- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
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My first thought was that Benn Jordan did a great bit of video journalism on this, but it’s already linked from the article, although without any other mention of it.
Dude is just a wealth of interesting videos.
Edit and speaking of which… He dropped this doozy today: https://youtu.be/lA8WuXDXfcI
He really is, I found him from his Flock videos and have since binge watched everything he’s made.
The music that he makes for the videos is a wonderful cherry on top of the great information and presentation.
He also has a huge backlog of music as The Flashbulb
Thanks, TIL
I’ve listened to him quite a lot in ~2010, then learned about his YouTube channel when it started popping off, but only recently made the connection that it’s the same person.
I went to look at his Wiki page now, and apparently he also released music as Acidwolf, Human Action Network, and FlexE. TIL as well!
Link for future readers:
I remember when people complained about sound coming from wind turbines. That was bad
This? Good
Just looked up, a windturbine has less infrasound then cars. (german Source) I would guess the datacenter could have more infrasound and thus be a bigger problem. They mention a study about windturbine infrasound and they point towards nocebo effect, but maybe windturbines are at a border where the health effects are very difficult to measure. So maybe studies about the infrasound of datacenters could find something. On the other hand, datacenters bring a lot more pollution factors, like light-, air- and waterpollution.
It does matter if the complaints are real or fabricated, turns out. Research on that topic confirmed that wind turbines generate very little infrasound, further reduced by their great distance from the ground. The amounts in question are less than that generated by other ubiquitous machines, so it is very safe to conclude that those complaints are phony, advanced by enemies of alternative energy.
I can’t speak to the validity of these complaints, but there are a lot more motors running a lot faster in a data center than in a wind power generator, so it is at least plausible. The research will demonstrate if this complaint is valid or just more activism.
I dislike hypocrisy as much as the next person. So I feel where you’re coming from. At the same time, the wind turbines are generating power that everyone benefits from, whereas these things are consuming power for a product that very few people actually like or even want to exist. So I think its fair to say that maybe the noise is tolerable when you’re getting something you actually want out of it. Also, wind farms are usually built further away from large population centers, whereas data centers are because it’s cheaper to build them in areas with lots of people around. So the concern does seem a little more irrelevant to wind farming as a whole than data centers.
Just out of curiosity, what makes them cheaper to build in populated areas? Doesn’t that mean the land value is higher when purchasing/leasing the site?
The article alludes to it: “The United States does not lack flat, open land away from population centers on which to build data centers. However, AI hyperscalers prefer to locate their campuses near existing infrastructure so they don’t have to spend massive amounts of time and resources building everything from scratch.”
It costs a lotta money to run electricity and water to the middle of nowhere.
Also, companies are doing research to specifically build in areas where they believe the local community is not politically empowered to prevent it from being built. This guy goes into some more depth at this timestamp: https://youtu.be/1CpVmPh3BDE?t=831
Fascinating thank you. Brings me back to ArcMap training days. I wonder if they have some data layer for “local population acceptance factor”.
I’m sure they do. Probably using an AI model to calculate it tbh
There’s a local council in my community that is gunning for an AI data center in my county. People are livid, but I don’t think it’s going to be enough to stop the construction. It’s shady as fuck with hidden shareholders that nobody will reveal.
I’m open to any and all suggestions on how to prevent this data center from being built. Peaceful ideas or otherwise.
When they come up with it on their own, and push it relentlessly despite obvious and enormous resistance from the citizens, you know they been paid off handsomely.
Is there any research on this?
Back in the 90s, there was a theory that living near power-lines was unhealthy, but later shown to be bunk. Also similar to “electro magnetic sensitivity” like Chuck in “Better Call Saul”. Does inaudible sound effect people’s health?
There is a lot of research on this. Exposure to this level of infrasound has negative effects on anxiety, the ability to sleep, and even cardiac function. Those who experience the level exposure associated with living close by to these datacenters can start to experience negative effects on their hearts ability to contract properly after as little as one hour. Take into account these people are exposed to this every hour, hour after hour, for years if not the rest of their natural lives.
Exposure to this level of infrasound
What level is that?
The article mentions 96 dB for 24 hours a day
The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI), a non-profit organization, said that high- and low-frequency sounds emitted by these industrial sites can be heard and felt for hundreds of feet in surrounding areas, with noise levels reaching as high as 96dB for 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
It says “these industrial sites” so it’s making a generalization, it says “as high as” so that’s presumably the maximum they measured at one of those many sites. They also talk about high and low frequency sound, so it may not be the infrasound that is “loud” but the high frequency sound, which doesn’t as easily travel through the ground, etc.
