this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2024
248 points (97.3% liked)
Showerthoughts
31247 readers
398 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted, clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts: 1
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- If you feel strongly that you want politics back, please volunteer as a mod.
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Doesn’t the light turn into heat anyway as soon as it’s absorbed?
I mean if you want to go that route, we could just say that every speaker, light source, motor, etc is 100% efficient at generating heat because all of its energy output will eventually become heat.
That is also completely true, but meaningless because heat generation is not the purpose of these devices. However, if you use them in a building heated by a thermostat-controlled electric heater, you’re effectivhly running them for free.
I‘m was using two old servers with folding@home running as space heaters in the winter. I got them for dirt cheap and thought if I convert electricity into heat, I might as well do something good with it. Also nice opportunity to run a minecraft server for the kids during that time.
I‘m was using two old servers with folding@home running as space heaters in the winter. I got them for dirt cheap and thought if I convert electricity into heat, I might as well do something good with it. Also nice opportunity to run a minecraft server for the kids during that time.
You double-posted this comment, FYI
One for each server.
It's still efficient because both those comments will end up as heat anyway.
Energy can neither be created nor destroyed so in the grand scheme of things, everything is 100% energy efficient one way or another.
I suggest we submit proposals to define "100%" and "efficient" before we design the experiment
The visible part of the spectrum is likely going to be absorbed somewhere far away from the place you're trying to heat up. Also, I'm not educated enough to tell if there will be further losses of energy
If it’s in a room the visible radiation will still just heat up the room. If you’re using it outdoors and point it away then yeah you’ll have some waste.
Not sure if visible radiation that leaves through a transparent window will still heat up only inside the room, that what I meant. Probably should have phrased it better
that's only true if you shine it out a very large the window
normally windows cover a quite small fraction of a rooms surface area
but sure, if a few fractions of a percent leave through a window, i guess its technically not a 100% effective space heater, if we define the work as heating only the relevant room.