Tag: data centers

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Pook-Emu Bee will be taking the weekend off, first for Newsletter Saturday and probably for Sunday, so let us finish this work week strong before I return to my day job.

Two One Way signs and a State St street sign on the ground with construction in Brooklyn Heights.
I took this photo at the corner of State and Clinton Streets in Brooklyn Heights on the evening of August 26, 2026. This is just up the block from where I documented two downed Stop Signs on State in October 2020.

1 | Study Linking Solar Farms to Bird Loss Draws Scrutiny in China (Jiang Xinyi for Sixth Tone. August 28, 2026.)
I found myself scrutinizing the claim that the Chinese government is focusing on solar because it is concerned with China’s carbon emissions.

2 | What the $131 Billion F-15 Contract May Mean For the Air Force (Stephen Losey for Air & Space Forces Magazine. August 27, 2026.)
It may not end up costing $131 billion. Use-dependent.

3 | Brave launches Email Aliases and new Brave Accounts that keep passwords off its servers (Mauricio B. Holguin for AlternativeTo. August 28, 2026.)
I approve of making email aliases more accessable. With that being said here, I will stick with my SimpleLogin subscription.

4 | “Difference, Power & Oppression”: OSU Requires Students to Take Courses on How to “Disrupt” the “Systems of Oppression” in the United States” (Jonathan Turley. August 19, 2026.)
With hope, at least some of the students will come away wanting to disrupt systems of ideological indoctrination in higher education.

5 | Data Center Madness Isn’t About AI (Cremieux Recueil. August 27, 2026.)
This is a good survey of surveys. His conclusions check out but I’ll submit AI is at a minimum not helping the perception of the data centers.

6 | Unhinged straphanger stabs MTA cleaner who scolded him for urinating on busy NYC subway platform: cops, sources (Amanda Woods for the New York Post. August 27, 2026.)
I’d say this guy is behaving like a dog but that would be uncharitable to most of the dogs. Worse yet, he’s probably going around trying to mark every Subway station in New York City without paying the fare.

7 | Italian Teen Girl Nearly Killed by Propeller on Migrant Smuggler Boat (Oliver JJ Lane for Breitbart. August 27, 2026.)
I’d say that I’m looking forward to Sardinian law enforcement explaining why they seem to have been on a mission to minimize the near-vehicular homicide right up until video became public, but alas… I doubt any such explanation is forthcoming.

8 | Wealthy Americans look to New Zealand as demand for ‘golden visas’ booms (Eric Revell for Fox Business. August 10, 2026.)
$5 million? I tip my hat to New Zealand. That is much more expensive that our (often-abused) EB-5 program.

9 | Why won’t the Times name ALL the thieves it has ID’d up in Albany? (New York Post Editorial Board. August 21, 2026.)
I agree with the Post Editorial Board’s theory. With that being said, have they considered that the NYP is one of the most-circulated newspapers in the United States and has major corporate backing? They could… I don’t know… dig into the issue themselves and name names that the Times omitted for reasons we can only imagine? Who works decides.

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I have been busy today, but the weekday streak of Pook-Emu Bee links continues.

1 | California political candidate facing six years in prison after listing dive bar as home address (Marina Peña for the California Post. August 24, 2026.)
This plan was dumb enough to make me wonder whether she lives in a dive bar.

2 | Summer Wars: An Anime With A Cautionary tale About AI (The Ghastly Mirror. August 24, 2026.)
I watched Summer Wars with a friend a long time ago (maybe 2014-15). I recall liking it well enough so I’ll second the recommendation.

3 | Happy 35th Birthday, Linux! (Marius Nestor for Tux Machines. August 25, 2026.)
35? Linux is still just a kid. Happy birthday to my operating system since 2020!

4 | The Data Center Wars – A Massive Proposed Data Center in Texas Drops Request for Tax Abatements (Buck Throckmorton for Ace of Spades HQ. August 25, 2026.)
Pacifico Energy could have saved itself plenty of grief by not requesting the tax abatements in the first place.

5 | 1000 Blog Posts (Chris at Unaccountable Thoughts. July 6, 2026.)
This is 632 here at ECS (not counting my “social” activity posts).

6 | Seen This Week: Butterflies and Fruits (Kate St. John at Outside My Window. August 15, 2026.)
I’m pro-butterfly, so I approve of this photo post. I haven’t seen many in Brooklyn this year but there have been a decent number of bees and dragonflies lately.

7 | Kanon Analysis: Understanding Mai’s Struggle (Zalor at Zalor’s Seminar. July 10, 2026.)
A very interesting in-depth analysis of the struggle of Mai in the excellent 2006-07 anime adaptation of Kanon (on my distant to-review list). This post includes the analysis video along with the full transcript.

