Amorality is a given ...

Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb and the chief design officer of the National Design Studio,
at the unveiling of the TrumpRx drug discount site on 5 February 2026.
Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Tech. science and government are amoral, it's the people running said appliance
that determine the morality of the agency in question.

To whit

‘It’s dangerous and it’s going to erode trust’: redesign of US government websites 

stokes surveillance fears

The National Design Studio, staffed by Doge veterans, installed visitor-tracking

software on vital federal websites

An opaque White House office staffed largely by veterans of Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) has quietly rebuilt some of the federal government’s most sensitive websites – for passport applications, voter registration, prescription-drug pricing and children’s savings – in ways critics say appear to violate federal law.

The National Design Studio (NDS) was established by a Donald Trump executive order last August, and is led by Trump-aligned Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia and staffed by Doge veterans.

A Guardian investigation has found the office has apparently been developing or redeveloping sensitive federal websites, including those connecting Americans with prescription drugs, children’s savings accounts, passports and voter registration. The investigation corroborates and advances earlier reporting by the Drey Dossier, a YouTube investigative outlet.

The NDS built and now operates four public federal websites: ndstudio.gov, trumprx.gov, realfood.gov and trumpaccounts.gov. All four ran commercial visitor-tracking software, configured to evade the privacy tools many web users install, and none carry the public filings federal privacy law requires under laws including the Privacy Act of 1974 and the E-Government Act of 2002.

Separately, none of the NDS’s spending or its arrangements with outside vendors appears in USAspending, the federal contracting database, raising questions about how it is funded and overseen.

PostHog's not the problem, it's who's using it.

A glimmer of hope :)

 

An artist’s conception shows the Blue Moon Mark 2 lander on the lunar surface.

(Blue Origin Illustration)

Maybe NASA might survive after all as NASA's offering a helping hand to companies
wanting to explore space at deep level. 

NASA has selected proposals from 37 companies, including several with Seattle-area connections, to further its plans to establish a long-term presence on the moon and enable human exploration of Mars.

The companies applied to partner with NASA under the terms of an Announcement of Collaboration Opportunity, or ACO. The selected proposals aim to develop technologies for space transportation, planetary surface operations and lunar surface infrastructure.

“We are empowering American industry to become active partners in NASA’s missions to the moon, Mars and beyond,” Greg Stover, director of the Advanced Research and Technology Division in NASA’s Research and Technology Mission Directorate, said today in a news release. “By tapping into commercial industry, NASA can rapidly develop key capabilities to support its most ambitious missions while fostering the nation’s robust space economy.”

While the ACO agreements do not involve an exchange of funds, the selected companies can leverage NASA’s specialized facilities, software, hardware and subject-matter experts to mature their technologies for commercial and government use. The performance periods will be negotiated individually, with an expected duration of 12 to 24 months.

Five Seattle-area companies made NASA’s list:

• Aerojet Rocketdyne: The L3Harris-owned operation in Redmond focuses on producing thrusters for spacecraft propulsion systems.
• Blue Origin: The Kent-based space venture founded by Jeff Bezos is developing crewed and uncrewed lunar landers for NASA’s Artemis moon program, as well as technology to produce solar cells and other components from lunar resources.
• Starcloud: This Redmond-based startup aims to launch thousands of satellites to build orbital, in-space data center constellations.
• Stoke Space: This Kent-based venture, founded by veterans of Blue Origin, is building a fully reusable medium-lift rocket.
• Zeno Power Systems: Operating out of offices in Seattle and Washington, D.C., Zeno is developing a new type of nuclear battery for applications in space as well as on Earth.

