Drewbahr's recent activity
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Comment on Do other people who grew up with an anonymous internet feel a bit hopeless at the moment? in ~society
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Comment on ‘Tron: Ares’ stumbles with $33.5 million debut in ~movies
Drewbahr Link ParentProbably not. People like him currently run the government.Probably not. People like him currently run the government.
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Comment on The Oatmeal: A cartoonist's review of AI art in ~comics
Drewbahr Link ParentI'm not sure that matters to my point, which is that there's plenty of people, like me, that would be immediately turned off by AI art replacing human work at all. Even if the artist changes,...I'm not sure that matters to my point, which is that there's plenty of people, like me, that would be immediately turned off by AI art replacing human work at all. Even if the artist changes, there's still an artist.
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Comment on The Oatmeal: A cartoonist's review of AI art in ~comics
Drewbahr Link ParentProbably more than you think. I assume you, as I, would care if Calvin and Hobbes suddenly resurfaced as an AI-created strip.Probably more than you think. I assume you, as I, would care if Calvin and Hobbes suddenly resurfaced as an AI-created strip.
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Comment on The Oatmeal: A cartoonist's review of AI art in ~comics
Drewbahr Link ParentThat's a totally reasonable interpretation as well.That's a totally reasonable interpretation as well.
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Comment on The Oatmeal: A cartoonist's review of AI art in ~comics
Drewbahr (edited )Link ParentOf equal value, arguably not. But a person putting ink/pencil to paper, or using tools to generate an image, is putting in work. They're making decisions on how they want it to look, what effect...Of equal value, arguably not. But a person putting ink/pencil to paper, or using tools to generate an image, is putting in work. They're making decisions on how they want it to look, what effect it has on people, whether and how it matches a style.
There's different degrees to art, but even something as "low brow" as an advertising campaign can still be considered art in my view. A Campbell's Soup ad likely won't be on the same footing, artistically speaking, as the roof of The Sistine Chapel ... But then again, Campbell's Soup is integral to some of Andy Warhol's most popular work, and The Sistine Chapel's roof was commissioned work.
EDIT TO ADD: Before anyone chimes in, yes - technically, feeding prompts to an AI image generator can be viewed by some as "using a tool to create art". I would argue otherwise - with Photoshop or with a brush, you're still making creative decisions yourself. You are guiding the creation of the image and what it contains. Even making a collage is effectively taking someone else's works and riffing on them - but it requires your thoughts and actions to do it.
Utilizing an AI image generator, in my opinion, is at best akin to being the commissioner of an artist. You aren't using the tool yourself - you're asking someone/something else to create an image to your liking, then asking them to tweak it in various ways. You aren't doing the work. And I say "at best" because you're still asking a machine to rip off other peoples' copyrighted works to do so, and they don't see a dime from it.
But that's getting into the topic of whether AI image generators are actually "creating" anything, versus just copying existing works - and to the degree that any existing work is truly created, or informed by all preceding works. And that's a bigger conversation than I'm equipped to have.
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Comment on The Oatmeal: A cartoonist's review of AI art in ~comics
Drewbahr Link ParentThe OP specifically mentions artist's work on Donald Duck as "just another Donald Duck comic", which in my reading is devaluing said works.The OP specifically mentions artist's work on Donald Duck as "just another Donald Duck comic", which in my reading is devaluing said works.
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Comment on The Oatmeal: A cartoonist's review of AI art in ~comics
Drewbahr Link ParentI find this view - of "art" vs. "imagery" - to be extremely confusing. Throughout your post you differentiate between art (as being intended for human consumption and consideration) and imagery...I find this view - of "art" vs. "imagery" - to be extremely confusing.
Throughout your post you differentiate between art (as being intended for human consumption and consideration) and imagery (as being something "less than" art, and by extension not worth the same degree of consideration). You mention several examples of what you consider to be "imagery" - mostly advertising, but also things like Donald Duck comics.
