Jen

Robo-insurance - another incarnation of the infamously grotesque Australian robo-debt program.

Everybody is very casual with how they talk about Sam Altman’s theoretical promises of trillions of dollars of data center infrastructure, and I'm not sure anybody realizes how difficult even the very basics of this plan will be. Nevertheless, everybody is happily publishing stories about how “Stargate Abilene Texas - OpenAI’s massive data center with Oracle - is open,” by which they mean two buildings, and I’m not even confident both of them are providing compute to OpenAI yet. There are six more of them that need to get built for this thing to start rocking at 1.2GW - even though it’s only 1.1GW according to my sources in Abilene. But, hey, sorry - one minute - while we’re on that subject, did anybody visiting Abilene in the last week or so ever ask whether they’ll have enough power there? Don’t worry, you don’t need to look - I’m sure you were just about to, and had simply been busy! - but I did the hard work for you and read up on it, and it turns out that Stargate Abilene only has 200 megawatts of power - a 200 megawatt substation that, according to my sources, has only been built within the last couple of months, with 350 Megawatt of gas turbine generators that connect to a natural gas power plant that might get built by the end of the year in the event that one of the multiple construction firms involved . Said turbine is extremely expensive, featuring volatile pricing (for context, volatility fell in Q2 2025…to 69% annualized, meaning that if you had these prices across the entirety of a year you’d see swings of 69% up or down) and even more volatile environmental consequences, and is, while permitted for it (this will download the PDF of the permit), impractical and expensive to use long-term. Analyst James van Geelen, founder of Citrini Research recently said on Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast that these are “not the really good natural gas turbines” because the really good ones would take seven years to deliver due to a natural gas turbine shortage. But th…

Stargate Abilene does not have sufficient power to run at even half of its supposed IT load of 1.2GW, and at its present capacity - assuming that the gas turbines function at full power - can only hope to run 370MW to 460MW of IT load. I’ve seen article after article about the gas turbines and their use of fracked gas - a disgusting and wasteful act typical of OpenAI - but nobody appears to have asked “how much power does a 1.2GW data center require?” and then chased it with “how much power does Stargate Abilene have?” The answer is not enough, and the significance of said “not enough” is remarkable. Today, I’m going to tell you, at length, how impossible the future of generative AI is. Gigawatt data centers are a ridiculous pipe dream, one that runs face-first into the walls of reality. The world’s governments and media have been far too cavalier with the term “gigawatt,” casually breezing by the fact that Altman’s plans require 17 or more nuclear reactors’ worth of power, as if building power is quick and easy and cheap and just happens. I believe that many of you think that this is an issue of permitting - of simply throwing enough money at the problem - when we are in the midst of a shortage in the electrical grade steel and transformers required to expand America (and the world’s) power grid. I realize it’s easy to get blinded by the constant drumbeat of “gargoyle-like tycoon cabal builds 1 gigawatt data center” and feel that they will simply overwhelm the problem with money, but no, I’m afraid that isn’t the case at all, and all of this is so silly, so ridiculous, so cartoonishly bad that it threatens even the seemingly-infinite wealth of Elon Musk, with xAI burning over a billion dollars a month and planning to spend tens of billions of dollars building the Colossus 2 data center, dragging two billion dollars from SpaceX in his desperate quest to burn as much money as possible for no reason. This is the age of hubris - a time in which we are going to watc…

Tomorrow: The AI Bubble is built on impossible promises. GPUs die in 5 years, nobody has built a 1GW data center, and they have the power to do so. Stargate Abilene won't have enough power before 2028.

Here's a link for $10 off premium.

edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo...

Actually, wait - how long do GPUs last, exactly? Four years for training? Three years? The A100 GPU started shipping in May 2020, and the H100 (and the Hopper GPU generation) entered full production in September 2022, meaning that we’re hurtling at speed toward the time in which we’re going to start seeing a remarkable amount of chips start wearing down, which should be a concern for companies like Microsoft, who bought 150,000 Hopper GPUs in 2023 and 485,000 of them in 2024. Alright, let me just be blunt: the entire economy of debt around GPUs is insane. Assuming these things don’t die within five years (their warranties generally end in three), their value absolutely will, as NVIDIA has committed to releasing a new AI chip every single year, likely with significant increases to power and power efficiency. At the end of the five year period, the Special Purpose Vehicle will be the proud owner of five-year-old chips that nobody is going to want to rent at the price that Elon Musk has been paying for the last five years. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the rental prices for H100 GPUs that went from $8-an-hour in 2023 to $2-an-hour in 2024, or the Silicon Data Indexes (aggregated realtime indexes of hourly prices) that show H100 rentals at around $2.14-an-hour and A100 rentals at a dollar-an-hour, with Vast.AI offering them at as little as $0.67 an hour. This is, by the way, a problem that faces literally every data center being built in the world, and I feel insane talking about it. It feels like nobody is talking about how impossible and ridiculous all of this is - it’s one thing that OpenAI has promised one trillion dollars to people - it’s another that large swaths of that will be spent on hardware that will, by the end of these agreements, be half-obsolete and generating less revenue than ever. Think about it - let’s assume we live in a fantasy land where OpenAI is somehow able to pay Oracle $300 billion over 5 years. Said money is paying for access to Blackwell…

Every single AI data center is a toxic investment, with most of its value tied up in GPUs that will be multiple generations behind by the time these things turn on - and then die in 3-5 years.

