this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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Does anyone have any experiences with these services like gollum Network? Is it safe? Does it earn you a net monetary gain compared to your electric bill? I have a pretty nice desktop that sits around for most of the day, just wondering what else I can do with it while I'm at work.

Please note, I'm asking specifically for people who have actually done this and what their experiences were, good and bad. I understand I'm not going to make tons of (or possibly any) money or start a business.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've never done this, so take my response with a cup of salt, but it's worth mentioning that the big guys with scalable server resources (e.g., Amazon, Microsoft, etc.) are very heavily optimized/efficient, and running on grids with dirt cheap electricity.

Unless you're renting for a very niche purpose, I'd be shocked if you could break anywhere close to even at residential electricity rates on consumer gear.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Especially since in the summer every watt you use has to be cooled with your AC. In the winter the temp is on your side a little, but still probably going to be hard to break even.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you use electric heating, then the use of electricity for computation is basically free in winter, no?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Purely electric heating is pretty rare I'd think. Most will be heat pump which is wayyy more efficient than an electric heater

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You can donate the time to science:

Boinc

I've been doing this for severl years without any issues. Currently chugging along in a docker instance on my headless linux server, and I've found it runs well on most any OS.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

I do this in winter, warms my room a little while doing (what I think is) good.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

I donated my CPU time during COVID pandemic.

I saw there is LTT pool also donating theirs.

Though I don't know how much benefit, it makes me feel great.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

If you're running the Folding@Home project through it, it might be worth looking at the Banano project. It runs the F@H program in the same way, but using credentials that they give you, and you get Banano as a reward.

On the one hand it's a cryptocurrency, so take it with a pinch of salt, but on the other hand you get it for doing what you're already doing.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Are you competing with people that live in countries/places that make it exceptionally cheaper to operate in? If so, seems like any profit margins would be slim or in the negatives.

Can possibly “donate” it to public projects.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

This may be true, but filling up on electricity will get you probably hundreds of miles less than filling up gasoline at this point.