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Monday is a fun day. One reason Monday is a fun day is because it marks the return of Pook-Emu Bee links after the weekend. Speaking of the weekend, I published links and commentary to enjoy in Saturday’s Newsletter Leaf Journal 284.

Photograph of an intersection with a short red brick building with an American Flag outside and tall apartment buildings in the background.
My photograph of the intersection of Carroll and Bond Streets in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Taken on June 15, 2026.

1. Historic Carroll Street Bridge in Gowanus reopens after 5-year renovation (Aaron Ginsburg for 6sqft New York City. June 11, 2026.)

The above photo is from my walk to the re-opened Carroll Street Bridge. Why did I go to the Bridge? NLJ article forthcoming…

2. Brussels welcomes US-Iran deal and presses for toll-free reopening of Hormuz (Brussels Signal. June 15, 2026.)

Everyone is learning what is in this sure-to-succeed deal (or MOU) except me.

3. GentleOS, A Simple OS For Your Old PC (Jenny List for Hackaday. June 13, 2026.)

This looks worth trying. Maybe it is time for me to sharpen my VM skills.

4 & 5. Knicks fans set school bus on fire in Times Square madness: ‘I’m scared for my homies!’ ( Jennifer Bain, Jordan Donegan, and Katherine Donlevy for the New York Post. June 14, 2026.) & 63 people arrested, 4 stabbings and 1 shooting reported in NYC as Knicks fans go wild celebrating NBA Finals win (Fenix Suriel, Joe Marino, Jorge Fitz-Gibbon and Steven Vago for the New York Post. June 14. 2026.)

You would have thought that the violence after the first four games would have put the NYC government on notice for potential violence after the championship-clinching game. Maybe authorities just wanted to rekindle to 2020 vibes.

6. More than 75 data center build-outs worth $130 billion have been successfully blocked in the first three months of 2026 — bipartisan opposition mounts nationwide over fears of soaring power and water costs (Joe Morales for Tom’s Hardware. June 13, 2026.)

Many of the concerns raised by residents include massive electricity price hikes, egregious water consumption, and potential noise pollution, among others. However, there have also been reports that Chinese users have been amplifying these issues while posing as Americans.

Let no one doubt my credentials on the CCP propaganda beat, but one must be cautious of attributing potentially reasonable oppositions to one thing or another because the Chinese government may have its own reasons propagandizing.

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I missed publishing a set of Pook-Emu Bee links yesterday. But that just means I have more links saved for today. If you enjoy the (almost) daily links and commentary, you can also follow via feed.

1. Qatar Wants to Bolster Security Partnership with US After Iran’s Strikes (Reuters [via gCaptain]. March 10, 2026.)

If so they should explain this to their local international TV outlet.

2. The joys of data centers: Debunking the backlash against the $7 trillion AI building boom (Christian Britschgi for Reason. April 2026 issue.)

The rest of us should be able to see the tremendous upsides of the country’s data center boom. Advances in artificial intelligence and robotics could liberate humanity from boring, backbreaking labor

The libertarians at Reason are smug now but I am not entirely convinced that AI cannot exude a smug sense of self-satisfaction while achieving nothing in the real world.

3. New All-Day Cafe LeTish Opening Soon in Williamsburg (Jennifer Rosini-Gentile for Greenpointers. March 9, 2026.)

I seldom eat or buy coffee “out” and have not been to Williamsburg in several months. Granting the foregoing, this place looks good.

4. Mamdani Condemns ‘White Supremacy’ Protest But Not Radical Islam After ISIS-Linked Bomb Attack (Jasmyn Jordan for Breitbart. March 9, 2026.)

All fair complaints. But imagine how insufferable he would have been had the two terrorists not explicitly spelled out their alleigance to ISIS. (Glass half-full take!)

5. Renovations on Carroll Gardens Library drag on (Mary Frost for Brooklyn Daily Eagle. March 9, 2026.)

I wrote about the library renovations back in 2024. My skeptecism about the timeline was well-founded.

6. Hobby Airport warns of 2-hour TSA wait due to government shutdown (Briahn Hawkins and Jillian Hartmann for Fox 26 Houston. March 8, 2026.)

I had a two hour wait at Houston Hobby last May. I used that time to wander around the airport Learning About William P. Hobby at Houston Hobby Airport and Failing to Try Airport Illy Coffee Vending Machine. Of course, my 2-hour wait was scheduled and everything was running on time. It sounds like things are going less swimmingly for travelers this March 2026.

7. How Usable Is Windows 98 In 2026? (Maya Posch for Hackaday. March 8, 2026.)

I would put this one in the “mileage may vary” category. With that being said, let it be said that I did several high school assignments on my Windows 95 in 2004 and 2005 and brought them to school on floppy disks.