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Google open sources solar atmospheric water generator

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Re: Google open sources solar atmospheric water generator

#161

Post by jimmydorry »

braingenious wrote: post #95
emteycz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People need DCs too, not just corporations.

Wait, what? What exactly is a data center by your definition? What individuals (that are entirely disconnected from corporations) need them? How many individuals have personal data centers of such a scale that they would need to produce liquid water on-site for their computing needs? I genuinely believe you’ve described an entirely theoretical person that doesn’t reside in this universe.

This site is likely not hosted out of a person's closet, hence you commenting here is likely a product of a data centre.

Ignoring this specific example, a majority of the population uses social media for leisure and online tools for work (email, banking, etc.).

A majority of interconnects between ISPs and networks are hosted in data centres too... so there wouldn't be much of an internet without them.

If you closed all data centres over night, the majority of the above would disappear and certainly would not be able to scale as large as it had without data centres... hence, a majority of people need data centres to maintain their current standard of living.

Re: Google open sources solar atmospheric water generator

#163

Post by gundmc »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #155
gundmc wrote: post #151

X has been really good about open sourcing all of the technical information from shut down projects. They did the same for the Makani power-generating kites. Love to see stuff like this

Citation needed. I worked there for two years and there are a LOT of projects that are sitting collecting dust that in my opinion could really help people if they were released as open source. The one I am thinking of (not my place to disclose what it is) was canned in 2017 and I always wished they would have just released it. X has open sourced some stuff and that is great, but whether they have been "really good" a…

Fair enough, maybe I should have said "X has done this several[1][2] times with shut down projects and I think that's pretty cool because they had no obligation to do so."

[1] - https://x.company/blog/posts/sharing-project-amber-with-the-...

[2] - https://x.company/blog/posts/sharing-makani-with-the-world-t...

Re: Google open sources solar atmospheric water generator

#164

Post by cdeonier »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #155
gundmc wrote: post #151

X has been really good about open sourcing all of the technical information from shut down projects. They did the same for the Makani power-generating kites. Love to see stuff like this

Citation needed. I worked there for two years and there are a LOT of projects that are sitting collecting dust that in my opinion could really help people if they were released as open source. The one I am thinking of (not my place to disclose what it is) was canned in 2017 and I always wished they would have just released it. X has open sourced some stuff and that is great, but whether they have been "really good" a…

Here's some Makani code open-sourced by Google: https://github.com/google/makani

Here are some flight logs they released: https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/product/bigquer...

They also released reports that describe their findings; it's quite detailed (here's part 1 of 3): https://storage.googleapis.com/x-prod.appspot.com/files/Maka...

I don't know what standard we're holding companies to for projects they're shutting down. From my experience, projects that are closing down don't get as much support prioritization, especially when they're deemed unsuccessful.

I share your sentiment that we could get even more; it sounds like you're seeing even more interesting things the public is not. I am grateful for what they have provided so far.

Re: Google open sources solar atmospheric water generator

#165

Post by jimmydorry »

jeffbee wrote: post #152
bun_at_work wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, let me say the number comes from the readme presented, not my own research or claims. Second, the claim that the water isn't clean enough for drinking should be qualified. You can drink it and survive, hopefully. But bacteria exist in these water sources that give people dysentery or other illnesses from which they die. In underdeveloped parts of the world there are poor mortality rates. Humanitarian goals see…

I think I see what you are saying, and I haven't read the book or anything on this topic. I can absolutely imagine how people would have better lives with more and cleaner water. But billions of people is an extraordinary equilibrium population already, and it makes me wonder if access to water will improve the lives in question, or raise the equilibrium population to a higher level at the same amount of misery and s…

At a high level, considering the population growth rates of developed nations, almost all of them are in decline. One could posit that at some point of improvement in life for a given population, the growth rate will plateu and then begin to fall, rather than increase in perpetuity. Looking closer at the developed nations that still have increasing population growth reveals a significant portion of it coming from immigration.

There is some pretty good data to peruse (particularly the aggregates at the bottom of the page) here: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.GROW?most_recent...

Re: Google open sources solar atmospheric water generator

#166

Post by marcellus23 »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #112
Ansil849 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My question was more, how does this help individuals without access to clean water, not a dystopian 'how can it be co-opted by corporations for business ends', but I appreciate the varying definitions of "practical" people have.

> dystopian 'how can it be co-opted by corporations for business ends' Why is it "dystopian" and "co-opting" if a company uses a technology like this to operate in a more environmentally friendly way? People love to shit on companies (not specific ones, just "big companies" as a concept in general), completely ignoring where our standard of living comes from.

