Current Affairs 🌡️ Weather / climate change

snake77 said:
Do we need to look at climate change differently?
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I think we are but no one is prepared to sacrifice our cars for horses or so to speak.

The Chinese are building underwater data centres that perform far more efficiently, something successfully pioneered by Microsoft but dumped over bout 10 years ago.

The Chinese have more nuclear power plants under construction than the whole western world and have many super efficient coal power plants driving the "world's factory".

Here in NZ and making the most of a poor decision to axe inland gas fields for hydrogen facilities have we taken this to fruition yet? It could be a local market infrastructure boon..
 
snake77 said:
Do we need to look at climate change differently?

We hear a lot about the traditional lessening the use of fossil fuels. Is there a hidden issue no one is talking about?

Labour talked about a knowledge based economy. The IT industry has traditionally not been great environmentally. It is getting better.

The media like to report on data centres being built or the ones that were going to be built and for whatever reason isn't going ahead. Then push how they are environmentally friendly. Sure, they might be powered in a unique way that may be better than traditional means. But, I'd be sceptical on how much they know on what goes on day to day.

They create a lot of waste. A lot not biodegradable. IT equipment come with great metal work to run the cabling. This is often thrown out as it affects airflow. IT companies send parts to expand storage with each device boxed separately in an over sized box with anti static bags and polystyrene. Depending on the project you may now get a large plastic container with all of the disks for example. So things are getting better.

That storage example is why Facebook would be a better option if you are passionate about the environment, Not Twitter. The storage technology Facebook use is reliable and also shipped in a way that does not create much wastage.

It would be interesting debate/investigation to see if physical media which needs to be produced and eventually gets thrown out. Is better or worse than the current cloud streaming model. The streaming services are convenient but the amount of data still needs to physically take up space and in multiple places as it needs to be redundant so it will not be lost or become unavailable. Then add the social media platforms and the amount of data we are producing explodes.

Then move to A.I and things get worse as the processing requirements take up a lot of power. Often taking up more space to be able to accommodate the power requirements.

These two articles talk about how cities are generally warmer than regional areas due to concrete, amount of traffic etc. But also that data centres are increasing this again. One of these articles shows the solar ordinance (heat striking a certain area). It does they this needs to be investigated further.
www.forbes.com

Data Centers May Cause Hotter Weather, New Study Suggests

Is waste heat from data centers affecting the weather? A new study says they are making their local environment hotter.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
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And the database for this website will be chugging power.

I challenge our leftist posters to let their actions speak and quit posting on non league threads to save the planet 🤣
 
snake77 said:
Do we need to look at climate change differently?

We hear a lot about the traditional lessening the use of fossil fuels. Is there a hidden issue no one is talking about?

Labour talked about a knowledge based economy. The IT industry has traditionally not been great environmentally. It is getting better.

The media like to report on data centres being built or the ones that were going to be built and for whatever reason isn't going ahead. Then push how they are environmentally friendly. Sure, they might be powered in a unique way that may be better than traditional means. But, I'd be sceptical on how much they know on what goes on day to day.

They create a lot of waste. A lot not biodegradable. IT equipment come with great metal work to run the cabling. This is often thrown out as it affects airflow. IT companies send parts to expand storage with each device boxed separately in an over sized box with anti static bags and polystyrene. Depending on the project you may now get a large plastic container with all of the disks for example. So things are getting better.

That storage example is why Facebook would be a better option if you are passionate about the environment, Not Twitter. The storage technology Facebook use is reliable and also shipped in a way that does not create much wastage.

It would be interesting debate/investigation to see if physical media which needs to be produced and eventually gets thrown out. Is better or worse than the current cloud streaming model. The streaming services are convenient but the amount of data still needs to physically take up space and in multiple places as it needs to be redundant so it will not be lost or become unavailable. Then add the social media platforms and the amount of data we are producing explodes.

Then move to A.I and things get worse as the processing requirements take up a lot of power. Often taking up more space to be able to accommodate the power requirements.

These two articles talk about how cities are generally warmer than regional areas due to concrete, amount of traffic etc. But also that data centres are increasing this again. One of these articles shows the solar ordinance (heat striking a certain area). It does they this needs to be investigated further.
www.forbes.com

Data Centers May Cause Hotter Weather, New Study Suggests

Is waste heat from data centers affecting the weather? A new study says they are making their local environment hotter.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
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There's a lot of stories yet to play out regarding AI.

We're having something thrust upon society with no consultation and a huge power imbalance given it's all in private hands, and is developed off of the back of all of humanity's contributions to our world captured on the internet to date, by humans.

