</p><p>Thanks a lot for mentioning <a href="https://scholar.social/tags/FrugalComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>FrugalComputing</span></a> !</p>
doboprobodyne<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://social.spejset.org/@samuel" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>samuel</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodonsweden.se/@doktorzjivago" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>doktorzjivago</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://social.spejset.org/@nichobi" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>nichobi</span></a></span> </p><p>I was just reading about <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/frugalComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>frugalComputing</span></a> and found myself thinking of <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/Precursor" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Precursor</span></a> </p><p>It feels to me like it would be a good fit for something like <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/deltaChat" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>deltaChat</span></a> </p><p><a href="https://vimeo.com/473293886" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="">vimeo.com/473293886</span><span class="invisible"></span></a><br><a href="https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi</span><span class="invisible">/precursor</span></a></p><p><a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/security" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>security</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/fpga" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fpga</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/privacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>privacy</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/selfHosted" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>selfHosted</span></a></p>
doboprobodyne<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@mcc" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>mcc</span></a></span> <br><a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/FrugalComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>FrugalComputing</span></a> 🦾</p>
Martin Quinson ⏚<p>And now, our software boots up on our hardware prototype of the <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/SmolPhone" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>SmolPhone</span></a> The keyboard kinda works, too. More work in the future but OK for now.</p><p>The substrate is able to display a "modern" UI with buttons, text areas, labels, checkbox and such under the RP2040 constraints (about 200k of RAM but rather OK compute power).</p><p>The goal is to allow users to build apps with lua scripts, as in <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/Scrappy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Scrappy</span></a> <a href="https://jrcpl.us/contrib/2025/Scrappy" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="">jrcpl.us/contrib/2025/Scrappy</span><span class="invisible"></span></a> Maybe before the end of the year, if we're lucky.</p><p><a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/LowNum" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>LowNum</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/FrugalComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>FrugalComputing</span></a></p>
Alexander Janßen<p>Look! I dug me a gopherhole...<br><a href="gopher://gopher.ynfonatic.de/1/~alex/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible"></span><span class="ellipsis">gopher://gopher.ynfonatic.de/1</span><span class="invisible">/~alex/</span></a><br>Now let's figure out how to migrate Jekyll/Markdown content to gophermaps.<br><a href="https://ruhr.social/tags/gopher" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>gopher</span></a> <a href="https://ruhr.social/tags/frugalcomputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>frugalcomputing</span></a></p>
Wim🧮<p>IBM's new processor-in-memory (which is, besides, not a new idea, and for AI it's mostly MACC-in-memory) will reduce the energy consumption per computation for LLMs. </p><p>But if energy efficiency gains would reduce emissions, we would not have climate change. The entire history of the industrial revolution starting with the steam engine is one of energy efficiency gains. <br><a href="https://scholar.social/tags/FrugalComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>FrugalComputing</span></a></p>
Earth Notes<p>RSS Podcast Feed Inefficiency - Climate cost of handling feeds ineptly... <a href="https://mastodon.energy/tags/RSS" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSS</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.energy/tags/podcast" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>podcast</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.energy/tags/FrugalComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>FrugalComputing</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.energy/tags/LowCarbonComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>LowCarbonComputing</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.energy/tags/greenSoftware" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>greenSoftware</span></a> - <a href="https://www.earth.org.uk/RSS-efficiency.html" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">earth.org.uk/RSS-efficiency.ht</span><span class="invisible">ml</span></a></p>
Martin Quinson ⏚<p>New blog post about the <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/SmolPhone" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>SmolPhone</span></a> (our take on <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/FrugalComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>FrugalComputing</span></a>): I gave a short talk about it, and decided to write the things I usually say. It's here: <a href="https://people.irisa.fr/Martin.Quinson/blog/250528/Smolphone-Magellan/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">people.irisa.fr/Martin.Quinson</span><span class="invisible">/blog/250528/Smolphone-Magellan/</span></a></p><p>I think that the result is a nice introduction to the project. Please comment and tell us what you think of it!</p>
Wim🧮<p>Now, that 10x growth is not what OpenAI, Dell etc want. No, they want 100x growth. </p><p>For what that would mean:</p><p><a href="https://wimvanderbauwhede.codeberg.page/articles/the-real-problem-with-AI/#what-about-a-hundred-times-growth" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">wimvanderbauwhede.codeberg.pag</span><span class="invisible">e/articles/the-real-problem-with-AI/#what-about-a-hundred-times-growth</span></a></p><p><a href="https://scholar.social/tags/FrugalComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>FrugalComputing</span></a></p>
Wim🧮<p>Global GHG emissions are 57.1 GtCO2e/y (2023 figure; probably 1-2% more now).</p><p>So there's two ways to look at this: </p><p>(1) The apologist: So even if AI results in extra emissions of 4 GtCO2e/y (*) by 2035, that is less than 7%, surely that is not an issue.<br>(2) The climate reality: to stay below 1.5ºC the global CO2 budget for 2035 is 25 GtCO2e/y. Sacrificing 16% of that for AI growth is madness.</p><p><a href="https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2024" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">unep.org/resources/emissions-g</span><span class="invisible">ap-report-2024</span></a> <br>(*) my estimate based on 10x AI growth in 10y</p><p><a href="https://scholar.social/tags/FrugalComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>FrugalComputing</span></a></p>