Just want to point out this is someone (in leadership) from the FDA, not the FCC.
> Prasad, a former hematologist-oncologist at the University of California San Francisco, is now *head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), which makes him the chief vaccine regulator in the US.*
This will probably be a unpopular, wet blanket opinion...
But anytime I hear of Grok or xAI, the only thing I can think about is how it's hoovering up water from the Memphis municipal water supply and running natural gas turbines to power all for a chat bot.
Looks like they are bringing even more natural gas turbines online...great!
It's not the water that is the big problem here. It is the gas turbines and the location.
They started operating the turbines without permits and they were not equipped with the pollution controls normally required under federal rules. Worse, they are in an area that already led the state in people having to get emergency treatment for breathing problems. In their first 11 months they became one of the largest polluters in an area already noted for high pollution.
They have since got a permit, and said that pollution controls will be added, but some outside monitors have found evidence that they are running more turbines than the permit allows.
Oh, and of course 90% of the people bearing the brunt of all this local pollution are poor and Black.
Isn't the pollution exaggerated? Burning natural gas or methane is considered pretty clean, and produces mostly CO2 and water, which aren't toxic pollutants or a cause of breathing problems. That's why it's used inside homes in gas stoves.
There are a couple of ways to limit this. One is to avoid having nitrogen in whatever gas you use to provide oxygen. E.g., use pure oxygen, or use atmospheric air with the nitrogen removed. There is research and testing on this, but I don't think there is much commercialization yet.
Another is to use turbines designed to operate at lower temperature so that they don't reach the temperature where nitrogen and oxygen start forming nitrogen oxides. These are widely available. They are more expensive upfront, can be more finicky to operate, may require higher quality fuel, and may have more partial combustion which can lead to more partial combustion products like formaldehyde. However they can be more efficient which can lower operating costs.
A lot of it then comes down to regulatory costs. It may be cheaper to use a normal turbine with some add on to deal with NOx or it may be cheaper to use a low NOx turbine. That of course assume you even have to care about NOx. If you don't then the normal turbine is probably cheaper.
Something like 80-90% of gas turbine power plants in the US do use the low NOx turbines. However, rented gas turbines are mostly the normal ones. That's because they are easier to operate, require minimal maintenance, and are often more rugged, which are all good things for a rental. The turbines at the xAi Memphis datacenter are rentals. I believe they are intended to be temporary while the grid is improved to provide more power.
Not sure about the answer to the original motivating point, but as a tangent, gas stoves in homes do cause breathing problems (because of non-CO2/water products). Top couple of search results:
Thanks and apologies, I searched for the article link prior to posting but didn’t look for articles from other sources and didn’t see anything in the first few pages on the site
> According to Borges' complaint, on June 10, days after the Supreme Court ruling, a former DOGE employee at the SSA named John Solly requested that the agency make a copy of its Numerical Identification System (NUMIDENT) database to a private cloud that would be located within the SSA's Amazon Web Services — Agency Cloud Infrastructure.
> *The NUMIDENT database is the master file for all information submitted in applications for Social Security cards. The database includes applicant names, place and date of birth, citizenship, race and ethnicity, and parents' names — along with the Social Security numbers.*
I can see the value in actual AI. But it seems like in many instances how it is being utilized or applied is more related to terrible search functionality. Even for the web, it seems like we’re using AI to provide more refined search results, rather than just fixing search capabilities.
Maybe it’s just easier to throw ‘AI’ (heavy compute of data) at a search problem, rather than addressing the crux of the problem…people not being provided with the tools to query information. And maybe that’s the answer but it seems like an expensive solution.
That said, I’m not an expert and could be completely off base.
> is more related to terrible search functionality
If you looked at $ spent/use case, I would think this is probably the bottom of the list, probably with the highest use of that being in the free tiers.
I’ll be curious to see if they ever provide a reason for the reduced functionality. From an outsider’s prospective, it seems like they just want to make it harder for citizens to be able to comment
Or based off of this comment, maybe they are just looking to limit API usage and ensure only that only institutions that align with the current administration’s wishes (i.e. Heritage Foundation) have API access.