Because sound tends to follow an inverse square law, if they measured that 96 dB at 100m from the sound’s source, it could be just 2% of that level at 800m away.
So, that “96 dB” figure needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The figure as actually measured in some person’s home might be a tiny fraction of that amount.
Again, it doesn’t mean there’s no problem, just that it needs some further investigation.
Lots of research has been done on this. But I would highly recommend watching the YouTube video that was posted by the top commenter instead of trying to dig through what’s out there.
Dude living near large scale powerlines does cause health problems.
I think you misunderstood Chuck’s medical condition.
Let’s use science to determine what is happening.This can be measured. Use a blind study to evaluate the impact.
The article states it is sound frequencies “not normally measured”. It doesn’t say “can’t be”, so the first step is an objective measurement
Of course it goes further to point out that some things can only be heard/felt by a tiny percentage of people - the hard part is setting the allowed threshold and not perhaps that’s where your blind study idea would be helpful
Me when an AI data center is too close:
Funny how they look so flammable
As if Americans would ever lift a finger
It’s like they’ve been genetically modified to be stupid and lazy for 40+ years with a firehouse of corn syrup and
poor educationpropagandaExcept the ones who are supposed to be fighting back have spent the last few decades doing little else but loudly proclaiming how much more intelligent and capable they are than the Americans you’re describing.
You have to use the correct messaging - data centers are making kids gay and entitled! and are owned by progressive libs
/s
Data centres are the new windmills?
It is a flavour I have not tasted, a colour I have not seen and an argument I can not think of so I convince myself of this.
They should announce a day they plan on cranking up the power, and instead turn everything off. See how many people can “feel” the increased activity.
It’s a very real phenomenon with documented health effects. You have to use a decibel meter that’s capable of detecting sounds just outside of audible range. Benn Jordan on YouTube recorded infrasound at the edge of the property line at Collosus XAI peaking at -96 dB.
https://youtu.be/_bP80DEAbuoAlright so I watched him break down the data at the end, and the best that this proves is that it should be studied further to verify his experiments. Thousands of people should be studied in universities all over the world. My own distaste for datacenters not withstanding, if those future studies indicated and even maybe found the mechanism for these issues, that would not translate to datacenters ought not be built. It will and should be translated to a public health and engineering problem. We put shielding on nuclear powerplants to protect people from radiation, and we can likely do something similar to prevent infrasound, if the claims of some papers and this youtuber are proven to be correct beyond a reasonable doubt. This whole thing just stinks of “wifi sickness” and I am highly skeptical 🫤
We will all be picking up the tab to shield these places in the future in the name of public health and safety. The hyperscalers won’t pay when they can plead ignorance and have the tax payer pay to fix it for them. Problem with data centres is once they are online, changes are very slow. Any datacentre with five 9’s or above will only allow small incremental change each year. While this is faster for single tenant datacentres, it won’t be a quick fix.
It’s still just a matter of political will.
You would be AMAZED at how quickly things would be fixed. At rates previously claimed “beyond impossible”, IF governments “pulled the plug” until things were fixed… rather than issuing fines or providing grace periods (and subsequent extensions).
I’ve worked at places that would just eat compliance fines (not for health). Just straight up eat them. They put a token team on it… but continually divert that time to other tasks.
The companies that claim these things cannot be done are the same ones who said they couldn’t survive without slavery, with any environmental regulations, with a 5 day work week, without being able to use child labour, with a minimum wage, without strikebreakers etc etc etc. It’s literally industries job to push back on anything that cuts into thier bottom line at all. It’s governments job to say “bullshit”
I hear you that these companies would make excuses just to make the executives more money. Wish someone in my government had the balls to yell bullshit but they all just see the project dollars and know they can use that number to get re-elected. Politicians are cunts
Homemade mortars have a very high CEP but thankfully, data centers have a large footprint.
It’s Cuba using Russia’s secret sonic weapons obviously
sounds like crowd control weapon research
Jfc sounds like opportuniatic capitalists cutting corners and not caring about the populace
As far as I understood, those noises would come from gas or diesel electricity generators and cooling systems.
Yes, but also just from the fans and air movement inside the facility too. I work near a datacenter in a basement with thick concrete walls, and you can still hear the servers from outside. And the racks in that one are only half full.
