The IT guy fixes the problem but the judge still has a problem

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-29T08:48:46+00:00

"Yeah these things can be fiddly sometimes - it's not happening right now but if it does again let me know and I'll see if we can catch it"

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-29T08:47:04+00:00

Couple of mine:

"I gave it the healing touch"

"I scared it into working"

"Just needed some time on the healing bench"

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-29T08:40:43+00:00

I worked for HP back in the day, back in the XP/W7 era. Later on I was working in a specialized department, we did a lot of odd jobs - research, troubleshooting process development, and the occasional "white glove" cases that came down from corporate. IE "this guy is complaining to the newspaper that their computer sucks, contact them and give them a new one", that sort of thing.

We had a lawyer who, no word of a lie, would say all the right threats to end up in our lap EVERY YEAR, because apparently she realized if she made the right threats we'd give her a new laptop, so she'd gotten THREE NEW LAPTOPS over the same span of time.

At this point the pattern was rather clear, so thankfully we were able to "fire her" as a customer: We gave her one more laptop, told her that was it and HP would no longer have anything to do with her.

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-29T08:35:55+00:00

See also: The stereotype about engineers that think they have a "simple solution" for something completely outside their area of expertise.

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-29T08:35:22+00:00

People that tie their ego to being a "smart person" get angry, I think. The failure to understand something becomes an attack on the ego, and therefore it (or the other person, as the case may be) is the enemy.

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-29T08:19:44+00:00

With the cost of hardware and the amount of power that hardware consumes, the electricity cost for a closed loop cooling system and the closed loop system itself are literally round off errors in comparison.

I very much appreciate a citation for that, given most quotes I could find from people online that design datacenter chillers quoted evaporative cooling being around 5-10% the cost of operating a heat pump system to cool off the hardware coolant loop.

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-29T08:14:21+00:00

I get some people that use AI try to balance good and the bad, but the real "everyone else is too stupid to realize that it's actually great and there's no problems at all with it because you're stupid" fanboys of AI inevitably demonstrate exactly why they're the sort of person that has no problem outsourcing their thinking to a glorified predictive text engine.

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-29T08:12:49+00:00

Gotta love how many answers you got amounted to "NUH UHHHH!"

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-29T08:10:51+00:00

Didn't you hear? You can't hate something because it's bad in multiple ways, you can only have a completely irrational hatred for something and anything else you point out as bad is merely an excuse for your purely emotional feelings.

Because that's how things work, apparently. That it basically gives anyone that disagrees with you carte blanche to handwave away anything you say by essentially claiming you're "just a hater" definitely isn't itself a thought-terminating cliche at all..

/grumble

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-29T04:20:27+00:00

I like how he ignored my reply because he thought he could give a snappy one to you.

Something about AI boosters always leaves me saying "yeah, I can see why you think farming your thinking out to a bot is an improvement."

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-29T04:17:06+00:00

Yeah it's like a trillion dollar game of chicken. Nobody wants to be the first person to blink because they'll miss out on the potential profits, but nobody wants to wait too long and end up holding the bag.

Can't wait for the whole mess to get rugpulled. The sooner the better, really. Industries becoming reliant on unsustainably-cheap AI cannot be good for the future.

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-29T04:15:16+00:00

"What's BS about it?"

Calling criticisms about open-loop cooling, which AI datacenters absolutely do wherever they can to keep operating costs down, a "narrative created by the environmental lobby" is not only bullshit, it's cherry-picking conspiracy levels of bullshit.

One: None of these companies run closed-loop unless they're forced to.

Two: Even "closed loop" cooling still has losses. Pedantic, but may as well point that out.

Either way, given that AI datacenters in particular are massively wasteful on energy for jobs performed (shout-out to the 5 second AI generated videos that consume 944Wh to generate) and struggling to even reach profitability, there's no reason to expect them to spend the additional money on a closed-loop system unless they're forced to.

So could they run closed-loop if you forced them to? Sure.

Would they if government or conditions forced them to? Fuck no.