> As of Friday, the POST method will no longer be allowed for all users *with the exception of approved use cases by federal agencies*
If the motivation is the latter, I wonder if there would be any legal recourse for other institutions that have had previous access revoked?
It’s a bit frustrating how difficult (near impossible) it can be to not buy plastic products. I try to avoid it as much as possible but more often than not, the only option (other than not being a consumer) is to purchase a product contained in plastic.
I’ll use the simple example of dental floss. When I was younger, you could purchase dental floss in a small circular metal container. Today, almost every option of dental floss available for purchase is in an often oversized / non-recyclable plastic container with non-recyclable plastic packaging.
This actually prompted me to once again go on the hunt for that little metal container of dental floss from my youth, and I actually found an option! A US company called Poh sells dental floss in metal container. Just thought I’d share, for anyone else that is dumbfounded when they have to buy more plastic wrapped plastic products to practice good dental hygiene.
I am actually working on a plastic free toothpaste alternative, we are planning to launch in the next few months. Its not a paste but rather tooth tablets that you crush with your teeth and as they dissolve you brush your teeth as you would normally. Zero plastic, refillable aluminum container, refill packaging made out of paper, and we plan to put free floss and toothbrush for the monthly subscription. Do you want me to add you to our waitlist? Deliquify.com is our website that i hacked together very quickly, but we will rebrand soon.
Tooth tabs are already a thing. One of them (Bite) has been flacking itself pretty heavily in podcasts.
The floss and toothbrush are a nice touch, though. Perhaps a wooden toothbrush? (Bristles will still have to be plastic, I'm sure; anything else would be too expensive.)
Tooth tabs are already a thing but theyre quite expensive because none of these companies manufactures for themselves. They all use third party manufacturers and the prices get inflated three-fold. Its still a very up and coming market, and we believe theres quite a lot we can do to make them better and cheaper.
Unfortunately plastic free toothbrushes and flosses are somewhat difficult to sell because people think they want them, but then they realize they fall apart easily and they dont buy them anymore. This is why its tough to find them on the market. But i will keep on the lookout if something comes up
It's very much a matter of of marketing. I think the explanation for why partially hydrogenated oils have been replaced is because there was a viable alternative (palm oil, mainly) and no one was devious enough or saw profit in countering the honest narrative that they were hurting everyone's health. That's unlike tobacco or oil industry games. They spend as much as needed to protect their profits, consequences be damned. More importantly, I think, plastics are actually wonderful materials and the cost of overproducing is hard to convince people of. It's like the abuse of antibiotics or CO2 pollution. Some people try being alarmist to compensate for how little most people care about these serious problems. But most people go on uninformed or just don't care, even if they are informed.
> ... "or just don't care, even if they are informed."
Or have realized the absolute futility of trying to convince those who are informed and don't care, or those who aren't informed and actively fight against becoming informed. Some of use who've fought this battle all our lives are becoming exhausted and hopeless at this point...
I sympathise. People just have "bigger" problems that are personal to them. I think i could convince someone not to litter if i knew someone who did, but convincing them they should refuse gifts derived from petroleum, or stop wearing synthetic fabrics, or not buy a home dense with plastics, and so on? It's so far down on most peoples list of struggles
I tried to find a coffee maker once. There's one automated product in the $1000 price range. I just use my all metal french press.
FYI: They do sell cotton dental floss in paper packaging.
Also, here's an unintuitive thing people may not be aware of. Beverages in glass bottles contain about 10x the dissolved plastics in the liquid. This is believe to be from the paint and coatings used on the cap.
Plastic is magic. Non-reactive, sterile, cheap, strong, lightweight, an electrical isolator. Using something like metal instead of it is complete utter madness from a product design standpoint. Something like corn based PLA is probably still the more cost effective option.
Think of the package designers! Honestly, I worked on a team with "Package Designers" back in the early 2000s... they were consumer junkies, looooathed blister packs, but wouldnt hesitate to overuse plastic to promote their fancy visual designs that went into labels.
> Prasad, a former hematologist-oncologist at the University of California San Francisco, is now *head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), which makes him the chief vaccine regulator in the US.*