• Katie Cunningham (unregistered)

    At my old office, when my hands got cold, I'd load up Photoshop and start doing batch edits on my photos directory. Worked like a charm.

  • Katie Cunningham (unregistered) in reply to PiisAWheeL

    I actually made fingerless gloves when things got super-bad, but they do impact your typing speed. That gets annoying after a few days.

  • AGray (unregistered) in reply to Rootbeer
    Rootbeer:
    As an American taxpayer, I'd like to say "Thanks, asshole, for finding a way to use a $1000 computer as a $20 space heater instead of just buying a fucking $20 space heater."

    This. Also, Brain instead of Brian? :(

    CAPTCHA: conventio - Italian for convention.

  • (cs) in reply to Anketam
    Anketam:
    Gloves + Keyboard does not work. Put on some well insulated gloves and try to post a response on this thread.

    iuo dfonm;'tr saere trhe porobnlenm

  • Jack (unregistered)

    Where I work, building managers seem to be obsessed with air conditioning. As in, the room temperature is down to 66 but the chiller is still blasting a high speed breeze of cold air on everyone. They generously put a vent right over each desk so you can't avoid it. I tried taping cardboard over mine; safety officer made me take it down. I wear a heavy jacket, ski mask, and gloves -- in the summer. Not exaggerating. Sometimes I even have to step outside for 10 minutes or so to warm up. You can imagine how that helps productivity.

    Years of complaints to everyone imaginable have had absolutely no effect. Not even when the governor of the state put up a "suggestion box" web site to help cut costs.

    Yeah, that's right, it is a tax funded facility. And we all know taxpayers are a sustainable resource made out of unlimited money so why not waste it as fast as possible?

    I can sorta understand a place that is too cold because they want to save money, but too cold and wasting money? WTF?

  • Katie Cunningham (unregistered) in reply to RandomUser423717

    Seconded.

    We got yelled at for running folding@home, even after we proved that it wasn't a virus, and wasn't causing anyone any harm. I couldn't even get them to agree to SETI@home, and our agency works with them!

  • (cs) in reply to pinko
    pinko:
    In my country the law says that if the workplace for light / office work is cooler than 18C (~64F), the employees are allowed to stop working (and it's still paid time) ater notifying their superior. Notifying the appropriate government agency is also recommended.
    That wouldn't work in this case, as the U.S. government routinely exempts itself from laws it passes.
  • Jack (unregistered)

    Oh, and I forgot to mention, space heaters (in the summer, mind you) are of course banned, so a bunch of us bought these lovely air purifiers which just happen to put out a substantial amount of heat... which only makes the AC work harder but F 'em if they won't listen.

  • (cs) in reply to sprezzatura
    sprezzatura:
    I don't see how this would increase the temperature. Isn't the OS is in a perpetual loop anyway waiting for interrupts? Just because it doesn't show up in the Task Manager Performance graph (or whatever OS you use), doesn't mean it isn't looping.

    x86, as well as pretty much every other CPU architecture, has a "halt" instruction that will stop execution until the next interrupt. An OS should use it whenever all threads are idle.

  • anon (unregistered)

    Prime95 can load all cores to 100% and verify hardware integrity. Why reinvent the heater um I mean wheel....

  • FishBasketGordo (unregistered) in reply to XXXXX

    Core body temperature isn't the issue. Try typing with gloves on.

  • (cs) in reply to sprezzatura
    sprezzatura:
    I don't see how this would increase the temperature. Isn't the OS is in a perpetual loop anyway waiting for interrupts? Just because it doesn't show up in the Task Manager Performance graph (or whatever OS you use), doesn't mean it isn't looping.

    Nope..

    I once had a PSU vent the 'magic smoke' due to a compile of a new Perl version for a software upgrade. The server had worked fine until then, but load had been small enough that the PSU was not taxed, the compile of the Perl executable on the other hand...

    So yes, specifically giving the CPU something to do does indeed increase the power consumtption of the system => Heat...

    Yours Yazeran.

    Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer

  • Kasper (unregistered)

    TRWTF is measuring temperature in non-standard units.