Can I ask - why do you think that a Donald Duck comic, using the in-house style of a studio, is "less" of a work of art than any other? If Donald Duck comics, drawn in the Disney style, are somehow imagery ... then are modern X-Men comics styled after Jack Kirby or Jim Lee or Chris Clairemont also "imagery"? Those would be similar - artists taking on a house style. I'm honestly confused as to why you bag on other artistic professionals simply because they don't do the same art you profess to doing - even though they very much do. Many artists have gotten their start by doing the house style, then later developing their own.
Furthermore, things like advertising - monster truck posters, musical jingles, etc. - are all paid jobs. People are paid to do them. If they do them particularly well, those images - those songs - stay with you for a long, long time (curse you, Old Navy Performance Fleece). While I doubt anyone would hang a monster truck poster in The Louvre next to the Mona Lisa, there have been plenty of times that advertising art has gone on to be considered art-art, rather than just advertising. Movie posters come to mind - the OG Star Wars movie poster is an all-time classic, something that I think all of us can picture.
Finally, all of AI imagery - literally all of it - is sourced and influenced by stolen art. Every AI-generated image is based on stolen properties by actual artists. Every slop Uno ripoff card art is rooted in dozens of peoples' professional efforts, for which none of them are being paid or recognized. The very existence, IMO, of AI images devalues all art - commercial or otherwise.
You mention how there's cratering demand for oil painters for family portraits and live bands for events. Those industries still exist - oil painting may be more niche these days, but musicians still book gigs all over the place.
I dunno, I just have a very hard time squaring the circle of an artist so devaluing other artists' works.
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Comment on Starship was doomed from the beginning in ~space
Drewbahr Link ParentConsider what we know of Elon Musk, and then consider that this was his idea. Elon Musk is a very rich con man who has never actually done engineering. He doesn't know what the fuck he's doing....Consider what we know of Elon Musk, and then consider that this was his idea.
Elon Musk is a very rich con man who has never actually done engineering. He doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. Odds are the engineers in his employ do, but they're being led by a con man.
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Comment on Was this English queen a 'predatory' collector of beautiful things? in ~humanities.history
Drewbahr LinkShe was British and a queen, so the answer's going to be yes, right? Predatory collection of beautiful things is what The British Museum is all about, and I'd imagine the monarchs are no different.She was British and a queen, so the answer's going to be yes, right?
Predatory collection of beautiful things is what The British Museum is all about, and I'd imagine the monarchs are no different.
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Comment on What is a business/org that's so terrible no one should use if possible? in ~life
Drewbahr LinkFacebook, what with the enabling fascism (e.g., Cambridge Analytica) and the enabling genocide (e.g., Myanmar) and the rampant misuse of AI (e.g., fake profiles and faking AI chatbots of...Facebook, what with the enabling fascism (e.g., Cambridge Analytica) and the enabling genocide (e.g., Myanmar) and the rampant misuse of AI (e.g., fake profiles and faking AI chatbots of celebrities) and the fact that Mark Zuckerberg is buying up huge swathes of Hawaii specifically to make a "fuck you I got mine" bunker.
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Comment on Data centers don't raise people's water bills in ~tech
Drewbahr Link ParentEvaporation would almost certainly never reach "true" equilibrium for all of the reasons I mentioned in my previous, long post. Vapor will find ways to get out of the system, which will cause more...Evaporation would almost certainly never reach "true" equilibrium for all of the reasons I mentioned in my previous, long post. Vapor will find ways to get out of the system, which will cause more vapor to evolve out of the liquid (see: vapor pressure). A system that allows for evaporation to the atmosphere is inherently not closed-loop, because it is losing material to the air at all times. That is, in fact, how arguably the most popular form of open-loop cooling works (evaporative cooling).
