After a few years of using Typescript, having to use type annotations and import basic language features like `abc` in Python feels like an absolute slog.
I saw my first Dolby Vision Blu-ray and immediately started a Blu-Ray collection. The Blu-ray player on the PS5 is fine, but a nice dedicated player from Sony blows it away.
I would pay for my favorite albums on Blu-ray too. I wish more artists released their entire discography on a really well produced Blu-ray. NIN would be perfect for this. So many Halos, so many videos, all in release order. A real release of Purest Feeling?
I think current gen AI is junk. I don’t use it. I also don’t see mass job losses over it. Scapegoated? Yes. Actual mass unemployment? No.
Commercially, I typically see AI used in what amount to scams. And no, I don’t believe that anyone should be using it for therapy.
You don’t have time to glance at a diagram in a book but you have time to ask AI and go to Home Depot and do it yourself?
If you’re worried about job loss, pay the plumber.
You could argue that you still put money into the local economy by shopping locally. The money you saved by doing it yourself could be spent locally on dinner and ice cream. Money is fungible.
If you’re concerned about the impacts of AI you could start to mitigate them by choosing not to use AI yourself.
It’s been a few hours. I’ve said all I have to say under this post. I’m going to stop replying now.
We should have been building additional nuclear capacity for the past 50 years. The kinds of anti data center activism we’re seeing now was directed at nuclear back then.
It would take decades to build enough data centers to use 100% of the station’s capacity.
We can build capacity as we build consumers. It’s all about balance.
I also don’t believe that we’re going to be building all of the 1200 proposed data centers in the US.
What a bad idea AI therapy is and I don’t know too many people who are using AI art commercially. Translators, sure. But we’ve been using Google Translate for almost two decades now.
You didn’t need AI for your plumbing. My dad had a whole set of books on household chores that we used to fix everything.
I do more of the work around my house than most. I won’t touch tall trees to fuck with my breaker box. I do most of my own plumbing.
But, plumbers are fine. Most people don’t want to handle their own shit.
Data centers do more than AI. And you won’t defeat AI by killing data center proposals. The technology will succeed or fail on its own. We’ll find out in about 5 years.
Remember how “everyone” said all trucks will be self-driving in 10 years… 15 years ago?
There are something like 1200 data center proposals cross the US. How many of those will actually be built? How many are being proposed by speculators with no experience building or operating data centers? I have a feeling the number that will actually be built is significantly less that 1200.
Again, I’m talking about my region. We have a nuclear generating station 16 miles from the proposed site of the data center. That station sells 80-85% of the power generated wholesale to other parts of the state and grids regionally.
Property taxes. Construction jobs. The land is unused and already had tax incentives. Remember, tax incentives don’t eliminate taxes, they just reduce them for a period of time to encourage development.
I’ve noticed that people conflate being anti data center with being anti AI.
I don’t have any faith in the current crop of gen AI. I think it’s junk. I don’t think it’s replacing humans in drives. I can barely get it to refactor Sass code into a mixin.
Even if the AI bubble pops the world isn’t going to need fewer data centers.
If a speculator wants to create a bunch of construction jobs, build a site in a region with the power, water, climate to do so responsibly, and give us a bunch of money in property taxes. I’m for it.
I don’t care if his company folds and he loses his shirt. Someone will operate the data center.
They can’t get back the money they injected into the community during construction.
Cloistered deep within the Mines of Astoria · NYC