  • Harrow (unregistered) in reply to pinko
    pinko:
    In my country the law says that if the workplace for light / office work is cooler than 18C (~64F), the employees are allowed to stop working (and it's still paid time) ater notifying their superior. Notifying the appropriate government agency is also recommended.
    Unfortunately the "appropriate government agency" is where Brian works.

    -Harrow.

  • (cs) in reply to Katie Cunningham
    Katie Cunningham:
    Seconded.

    We got yelled at for running folding@home, even after we proved that it wasn't a virus, and wasn't causing anyone any harm. I couldn't even get them to agree to SETI@home, and our agency works with them!

    He.

    Reminds me of the time when I found that one of our core servers had 4 CPU's sitting arround doing almost nothing and started running SETI@home on all of them. I specifically ran all the instances at nice -19 so that any real work would get priority, however after a few months, the sysadmins stopped me saying that it did not look good on their survaliance systems having that server show up with 100% CPU load....
    Did give me a good ranking for a while though...

    Yazeran

    Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer

  • (cs) in reply to Yazeran
    Yazeran:
    sprezzatura:
    I don't see how this would increase the temperature. Isn't the OS is in a perpetual loop anyway waiting for interrupts? Just because it doesn't show up in the Task Manager Performance graph (or whatever OS you use), doesn't mean it isn't looping.

    Nope..

    I once had a PSU vent the 'magic smoke' due to a compile of a new Perl version for a software upgrade. The server had worked fine until then, but load had been small enough that the PSU was not taxed, the compile of the Perl executable on the other hand...

    So yes, specifically giving the CPU something to do does indeed increase the power consumtption of the system => Heat...

    Yours Yazeran.

    Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer

    Ya, you can't put that magic smoke back in once you let it out. But on a positive note, you learned that it had a weak psu before it was doing something important.

  • PRMan (unregistered) in reply to sprezzatura
    sprezzatura:
    I don't see how this would increase the temperature. Isn't the OS is in a perpetual loop anyway waiting for interrupts? Just because it doesn't show up in the Task Manager Performance graph (or whatever OS you use), doesn't mean it isn't looping.

    Another solution would be to wire up the heat to another (hidden) thermostat, and let the 'main' one become a decoy.

    Most CPUs now reduce the voltage when not "doing something". This keeps them "doing something" and keeps the voltage at full the whole time they are running. They should have been reading and writing a file the whole time, too. Keep those hard drives spinning...

  • (cs) in reply to PRMan
    PRMan:
    sprezzatura:
    I don't see how this would increase the temperature. Isn't the OS is in a perpetual loop anyway waiting for interrupts? Just because it doesn't show up in the Task Manager Performance graph (or whatever OS you use), doesn't mean it isn't looping.

    Another solution would be to wire up the heat to another (hidden) thermostat, and let the 'main' one become a decoy.

    Most CPUs now reduce the voltage when not "doing something". This keeps them "doing something" and keeps the voltage at full the whole time they are running. They should have been reading and writing a file the whole time, too. Keep those hard drives spinning...

    You are a genius... Constant Background Defragging would generate the most heat, from the cpu, the hard drives, and the psu. If it was running windows, you would also generate extra heat from the ram.

    Hard drive gets organized as part of the "heating" system. Its genius.

    +1

  • (cs) in reply to trtrwtf
    trtrwtf:
    Chip:
    A far simpler solution would have been to tape icepacks to the thermostats.

    Yeah, but where are you going to find ice in Alaska?

    Better to kill a grizzly bear and crawl into its still-warm carcass.

    And I thought they smelled bad on the outside...

  • satoshi (unregistered)

    Ah, i love to remember the days before bitcoin mining..

  • PRMan (unregistered)

    I used to work in a room where the fat CFO would come down the hall and crank the AC because his office was colder than ours. He would always shove it as far as it would go, because, like most people, he didn't understand how AC works.

    Also, in the winter he would try to save money by not running the heat. But then everyone had space heaters under their desks making it 10X more expensive to get the same amount of heat.

    I solved the problem with a single piece of paper. I just folded it 7 times over and then opened the ancient Honeywell thermostat and shoved the wad in there to the left of the slider. At that point, it couldn't move farther left than 72°F. That worked great for almost a year until he finally opened it. Once he opened it, he looked at us accusingly, but I told him that he was the one that told maintenance to be sure nobody could set it lower than 72°F (which was true).

