What the actual fuck.

Bruno Nicoletti

@sundogplanets Orbiting data centres are stupid for a huge range of reasons, not the least powering them, cooling them and fixing them. Just another idiotic idea from Musk (Optimius, Cybertruck, The Boring Company, “Full” self driving, etc….).

mkj

@nev Or when you're reading science fiction which was intended to be a warning, and treating it as something that should be done because it's Cool!

"I have read Do Not Build The Torment Nexus and decided to dedicate the rest of my life to ensuring that we *never* have a Torment Nexus" said no billionaire ever.

@sundogplanets

Mycotropic

@sundogplanets

“Orbital data centers are the most efficient way to meet the accelerating demand for AI computing power,”

Demand isn't accelerating, you're forcing it on everyone you assholes!! We can't NOT use it when you make it an integral part of every product you sell ASSHOLES!

Tom Hayward

@sundogplanets my condolences. The moment I saw this story, my thoughts were with you.

Mycotropic

@angelastella @pthenq1 @sundogplanets

That's the plot of #Seveneves
https://www.nealstephenson.com/seveneves.html

Oblomov

@mycotropic @sundogplanets and orbital days centers are a horrible idea

Ray McCarthy

@sundogplanets
The Kardashev "levels" are pure fantasy, not even good SF.

Cress

@sundogplanets I am fine with this, not because I am happy with having our eternal view of the heavens f*cked up by stinking billionaires and impotent regulation, but because this situation is unmanageable from a physics and mechanics perspective. If all the operators in this sector do this then when 1 sat fails its going to be a big issue. It will make orbital space unaccessible which to me is better as it forces us to show respect and consideration!

PalmAndNeedle

@sundogplanets I do feel like we're on the path to Neil Stephenson's Seven Eves somehow

Isaac Ji Kuo

@sundogplanets @adambecker.bsky.social I have three non-techbro mentality/religion reasons for this:

1) Distract from Tesla's poor earnings
2) Distract from the Epstein files
3) Bezos says he's going to launch zillions of data center satellites so Musk just wants to nab scamee money for it first

But yeah, also Musk is a moron.

John Q McDonald

@sundogplanets Skynet

Emilio ʕ̡̢̡ʘ̅͟͜͡ʘ̲̅ʔ̢̡̢🇩🇰

@sundogplanets @Nonya_Bidniss

Chris Green

@sundogplanets That's what everyone in datacenters wants - unfixable latency and multimillion dollar costs to replace equipment..

Embrace Civil Disobedience

@sundogplanets Trash filling space with trash.

neville park

@mkj @sundogplanets god knows the Western Canon is stodgy and Eurocentric and male-centric and all that, but like, Greek legends and the Bible and such give you the 101 versions that science fiction writers are adapting/riffing on/inspired by. what i'm trying to say is, even the most basic bitch humanities education could have helped these people

Belakor

@sundogplanets This is just a VC scam.
1. The timeline on launching a million satellites, even "small" ones is decades.

2. Near vacuum isn't a magical environment for heat management.

3. Power from where exactly? And don't say sunlight cause the amount of capture panels needed would be an order of magnitude more material to power a data center.

CountMoosferatu

@sundogplanets Bye, nice telescope views, etc. Hello, Kessler syndrome.

ティージェーグレェ

I noticed in the credits of re-watching the 4K remastering of Hard Boiled that there was some security company called Starlink, decades ago. fElon Musk couldn't even pick a name that hadn't already been used before.

IMHO, it would probably be cheaper to run fiber to the home, even in the most remote rural areas, than to pollute our skies with satellites for high latency Internet access. But, what do I know? I think last time I checked a 50km spool of single mode fiber could be bought for under $1000.

AlisonW ♿🏳️‍🌈♾️

@sundogplanets
You can't have effective data centres in space though!
https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horrible-no-good-idea/