Amy-Elizabeth
@amyelizabeth.bsky.social
1.7K followers 1.1K following 6.8K posts
I talk to teens about dead people. 42, AuDHD, Married & ATL. 🏳️‍🌈 BA History & MA in World History. http://Amy-Elizabeth.net/social
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amyelizabeth.bsky.social
Overheard at work:

Student 1: Of course Socrates isn’t real, do you think anyone would talk to Plato?

Student 2: Low-key, I feel that way about Saint Augustine. He HAD to be close with God because he was like, a weird homeschool kid.
amyelizabeth.bsky.social
Wait - Glenn Close doesn’t have an Oscar?! That is bananas.
Reposted by Amy-Elizabeth
edzitron.com
Tomorrow: The AI Bubble is built on impossible promises. GPUs die in 5 years, nobody has built a 1GW data center, and they have the power to do so. Stargate Abilene won't have enough power before 2028.

Here's a link for $10 off premium.

edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo...
Everybody is very casual with how they talk about Sam Altman’s theoretical promises of trillions of dollars of data center infrastructure, and I'm not sure anybody realizes how difficult even the very basics of this plan will be.
Nevertheless, everybody is happily publishing stories about how “Stargate Abilene Texas - OpenAI’s massive data center with Oracle - is open,” by which they mean two buildings, and I’m not even confident both of them are providing compute to OpenAI yet. There are six more of them that need to get built for this thing to start rocking at 1.2GW - even though it’s only 1.1GW according to my sources in Abilene.
But, hey, sorry - one minute - while we’re on that subject, did anybody visiting Abilene in the last week or so ever ask whether they’ll have enough power there? 
Don’t worry, you don’t need to look - I’m sure you were just about to, and had simply been busy! - but I did the hard work for you and read up on it, and it turns out that Stargate Abilene only has 200 megawatts of power - a 200 megawatt substation that, according to my sources, has only been built within the last couple of months, with 350 Megawatt of gas turbine generators that connect to a natural gas power plant that might get built by the end of the year in the event that one of the multiple construction firms involved . Said turbine is extremely expensive, featuring volatile pricing (for context, volatility fell in Q2 2025…to 69% annualized, meaning that if you had these prices across the entirety of a year you’d see swings of 69% up or down) and even more volatile environmental consequences, and is, while permitted for it (this will download the PDF of the permit), impractical and expensive to use long-term. 
Analyst James van Geelen, founder of Citrini Research recently said on Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast that these are “not the really good natural gas turbines” because the really good ones would take seven years to deliver due to a natural gas turbine shortage.
But th… Stargate Abilene does not have sufficient power to run at even half of its supposed IT load of 1.2GW, and at its present capacity - assuming that the gas turbines function at full power - can only hope to run 370MW to 460MW of IT load.
I’ve seen article after article about the gas turbines and their use of fracked gas - a disgusting and wasteful act typical of OpenAI - but nobody appears to have asked “how much power does a 1.2GW data center require?” and then chased it with “how much power does Stargate Abilene have?”
The answer is not enough, and the significance of said “not enough” is remarkable.
Today, I’m going to tell you, at length, how impossible the future of generative AI is. 
Gigawatt data centers are a ridiculous pipe dream, one that runs face-first into the walls of reality.  
The world’s governments and media have been far too cavalier with the term “gigawatt,” casually breezing by the fact that Altman’s plans require 17 or more nuclear reactors’ worth of power, as if building power is quick and easy and cheap and just happens.
I believe that many of you think that this is an issue of permitting - of simply throwing enough money at the problem - when we are in the midst of a shortage in the electrical grade steel and transformers required to expand America (and the world’s) power grid.
I realize it’s easy to get blinded by the constant drumbeat of “gargoyle-like tycoon cabal builds 1 gigawatt data center” and feel that they will simply overwhelm the problem with money, but no, I’m afraid that isn’t the case at all, and all of this is so silly, so ridiculous, so cartoonishly bad that it threatens even the seemingly-infinite wealth of Elon Musk, with xAI burning over a billion dollars a month and planning to spend tens of billions of dollars building the Colossus 2 data center, dragging two billion dollars from SpaceX in his desperate quest to burn as much money as possible for no reason. 
This is the age of hubris - a time in which we are going to watc…
amyelizabeth.bsky.social
Exactly. As a child, I was not afraid of monsters under the bed. I was afraid of communists. It goes DEEP.
Reposted by Amy-Elizabeth
older.bsky.social
* Performing Arts is also threatening to them because it often communicates and embodies the learnings from the first two ✌🏼
madcarew.bsky.social
The first time I heard of Kami Badenoch, she was refusing to give Kneecap an arts grant they’d been awarded because they support ending British rule of Ireland.

