Changes to the laws around the use of electric scooters, including the introduction of a minimum age limit, will come into force next Tuesday, 17 June.
Bill Atkinson, the computer engineer at Apple who played a critical role in the development of the Macintosh operating system in 1984 and the ubiquity of the desktop metaphor of files and folders in personal computing, died on June 5 at the age of 74…
Bill Atkinson, the computer engineer at Apple who played a critical role in the development of the Macintosh operating system in 1984 and the ubiquity of the desktop metaphor of files and folders in personal computing, died on June 5 at the age of 74…
Ireland has made moves to become the first European Union country to ban trade with Israeli-occupied territories, while its prestigious university Trinity College has cut all ties with Israel.
Ireland has made moves to become the first European Union country to ban trade with Israeli-occupied territories, while its prestigious university Trinity College has cut all ties with Israel.
The crackdown on pro-democracy labour unions, combined with the decline of the restaurant industry in recent years, has left food delivery workers in a weak position when bargaining with platform operators.
The crackdown on pro-democracy labour unions, combined with the decline of the restaurant industry in recent years, has left food delivery workers in a weak position when bargaining with platform operators.
Rule 1: Israel is never the aggressor. If Israel attacks someone it’s either a response to an aggression that happened in the past, or a preemptive attack to thwart an imminent aggression in the future.Rule 2: History automatically restarts at the date of the last act of aggression against Israel. If someone attacks Israel it was completely unprovoked, because nothing happened before the attack on Israel.Rule 3: Anything bad that Israel does is justified by Rule 2.
L'articolo proviene da #StartMag e viene ricondiviso sulla comunità Lemmy @informatica Il New York Times ha visto crollare negli ultimi tre anni la sua quota di traffico proveniente dalla ricerca organica verso i siti desktop e mobile del giornale dal 44% al 36,5% registrato nell'aprile 2025: tutta colpa, dice il Wall Street
L'articolo proviene da #StartMag e viene ricondiviso sulla comunità Lemmy @Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁) Il New York Times ha visto crollare negli ultimi tre anni la sua quota di traffico proveniente dalla ricerca organica verso i siti desktop e mobile del giornale dal 44% al 36,5% registrato nell'aprile 2025: tutta colpa, dice il Wall Street
Non c'è. In fondo, i giornali devono essere leggibili, gratuitamente o a pagamento, e nessuno vorrebbe mai sottoscrivere un abbonamento per fruire di una schermata protetta, non copiabile o magari illeggibile come un captcha 😅
A massive data center at xAI’s controversial site in Memphis, Tennessee is emitting huge plumes of pollution, according to footage recorded by an environmental watchdog group.
A massive data centre at xAI’s controversial site in Memphis, Tennessee is emitting huge plumes of pollution, according to an environmental watchdog group.
A massive data center at xAI’s controversial site in Memphis, Tennessee is emitting huge plumes of pollution, according to footage recorded by an environmental watchdog group.
A massive data centre at xAI’s controversial site in Memphis, Tennessee is emitting huge plumes of pollution, according to an environmental watchdog group.
As some of you may know, a new bittorrent tracker/site platform built with Rust/VueJS is in the works. Here is the announcement and a progress report.
When this started, my motivation was high and things went fast. I'm still very motivated to bring arcadia to a production-ready level, but I need at least 1 other "core" dev to work with me. Since this is a community project, I'm not expecting instant replies, daily commits, etc. But a buddy to share the pain and the fun with 😀 we are humans after all, social beings! Some people already made very nice contributions (and I thank you all again!), but it's not the same as having someone who knows the codebase well, can take informed decisions, etc.
So if you are (or know someone who might be) interested in building what could be the next big thing in the torrenting realm, please dm me here or on discord (@FrenchGithubUser) and let's chat! I will happily give more details and assistance for whatever is needed! Also feel free to post on your private tracker forums/irc to let other know about arcadia! I believe that coding with others is paramount for projects of this size!
As a reminder, arcadia is a programming project, aiming at bringing a tool to the community. We are not going to host you typical private tracker (although some might). However, I recently rolled out a demo site for the ones interested in testing/developing arcadia. If you are interested, join the discord server.
Una nuova mostra collettiva sarà esposta a partire da questo sabato e per tutta l’estate al Museo Ugonia: “Connessioni 2” non è solo il titolo dell’esposizione, ma anche la rappresentazione dell’intenzione che i quattro artisti mettono in queste opere. Le suggestioni contenute in questi dipinti lasciano spazio a visioni e forme evocative, in un racconto corale figurativo dove gli oggetti quotidiani costituiscono un varco verso nuove e inesplorate dimensioni. Gli artisti – Antonio Bertoni, Filippo Maestroni, Luca Casadio e Martino Neri – portano i visitatori in un viaggio di “metamorfosi pittoriche”, come le descrive nel suo testo critico Tommaso Ortolani. “Ogni forma, ogni luce, ogni ombra si trasforma sotto lo sguardo e nel dialogo silenzioso tra le tele – continua Ortolani – In un tempo che ha spesso rimosso la pittura figurativa come lingua del presente, questa mostra ne rivendica invece la vitalità e la necessità.”
L’inaugurazione si terrà al Museo sabato 14 giugno alle 18.00, alla presenza degli artisti e delle autorità locali. La mostra sarà visitabile fino al 14 settembre, durante gli orari di apertura del Museo Ugonia: tutti i festivi e prefestivi, ore 10-12 e 16-19.
Una nuova mostra collettiva sarà esposta a partire da questo sabato e per tutta l’estate al Museo Ugonia: “Connessioni 2” non è solo il titolo dell’esposizione, ma anche la rappresentazione dell’intenzione che i quattro artisti mettono in queste oper…
In collaboration with the artist, the installation examines the ideas of creativity and the moral quandary of extending someone’s life beyond their biological death.
I don't know, maybe they think it's fake, I also thought it first, but it isn't, but somewhat creepy, I contrasted it in several sources. Anyway there are always people here in Lemmy which downvote everything, because of this I don't give a fuck on downvotes.
This wasn't "his brain matter", these were "neuronal organoids" (clumps of neurons) grown from harvesting white blood cells and turning those into stem cells. Then the clumps were networked together with a literal wire to conduct signals between them, for timing.
Usually in organoids networks the wire delivers either regular, repeating inputs ("clean" pulses) as a reward for succeeding a task, or a random signal ("noise") for failure; this is how they're "trained" to play Pong for example:
In more advanced closed-loop setups, organoid cultures are embedded within simulated environments that allow them to “interact” in a game-like world. By using high-density multielectrode arrays (MEAs) to deliver patterns of electrical signals, researchers can create closed-loop feedback systems that enable organoids to process and respond to certain inputs (Kagan et al. [2022]). For instance, in one experiment, monolayer neuronal cultures were given sparse sensory feedback about the consequences of their actions within a simulated game. The organoids displayed short-term memory by organizing themselves in goal-directed ways, effectively learning to complete simple behavioural tasks. This capability, made possible by reinforcement learning, allows organoids to adapt based on feedback, akin to how a human brain might learn from trial and error.
These same methods are being used to train organoids as Machine Learning compute substrates, because they're much more efficient than silicon: aapsopen.springeropen.com/arti…
YouTube, the world's largest video platform, appears to have changed its moderation policies to allow more content that violates its own rules to remain online.
YouTube, the world's largest video platform, appears to have changed its moderation policies to allow more content that violates its own rules to remain online.
Google says a new AI tool on its search engine will rejuvenate the internet. Others predict an apocalypse for websites. One thing is clear: the current chapter of online history is careening towards its end. Welcome to the "machine web".
The web is built on a simple bargain – websites let search engines like Google slurp up their content, free of charge, and Google Search sends people to websites in exchange, where they buy things and look at adverts. That's how most sites make money.
An estimated 68% of internet activity starts on search engines and about 90% of searches happen on Google. If the internet is a garden, Google is the Sun that lets the flowers grow.
This arrangement held strong for decades, but a seemingly minor change has some convinced that the system is crumbling. You'll soon see a new AI tool on Google Search. You may find it very useful. But if critics' predictions come true, it will also have seismic consequences for the internet. They paint a picture where quality information could grow scarcer online and large numbers of people might lose their jobs. Optimists say instead this could improve the web's business model and expand opportunities to find great content. But, for better or worse, your digital experiences may never be the same again.
On 20 May 2025, Google's chief executive Sundar Pichai walked on stage at the company's annual developer conference. It's been a year since the launch of AI Overviews, the AI-generated responses you've probably seen at the top of Google Search results. Now, Pichai said, Google is going further. "For those who want an end-to-end AI Search experience, we are introducing an all-new AI Mode," he said. "It's a total reimagining of Search."
You might be sceptical after years of AI hype, but this, for once, is the real deal.
Google says adding more AI to its search engine will rejuvenate the internet. Others predict an apocalypse for websites. One thing is clear: this era of online history is closing.
Google says a new AI tool on its search engine will rejuvenate the internet. Others predict an apocalypse for websites. One thing is clear: the current chapter of online history is careening towards its end. Welcome to the "machine web".
The web is built on a simple bargain – websites let search engines like Google slurp up their content, free of charge, and Google Search sends people to websites in exchange, where they buy things and look at adverts. That's how most sites make money.
An estimated 68% of internet activity starts on search engines and about 90% of searches happen on Google. If the internet is a garden, Google is the Sun that lets the flowers grow.
