I have HDDs from around 20 years ago and hardly touched in last 10 years, which are still good (able to read out without any issues, random checksum are good, but not all files validated).
But my optical backs were completely a disaster. Just a little bit over 5 years, over 50% were not able to read out, ~30% could be read but content were corrupted. There might be ~10% still good but too time consuming to check so I dumped them all. I still have optical drives but I cannot really remember when was the last time used it any more.
For SSDs, I've a couple of them left in cold for around 3 years, just checked a couple of days ago, seems to be good. I'm not sure how much longer they can hold, as there were known issues with Samsung 840 serials.
Given the recent debacle with the Samsung SSD firmware, I'd love to read internal hardware and firmware engineer notes and concerns. I think there are quite a few bodies in the closet that is called the consumer SSD market.
You'd at least hope that enterprise SSDs with a Dell sticker on them are better.
The enterprise stuff is almost always longer lasting, but the only one that truly lasts is (was?) optane. You shouldn't trust an ssd long term, especially modern ones. I've probably seen 100 drive failures in total (hdd and ssd) and covid era ssds are garbage for longevity. The big downside of enterprise ssds (besides price) is performance. You can literally double your speed by buying consumer grade (and it's roughly the same price to buy 2 drives for every 1 enterprise grade).
The article doesn't really support this claim. It argues SSDs sacrifice speed and durability for capacity and cost and then posits an unanswered question about absolute durability with an ongoing test to find out.
I do wish the test had more than $13 TLC drives though.
That's a trade-off I'm fine making, because time is in short supply - a snappier experience using my computer is worth it, and I have everything backup up in three places (Backblaze, 6 Drive RaidZ2 array in my home server, and from there to JottaCloud via Restic).
It does especially when learning from the article, with Argentina's average income, earning an extra device is no small feat:
"An iPhone is not cheap in general, and in Argentina less so. The current price for an iPhone 13 is ca. 400.000 ARS, which roughly translates to 2200 USD or 1300 USD at the unofficial rate (it's complicated). With an average monthly salary of 427 USD (according to Numbeo) you can see that getting a new iPhone is not a choice to take lightly."
What better answer than drawing butts of course, to all of those students who are wondering where they would ever use sin/cos/tan in a real world application.
What a great way to draw in students and encourage them to engage with the material. “25 extra credit points to the first student who submits an algorithm for drawing a butt.”
I make sure the displayed range on the M3 is double for the distance I want to travel.
Winter tires, snow and ice sticking to the car, and -15C are quite normal occurrences here, and range display is pretty consistently half of what to expect.
Does the nav system do a good job of compensating? The "normal" display on the 3 is based on the EPA rating and is always wrong, but when I navigate, I find the trip range thing to be quite accurate -- even factoring in upcoming hills and traffic.
Yes, but you need to use the “energy” app and have nav destination set. The little mi number next to the battery is “miles of ideal range”, so flat 65mph 70 degrees etc.
The energy app shows you live estimates based on distance, elevation, wind speed, temperature, humidity, tire pressure, cabin climate load, and even your phone charger.
The energy app is pretty good, it fits pretty well with my double policy but I don't look at it anymore, since it requires diverting my attention moreso than glancing ant the estimate, and additional tapping to bring it up.
As a rule of thumb I halve the EPA estimate in winter and 2/3-3/4 it in summer.
I have had no range issues doing this for the 130000km + I have owned the vehicle.
Edit: If I'm going to tap, I check the Wh/km, as that is what I'm used to. It was better before they removed it from the swipe, but hey, we gotta fill those sprints somehow.
Worth noting that the range estimates in the navigation has been updated in the last ~6 months to be much more accurate and shockingly close to ABRP[0]. Previously I'd use ABRP to estimate battery usage (and I still do for planning road trips) but I can now trust Tesla's estimates reasonably in the car.
Either you are living in a completely different world or exaggerating the number of transactions by a lot. I do dozens of transaction per day from grocery to digital items to service to bill payment to repair and so much more. I am pretty sure almost no one in that group accepts crypto.
Not the parent, but I think they meant "for purchases under $200 in value I use the lightning network, for larger transactions I do a direct transaction". The $200 was not talking about transaction fees AFAIK.