The second time was when Kneecap’s legal team thrashed her in court.

The last time was when they rapped about what a wanker she is.
older.bsky.social
sociology and anthropology are dangerous to them, because those fields help us understand the power dynamics, ethics, and human cost of what the industries they like better are doing.
Performing arts is hugely important for the economy, but it doesn't benefit them directly.
Reposted by Amy-Elizabeth
melissagiragrant.com
Incredibly alarming—after the whole ridiculous antifa roundtable at the White House, as Mark was moving with his family to Europe after threats…
amyelizabeth.bsky.social
“the girlfriend of one of the founders of antifa”
Reposted by Amy-Elizabeth
cnn.com
CNN @cnn.com · 2d
Think of modern art and Picasso, O’Keeffe or Dali may first come to mind. But Nigerian artists have made key contributions throughout the 20th century — and their influence is being exhibited in the first show of its kind at the Tate Modern gallery in London. https://cnn.it/3IzBjKk
Reposted by Amy-Elizabeth
celestepewter.bsky.social
Okay. So another Dem just tried to fight me in my mentions over Amy McGrath. It was pure armchair analysis, and weird.

But here's why I'm bringing it up: we HAVE to get it together, fellow Dems.

We're seeing democracy-eroding acts from this administration Every. Day.
Reposted by Amy-Elizabeth
drsepinwall.bsky.social
One issue I talked about in Slave Revolt on Screen was how the early 2010s burst of energy at Ubisoft & other companies - diversifying characters and narratives - faced a backlash after GamerGate. The women developers who'd made great games NOT celebrating colonization & conquest lost jobs./
stephentotilo.bsky.social
SCOOP: Last year, Ubisoft cancelled an Assassin's Creed game set during Reconstruction. Was to feature a Black Assassin who, among other things, fought the rise of the Klan

Sources: Leadership nixed it over concerns re: U.S. political climate, backlash to Yasuke

www.gamefile.news/p/scoop-ubis...
Scoop: Ubisoft cancelled a post-Civil War Assassin’s Creed last year
Company leadership deemed the project too controversial for the moment, sources tell Game File
www.gamefile.news
Reposted by Amy-Elizabeth
askaubry.com
Dude posted this saying his daughter will be his "second mom" thinking this is a positive message about little girls. 😒
pregnant woman asks her husband: "What are you expecting, a boy or a girl?" "

The husband replies: "If it's a boy, I'll teach him math, we'll work out together, teach him how to fish, etc." "

The woman, laughing, asks: "What if it's a girl?" "

The husband smiles and says, "If it's a girl, I won't have to teach her anything." She will teach me everything: how to dress, how to eat, what to say and what not to say. Very soon, she'll become like a second mom to me, and even without doing anything special, she'll always consider me as her hero. She'll understand when I tell her no and she'll still compare her future husband to me. No matter how old she gets, she will always want me to treat her like my little princess. She'll fight for me against the world, and if anyone hurts me, she'll never forgive them. "

The woman, a little intrigued, asks: "You mean your daughter would do all this, but not your son?" "

