this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2024
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TechTakes

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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

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Feel like you want to sneer about something but you don't quite have a snappy post in you? Go forth and be mid!

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut'n'paste it into its own post, there’s no quota here and the bar really isn't that high

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

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[–] hrrrngh@awful.systems 11 points 9 months ago (7 children)

Yesterday before bed I saw some galaxy-brained takes on PKM (personal knowledge management software) from a 7-day old account, and curiosity took over me. I was not disappointed. (sadly they deleted their account after I woke up: /u/Few-Elephant-2600 if you're bored and have moderator API access)

Link

Since GPUs continuously generate large amounts of waste heat during AI training, could electric/GPU stoves utilize this unused thermal energy resource through on-demand tickets as distributed networks instead of citizens using a wasteful private electric stove? What are the scientific challenges?

Honey can you preheat the porn generator?

Maybe you could pair it with this accursed AI of Things Smart Oven. Fun quotes:

“Users aren’t aware of any of the oven’s learning processes,”

Ovens that learn from one another

Finally, I can experience Windows progress bars when baking potatoes:

The predictive model updates the remaining baking time every 30 seconds

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Since GPUs continuously generate large amounts of waste heat during AI training, could electric/GPU stoves utilize this unused thermal energy resource

I'm actually aware of businesses that already do exactly this, usefully

through on-demand tickets as distributed networks

"tickets" is this Ethereum bullshit?

instead of citizens using a wasteful private electric stove?

  • Citizens Don't Need To Cook
  • Not a citizen? Get fucked scrub.

(this leaves me feeling incredibly ??????)

What are the scientific challenges?

this seems like JAQing behaviour?

[ed: once again wearing my Lemmy Ate My Formatting shirt]

[–] fasterandworse@awful.systems 10 points 9 months ago

instead of citizens using a wasteful private electric stove?

I'm 99% sure this person eats only gig-work delivered food

[–] sc_griffith@awful.systems 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

yet another crypto argument getting run through find/replace

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 7 points 9 months ago

This is true, with the important distinction that presumably the next generation of GPUs will produce more calculation per unit of input energy, as opposed to proof-of-work crypto mining, where the coin generation is constant in time, by design.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

i think that there's *at least one supercomputing centre in germany that uses waste heat for heating buildings and not only their own

[–] fasterandworse@awful.systems 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

at what point is "large amounts of heat" output considered the part that's the waste?

Do they know that brake discs get hot because they're stopping a car from colliding with a wall?

[–] V0ldek@awful.systems 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

But for electronics basically all heat is excess. Brakes are literally supposed to turn kinetic energy into heat. A GPU is supposed to solve linear equations quickly. The generated heat is because we don't know how to not generate it. If I could power my oven with all the energy waste while playing Crysis I totally would.

Plus, heat of the brakes is also technically waste. Case in point, Formula 1 cars have specially designed systems whose purpose is converting energy dissipated during braking back into battery charge to power the hybrid engine.

[–] fasterandworse@awful.systems 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

My point was more about how you decide that the heat is the undesirable outcome compared to whatever the fuck the thing is meant to be doing. Brakes have a very clear purpose at the expense of the heat. GPUs being used as graphics processing units when you’re playing crysis have a very clear purpose to heat output ratio. Ya see wot I mean?

[–] V0ldek@awful.systems 5 points 9 months ago

Yup, now I get the sneer, sorry for not catching on earlier.

To respond in this vein then: at least real art pieces I could burn for fuel...

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Didn't some soviet towns run central heating off power plant waste heat? "Where do you live? OpenAiVille, we get free^M cheaper central heating, but the noise of the severfans running every day and night is deafening."

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

combined heat and power isn't a technology unique to eastern block countries, but surely centralized city planning makes it easier to pump waste heat into municipal heating grid (or out to some chemical works or such). tbh it didn't even occur to me that there are serious cities (population 100k+) that don't have city-owned heating grid, even 50k towns and smaller can have their own CHP plants (tiny one, fits in shipping container or two)

and it's not just some towns no no no. it was implemented everywhere where it was practical. near big cities - these need both power and heat, so okayish coal is shipped to them by rail, burned there and provides both heat and energy. beijing for example runs on 10 or so large CHP plants iirc. near lignite mines - lignite is burned there (does not make sense to ship it anywhere else, too shitty) and nearby town has free heat. where there's neither, either coal was shipped to be burned in heating plants, centralized or individual, or gas was delivered by pipelines also for heating, and energy was delivered from larger centralized facilities. if there's fuckton of energy somehow, like in russian far east with their abundant hydropower, or nothing else is practical, in some places heating was electric

NYC has steam pipelines running around the city, doesn't that use CHP plants?

[–] jonhendry@iosdev.space 5 points 9 months ago

@hrrrngh @dgerard

There’s a company that wants to do this/is doing it with server-based hot water heaters.