This arrangement held strong for decades, but a seemingly minor change has some convinced that the system is crumbling. You'll soon see a new AI tool on Google Search. You may find it very useful. But if critics' predictions come true, it will also have seismic consequences for the internet. They paint a picture where quality information could grow scarcer online and large numbers of people might lose their jobs. Optimists say instead this could improve the web's business model and expand opportunities to find great content. But, for better or worse, your digital experiences may never be the same again.
On 20 May 2025, Google's chief executive Sundar Pichai walked on stage at the company's annual developer conference. It's been a year since the launch of AI Overviews, the AI-generated responses you've probably seen at the top of Google Search results. Now, Pichai said, Google is going further. "For those who want an end-to-end AI Search experience, we are introducing an all-new AI Mode," he said. "It's a total reimagining of Search."
You might be sceptical after years of AI hype, but this, for once, is the real deal.
Google says adding more AI to its search engine will rejuvenate the internet. Others predict an apocalypse for websites. One thing is clear: this era of online history is closing.
This applies to any of the microblogging software. Akkoma, IceShrimp, etc. I go to any Lemmy instance, big or small, and the up/downvote data and replies are basically all the same. The same goes for Peertube, and most services that aren't Mastodon and the gang. Why is this? Is it because of older design? Unexpected issues cropping up with scale? It seems to be such a big struggle over there, but for everyone else, it's whatevs.
I would love to permanently reside on a smaller Mastodon instance or host my own, but I often find that many posts are unavailable and a lot of replies I want to reply to don't exist. It is an incredibly frustrating experience.
A causa di quella che sto adesso subendo io, mi è tornata in mente l’esistenza della muta come concetto. Ci sono purtroppo poche mute (da non confondere quindi con le multe, che sono tante), ma tutte di diverse categorie… C’è la muta umana normale, per cui ogni giorno perdiamo nell’aria quantità allucinanti di cellule morte […]
A causa di quella che sto adesso subendo io, mi è tornata in mente l’esistenza della muta come concetto. Ci sono purtroppo poche mute (da non confondere quindi con le multe, che sono tante), ma tutte di diverse categorie… C’è la muta umana normale, per cui ogni giorno perdiamo nell’aria quantità allucinanti di cellule morte di epidermide — che fa assolutamente schifo, perché queste finiscono in giro per casa a contribuire alla formazione della classica polvere, costringendo a spolverare e quindi faticare senza che da questo lavoro scaturisca alcun prodotto — c’è quella dei serpenti, che è elegante perché c’è proprio la pellicola vecchia consumata che si stacca per essere sostituita con la nuova già perfettamente applicata, che poi a sua volta sarà cambiata… …E infine poi, appunto, c’è la muta arsa viva, che io sto subendo solo adesso dopo il famoso incidentino. Se fosse vetro su di un display, questa cosa si chiamerebbe spacc, quindi il livello in questione è alto pregio. A pensarci è buono anche per il semplice fatto che fa molto femcel, rappresentando sostanzialmente in modo immediatamente visibile la disgregazione continua della mia anima, e focalizzando la generale permanente imperfezione del mio corpo su di un particolare punto oggettivamente percepibile. È in ogni caso simpatica però, perché è una via di mezzo tra le altre mute di cui sopra… e infatti fa schifo comunque, perché i compromessi sono sempre un po’ così. Ma purtroppo, se un giorno sono gatto e l’altro ragno, questo è il massimo a cui posso aspirare…
The pay-it-forward approach to covering the cost of college stretches the return on financial aid and can help fill shortages of workers in critical industries.
A wetland habitat which was "almost exclusively a birder reserve" until the Covid-19 pandemic is marking its 30th anniversary.
Kingfishers Bridge, a 300-acre (121-hectare) reserve between Wicken and Stretham, Cambridgeshire, went from having 2,000 visitors a year to 21,000 in 2023.
The dog-friendly reserve now has a car park, cafe, visitor centre and shop, as well as offering regular visitor tours of its rare habitats.
A chiudere la terza e ultima giornata di “Pianeta 2030”-il Festival è stato il ministro dell’Ambiente e della Sicurezza energetica in dialogo con Daniele Manca.
Institutional Books 1.0 is our first release of public domain books. This set was originally digitized through Harvard Library’s participation in the Google Books project..
The Rip Tide è il terzo album in studio delgruppo indie folk statunitense Beirut, pubblicato il 30 agosto 2011. L'album ha debuttato al numero 88 della Billboard 200, e ha raggiunto il picco al numero 80 un mese dopo. L'album ha venduto 93.000 copie negli Stati Uniti ad agosto 2015. L'album ha ricevuto per lo più recensioni positive... Leggi e aascolta...
The Rip Tide è il terzo album in studio delgruppo indie folk statunitense Beirut, pubblicato il 30 agosto 2011. L'album ha debuttato al numero 88 della Billboard 200, e ha raggiunto il picco al numero 80 un mese dopo. L'album ha venduto 93.000 copie negli Stati Uniti ad agosto 2015. L'album ha ricevuto per lo più recensioni positive. Zach Condon dei Beirut decise di scrivere l'album dopo un tour difficile in Brasile, dove subì una perforazione al timpano e fu coinvolto in un'invasione di palco. A differenza dei precedenti album dei Beirut, The Rip Tide rifletteva maggiormente su luoghi più vicini a casa; ad esempio, la canzone “Santa Fe” era un omaggio alla città natale di Condon. Condon rifletté su questo, dicendo: “La cosa del vagabondo – quella era una fantasia adolescenziale che ho vissuto in grande stile. La musica, per me, era evasione. E ora sto facendo tutto l'opposto [di ciò] nella mia vita. Sono sposato. Ho una casa. Ho un cane. Quindi sembrava ridicolo, la narrazione di ciò che avrebbe dovuto essere la mia carriera, rispetto a ciò che stavo effettivamente cercando di realizzare nella mia vita.” Influenzato dalla registrazione di For Emma, Forever Ago, Condon scrisse The Rip Tide mentre trascorreva sei mesi in isolamento in una baita invernale a Bethel, New York. A differenza dei precedenti album dei Beirut, la musica fu registrata da una band che suonava insieme invece di registrare singole tracce una alla volta. Tuttavia, i testi furono aggiunti da Condon solo dopo che tutta la musica era stata registrata.
Listen now on your favorite streaming service. Powered by Songlink/Odesli, an on-demand, customizable smart link service to help you share songs, albums, podcasts and more.
Trump was trying to force a deal with Israel playing as the tough guy, but he didn't expect Iran to negotiate in kind with their own show of immense strength in response to the bullying.
America and Israel are used to enemies who can't fight back; this is why before the government invaded Iraq they made absolutely sure Iraq didn't have WMDs. There's a good reason they're not gonna pick that fight with North Korea.
I used to think this was ironclad, but now American proxies are blowing up Russian strategic bombers with CIA help alongside terrorist attacks targeting passenger trains and civilian bridges. Shouldn't Russia having nukes prevent this kind of bullshit? It used to, but the crazies in the west seem to have passed the point of no return.
I dunno if you're old enough to remember the Cold War, but both sides having nukes definitely did not stop the US and Russia from fucking with each other, shooting down aircraft, bombing shit, and especially spying and sabotage. All it stopped is open warfare, but even then it's debatable since we had several proxy wars.
There’s a good reason they’re not gonna pick that fight with North Korea.
Hopefully you mean the fact that China would not allow it which is also why North Korea exists in the first place. Because it absolutely isn't North Korea's nuclear capability.
Israel went a little overkill if they were just trying to give a warning shot to Iran to pressure negotiations. They wiped out multiple levels of leadership, nuclear sites, missile sites. This is not a warning, it's the opening salvo of a full on existential total war.
Trump knows there's no "deal". It's bullshit. Holden Bloodfeast's quest is the quest of all DC. This is a project decades in the making. Syria was destroyed for this. Get the correct perspective. This isn't about Trump or "deals" this is about the imperialist project to destroy all opposition to the entity.
They wiped out multiple levels of leadership, nuclear sites, missile sites. This is not a warning, it’s the opening salvo of a full on existential total war.
Yes to military leadership - at least two high-ranking military leaders are known to have been killed in this strike so far and probably more will be announced soon - and maybe to the missile sites. But not so much to the nuclear sites: experts say damage there is limited.
For sure. People who take a sports gambler's approach to geopolitics are pushing the angle Iran shouldn't have waited for such provocations. In fact many are calling for non-combatants to be struck. I think taking out public utilities is sufficient to make them flee. Since they have already cut off everything to Gaza, it should be done.
That's twice now they've threatened to attack US bases and twice they haven't done it, this is starting to seem like a negotiating tactic rather than a threat.
They could believe in their longterm capacity for success in a war with Israel and the US but still want to avoid all of the destruction that would entail. If they blow up Saudi oil fields, close the straits of hormuz, and attack US bases then any hope of deescalation is lost.
If that were true Iran would have almost certainly taken some of the actions I've described. They're trying to use that as a threat to get the US to back down and reign in their attack dog.
An initiative by Hungarian and Polish think tanks has secured the support of Spain’s Vox and other populist forces for a detailed program to liquidate the European institutions
The original members. The far right doesn't want to associate with "those" other countries, but they love feeling elite, what's better than remaking it with just the richest countries?
