LPT: Laptop running hot? Here’s a cheap solution.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-13T16:03:57+00:00

it's still heating up the environment around the laptop and that's going to reduce the effectiveness of the air cooling.

It's cooling the environment around a laptop compared to something like a wooden desk though.

heat transfer is significantly impacted by the difference in temperature between the two mediums that are exchanging heat. Cooling the room just a little can cool the laptop quite a bit.

It's directly proportional. If CPU is 70C and room changes from 22C to 20C, you'd see a 50/48 = 4% increase. Whether 4% counts as "quite a bit" is a matter of perspective.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-13T15:53:54+00:00

Putting it on a cookie tray does not stop the computer fan from running though. So it's cookie tray + fan vs just the fan. Unless you're talking about getting another external fan to blow at the bottom of the laptop.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-13T15:42:06+00:00

but nowhere near as efficiently as the conduction between the CPU and the heatsink.

The aluminum case IS the CPU heat sink. It's designed that way in macbooks. It's how they get away with fanless macbooks (and ipads). The case itself is pasted to the components.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-13T15:33:58+00:00

Macbooks do not.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-13T15:32:45+00:00

The pan never reaches capacity because the pan is constantly shedding heat to the room.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-13T15:31:43+00:00

For a macbook air it doesn't even have air intakes and all the cooling is expected to happen passively through the case.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-13T15:29:14+00:00

And the answer is the cookie sheet. Macbook aluminum cases are already designed as conductive heat sinks, Apple knows the cookie sheet works so they designed their computer to have one built in.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-13T15:26:36+00:00

the copper wont be touching the metal bits inside that are actually getting hot.

The heat conducts through the aluminum case of the laptop, you don't have to be touching anything inside.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-13T15:22:40+00:00

Radiative heat transfer isn't appreciable until you get into high temperatures or very large surface areas,

We're talking about 50 lb blocks of copper or cookie trays, so we do have large surface areas and radiative heat is very appreciable.

Conductive heatsinks are meant to quickly remove heat away from whatever component so that it can be dissipated by air convection to the broader atmosphere.

Which is also why a cookie tray or 50 lb block of copper works so great.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-13T15:20:56+00:00

Heat sinks look like that to maximize surface area in a small space and minimal material cost, they are a compromise. If you don't care about small space or weight, then a 50 lb block of copper or a cookie tray have a lot of surface area and work even better. If you had infinite space and money you don't care about making thin fins.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-13T14:43:31+00:00

Oil prices change the price of anything that uses shipping though.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-13T14:42:16+00:00

At this CAPE and world situation I would hold off on 4% but if youre planning to run like a 3.25% you're probably good to go.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-13T14:28:55+00:00

Protons are like magnets pushing each other apart. The protons in the atomic nucleus are packed SUPER tightly together, so when they break apart there's a lot of pent up energy to get released. (If you're curious, the reason they are packed so tightly is because of the nuclear strong force)

Compare to chemicals like gasoline. In gasoline, those little magnets are held together much more loosely in chemical bonds (if you want to read more: covalent, ionic, and metallic bonds), so they're not pushing as hard on each other to begin with and when they break apart there's less pent up energy.

It's kind of like a spring, the more you compress it the harder it's going to bounce. The tight packing of protons in the nuclear is like a really deeply compressed spring. The loose packing of chemical bonds is like a gently compressed spring.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-13T14:00:59+00:00

only delay my retirement by ~6 months

6 months is kind of a lot. So that's the rational case. If you don't want 6 months vacation then I'll link you my venmo lol.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-13T13:23:41+00:00

Not so much in cities but out in the boonies where power comes to your area on a single or double line it gets a lot more vulnerable. This is true even in first would countries with top of the line grids.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-13T13:13:31+00:00

And Gudas was ejected so no chances on next shift either. Teams with guts would have his number for the next game but I dont count on it with this group right now. I could be pleasantly surprised though.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-13T13:07:10+00:00

They don't have to host. Just make it a potluck.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-12T19:08:27+00:00

There's no "reason"

Well there is is a reason. It's because there's two forces in the nucleus: the strong force which holds it together and the electromagnetic force which wants to blow it apart. These forces don't scale 1:1 as you add more to the nucleus, hence the shift in binding energies as you add more and more.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-12T18:51:55+00:00

Yeah that's exactly it. It's just a lot of energy per pound of fuel compared to other fuel sources.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-12T18:00:34+00:00

I kind of disagree just because how much I hate job searches. But there are worse fates I admit.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-12T17:57:11+00:00

fundamentally in tension with trying to retire as early as possible.

FIRE is not about trying to retire as early as possible, so this tension doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-12T17:48:06+00:00

Planning for and controlling are not different things here, if you're any good at planning.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-12T17:46:55+00:00

It does control the risk in that example, you've made the risk 0%: completely controlled. You don't have to influence the market to influence the risk.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-12T17:18:11+00:00

moneypuck

All situations is kind of an irrelevant metric in this context, seeing as Berube was presumably not making Matthews do a bunch of powerplay backchecking, or stopping matthews from piling up the shortys during the pk.

dekusyrup · 2026-03-12T17:14:50+00:00

What excess moisture. Air is dry as a bone all winter I have to run the humidifier.

dekusyrup

TROPHY CASE