These are private data centres being forced and enforced by governments, in particular the US. They are privately owned, and in true neoliberal fashion the cost to the environment, the towns and countries they are placed in and the people in the areas they reside are being publicised.

They are hugely destructive with a high environmental impact.

Who is actually asking or has asked for this? Only the heads of these companies, and the corporates and governments that provide their backing.
 
MaybeTop8 said:
There's a lot of stories yet to play out regarding AI.

We're having something thrust upon society with no consultation and a huge power imbalance given it's all in private hands, and is developed off of the back of all of humanity's contributions to our world captured on the internet to date, by humans.

These are private data centres being forced and enforced by governments, in particular the US. They are privately owned, and in true neoliberal fashion the cost to the environment, the towns and countries they are placed in and the people in the areas they reside are being publicised.

They are hugely destructive with a high environmental impact.

Who is actually asking or has asked for this? Only the heads of these companies, and the corporates and governments that provide their backing.
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Data Centres themselves are not neccessarily an issue. In the major centres people will be driving past them without even noticing them.

They are needed with our modern business. If you want a knowledge based economy they are needed.

If we didn't have them we'd be back in having companies building their own server rooms. Modern infrastructure with virtualisation and storage moving to flash they would shrink.

Data Centres allow co-location and are designed for 24/7 availability. Instead of each office buidling needing generators.

They also make it easier for companies to split their infrastructure across two sites to cover DR scenarios. Kind of necessary in NZ with the risk of earthquakes.

A.I is an issue due to the cards needed and the power required for them. When you install equipment in a data centre you log the power. The equipment for A.I ends up being less dense. I know the media report A.I and job losses. It is a similar challenge to automation in the 80s,90s and companies downsizing as roles get done via technology. Moving to cloud services or the different aaS (As A Service) products also lead to roles being downsized.

For A.I i'd be more worried about it from a cyber resilience point of view. Someone using it to impersonate someone you know or from a company you use to get information. The A.I generated videos have improved a lot. A few years ago they were easy to spot. You have instances now you need to check them for blinking, or items in the background.

My role now as a consultant we don't see much companies have infrastructure on site. The infrastructure is predominantly in a co-located data centre.

The IT industry isn't great for the environment. It is getting better. It is mentioned more from vendors, CEOs etc.
 
Damo said:
Using existing infrastructure of modern society doesn't mean you forfeit the right to want cleaner more efficient ways of doing so. This is a stupid argument
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He’s not saying not use the internet sparingly, he’s saying this website is a frivolous luxury that’s entirely unnecessary.

Your argument is equivalent to leaving all your lights on and leaving the AC running when you aren’t home, because “Using existing infrastructure of modern society doesn't mean you forfeit the right to want cleaner more efficient ways of doing so”

Infact in general, I find insufferable leftists to be far more hypocritical than anyone. Constantly bitching about “billionaires” while ubering MacDonalds 2x day on an IPhone 17 Pro Max, while asking ChatGPT for song recommendations on Spotify and posting pictures to Instagram and FB.
 
MrFrankWhite said:
Infact in general, I find insufferable leftists to be far more hypocritical than anyone. Constantly bitching about “billionaires” while ubering MacDonalds 2x day on an IPhone 17 Pro Max, while asking ChatGPT for song recommendations on Spotify and posting pictures to Instagram and FB.
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While watching a sport played by multimillionaires where they are the living definition of massive gender gap; market orientated pay/ unequal pay; individual responsibility and meritocracy. They travel via planes for simple entertainment helping to destroy the environment.

A CEO earning 100 x an employee is evil, while a star athlete earning 100 x a junior player is often accepted?

Professional sport is played by a bunch of far right athletes and the lefties love it 🤣
 
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wizard of Tauranga said:
While watching a sport played by multimillionaires where they are the living definition of massive gender gap; market orientated pay/ unequal pay; individual responsibility and meritocracy. They travel via planes for simple entertainment helping to destroy the environment.

Professional sport is played by a bunch of far right athletes and the lefties love it 🤣
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Does my head in. I probably make 100x more ethical living decisions than the majority yet still believe capitalism is voluntary exchange. I just don’t like exchanging my money for most consumerist bullshit.
 
Worried2Death said:
Good bait mate but league's been a socialist worker's game since a bunch of coalmining Marxists revolted against the capitalist exploiters and demanded a fair day's pay for chucking 'round an egg, you can't have it both ways Benjamin Franklin.
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I think you’ll find that RL formed due to the communist nature Rugby Union clubs at the time in England.

They wanted to be compensated fairly rather than just play for the good of the club.
 
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