It will then evolve naturally just like it already did.
di Redazione Abbiamo deciso di raccogliere in un EBOOK i 12 racconti selzionati del concorso STAFFETTA PARTIGIANA , per celebrare l’avvenimento e per rendere più fruibili tutti i materiali. D…
TEHRAN - Iran’s Army confirmed that several Arash kamikaze drones successfully penetrated the occupied territories and struck their targets, following at least five rounds of ballistic missile attacks that rained down on Israeli sites across occupied…
My first instinctive reaction was that Israel had this coming and they certainly do. Problem is that there is no way Israel and the US didn't see this retaliation coming so it's all part of the plan. This is going to escalate.
the 20 year old pc of my grandparents had a graphics card failure, i fixed it but tgey decided i should keep the pc and help them pick a new one (valid after 20 years ngl) now this PC runs debian and hosts my game servers and all
There is quite a range of devices out there now with varying capabilites. Things like the Onion Omega2+, Oranage Pi, and more.
Raspberry Pi also remains good. While the Pi5 is expensive and more powerful - raspberry pi also makes the Pi Zero boards which are cheaper less capable boards which are closer to what the original raspberry Pi was but newer hardware.
I'd say the Pi5 is a heading more towards a full PC like device (hence the comparisons to cost and capability minipcs pepple are making in thia thread). But there remain plenty of lower spec machines out there now similar to the original cheap Raspberry Pi concept. And we've had high inflation recently - to some extent the cost perception avtually reflects money being worth less than it was and buying less for $10 or $20.
Not the person you're asking but personally I use Jetson nano for some work stuff (and when I upgrade the "old" one is mine), odroid I've used for some misc creations and testing, and I'm personally looking forward to trying the radxa x4 as an htpc.
What I am really excited about right now is tossing my recently acquired spare jetson nano on a drone, right now I'm setting it up to walk around with it and test CV before it gets mounted up on the drone.
Not super familiar with the gpio side of things, and I also haven't dug that deep into the space lately since I already own my rpi and it works for me so take all this with a pinch of salt, but I found some options that seem reasonable
Oh, for sure. It depends what you need it for. A lot of people just want a pi for something like a pihole or a stats dashboard of some kind (that's my use case, anyway). You get what you pay for and sometimes you've gotta pay for what you wanna get.
Oh absolutely, it really upsets me that they never dropped the prices down after covid supply issues were resolved. They were really proud of being accessible price-wise once upon a time ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You lose the I/O and power efficiency is no comparison. You can get better power efficiency and sometimes some I/O with an old router and OpenWRT, but you'll be in the class of a Beagle Bone and a much harder learning curve. I've never managed to get a sensor or peripheral working on some old laptop's SPI or I2C buses like how easy it is on a Rπ.
New low end chromebooks are much better for this anyway, an intel N4000 will consume just 8 watts at its peak and it's even supported by Windows 11, and they are usable if you put Linux on them
If you have the lid closed, you’re looking at 3 to 15 watts to have a laptop running in the background doing some basic server shit.
Not all laptops make effective use of power with the lid closed, sadly. Not saying this as a correction, but for others to know that they need to make sure these settings are available in the bios of the system they are buying.
Laptop performance when closed is quite variable, but depending on where you live, each 10W of idle consumption 24/7/365 could cost you somewhere around $20/yr (assumes @$0.20/kWh, YMMV). This isn't overwhelming on it's own, but it is "cost difference between a junked laptop and a Raspberry Pi" kinda money.
And you are often paying 140-200 for a pi nowadays to make it have the same usability as a laptop (pi, power supply, sata hat, data drive because SD cards simply fail after a while under server IO) while you can get cheap used laptops for 0-100.
So unless you are running it for more than half a decade (which rarely happens with selfhosters for a main server), you are probably spending more in total on the pi.
I think SD card failure rates are way overblown if you're buying from reputable manufacturers (Sandisk, Samsung). I'm sure they do occasionally fail, but I've never experienced one.
You're right, for really intensive tasks the costs can climb, but I see people asking for ideas for what to do with a junk laptop and the top suggestion is always something like pi-hole or a bookmark manager that could run on a potato.
I used to think so too, but my pi-hole just died the other week after four years of uptime. Couldn't work it out, finally pulled the SD card out to reinstall the OS and found my laptop wouldn't recognise it.
Made me glad I don't run my mailserver on a Pi anymore!
Laptops are not generally designed to run like that with a closed lid. Heat dissipation is designed around the idea the laptop is open and some of it is through the keyboard surface. The lid closed would change that.
Systems can of course be setup to power off the display but for server/service uses open laptops may not be efficient space wise.
Having said that if the scenario is low power use the heat dissipation may not be a major issue. But if there is an unremovable battery i'd still be concerned about heat dissipation with the lid closed and even just the battery itself regardless of heat dissipiation.
Not so sure about the last part. It takes ehhh about 3kg of c02 to produce 1 Watt for a year. Carbon footprint to build a laptop is about 200kg or so, but you're not offsetting one of those you're offsetting the raspberry PI you WOULD have bought which is just a small fraction of that. After a year or 2 you've almost certainly burned through your c02 savings if it's on all the time.
A raspberry pi is not as efficient as people are claiming. They need up to 25W PSU for a reason. Laptops can idle lower than that certainly. Something like a MacBook Air M1 would idle in single digit territory, as would any netbook basically ever made. Only really high performance or older laptops have idle power draw issues since battery life is a major selling point of a laptop. Said laptop is probably also faster than a raspberry pi. The people building Pi clusters are really not doing themselves any favors with power efficiency.
Nah no way does the average ewaste tier laptop use less power than a raspberry pi for any given task. The power consumption floor for a laptop may be lower than the rpi ceiling but that's not a fair comparison
Benchmark it and tell me. The truth is that most RPis are made using older process nodes to reduce costs. Laptops are often made using the best avaliable process node and core design. A modern raspberry pi 5 uses a 16nm processor with Cortex-A76 design from 2018. A laptop in 2015 would be using 14nm Broadwell processors from Intel. This was a time when 15W U series processors were gaining popularity, so sustained load power consumption is quite low. A 2015 laptop is 10 years old, and wouldn't run Windows 11, so will be ewaste this year. Same with a lot of 8 year old machines actually.
Not quite. Unless the system has pretty advanced power management and is using very recent technology with high density, it's unlikely that an x64 chipset will use less power than a comparably powered arm64 chipset. Not just the processor, but the smaller board is actually a power saver and allows it to generate less heat meaning both less power wasted and dissipated as heat as well as less power needed for fans to properly dissipate the heat. I've never seen a laptop use 3W at idle when considering the whole device, maybe just the CPU, but not if you include the rest of the components like RAM and disks and power supply. And especially true in a laptop that is old enough that it's being recycled. Heck, the power supply and charger alone might be using 3W at idle with full battery.
With a raspberry pi 4, the typical power usage for the 2GB RAM model is 5W under load for the whole device and about half that for idle. Add a couple of watts for the extra memory and wider bus on the 8GB model and other things can add to that, but that's mostly accurate. The pi 5 is a little more and the 3 is a little less. Of course, the efficiency of the laptop at full load might end up being better than a comparable number of raspberry pis it would take to do the same amount if work, but comparing a single pi or any other reputable arm-based, single board computer to a single laptop at idle is always going to be that way.
Battery charging circuits don't operate continuously when the device is charged. Pi also still needs a PSU, typically a phone charger, and for a server application would need an SSD or HDD in most cases. SD cards have lower performance, write endurance, and capacity after all. A single raspberry pi couldn't match even a somewhat old laptop in performance. In terms of actual efficiency (performance per watt) Pis don't do that well as they are using cheap processors made using old core designs and even older process nodes. Even the latest Pi 5 uses a 16nm process node with a core design from 2018. A 10 year old laptop might have 14nm process node which would be better. This means that a laptop would have more performance, so even if it had more power consumption at peak it could still end up with significantly better performance per watt, and that extra performance allows it to idle more often as it spends less time processing requests.
Of course the ultimate in performance per watt is always going to be a modern high power server or an Apple Silicon device. Mini PCs can also do well for home use, and are much lower power so better suited to less demanding usage, and have the best performance per watt for consumer devices. The M4 Mac Mini for example is pretty much best in class in performance per watt, and low power consumption at the same time.
Battery circuits come on enough to be a load that needs to be considered and will show up if you measure load on the device vs load consumed by the components connected to the power supply. In terms of low power devices, it is significant, though not the primary concern. But compared to the pi PSU, the charger not to mention the battery and internal PSU of a laptop, consume way more power and produce way more heat.
All of the rest assumes needing always on, heavy load processing which isn't what the post I replied to was talking about. I was specifically replying to idle power load. And in my case, even with a bunch of self hosted applications, most of the time my servers are idling. If I was running a virtualization farm or something that was always under heavy load, then yes, as I mentioned, a single board server isn't ideal.
As for disks, I don't use SSDs on my pis except one that actually does a lot of local data processing. Everything else runs in memory and stores persistent data on my NAS, including logging. Virtual memory/swap is disabled on all and things that need temporary storage/cache of small amounts of data is cached on RAM disks where applications can't be configured to not use disk caching. The only need for the SD card is for boot and some minimal IO needed for local OS operation. I have a Raspberry Pi 3 B i got about 8 or 9 years or so ago with the same SD card in it.
They aren't what I use as a database server, obviously, but they are extremely low power compared to what an old laptop would need and work great for things like pihole, and other network applications as well as being a part if my home kubernetes cluster and run the majority of the cluster's processes on demand.