The other 32 companies are Advanced Cooling Technologies, Advanced Space, Apech Labs, Astrobotic Technology, Axiom Space, Busek, Canopy Aerospace, Chase Supply, Dcubed USA, Elementum 3D, Enduralock, General Galactic Technologies, Hebi Robotics, Hyperion Transport Systems, Kall Morris, Lockheed Martin, Lunar Outpost, Made in Space, Max Space, Mission Space U.S., Moonprint Solutions, Motiv Space Systems, Opterus Research and Development, Orbital Composites, Psionic, Quadrus Corp., Rogue Space Systems, Starpath Robotics, Teledyne Energy Systems, Ten One Aerospace, Varda Space Industries and Venturi Astrolab.

Researchers used the NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to map specific chemical contents of comet 3I/ATLAS as it moved away from the Sun. 

Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Martin Cordiner (CUA, NASA-GSFC); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Creativity is ...

 

RM//Magnific/NanaBana2

A meander for the mind applies. Maybe Albert E. said this after all but nobody really knows. :)

Time to pull the plug

Time to pull the plug

GENEVA – Israeli authorities and security forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian children resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel said in a new report today.

 Any questions?

But a spark ...

 

Midjourney

Ironically, the Reflecting Pool CF, as ridiculous as it truly is, indirectly relates to the Storming of the Bastille because in that scenario, people thought there would be thousands locked but no, only 7 were released. Why is this a big deal? Well, this was the start of the French Revolution, the bloodiest revolution the west ever experienced beginning in 1789.

For the Trump Administration, the Reflecting Pool debacle shows part and parcel, how grossly incompetent and evil this entity truly is but for the orange menace, it's even worse, he's now being laughed at, something most humiliating to the stable genius residing in the White House. 

There's no question that the debacle surrounding President Donald Trump's rehabbing of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool doesn't rise to the level of, say, his choice to wage war with Iran, his dumb and legally challenged imposition of tariffs, or his insistence on socializing businesses.

But it's equally true that this fetid little episode, not yet fully resolved, provides a shorthand of everything cloudy and foul-smelling about his so-far terrible second term, especially his unwillingness to own his failures (such as admitting he lost the 2020 election). Jimmy Carter fought killer rabbits. Gerald Ford fell down staircases. And George H.W. Bush puked on foreign dignitaries. Trump is now fighting an algae bloom in such a way that he is becoming a laughingstock.

"You won't be seeing this Biden filth and incompetence much longer!," he declared triumphantly last fall on Truth Social when announcing plans for the job. It was supposed to cost just $1.5 million. This April, he bragged endlessly about his expertise in swimming pools, telling the media, "I've probably built more than 100 swimming pools….There'll be no leaks; there'll be no anything….It'll look gorgeous, beautiful." On June 3, he unveiled a bizarre, decidedly Freudian graphic comparing the length of the reflecting pool (2,030 feet) to the heights of the Empire State Building, the Sears Tower, and One World Trade Center. The chart was titled "Our Pool Is Bigger than Skyscrapers."

When one becomes the butt of a joke, courage to question arises. The Senate actually implementing the War Powers Act is a start. Will it actually do anything? Probably not but this small act of defiance is akin to the Storming of the Bastille back in 1789. The herd mentality rules, in the end.

Storming of the Bastille

The French Revolution[a] was a period of political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the Coup of 18 Brumaire on 9 November 1799. Many of the revolution's ideas are considered fundamental principles of liberal democracy,[1] and its values remain central to modern French political discourse.[2] It was caused by a combination of social, political, and economic factors which the existing regime proved unable to manage.

Financial crisis and widespread social distress led to the convocation of the Estates General in May 1789, its first meeting since 1614. The representatives of the Third Estate broke away and re-constituted themselves as a National Assembly in June. The Storming of the Bastille in Paris on 14 July led to a series of radical measures by the Assembly, including the abolition of feudalism, state control over the Catholic Church in France, and issuing the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

But a spark applies, doe it not?

Mine is bigger than yours ...

Mangel Ngan / AFP / Getty

Mine is bigger that yours, a game played by little boys regarding toys and now, by the orange menace, our beloved president unfortunately experiencing free fall as we speak.

