Heavy ML workloads make this more worthwhile since you get to design it to squeeze value out of every facet. For a basic web server and database it’s definitely overkill and something like a colocation makes much more sense
I take “not financial advice” articles like this at best as entertainment. How can anyone seriously talk about metals for example without mentioning that gold was $1900 and silver $20 a few years ago. Today they sit at $5000 and $80. It’s completely absurd to write about the “drop” as a proof of anything
this article discusses the events in the recent couple of months, explicitly. the moves prior to that is not really relevant for its thesis -- regardless of how true it actually is.
I'm not supporter of capitalism, but what Elon is doing is the same as any other business or capitalist participant. He is seeing current demand and anticipating future demand and building systems to meet that demand. I have no desire for society to fulfill whims of the ruling elite but I don't think Elon is doing this on a whim anymore than any business doing any thing likely to make them money.
I don't think Elon is motivated purely by money. If he were, a lot of his actions don't make any sense, like tanking his own public image repeatedly by doing silly childish things.
It's more likely that he genuinely believes that he's building the future of human civilization, and he wants himself in charge of that so that he can shape it how he sees fit.
You're right that our socioeconomic system unfortunately doesn't have any guardrails for that kind of behavior. Arguably that's a bug (or yet another symptom of the architecture being fundamentally flawed).
It's over 19 years old, but this video is a brutal but hilarious commentary on Microsoft's inherent dysfunction when it comes to product naming and packaging. Still on point decades later.
There’s also solar thermal panels that heat up a liquid circulating in the system and cut out the need for a battery - and can just store the heated liquid.
Efficiencies and effects are at the point where taking a photon, converting it into an electron, and using that electron to pump heat is more efficient than turning that photon perfectly into kinetic energy.
Similarly, in mild weather, it is more efficient to burn hydrocarbons and turn it into electricity to run a heat pump than use that hydrocarbon for it's heat energy directly.
Thermal solar panels have the advantage of being very simple and surprisingly effective. But if you're lacking space to put up both solar cells and thermal, you can use combined panels which have a solar cell with a backing thermal system. The interesting thing is that these combined panels outperform solar cells even when it comes to electricity generated because solar panels loose efficiency as they heat up, so cooling them actually improves efficieny. Combined panels are much more expensive, though.
The problem with thermal solar panels is that you can use its heated water only if it gets warmer than the water in your system, which is not always the case, especially in winter.
Compared to nearly 100% usable energy from normal solar panels.
Furthermore if you have a heatpump you can convert this electric energy into heat energy with a factor of >3 (COP).
Yeah but if you're in a northern climate your solar panels are only generating like 10% of their summer capacity in the winter anyway due to sun hours/angles... winter is just tough for capturing solar energy in general.
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