It currently uses .1% of global energy, instead of all the worlds energy as predicted in 2017. It makes use of stranded energy, off peak energy stabilizing grid production, incentivizes green energy build outs, and with the landfill methane caputure business will soon be the only digital asset that is carbon negative.
What have you heard? That it is a climate disaster and you should stay away?
ie. about between 300 and a million times more energy than VISA/Mastercard when adjusted to the number of transactions. [0]
> It makes use of stranded energy
Miners who mine 24/7, by definition, do not consume stranded energy. There are no numbers whatsoever that can affirm which part of the miners use stranded energy. On the other hand, when one coal mine got flooded in China last year, 33% of the mining power came to a halt. [1]
> off peak energy stabilizing grid production
So much stabilizing it has caused blackouts in several countries [2]. Texas has resorted to pay miners so they don't cause blackouts [3]
> incentivizes green energy build outs
No, it incentivizes cheap electricity sources. Moreover in the topic of climate change the greenest energy is the one you don't consume.
> with the landfill methane caputure business will soon be the only digital asset that is carbon negative
What? Landfill methane business is basically saying "instead of just burning methane, let's burn it and use the heat to power up some BTC mining". At best, that makes the operation carbon neutral.
If you are trolling, I must say, congrats, you triggered me.
Great thing about bitcoin is you don't have to use it at all. It is opt in.
I don't tell you what to do with things you buy that I think are useless.
Those who purchase or generate electricity can do so with it as they wish, it is a free market.
You can post all of the articles you want, the innovaters are outpacing the obstructionists as they have been for millennia, it's nothing new under the sun, and progress marches on.
You came on with claims of how good Bitcoin mining is for the climate. When someone counters your arguments, citing sources? Eh whatever liberty something. So do you believe what you were evangelizing about?
There is no lead paint anymore and no lead in gasoline.
I'm often wondering who is behind those comments. You should be quite aware that there are plenty of counter examples to this 'free market's statement.
And yes there also laws like non smoking to protect others.
Energy can also be shut down for you from the energy ministry if your usage has a risk to the power grid.
About the uselessness point: also not a good point on your side. We all life on one planet. It's absolutely valid to have a discussion like this.
You're going to have to get used to people ignoring you and working around you then.
I don't want to help you understand bitcoin, because I don't want insufferable obstructionists having a say in humanity's future.
What you value is cleary different than what I value and that's fine, but there is nothing you can do to stop me from using my preferred value store, and that is exactly the point.
You would at least be honest in a discussion if you say that you don't care for the climate impact or accept that your arguments in regard of Bitcoin and being green are wrong.
I'm not arguing for people like you who don't care. I argue for everyone who hasn't maid up their minds and want to have real arguments for pro and con.
Without people like me there would be no push back at all and there is active push back.
The power station in NY got much more criticism than it would have gotten otherwise (none).
Very weird your reaction though. Do you'really believe I stop arguing against Bitcoin just because crypto bros don't care for arguments?
> ie. about between 300 and a million times more energy than VISA/Mastercard when adjusted to the number of transactions. [0]
This isn't really an apple to apples comparison. Since Bitcoin is a programmable platform, its possible to scale upwards exponentially with layer 2's (Lightning network), which allows for even more tps. Since transactions wouldn't need to run on the main chain (other than opening and closing channels), the upper bound is much higher.
A real, complete comparison is impossible as the two systems are fundamentally different and too complicated. What I like with that comparison is remains very simple. If you'd scale BTC to the amount of tx operated by VISA/MC, you'd need around 50% of the world electricity, which is clearly more than what Visa takes. Also it's a comparison of the fundamental part of the exchange, i.e. the authority checking for the authorization (visa or the miner).
If we incorporate the lightning network, then we must also take into account the electricity to run the servers for the intermediate exchanges etc. On the other hand, one could also lower the fiat electricity cost by factoring in the cash transactions.
TBH i'd be interested to see a reasonable estimation of the BTC+lightning emission costs per transaction, I'll admit I have no idea how much lightning brings the cost down.
> If you'd scale BTC to the amount of tx operated by VISA/MC, you'd need around 50% of the world electricity
Well, it doesn't make sense to scale the main chain in that sort of way, because you'd be looking at blocks the size of several terabytes in order to fit in global scale transactions. And so running a node would then require you to basically run a data center, which wouldn't make the system decentralized at all.
