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Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

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Re: Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

#101

Post by thepryz »

felooboolooomba wrote: post #77

>Inside the tents, AI chips, likely worth billions of dollars, will go about their business. I wonder how the security is. It's just a matter of time until organized crime will start paying attention to this. Perhaps a bet for polymarket?

Better than most businesses. Most data center campuses I've seen, regardless of construction, were behind a substantial permitter fence and had some on-premise guard force. Like razor blades, they would be better to intercept GPUs or other equipment when in transit though there have been decades of rumors that such goods are usually done by trucking companies with ties to organized crime.

Re: Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

#102

Post by diordiderot »

FabCH wrote: post #36
Dlanv wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The public hates ai but also uses ai in mass quantities. Capitalism abides by your dollars not your voice. So people can decry ai all they want but if they keep using it, it won't go away. Even then it's probable that AI is a big enough productivity boost for certain industries that even if no consumers used AI, businesses would still prop AI up enough for it to live on.

Capitalism abides by dollars only so long as force is not in play. When the Molotov cocktails start flying, dollars lose their grip. Simone Weil had good theoretical and practical observations on force vs economy 100 years ago.

Lol, sure. until the first "revolutionary" takes one in the chest.

Americans are too comfortable. Leftist rhetoric is virtue signaling and costless.

Re: Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

#103

Post by [deleted] »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #60
jzymbaluk wrote: post #25

The fact that these behemoths are being powered by gas generators is horrifying

The reason is because permitting and building a natgas generator is the easiest among the energy production methods in the US. Datacenters need to be close-ish to Internet Exchanges to be cost competitive when lighting up network capacity. Solar cells are expensive (Chinese tariffs or domestic production) and permitting is tough. Nuclear is still a permitting and cost nightmare. Wind requires a lot of land. Hydroelec…

[deleted]

Re: Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

#104

Post by felooboolooomba »

thepryz wrote: post #101
felooboolooomba wrote: post #77

>Inside the tents, AI chips, likely worth billions of dollars, will go about their business. I wonder how the security is. It's just a matter of time until organized crime will start paying attention to this. Perhaps a bet for polymarket?

Better than most businesses. Most data center campuses I've seen, regardless of construction, were behind a substantial permitter fence and had some on-premise guard force. Like razor blades, they would be better to intercept GPUs or other equipment when in transit though there have been decades of rumors that such goods are usually done by trucking companies with ties to organized crime.

There was a recent case in the UK where a trucking company was sold. The new owner then proceeded to steal shipments.

Re: Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

#105

Post by Barrin92 »

john_strinlai wrote: post #54
Barrin92 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>why should a company listen to a gallup poll of ~1,500 people over their own internal metrics? for the same reason Vladimir Putin should listen to Russian milbloggers rather than his own subordinates, the metrics are being cooked up by people who get promoted for good metrics

i pose my hypothetical widget question from the sibling comment to you as well.

yes I would not turn my whole company into a widget producing company, just like I wouldn't turn my 17th century Dutch company into a Tulip factory just because they're flying off the shelves. Mind you we're talking about Meta, which is only named 'Meta' because they did that whole bit once already when they became the metaverse company which is an awkward name now given that everyone coincidentally seems to have forgotten about that entire thing

Also the shelf metaphor is itself troubled because you're not even really selling any widgets for profit, you're just handing them out for free at the expense of hundreds of billions in investments that really are going to deprecate pretty fast

Re: Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

#106

Post by john_strinlai »

Barrin92 wrote: post #105
john_strinlai wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i pose my hypothetical widget question from the sibling comment to you as well.

yes I would not turn my whole company into a widget producing company, just like I wouldn't turn my 17th century Dutch company into a Tulip factory just because they're flying off the shelves. Mind you we're talking about Meta, which is only named 'Meta' because they did that whole bit once already when they became the metaverse company which is an awkward name now given that everyone coincidentally seems to have for…

>yes I would not turn my whole company into a widget producing company,

i think you have severely misunderstood the hypothetical

Re: Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

#107

Post by uridjd274 »

code_biologist wrote: post #33
jzymbaluk wrote: post #25

The fact that these behemoths are being powered by gas generators is horrifying

Your language is ambiguous — your horror is in reference to natural gas turbine generators (used at these installations) and not gasoline generators (like in a home context)? Why the horror? I'd prefer the gas remain in the ground, but given the gassy production of US shale oil, I guess I'd rather it be used for this than just flared. I am frustrated that pollutant emissions aren't being policed, and also that the su…

Hear hear! Much better to put all that energy to good use rather than waste it

Re: Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

#108

Post by paleotrope »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #60
jzymbaluk wrote: post #25

The fact that these behemoths are being powered by gas generators is horrifying

The reason is because permitting and building a natgas generator is the easiest among the energy production methods in the US. Datacenters need to be close-ish to Internet Exchanges to be cost competitive when lighting up network capacity. Solar cells are expensive (Chinese tariffs or domestic production) and permitting is tough. Nuclear is still a permitting and cost nightmare. Wind requires a lot of land. Hydroelec…

Building a facility that uses megawatts of energy in an old farm field in the country, and having long lead times to get it installed, isn't really indicative of "deindustrialization" is it? Also, I don't think building datacenters outside of Columbus are being driven by closeness to an IX. I don't recall seeing Columbus as being significant on any US backbone map. More likely they just want to be close to each other. Someone must have started that ball rolling.

Re: Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

#109

Post by bigyabai »

diordiderot wrote: post #102
FabCH wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism abides by dollars only so long as force is not in play. When the Molotov cocktails start flying, dollars lose their grip. Simone Weil had good theoretical and practical observations on force vs economy 100 years ago.

Lol, sure. until the first "revolutionary" takes one in the chest. Americans are too comfortable. Leftist rhetoric is virtue signaling and costless.

Arguably, they don't take one in the chest. Luigi Mangione lives in notoriety what he did; most people can't even name the CEO he killed, let alone frame them as a martyr.

I disagree with theories of continual revolution, but it's pretty clear that class warfare still has valuable asymmetric qualities.

Re: Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

#110

Post by Karrot_Kream »

paleotrope wrote: post #108
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is because permitting and building a natgas generator is the easiest among the energy production methods in the US. Datacenters need to be close-ish to Internet Exchanges to be cost competitive when lighting up network capacity. Solar cells are expensive (Chinese tariffs or domestic production) and permitting is tough. Nuclear is still a permitting and cost nightmare. Wind requires a lot of land. Hydroelec…

Building a facility that uses megawatts of energy in an old farm field in the country, and having long lead times to get it installed, isn't really indicative of "deindustrialization" is it? Also, I don't think building datacenters outside of Columbus are being driven by closeness to an IX. I don't recall seeing Columbus as being significant on any US backbone map. More likely they just want to be close to each other…

> I don't recall seeing Columbus as being significant on any US backbone map. More likely they just want to be close to each other. Someone must have started that ball rolling.

AWS us-east-2 (2016) and GCP us-east5 (2022) are both in Ohio. Not 100% sure they're close to an IX but my guess is there's existing infra to route onto.

> Building a facility that uses megawatts of energy in an old farm field in the country, and having long lead times to get it installed, isn't really indicative of "deindustrialization" is it?

Sorry I think my message might have gotten a bit conflated. I meant, in the offshoring that happened in the US in the late '90s-early '00s, the US ended up losing industrial demand. Obviously consumer demand increased in the meantime but we've been living on a mostly stagnant energy supply for a long time.

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