I like it! It's an interesting and under-explored direction. However, I would suggest you take your idea in its current form as only a starting point, and continue working on it. If you could also collaborate with someone who can offer a woman's perspective on this, I think that would improve things.
I am saying that because I am a dude, and, to be honest, just based on this post, I suspect you are as well. My experience of being happily married and also a father of a young lady has taught me that a woman's perspective on these matters is very different from ours, and it's something that I previously had no idea about.
It's especially important because, as everyone knows, whether any such initiative *succeeds or fails* is determined by whether it can attract women. You get them, and the men *will* flock wherever the women are.
Specifically:
*Prioritize the lowest-friction way for women to avoid certain men*
In this context, it's very important for women to have a *low-social-friction* way to *minimize* being *around* certain men. The reasons could range from objectively problematic things like unwelcome and inappropriate advances to more "subjective" (or "unfair") things that women often won't be willing to express—like someone with perceived poor hygiene or just "giving *off* the wrong vibes."
And the hard part is that while in theory you can do something about the objective stuff (banning people based on the *post-event* survey), the subjective, *unspoken stuff* is much harder to tackle.
One underappreciated property of every *common* way to *socialize* with strangers or "meet people" is the ability for women to "walk away" with the lowest possible friction. For example, the concept of a "date" *where* you meet in a public, neutral, anonymous place largely originates from that.
With that in mind, the perspective of being "trapped" and "cooped up" in an escape room for *an hour* with men *they don't know* looks very different.
*Lean into an activity with friends where you expand your offline social network*
This activity would do well by leaning *into* the aspects of traditional ways to meet people that the matching apps are bad at. *Think about* the advantages of the classic practice of being invited to a party and going there with your friends.
For socially mature people (exactly the kind everyone seeks), and in particular for women, an activity you can go to *with your* group of friends, rather than alone, is much more attractive and natural.
And there are significant social advantages to meeting a person at a *friend's* party.
First of all, the person meets the minimal social bar of being *sociable enough* to have at least one friendship that led them to be invited to a party by a friend *or* acquaintance. (*And* if you think that's not much, *you'd be surprised*.)
Another reason is that when you meet a person through your social network (friend-of-a-friend), you get to learn *what* they are really like. This is huge: without it, all a guy who is a serial abuser needs to do is to act charming and nice for an hour or two during the date.
*Plausible deniability. Don't repeat the mistakes of speed-dating.*
I would think about changing at least the official *value proposition* of the idea from "meet potential dates" to something more neutral, a sort of fun and exciting activity where "meeting *new people*" is only mentioned in passing. For whatever complex social reason, it seems that there is this socially important thing, in particular for women, that even when meeting potential new dates is the ultimate intention for many participants, the *appearance has to be kept* that it's not the *main* reason people are participating.
Look at the concept of *nightlife* and nightclubs, *for example*.
Why do *girls* go out and hit the nightclubs? To dance and to have a great time with their girlfriends, of course! Because the best way to spend time with friends *over* deafeningly loud music, in a dark ugly warehouse, is to dress up, commute *downtown* (taxi *fare* both ways), wait in a line, and spend a fortune on the cheapest booze.
On the other hand, while objectively "speed dating" is a great proposition, it *hasn't been* popular at all.
Here are some directions *you could explore* iterating on the idea:
1. I would change the setting from the escape room with 4-6 people to some sort of *outside quest-style* game (*geocaching-style*, clues, and so on) where larger groups of people participate (10-20), and the players have the opportunity *to* team up with others if they wish. Maybe it could be two or *multiple* teams so *the* whole vibe moves from "meeting dates" to a *"sports" or competition* vibe.
2. Invite-only, members with good standing get 5 invites *to* share with their friends and all that. Compose teams so that you get to meet *friends-of-friends* rather than total strangers.
3. I would switch from the "meet dates" rhetoric to just an activity you can do with friends, and, *hey*, you meet people.
4. I would change the anonymous post-game matching mechanic from being matched up for "dating" to being matched up to participate together at the next game, or being matched up in the same team.
Since it's over 3 hours total, here are the specific examples of "ecological costs" from this podcast:
* Data centers consume a lot of water. The example they start with is Google's data center in Dalles, Oregon, which used 355 million gallons of water in 2021. This amounted to 29% of all water consumed in the city (they did not bother to mention that the city's population is only 15K though).