Never in my life have I rooted so hard for algae. In fact, I’ve never rooted for algae at all. Yet the sight of those tiny green organisms floating in the Reflecting Pool, absorbing sunlight, multiplying their little hearts out and living their best (presumably very short) lives, fills me with joy.

Among the Trump administration’s many debacles, the greening of the Reflecting Pool is uniquely delightful. Every other Donald Trump farce contains elements of tragedy. Whatever schadenfreude we might otherwise feel from the president’s haphazard “Liberation Day” tariffs or cycle of threat and submission toward Iran
is leavened with concern or even horror for the collateral damage. We feel bad for our country, however tremendous the content may be.

The Reflecting Pool episode captures most of Trump’s governing pathologies (corruption, incompetence, authoritarian menace, absurd lies) without any of the normal attendant consequences. It is pure,
meaningless fun.

Meaningless to everybody, that is, except Trump.

Chipped paint and algae are visible in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC,
on June 21. Aaron Schwartz/Reuters

Starting in April, the president began to boast, over and over, about his renovations. The new pool would be “beautiful,” “incredible.” The president had the foresight to line the bottom with a sealant that would last at least 50 years, perhaps 100. He showed reporters a chart depicting the pool dwarfing skyscrapers in size (if you laid the skyscrapers on their side, which obviates their most impressive attribute). This was a strange subject to obsess about in the midst of a war, yet the president’s enthusiasm for the topic seemed contagious. MAGA accounts on social media gloried in the incredible triumph of turning the pool blue.

But soon green algae appeared on the water. Workers were dispatched to pour bottles of hydrogen peroxide into the basin. The impermeable sealant began peeling off, possibly because of substandard quality, or perhaps because hydrogen peroxide is used as a paint stripper.

It gets better.

Incompetence by cronies seems like a plausible hypothesis for the failure. But to question the quality of the work would be to question Trump himself. And so the president responded in the characteristic fashion he employs in the face of all setbacks, especially self-created ones.

He blamed the failure on sabotage by unnamed enemies: vandals undermining his great project. Even though Trump had previously boasted that the new floor was impenetrable—“If you had a knife, you can’t even cut it. So strong, so powerful”—and even though it was constantly surrounded by witnesses with cameras,
these vandals had somehow managed to cut it open. “They took some form of knife or blade, and put a 250 foot long gash into the beautiful facade of what took so much work, competence, and money to build and complete,” he wrote Saturday on Truth Social. “They also poured corrosive and destructive chemicals into the Pool.”

By Monday morning, Trump claimed, in another post, that the gash was 300 feet long. When he met with reporters in the Oval Office on Monday afternoon, the gash had grown to 350 feet, and rather than having poured “corrosive and destructive chemicals” into the beautiful water, the vandals had done something quite different from, and close to the opposite of, that. “Somebody said they might have put fertilizer. They did something to create the algae,” he explained.

In closing ...

Firm that worked on past Reflecting Pool renovation passed on Trump project
after deeming it ‘unfeasible’

Deeming Trump's administration as unfeasible, also sounds like a plan. :)

Just learned the Reflection Pool is also the Indy 500.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The internet has filled up with swampy Reflecting Pool memes almost as quickly as the pool itself has filled with algae. However, traces of the intended "American Flag Blue" color are still visible on pieces of the painted liner that have separated and floated to the surface, reports CNN. There are several ways we could blame President Trump for this fiasco, with the primary finger of blame pointing at the handing of a no-bid government contract to a company that has never performed this kind of work before. But it certainly didn't help that Trump's motorcade drove directly across the drained Reflecting Pool while it was being painted either.

And so it goes. K. Vonnegut

Jumpers & 25nm ...

 

Jumpers

Smart beyond belief, sighted and dreamers to the max with a brain the size of a grain of sand, these little guys run rings around supercooled and isolated chandeliers of QCs while moving at light speed in planning the best line of attack in realtime. How do they do it? Microtubules and their deep connect to 25nm.