Fake news. Modern RPis need up to 25W PSU. Even old laptops could idle lower than that, as otherwise they wouldn't be able to get significant battery life. Turning off the screen will also really lower their power consumption.
You're comparing a laptop at idle to the power supply for a pi that needs to power it at full load plus overhead and inefficiencies. That's like comparing apples to an orange tree.
I mean sure. If you want to compare actual efficiency then performance per watt is the metric. Here a laptop would easily win as it has higher performance for similar power. The TDP of a U class processor is only 15W normally. It would obviously help to disable things like Turbo Boost as well. Said laptop having more performance wouldn't need to stay at high power states for as long as the Pi either as it takes less time to process requests. Returning back to idle faster is a big advantage.
Or any compact pc like gigabyte brix, nucs, lenovos , etc. you can get those for 70-200 on ebay and they are amazing for running any homelab projects, including stream services like jellyfin with hardware decoding.
I have an old pentium laptop N3520 with 4GB DDR3. I removed everything and put it in a receiver box 1U size. It consumes so little energy that it can run 5-7 hours from its battery (I call it build in USV). Last time I measured 3-7w. Also passiv cooled , no noise. Another machine I use , is with a i7 4770 with 16GB for Proxmox, 7-20w , peak is much higher but rarely used , only on boot and vm startup.
I've thought about asking the folks at the local Free Geek about getting a laptop or two like this that I can mess around with. I had an old HP Stream 11 and I'm still disappointed that it died.
There are also a lot of mini PCs that are comparable in price to a Raspberry Pi 5 once you factor in the cost of a case, SD card, and power supply for the Pi.
The power usage will be a bit higher, but it will also have higher performance. They can have 2.5G ethernet and a couple of NVMe SSDs. The Raspberry Pi 5 only has one lane of PCIe 2.0, so it will be very bandwidth limited if you use a PCIe switch to connect a 2.5G NIC and an SSD.
I know its not the most ideal place, but FB marketplace where I live has lots of old PCs/Laptops for under 50 eur. I would probably start there personally.
You're missing out, Facebook marketplace is THE place to buy local secondhand goods for dirt cheap without getting scammed. You do need an account but you don't need to install anything, and the payments are not done through FB
Same here in México, a lot of people think their dual core Intel from 2011 (and even older than that) is still worth more than +$100USD. Even worse, companies usually want to resell devices to recover some of the cost, so even that option is kind of expensive. I'm waiting for some friends that can buy company devices for cheap so they can resell them to me for cheap too lol
Pawn shop I would say but they are expensive too... Their is some carricatibe structure which refurbish computers and sell them gor dirt cheap. 20 Buck per tower. But that crapy computers.
Yep. My FB Marketplace is 75% crackheads flogging off stuff they stole from shops/actual tax payers/their neighbours/ the train, 10% delusional idiots with shit that isn't worth half of their asking price, 10% scammers, and 5% not shit listings.
I do e-scooter mechanical stuff, I always have a bid war with the local franchisee scooter shop nearby fighting for the scooters. I know its them, so I try to raise the bids for them as much as possible to fuck them around.
We have bins around our city for people to drop electronics off for recycling. I’ve taken a few laptops from there. You’re not supposed to, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
One I gave to my buddy who needed something just for emails and web browsing and whatnot, one is running a server, and a couple more went back in to the bin because they were actually broken, but I took the hard drives for the server machine. I have one on a self ready in case the server machine dies so I haven’t gone looking for any new ones in a while.
raspberries were viable while those were cheap. I think I got a 3b (plus?) in pre-deficit years for like $25 second-hand AND I got some shitty case AND a microSD card AND it could run off of a somewhat normal USB phone charger. so using those instead of a 10 year old decommissioned desktop was an awesome value proposition.
nowadays, those devices are encroaching on trip-digits territory and the power adapter is like $30. the computing power you can buy for a third of that designates raspberries exclusively for niche use cases where footprint and power consumption are primary considerations.
not to mention fake Jason Statham just rubs me the wrong way, like all them "visionaries". he makes this sound like he's the head of Feed Africa or something, on a noble mission to save humanity and whatnot.
No gpio but old centrino laptops make excellent low power servers. My primary server was a first gen centrino from 2011 up until recently and I think it only used 12w idle after putting a SSD in there. Had it's own UPS built in.
I think 5W probably can't be achieved, maybe with chromebook-like hardware, but I guess GPIO could be solved with a USB accessory
in my opinion the bigger problem is the fire hazard of an unsupervised charger. I have seen enough that runs super hot, and even if it doesn't, I just can't trust them.
What kind of place do you go to to find these things? Sometimes I get really lucky (see my post history about my wonderful new printer), but if I could increase my odds that would be cool.
Back when I lived in a (quite nice) apartment building I was constantly surprised at the things people threw out. Perfectly good furniture but also stuff like perfectly functional printers, artwork, computer cases...
If you go near college housing there's usually a given day of the year (either moving day or an official cleanup day) when tons of people put out stuff they don't want to bother with keeping/moving. It's Hippie Christmas baby!
I'm in an apartment building, so I just browse the one here whenever I take the trash out. I don't think anyone has noticed, or they've elected to mind their own business if they have.
There's so much stuff that could still be used that it honestly isn't funny, and that's just in my own bin. How much more is being wasted across the country? But at least it's in the recycling and not the trash, so that's something, I guess.
About to be? The bottom has been falling out for desktops and laptops on processors not on Microsoft's supported list for the last year or more. I've seen roughly the same system go from ~$200+ down to under $100 on the last year based on eBay pricing alone
It's low power that is still making arm small computers popular. It's impossible to get a pc down into the 2-5 Watt power consumption range and over time it's the electrical costs that add up. I would suggest the RPI5 is the thing to get because it's expensive for what it is and more performance is available from other options supported by armbian.
Yet a Mac Mini does exactly that. Or like any Intel N100 based mini PC or laptop. Those also have way better performance, IO, and software compatibility. Raspberry Pi's fill a certain niche, but efficiency isn't it. At least not anymore.
I use old Mac Minis that were cycled out from a company and replaced. An e-waste laptop is still probably cheaper, but you can still find the older model Mac Minis fairly cheap too. I have 2 of them that sit vertically side-by-side in a small rack with my router stationed above them. They both run Elementary OS.
Here too. Free 2012 Mac Mini that's been servering away for a couple of years already 24/7 on UPS power. Gets a deserved smile every time I look at it 😀
I'm looking at replacing my 2018 desktop machine (a Thinkcentre Tiny) soon with one of the new AMD 395 mini-pcs. When that happens, the Mac Mini will be retired...
I think mine are around the same year. Such great machines for random shit. I tried to run an AI cluster across them and it kinda struggled 😂. It was a fun experiment.
Replacement is usually removing 6-10 screws and prying the case with a guitar pick or old credit card. There is most likely a disassembly video on youtube. Batteries from aliexpress or the like are usually cheap (although probably more expensive than the computer). Depending on the application, the "built-in UPS" can be nice.
I do SMB support, so I have a pretty good idea of what people tend to do.
I haven't seen a PS brick catch fire (possible, OFC, but extremely rare in my opinion) i have seen a PC PSU catch fire, and because of the fan, it's fucking scsry, like a jet with the afterburner.
I would assume that landfill laptop manufacturers are trying to minimize costs even harder on the charger.
but what timeframe do you mean with "anymore"? laptops made in this decade, or the last 10 years, or something else? there's plenty of old laptops that fitinto OPs category.
Probably for as long as raspberry pis have been around. There have been plenty of scares with phone chargers exploding, and that's what a raspberry pi is powered from. Laptop chargers haven't had many issues in the past decade or so.
I have heard less about phone chargers failing catastrophically. They also handle much less power (except the fancy ones), and I haven't seen a hot phone charger adapter yet, but plenty laptop chargers of which some were just very warm, and some so hot just on its outsides that it was uncomfortable to hold it in hand.
this is why I'm more worried about laptop chargers
This is, in my mind, one of the benefits of laptops over micro computers: integrated UPS. Even an old, degraded battery will probably get you a couple of hours with the screen off.
IME, power consumption is going to be worse overall, for any laptop likely to be in the recycle bin, it's probably double the consumption of an ARM SBC. The integrated UPS and usually decent power conditioning of the power supply saves you more money with a laptop. Plus, keyboard and screen for emergencies - I just generally expect that, over there life of a micro I'm going to have to drag out and plug in a spare keyboard, mouse, and monitor because something in a device, or an upgrade, or BIOS flash, is preventing a boot.
There are a lot of good reasons to use laptops instead of SBCs, if you don't mind the extra power draw and (as she says) don't have size requirements.
No, I didn't. I don't use Pis, I have ODroids. Heck, they may sell batteries for ODroids, too.
For me, it wouldn't have made much difference because I have UPSes around the house serving things like routers, modems, and switches. And I do care about size and energy use. I'm only saying there are advantages to using laptops.
You can get little integrated LCD cases for Pis too, can't you? And maybe even a little fold-out keyboard. Congratulations! You've re-invented the laptop!
ODroids don't meet European legal hazard levels on poisonous fumes. I bought one back in the day and they explained they won't apply for the test because of "the cost"... not that it uses cheap solder that don't meet lead limits.
