Interesting article citing research finding that US coal demand has increased 20% on last year, in large part due to datacenter growth. The majority of that growth is of course attributed to the 'AI' industry, however I was not aware of the 2024 Morgan Stanley finding (referenced in article) projecting that by 2030 datacenters will "triple the emissions that would have occurred without the development of generative AI technology." BigAI is #climate poison.
Coal making a comeback as US datacenters demand power
: High gas prices and surging AI demand send operators back to the dirtiest fuel in the stack
This is mind-blowing. "Scientists soon knew they were witnessing something both unexpected and profound: seeds and plant scraps, trapped underground for more than a century, had roared back to life." Vast, mass-regeneration potential waiting to be unlocked in soil. It's like cryo but without the cold.
the Guardian
Creatures buried in soil for over a century burst back to life in Toronto waterfront
A project to restore coastal wetland leads to astonishing discoveries of a host of life: seeds and plant scraps, as well as water fleas, worms, lar...
 #regeneration #rewilding #soil #conservation
How the cookie we knew would crumble, has actually crumbled image
The flotilla was intercepted by IDF. "The updates came after Israeli forces boarded several flotilla boats carrying activists and aid and took them to an Israeli port on Wednesday, disrupting a protest that has become one of the most high-profile symbols of opposition to Israel’s blockade of the Palestinian territory." The flotilla organisers say they will continue "undeterred"
Gaza aid flotilla: Israel intercepts vessels but one ship reported to have got through blockade – as it happened | Middle East and north Africa | The Guardian
One boat, the Mikeno, reported to have escaped the maritime blockade and to have stopped inside Palestinian territorial waters
Today, in planet-eating machine cult news, OpenAI plans to build 5x 'Stargate' 'AI'-only datacenters, upping OpenAI's energy use at enough to power 5.25M homes. CEO Sam Altman looks to a day where they can "create a factory that can produce a gigawatt of new AI infrastructure every week.” Naturally the benevolent "cure for cancer" is cited as an all-justifying prize in all this, as if that really was their end-game
Gizmodo
OpenAI Announces Plans for Five More 'Stargate' Data Centers in the US
Stargate’s AI data centers are about to pop up across the U.S.
 (Thanks to @npub17w6u...yd5s for the pointer) #climate #ai
Very pleased to have been a part of this project - a great collaboration. My contribution, an article, was specifically on helping chart a pathway for climate-facing organisations to shift from big tech platforms to self-hosted and sovereign infrastructure. You can download the book free, or pre-order in print.
Tactical Tech
The RePlaybook: A Field Guide to the Climate and Information Crisis
The Replaybook is the first-of-its-kind practical toolkit designed to equip communicators, campaigners, journalists, and researchers with fresh too...
 #climate #selfhosting #infrastructure image
Meta has been pulling strings to crush whistleblower (and fellow Kiwi) Sarah Wynn-Williams, who wrote a book on the abusive working environment & unethical practices of Meta during her time as Global Policy Director for the company Her book recounts "her experiences working for the company, including accusations of sexual harassment by a long-time Facebook executive and claims the company explored breaking into the Chinese market by appeasing government censors there." https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/573766/meta-out-to-silence-and-punish-kiwi-whistleblower-sarah-wynn-williams-british-mp
In other marauding barbarian US tech company news, Slack hits up a non-profit coding club for high schoolers: "Slack reached out to us and said that if we don’t agree to pay an extra $50k this week and $200k a year, they’ll deactivate our Slack workspace and delete all of our message history"
Slack
: Collaborationware CEO tried to smooth things over, but Hack Club now plans a strategy shift
 But the kids will be alright - they switched to Mattermost. #bigtech #floss #selfhosting
The Critical Signals website, hosted on donated e-waste in a cupboard in Wellington, is currently down due to power outage in the building. Had a DNS fiddle to point it back to a copy on a server in DE. It should be up again soon.
Very pleased to present another round of Tunnel and Fortress, live classes in the design, deployment & administration of self-hosted, tightly secured & sovereign server infrastructure. The classes draw from 2 decades deploying dozens of servers & services for orgs & groups, big & small, & often with powerful adversaries. I want to teach you to be able to do the same, to get the communities you care about off Big Tech.
Nīkau Video
Tunnel and Fortress 2
An introduction to self-hosted server infrastructure in the context of
Tunnel and Fortress
Tunnel and Fortress is a live, coached and intensive training series empowering participants to deploy and secure sovereign server infrastructure.
 #exitbigtech #sysadmin