* In 2023, hyperscale data centers used 66 billion liters of water in the U.S.: 3x the volume from ten years ago!
* They quote estimates that ChatGPT consumes 500 mL of water for every 10-50 user prompts (or 10-50 mL per prompt, which again sounds less dramatic).
* In Ireland, data centers collectively draw "over 20% of national electricity," which outstrips the total energy usage of all urban homes in the country.
* In Cerrillos, Chile, local residents blocked Google's plans to build a data center after discovering the scale of water use it would require (169 liters per second and its a drought-stricken area or something).
* The power consumption of data centers is enormous and places a very high load on energy grids worldwide. No specific numbers mentioned though.
My impression is that this is a clear example of a politically-biased podcast with an alarmist and accusatory tone, where none of the facts presented are particularly damning in the grand scheme of things.
In data centers with large water consumption, most of the water (90%) is used for evaporative cooling (letting hot water turn into vapor to carry away the heat), with the remaining 10% going to humidification systems (maintaining 40-60% humidity inside to prevent static electricity buildup, basically evaporation as well).
Let's take a moment to recognize what a dream "ecological cost" evaporating water is compared to old-time industries and the real environmental problems people have had to deal with. Old-timers in Cleveland can tell you how, until the 1970s (before the first serious ecological protection enforcement), the Cuyahoga River running through the city would CATCH FIRE and BURN Bible-style because of all the unprocessed, oil-based waste being dumped by plants and factories along its course. It is an unfortunate reality that many key industrial processes of our civilization dissolve dangerous and toxic compounds with water.
Also, the cost of evaporation cooling is not fundamental to data centers. You can change things around with some known engineering solutions and the costs for it would not be a deal breaker. For example, in Belgium, they built a two-loop water cooling system that can use industrial waste water (or even seawater in principle).
If you absolutely must, you can also build a fully closed-circuit liquid cooling system (think big fridge). The thing is that some water drawn from municipal system in a little city in the middle of nowhere isn't a problem.
As for high power consumption and "climate change impact," none of this is specific to data centers.
(And, this whole mindset about climate change in this podcast is just so 2010s. No, energy consumption is not inherently bad and sinful. No, the math of solving climate change with consuming less, putting on a sweater and saving does not work. A society that does not prioritize building for plentiful, cheap, (and yes,clean) energy is doomed to stagnate and wither economically. I see even most leftist people change their mind about this over the last few years, tired of never-ending green washing. If only political orthodoxies were able to change with the times...).
> Data centers consume a lot of water. The example they start with is Google's data center in Dalles, Oregon, which used 355 million gallons of water in 2021.
For comparison, one acre-foot of water is 325,850 gallons. Google’s data center used around 1090 acre-feet in 2021. One acre of alfalfa requires 4-6 acre-feet of water per harvest, so another way to look at it is Google’s data center used as much water as 218 acres of alfalfa. There are a million acres of alfalfa growing in California.
I was just looking at water usage in the Las Vegas area and found that one Google data center in Henderson consumes 320 million gallons a year. Just for comparison I looked at golf courses in the area and 1 golf course consumed 450 million gallons.
I see quite a few golf course near The Dalles, Oregon. (“The” is actually part of the town name).
The Dalles is just at the end of the wet side of the Columbia river gorge before it starts getting to a semi-arid region (starting about at Biggs Junction). Golf courses are more desirable toward the dryer side because it’s hard to get a game of golf in when it’s raining all the time. It is still a water limited place.
I'm not sure open loop cooling is really possible in those parts of the South. The idea that water consumption on the West Coast and South East is comparable is probably flawed.
I am not OP, but, sure, here are the specific facts on "ecological costs" from this podcast (with some help from Perplexity's amazing youtube summary feature):
• Data centers consume lots of water. The example they start with is that Google's data center in Dalles, Oregon used 355 million gallons of water in 2021, which was 29% of all water consumed in the city (its population is 15K though, but they neglect to mention that).
• By 2023, hyperscale data centers used 66 billion liters of water in the U.S.—triple their volume from less than a decade earlier.