    Finally one day, I told him to set the heat at 72° in the offices and see what happened. The next month, the electric bill was down 20%.

  • (cs) in reply to Anketam
    Anketam:
    As for the comment about wearing heavier clothes... Gloves + Keyboard does not work. Put on some well insulated gloves and try to post a response on this thread.
    oikayt, niow what6?
  • (cs) in reply to lanmind
    lanmind:
    And I thought they smelled bad on the outside...
    [image]

    (not fucking spam, akismet)

  • (cs) in reply to Chip
    Chip:
    A far simpler solution would have been to tape icepacks to the thermostats.
    I used to work in a HW/SW lab, which also has a locked box over the thermostat.

    One day the lab was too cold for one guy. So, he took a can of cold spray and shot the thermostat. The cold spray is normally used to test for temperature sensitivity in rugged PCBs, and other things.

    The thermostat froze right up, and so lab became very hot, and stayed that way for a looooong time. Not sure why we didn't ram a soldering iron in there...

    Now that I think of it, maybe that could be the plot of ... ummm... a certain kind of movie.

  • (cs) in reply to Zylon
    Zylon:
    lanmind:
    And I thought they smelled bad on the outside...
    [image]

    (not fucking spam, akismet)

    +1

  • Spewin Coffee (unregistered)

    I do this with a command-line PHP script. Interestingly it is named 'heater.php'.

    <?php while (1) {} ?>

    Useful during winter, spring, AND summer. The building's heating system is the heat from two very expensive pieces of equipment. And that doesn't work very well. The A/C works too well and is constantly on during the summer since the thermostats are basically broken. So, the company can afford the big expensive hardware but can't afford a $10 thermostat. Thus the programmers resort to writing programs that control the heat by wasting tons of electricity.

  • (cs) in reply to myName
    myName:
    Isn't it great to live in a country where workers don't have rights. USA! USA! USA!
    What country are you talking about? It's confusing that they use the same abbreviation as the United States of America. Oh wait, you're trolling. Never mind, no one could be that stupid.
  • (cs) in reply to Rootbeer
    Rootbeer:
    As an American taxpayer, I'd like to say "Thanks, asshole, for finding a way to use a $1000 computer as a $20 space heater instead of just buying a fucking $20 space heater."

    First, this is the government. They are likely not allowed to bring in their own equipment, so the must requisition them through the normal channels.

    Since that must go through GSA (the internal monopoply supplying agency that was to "save money", but wastes it left and right), the $20 heater costs $110.

    Then you have the 5 people that must approve and process the orders, the paperwork costs, etc. etc. etc.

    I think he ends up saving money in the long run.

  • Edward Royce (unregistered) in reply to XXXXX
    XXXXX:
    In the future, mankind will develop ways to spin and weave wool from sheep into torso-shaped wrappings. These wrappings (I'll call them sweaters) will insulate jackasses. Others will build on this innovation with hand-shaped wrappings (call them gloves). At such a time, jackasses who whine about the thermostat can regulate their own bodies' temperatures.

    Until then, this seems like a reasonable substitute.

    Do you cut the fingers off the gloves there Bob Cratchit?

  • M (unregistered) in reply to Pero Perić
    Pero Perić:
    55 °F is ~13 °C

    Not really cold...

    I imagine it is only 55 at the thermostat. Thermostats often seem to be (conveniently?) located near a large vent, which means pretty much everywhere else is guaranteed to be colder.

  • JamesH (unregistered) in reply to trtrwtf

    That would require them to have requirement documents.

  • ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL (unregistered) in reply to Kasper
    Kasper:
    TRWTF is measuring temperature in non-standard units.
    Absolutely, we should only use the Kelvin scale.
  • ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL (unregistered) in reply to @Deprecated
    @Deprecated:
    Now that I think of it, maybe that could be the plot of ... ummm... a certain kind of movie.
    Number Fifty-Five IS ALIVE!
  • Zost (unregistered) in reply to Anketam

    Saeer,m I cvaN CXOMM,ENT JUSAT FINME WIOTHJ GLOVCEWS ON.

