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John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · 1d

If you can't avoid a jaywalker in a car, you shouldn't be on the road, of course.

John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · 3d

I literally just invented it as I was typing, trying to work out the cost per meter of multimode fibre vs. 500kv cable...turns out the price difference is about 1000x :-)

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John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · 3d

Very very few datacenter workloads are happy to load shift, unfortunately. It requires you to have the same data in multiple places, and be OK with driving user latency up (inference) or duplicating enormous datasets (training). Easier to just pay for storage.

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John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · 3d

You do lose some power, even at 200kV.

The real problem is that grids are under enormous pressure to allow new connections, and can delay adding wind farms and solar parks for YEARS. This can be called stranded power, and big power users chase it.

It's easier to move gigabits than gigawatts.

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John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · 4d

I wonder if the minister is secretly relieved that they don't need to go through with it. They can just say "no" to the police.

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John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · 16d

Any chance we could get some hilarious 1970s safety TV ads, do you think ? Some 'oul lad giving a leg up to a kid, trying to hang posters on a pylon, which then cuts to a mother in a car full of posters, who hears a zap, a clatter of dropped zip ties, and asks "Mikey ? Joe ?" in a nervous manner.

John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · 20d

My first earthquake. My rational mind assumed someone had come into my room and was trying to shake me awake. I guess, no more sleep for me.

They should really schedule these things at night. Much more convenient.

John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · 24d

I made a lovely leather coat, based on a 17thC Irish great coat. It's magnificent for winter weather, except that the pockets are really low...didn't realised that they were set assuming you were riding a horse. Which, I tend to do, rarely.

John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · 25d

The 2nd amendment was designed to ensure people could protect the ones they loved. Or something. I'm not expert on what was in the brains of 18th century revolutionaries who were convinced the English would attack again, at any time.

John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · 28d

Many of the newly built DCs are taking power "behind the meter" for that reason, bypassing the grid. It's not great, for the grid, or consumers, long term. But the processes around onboarding new grid connections was not designed for the level of tumult that these datacenters has brought.

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John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · Sep 11

Love the idea that Dev was somehow noteworthy in the Ireland of the 1930s for misogyny.

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John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · Sep 7

"Googlieness" was a continuous internal debate that happened everywhere, at every level. It meant mirth, or intensity, or a strive for engineering perfection, or a tolerance for diversity, or an intolerance for political expedience. I remember an internal document of over 100 proverbs, Aesop style.

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John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · Sep 7

I think Google had a huge number more principles that were very heavily communicated internally. Like ... hundreds, maybe. Unlike Amazon and Meta, they didn't come from above, they could come from anywhere. Because they weren't codified, the post 2014 Oracleification eroded them.

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John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · Aug 16

Obviously, it would need a breather of some sort.

Amazing Facts @amazingfacts.bsky.social · Aug 16

If you had no stomach acid, an octopus could enter your mouth and crawl out your bum hole.

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John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · Aug 12

Be careful of what you wish for. There are Irish folks who left, and became a LOT more conservative. Not everywhere is more liberal than Ireland, and where you move to changes your outlook a lot.

There is a lot to "if you still have a passport, you must register for taxes, and you get a vote".

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John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · Aug 12

If growing up means not owning beautiful things, it sounds like a terrible idea.

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John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · Aug 10

Before a revolution happens, you see it in the creative arts. You hear poets and songwriters predicting change. You need playwrights and scriptwriters praising failed revolutionaries.

The UK has none of this. Their politicians are deaf to the need for change. Memes about using VPNs aren't enough.

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John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · Aug 10

Heh. Reminds me of that Comic series "Canon Law", about a Catholic Canon, called "Law", who solves crimes his own way...with a magnum 45. So many puns.

lightningstrikecomics.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/c...

Canon Law Preview Post

Hey guys, Just a little update to let you all know that Lightning Strike Comics will be making an appearance at 2 conventions next year in the UK. On May 19th-20th we’ll be at Kapow! in Londo…

lightningstrikecomics.wordpress.com

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John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · Aug 10

That's up to the company that runs the grid. They can also setup Power Purchase Agreements and do this every few years. Unfortunately, because it takes EirGrid suppliers up to ten years to build a new power plant, and the Irish population grew 20% in 15 years, they ran low.

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Reposted by John Looney

Nothings Monstered @nothingsmonstrd.bsky.social · Aug 8

These stories about people following LLMs into madness are helping me understand how so many people could listen to a teenage girl getting fucked up on volcanic gasses and understand her to he the voice of God.

Nothings Monstered @nothingsmonstrd.bsky.social · May 4

Priestess of Delphi - John Collier, 1891

oil painting of a woman holding a bowl and a branch on a tall stool over a crack in the ground from which fumes are rising. Her eyes are closed as she receives a vision from the gods/gets fucked up on toxic gas.

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John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · Aug 8

I buy Osprey books for the articles.

John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · Aug 6

Fascinating. Will it deal with the weird obsession with rules? Rule following, even when nonsensical and unfair, is the basis for colonial participation.

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John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · Aug 3

Seems it started a after after WB was refused the rights to do an animated American version of F5. Wow.

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John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · Aug 3

They need to introduce the wallaby's natural predator. Drunk Ozzies night shooting at them from the back of 4x4s with headlamps.

“No one wants to use the word ‘cull’”. There’s an island off the UK overrun with wallabies – and they’re causing chaos | Discover Wildlife

Feral wallaby populations are growing on the Isle of Man – and native wildlife is suffering, dividing opinion among islanders

www.discoverwildlife.com

John Looney @bigvalen.bsky.social · Aug 3

Fucking what ? Really ? Aaaaaaah.

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