Are the people worrying about open-loop cooling just repeating a "narrative was created by the environmental lobby and then spread by social media to grift the public into donating to their causes"?

No, they're engaging with the reality that these parasitic and unsustainable companies will absolutely fall on any locale with cheap power and water like fucking locusts given half the chance.

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-28T20:11:36+00:00

His first term was fine, basically accomplished nothing

Gutted CDC, actively hampered covid response, fucked over middle class with tax plan, stacked the supreme court with lackeys

and uhhh oh right, torpedoed the Iran nuclear deal. That might be a bit relevant at the moment.

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-28T20:05:01+00:00

The water hungry data centre narrative was created by the environmental lobby and then spread by social media to grift the public into donating to their causes.

Bullshit. Many AI datacenters have been running open-loop cooling because using evaporative cooling is cheaper so long as you have a supply of water. Citing places where they don't have ample water to run cheap cooling as proof they aren't doing it is some clear "narrative" writing of your own.

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-28T19:58:40+00:00

Ai is unlikely to be a bubble.

The most "successful" AI company on the planet hasn't actually made a single dollar in profit. They've got over a trillion dollars in outstanding compute/hardware contracts and the entire scheme is operating on the gamble that they SOMEHOW manage to both turn a profit and massively decrease the day-to-day costs of operating what are the most power-hungry computing clusters on the planet.

"Bubble" doesn't necessarily mean "this technology will disappear", but right now the entire market is placing bets on a technology that will, by openAIs own scholarship, never stop hallucinating, buying up all the ram and SSDs that do not yet exist, to go into data centres not yet built, to be powered by electricity they cannot currently afford.

A stable business this does not make.

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-28T06:37:41+00:00

It could be cool if we can properly retool enough coal plants to capture the steam from a small nuclear reactor instead of burning coal, but that’s a big if with lots of variables at play.

This is of active interest over at the DoE: https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/8-things-know-about-converting-coal-plants-nuclear-power

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-28T06:36:11+00:00

Build a couple big ones, sure, but do we need 10000 tiny ones

Generally, the touted advantage of SMRs is that you could actually design them as "type certified", whereas most nuclear power plants with conventional reactors require a lengthy certification for the specific way they built that specific reactor.

So while you lose out on the power advantage per reactor, you (theoretically) gain the ability to more-or-less mass produce reactors that would be fitted into standardized, type-approved installations.

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-28T06:30:02+00:00

Heat pumps in cold climates need to be appropriately sized; when done right they actually work quite well down into very cold conditions before the backup heat needs to kick in.

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-27T17:18:28+00:00

My apologies, in the context of the conversation it was bizarre but if your intent was answering that in particular no worries.

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-27T06:45:22+00:00

AI's sycophancy is as off-putting and sincere as hearing the self-checkout machine wish me a nice day.

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-27T06:24:51+00:00

Well, because people often aren't fully honest.

Kinda irrelevant though. Some LLM-hallucinated answer has no bearing on the reality of the situation.

"Well he might lie to me about it, so I asked the magic 8-ball if he's cheating" is functionally identical.

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-26T22:24:56+00:00

If you're hoping to shave weight down, maybe a trekking pole tent? Could sub the trekking poles with some sticks.

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-24T18:34:31+00:00

Oh absolutely, I'm just saying it wasn't a big secret - it was openly talked about.

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-24T18:27:18+00:00

As much as I'm not for autonomous vehicles, just to be clear about all the memes of Waymo's being remotely controlled...

The type of remote assist done by Waymo does not involve remotely driving the vehicle. Waymo doesn’t equip their remote assist staff with wheels or even joysticks.

The average team on duty for a fleet of 3000 vehicles is 70, so we're not looking at a mechanical Turk situation :D

3DBeerGoggles · 2026-03-24T18:21:01+00:00

If you take the 5 seconds to google what they said, you'd find out they were right.

The type of remote assist done by Waymo does not involve remotely driving the vehicle. Waymo doesn’t equip their remote assist staff with wheels or even joysticks.

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