Electricity for mining is also not directly related to transaction throughput. Mining is the arbitrage of bitcoin price and electricity/mining hardware cost. The system technically does not need more electricity to secure the same amount of transactions. What happens is when bitcoin's price goes up, so does that arbitrage value, giving mining a profit incentive.
> because you'd be looking at blocks the size of several terabytes in order to fit in global scale transactions.
My comparison would rely on running several bitcoin networks in parallel. Of course it does not make sense economically speaking, but it allows for a back of the envelope estimate.
> Electricity for mining is also not directly related to transaction throughput
This is true, but when you look at the C02 consumption (which was the topic of discussion when I first posted, before my OP decided to completely change subject), the mining cost is what you look for.
> My comparison would rely on running several bitcoin networks in parallel. Of course it does not make sense economically speaking, but it allows for a back of the envelope estimate.
Mmmm, I understand you're looking for a convenient way to mathematically equate the two on a per transaction basis for comparison's sake, but its just really difficult. For example, your several bitcoin networks in parallel doesn't really exist, because separate networks running in parallel are not interoperable (Bitcoin vs Litecoin). You lose the utility of network effects, etc.
Its like comparing energy costs of bicycles and ocean freighters, but no amount of bicycles could ever tow freight across an ocean.
Oh yes, you lose a lot of functionalities, but it's not the focus of the computation, simply to estimate, with the current technology, how much it compares to Visa in terms of electricity consumption. To be honest it would maybe make more sense to actually scale Visa down to bitcoin transaction rate, as we can assume more linearity there. The end result is the same though.
> Its like comparing energy costs of bicycles and ocean freighters, but no amount of bicycles could ever tow freight across an ocean.
Quite. However it seems to me its seems unavoidable to do so, since energy efficiency is a big topic these days. Also, while nobody pretends to be able to carry a load across oceans with a bike, it is usually advised to commute by bike rather than a freighter.
In practice people have problems even understanding bitcoins (general speaking and El Salvador specific) and now lightning is the solution while people not even get Bitcoin.
But yes lightning also doesn't work in El Salvador.
> But yes lightning also doesn't work in El Salvador.
Do you have any citations?
I'm running a lightning node on testnet...have had some small issues finding a pathway in the graph to one of my nodes, but then again I'm new to it.
> In practice people have problems even understanding bitcoins (general speaking and El Salvador specific) and now lightning is the solution while people not even get Bitcoin.
Most people don't understand how tcp/ip or dns work, yet they have no problem using applications based on it on a daily basis.
Arte is quite known for its cultural tv and documentaries.
And your statistics is not saying much. Relevant is real life. Take a look at the documentary how people in El Salvador use crypto and not some white dude with too much money waiting for the next big thing.
> And your statistics is not saying much. Relevant is real life.
The statistics are real life: they represent people committing time and resources by hosting nodes and risking their btc to use on a developing, experimental live network.
But what you're doing is the equivalent of looking at early 90's internet, not understanding it, and pronouncing, 'This is stupid, nobody will use this 'Internet' to meet other people. People aren't going to order their pizzas online. Just ask anyone on the street; nobody knows what internet is, and therefore this is a failure.'
You the laborer have the capacity to decide where the value of your labor should be kept.
Whether some think it's leaky, or that it is a melting ice cube or ultrasound money is irrelevant. Despite or with support from opinions of others, it is ultimately you who makes the decision where to store your value.
Only time can say if you've made a good decision, as not one person can predict the future, and likewise you must suffer or enjoy the consequences of your decision.
While we can't predict the future precisely the future isn't completely unknown either. This allows us to say beforehand that some investments are better than others, regardless of what the actual outcome of such investments will be.
It's funny to me that this is such an offensive idea that it needs to be downvoted. It seems pretty straighforward and self evidently true.
The irony is that the whole message is that it doesn't matter if you disagree or disagree, only the quality of the decisions you apply your framework towards. Time will reward those who take time to understand this stuff and punish those who don't. Liking the message is entirely besides the point.
> You the laborer have the capacity to decide where the value of your labor should be kept.
Depends on the laborer. There's no law of nature that grants me the ability to make good financial decisions as an award for my labor. The ability to manage risk is not an ability that gets unlocked once you accumulate enough money to invest. Now, I have to both work hard to make money, and gamble to protect my future.
I have read CD-RWs of approximately the same age with no data loss.
SSDs sacrifice durability of data for io speed