The same thing was said about the crazy build-out of fiber and telecommunications infrastructure. That infrastructure did prove useful but it took about 10-20 years before that was the case. It took 4G becoming broadly available and the ensuing increase of mobile devices to use at least of the overbuilt network capacity.
While I get this stream of thought, the major difference is that the internal hardware will age much faster than the core infrastructure. The real question is, how much of these build out costs is the center itself and the hardware within.
That fiber build out will last for decades, a Blackwell GPU, not so much.
I could be wrong but it seems like in the case of a crash no one will be buying new GPUs and thus the existing ones could hold their value longer. Of course that value will no longer be massively inflated by bubble FOMO.
>in the case of a crash no one will be buying new GPUs and thus the existing ones could hold their value longer.
No, because no one has any use for those monstrous GPUs outside of ML and some research projects. They can't even be dropped onto the consumer market because a SOHO is not equipped to house devices like that. The best case scenario is that the boards get dismantled and the VRAM gets salvaged for refurbishing. They've built these machines so specialized that they're essentially disposable.
What are you basing that on? Some of the demand that currently exists, exists because of all the money sloshing around the AI ecosystem (i.e. people using AI to sell AI solutions to other people), so how are you so sure demand can fully utilize all existing compute even after a crash?
It isn’t about holding value, the cards are going to burn up. If they don’t, in 5 years one could run a rack of 4 cards at home at an affordable rate. Either the cards become affordable again and the datacenter is useless, or they don’t, and nobody can fucking afford to rent them.
GPUs definitely have higher failure rates than CPUs but I'm not sure what the absolute rates will turn out to be. If 10% of GPUs die within 5 years that's very high but also probably economically fine. If 50% die that's a disaster.
Sorry, I meant at some point the current cards in he data centers will be obsolete, financially. They’ll be sold on the secondary market. Buying 8 h200s at $150 a pop will either be a real thing, or they all burn up and capex explodes again, which would be a death knell.
Chalk an cheese, Wavelength Division Multiplexing took out Globalcrossing Worldcom etc…
But the secondary market that grew out of it was because once it is in the ground it has a long lifespan and low upkeep costs, this is not the same thing as ultra high power density data centers.
Cooling needs to be balanced with demand, they may not work for even cloud scale type loads without serious issues etc…
Not that it matters, my hometown has an announced DC and it is looking more and more like it is a shill, as do several of the others in the area.
The difference is that fibre is infrastructure, LLMs are an application. Who knows, maybe they will pass and leave behind that server infra, and that's where our digital consciousnesses will live once our bodies die.
The implicit assumption in libertarian perspectives is that all parties are rational and have similar levels of information. In healthcare, this is simply not true. The average person isn't capable to judge what is and isn't necessary for them (outside of the small amount of very routine and elective care).
Likewise, if a hospital hands you a bill for 30k and you need help, are you really going to be able to negotiate and find a better price?
To add even more noise, there is a similar service from Samsung called Samsung Cash which lets you transfer cash between other Samsung Cash users using a prepaid Visa debit card on the backend. It
The unbanked in the USA don't have a bank account for a variety of reasons. Typically
1. Mistrust and fear of "being in the system"
2. Having a legal judgment against them e.g. child support, fines, overdue rent
3. Avoiding showing income to not lose income-defined government benefits
4. Hiding income from tax authorities
When I was in China, the government issued an edict that basically said "merchants of a certain size must accept AliPay/WeChat Pay/UnionPay CloudPay universally". All of the above are almost identical "Scan my QR code" to pay.
It would be nice to have such an edict, forcing compatibility outside of the ACH system but it will never happen.
Yes and no. It's still a cash-equivalent transaction, requiring you to either have an Apple Cash balance and/or an attached checking account or debit card (in the USA at least).
To my knowledge, zero. If you really mean Jews, I think there are roughly 40 between both houses of Congress. None of them are Israeli citizens. Jews are not automatically citizens of Israel though they do have dedicated pathway to obtaining it, but it's not as simple as merely showing up and claim you are Jewish.
Coffee makers. I once picked up a nice, high-end Keuring machine for free from a neighbor. Later than evening, I noticed something moving around it. It was full of roaches. I put it in a trash bag and ran to put it in the garbage outside. The exterminator and landlord both said the warmth and moisture of coffee machines is a magnet for roaches and coffee is their favorite snack.
One more reason to ditch the kcups for the real thing using a french press or pour over. Use a percolator if you must but ditch those kcup machines. They make tiny single serve french presses.
Coffee grounds, cardboard, paper, compost, all favorites of the American cockroach.
It probably doesn't help much against a roach infestation, but fully automatic espresso machines make a good cup and keep the convenience. Ours was $1500 and has already paid for itself buying whole beans instead of k-cups.
I would imagine the broiler would probably be just as much a target as a keurig machine. Same with drip. Anything where it’s an appliance that just sits in its grime on the counter while producing humidity.
> As the company’s name teases, the idea may seem futuristic, but it’s far from new. Let’s call it a cousin of the pipe-forward delivery solution favored in the 19th and early 20th century — the pneumatic tube. In cities like London and New York, networks of pipes that snaked underground and through buildings allowed people to send urgent packages, telegrams, checks, and at least one sick cat whooshing through offices, banks and mailrooms, powered by compressed air.
