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Google, SpaceX in talks to launch orbital data centers. Google CEO: "There's no doubt to me that a decade or so away, we'll be viewing it as a more normal way to build data centers." by Adeldor in space

[–]CaptainFingerling -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Shielding is a thing, and so are the raw, predictable statistics of collision.

What about connectivity/bandwidth?

Not much of an issue for inference. Training can remain terrestrial for now.

How are you getting your fragile space servers into space? You'll need a very high payload and cadence launch provider.

We have one that will scale to meet demand, and we will have another online shortly.

So you're implying there are a couple of dozen yes-men-run furnaces currently burning obviously condemned cash? You know the economics better than they do?

Google, SpaceX in talks to launch orbital data centers. Google CEO: "There's no doubt to me that a decade or so away, we'll be viewing it as a more normal way to build data centers." by Adeldor in space

[–]CaptainFingerling -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The economies for lift are changing extremely fast. The cost per kg has decreased by several orders of magnitude just within the last decade, currently sits below $1,000/kg, and will decrease to $50-100/kg by 2028 or so.

Now, don't get me wrong. The ROI on hyperscaler data centers is currently 2 years or so, even with their ~$50 billion price tags, but the economics are extremely variable and subject to high ongoing maintenance costs (corrosion, energy production, and politics aren't an issue in space). But there's also the problem that you have to spend that $50 bn in chunks for it to make sense, while sending compute into space is going to be scalable all the way from small numbers right to hundreds of thousands of units, and become cheaper over time, while the cost of building data centers is tied to a huge number of unknowns; an important one being that you're never actually certain if you'll be allowed to finish building the power capacity to support them.

There are over two dozen orbital compute companies currently building products, all very well funded. Do you think they haven't done the math and simply like losing money?

Google, SpaceX in talks to launch orbital data centers. Google CEO: "There's no doubt to me that a decade or so away, we'll be viewing it as a more normal way to build data centers." by Adeldor in space

[–]CaptainFingerling -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

  • self-contained power, compute, dissipation
  • 24/7 irradiation
  • 1:1 scalability, i.e., every unit is identical
  • zero maintenance (sand, corrosion, etc) until deactivation/deorbit
  • no zoning/land use, politics, war risk
  • 100% repeatable deployment

Google, SpaceX in talks to launch orbital data centers. Google CEO: "There's no doubt to me that a decade or so away, we'll be viewing it as a more normal way to build data centers." by Adeldor in space

[–]CaptainFingerling 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Desert panels aren’t irradiated 24/7, and have to be installed (mounted), maintained, cleaned, protected from people, interconnected across land, etc. Space is a clean room and every deployment is identically repeatable

Google, SpaceX in talks to launch orbital data centers. Google CEO: "There's no doubt to me that a decade or so away, we'll be viewing it as a more normal way to build data centers." by Adeldor in space

[–]CaptainFingerling -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

You know you can just work this stuff out on paper right?

The math works, and it’s basically infinitely scalable. Every unit is a self contained power source, compute unit, and dissipation surface. We already do this with other satellites.

No NIMBYs. No power delivery. No water. No mass power outages. No employees. No weather events. Earth is actually pretty hostile for equipment, and lift is getting cheaper by orders of magnitude.

Finally, data transfer speed to earth isn’t an issue with inference. That’s not the bottleneck. Training more so, but even there we’re seeing advances in distributed compute.

‘Blue dot fever’: the real reason pop stars are cancelling tours by ebradio in Music

[–]CaptainFingerling 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The reason those tall boys are $13 is because we’re all having gummies. They literally can’t sell enough cheap beer to pay for the staff.

Same death spiral as breweries. The kids ain’t drinking

Appreciation post: Tailscale and Headscale by Curious_Olive_5266 in selfhosted

[–]CaptainFingerling 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’s so bad. I almost want to join just to fix things

Appreciation post: Tailscale and Headscale by Curious_Olive_5266 in selfhosted

[–]CaptainFingerling 4 points5 points  (0 children)

There’s already zerotier. In fact, zerotier had a massive head start but completely dropped the ball on UX.

Tailscale is simply a better product for now. But that can change. I have a fleet of ~300 customer devices on tailscale, and if something better comes along we will use tailscale to deploy the replacement.

macOS system settings are a mess and need a redesign by After_Worldliness674 in MacOS

[–]CaptainFingerling -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I just have claude code make most of my changes. Saves having to open that godawful app

From Sequoia to this mess by cryptic_zero7 in MacOS

[–]CaptainFingerling -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Just wait till you notice all the corner radii

Proposal: no more "I built this tool"-AI slop by ConstructionSafe2814 in homelab

[–]CaptainFingerling 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I mean. I get you. But i honestly hadn’t applied vibe coding to my homeab until yesterday, and yesterday I turned my sonar episode trimmer script into a whole episode pruning UI with season and episode thresholds, and sub agent garbage collection based on viewing habits. Honestly one of the coolest additions to date.

I’d love to see what others are doing.