• They quote estimates that ChattGPT consumes 500 mL of water for every 10-50 user prompts (or 10-50 mL per prompt).
• in Ireland datacenters in total draw "over 20% of national electricity", which outstrips the total energy usage of all urban homes in the country.
• In Cerrillos, Chile local residents blocked Google's plans to build a datacenter there after discovering the scale of water use the centers would require (169 liters per second iand its a drought-stricken area).
• Power consumption of data centers is enormous and puts a very high load on energy grids across the world.
My impression is that this is clear example of politically-biased podcast with alarmist and accusatory tone, where none of the facts presented are particularly damning in the grand scheme of things.
In data centers with large water consumption, the water mostly (90%) goes to evaporative cooling (they let hot water turn into vapor carrying away the heat) with the rest going to 10% humidification systems (getting to 40-60% humidity inside to prefect static electricity buildup).
Let's take a moment to recognize what a dream "ecological cost" it is - turning water into vapour - compared to the old timey industries and real environmental problems people have had to deal with. Old timers in Cleveland can tell you how until 1970s (before first serious ecological enforcement), Cuyahoga river running through the city would once in a while BURN WITH FIRE Bible-style from all kinds of unprocessed oil-based waste being dumped by plants and factories on its course. It's the unfortunate reality that many of our vital industrial processes that make our civilization possible rely on dissolving all kinds of most dangereous and toxic compounds in water.
Also, the cost of evaporation cooling is not something fundamental to data centers and is not something that cannot be altered with some known engineering solutions and manageble cost overheads if there is a need. For example, in Belgium they built a two-loop water cooling system that can use industry waste or even sea water. You can also get a fully closed-circuit zero running water cooling system (fridge-style) if you absolutely must.
As for high power consumption and "climate change impact", none of this is specific to data centers. We might like it or not but our society runs on energy and electric power. This whole mindset showcased in this podcast that all energy consumption is something bad and its all about reducing it is so 2010s. I think, its obvious by now that this the road to pure economical if not civilizational suicide. A society that does not prioritize building for plentiful, cheap and hopefully clean energy is doomed to wither and stagnate.
If solar is cheaper per watt than gas then they will build solar and use the gas plants to level the output. Assuming the grid capacity and/or nearby land is available.
Thanks for the tips!
Could you explain how can one get about "getting a membership to a large private torrent site"?
Also, why Emby rather than, say, Jellyfin or Plex?
The private trackers tend to be a pain in the butt to remain active enough on to keep your account, as they tend to require a certain amount of upload:download ratio. This can be difficult to achieve since so many members have high-speed seedboxes.
Just use https://1337x.to/ or any other public tracker. You'll be able to find 99% of whatever you want.
I was a Plex user, but gave up on it when it started to suck. This was years ago. Emby was the other option at the time and I'm a big fan of it. I've never tried jellyfin. If you want to, email me and I can get you an invite.
These scientists could not publicly and unambiguously condone this for the fear of being singled out and picked out as "playing god" extremists.So they have to say the platitudes about "being careful" and ethical concerns.
However, when you suffer all your life from a genetic disease such as, say, the sickle cell or diabetes type 1, it is very obvious that it is any delay or hinderance in this direction that is deeply unethical, not the practice. Your germ line gets hundreds of random mutations at every conception, and your gamets get tons more mutations and errors as you age. It's not a dynasty hairloom.
Huawei is kickstarting a team to build the tech stack that will power the next generation of the internet. Our goal is to identify and foster disrupting and revolutionary technologies in network protocols and blockchain/Merkle DAG things.
In the spirit of Bell Labs in its best years, we will focus on pursuits that may pay off only in longer term. We are offering the best of the both worlds: creative freedom of academic research/a startup and the capacity to turn a proof-of-concept into a product capable of seeing mainstream adoption.
Most of our work will be open source. Here are some of the open source projects we are contributing to (that hopefully shows the scope of our interests):
- webassembly.org
- kolmoblocks.org
- github.com/ipfs
- github.com/libp2p
What we offer:
- compensation levels at the top quartile of the market & benefits
- creative freedom to work on your own proposals, and to turn them into fully funded company's projects (if the team sees it as promising)
- most of our work is open source
- intellectually challenging and creative work at the cutting edge of computer science, not another CRUD app
Things we appreciate in the applicants (the list is ||, not &&):
- folks with the history of open source contributions
- a background in distributed systems, compilers or video codecs
- background in adjacent academic careers in STEM such as math, physics etc
- Please mention potatoes in your response to indicate that you have read the position's description
To apply, if you have any questions, or just want to say hi, please email us at: dmitry.borzov@huawei.com
Thanks!
