Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

bbc.com

211–220 of 397 posts

Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

#211
post #12

> Additionally because there are no people, we can take all the oxygen and most of the water vapour out of the atmosphere which reduces corrosion, which is a significant problem in data centres First time I hear corrosion is a problem in datacentres. I never noticed any corrosion on any machine at home or work. Does it have to do with the cooling of datacentres?

I think it's mainly a problem in highly polluted urban areas because of sulphur dioxide in the air. Most datacenters use enough air conditioning for moisture to be a non-issue.

Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

#212
post #200
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naturally scarce stores of value like Bitcoin, gold, diamonds, etc. have always "wasted" resources, whether they be power, human resource, or polluting the environment. On one hand you could regard them as immoral because of this, on the other hand they enable the freedom to store value without trust.

>Bitcoin, gold, diamond You're being dishonest if you're pretending these things are identically comparable.

I didn't suggest they were identical. Only that a limited comparison can be made about their use as a store of value.

Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have. Including things like the heads falling off and spinning around, grinding everything to junk.

That sickening click sound that a disk drive makes when it's on the verge of failure is ingrained in my head. I tried putting one of those in the freezer once, and maybe it was a folk remedy, but it worked enough to boot and get my data off!

You may be interested in this interesting archive of hdd-failing-sounds. Note: as it's about 10 years old, it requires flash. http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php

Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Closer to Norway than London! Of course, Orkney was part of Norway before becoming part of Scotland in 1468.

TIL. Those pesky Vikings. My cousin, from Indiana, is currently serving as a minister on Stronsay. The scenic photos he's sharing are certainly encouraging me to contemplate a visit.

My great grandfather was skipper of the Evangeline who died along with all the crew off of Stronsay in 1909:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=27&v=0UVWUbJp3Ys

http://www.axfordsabode.org.uk/disaster/evangeli.pdf

Edit: (Can't work out if was great great grandfather or not! - but certainly some ancestor!)

Edit2: I'd definitely recommend visiting Orkney - it regularly gets evaluated as one of the nicest bits of the UK to live, the scenery is fantastic and it has some of the most amazing historical artifacts in Europe.

Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

#218
post #200
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naturally scarce stores of value like Bitcoin, gold, diamonds, etc. have always "wasted" resources, whether they be power, human resource, or polluting the environment. On one hand you could regard them as immoral because of this, on the other hand they enable the freedom to store value without trust.

>Bitcoin, gold, diamond You're being dishonest if you're pretending these things are identically comparable.

They're all arbitrary stores of value whos intrinsic value is not justified by the market price?

Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

#219
post #218
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Bitcoin, gold, diamond You're being dishonest if you're pretending these things are identically comparable.

They're all arbitrary stores of value whos intrinsic value is not justified by the market price?

Only Bitcoin requires the continuous consumption of energy to continue being a useful asset though.

Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

#220
post #193

> There has been growing concern that the rapid expansion of the data centre industry could mean an explosion in energy use. But Emma Fryer, who represents the sector at Tech UK, says that fear has been exaggerated. If we're concerned about the technology industry vastly increasing energy consumption, lets look at the entire medium sized country's worth of energy bitcoin is consuming for absolutely useless calculatio…

Surely, those humans wasting precious energy, would not waste energy and ressources if they were not sitting at home and staring hypnotized at some netflix movie?
Post reply on HN