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A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

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Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

#301

Can it be both? Trying to think of a data centre themed expedition now where you go visit the robots and interact with the machines

You know, you joke (I think?) but data center companies could genuinely at least open up for tours to try to appeal to the public, if public approval is apparently such a concern. It's funny that they haven't done it at all yet. Think nuclear power plants in the 60s or 70s, many of them were open for tours or school field trips or such to try to make them more appealing to the populace around them. I haven't heard of…

In the Netherlands I visited a nuclear reactor in middle/highschool. Literally something that left such an impression that I still talk about two decades later.

Letting kids into places where science and technology happens has such an impact. We should really enable that as much as we can.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactor_Institute_Delft

Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

#302

Today the Sagrada Familia, now the tallest church in the world, was inaugurated in Spain, 100 years after the death of its architect Gaudì. Can you imagine the number of H100s we could have put in there if this was Texas?

We can right these wrongs. Vertical cooling seems feasible. A Google Maps 3D tour of the interior would be much more accessible. You’re not anti-accessibility, right? This is a moral imperative. Thank you for pointing this out.

Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

#303

It's exhausting that the "solution" to problems like this is getting tens or hundreds of thousands of citizens stressed until enough public attention gives some small chance of redress. I'm not calling for violence, but if we can't get these things fixed in court there has to be a more effect and more forceful avenue for protest than venting on internet forums.

I saw a clip the other day of an American comedian doing crowd work in Paris. He asked the audience what America should do, and the French said - something like - they should punch the police more and light things on fire.

To me that sounds crazy! But, I can see how it works for the French. They protest all the time, and the government is very responsive to the needs of the people. Much more so than the American government sees to be.

Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

#305

Are deeds with conditions like that legal in that jurisdiction?

IDK about Texas but supposedly there's a cemetery in southern Virginia that legally becomes the property of some member of my extended family (possibly even me, not that I actually want it) if the county ever digs up the bodies because it was gifted to the county by a distant ancestor on the condition that it is only public property so long as it remains a cemetery.

Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

#306

    $10 gift became $10M for city government, with $30M tax expected over next decade
I mean... pretty easy to see why...

I think if the city tried to communicate what that money is going to be used for, perhaps it'd be slightly more palatable. Or perhaps the pitchforks are already out, and it wouldn't.

Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, you joke (I think?) but data center companies could genuinely at least open up for tours to try to appeal to the public, if public approval is apparently such a concern. It's funny that they haven't done it at all yet. Think nuclear power plants in the 60s or 70s, many of them were open for tours or school field trips or such to try to make them more appealing to the populace around them. I haven't heard of…

That won't work when your tour guide can't even answer questions about what the computers do because theyre all running VMs that are rented out on an ad-hoc basis.

They could say anything and the visitors would have to believe it. A canyon tour guide tells me a story about why a rock formation is named the way it is. I have no clue if it’s true. But I enjoy it still.

Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

#308
More than once I've read stories about small local counties selling huge plots of lands to companies promising to build data centers, only for those companies to flip the land instantly for double or triple the price.

There seems to be no shortage of desperate rural areas that are more than willing to sign ridiculous no-strings-attached deals with companies, in the hopes that they'll geta a couple of years with economic stimuli.

I can't blame them, I'm from a small place like that, and have seem some atrocious deals go through.

I think that if you're unscrupulous enough, there's a killing to be made by those type of grifts.

Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

#309

[flagged]

Lots of endowments come with strings attached. We made a charitable donation to a local university for them to buy some specific science outreach equipment, they bought it. This all seems reasonable to me. If you want my money or things, you’ll have to use them like I suggest.

And they end up in court cases where the people using it contrary go in with an argument like, "we really need it" or "we already spent it". Depending on how connected they are versus the person who has already passed, they frequently win.

Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

#310

It's exhausting that the "solution" to problems like this is getting tens or hundreds of thousands of citizens stressed until enough public attention gives some small chance of redress. I'm not calling for violence, but if we can't get these things fixed in court there has to be a more effect and more forceful avenue for protest than venting on internet forums.

I saw a clip the other day of an American comedian doing crowd work in Paris. He asked the audience what America should do, and the French said - something like - they should punch the police more and light things on fire. To me that sounds crazy! But, I can see how it works for the French. They protest all the time, and the government is very responsive to the needs of the people. Much more so than the American gove…

Is the French government more responsive than those of neighbouring countries?
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