I am saying that because I am a dude, and, to be honest, just based on this post, I suspect you are as well. My experience of being happily married and also a father of a young lady has taught me that a woman's perspective on these matters is very different from ours, and it's something that I previously had no idea about.
It's especially important because, as everyone knows, whether any such initiative *succeeds or fails* is determined by whether it can attract women. You get them, and the men *will* flock wherever the women are.
Specifically:
*Prioritize the lowest-friction way for women to avoid certain men* In this context, it's very important for women to have a *low-social-friction* way to *minimize* being *around* certain men. The reasons could range from objectively problematic things like unwelcome and inappropriate advances to more "subjective" (or "unfair") things that women often won't be willing to express—like someone with perceived poor hygiene or just "giving *off* the wrong vibes."
And the hard part is that while in theory you can do something about the objective stuff (banning people based on the *post-event* survey), the subjective, *unspoken stuff* is much harder to tackle.
One underappreciated property of every *common* way to *socialize* with strangers or "meet people" is the ability for women to "walk away" with the lowest possible friction. For example, the concept of a "date" *where* you meet in a public, neutral, anonymous place largely originates from that.
With that in mind, the perspective of being "trapped" and "cooped up" in an escape room for *an hour* with men *they don't know* looks very different.
*Lean into an activity with friends where you expand your offline social network*
This activity would do well by leaning *into* the aspects of traditional ways to meet people that the matching apps are bad at. *Think about* the advantages of the classic practice of being invited to a party and going there with your friends.
For socially mature people (exactly the kind everyone seeks), and in particular for women, an activity you can go to *with your* group of friends, rather than alone, is much more attractive and natural.
And there are significant social advantages to meeting a person at a *friend's* party.
First of all, the person meets the minimal social bar of being *sociable enough* to have at least one friendship that led them to be invited to a party by a friend *or* acquaintance. (*And* if you think that's not much, *you'd be surprised*.)
Another reason is that when you meet a person through your social network (friend-of-a-friend), you get to learn *what* they are really like. This is huge: without it, all a guy who is a serial abuser needs to do is to act charming and nice for an hour or two during the date.
*Plausible deniability. Don't repeat the mistakes of speed-dating.* I would think about changing at least the official *value proposition* of the idea from "meet potential dates" to something more neutral, a sort of fun and exciting activity where "meeting *new people*" is only mentioned in passing. For whatever complex social reason, it seems that there is this socially important thing, in particular for women, that even when meeting potential new dates is the ultimate intention for many participants, the *appearance has to be kept* that it's not the *main* reason people are participating.
Look at the concept of *nightlife* and nightclubs, *for example*.
Why do *girls* go out and hit the nightclubs? To dance and to have a great time with their girlfriends, of course! Because the best way to spend time with friends *over* deafeningly loud music, in a dark ugly warehouse, is to dress up, commute *downtown* (taxi *fare* both ways), wait in a line, and spend a fortune on the cheapest booze.
On the other hand, while objectively "speed dating" is a great proposition, it *hasn't been* popular at all.
Here are some directions *you could explore* iterating on the idea:
1. I would change the setting from the escape room with 4-6 people to some sort of *outside quest-style* game (*geocaching-style*, clues, and so on) where larger groups of people participate (10-20), and the players have the opportunity *to* team up with others if they wish. Maybe it could be two or *multiple* teams so *the* whole vibe moves from "meeting dates" to a *"sports" or competition* vibe.
2. Invite-only, members with good standing get 5 invites *to* share with their friends and all that. Compose teams so that you get to meet *friends-of-friends* rather than total strangers.
3. I would switch from the "meet dates" rhetoric to just an activity you can do with friends, and, *hey*, you meet people.
4. I would change the anonymous post-game matching mechanic from being matched up for "dating" to being matched up to participate together at the next game, or being matched up in the same team.