In comparison ...

IBM quantum computer demo at ITU WTSA 2024 in Delhi

Quantum computers are not yet practical for real-world applications. Physically engineering high-quality qubits has proven to be challenging. If a physical qubit is not sufficiently isolated from its environment, it suffers from quantum decoherence, introducing noise into calculations. National governments have invested heavily in experimental research aimed at developing scalable qubits with longer coherence times and lower error rates. Example implementations include superconductors (which isolate an electrical current by eliminating electrical resistance) and ion traps (which confine a single atomic particle using electromagnetic fields). 

For jumpers, a leaf, prey close enough to catch and a place to anchor

it's silk thread in case the spider misses.

Why 25nm? As per Gemini

The theory

First example of 25nm  - The Microtubule, the antenna connecting It from Bit

Casimir force using metal plates 25nms apart

The microtubuel is the Casimir effect as it's width is exactly 25nm

The MT's cut in half to show why this is so.

10-15 dimension applies to ...

It from Bit

Which means everything that's exactly 25nm is, in effect, a Casimir effect acting as an antennae
sensing the timeless 10-15 Speed of light blur connecting analog to digital and vis versa. 

The analog, forever separated by the timeless blur from digital. Said transaction goes both ways  

The white line is the 10-15 width timeless blur forever separating analog from digital and vis versa

The exact process, as defined by Gemini, shows we live in a participatory reality
endlessly switching from analog to digital and vis versa as needs warrant. :)

There are other numbers like 25nm vital to showing why 25nm is significant.

The Schrödinger equation mathematically describers what the blur truly is.

Conceptually, the Schrödinger equation is the quantum counterpart of Newton's second law in classical mechanics. Given a set of known initial conditions, Newton's second law makes a mathematical prediction as to what path a given physical system will take over time. The Schrödinger equation gives the evolution over time of the wave function, the quantum-mechanical characterization of an isolated physical system. The equation was postulated by Schrödinger based on a postulate of Louis de Broglie that all matter has an associated matter wave. The equation predicted bound states of the atom in agreement with experimental observations.[5]: II:268 

Gemini with linguistic addons for added spice by yours truly. :)

It from Bit lives. :)

The ultimate recycler

ER = EPR is a theory involving wormholes and entanglement, thus providing the support structure enabling the particle zoo to emerge as we are but temporary arrangements of the quantum foam
as described by Susskind and Maldacena.

Time emerges from entanglement. The only entities not experiencing time
are photons, gluons and gravitons
as all are massless and travel at the speed of light.

ER = EPR is a conjecture in physics stating that two entangled particles (a so-called Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen or EPR pair) are connected by a wormhole (or Einstein–Rosen bridge)[1][2] and is thought by some to be a basis for unifying general relativity and quantum mechanics into a theory of everything.[1]

The conjecture was proposed by Leonard Susskind and Juan Maldacena in 2013.[

So, what could cause this connect to be able to link two objects together instantaneously without regard to distance? As a total lay person not versed in math or physics in anyway, the take yours truly will take may be laughable but it's not totally crazed when one thinks about the quantum foam, a construct conceived by physicist John Wheeler to explain what space time would look like at the Planck length of 10-20 of a diameter of a proton. Seems the foam would not have space or time assigned to it as the foam is conjectured to consist of minuscule black holes winking in and out of existence at about 10-43 seconds, the time it takes for light to traverse the Planck distance of 10-20 of a diameter of a proton.

If this is the case, the question to ask is, does time exist in the quantum foam where only virtual particles issue forth and disappear according to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, thus precluding any chance of time happening in the foam as "real" protons, neutrons and all the rest of the subatomic zoo appear, AFAIK, to be temporary arrangements of the quantum foam subject to varying rates of decay, thus creating the illusion of time as seen in this part of the multiverse. If this is true, then, could the act of entanglement create a link consisting of, in some weird way, a "thread" akin to a wormhole of the quantum foam, forever separate from the constraints of time or the speed of light in enabling two (or more) linked particles to instantly "talk" to one another no matter how far apart they may be. RM

Pray, my dear, quoth my mother, have you not forgot to wind up the clock?

