231–240 of 327 posts
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You "suspect", but your suspicion comes with a unit of energy, which simply does not make sense in the context. The rest of us are talking about effect.
Shrug You asked about energy usage; but I have no idea as to how that bakery's natural gas usage affects the people surrounding it. The smell of freshly baked fig newtons might offset the possible increased cost of gas-per-cubic-foot.
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I don't think the average person actually knows anything concrete about them. They're a proxy for peoples' sense of powerlessness about what's going on around them. Skyrocketing electricity prices, the sense that elected officials aren't looking out for their interests, job losses, etc. They're a convenient proxy for many disparate concerns because they represent all of those things in one way or another.
> I don't think the average person actually knows anything concrete about them. The average person around them knows quite a bit about the noise level, and how far it carries. They're starting to learn about the effect consistent noise at that level has on their mental & physical well-being as well.
America is so massive, these trillion dollar companies can surely build these out in the boonies with very few people around? ETA: I would rather no data centers be built, but my point is if we have to, let’s minimize the number of people who are affected. Offer to move them if need be.
Boonies have very poor in each of those and building it up would take too long so throw another in Northern Virginia since they have expensive access to additional of that but at least it will become operational.
I think this is because the demand is so extreme for datacenters now that companies are building them in a manner that disrupts the environment around them. The newer ones are using on-site generators that are insanely loud and require multiples more power than datacenters have historically needed. For a rack with traditional servers with just RAM/CPU/Drives, 5kW is sufficient in most cases. When you have racks that…
This would make sense if the ones being targeted are the ones that do this, but that isn't the case. Moreover, those would be simple to address, e.g. pass an ordinance that prohibits long-term operation of fossil fuel generators, defined as operating them for more than 40 days out of each 700. Or impose a reasonable decibel limit as measured at the property line.
Meanwhile people are proposing "data center moratoriums" and so on, even if the data center would be built in a non-residential area with a closed-loop cooling system and generate its power from a completely silent and non-polluting solar+battery system. Which makes it pretty obvious that the motivation is something else.
I think this is because the demand is so extreme for datacenters now that companies are building them in a manner that disrupts the environment around them. The newer ones are using on-site generators that are insanely loud and require multiples more power than datacenters have historically needed. For a rack with traditional servers with just RAM/CPU/Drives, 5kW is sufficient in most cases. When you have racks that…
It's that, but it's also that AI is not visibly providing any tangible benefit for most people. It'd be one thing if you had to tolerate a datacenter at the edge of town, but at least now you have a robot to fold your clean clothes. Instead, you get the threat of losing your job, the privilege of dealing with AI customer service chatbots, and higher energy costs. I think most datacenter criticisms are actually coming…
most americans say not in my backyard to more housing in their backyard too, but i digress.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the average person actually knows anything concrete about them. They're a proxy for peoples' sense of powerlessness about what's going on around them. Skyrocketing electricity prices, the sense that elected officials aren't looking out for their interests, job losses, etc. They're a convenient proxy for many disparate concerns because they represent all of those things in one way or another.
> I don't think the average person actually knows anything concrete about them. The average person around them knows quite a bit about the noise level, and how far it carries. They're starting to learn about the effect consistent noise at that level has on their mental & physical well-being as well.
Do they? How much noise do you imagine comes from a data center that isn't operating a gas turbine?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't want to live in a concrete honeycomb in the middle of a loud city. Yes, this is the crux. Loud, smelly, concrete cities suck. And you’re right that density alone would lead to this. What we’d ideally want is cities that can be dense without being loud, smelly, and dangerous. These cities exist: Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Zurich, Utrecht, Freiburg, etc. We can’t do this in the US because we can’t remove the sour…
Can you really think of no other problems in addition to cars?
1) sometimes it is noisy at night, usually because of people in cars, but sometimes because of people not in cars;
2) sometimes it takes longer than needed to walk somewhere, due to intersections
3) my house is not as big as I would like. (I think this applies to many people regardless of how big their house is.)
4) the busses are always late in winter
I think this is because the demand is so extreme for datacenters now that companies are building them in a manner that disrupts the environment around them. The newer ones are using on-site generators that are insanely loud and require multiples more power than datacenters have historically needed. For a rack with traditional servers with just RAM/CPU/Drives, 5kW is sufficient in most cases. When you have racks that…
Is there really demand for 4000 plus data centers? I have a feeling that's shooting a bit above the mark (10x).
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A park, a public recreation centre, an elementary school, a cute coffee shop… You know, human stuff.
All these things have been vehemently opposed by NIMBYs: 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/MapleRidge/comments/1ewgim0/maple_r... 2. https://nationalpost.com/life/the-important-questions-is-it-... 3. https://jeremyl.substack.com/p/nimbytales-stop-the-sound-of-... 4. https://torontolife.com/city/this-corner-store-owner-spent-y...
These examples basically amount to “some people didn’t like this”, which doesn’t mean that the balance of public opinion wasn’t favourable. Unanimous support is too high a bar.