This but just the Microsoft logo lol
“Since Microsoft dropped its DEI initiatives, it’s good actually!”
I’ve heard it said that the austrian school/anarcho capitalism is the anti Vax/flat earth of economics
During the 1986-1992 California drought, we were informed in the San Francisco Bay Area region that water service prices were going to go up unless we conserved strictly.
They said this to a bunch of California hippies, on account that we were in California.
So we way got on board. We stopped flushing. Any water that was rendered non-potable we’d repurpose for watering plants or filter it for second use. Japanese naval baths (weird tiny bowl seats and a sponge, used in the Imperial Navy, WWII) got popular so people were keeping clean via a tenth of normal water usage.
We conserved too much according to the water department and they raised prices anyway.
This sparked some investigations (by journalists, since investigative journalism was still a thing then) and found that agriculture got water for much cheaper, and was still using it once before flushing it (now laced with pesticides) out into the sea. Needless to say, we conservationist hippies were livid.
It’s still a problem, as the utility companies routinely lobby our congress and governor (and Newsom may know how to be a California liberal, but he’s still a Dianne-Feinstein-style ( / Nancy-Pelosi style) money-grubbing neoliberal. He just has game, especially when opposed to far right idiots. The setup in Monster’s Inc (power crisis in a city where scream is the principal power source) was inspired by the Enron fraud affair leading to rolling blackouts and Texas siphoning off California’s general fund. And our governments from Schwarzenegger (who I will never forgive) to Newsom are in the pocket of PG&E. (I’m on SMUD now and my bill is conspicuously less.)
Also, according to Climate Town, the Sauds own a lot of California farmland, where they grow alfalfa to import to the mid-east to feed their cows. Alfalfa crops are one of the most water hungry, and is one of the big ways beef is driving the climate crisis (and towards a massive food shortage and global famine!) and the water tables, to which they have access and first-tap rights, gets lower every year. 🕙
So I suspect that the Texas AI centers are getting water at a cheaper rate than private homes. Maybe it’s something to get active about.
So the people should build a giant warehouse that uses a bazillion gallons of water that feeds into the warehouse and in the same pipe back to the water system, get wholesale rates and charge consumers the cheaper rate!
Same pipe, just make sure it goes into the warehouse so you can charge people for what leaves.
You want to trust the water a data center with zero regulations is regurgitating?
No, I want the people to buy a warehouse, have the utility run pipe into the building and back out to the water supply, have the warehouse pay wholesale rates and resell it to the people at wholesale after its half second journey through the detour pipe in the warehouse.
Don’t hold your breath on that.
I hate how datacenters get blamed for issues that are clearly caused more by shitty outdoor farms than cooling towers
deleted by creator
elon is currrently using the aquifer drinking water under memphis to cool grok. he’s also powering it with generators and smogging out the city.
please do not use grok.
I don’t care, nothing will come inbetween me and my boi, mecha hitler!
/j if that wasn’t obvious
Yes, Texas did vote for that. Haha, Red states suffering is funny.
Yes, Texas did vote for that.
They owned the
libsthemselves…They owned the themselves
Whether or not they did we all exist under the same atmosphere.
Texan here: we barely get to vote on shit at all. And they’re gerrymandering to make it even harder.
I’d call Texas a clown car but it’s too big to qualify.
The estimate of the majority Democrats would need to retake the Senate is something like 70/30, based on the degree of gerrymandering.
And the math just gets worse every time maps are redrawn.
How strong is Fair Maps Texas? Assuming it’s sincere in its effort to redistrict Texas fairly, Maybe they need more
brickthrowerssaboteurssign wavers and clerical volunteers.
After Civil War 2, Texas and parts of Mexico would end it with a treaty as a single independent country with their own shit stains to live with.
@grok this true?
incomprehensible text about being mechahitler
Grok: “Antisemetic, communist bankers are being stingy with public water.”
Why the fuck do they alway pick the driest places to use the most water. Fucking morons
I always rant about tech moving to Austin.
They need low heat, reliable power, cheap / fast internet, and an abundance of water.
Texas is literally none of those things.
There’s only one obvious answer to that question in a capitalism world. Because it’s cheaper than other places. Why is it cheaper for the corporations in the driest places where common people need to stop using showers is also obvious.
Less regulations also
Because that usually means it’s hot and sunny so things grow well if you can get water to it.
It’s easier to get water places than make it warmer or sunnier in the optimal water place.
Edit: sorry this was me thinking about the alfalfa sprout comment above. Makes zero fucking sense for IT.
So not only are Corporations… People
Now they are more important people than regular citizens?
Under capitalism they always were. Just take a close look at exactly who the “Founding Fathers” were.
Why aren’t they building these things underground or repurposing old mines in areas where geothermal is plentiful for power and aquifers are stable, instead of in water-poor, temperature extreme places like Texas and KY? …Oh right, poverty and red voters. Better to exploit and damage then have some upfront cost and long-term stability. I forget.
Building anything like this is seen as a jobs creator. Data center companies then pass the proposal around to municipalities and ask them who want jobs. These places then bend over backwards to offer tax incentives, fast permitting, etc. with no regard to whether their location can actually support the building.
So of course they get built in the most corrupt places.
Don’t feed the people but we feed the machines
My country is int he middle of a data center boom, fuelled by the usual royal and political, uh, inputs. We also have seasonal droughts, which often result in water rationing and angry people upset at the mismanagement of our resources. Wonder which will give way first.
You should complain whenever million gallons of water are wasted by corporations seeking profits or by governments for their shady operations. Not just when it’s about AI.
Talk about dystopian headlines
A boring one
Oh, and THEN, the AI will ask you to go take a shower if you’re feeling dry, dirty or thirsty. I mean after telling you why taking a shower is good, why people take showers, which celebrities took showers the past week and asks if you want to ads taking a shower to next week’s reminders.
Actual interesting question:
How much energy and resources would we save by simply slowing down AI response time? A lot of the time you get an instant response from an LLM, and sure, it looks impressive, but most of the time you don’t need it that urgently.
The majority of energy consumed is for training the AI models, not providing output from those models.
This means the resource consumption is not tied to usage and prompts. Also it means resource consumption to train models is temporary, relative to the model.
Oh ok. So they’ll put the water back once the models are trained?
That is how water use works, yes. The water goes back into the environment and is later reused.
Also, there’s a good chance the AIs are not being trained in the same facilities that they’re later being run in. Different sorts of work is being done.
Not necessarily. Some ground water is ancient “fossil water” and won’t replenish. At least not before a very long time.
I disagree. I think the biggest consumers of AI currently use it for work, and depending on the type of work I think very fast ai == more customers.
