You're not wrong. It is not by some rational calculus that these desires are expressed. I should note that I don't ever actually buy any Power Challenge XLs or anything, just that I bid on them (to lose). Working on The Big Iron at HEP back in the day was really fun, and the fact that an 11" MBA is considerably faster than the 12 processor R8000 SGI box used for simulation work in 1995, while amazing, is sort of sad to me. Fast computers should be BIG COMPUTERS.

But I'm a greybeard; this is well-established.

You might be surprised: my Amiga 4000T with a 68060 processor, and full complement of cards (graphics, network, sound) has no fans other than the case fan - all running off a very modest (by current standards) power supply: because there's very little heat generated.

And while I'm missing many of my favorite modern apps, for many tasks the productivity is still unequalled: near-instant bootup, hugely responsive, and a beautiful elegant operating system.

It was more about the parent's post SGI nostalgia.

It's all nice, but my machine's power adapter is 60W. That's its maximal theoretical output. (okay, with 90% efficiency that's 67W). It typically uses 20W to 40W depending on the load.

Plus, it auto-sleeps. Then it consumes just about 1W. Talk about efficiency.

Slippery slope. That would make it an even worse offense to buy a new computer or even technological gadget. I'd wager a guess that every developer who's doing scripting development doesn't really need a multi-core machine at home (not counting the final server). So the reasons for not just using an old AMD 1.4 Ghz Athlon computer from 10 years ago are quite fishy.

Transport costs for an Octane aren't that high, and considering the time you're running it and the increased power hunger of contemporary machines means that your average yearly carbon footprint is the equivalent of one tween doing a single WoW raid (or heck, waiting for said event).