Evaporation within a closed loop needs to be limited either by air bladder/nitrogen blankets with some form of water reclamation system, or by additional cooling being applied to inhibit the formation of vapors in the first place. Either way, you're adding or removing energy in some form that needs to be accounted for. It's not impossible, it's just complex.
Regarding the datacenter cooling you mentioned previously ... I'd have more of an opinion if I actually knew what they were doing. The first article - "Sustainable by design: Next-generation datacenters consume zero water for cooling" - does not describe what they are actually doing, only that they are using less water (via a chart with no sources listed). That article reads more like an advertisement than an article describing actual measures being taken to reduce water usage.
The other article/page - "Reducing Data Centre Environmental Impact with Waterless Cooling" - only sparingly mentions ways that they would reduce water consumption, via air coolers with "integrated compressors and condensers". I have a good idea about what they mean - it's similar to the lube and seal oil systems used by machines all over the world, which are "closed loops" that do not require the constant addition of oil. What I can say is, those systems suffer from all of the issues I mentioned previously - machines break down over time, corrosive elements build up, etc etc.
In particular, the second article mentions that "Little maintenance is required for the closed loop, simply the occasional addition of water treatment to control oxidation and bacteria growth." If they're controlling oxidation, that means they're controlling rust - which likely means the addition of acids or bases to scavenge oxygen and other oxidizers that accumulate over time. Adding acids or bases means adding corrosive chemicals to your water supply; they need to be controlled with a gentle touch, and the physical orientation of the piping is going to matter a lot.
As an example of this, a facility that I worked for, years ago, had an acid vapor recovery system that needed to be replaced. They selected a steel alloy designed specifically to withstand the kind of corrosion they were experiencing in the existing piping. The problem was, their pipe racks - the supporting system keeping all of the pipes elevated off the ground, so people could work in the area - were quite crowded. Of course, the obvious answer would be to expand the pipe racks; however, that costs a lot of money and requires a lot of infrastructure to be built. So instead, they opted to remove the corroded piping and install the new alloy piping in its place.
Problem was, the piping needed to be installed as free-draining - meaning, it had to have a slope back to the acid tanks, so that any liquid that precipitated or condensed would automatically drain back into the acid tanks via gravity. That way, nothing acidic would accumulate in the piping itself, and only the vapor would flow out into the recovery system. There was one little stretch of piping that couldn't quite meet the typical 1" per 100ft of slope required for free-draining; it had to be installed dead-level. Normally, a little stretch of dead-level piping wouldn't be an issue - there's enough vapor traffic and liquid drainage that it would have no real negative effect.
So, the engineers carefully measured everything and got the piping installed. Unfortunately, it didn't quite get installed dead-level; it had a very, very slight slope away from the acid tanks, rather than toward them. The result? There was a slight accumulation of acidic precipitate in the acid gas recovery piping, and the piping - built from an alloy specifically intended to withstand the kinds of corrosion it was going to experience - suffered through-wall corrosion in less than 6 months. The whole effort had to be done again with a full replacement of the already-replaced piping, which effectively doubled the cost of the project.
Now, the kinds of acidic liquid that system was dealing with were way, way more severe than what a cooling system like we're discussing here would experience. I mention that example, though, as a way to point out that you can design a system, on paper, to be perfect for its intended use - but physical reality and constraints can conspire to ruin it quite quickly.
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Comment on Why do so many people think US President Donald Trump is good? in ~society
Drewbahr (edited )Link ParentWhite is a spectrum. You're not white until you are. Greek immigrants weren't considered white, until they were. Same with Italian, same with Irish, same with any other myriad ethnic groups. Hell,...White is a spectrum. You're not white until you are.
Greek immigrants weren't considered white, until they were. Same with Italian, same with Irish, same with any other myriad ethnic groups.
Hell, most census forms I've seen ask you, separately, if you are white and if you are Hispanic - because according to our government, you can be Hispanic AND white.
