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Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

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Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#101

Post by bowmore »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #80
dyauspitr wrote: post #56

Opposition data center is stupid. We need as many data centers as possible. If you actually want to make a difference how about you mandate that they all come with their own solar and battery power packs. When the hell did the left become so regressive?

No one is stopping them from building out their own renewables and if they were doing that while also _fully_ accounting for water usage and any other externalities I don't think there would be much (if any) opposition to them. But that's really expensive so they (by and large) aren't doing that so there's opposition. Seems normal and expected to me.

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Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#102

Post by bowmore »

kennywinker wrote: post #88
dyauspitr wrote: post #56

Opposition data center is stupid. We need as many data centers as possible. If you actually want to make a difference how about you mandate that they all come with their own solar and battery power packs. When the hell did the left become so regressive?

> We need as many data centers as possible Why? So we can destroy as many jobs as possible in as short an amount of time while nuking the environment from orbit and funneling trillions to china for the hardware? The fact that you position anti-ai as a “left” thing means you’re not engaging with this seriously anyway. The environment isn’t a left-right thing. Jobs aren’t a left-right thing.

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Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#103

Post by tptacek »

ajross wrote: post #94
tptacek wrote: post #65

The Erin Brockovich page itself repeats the canard, on the front page, that these sites endanger ecosystems with their water consumption.

I mean, the wastewater issues can be real in some environments. It's not a completely insane idea and like all things can be reasonably discussed and mitigated. It's not like these things have the ecological impact of steel foundries or fruit orchards, but they're not parks either. I do think the tech industry would be wise to do more outreach and less sneering, though. Freakouts about AI (which ultimately is what th…

I don't see it that way at all, but then I'm a housing activist, and I've seen fiercer opposition to a 4-story apartment building than to some of these data centers. People just like opposing development. It's very satisfying!

When I see a protest over a golf course opening, I'll take data center water use concerns seriously.

The data centers the industry wants are all going to get built. People are being hypnotized by concentrated minority interests in specific spots in the country. The only big picture thing about it is the left-populist sideshow it's created.

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#104

Post by rcpt »

jeffbee wrote: post #26
tiffanyh wrote: post #21

Why go through the effort when such work has already been done? https://www.datacentermap.com/datacenters/ Not being negative. But isn’t there existing highly reliable data that already exists for this?

Giving equal weight to real data centers and 1000sqft telco switches on this map is sort of misleading.

Neither have much impact on the local area so equal weight makes sense

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#105

Post by eleventen »

WatchDog wrote: post #66
thiagoperes wrote: post #49

It's poetically beautiful that the tool was very very clearly built mostly if not entirely using AI

It might be, I'm not sure. The code is interesting though, it's not minified, it's very readable, and nicely indented with lots of comments. The curated data center list is just some inline JSON. The javascript uses var instead of let or const, I'm not sure if this is just style choice, or there is some code post processing. It doesn't use react, AI seems to almost always opt for react for front end design, unless to…

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Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#107

Post by rcpt »

ajross wrote: post #94
tptacek wrote: post #65

The Erin Brockovich page itself repeats the canard, on the front page, that these sites endanger ecosystems with their water consumption.

I mean, the wastewater issues can be real in some environments. It's not a completely insane idea and like all things can be reasonably discussed and mitigated. It's not like these things have the ecological impact of steel foundries or fruit orchards, but they're not parks either. I do think the tech industry would be wise to do more outreach and less sneering, though. Freakouts about AI (which ultimately is what th…

> It's not a completely insane idea and like all things can be reasonably discussed

Actually it's a completely insane idea that can't be reasonably discussed.

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#108

Post by jldugger »

october8140 wrote: post #48
AuthAuth wrote: post #43

This datacenter stuff is such populist brainrot.

I take it you don't live next to a data center.

Most of the datacenters in my city are concentrated near the warehouse zoned area by the expressway, railroad and interstate leading to the airport. Basically nobody lives there, and those that do are probably much better off now that the diesel trains no longer running.

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#109

Post by ronsor »

ajross wrote: post #94
tptacek wrote: post #65

The Erin Brockovich page itself repeats the canard, on the front page, that these sites endanger ecosystems with their water consumption.

I mean, the wastewater issues can be real in some environments. It's not a completely insane idea and like all things can be reasonably discussed and mitigated. It's not like these things have the ecological impact of steel foundries or fruit orchards, but they're not parks either. I do think the tech industry would be wise to do more outreach and less sneering, though. Freakouts about AI (which ultimately is what th…

> I do think the tech industry would be wise to do more outreach and less sneering, though. Freakouts about AI (which ultimately is what this is) aren't "rational" but they're eminently "reasonable".

A lot of the "sneering" I see from everyone who isn't an investor or an executive is a consequence of resistance to outreach. It's very difficult to discuss subjects with people when many now interpret factual explanations as propaganda and reassurance as manipulation.

By the way, plenty of people feared electricity a great deal (and it wasn't exactly implemented safely when it was new). In the 90s, many people also thought the Internet was a temporary fad, a mere novelty that would fade in some years.

Re: Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

#110

Post by rcpt »

testfoobar wrote: post #91
ralph84 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big Tech isn't exactly doing a great job of marketing them. Saying they're for AI while doing mass layoffs attributed to AI isn't a winning message.

Any individual layoff is truly awful. But at the macro level, it is not really a big number so far. From ~2.48 million in 2023 to ~2.37million now. Or a 5% drop in employment in 3 years. Fred: All Employees, Computer Systems Design and Related Services (CES6054150001) https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ces6054150001

Not much layoffs and they're probably due to the Trump #1 tax hikes on engineering anyway. But you can't say that without getting tariffed. Saying you're using AI is a much safer bet
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