how the fuck does a data center pump out a rare germ? Seriously. Isn't the water meant for cooling computers?!
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
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Moreover, is it not the same water that enter the datacenter ?
That's one of the problems with having an open loop. Cold water comes in and it has a tiny quantity of an infectious agent, far too smaller quantity to be a problem for anyone.
Then Meta kindly warms that water up by running it through lots of hot computers, the bacterium multiply and do so at a rate proportionate to the temperature (if it goes too hot they die but I doubt even an AI data centre is going to get that hot), then the water gets dumped back into the mains water grid complete with all its lovely infectious agents.
You get bacteria growing in closed loop systems as well, that isn't an issue because it's closed loop you just have to clean it out every now and then.
Nice and warm water, good place for it to thrive. The cooling towers in Arizona sometimes has stickers warning about legionnaires disease.
Jeez
How many atrocities is this company responsible for? Counting just this week's headlines, it's already unconscionable.
I remember when that futurism site was a weird news site about utopic things. Now it's dystopic as hell, and this scares me a lot, because if even they don't have good hopes for the future, things are REALLY bad
Yeah, it scares me too. Though it does give me some comfort to exist in communities like this, where people are well informed of the kind of fuckery done by big tech and other asshole corporations, and thus are not surprised by this kind of news. Although it's pretty grim that we all recognise how fucked things are, it's within communities like this that I often find my will to live be bolstered.
Maybe it's to do with the average political inclination of folks here, or maybe it's just that Lemmy has a high concentration of creative, nerdy people who find joy in making or sharing cool stuff. Or maybe I'm just so burnt out that I'm desperate to construct and/or clutch onto anything remotely meaningful ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Regardless I find it reassuring to see so many people trying their damnedest to forge something good — not in ignorance of the world being on fire, but precisely because we need good reasons to live now more than ever.
Sometimes I find myself thinking that I wish I could put my head in the sand and find some bliss in the ignorance of it all. I don't really want that though. Real hope is built on a comprehensive understanding of the problems we face, with a hearty dash of some potentially irrational defiance.
I remember the /r Collapse vs /r Futurism debate.
/r Futurism's representative lost, and converted.
“When the board shared that it found a substance in the city’s wastewater — not public drinking water — Fortis immediately stopped discharging industrial wastewater and began hauling it offsite,” a Meta spokesperson told Cowboy State.
Bob Collins - Australian Senator: Well the ship was towed outside the environment.
Interviewer: Into another environment...?
Bob Collins - Australian Senator: No, no it's been towed beyond the environment, it's not in the environment.
Interviewer: No but from one environment to another environment...?
Bob Collins - Australian Senator: No it's been towed beyond the environment, it's not in an environment.
Interviewer: Well what's out there?
Bob Collins - Australian Senator: Nothings out there!
Interviewer: There must be something out there...?
Bob Collins - Australian Senator: There is nothing out there, all there is is sea, and birds, and fish.
Interviewer: And?
Bob Collins - Australian Senator: And ~~20,000 tons of crude oil~~. truckloads of deadly bacteria
Interviewer: And what else?
Bob Collins - Australian Senator: And a fire.
Interviewer: And anything else?
Bob Collins - Australian Senator: And the part of the ship that the front fell off. But theres nothing else out there. It's just a complete void.
does that normally happen?
It became sentient
Wow, good thing this company has a squeaky clean reputation otherwise or this might tarnish their reputation.
What reputation?
Wooooosh
Let me explain my comment because apparently it flew over your head: OC used sarcasm to highlight that they in fact have a horrible reputation. I made a joke to extend on OC's joke highlighting the fact that they might not even know what a reputation is, let alone reflect over their own.
Oh, that's worse than just missing the joke. That's just one-upping and mistaking it for humour.
What? No. That's validating the joke and respecting the foundation he laid. Comedians constantly reference each others jokes. Haven't you ever had a back and forth with a friend to make people laugh by building a joke on top of theirs?
That requires telling a new joke, not just rehashing the same one with a materially insignificant difference.
The best jokes need explaining.
A joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better but the frog dies in the process. A bad joke is still a bad joke, but the real joke is someone who is whooshing something because he just didn't get it.
Does a good joke start with a dead frog or does the frog have to die during the process of dissection?