Laurence Sterne: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Volume I (1760), Chapter I

Entanglement, the Link to Forever

A fun meander for the ages begins to show why nature's the ultimate recycler. :)

Hawking radiation

Hawking Evaporation with the black hole exploding as end result

On creation and destruction. Black holes/Wormholes evaporate and explode as per Stephen Hawking's brilliant conjecture that nothing is forever save for photons, gluons and gravitons as all three are massless and travel at the speed of light. As possible proof, we may have actually seen one explode. 

As a study in the journal Nature noted last year, the neutrino was more than 100,000 times as energetic as any particle ever produced in colliders on Earth, and more energetic than astrophysicists can easily explain based on the part of the sky the neutrinos came from. But astrophysicists are trying, and some have proposed a truly ambitious explanation: This cosmic bullet came from an exploding black hole, an object so dense that not even light can escape its gravity.

In 1974, the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking calculated that black holes leak and eventually explode, releasing energy that had been entombed for centuries in a sort of mini-replica of the Big Bang. But no one has ever seen it happen.

The recycle

Exploding blackholes/wormholes at the Planck length of 10-35

If the NYTimes piece rings true, then black holes of all sizes evaporate and explode from Planck length size of 10-35 to the one we live in, the only difference being the size of the hole and the life time of same, which means ... endless big bangs have powered reality forever. 13.7 billion years ago "our" big bang was just one of the endless. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO42WP9cPoc Everything spins. 

A mass–radius log plot of various objects

In particle physics and physical cosmology, Planck units are a system of units of measurement defined exclusively in terms of four universal physical constants: c, G, ħ, and kB. Expressing one of these physical constants in terms of Planck units yields a numerical value of 1. They are a system of natural units, defined using fundamental properties of nature (specifically, properties of free space) rather than properties of a chosen prototype object. Originally proposed in 1899 by German physicist Max Planck, they are relevant in research on unified theories such as quantum gravity.

If this is the case, the question to ask is, does time exist in the quantum foam where only virtual particles issue forth and disappear according to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, thus precluding any chance of time happening in the foam as "real" protons, neutrons and all the rest of the subatomic zoo appear, AFAIK, to be temporary arrangements of the quantum foam subject to varying rates of decay, thus creating the illusion of time as seen in this part of the multiverse. The answer is yes save for photons, gluons and gravitons as these massless particles, aka bosons,  travel at the speed of light, hence they are immortal and do not experience time.

ER=EPR the connect to It from Bit

It from Bit

Reality is a transaction engine. Jonathan Wheeler's It from Bit proves this to be so.

"It from bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom — at a very deep bottom, in most instances — an immaterial source and explanation; that what we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe. 

What's also true is It from Bit arises whenever a black hole evaporates and explodes due to the participatory nature of existence. Also, the exact moment the transaction occurs is the blur, the infinitely thin speed of light/timeless entity enabling reality to complete the process of going from analog to digital in order to balance out the energy equation generated by the two entities in question. Think Day in the life when the rising indefinite analog pitch of the piece races to the ultimate, only to be firmly resolved by the finality of the E Major Chord for the ages.

The analog, forever separated by the timeless blur from digital. Said transaction goes both ways.  

The white line is the 10-15 width timeless blur forever separating analog from digital & vis versa

Why timeless? Because the speed of light and the move from analog to digital demands it as S.O.L. is the both the exact blur of energy transitioning to matter, i.e. E =. MC2, and analog to digital. The vis versa bit applies because whenever an electron releases the digital photon, aka a quanta, the newly released photon, running in free space, becomes analog once again.

