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Maggie's FarmWe are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for. |
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Tuesday, July 28. 2026Tuesday morning links
Scientists find compound that may help muscles stay strong as we age How to Treat Our Data-Center Phobia. Plus. . . Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson Faces Backlash After Mass Shooting For Deactivating CCTV Cameras Trump Has Already Won the Iran War, a Twenty-Five-Year Army Veteran Argues New British Defense Secretary Says Europe "Shaken Out Of Complacency" By Trump Trackbacks
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I'll preface this by stating that I've been an IT professional for over 30 years, with certifications in everything from Novell Netware to Amazon Cloud; I've been around the block more than once.
The alternative to large, regional datacenters is not no datacenters, it's a bunch of small, local and company-based datacenters connected less efficiently to each other. Not building big data centers will not stop Big Data; it will make it slower, less efficient, and more prone to outages. LLMs and other fledgling AI technologies are here to stay, until something likely even more compute-intensive replaces them. I'm convinced without evidence that if you traced these grassroots efforts to prevent construction in the US, you'll find "Astroturf" funding from China and Chinese interests which stand to benefit most from the US and Western Europe slowing their adoption of next-generation technologies. Many of the harms attributed to data centers are second-order effects of limiting the expansion of power generating capacity on the US grid. China has shown no desire to add coal-fired capacity to accommodate gains to their grid, in more polluting and less efficient ways. The people passing moratoria on construction of Data Centers are the same sort who made laws mandating that you needed to send a guy waving a red flag in front of your car at the turn of the last century. "How to Treat Our Data-Center Phobia"
So it's a phobia now! There are two major problems with data centers that they are trying to slip by us and the phrase "Data-Center Phobia" is part of that ploy. Next they will call you a fascist or racist to negate you legitimate concerns. But they won't address the problems. The first problem is when it comes to water and electricity data centers are giant parasites. The people who choose the location for a new data center intentionally pick a town that has provided their citizens with affordable water and electricity. Then they come in and gobble it up forcing the town to expand their facilities at a huge cost to the citizens. The citizens in the community get nothing back for this. They get nothing good from a data center. It is a huge scar on the city. It is a huge windowless concrete building behind a high and barbed wire fence that sits there and hums and looks disgusting while sucking up the citizens money. It doesn't bring jobs to the community the few jobs at the center are foreign nationals hired through the H1b fraud. The political leaders of the small community are typically paid under the table to approve and facilitate this theft of services and harm to the citizens. They take the money and then sign a NDA and the citizens pay the price. Solution: All data centers must provide their own water and power. All data centers must be built adjacent to the states congressional members homes. All data centers should pay the community millions of dollars every year. The next problem is the size of a data center. Some of these have bought up 1200 acre farms and the buildings are 1,000,000 sq/ft or more. It would literally take trillions of dollars to fill that space with supper computers. Go price a super computer... Then notice that it is small enough to fit in your two car garage with room left over. Something doesn't make sense!! They don't need 1200 acres and they don't need 1,000,000 sq/ft. There is something they are not telling us about this sudden dramatic push for massive concrete buildings surrounded by barbed wire. Solution: Make them open to the public. Monday throgh Friday from 8 Am to 5 PM anyone can walk in and walk around and take pictures and video. Why not? What are they hiding??? Your two major problems with data centers are non-existent. As with the Man Made Climate Change movement, the Data Centers Are Bad movement is being funded by people who want us to be weak and poor.
Perhaps, all you really need to know is that our local Republican governor is trying to build major data centers on "long views" land. You know those wide open spaces that every human being needs to know, to see, to experience. Funny, how Bill Gates doesn't want to use "his" agricultural spaces in Nebraska, Iowa, etc. Only those spaces that have never been bult on before! The cheap, quick, and easy spaces. Here's an idea. Everyone wants to be close and friendly with Canada, why not put them up in the northern flatlands above Manitoba, Alberta, etc. Waaay up there. Why do those who are pushing these things feel the urge in their panties to put them on beautiful open spaces that the world loves? Why is that--oh I remember. Canada has plenty of places to put these things that no one will ever have to look at--make a deal!!
By the way for what it's worth, those all powerful females in Seattle, you know the ones who destroyed Molbaks nursery in order to build more condos. Those women are now trying to destroy the last remainiing nursery for more condos. They have filled in every square inch of land, they build small shoddy nearly useles parks, they build to the water's edge, etc. They cannot leave the last remaining nursery alone. Why you ask are these two nurseries so important? Because they were near to the crowded living areas and the only places where people could really relas and dream of a potted plant, or a small tree. Touch them, experience them, etc. and at the same time sit and relax with a hot soup or coffee. No by Gosh those communists won't tolerate that-- I challenge anyone here to go drive around Bothell, Mill Creek, Snoqualmie, Bellevue and see what the giant egos can do to a place in less than 30 years! Geez, they must get a good case of the drizzles when they look east to Montana and see those wide open spaces. Which reminds me isn't Seattle where Bill Gates, Microsoft, etc originate? If Microsoft needs data centers then let Billy build them on his million aces of farm land! re New British Defense Secretary Says Europe "Shaken Out Of Complacency" By Trump
Perhaps that statement was made for America's benefit? The EU countries are broke now. They will have to print a lot of money to upgrade their militaries as demographic collapse sets in. I don't see how they can pay any more than lip service to rearmament. "The EU countries are broke now."
Meanwhile, your country has a national debt sitting at USD 38.5 trillion. re Trump Has Already Won the Iran War, a Twenty-Five-Year Army Veteran Argues
Lotta cheerleading for Trump going on here. If you have free time and want to open a can of worms, take a video camera to a data center near you and stand on the sidewalk across the street from it and video. Plan and prepare to stay all day and video. Bring water, bring a lunch and maybe a chair. I bet that within 30 minutes you will get to meet 2-6 of your local police who will interrogate you because they don't want you videoing the data center. You can probably stand across the street from your town hall and video and no one will care but they don't want you to video a data center. It isn't against the law so the police will make up some charge to get you to move or arrest you. Why? Why the intimidation? It's not as though you can see or video the actual data or even see anything but the building. So how does this become a problem for them?
Go for it, Dave. Take your camera to your local data center and report back to us what happens. You seem to have some free time.
I do have some free time. But I spend it selfishly enjoying life. But I know, without any doubt in my mind, that someone on YouTube will do exactly what I suggested and save me the trouble.
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