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Starcloud

ycombinator.com

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Re: Starcloud

#271

Post by stephenhandley »

aspenmayer wrote: post #264
stephenhandley wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're under the impression that all the content on here is 100% human, that's probably slightly optimistic, and the reason why I labeled it explicitly rather than regurgitating / rewording. That said, I'd rather read GPT output than skim the meta-discussion that ruins so many HN threads. Totally stoked that we're now contributing to that rather than talking about the actual content.

Labeling isn’t the problem. Generated comments are against HN guidelines. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... > That said, I'd rather read GPT output than skim the meta-discussion that ruins so many HN threads. Totally stoked that we're now contributing to that rather than talking about the actual content. You brought this meta-discussion on yourself and upon the rest of the community, kno…

Honestly was not aware of that guideline. Insinuating that I was someone trolling for this discussion is a stretch.

Re: Starcloud

#272

Post by archagon »

dang wrote: post #57

Their whitepaper ( https://starcloudinc.github.io/wp.pdf ) had a thread last fall: We should train AI in space [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41478241 - Sept 2024 (93 comments) A bit more here: Lumen Orbit - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42790424 - Jan 2025 (2 comments) VCs wanted to get into Lumen Orbit's $11M seed round - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42518284 - Dec 2024 (2 comments)

As an aside, how did the description text ("https://starcloudinc.github.io/wp.pdf") get added to a link post? Whenever I've tried in the past, my text got splatted into a comment. Was this mod intervention?

Re: Starcloud

#273

Post by monkeycantype »

jedberg wrote: post #25

I've been saying for a long time that we should consider remote areas for building datacenters for batch processing. At first I thought the poles (of the planet) might be good. The cooling is basically free. But the energy and internet connectivity would be a problem. At the poles you can really only get solar about three months a year, and even then you need a lot of panels. Most of Antarctica is powered diesel beca…

I vote we aim the heat dishes at passing comets to steer them into moon to give it temporary oceans and atmosphere.

Re: Starcloud

#274

Post by dang »

archagon wrote: post #272
dang wrote: post #57

Their whitepaper ( https://starcloudinc.github.io/wp.pdf ) had a thread last fall: We should train AI in space [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41478241 - Sept 2024 (93 comments) A bit more here: Lumen Orbit - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42790424 - Jan 2025 (2 comments) VCs wanted to get into Lumen Orbit's $11M seed round - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42518284 - Dec 2024 (2 comments)

As an aside, how did the description text (" https://starcloudinc.github.io/wp.pdf ") get added to a link post? Whenever I've tried in the past, my text got splatted into a comment. Was this mod intervention?

Yes. I've been experimenting with doing more of that lately.

It's a bit of testing the waters toward what proper URL aggregation might look like. By "URL aggregation" I mean grouping together a bunch of URLs for a story, rather than just one link per submission.

Re: Starcloud

#275

Post by ziofill »

apitman wrote: post #225
gbear605 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not how it works. With conservation of energy, all the energy coming in to power the computers has to be emitted somehow. Powering computers doesn’t get rid of the energy, it just makes it unusable and converts it into heat.

This is probably a stupid question but is it possible to recycle the heat back into electricity and use it again?

In principle heat can be converted to work if there are two bodies at different temperature. In space heat can only be irradiated away since there’s no matter available for conduction, so I would think that eventually all of your machinery would thermalize with the environment and the boundary conditions. While there should be a temperature gradient between the side exposed to the sun and the one opposite to it, I’m not sure how much of this is actually harvestable.

Re: Starcloud

#276

Post by Reason077 »

phs318u wrote: post #266
ianhowson wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the best idea to come out of this whole scheme. Space solar panels are super cheap and efficient? Prove it! Launch them and transmit the energy down. This is orders of magnitude easier than the original proposal -- and yet still nonsensical.

Beaming power down to Earth from space-based solar collectors is a concept that's been around for a while. "Dr. Glaser is best known as the inventor of the Solar Power Satellite concept, which he first presented in the journal Science for November 22, 1968 (“Power from the Sun: It’s Future”). In 1973 he was granted a U.S. patent on the Solar Power Satellite to supply power from space for use on the Earth." One thing…

> "A very small angular error in beaming could result in being literally microwaved."

One of the SimCity games had this as an occasional disaster event. You had to make sure your ground collector stations weren't too close to the rest of the city or risk setting your buildings on fire.