Considering the project is self-described as a way to get drinking water into peoples hands, it certainly seems a bit dystopian to immediately jump to using this to collect water for DC’s… especially considering the original comment was asking “how do you build this”, not “what could you use this for”

Re: Google open sources solar atmospheric water generator

#167

Post by ineedasername »

Ansil849 wrote: post #41

So what is the practical use of this? Let's say that I'm not an engineer or a researcher or a coder, but would like to set some of these units up to collect water. How do I do so? Do I approach someone to build this for me (who?)? How much can I expect it to cost? In other words, how can I actualize this vision: > So the H2E team asked: “What if you could put the power to generate daily drinking water into the hands…

My guess is that if there were clear answers to those questions then the project might not have been shutdown. The hope is that someone or some other project might find a piece of this useful, or more optimistically that someone will find a way past any of the problems that made X take a pass on it.

Or if none of that happens, at the very least it serves as a free bit of knowledge telling others going down this path "it didn't work"

Re: Google open sources solar atmospheric water generator

#168

Post by kempbellt »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #32
kempbellt wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desalinization does not have to be complicated. You can build a simple desalinator (aka, a solar still) with a couple bins, some glass/plexiglass, and access to sunlight. Preferably in an enclosed system to better contain heat and prevent water vapor from escaping. No filters to replace, and it will run for as long as you feed it water. Best link I could find to explain the process: https://www.intechopen.com/chapter…

Where do you put the left over salt? At those levels it’s both toxic for animals and toxic for plants. Even putting it back into the ocean isn’t simple. If you do it in one big batch, you would kill everything in that location for a while. If you do it slowly, that isn’t simple.

Wherever you want.

Make margaritas. Put some on your steak. Throw the rest back in the ocean if you want.

We're talking, maybe a couple pounds of salt per person per day. It's not an unmanageable amount.

You're not going to hurt the ocean by adding back a little salt - salt that you took out of it...

Yes, you will most likely affect cultures within the immediate vicinity of a salt dump site but they will regrow elsewhere. It's peanuts compared to the amount of dilution being caused all the time by normal freshwater runoff and ice cap melts.

The ocean is very large.

Re: Google open sources solar atmospheric water generator

#169

Post by TaylorAlexander »

cdeonier wrote: post #164
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed. I worked there for two years and there are a LOT of projects that are sitting collecting dust that in my opinion could really help people if they were released as open source. The one I am thinking of (not my place to disclose what it is) was canned in 2017 and I always wished they would have just released it. X has open sourced some stuff and that is great, but whether they have been "really good" a…

Here's some Makani code open-sourced by Google: https://github.com/google/makani Here are some flight logs they released: https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/product/bigquer... They also released reports that describe their findings; it's quite detailed (here's part 1 of 3): https://storage.googleapis.com/x-prod.appspot.com/files/Maka... I don't know what standard we're holding companies to for projects they…

Yes I'm aware of the Makani stuff. In fact according to a Makani team member I was probably the first person outside X to run their code when I generated some screenshots of their UI and posted the pictures to Imgur.

But Makani is one project, and again my only push back is whether they have been "really good" about releasing projects or whether there have been a relatively small number of notable releases.

My general feeling was that they are really almost 100% focused on profit and for the managers I met, I did not feel like they even understood the world-changing potential of open source. If your primary interest is in changing the world, you can get a LOT done with open source. Especially with the money they have. A relatively small project that releases a quality design and then continues to develop it while other people clone it in my mind has the best chance of gaining traction.

But that requires letting go of control. And I did not get the sense they were interested in that kind of thing. So I left and started my own open source project to explore this theory. In three years we have spent as much money as they would spend on a single mistake. I really wish they were more open to this kind of development, but I don't think they are really set up for it.

https://community.twistedfields.com/t/march-2022-update-simu...

Re: Google open sources solar atmospheric water generator

#170

Post by TaylorAlexander »

gundmc wrote: post #163
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed. I worked there for two years and there are a LOT of projects that are sitting collecting dust that in my opinion could really help people if they were released as open source. The one I am thinking of (not my place to disclose what it is) was canned in 2017 and I always wished they would have just released it. X has open sourced some stuff and that is great, but whether they have been "really good" a…

Fair enough, maybe I should have said "X has done this several[1][2] times with shut down projects and I think that's pretty cool because they had no obligation to do so." [1] - https://x.company/blog/posts/sharing-project-amber-with-the-... [2] - https://x.company/blog/posts/sharing-makani-with-the-world-t...

It's cool, but one gets kind of irritated when they talk this big talk about changing the world but do not seem to appreciate just how transformative open source can be as a tool for innovation. At least, I got frustrated.
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