I thought that the frog sings and dances, but only when the talent agent isn't looking
Our Amazon processing centers are all set to discharge "treated" 95-degree water into our waterways. Board of Supervisors isn't concerned. Good times.
95-degree water
F or c?
First one, then the other
That implies it gets hotter after dumping and that tickles me as a concept
Zuck and the entire board should face both civil and criminal charges.
Bacteria? If it came from the computers, it should have been viruses.
/s
Cant vote against datacenters if you're dead. Also, fantastic way to remove the parasites taking up energy for their useless pursuits, like daily life.
Cool. Charge Zuck with Attempted Murder.
What doesn't Meta infect?
It loves to metastasize, like cancer.
What is the highest-leverage attack on this kind of installation? Like most people don't have access to cruise missiles (though if you do, please do the thing!), but I'm thinking ventilation intake. Like take a can of expanding foam (ie, GreatStuff), duct-tape an M-80 to it, light and chuck it into the ducting.
take out the water supply intake by pouring two common products into the water intake lines before the pumps.
- roof sealant
- hydraulic cement
the roof sealant is viscous and sticky. it also cures while wet. it will gum up the pumps and turbines and make them sticky.
the cement will bind to the sealant and cure rapidly, seizing the rotation of the pumps and turbines.
it will be impossible to repair them and will need replacements. they may have replacements on site so you also need to puncture the cooling towers. bird shot from a shotgun should thoroughly shred the radiators.
if fascists can get away with shooting power distribution hubs then why can't we shoot data centers?
Just get a shit load of meth heads and tell them how much copper there is in these fucking murder centers
Or maybe put the address on Craigslist and say you're moving and there's hella free copper, RAM and graphics cards.
That's a good idea
Town ? So people are fine right ?
Apparently that particular bacteria is basically everywhere on the environment and amounts of it around is pretty harmless. Datacenter just offered a nice and warm environment for it to prosper and then dumped the shitload of bacteria into water treatment system and the treatment plants can't manage that much of it properly.
Also, while it could be deadly, it's more likely that you'll have couple of miserable days on the porcelain throne. But almost any underlying condition (being old, having any kind of gut issues, having flu...) can tip the scale and instead of literally shitty ilness you'll end up in a box.
While Meta is of course guilty here on multiple things one might argue that local government is equally responsible since they allowed Meta to connect their sewer pipe in the first place without proper precautions. But maybe Zuck just had to have a new limousine or whatever so responsibility part was skipped.
Why are you downplaying this behavior?
Tech companies and their subsidiaries/partners would be wise to control their emissions and fluid output, ensuring the safety and the health of those around them - including respecting the planet we live on.
It's their responsibility.
Did you read the article? While infections aren't common, it has a ~31% death rate.
Yes, but infections are somewhat rare on healthy adults, at least based on a quick search around the net about the virus. If you have some underlying condition you're more likely go get the infection in the first place and as your immune system is already weakened by something it's going to be more dangerous.
"Yes, but infections are somewhat rare on healthy adults, ..."
So we only need be concerned when healthy adults are at risk?
This reasoning is unreasonable.
They're giving "did they die of it or with it?" vibes. (actual thing I was asked about my father's COVID-19 death. Apparently since he was immunocompromised his death didn't 'count'.)
Don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say anything about not needing to be concerned, I was just interested on what kind of virus they cooked in the datacenter-incubator and how that might affect on a general population. "Deadly bacteria", while not incorrect, is a bit clickbait-y, as it doesn't just kill everyone and their dogs.
Of course there are reasons to be concerned and Meta should absolutely throw boatloads of money to clean up their mess. I was just interested about the bacteria in general, where it came, how it works and so on, nothing more and nothing less. I'm across the big pond and in here environmental regulations actually work, so I personally am not the one who should get angry about the situation, but it doesn't mean that no one should, even if I don't explicitly say so.
If 30% of those that contract it die, it is quite a deadly bacteria. Very few bacterial infections are that deadly, and certainly any of them would be a serious public safety issue if there was a risk of exposure.
so responsibility part was skipped.
The article mentions that the datacenter is run by a 3rd party. I'm not arguing to absolve Meta here, but I think this is a classic case of diffusion of responsibility. The more contractors and subcontractors that get involved in stuff like this, the more these kinds of problems crop up.