  • C-Derb (unregistered)

    I used to work in a small office building with the world's least efficient glass windows lining the entire outer wall of the office space, most of which faced south. Even though we had blinds on all the windows, any sunny day in the (Utah) winter time, the low sun would just absolutely bake our offices, with the thermostat reading between 84°-89° F.

    It took a couple of calls to the building manager and the power company to finally figure out why the AC was not working. Turns out, there was a regulator on the AC unit outside that prevented the AC from turning on if the outside temperature was lower than 50°F.

    Totally makes sense, I guess. Except for the inefficient windows that could not be opened. So, we had the regulator removed and ran the AC many days when it was sunny but below freezing outside.

  • (cs) in reply to badman
    badman:
    Personally, and from personal experience, I would have just modified the thermostat to read whatever the boss wanted to see. However it would be set to "comfortable" and not changeable from the outside controls.

    At this point, I'd be tempted to become BOFH and modifying the bureocrats' heaters.

  • Kasper (unregistered) in reply to ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL
    ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL:
    Kasper:
    TRWTF is measuring temperature in non-standard units.
    Absolutely, we should only use the Kelvin scale.
    Yes. If the article had said 55K I would almost instinctively know that was pretty darn cold. If it said 55°C I could convert that to 328K in my head and realize that would be too hot for me to want to stay in that room for a long time. But when it says 55°F I start thinking, what is the formula again, and is that closer to 55°C or to 55K then thinking it is closer to 55°C, which is not so bad but maybe a tad hot, or is it?
  • Sannois (unregistered) in reply to Anketam

    CXhALLWEN GE A<XCCEPTED! RTwo pairs of gloves <ads i CAN STRILÖL MA<KE MYSAELFD UNDERSTOODS CVIOA KEYBV OAD. Fuirthwermore itr myt firm bweliqef thaqt wreiting VB cxode ias vcadstlyt im peroved usionfg rthgis merthods.

    SAolvcingf casptchaqs arwe n ort, ghowever.

  • trtrwtf (unregistered) in reply to Kasper
    Kasper:
    ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL:
    Kasper:
    TRWTF is measuring temperature in non-standard units.
    Absolutely, we should only use the Kelvin scale.
    Yes. If the article had said 55K I would almost instinctively know that was pretty darn cold. If it said 55°C I could convert that to 328K in my head and realize that would be too hot for me to want to stay in that room for a long time. But when it says 55°F I start thinking, what is the formula again, and is that closer to 55°C or to 55K then thinking it is closer to 55°C, which is not so bad but maybe a tad hot, or is it?

    TRTRWTF is people who can't convert liquid-water temperatures from one of the two commonly-used scales to the other. Come on, you don't need that much precision here. don't worry about 9/5, just use 2.

  • csdx (unregistered) in reply to Sannois

    So that's how you type with boxing gloves on.

  • Orv (unregistered)

    I did something very much like that when the heating system in our office building broke in mid-winter, and it took three days to fix it.

  • Nagesh (unregistered) in reply to trtrwtf
    trtrwtf:
    Kasper:
    ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL:
    Kasper:
    TRWTF is measuring temperature in non-standard units.
    Absolutely, we should only use the Kelvin scale.
    Yes. If the article had said 55K I would almost instinctively know that was pretty darn cold. If it said 55°C I could convert that to 328K in my head and realize that would be too hot for me to want to stay in that room for a long time. But when it says 55°F I start thinking, what is the formula again, and is that closer to 55°C or to 55K then thinking it is closer to 55°C, which is not so bad but maybe a tad hot, or is it?

    TRTRWTF is people who can't convert liquid-water temperatures from one of the two commonly-used scales to the other. Come on, you don't need that much precision here. don't worry about 9/5, just use 2.

    We ain't being ignorent of liniar interpolation as being taught in university:

    [0, 100] -> [32, 212]

    Also easy remembering Fahrenheit is human body closing to 100F and frieze of water is 2^5. ([0, 37] -> [32, 100])

  • s73v3r (unregistered) in reply to XXXXX
    XXXXX:
    In the future, mankind will develop ways to spin and weave wool from sheep into torso-shaped wrappings. These wrappings (I'll call them sweaters) will insulate jackasses. Others will build on this innovation with hand-shaped wrappings (call them gloves). At such a time, jackasses who whine about the thermostat can regulate their own bodies' temperatures.

