I presented at the local planetary journal club this morning about the 3 articles I co-authored for The Conversation in the past weeks about the effects that one million satellites would have on the night sky, the atmosphere, and the orbital environment (spoiler alert: all very very bad)
And one on light pollution that I thought would get published today but might not be out until after the weekend.
The third article in this (horrible) series of articles I've co-authored is now out. https://theconversation.com/a-million-new-spacex-satellites-will-destroy-the-night-sky-for-everyone-on-earth-277938
A million satellites of the size required for "AI data centers" would mean that everyone in the world would have more visible satellites than stars for most of the night and most of the year.
But don't worry, we'll be in Kessler Syndrome WAY before we get to a million satellites!
RE: https://mastodon.social/@sundogplanets/116152057176915428
I've got a thread here where I more carefully explain the prediction plot, and post a bunch of sky predictions for many latitudes around the world, just to make the point of how incredibly stupid the idea of a million satellites is.
STOP AI DATACENTRES USING COMMUNITY POWER AND WATER!!!
Ok
NOT LIKE THAT!!!!!
Time to admit if you're opposed to orbital #Ai your opposition to Ai wasn't about environmental damage.
@n_dimension @sundogplanets I'm opposed to orbital AI because it's a dumbfuck idea. Let's burn fuck knows how much more of the planet to put heavy things that need maintenance, cooling and low latency reliable network connections in space, where those three things are exponentially more difficult and it clutters the sky to boot.
Oh, and they'll need extra radiation shielding too, because modern hardware absolutely shits itself when it's constantly bombarded by particles that are bigger than its logic gates. The whole idea is fractally stupid.
I agree orbital Ai is stupid...
... But you only have to scroll through Mastodon to see how many folks loathe Ai.
... And when 80% of jobs are gone and Broligarchs ICE is turning Palantir targetted "antifa terrorists" into fertiliser and biodiesel, some of these anti-ai folks might actually stop posting stupid memes and start smashing data centres...
... And when it's in orbit, that was resources well spent.
Prof. Sam Lawler
Wulfy—Speaker to the machines
woe2you