What the actual fuck.

[drangnon@hachyderm.io]

@sundogplanets did someone just finish reading @cstross 's _accelerando_ and decide it wasn't featuring future earth as a dystopia?

[bthalpin@mastodon.social]

@PalmAndNeedle @deborahh @sundogplanets I was a big fan but 7 Eves turned me off: dopey biological determinism leading to sexism & racism...

[waitingforthesign@mstdn.ca]

@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

If I'm lucky I'll be gone before they start advertising.

[tony@toot.hoyle.me.uk]

@sundogplanets That's something like 17,000 falcon 9 launches... they did 606 last year.

[pleaseclap@techhub.social]

@sundogplanets Imagine being familiar with the Kardashev scale but unfamiliar with Kessler syndrome

[patrick@retro.social]

@jakebrake There's a German comic "Elon & Jeff on Mars" that goes like this (https://www.carlsen.de/hardcover/elon-jeff-mars/978-3-551-80572-0)

[betterifyouneil@mastodon.social]

Elmo is too mouthy... They had to cut him loose.

[javierg@mstdn.social]

@sundogplanets
Seems they're (intentionally?) confusing Kardashiev and Kessler

[desperadoduck@digitalcourage.social]

@sundogplanets if they speak of datacenters - I imagine them to be much larger than starlink satellites and they would need a lot of energy. I guess they will have huge solar panels.

This is bat-shit crazy if true.

[seconduniverse@autistics.life]

@Chancerubbage @sundogplanets @Barbramon1 Most importantly, there are far too many of them already.

[zakalwe@plasmatrap.com]

@sundogplanets@mastodon.social It's utterly batshit insane.

[zakalwe@plasmatrap.com]

@ppulfer@mastodon.ie @sundogplanets@mastodon.social Um, no. Not really.

Granted, in an orbit with the right inclination, you can get continuous sunlight, and that sunlight is several times more intense than at ground level. So power can be relatively abundant.

However, a ground-based datacenter can use conductive and convective cooling, both of which can be highly efficient at removing heat even at only moderate temperatures. In space the only mechanism you have, in the end, is radiative cooling... and the physics of black-body radiation are such that a datacenter satellite that hasn't yet fried every semiconductor within it simply isn't hot enough to efficiently radiate as much heat as it's going to generate.

Relatively low-power communications satellites are one thing. We've proven that works. We've proven we can cool astronomical instruments to their optimal working temperatures, though it sometimes takes some very clever solutions. But datacenters in satellites? That's madness.

[weezmgk@mastodon.social]

@sahak do you know what happens when there's too many satellites in orbit? Short answer: much fewer satellites in orbit. Gewgle Kessler Syndrome @sundogplanets

[zakalwe@plasmatrap.com]

@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai @sundogplanets@mastodon.social Hint: Ask yourself why datacenters use massive bundles of wired or fiber connections internally rather than WiFi.

[weezmgk@mastodon.social]

@ppulfer #cough Kessler Syndrome @sundogplanets

[michael_w_busch@mastodon.online]

@zgryphon @sundogplanets

The radio astronomer Nikolai Kardashev developed a scale describing hypothetical aliens by the amount of energy they used as a guide for what SETI searches could and could not find.

A "Kardashev II" level would involve using the entire energy output of the Sun by dismantling planets and turning them into solar panels.

Which has no resemblance to this particular bit of vaporware.

[fiend_unpleasant@mastodon.social]

@CStamp @sundogplanets They don't. Anyone can shoot anything into space if they can afford it. No one governs space. What he needs is permission to use the air waves. The section is highlighted in the attached image.

I am not defending him (I think he is a giant child molesting, aspie supremacist, queef) I just thought that in this current era of disinfo someone should step in an clear up things.

[borisschapira@framapiaf.org]

@sundogplanets this is by far the stupidest thing I've heard in this dystopian mess Elon and friends are plunging us in.

[brood@mas.to]

@sundogplanets
holy fuck. * groan *

[cstamp@mastodon.social]

@fiend_unpleasant @sundogplanets that doesn’t mean it’s not wrong. They are possibly damaging our atmosphere, they ARE ruining our night sky, they are increasing risk of damage to people when they fall out of the sky, they are risking damage to flights beyond our atmosphere…

That one government has the right to speak for all of us is crap.