    Until then, this seems like a reasonable substitute.

    Seriously? Go fuck yourself. I shouldn't have to bundle up like I'm going to Alaska just to feel relatively comfortable at my INDOOR job.

  • s73v3r (unregistered) in reply to Someone
    Someone:
    My Suggestion: Use multiple threads, so that every core of a multi-core CPU is used. At best start as many threads as you have cpu cores.

    I'm guessing that a place that doesn't see the value in not having it's developers freeze to death wouldn't see the value in multiple core CPUs

  • s73v3r (unregistered) in reply to Rootbeer
    Rootbeer:
    As an American taxpayer, I'd like to say "Thanks, asshole, for finding a way to use a $1000 computer as a $20 space heater instead of just buying a fucking $20 space heater."

    As an American taxpayer, shouldn't you be bitching more that people are complaining about government costs so much that someone thinks its a good idea to not provide heat to an office in Alaska?

  • s73v3r (unregistered) in reply to operagost
    operagost:
    myName:
    Isn't it great to live in a country where workers don't have rights. USA! USA! USA!
    What country are you talking about? It's confusing that they use the same abbreviation as the United States of America. Oh wait, you're trolling. Never mind, no one could be that stupid.

    Compared to any other country in the first world, no he's not. Sure, you could say we have more rights than Nagesh's country, but is that really what we want to judge ourselves by? That we're slightly better than a shithole 3rd world country?

  • Nagesh (unregistered) in reply to s73v3r
    s73v3r:
    operagost:
    myName:
    Isn't it great to live in a country where workers don't have rights. USA! USA! USA!
    What country are you talking about? It's confusing that they use the same abbreviation as the United States of America. Oh wait, you're trolling. Never mind, no one could be that stupid.

    Compared to any other country in the first world, no he's not. Sure, you could say we have more rights than Nagesh's country, but is that really what we want to judge ourselves by? That we're slightly better than a shithole 3rd world country?

    In my country, ain't person except for untouchable that have labour rights.

  • Mike (unregistered) in reply to C-Derb

    I worked for a few years in a "temporary" office trailer outside a manufacturing plant somewhere north of Los Angeles... and farther north than whatever you thought after that. Anyhow, one bright frigid winter day I had my office blinds open to enjoy the solar heating on my back. Left them open, went home for the night. The next morning it was about 20° (F) out, I came in late due to icy roads. My colleagues were already in by the time I got to work, and boy were they pissed.

    Turns out the rising sun shone right down my south-facing window to the thermostat situated on the opposite corner of the room, which of course meant it was time to cool things off. Imagine arriving at 7am on a freezing cold morning to find the air conditioning going at full blast. No wonder they were pissed.

    Captcha: saluto (a little tiny salute)

  • (cs) in reply to PiisAWheeL
    PiisAWheeL:
    Yazeran:
    sprezzatura:
    I don't see how this would increase the temperature. Isn't the OS is in a perpetual loop anyway waiting for interrupts? Just because it doesn't show up in the Task Manager Performance graph (or whatever OS you use), doesn't mean it isn't looping.

    Nope..

    I once had a PSU vent the 'magic smoke' due to a compile of a new Perl version for a software upgrade. The server had worked fine until then, but load had been small enough that the PSU was not taxed, the compile of the Perl executable on the other hand...

    So yes, specifically giving the CPU something to do does indeed increase the power consumtption of the system => Heat...

    Yours Yazeran.

    Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer

    Ya, you can't put that magic smoke back in once you let it out. But on a positive note, you learned that it had a weak psu before it was doing something important.

    Yep, and more importantly I was there to pull the plug before the darn thing caught fire..... (not something you want at all in a lab with a supply system for compressed H2, CO, CH4 and O2 , we do have gas detectors, but still.....)

    Yazeran

    Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer

  • Slicerwizard (unregistered) in reply to PiisAWheeL
    PiisAWheeL:
    You are a genius... Constant Background Defragging would generate the most heat, from the cpu, the hard drives, and the psu. If it was running windows, you would also generate extra heat from the ram.

    Hard drive gets organized as part of the "heating" system. Its genius.

    +1

    You're an idiot. Defragging is an I/O intensive operation - you'd barely warm up a single core.

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