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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • Currently running a ThinkPad x380 with a 8th Gen intel quad core and 16gb of ram. A bit old by modern standards, but on Linux it’s plenty fast and I probably won’t have to upgrade for a decade. And that would only really be if the hardware was either worn out or there is some major upgrade I feel I need. I got it a few years old for $200 (it was a top spec model when new), I can fix most of the problems that might come up with it with used parts for cheap, and when I upgrade I’ll probably get another cheap laptop where running Linux won’t make it feel slow. From experience, if it were running windows it would begin to feel slower a lot sooner than with Linux, and indefinite security upgrades are not guaranteed.


  • I mean, for a phone yeah, but a small, relatively cheap waterproof device with a battery under a watt will probably start having issues at 5 years, more likely much before that. Waterproofing something that small will probably not be easy after replacing the battery, so while you probably will be able to eventually, it probably will be a little more fragile afterwards. I’ve got a fitbit, and I’ve seen the videos of replacing the 0.25 watt battery, would for sure doubt it’s water resistance afterwards, probably easier to replace.











  • Addv4@lemmy.worldtoLinux@lemmy.mlLaptop for Linux use
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    7 months ago

    Dang, you weren’t kidding with the price of a used x220 (I have an x230 that I got for less than I’m currently seeing on ebay a while back, and the only thing that really made me switch to something newer was the screen). Maybe a newer thinkpad or an hp elitebook? I think as long as you have something newer than a 2nd Gen I series chip, there really shouldn’t be an issue if you’re basically just using it for text processing. If you start with models with ddr3 and sata drives you should be able to get very cheap replacement parts for a while yet.





  • But then you’re just having another system for storing energy, which probably isn’t very easy to implement. An easier solution if you don’t want to use grid batteries is just to improve housing insulation and schedule heating/cooling for non peak hours, so that you are just using less energy overall. The problem in my mind is that that would require a lot of renovation on older homes, which is just more expensive and slower than adding grid batteries. Don’t get me wrong, those changes should be mandated for newer housing, but expecting it to be implemented in older housing probably isn’t gonna happen.


  • There are plenty of alternatives for lithium batteries, chiefly sodium and a redox flow. Heating/cooling is good as well to store, but not every structure is energy efficient enough that it would make much sense. Good thing to work towards, but grid batteries would probably be faster and easier to implement. I have reservations towards pumped hydropower, in part due to watching how hard it is to decommission a lot of hydroelectric dams these days in US as well as the cost to create the areas to hold the water (a lot of the areas that are geographically advantageous for pumped hydropower tend to be nature reserves or national parks, soo…).