What is this? Being rather math challenged to the extreme, I asked Gemini to verify my explanation for the Einstein and Wheeler-DeWitt equations as I understand the first as C = light/Photon, a Boson, the force carrier particle equivalent to matter with the dividing line being the speed of light as that is the exact center point where the analog boson of light transitions into digital matter i.e. Photon transitions to a quanta to enter into the Electron. Think photoelectric effect to visualize why this is so. In effect, Einstein's equation depicts the analog to digital process from the energy side.

 

Note: Photons, gravitons and gluons travel at the speed of light.

As for Wheeler-DeWitt, it depicts the analog to digital transition as a balancing act, directly equivalent to Einstein in execution but different in application as it shows why the collapse of the wave function from analog to digital (decoherence) dissipates the energy of analog by transiting to digital. Think the E Major chord in Day in a Life - Sgt. Peppers and Yang & Yin as the two equations are complementary.

Fermat's principle, also known as the principle of least time, is the link between ray optics and wave optics. Fermat's principle states that the path taken by a ray between two given points is the path that can be traveled in the least time. The principle of least action deals with classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, particle physics, and general relativity.[1] where nature will also choose the most efficient path in going from point A to point B. Nature's lazy, never expending more energy than absolutely necessary to accomplish any given task. 0.57721 aka slippage, is also necessary as without it, existence would freeze up like a car engine without oil.

Principle of least action where the optimal path is the one always selected. 

Nature doesn't draw straight lines as energy is generated from within. Man draws straight lines
as energy is applied from without. Think corporate identity.

I/O the logo for Ionomer - RM

Self similarity, the fractal

In mathematics, a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scales, as illustrated in successive magnifications of the Mandelbrot set.[1][2][3][4] This exhibition of similar patterns at increasingly smaller scales is called self-similarity, also known as expanding symmetry or unfolding symmetry; if this replication is exactly the same at every scale, as in the Menger sponge, the shape is called affine self-similar.[5] Fractal geometry relates to the mathematical branch of measure theory by their Hausdorff dimension.

From the Planck length of 10-35 to the black hole in which we all live, the images shown here detail scale invariance, an essential trait necessary to show how reality works at deep level.

Lastly,incompleteness and uncertainty rule and there is no certitude.
Remember, when going to a store, one knows a parking space will open up,
we just don't know when. :)

And ... This sentence is false.

"Space acts on matter, telling it how to move.

In turn, matter reacts back on space, telling it how to curve.”  - Johnathan Wheeler 1973

God must be a boogie man - Joni Mitchell

Note; All the art in the post was created by yours truly using NanaBana 2 on Magnific
save the Wikipedia graphic depicting the Planck Units.

Putting it in perspective ...

 

An Amazon Web Services data center near single-family homes in Stone Ridge, Virginia. Northern Virginia is the largest data center market in the world, according to a report this year cited in published accounts, but is facing headwinds from availability of land and electric power.

Your's truly lives in a small town, devoid of monstrosities like the AWS data center seen at the top of the pix. No doubt, the folks buying houses in in Stone Ridge a few years ago never envisioned a monster like this coming in, up close and personal, along the lines of The Man who came to Dinner but with the DC, there is no intention on ever leaving. 

The play is set in the small town of Mesalia, Ohio in the weeks leading to Christmas in the late 1930s. The famously outlandish New York City radio wit Sheridan Whiteside ('Sherry' to his friends) is invited to dine at the house of the well-to-do factory owner Ernest W. Stanley and his family. But before Whiteside can enter the house, he slips on a patch of ice outside the Stanleys' front door and injures his hip. Confined to the Stanleys' home, Whiteside is looked after by several professionals: Dr. Bradley, the absent-minded town physician, Miss Preen, his frantic nurse, and Maggie Cutler, his faithful secretary.

Confined to the house for a month, Whiteside drives his hosts mad by viciously insulting them, monopolizing their house and staff, running up large phone bills, and receiving many bizarre guests, including paroled convicts, and the eccentric Professor Metz, who brings him a glass-encased cockroach colony. Although he earns the intense dislike of Mr. Stanley, Whiteside manages to befriend his adult children, June and Richard, as well as his wildly eccentric older sister, Harriet Stanley.