But the fire risk is a very valid point. All laptops should indicate they should not be left alone when charging. While many do. Setting one up in a unobserved location to run permanently should be batteryless or Lifepo4 adapted. So laptops may not be best suited to this environment. A used thin client or other DC input option may be much easier. Or an old desktop if batts and not wanted.
I had read about it on another thread, which was about using old smartphones as servers (they used Termux).
Those old lithium batteries, although sometimes seemingly healthy, can catch fire any time. Having them connected to the charger 24/7 is only making matters worse.
I wouldn't trust the battery of old devices. I would probably buy a used UPS (without battery) and slap a new battery to it. This would cost more, but it would allow me to also connect other important devices to it - like the router and some lights.
Low power and arm architecture are big differentiators between Pi and laptops.
I totally agree recycle laptops where possible, but they're generally noisier and less energy efficient plus the battery degrades over time and is a fire risk.
They're not necessairly a good fit for always-on server or service type uses comparef to a small board like Raspberry Pi. But a cheap or free second hand laptop is definitely good for tweaking, testing and trying our projects.
How many people keep up with this misconception RPis are ultra efficient? They are bargain basement SoCs. The power draw isn't that low (25W PSU), and the performance they deliver isn't great. They are all made using older process nodes and techniques that result in less efficient processors. Add those together and you will find they have less performance per watt than all modern laptops with the screen turned off, and less than most Mini PCs. Mini PCs and other SBCs are where it's at for efficient home labs. If you can find a Mac with Apple Silicon for cheap they are even better. Everyone in the home labbing community pretty much knows this by now. I struggle to understand why Lemmy hasn't got this through their brains. I think it's partially the miconception that ARM is always better, and partially down to people not understanding that low maximum power draw and efficiency are the same thing. Not even thinking about idle power or performance per watt.
reasons to use raspberry pi: energy consumption, reliability, noise, software support, performance, an ethernet port/a way faster ethernet port, availability, faster pcie/storage, io
Right? I made the realization a while ago that refurbished mini PCs are a way better fit for most of my homelab needs.
Sure, if power consumption is your #1 priority then you'd want some ARM solution. But for my use cases, I've found myself fighting with software support and the relatively low computational power of even the newer RPis.
Also, T-series Intel chips (the low power ones) have pretty good idle power consumption and don't spin up the fan too much given their lower power. And a lot of uses cases require sticking a fan and heat sinks on an RPi so you lose the quietness benefit.
Also also, you (still?) need proprietary blobs to use a bunch of the hardware on RPis. You can go full open source on a regular old PC.
While gpio adaptors are available for pc. The software architecture is not as well rounded and documented.
So for any complex hardware project development. Gpio based SBCs are often essential.
So space, low power and gpio development.
Otherwise yep old laptop or even desktop can be cheaper and more able.
But overall. The wide software support and documentation for hardware connectivity is a bloody good reason to keep pie supported.
I'm setting 2 up to control the hot water and solar dump system on my shared little boat. As I want to link 12v Lifepo4 batt charging with the solar dump and visually impaired control for AC and diesel heating of the water.
Pies really are the best option to play with. While low power and easy to design a unique low vision interface.
Also UK boat safty. Is issuing warning about permanently connected li ion batts on boats. So it is likely setting up a laptop to manage this while not on the boat. Will be banned in the near future.
Only an issue for UK boating but worth considering the risks of leaving laptops to run when not observed.
I bet you could instead use an ESP32 for GPIO and just connect it remotely to whatever Pi alternative you use (if needed at all). Turning some switches on and off while monitoring input values doesn't sound very computationally intensive.
Yep that can work. But ignores all the well documented and supported development community comments I pointed to while also indicating other options exist.
As for.
Turning some switches on and off while monitoring input values doesn’t sound very computationally intensive.
You realise IO wise that describes your keyboard and mouse interaction on the most powerful gaming PCs.
It's what you do with the results that matters.
GPIO supports a fair bit more then the on and off input and output. It's slow compared to other systems. But has multiple serial protocols of differing types. Simple GUI displays can also be run via gpio connections. Low Res Lidar devices are available connected via the spi connections with all the data processed on that host PC.
So no gpio use can require all levels of processing power post connection. It is after all designed for experimentation and prototyping.
For my project. You clost to correct. I just use a simple GUI displays with xorg. So a pie 0 is plenty. And way lower power then the other options. It links to a pwm controller to power 2 12v 200w water tank heaters a relay for a 750w AC heater. Bluetooth connection to a BMS and solar MPPT. While operating multiple temp sensors measuring at different levels. And warning of legionaries risk. If the tank has not been over 65c in 14 days (actually 10 days but I'm over careful given the health status of my brother and I).
So much less then the tiny Pie 0 would not be able to cope but mainly due to the need for the vision impaired interface. Speaking functions dose not take much. But doing so without being unusably slow is about the limit of a pie 0.
I mostly agree, and did the same with my second gen lab build - instead of shiny new NUCs like I had used round 1, I bought old off lease Dell Xeon boxes. SO MANY PROS - * Got them up to 14c/28t each * They can take GPUs and actually do heavy transcoding/ML work * They can take up to like, 128GB of memory, which is GREAT when they're all hypervisors
The downsides can't be denied though - * Even without the GPUs and beefed up CPUs, they are power hogs - the CPU alone uses more than an ENTIRE NUC * They run HOT * They run LOUD
The same holds true for off-lease SFF stuff, Lenovo and the likes ...
So while reuse/repurpose is absolutely of the utmost importance, no question - when it comes to technology and how quickly it advances and miniaturizes, a thorough and logical pros/cons list is often required.
I'd add another option though - if you do need what a Pi brings to the table - do you really need a shiny new Pi 5? Is it possible a used Pi 3 or Pi 4 would do the trick, and check the reuse box?
The power aspect is a lot bigger of a factor than I would have thought. I had an old computer I was going to use as a server for Foundry that I could keep up all the time, but when I measured its wattage and did the math, it would cost me $20 a month to keep on. A pi costs like $2 to keep running, so it paid for itself pretty quick
RPis aren't energy efficient either. Any situation where you are thinking of putting more than one of them in a cluster you should just buy mini PCs instead.
Or get a used thin client (e. g. HP T620, T630, T640 or Dell Wyse 5070). Cost: ~40-100$. Biggest advantage: Passive cooling, i. e. they're absolutely quiet.
I have a Wyse 5010. Be careful with your SSD plans. Mine had an mSATA SSD. Luckily, after removing the chassis of a SATA SSD, and only keeping the board, it could fit in there.
I really should pick up another used thinkpad.... I've got one for my wife, one for me for work, and I would really like to have a personal in the mix to make my life easier.
I dislike posts like this. Technology moves quickly. PIs are great for hobby electronics where you need a little computer. Want a cheap computer to run a few things 24/7 and know what you're doing? Pi it is. You don't need to run containers on a pi because you have the skills to install the dependencies manually. They cost pennies to run 24/7.
I think of pis as beefed-up calculators. I have made lots of money using a pi zero running code I needed to run 24/7. Code I developed myself.
Having an old laptop with outdated parts taking up lots of space, weighing a lot, and having components like fans, keyboard, and mousepad most-likely soon dying and needing replacing is an additional concern you don't want.
Someone below saying use an old laptop if you're living with parents and don't pay the electricity bill is a bit lame. Do your part for the world. Someone will be paying for it.
Ultimately, use what you want but if you're just starting with servers, use a virtual machine on your computer and log in to it. You can dick about with it as much as you want, and reset back to a working state in seconds.
I think this really depends on the model they're eyeballing because the Pi5 is frankly ridiculous for the price and has absurd power requirements (5V5A USB?). I wouldn't recommend one of these unless you have a specific need like a certain hat or the GPIO pins. You can get a Dell micro Optiplex for less money and have a full fledged i5 or i7 processor with similar power usage.
Plus the RPi Foundation exposed themselves as the greedy bastards they are during COVID which is yet another reason to turn your back on them.
For something like a Pi Zero, maybe go for it, but there are similar devices out there from other companies too.
You can get a Dell micro Optiplex for less money and have a full fledged i5 or i7 processor with similar power usage.
Absolutely, I've got a cluster of mini PCs with 7th/8th gen T sku i7s, plus an Optiplex SFF running a standard i7-7700, and everything together draws less than 100W on average.
I picked up a used 2018 Fujitsu office PC with an i5-7500 for $60 (from a physical recycle shop, with a 14 day warranty) and it draws 15W idle. Way better value than a Pi (once you've added case, cooling, PSU etc) for running home server stuff.
A Pi still kills for "Arduino plus plus" use cases where you need the size, GPIO or can optimize the heck out of power usage on a battery.
Yeah, theres a lot of old old laptops which make no sense to run. But there's a growing crop of more recent used devices that are only being sold off because they don't support Windows 11, and the power efficiency story changes there. The OOP mentions "8.1 lappies"; my main laptop has a 15W 8th gen which is only in the last year starting to feel less appropriate for desktop use. (And honestly, a RAM and storage bump will probably get me another couple years.)
For environmental concerns, youve got to tax new devices with manufacturing costs as well.
Laptops don't even use that much power. You guys are really not into home labbing or as good with tech as you think you are lol. Lots of people run older real servers and desktops as home servers. They use way more power than laptops. Raspberry Pis sound good but use progressively more power in each generation, and still struggle to compete with mini PCs and even older laptops in performance. They also never had good performance per watt. In performance per watt basically nothing beats a Mac Mini, though other mini PCs are also good. Laptops aren't bad in energy efficiency either. They are literally designed to run on battery so have as little idle draw as possible. They would be comparable to a mini PC if you turn off the display.
