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Show HN: Visualizing website carbon footprints using steam and robotics [video] (vimeo.com)

37 points by G_S ↗ HN
We built a robotic plotter that creates ephemeral visualizations of website carbon footprints using water vapor on glass. It analyzes website energy data and translates it into misty patterns, making the invisible impact of digital infrastructure visible.

Built during a residency at a cultural venue in Belgium. Code and build details here : https://gitlab.constantvzw.org/gijs/carbon-aware/-/tree/main....

12 comments

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[dead] iandanforth
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0_____0
This is classic "middlebrow dismissal."
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SiempreViernes
What I imagined from the provided description was definitely at least two steps cooler than the actual "a pen plotter writing on horizontal glass" solution, though I guess it's better to have a prototype in hand than 1500 sketches in the cloud.

Hope you get the resources to build a wall mounted version with a less intrusive drawing mechanism!

roadbuster
What is the meaning of an "ephemeral visualization" of a carbon footprint when releasing carbon into the atmosphere is rarely ephemeral?

Carbon release is a very important problem, but I can't connect with this art project at all.

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SiempreViernes
I guess because it is very hard to actually see the carbon being released? The classical picture is of a smoke stack, where the emissions are obvious at the tip of the stack but then rapidly disappear.
NegativeLatency
Neat but I wouldn’t call that steam.

Might be cool to see if you can write from the back so the axes don’t block the display plate.

G_S
Thanks, yes that's what's planned for the next iteration, directly mounted on a glass wall :)
bgirard
I was expecting something like either 1) a self powered web server where the produced carbon is captured or 2) where the server looks up where it's power is coming from in real time and then computes the carbon generated and then add that carbon to a bottle that fills up with CO2 over time as more requests are processed.