4 ms·

Would this actually be practical? From what little I know about google infrastructure everything is dependent on their in house tooling and spinning projects of

by tempay 7y ago

Would this actually be practical? From what little I know about google infrastructure everything is dependent on their in house tooling and spinning projects off is a massive amount of work.

eitland 7y ago
I think the point is that Google has been burning goodwill for a decade now. It might not be visible yet, just like the ice cube who has been heated from -100°C to -5°C and still doesn't melt, but at this point it would take very little energy to thaw Googles goodwill reserves. Anything they can do to return to former status as "defender of the Internet" might be worth huge investments for that alone.
- debatem1 7y ago
  This is a very good analogy for a concept I've tried to formulate succinctly spur-of-the-moment a few times. I especially like that it captures the reversibility of the trend and the energy cost of doing so. Thanks for sharing.
- robocat 7y ago
  > ice cube who has been heated from -100°C to -5°C and still doesn't melt, but at this point it would take very little energy to thaw Unobviously a poor metaphor. energy to heat 1kg from -100°C to -5°C: 200kJ energy to melt 1kg from -5°C (as ice) to 0°C (as water): 345kJ Water has lots of extremely non-linear behaviours!!!
  - eitland 7y ago
    Thanks! Do you have a better idea? Either another example or a better way to tell it so it becomes true? I guess I could start somewhere closer to 0°K, but that wouldn't mean much I guess?
    - sk5t 7y ago
      Better pick an example that doesn't involve phase change. ;) Maybe it is more like water spilling over the top of an earthen dam. It only takes incrementally more water to happen, but is very bad for the structure of the dam and things downstream.
    - tcpekin 7y ago
      I think your point was very well made, but to satisfy the people who comment on the energies required for phase change etc., you could just change it to very small temperature delta/difference, and be perfectly fine.
  - tempay 7y ago
    > Water has lots of extremely non-linear behaviours!!! Is caused by a special property of water? Or is it just the discontinuity arising from taking 0°C ice to 0°C water? If it's the latter it applies to all solid to liquid transitions (entropy of fusion).
    - sk5t 7y ago
      I think the GP's point holds in that water has a higher latent heat of fusion than most other everyday substances, probably due to its polarity.
    - dekhn 7y ago
      phase transition is a discontinuity. water is "complicated" but yes, it's just a phase change.
danielscrubs 7y ago
That's interesting. They are not dogfooding Google Cloud?

by tempay 7y ago

Would this actually be practical? From what little I know about google infrastructure everything is dependent on their in house tooling and spinning projects off is a massive amount of work.

eitland 7y ago

I think the point is that Google has been burning goodwill for a decade now. It might not be visible yet, just like the ice cube who has been heated from -100°C to -5°C and still doesn't melt, but at this point it would take very little energy to thaw Googles goodwill reserves. Anything they can do to return to former status as "defender of the Internet" might be worth huge investments for that alone.

debatem1 7y ago
This is a very good analogy for a concept I've tried to formulate succinctly spur-of-the-moment a few times. I especially like that it captures the reversibility of the trend and the energy cost of doing so. Thanks for sharing.
robocat 7y ago
> ice cube who has been heated from -100°C to -5°C and still doesn't melt, but at this point it would take very little energy to thaw Unobviously a poor metaphor. energy to heat 1kg from -100°C to -5°C: 200kJ energy to melt 1kg from -5°C (as ice) to 0°C (as water): 345kJ Water has lots of extremely non-linear behaviours!!!
- eitland 7y ago
  Thanks! Do you have a better idea? Either another example or a better way to tell it so it becomes true? I guess I could start somewhere closer to 0°K, but that wouldn't mean much I guess?
  - sk5t 7y ago
    Better pick an example that doesn't involve phase change. ;) Maybe it is more like water spilling over the top of an earthen dam. It only takes incrementally more water to happen, but is very bad for the structure of the dam and things downstream.
  - tcpekin 7y ago
    I think your point was very well made, but to satisfy the people who comment on the energies required for phase change etc., you could just change it to very small temperature delta/difference, and be perfectly fine.
- tempay 7y ago
  > Water has lots of extremely non-linear behaviours!!! Is caused by a special property of water? Or is it just the discontinuity arising from taking 0°C ice to 0°C water? If it's the latter it applies to all solid to liquid transitions (entropy of fusion).
  - sk5t 7y ago
    I think the GP's point holds in that water has a higher latent heat of fusion than most other everyday substances, probably due to its polarity.
  - dekhn 7y ago
    phase transition is a discontinuity. water is "complicated" but yes, it's just a phase change.

danielscrubs 7y ago

That's interesting. They are not dogfooding Google Cloud?