Good use for hot laptops: Hand warmer on cold mornings
misc, posted: 28-May-2008 09:23
Especially after clear nights, the mornings now have a decidedly wintery chill about them. I start work quite early in my home office, around 5 am, so the room is often very cold. While I can wear a sweater to keep myself warm, I can't really wear gloves, lest typing becomes close to impossible. So, there I am sitting in the morning, hardly able to type with my cold fingers.
But no dispair: My Dell Latitude D820 laptop can serve as a wonderful hand-heater! I run a little CPU temperature monitoring applet, and it tells me that the temperature of the thing is currently around 50 degrees celcius. Do something a bit more CPU intensive, and it can go up to 70 degrees. Being a laptop, the CPU of course is never far from the keys I am typing on. Therefore, I can simply lay my hands flat over the keyboard to get them nice and tosty warm.
So, I'm just glad I never got into the habit of using an external USB keyboard for my laptop, but instead always use its actual built-in keyboard. This way all the otherwise wasted heat generated by the CPU is at least put to some good use.
But sometimes I'm not typing, but mostly navigating around with the mouse. Hm. How about a co-processor located in the mouse, to ensure warm hands even in those situations?
Other related posts:
More Apple madness (follow up)
The GPU, your personal desktop super computer
A truly light-weight OS: Written in ASM, with GUI, networking and apps
But no dispair: My Dell Latitude D820 laptop can serve as a wonderful hand-heater! I run a little CPU temperature monitoring applet, and it tells me that the temperature of the thing is currently around 50 degrees celcius. Do something a bit more CPU intensive, and it can go up to 70 degrees. Being a laptop, the CPU of course is never far from the keys I am typing on. Therefore, I can simply lay my hands flat over the keyboard to get them nice and tosty warm.
So, I'm just glad I never got into the habit of using an external USB keyboard for my laptop, but instead always use its actual built-in keyboard. This way all the otherwise wasted heat generated by the CPU is at least put to some good use.
But sometimes I'm not typing, but mostly navigating around with the mouse. Hm. How about a co-processor located in the mouse, to ensure warm hands even in those situations?
Other related posts:
More Apple madness (follow up)
The GPU, your personal desktop super computer
A truly light-weight OS: Written in ASM, with GUI, networking and apps
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Comment by Yash, on 29-May-2008 14:51
You should try those USB heated gloves. I have a Dell Inspiron 9300 but its got a constantly running CPU fan so the keyboard doesnt even get near warm. All the same its a nice idea. The extreme ends of the fingers do freeze in the early mornings on a computer. I can certainly vouch for that.
Comment by Rosver, on 29-May-2008 15:21
Why! That is creative. I live in the tropics so it didn't get too cold in here. i hope there is one that turns cold :P. But still whaty you had tought of is verry resourceful and creative.
Comment by Westynz, on 28-May-2008 10:48
How about using fingerless gloves?? ;-)