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Comment on Why do so many people think US President Donald Trump is good? in ~society
Drewbahr (edited )Link ParentOh, Trump supporters can be, and often are, very sexist too. They contain multitudes. Am I being reductive? Maybe, but I certainly don't think so. Trump is a fascist, everything he's said and done...Oh, Trump supporters can be, and often are, very sexist too. They contain multitudes.
Am I being reductive? Maybe, but I certainly don't think so. Trump is a fascist, everything he's said and done indicates he's a fascist, he's openly calling himself a dictator, and people still voted for him. He's been openly bigoted for decades, and at least pedophile adjacent for that long as well.
What does that say, other than that his supporters actually support him and what he says and does?
EDIT TO ADD: I should also add, pointing to the 15ish percent of Black Americans that voted for Trump as some sort of sign that Trump voters aren't racist, ignores the fact that he won the majority of white votes by a significant margin.
Again, combine that fact with his rhetoric, and tell me that race being a significant factor (in my opinion, THE significant factor) isn't accurate.
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Comment on Why do so many people think US President Donald Trump is good? in ~society
Drewbahr LinkBecause there's a lot of racists in this country, whether they know it or not.Because there's a lot of racists in this country, whether they know it or not.
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Comment on Data centers don't raise people's water bills in ~tech
Drewbahr Link ParentI'm not sure why you're taking my argument here personally, because I assure you it's not. I'm not intending to offend you; I'm just talking about physics here. My initial comment is talking about...- Exemplary
I'm not sure why you're taking my argument here personally, because I assure you it's not. I'm not intending to offend you; I'm just talking about physics here.
My initial comment is talking about closed-loop systems - ones where you don't need a continuous inflow/outflow of coolant. Modern air conditioning systems are "closed loop" in that sense, as are refrigerators and other common appliances. I'm a chemical engineer, and I've worked in industry for nearly 20 years at this point. My education and professional experience both lean quite heavily on mass and energy balance - if there's one thing a chemical engineer needs to understand, it's how energy and material moves in systems.
So when I talk about things like "evaporation loss", it's not random. Evaporation loss does happen in closed systems. Anytime you're running a coolant or refrigeration cycle, you're dealing with thermal expansion - and if you have thermal expansion, you need to have vapor space to permit the contained coolant to expand and contract. This is usually something like a reservoir, a tank, or some other "wide spot in the line". When you have a tank/reservoir, there is always some amount of coolant vapor in that space; physical laws of vapor pressure apply. When you have coolant vapor in a space like that, that is evaporation.
Now, if you want to reduce or eliminate that evaporation, you can do so - but it requires additional inputs of vapor barriers like nitrogen or air. So you can put in something like an air bladder or nitrogen blanket to inhibit the formation of this water vapor (which will never be perfect; it cannot be perfect, because physics still applies) but that creates new points where water can escape. Nitrogen blankets typically need a constant in/out flow, and if it's flowing out - so too will incremental amounts of water, which requires topping off.
Salts can develop because of incidental exposure to people - sweat, bodily fluids, that sort of thing. People need to work on these systems, and people aren't perfectly clean. If the cooling system is in a cleanroom environment you can eliminate most of these issues, but never all of them. But the concern about salts isn't limited to the interior of the cooling system; they can accumulate on the exterior as well, which can lead to corrosion and damage to piping. Again, this can be caused by people and bodily fluids, but also from animals (which probably aren't going to be a major problem, but who knows), the ambient environment, that sort of thing.
Anywhere that there is water, there are microbes. If you want to disinfect the water to limit microbial growth, you can do so - but it requires chemical addition to your water, which means adding things like bleaching agents and other halogen-containing compounds. When you add bleaching agents to systems containing metals, you'll create salts - which brings us back to the problem mentioned above. Now, you can create your cooling system out of plastic piping (PVC, HDPE, etc), but plastics and common bleaching agents don't always play well together.