Edit: Modern RPis apparently use 25W, which is firmly in the territory of what a laptop would use when not running the screen or charging the battery.
Rpi uses 25watts? My old acer 6th gen laptop has a 15watt TDP and remains around 8watts 24/7 even with my services and without disconnecting the internals. My 8th gen laptop pulls 6watts with the screen on. People here saying older laptops arent a good choice are insane considering the ~$100-300 diffrence between an ewaste laptop and dedicated minipc + backup power bank (laptops have internal batterys you can easily replace when they go bad)
yeah even the best overheating overpowered gaming laptops have way lower power draw compared to your average desktop? It's really not that high or crazy to use an old laptop instead of buying a pi lol.
Until the battery needs replacing, costing more than a pi, one key on the keyboard dies, etc.
Do you need any of that? You can remove the battery and keep it plugged, and use it as a server to which you connect over SSH, with an added benefit of having local access if you actually need it.
Some are talking about power consumption in this thread and I've had similar ideas. Gone are the days where I can run a beefy spec'd desktop in good conscience, it's just such a resource hog. I have a laptop that stays in hibernate mostly. My other idea for a low power consumption home computer was to get a Le Potato single board and pair that with an e-ink monitor (there's some really nice ones out there) which I think was sitting at maaaaybe ~5kwh. I think the more we can limit our power consumption, the better, all that electricty directy translates into coal being burned and additional CO2 being created. I'm no luddite, but it has impacted how I consume media which is now very mindful of the impact watching a few episodes/playing a couple hours of games versus just one or two hours of content on any given day.
Power consumption is a massive reason to really not do that. Its cheap for a reason, its takes a shitload of power to be shit and you will pay more in energy than you save in hardware unless its only powered on for short periods of time - a server typically isn't.
This is actually something that applies to cheap products too. Was in Asda a little while ago and saw 2 LED bulbs with the same lumen rating. Cheaper one used 3w more and you only saved £1. Running it for 8 hours a day for a year would cost double that saving in electricity. For a server you are looking at almost £2 per watt each year. Does that ewaste look so good to you now?
Some things are absolutely worth getting second hand, but you really should be careful considering the power cost as well.
Quick edit: If you don't need it running 24/7, consider something like AWS too. I love selfhosting but if its not running much it might be cheaper to not bother buying hardware.
There's lots of ways to make existing hardware more efficient at the cost of performance. Under-volting the CPU and RAM (or just putting them in "efficiency" mode) can probably save more electricity than you lose in generational improvements. Considering how much more powerful PCs are compared to SBCs, you'd probably still have better performance than an SBC. Also, a more powerful CPU that takes double the power but as a result can idle for more than 50% of the time would be more efficient than a less powerful CPU never idling.
There's a lot of other variables (like idle power draw, efficiency at various power levels, idle latency, etc), but in general I think your statement would be inaccurate at least 60% of the time.
Oh I am not saying specifically get a raspberry pi, personally looking at a bee-link N150 mini PC. It isn't even that much more expensive than the 16GB raspberry pi and as its x86 I can just run normal debian installs in proxmox.
Yes it's relevant. I have been one of the people making it. However they didn't specificy what they were actually comparing in their first comment. So it ends up they are saying something false. Your average laptop could easily beat a raspberry pi in performance per watt.
Yes actually still sounds good. Raspberry Pis actually have quite high power draw compared to the performance they give. Like sure the number might be smallish but the performance they give and functionality they have is awful compared to even a mini PC which use similar power. Mini PCs btw are actually one of the best options in performance per watt and can still be cheap, plus they have upgradable RAM and storage. A Mac mini is more expensive but will thrash everything else in efficiency and performance per watt, although non-upgradable. Even slightly older laptops will only draw tens of watts when fully charged, vs a desktop or proper server that could pull 100W even at idle in some cases. Older laptops tended to be more upgradable too.
Are any of them actually that good in efficiency though? Like a Pi 5 is probably the best in performance per watt, but it also has the highest power consumption. Realistically you wouldn't self host on anything older than a Pi 4 anyway.
Bro please. I understand you can host very small stuff on less powerful Pis. I used to host some stuff on a Raspberry Pi model b myself. Stop tooting your own horn. You couldn't however host all the stuff I use or even most home labbers use on a Pi zero with modern software. I doubt it could run Jellyfin, an *arr stack, ollama, nextcloud, etc all at the same time. Probably you would also have to drop using containers which would be less secure and easy to deploy.
What's the performance per watt of a Pi Zero anyway? I am sure it's low power draw but I doubt it's actually efficient.
See here's the thing. Why would anyone want to host ALL the stuff on one pi? That is not what they were designed for. Ollama on a pi? Are you out of your mind? I'd run the biggest model I can on a modern gpu not some crappy old computer or pi....Right tool, right job. And why is dropping containers "less secure"? Do you mean "less cool"? Less easy to deploy? But you're not deploying it, you're installing it. You sound like a complete newb which is fine, but just take a step back from things and get some more experience. A pi is a tool for a purpose, not the end all. Using an old laptop is not going to save the world and arguing that it's just better than a pi (or similar alternative) is just dumb. Use a laptop for all I care, I'm not the boss of you.
As for an arr stack, I'm really disappointed with the software and don't use it and those who do have way too much time to set it up, and then make use of it!
Are you living on a space station? What is this shitload of power?
Some of us live off-grid and make every Watt-hour we consume. So it may be that one man's fanciful bullshit is another man's daily life. For context, this is my 2,461st day offgrid.
A whole 60 watts?
Over the last 30 days I've averaged 2.01kWh/day, or an average constant consumption of 84w. All in. And that's on the high end for folks in similar use cases. In this scenario adding in another 60w would be significant (ie, impossible for my rig during winter months).
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
Um if you’re living with computers are you really „off the grid“ computers require the grid to be manufactured. If you’re off the grid because you worry about the way the worlds going and you think you’ll need to be off the grid to survive I wouldn’t make having access to computers part of the plan.
60w is like £120 a year, these costs add up to the point that low spec servers pretty much always cost more in energy than hardware. Of course it also depends on where you live and your energy rates.
You could buy a 20 year old server that is going to use 800w, or you could buy a mini PC that is probably more powerful and uses like 10-20w.
Then again, I used to live somewhere that energy was included in the rent so short of starting a bitcoin farm usage wouldn't really get noticed too much. In that case it would make sense to just go cheap hardware.
I'm glad I don't have these addictions people seem to have. "I need a computer to measure how much water my toilet uses!" "I need a computer in my refrigerator!" etc
We've passed the useful stage of computing, we are now in the "personal issues" phase.
lowendtalk, hella cheap vps with plenty of resources for most self hosted apps, the issue with it is usually storage space but there are ways around that connecting your drives from elsewhere
Warning tho, hella shills too but you could literally make a post asking if certain companies on the site that have active threads are scams and get valid responses that don't get removed or anything so thats nice, like half of the ones I looked at were giving less resources than they claimed
This is generally not true. If you are using your laptop as a home server chances are it's going to be idling 99% of the time and laptops are generally pretty good in terms of idle power draw if you manage to disable the screen (or just disconnect it, take it off and find a way to repurpose it)
And in terms of environmental impact saving a laptop from landfill is definitely better since the majority of a computers impact is from the co2 emmissions from the manufacturing process. And this isn't taking into account the likely ethical considerations such as supporting terrible mining practices for resources like cobalt.
This is generally not true. A small server running on an old pi when idling will have hardly any draw. It will cost literally pennies to run for the whole year.
A rasperry pi idles at about 2 watts vs a laptop that idles at about 4 watts. At $0.30/kwh (a very high price for electricity) you would save 5 dollars per year on electricity. This laptop trades blows with the rasperry pi and costs half the price (55$ aud vs over 200$ aud for a brand new pi 5) Even this second hand one costs 110$ aud which is twice the cost. With that cost of electricity it would take 11 years in order to break even. And that's only if you consider monetary cost and not environmental cost.
Power consumption is a massive reason to really not do that. Its cheap for a reason, its takes a shitload of power to be shit and you will pay more in energy than you save in hardware unless its only powered on for short periods of time
Ewaste computers actually tend to be on par if not better than an RPi in power consumption these days. It might feel like a RPi should be more efficient given the size and USB power connector, but modern Pis consume a solid 10-20w while in use which is more or similar to most miniPCs (they idle at single digit watts now and can "race to sleep" more effectively than a Pi) while costing about the same and the Pi is far less upgradeable
A good "rule of thumb" to remember: if your electricity rates average (somewhere near) $0.11/kWh you can take the average power draw of a device in watts and that is equal to what it will cost to run that device 24-7 for 365 days.
So, if that cheap PC draws 50W more than an alternate solution, it's costing you $50 more per year to use it.
Some tasks are beyond any RasPi, but it's well worth evaluating if something like an N100 fanless mini-PC can handle it instead of loading up some Core i7 rig that's going to cost more to run in the first year than the N100 costs to buy.
And for some (including me) that's our only computer (other than phone). I just can't afford anything, so all I have is a shitty laptop from 2010 that barely plays 1080p video. I deeply want something better, especially a steam deck, but doesn't look like that'll happen anytime soon (or ever). And then you see people have steam decks that just sit there, unused, gathering dust.... fuck.