Re: Starcloud

#277

Post by dzhiurgis »

dijit wrote: post #63
jedberg wrote: post #25

I've been saying for a long time that we should consider remote areas for building datacenters for batch processing. At first I thought the poles (of the planet) might be good. The cooling is basically free. But the energy and internet connectivity would be a problem. At the poles you can really only get solar about three months a year, and even then you need a lot of panels. Most of Antarctica is powered diesel beca…

> I've been saying for a long time that we should consider remote areas for building datacenters for batch processing. FWIW there's a reason that Sweden has a bunch of datacenters in the north that are peanuts compared to hosting in Virginia. They're "poorly" connected (by virtue of being a bit out of the way), but the free cooling and power from renewables make them extremely attractive. There was a time where they…

> D) Cosmic Rays.

AFAIK someone (Mars Ingenuity helicopter team) discovered that some chips handle them much better than others, so they just test a bunch and keep resistant ones.

Re: Starcloud

#278

Post by tzs »

jedberg wrote: post #25

I've been saying for a long time that we should consider remote areas for building datacenters for batch processing. At first I thought the poles (of the planet) might be good. The cooling is basically free. But the energy and internet connectivity would be a problem. At the poles you can really only get solar about three months a year, and even then you need a lot of panels. Most of Antarctica is powered diesel beca…

> Or you can go geostationary over a powerful ground station, but then you'd need some really big batteries for all the time you aren't in the sun.

Geostationary satellites only go into Earth's shadow on around 20 days on each side of an equinox. That leave 280+ days each year where they are in sun all day. Maybe that's enough to be worth it?

Or if you do need to keep the things working even on those ~80 days a year when they do spend part of the day in shadow maybe they could be powered by energy beamed in from those not in shadow? You'd put a bunch in geostationary orbits spread out evenly so that each is close enough to its neighbors for power beaming.

I wonder if something crazy might work? Could you actually connect adjacent satellites by an actual physical power cable, which would also be in geostationary orbit?

I'd guess you'd actually need two conductors in your cable, carrying current in opposite direction to cancel out interactions with Earth's magnetic field so the system doesn't get pushed out of its orbit (which would probably be bad).

There would probably be gravitational interactions like with the Moon that might also make it hard to keep everything in place, but maybe by purposefully sending different currents in opposite directions on some of the links you could purposefully use interactions with the Earth's magnetic field to move the cable back where you wanted?

If the satellites are connected by cables then maybe they could actually be slightly higher than geostationary but moving faster than circular orbital speed at that altitude so there is a net outward force from that, which could be countered by tension in the power cables to force them into a circular path that is still geostationary.

Re: Starcloud

#279

Post by dzhiurgis »

jamessinghal wrote: post #159
azinman2 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don’t suggest heating the ocean! Someone might just go to try to do that. The ocean is already warming too much!

It's a bit demoralizing how many suggestions in this thread would have significant environmental effects beyond what large scale AI training already has.

It's far far faaar more demoralizing people not realizing orders of magnitude...

Something like 2/3rds of sunshine is already being absorbed by oceans. How much solar power do humans harvest? A billionth?

Re: Starcloud

#280

Post by aspenmayer »

stephenhandley wrote: post #271
aspenmayer wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labeling isn’t the problem. Generated comments are against HN guidelines. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... > That said, I'd rather read GPT output than skim the meta-discussion that ruins so many HN threads. Totally stoked that we're now contributing to that rather than talking about the actual content. You brought this meta-discussion on yourself and upon the rest of the community, kno…

Honestly was not aware of that guideline. Insinuating that I was someone trolling for this discussion is a stretch.

> Honestly was not aware of that guideline. Insinuating that I was someone trolling for this discussion is a stretch.

I’m not insinuating anything, quite the opposite. You have experience on the site, and so are aware of how often threads can devolve into and revolve around meta-discussions, and one of those common meta-discussions on HN is in response to generated comments and AI slop. I’m not saying you’re trolling by doing it intentionally, and in fact I’ve appealed to dang to add the provision to the guidelines proper myself in email and on HN. But surely we both agree that to continue to do so now that you know would be a flagrant violation of the guidelines?

> That said, I'd rather read GPT output than skim the meta-discussion that ruins so many HN threads.

I try to make the kinds of posts I want to read. Perhaps you might find this guiding precept helpful also, as I do. As generated comments are against the guidelines, your own words will suffice.

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