Beyond all of this, there's also the problem of moving parts. For a typical cooling system, you'll need your reservoir, some pumps, and some heat exchangers (probably air-cooled). All of these - the pumps in particular - have moving parts, probably made out of metal. These parts wear out. In the case of pumps, "wearing out" will include the gradual grinding down of the gears within the pump, which will start sending tiny metal fragments throughout the system. These will promote rusting, which will not only cause damage to the piping but also create accumulation of corrosive byproducts which will lead to further corrosion, as well as affecting water purity.
As for re-chilling, when I said that physical laws apply, I'm also referring to Newton's Laws of Thermodynamics. You cannot create a perfect closed-loop that loses zero energy, it is physically impossible. You always lose some of your energy to entropy and waste heat generation from things like friction (2nd Law). Over time, your cooling system will become less cool, and will require either an influx of new, cooler coolant ... or will require re-application of external cooling to bring it back to within your pre-determined requirements.
Leaks will always, always happen - anyplace you have a weld, a joint, a flange, a change in direction, or a connection, there is a point that a leak can occur. Anyplace you have a valve for filling up, draining, installation of an instrument, that sort of thing - all of those are potential leak points.
All of these factors, and more, are why I say you cannot create a truly closed-loop system. It is simply not possible. And even beyond the impossibility of it, there's also the financial reality that while you can create really, really tight "closed-loop systems" that have near-zero leakage and loss, it is never truly zero ... and the financial costs associated with trying to make that perfect closed-loop system may be exorbitantly high. It is often far less expensive to create an open-loop, particularly for a major installation like a data center. For something small like a home air conditioning system, it's a different story; the scale is vastly different.
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Comment on Data centers don't raise people's water bills in ~tech
Drewbahr Link ParentA desktop PC uses several orders of magnitude less water than a data center. It's not comparable, even at scale - in no small part because the number of points of failure are substantially less in...A desktop PC uses several orders of magnitude less water than a data center. It's not comparable, even at scale - in no small part because the number of points of failure are substantially less in a PC than for a large-scale installation.
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Comment on Data centers don't raise people's water bills in ~tech
Drewbahr Link ParentIt's not cynicism. It's physical reality.It's not cynicism. It's physical reality.
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Comment on Data centers don't raise people's water bills in ~tech
Drewbahr Link ParentAny system that insists it will only be filled once, is lying to you. Basic laws of physics apply to everything.Any system that insists it will only be filled once, is lying to you. Basic laws of physics apply to everything.
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Comment on Data centers don't raise people's water bills in ~tech
Drewbahr Link ParentThere is no such thing as a truly closed loop system. Cooling water has to maintain a minimum degree of purity, and works best within a certain range of temperatures. Over time the water in the...There is no such thing as a truly closed loop system. Cooling water has to maintain a minimum degree of purity, and works best within a certain range of temperatures. Over time the water in the loop will get contaminated (with microbes, salts, etc), and over time it'll also experience temperature creep (because entropy exists). So it'll have to be replaced, re-cooled, etc. There's also water loss due to evaporation, leaks, that sort of thing.
Cooling water systems at the refineries where I've worked operate in the thousands, if not millions of gallons per minute flow rates. It's not closed loop, but I'd imagine data centers probably require comparable flow rates. Let's pretend that your data center operates at a paltry 10,000 gallons per minute. If you only ever have to make up 1/100th of a percent (number out of my ass there) to maintain water balance, that's still one gallon per minute you have to maintain. Over a day, that's 1,440 gallons per day.
Let's say the typical office worker uses the toilet three times a shift, and drinks one gallon of water while at work (which would be a lot). One flush is typically 1.6 gallons of water, so per person that's roughly 6 gallons per day at the office. In order for the office to come close to the data center, it would need to have 240 people in attendance per day.
My office buildings at work don't have 240 people, so by these wild ass numbers a data center consumes more water, per day, than my office buildings do.
But again, these are rough numbers, just for food for thought.
Government surveillance online is among the many, many things that make me feel hopeless right now.