3 ms·

i'm confused on the humming part, i've driven by them many times and they're just...large, sorta ugly, buildings. but that's really it. i wonder if i walked up

by juneyi 3mo ago

i'm confused on the humming part, i've driven by them many times and they're just...large, sorta ugly, buildings. but that's really it. i wonder if i walked up to a building i'd hear the humming. quite surprised to learn that they emit a humming that bothers nearby folks

audunw 3mo ago
Maybe those complaints are for datacenters using gas turbines for power. I think some of the recent ones (xAIs?) was built without sufficient power from the grid.
- mukbangpervert 3mo ago
  xAI colossus was built without sufficient grid power, so uses "mobile" gas turbines to generate power. It's absurd, and serves as evidence that we need a confiscatory wealth tax, if we want to maintain a society.
  - inglor_cz 3mo ago
    For me, it is evidence that our ability to build new power stations has seriously eroded, mostly due to bureaucracy, and that we need to fix this if we want to maintain competitiveness. Consider the following graph which shows the power generation capabilities of China vs. the US during the last 40 years. https://www.notboring.co/p/the-electric-slide?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web&embedding_publication_id=10025&embedding_post_id=171945788 https://www.notboring.co/p/the-electric-slide?utm_source=sub... The fact that data centers need to resort to gas turbines is downstream from this bureaucratic, NIMBY-driven impotency.
    - mukbangpervert 3mo ago
      There is power available in the country. It is not available in arbitrary quantity, to arbitrarily selected buildings, on arbitrarily short timelines. That said, I agree we need more power generation in this country. Massive rollouts (like in China) would bolster industry while being beneficial to nearly every citizen except those dependent on legacy energy technologies. Sadly, the party in power opposes the most scalable approaches to this because greatly expanded power generation would hurt margins for a few special interests.
  - rjmunro 3mo ago
    I agree it's absurd and I'm in favour of some kind of wealth tax, but I don't get the connection here. This feels like a failure of infrastructure planning laws and things like noise regulations.
al_borland 3mo ago
I haven’t been in an AI data center, but have been in several others, and worked in a smaller one. I never really hear anything until I open the door to a computer room… and I’m one of those people who is bothered by the electrical noise in my walls.

by juneyi 3mo ago

audunw 3mo ago

Maybe those complaints are for datacenters using gas turbines for power. I think some of the recent ones (xAIs?) was built without sufficient power from the grid.

mukbangpervert 3mo ago
xAI colossus was built without sufficient grid power, so uses "mobile" gas turbines to generate power. It's absurd, and serves as evidence that we need a confiscatory wealth tax, if we want to maintain a society.
- inglor_cz 3mo ago
  For me, it is evidence that our ability to build new power stations has seriously eroded, mostly due to bureaucracy, and that we need to fix this if we want to maintain competitiveness. Consider the following graph which shows the power generation capabilities of China vs. the US during the last 40 years. https://www.notboring.co/p/the-electric-slide?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web&embedding_publication_id=10025&embedding_post_id=171945788 https://www.notboring.co/p/the-electric-slide?utm_source=sub... The fact that data centers need to resort to gas turbines is downstream from this bureaucratic, NIMBY-driven impotency.
  - mukbangpervert 3mo ago
    There is power available in the country. It is not available in arbitrary quantity, to arbitrarily selected buildings, on arbitrarily short timelines. That said, I agree we need more power generation in this country. Massive rollouts (like in China) would bolster industry while being beneficial to nearly every citizen except those dependent on legacy energy technologies. Sadly, the party in power opposes the most scalable approaches to this because greatly expanded power generation would hurt margins for a few special interests.
- rjmunro 3mo ago
  I agree it's absurd and I'm in favour of some kind of wealth tax, but I don't get the connection here. This feels like a failure of infrastructure planning laws and things like noise regulations.

al_borland 3mo ago

I haven’t been in an AI data center, but have been in several others, and worked in a smaller one. I never really hear anything until I open the door to a computer room… and I’m one of those people who is bothered by the electrical noise in my walls.