221–230 of 436 posts
I would be very careful about basing your career decsions based on this trend. The data center build out will always be very boom and bust, which would really suck to work in. One year you would be making 300k working on dataceters and the next you would make 30k because thousands of electricians are now competing to build a few single family homes.
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I was in the IBEW when I was doing basic tech support for HawaiianTel 15 years ago... making $15/hr, union dues were nothing even at that wage and they rarely ever go up. This cry of "OMG dues suck" is so stupid for what you get in return. But go ahead and buy more into republican propaganda.
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"For the Epsteinth time, class unity is only for the upper classes"
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>a lot of other better uses for their labor Who on Earth are you to decide what is the "better" use for labor? And do you scrutinize every construction project or only AI? Is it a waste when contractors build a temporary set for a trashy reality TV show? A factory that makes cosmetics for dogs? Having someone the arbiter of what is the "right" use of labor is communism. In capitalism, people get to decide for themsel…
If Meta decided to pivot to a brothel and meth lab building spree would you consider that to be a worse, equal, or better use of their capital and the labour in the regions where they are building out this infrastructure? Why?
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Everyone should just compete with the trillions of dollars of capital floating around for AI? And it's their fault for suddenly being 'poor'? Sounds like you're assuming people are paying pennies for labour. I don't think that's true at all While we're at it, how much should small bathroom, 2 week renovation cost? $100,000 in labour?
> While we're at it, how much should small bathroom, 2 week renovation cost? $100,000 in labour? Obviously much more than 2 weeks worth of work at a commercial job, since that's the worst possible kind of work you could ever offer any tradesman. Maybe 8x the hourly rate would be fair since it's intermittent work with generally horrible customers? It's been interesting to watch the IT/engineering classes all of a sudd…
yeah instead they did the smart thing and they got together and passed protectionist policy to artificially inflate the value of their labor. Let's see how union tough you are when the administration changes and you have to compete with a global labor pool again.
I didn't expect anything more from the New York Times who wrote this suspiciously favorable article about Big Tech.
My take is that electricians and carpenters are a great profession. I have great respect for them. I would have also mentioned NVIDIA's worker programs to setup AI infrastructure but this article was too biased in favor of Meta.
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>50% of the US population live in single-family, detached houses. It is one thing to be combative, it is another to be combative and wrong. "normal" people live in detached homes
What’s the detachment of the home have to do with it?
I guess us "Normal" people prefer to discuss all relevant information and not just post jaded comments that defy reality
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Very true, it is difficult to even find an opening for the training to start the process, the schools are limited and have short enrollment windows that are fiercely competitive (at least in California).
I applied for an apprenticeship several years ago when I was testing the waters to rotate out of tech after covid. Tested into the highest percentile, had previous high voltage experience with OEMs, a mech eng degree, still ended up like 200 people deep in the queue. That was the end of that interest. You basically have to be friends or family with someone to get into IBEW.
Next, plumbers. The future of data centers seems to be more liquid cooling and less ductwork. Take a look at this new 1 megawatt server rack.[1] It has more pipes than cables. All that coolant flow and all that electrical power in a crowded space is scary. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ssp1t-g_wM
> All that coolant flow and all that electrical power in a crowded space is scary. Maybe it's a non-conductive oil? I recall seeing someone who overclocked their PC (circa 2005) to 5GHz, and ran the motherboard completely submerged in an oil bath.
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"It also prices out a lot of other better uses for their labor...." "Projects I work on..."
Considering we are in a gigantic housing shortage, it would be great if a house didn't have to compete for talent with a data center.
More directly: I doubt there will be a meaningful increase in housing in states that have banned construction of new data centers (NY, Maine) than those where data centers are allowed to be built.