Consider buying used hardware from an office. Lots of places sell used gear for dirt cheap. A used office desktop with a used GPU from the last 3 years or so would be a massive upgrade without spending much.
Steam Deck is still a good deal for what it is though, but I wouldn't use it as a primary workstation.
Honestly, if you're in the States I have a bunch of HP ProDesks that my wife would be very happy to see disappear from our basement (I bid on an auction I didn't expect to win lol). I'd happily send one for the cost of shipping
I would say it can sometimes be nice to have an old Laptop for this purpose, you have to slightly over build your solar but can be nice to have a mouse and keyboard attached and monitor, ssh works. Still have an hp laptop with a core i5 2nd gen sitting out in my greenhouse, is a little more power hungry but not terrible on idle, and is nice to be able to configure changes to watering without going back inside or wrecking the zen by bringing phone.
damn you all, now I impulse bought an old thin client for 30EUR 😀 but, fwiw: I mostly use RPi for my purposes, up to RPi4; RPi 5 I think missed the mark, with its active cooling requirement and power use. (and price...) the only use case where an i86 alternative is justified is my jellyfin setup (where realtime transcoding is needed).
As a Pi Hole, the Pi 5 doesn't require active cooling.
Now, I am running a separate Pi 5 with a HAILO 8 for Frigate monitoring of a bunch of video streams, and it does need a little air movement, so I built a box with a 200mm fan pulling through a filter and I just threw all my Pis in there along with the Frigate rig so they stay nice and cool... I'm thinking that I should probably switch Frigate over to a Pi 4 for the h.264 hardware decoder, but the 5 is working fine for my needs and endless tweaking gets boring...
You are probably right for something like a Pihole, which can easily run on a RPi 3 as well (I think I'm running it on a 3... maybe even a 2.) My fear is something like Jellyfin (which it is not suited for anyway, I know), combined with the fact that my stack of Pis is in my meter cabinet, so a fairly confined space with very little air movement, also passive. Running Jellyfin without transcoding has my Pi 5 running at just under 50 °C.
I agree that the Zero is up to the task, but I prefer a wired connection for my home DNS/DHCP server and if I understand correctly the Pi5 has better wired ethernet than its predecessors... Yeah, utilization is laughable, but there's something to be said for reduced lag time too:
Hostname: pihole
CPU: 0.2% on 4 cores running 318 processes (0.3% used by FTL)
RAM: 25.9% of 2.0 GB is used (7.4% used by FTL)
Swap: 35.9% of 512.0 MB is used
Kernel: Linux pihole 6.12.25+rpt-rpi-2712 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 1:6.12.25-1+rpt1 (2025-04-30) aarch64
Uptime: a month (running since Sunday, May 18th 2025, 17:54:59
I have never felt the need to have a wired connection for my DNS/DHCP, since such a trivial amount of data exchanges hands. The quality of the wired connection if it had one would similarly have negligible impact, surely.
For me it's not about the bandwidth, it's about the lag and reliability. I have had strong WiFi connections flake out a lot more than wired connections.
Also, I just prefer to not have 100+ WiFi devices kicking around my network when more than half of them could be wired, or on another protocol like Zigbee.
I guess I am pretty far from saturating my WiFi in any way, the removal of cables with little to no impact on connectivity was far more of a priority for me. I have never noticed a WiFi related outage or performance loss.
My WiFi routers have historically struggled a bit, I've got a decent one now, but even it is slow to manage the DHCP lists for fixed assignments by MAC address.
I will say this: we had a big lightning strike a few years back and it conducted into the house via the internet cable, then spread via the ethernet cables taking out everything that was wired (over $7K in damage) - devices connected only by power and WiFi were mostly spared.
Also, Raspberry Pi first got popular because of the size and cost. Now it's popular because it's popular. Not hating on them, I think they're cool, but they're not cheap any more. Especially with the scalping.
Getting x86_64 based systems is going to mean much less headache. Unless you truly truly need the size I wouldn't consider getting a Pi or other SBC. Just go to literally any used marketplace (Facebook, Craigslist, etc) and get anything.
The original Raspberry Pi Model B launched for £22 in 2012. The entry level Raspberry Pi 5 is £46, but adjusted for inflation that's only £32 in 2012 money. So only £10 more expensive in real terms.
Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is only £14.40, which is only £10 in 2012 money. Compare this to the original Raspberry Pi Model A, which launched for £16.
People look at the headline cost of the high end RPi 5s (£115 for the 16GB model, £76 for the 8GB), but fail to recognise that there was nothing comparable to these in the Raspberry Pi lineup before, and these are not the only models in the Raspberry Pi lineup now.
Inflation adjustment doesn't really tell the whole story though, it's not like salaries have gone up by the same amount. Regardless, I don't like dealing with the Zero unless I specifically need something that tiny. It's just too annoying. Don't get me wrong! They're cool! I'm just saying unless I really need a Pi Zero I wouldn't wanna work with one. I'd rather work with x86_64 than Arm. Like even just getting Java working was really tricky on Zero. Much like a microcontroller has limitations for what you can run on them but they have other benefits, Zeros aren't really general purpose.
So yeah, dirt cheap used laptop for general purpose server beats out dirt cheap Pi in my book.
There was the supply shortage price spike, they really were stupid expensive then if you supported the hoarder/scalpers.
Since that has cleared... most of the Pi price increases (in inflation adjusted dollars) can be attributed to improved features like more RAM, or people acknowledging that having a good dedicated $20 power supply is preferable to dealing with the flakiness of that old phone charger you found under the bed.
Pi is popular with me because it's time efficient. Meaning: when I am trying to get it to do something, it takes less of my time to make the thing actually happen on Pi hardware as compared with most of the other small / embedded alternatives. Notable recent exception: ESPHome on ESP32 hardware, but even there the more limited variation of Raspberry hardware makes it similar to those fruity phones, MP3 players and computers - since there are a limited number of variations, you can usually find information specific to EXACTLY your setup, instead of having to infer from something almost the same, but figure out little wrinkles here and there due to differences between what you are working with and what you are reading about on the internet.
They aren't very useful for much besides hobby projects. Modern hardware is more energy efficient and will be cheaper in the long run compared to anything that would be considered e-waste. The only advantage an old laptop has is the initial cost, so it makes sense for a small home server.
At the HVAC control level it would be a Pico - for the development / maintenance time efficiency: I know how the tools work, I know the community support is there, the hardware is easy to find and available relatively reliably, although ESPHome on the ESP micro-controllers is pretty good too.
I had the accounting self hosted web app on it until I was too lazy for accounting and now I am in so called hot water and must make bunch of shit up using mathematical apparatus
Only if you're running it at full load all the time and comparing that to a comparable number of raspberry pis it would take to do the same amount of work. Also, only if you live in a cold climate and the heat generated is not a concern and power is supplied by a renewable source so power isn't a concern.
If you think in flops per watt, maybe a little bit, but not a lot. Do you have one or two good procs for almost free, or half a dozen new sbcs at $100 each? Takes a while to save back that amount in power.
NoScript is duplicative with ublock medium mode, I am amazed people are still using it. It hasn’t been relevant for 5+ years by my estimation. Why use two addons when one you’re already using does it better?
But having two addons will make your fingerprint even larger. So your argument doesn't explain why you should use two addons instead on one that does it both.
No, you use one as the backup. That's why I said use JShelter, but if a site breaks beyond use, switch IPs and then reload with NoScript instead to be more selective of what is blocked and what's not. That way I can still block Cloudflare and Google and Apple and still let the actual site load. And JScreep seems (for me, YMMV) to treat each as distinct fingerprints.
IMO if you know you can have multiple fingerprint profiles anyway based on which combo of extensions you use that do roughly the same job, that's a net benefit.
Because I'm used to noscript, I've tried using uBlock in stricter than default settings but found it hard to get into their flag system. I do not trust 1st party by default in noscript and am pleasantly surprised anytime a site works without js.
Users voting on whether a segment is good or bad. I always give a thumbs up to the segments that were well-defined and a thumbs-down to segments that cut off half a sentence unnecessarily etc.
Download Firefox Multi-Account Containers for Firefox. Firefox Multi-Account Containers lets you keep parts of your online life separated into color-coded tabs.
For vanilla FF I use multi - account containers, uBlock, and privacy badger.
For other FF forks like Librewolf, I get more blocky, like JShelter, a random agent switcher, and if that breaks a site beyond use I try Chameleon and NoScirpt.
I think Youtube Anti Translate only works on video titles and descriptions? There's Youtube No Translate which does the same and also keeps the audio track in the original language so you don't get a shitty AI dub
Most people will tell you that it's been made obsolete now since (1) it doesn't use behavioural analysis to detect trackers anymore, it just uses a pre-defined list of trackers to block (2) browsers (especially firefox) now have built-in tracker blocking (3) ublock origin blocks trackers by default anyway.
I don't think it hurts to still use it, just as a belt and braces approach, but I suppose it's possible it makes your browser fingerprint more unique.
Interesting. Fingerprinting is a good point, although I've switched to a combo of Vivaldi and Librewolf browsers so they're already fairly unique unfortunately.
I like how Privacy Badger replaces tracking icons/widgets. I’m guessing uBO just removes them outright? I haven’t really bothered to check the differences.
Doesn't Firefox have reader mode with dark mode built in? Don't get me wrong, I find that functionality indispensable, but I didn't think it required a plugin.