Absolutely hilarious while being frightening at the same time, the play's a hoot.
Unlike Whiteside, the DC will be around far longer then an month. 

While some are worse than others, the stories people tell about how data centers invade and disrupt their communities follow the same contours. The tech company and their swarm of contractors are in town before you know it, and they’re already scheming with local leaders. In no uncertain terms, your elected officials have chosen tech billionaires over their own neighbors.

Soon, an army of men with bulldozers are tearing out trees near your home and ripping up fields. Dump trucks careen around town, and the night sky is so polluted with light, you can’t see the stars. A year or so later, the data center is up and running. By then, the high-paying construction jobs have all but disappeared.

After months of digging, you finally have an idea of how much water the data center actually consumes. If you’re lucky, your area isn’t in a drought. You hope things won’t get dire. Meanwhile, the monolith is droning and hissing, wearing you and your neighbors down with constant noise. You hope the water you do have will be drinkable this time next year as you try to adjust to the unnatural heat the data center generates.

The militaristic drive to build the best chatbot and somehow “beat China” knows no bounds, including those of logic. This nightmarish iteration of the extraction economy was made possible by undemocratic processes and a national administration that sold us and our resources out to tech oligarchs. But people in these towns and cities are smarter and tougher than the plutocrats accounted for—and they’re putting up one hell of a fight. Told by people whose communities have been impacted, this is the story of unhinged data center expansion in America.

Amazon’s Web Services data center in Stone Ridge, Virginia, in July 2024

Anger is beginning to build ...

Up Goer 5/Rev II

Copyright AP Photo/Eric Gay

I'm not a financial guy or savvy investor but I do know the smell of desperation when you gotta get money and it seems SpaceX is doing just that by offering bonds to keep the lights on. Going into debt right after offering an IPO is not smart business unless yours truly is missing something in thinking about this. The pix computes as this is a setting sun, not a sunrise as rockets are not the long term solution for man to reach the stars in any significant way.

SpaceX sheds $600 billion in three days as it taps the bond market for the first time

SpaceX shares have fallen for a third straight session, sinking to their lowest level since the firm's market debut and wiping out most of the spectacular gains made after its IPO, just as it launches its first-ever bond sale.

SpaceX shares closed at $154.63 on Monday, down around 16% on the day. That leaves them within touching distance of the $150 at which the shares first changed hands when public trading opened, the level set once underwriters finished building the order book, though still some way above the $135 price at which the IPO itself was struck.

The slide has erased more than $600 billion (€524.2bn) in market value over three trading days, dragging the company down from a peak that had lifted it past Amazon and, fleetingly, Microsoft, in terms of market capitalisation.

Its valuation now sits just above $2 trillion (€1.74tn), below Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), making it the seventh most valuable company in the world.

The retreat unwinds a remarkable opening run.

After the open at around $150 on 12 June, shares climbed to almost $226 by 16 June, a gain of roughly two-thirds before the company had published a single set of results as a public firm.

Currently, SpaceX is trading over 30% lower than the intraday high of around $226 and only 3% higher than the opening price.

That rally always rested on a thin pool of freely traded shares and lofty expectations for its AI ambitions, leaving it exposed to a sharp reversal once sentiment turned.

A brief blast of intense light applies then ...

SpaceX lands investment-grade credit ratings as shares tumble from record high

SpaceX buys AI coding startup Cursor for $60bn as AI race with OpenAI and Anthropic intensifies

Tapping debt to fund the AI push

The latest leg down on Monday coincided with SpaceX's first move into the corporate debt market.

The company announced an inaugural offering of senior unsecured notes, with people familiar with the plans reportedly putting the target at around $20 billion (€17.4bn).

fades away.

Up Goer 5/Rev II applies along with 1634-7 = 2026???