All to build for AI demand that doesn't exist.
edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo...

"...the NPC’s list of sponsors reveals the problem. Among them are no less than ten firms with links to the arms industry that is profiting from Israel’s destruction of Gaza, including four of the very largest defence manufacturers in the world – BAE, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Thales."

I see America is now at the “dissident professors fleeing the regime” stage

To say nothing of its unquenchable thirst for energy.

Time to have regulators hold AI companies in check before Trump allows them to regulate themselves.

If your business cannot prosper without breaking the law, then it is not a business. It is organized crime.

Like those dependent on slavery, child labor, or wage theft, it should go out of business as soon as possible.

Okay, let’s take this for sure opportunity to kill the AI industry for good, and restore rights to all artists and writers. The time to kill AI is now.

#ProudBlue

Greta Thunberg for the Nobel Peace Prize!

Plumes of smoke from Israeli attacks were seen rising over Gaza hours after Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of a ceasefire plan, brokered by Donald Trump.

So ... we have a world being run by ultra-wealthy men who have never heard the word "no" and go through life doing whatever the hell they want with zero consequences. Yet nobody in power ... absolutely nobody ... is talking about the environment. They do not care. So depressing 😞

So the National Press Club - an association of journalists - doesn't wanna talk about all the journalists being deliberately targeted and murdered during a genocide because . . . it might upset the people that are targeting and murdering the journalists who were reporting on a genocide?

Umm, WTF?

Paris is an example of a city who took things seriously and started making changes immediately. Doing targeted changes quickly and cheaply. Then going in and upgrading areas which needed improvements to handle the changes which emerged

This has been the muttered mantra of the racist since as long as I can remember. I literally remember hearing people say this as a child, and I’m not especially young.

Racists have nothing original to offer. Their rhetoric is ancient and irrelevant.

We’re in a moment now where it would be worth people taking three hours to watch Gandhi, particularly the scene of the salt march. There is value to making the brutality of your opponent so plain as day that no one can argue with it. The clarity of that brought down an empire

I stopped riding for a while after nearly being mown down by someone ignoring a red light. Be good to feel more relaxed and safe, but the rest of the world doesn't want bike riders to feel that.

Oh my god - seriously - the natural rhythms still remaining that this will fuck up. Why would anyone think this is a good idea?

It’s boiling in October because you’re using ChatGPT to write your emails, Janice.

Genius! Built into ongoing costs for the owner, registration, insurance, fuel, parking, repairs. Everything.

I was a skeptic about the import of the Epstein files.

But 3 invasions of cities, one military buildup outside Venezuela, a government shutdown, and so many other things meant to distract have me convinced whatever’s in there is the biggest presidential scandal in U.S. history.

Australians overwhelmingly back sanctions on Israel, new poll finds 'Sizeable majority' of voters across political lines want Israel to end genocide in Gaza

NEW: Australians overwhelmingly recognise and oppose the genocide in Gaza and want the government to do more to stop it, according to a new poll released today.

www.deepcutnews.com/p/australian...

Dozens of placards to vote no on both options (protected bike lanes OR a bicycle street) are on poles and in front yards. There's also a petition. I'm so disheartened that my neighbours feel their rights to park cars outweighs safety for those who choose to not drive. #urbanism #cityofyarra

A before and after artists impression of the bicycle street. The left side is the street now, the right side shows people walking and biking through a safer, calmer, greener environment.

The plan came out of extensive public consultation and feedback from the community living and riding through the area. it's based on sound urban principles. yoursayyarra.com.au/building-saf...

The danger, they say, comes from diverted traffic, fewer car spaces. Fewer car spaces means people have to walk further, or drive circuitously. I see opportunities for people to walk instead of driving, bike, trike, use accessibility vehicles, safely. They don't want extra cars on THEIR side street.

An artists impression of the bicycle street plan in the City Of Yarra, including more street trees, traffic calming, and diversions away from residential housing. It's beautiful.

My local council #cityofYarra, in inner Melbourne, (Australia) has an amazing plan to build safer, more beautiful "bicycle streets". It's exciting!! But my neighbours are campaigning against it because they think the loss of 13 car parking spots makes the street *more* dangerous. #urbanism

Tawny owl

Six weeks ago, I picked up a year-old tawny owl with a broken leg off the main road near our home and dropped him off at our nearest vet.

After a few days, I received one of the most bizarre phone calls I’ve ever had, asking “So when are you coming to pick up your owl?” 🧵

how about you care about actual fucking people on this planet before you start wondering if your toaster has a soul.

Once everyone materially demonstrates they care for all people on this planet and we deal WITH ALL THAT and all the animals too

then we can talk about your nonsense.

Such a great episode, I learned so much listening to discussion about how not pandering to the far right pays off in people actually seeing you stand for something.

History repeats.