Youtube Unhook lets you disable specific parts of the website: Shorts, Recommendations, Comments, and lets you redirect from startpage to subscriptions like in the olden days.
Bring back the dislike button or something like that for YT.
Shorts are the only thing that really annoyed me, I don't mind recommendations or comments, and I just keep a tab open on my subs page all the time anyway.
Huh, I didn't realize. I've had it installed forever, I guess I didn't realize. Oh well, I just switched back to Brave and I don't even have uBO installed anymore and it's been fine.
Category "how the hell isn't this included by default" : - Copy Plain Text: Adds an option in the right click menu to copy the selected text as plain text, without formatting - Copy Link Text : Adds an option in the right click menu to copy the text of a link - Markdown Reader: Show formatted markdown. I tried several extensions for this and this is the one I prefer personally. It has an index panel on the left which is sooo useful.
Category "Preserving your mental health online" : - uBlock Origin: You really need to block those ads - Consent-O-Matic: Never see a cookie pop-up again in your life (it auto accepts or refuse in your place). - SponsorBlock: Skips Youtube sponsorships. You can define which ones you want to skip and which you want to watch (paid ads, self promo, etc) - Return Youtube Dislike: Show the number of dislikes on videos. It's not a real number, it's extrapolated based on how many people with the app have clicked dislike. - Youtube No Translate: Keeps titles, descriptions and audio tracks in their original language
Category "Usefull" : - KeePassXC-Browser: To access your password database from your browser - Whatever fingerprinting protection you can find (Canvas, Fonts, WebGL, etc.. half those I used have been pulled, haven't found a replacement for all of them)
Category "Would be nice if..." : - A user agent switcher... if you want all websites to block you 😑 - NoScript: Block javascript and create custom rules to allow it only when and where you want. Or the reverse. It was great a few years ago but I've stopped using it because websites require allowing more and more otherwise nothing works and it's hell can we cancel javascript please? - Dark Reader: Dark mode for all websites. Can make some websites unreadable, but you can turn it off for that website. Makes everything much slower though so I don't use it.
I had no idea about the second one! I still like having a context menu option, right click + E seems much less of a hassle than selecting the text and copying, but it's nice to know you can select part of a link! How did I never notice that you could in 20 years? 😅
Pro-tip: you may not need Consent-O-Matic. There are uBlock Origin cookie banner filters that you can enable (even though they break some websites, even if it's rare)
I've tried it a few times but tend to fall back to Fennec. While Librewolf on desktop is restrictive by design, it also still allows you tweak the settings to your liking (with some scolding). Ironfox felt much more locked down to me, and if a site was completely broken, I couldn't do anything about it in the settings.
I know the mobile browser space is just weird overall, especially Firefox forks, but it definitely stood out to me. Things that work totally fine in Librewolf out-of-the-box were totally busted, and most settings are inaccessible.
I'm still keeping an eye on it though, as Fennec leaves a lot to be desired, and using a chromium-based browser like Vanadium won't do it for me because I rely so much on the cross-platform sync functions.
Huh? You can totally change the advanced settings (about:config) for Ironfox. I literally had to do that a few months ago to get a certain feature working for an extension I use cause some javascript and SCP settings were disabled for privacy/security.
Now, I completely understand why you wouldn't want to spend hours tweaking settings and reading Mozilla's source code forms to get stuff to work, so if that's the reason for switching then I get it. But you can absolutely change the config settings, unlike vanilla Android Firefox which doesn't enable about:config
I have no evidence to back this up, but I've seen lots of reports that suggest if you just hide the consent form, you're assumed to have accepted all of the cookies. This is why Consent-o-Matic is preferable.
Do not use cloud password managers. If you can, self host your bitwarden instance.
My suggestion is KeePass (XC on PC and DX on mobile) with syncthing. It's very flexible and useful for stuff beyond passwords, like ids, notes, emails etc
Library extension. Go to as page selling a book (Amazon, Powell's, etc.) and the extension will show you if you're local library has the book, how many copies, and if they're available for checkout. You can then click through and put a hold on the book.
Great cure for impulse buying of books. I've read more and bought less since using it.
Wow! Brilliant! Unfortunately my local library is not in their catalogue. They do have a public catalog and even a way to get online books, also with search capabilities, so hopefully they can find a way to integrate. I submitted their data to the extension maintainers.
Download Cloud To Butt Plus WebExtension for Firefox. Replaces the text 'the cloud' with 'my butt', as well as 'cloud' with 'butt' in certain contexts.
breaking websites is a good thing actually, as it disables any and all javascript and webgl tracking (and you can unbreak a website anyway if you really need javascript for it to function)
It's not about privacy per se but Tridactyl "A Vim-like interface for Firefox, inspired by Vimperator/Pentadactyl." because, like Userscripts - Tampermonkey, you can basically redesign any website.
uBlock Origin Firefox Multi-Account Contaniners (and then use them) If you use some kind of webmail like google, hotmail, yahoo, then: Webmail Ad Blocker Remove FBclid and UTM
I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little bit of an extensions hoarder, which is bad for fingerprinting 😣, but I seriously do use the extra ones.
Vital:
uBlock - obviously, some people even suggest to only use this extension and nothing else to reduce fingerprinting. Make sure to enable those filters! Also check out the advanced mode, eliminates the need for NoScript.
Not Vital But Really Good To Have:
LibRedirect - Never worry again about visiting the original social media site, you can immediately be redirected to a proxy version of the site that doesn't stalk you. Great when I'm forced to click a Twitter, Reddit, Youtube, etc. link. Unfortunately, some proxy services are dead (Instagram, Tiktok, Invidious is always under threat, etc.)
Dark Reader - Nice, especially on fingerprint resisting browsers like Librewolf that don't let your browser/sites see your system settings to automatically pick the dark mode of a website. Have singed my eyes a couple times.
For Language Learners (like me):
Yomitan - The GOAT of tools, a popup dictionary that can be used to instantly look up the definition of a word in your target language, and connects with Anki, a flashcard app. I use it for making vocabulary cards from Japanese media I consume. Literally all the other resources are meant to be paired with this.
Asbplayer - Lets you add subtitles to whatever media you're streaming and makes the text selectable. Paired with Yomitan, you can easily make Anki flashcards from the TV/Movies/Videos you watch.
Lap Clipboard Inserter - By using a clipboard extension with Textractor, you can hook a game/visual novel and auto-copy all the game text to a webpage, which can be paired with Yomitan (you guessed it!) to look up words. You have to turn it on for individual pages, so don't worry about it constantly stalking you.
Neat, But Random:
Mastodon Streetpass - Helps you figure out if a person is on Mastodon by looking for a custom link on their site. Collects a list of them and tells you the date that it found the account. Basically just browse as usual and it will passively collect a list.
A fellow Japanese learner and VN enjoyer! Are you on Linux? I ran into issues with Lap Clipboard Inserter not capturing any clipboard events when the window was in the background, and I think it's an issue with Wayland, since all firefox-based browsers had the same issue but chromium-based ones didn't
Yep, I used Fedora Kinoite now! I originally used Fedora Silverblue, but that used GNOME + Wayland, and I dropped it cause spectacle couldn't take screenshots in a Wayland based system. I switched to Kinoite because it uses Plasma instead. I don't know if Wayland causes clipboard issues, as I never tested/got that far when trying to make Silverblue work. I just rebased cause I couldn't get ShareX (the tool I used while on Windows) to work with WINE.
I use my clipboard tool with FF and have little to no issues there. The only thing I will note is, Textractor hooks the sentences a little weirdly. None of the hooks are perfect, the best one I can find that isn't complete gibberish is a hook that simply copies the sentence twice. All the others repeat characters in a sentence like 50 times, so they're unsalvageable. Not sure if it's a browser hook thing, or a trying to force Windows apps in weird ways thing, but it's not as smooth as a process compared to native Windows 😅
At least from my research, Kinoite is Wayland. I think you can go to KDE (Plasma) settings, find the "About this System" page and it should say "Graphics Platform: Wayland". GNOME and KDE are desktop environments, X11 and Wayland are display managers (I think of them like rendering engines).Though it's true that Spectacle has issues on Wayland, apparently all screenshot apps do, due to security restrictions and slow development. But Spectacle works great on KDE because Spectacle is made by KDE, and gets special privileges when run on KDE desktop. Same with GNOME screenshot when run on GNOME desktop. Third-party screenshot tools don't get these privileges and don't work well on either (at least when using Wayland), you can read more about it here: github.com/ksnip/ksnip/issues/…
As far as Textractor goes, I haven't had any issues with text hooking, but from my experience it heavily depends on the game, and I've only tested 2 games on linux so far. But if I'm reading you correctly...are you using Firefox inside WINE?
Alle 17:35 del 19 maggio 1885 Odlum si presentò sul ponte di Brooklyn, aggirò i controlli e si lanciò da un’altezza di circa 40 metri. Tutto questo davanti a una folla di spettatori. Il tuffo non andò come previsto. Odlum entrò in acqua in posizione semi-sdraiata, sbagliando l’angolazione. Questo causò un impatto violento con la superficie dell’acqua – che, da quell’altezza, è dura quasi quanto il cemento.
Smartphones are making us unhealthy, miserable, antisocial, and less free. If we can’t yet nationalize the attention economy, maybe it’s time to abolish its primary tool — before it finishes abolishing us.
ZZ Bottom
in reply to Rimu • • •