The husband says, "No, no! My son could do this too, but he will have to learn
amyelizabeth.bsky.social
Oh yeah. It’s honestly amazing. I thought teachers and academics hated it the most? Nope. Swifties are the biggest AI haters.
Reposted by Amy-Elizabeth
trestiffany.bsky.social
“What’s your barber name?” is crazy 😂
Reposted by Amy-Elizabeth
thetnholler.bsky.social
WEST VIRGINIAN: “If the subsidies go away I won’t have health insurance. I won’t go to the doctor. This really is a life or death situation.” #TrumpShutdown #TrumpHealthCareTax

(This shutdown is making the case for #MedicareForAll better than we ever could)
Reposted by Amy-Elizabeth
older.bsky.social
sociology and anthropology are dangerous to them, because those fields help us understand the power dynamics, ethics, and human cost of what the industries they like better are doing.
Performing arts is hugely important for the economy, but it doesn't benefit them directly.
ottoenglish.bsky.social
Badenoch and Co see education only as a means to a massive income in some soul destroying career.

Devoid of imagination and the power of knowledge they view life entirely through the prism of the CV.

My advice always is to study what interests you and the rest will follow
Reposted by Amy-Elizabeth
hpsvanessa.bsky.social
I find it strangely beautiful and freeing that (even if just a few cases, and with a struggle) we've made it possible for peoples to be 'voluntarily isolated' & it is incredibly telling about the grossest side of humanity that there are others whose immediate instinct is to try to violate that right
disabilitystor1.bsky.social
So, not content with John Allen Chau forcing his obnoxious, law-breaking and likely disease-ridden self into the midst of the North Sentinelese and getting himself killed, now there is a movie making a saint of this man?

Colonizers gonna colonize, I suppose.
The poster for the movie Last Days showing the actor playing John Allen Chau looking beatifically up into the light while green ocean water swirls around him. The general effect is one of him as a saint. To the right of the poster, a North Sentinelese man rows himself in a boat. The text reads Based on a True Story, Last Days,
amyelizabeth.bsky.social
God, this will never not make me rage. I’ve worked with SO many people like that and the rest of us tried so hard to get anyone to take the allegations seriously.
amyelizabeth.bsky.social
In my neighborhood: 2 different dads were Peeping Toms and apparently got into a scuffle over terf. 3-4 kids overdosing on heroin. They weren’t together, no social connections or anything.

My mom SWORE our gated community would be “safe.”

LOL.
thefence.bsky.social
Fence #26 will be a special on all things print, and in tribute to the storied history of the UK gutter press, our letters page wants your GOSSIP & SCANDAL.

So, we're asking you all: what was the most scandalous (true or false) bit of gossip that dominated your school or neighbourhood growing up?
A photo of assembled paparazzi waiting to snap your shame for the scandal sheets.
amyelizabeth.bsky.social
Excellent choices. Seraphina is so so good. The more I think about Sabriel, the more relatable it is for so many reasons.
amyelizabeth.bsky.social
*slides in* Omg. Hi. This is my favorite series that I read over quarantine. I would love to hear your thoughts on it.
amyelizabeth.bsky.social
One of my favorite parts of Chinese imperial history is when absolutely AWFUL emperors betray their allies and advisors who are somehow surprised by the emperor’s behavior.

I also love when there is finally a rebellion and everyone working in the palace has just been waiting to help the rebels.
amyelizabeth.bsky.social
Me: I need y’all to take out your books. I forgot to give a trigger warning for cannibalism in chapter 7, and a really creepy relationship between the emperor of China and his childhood wet nurse in chapter 8.
Reposted by Amy-Elizabeth
mishellbaker.bsky.social
The scientific method is not designed to solve EVERY mystery. It can help untangle cause-effect in important ways, save lives, the planet even.

But it cannot tell you what it all Means. This does not mean Meaning does not exist. It means that science is not the best tool for exploring that.
Reposted by Amy-Elizabeth
ebrandom.bsky.social
Is there good recent historical work on the Barbary pirates? I know Colley has written about narratives of enslavement, but is there anything by someone using non-European sources in a significant way? 🗃️