Other than having absolutely no real value except to scammers and thieves, cryptocurrency has no real value. But a lot of money gets laundered through crypto these days, so people will spend gobs of real currency building data centers to generate more cryptocurrency. These data centers efficiently dump nearly all the externalities of crypto mining onto their neighbors, except for the externalities crypto already dumps on just about everybody else. Oh, don't let me forget that simulated artificial intelligence also needs big data centers:
Across the country, from Indiana to Oregon, companies such as Amazon, Meta and Microsoft are building data centers on sites that can stretch over 1,000 acres, ringed with guard towers and razor wire fences.
People who live near one Northern Virginia center have complained that the mechanical whir of the fleet of industrial fans needed to cool the sensitive computer equipment inside can sound like a leaf blower that never turns off. Cooling the heavy equipment also diverts great volumes of water even in places where it’s scarce. And some of the costs of powering the centers are shouldered by utility customers, in the form of hundreds of dollars a year added to household energy bills.
Local leaders who run interference on behalf of tech giants often play up the benefits, particularly the jobs and advanced technical training opportunities they tout. Recently, a small but growing number of officials have begun to question these deals. In Georgia, where electricity demand and energy grid strain from more than 50 data centers pushed residential utility bills up almost $200 a year on average per household, state senators passed a bill earlier this year that would pause tax incentives for data center development for the next two years.
One thing Cooper doesn't suggest: increasing penalties on public officials who benefit personally from their offices. But that would undermine American-style democracy, wouldn't it?
The intersection of my vacation next week and my group's usual work-from-home schedule means I won't come back to my office for two weeks. Other than saving a few bucks on Metra this month, I'm also getting just a bit more time with Cassie before I leave her for a week.
I've also just finished an invasive refactoring of our product's unit tests, so while those are running I either stare out my window or read all these things:
- Yes, Virginia (and Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina), you are much better off than you were four years ago.
- The Illinois Attorney General has filed an environmental suit against Trump Tower for refusing to fix its water-intake system.
- A New York City cop who fought against "courtesy cards" won a $175,000 settlement from the city.
- A developer plans to raze a 175-year-old house in Glencoe, Ill., designed by William Boyington, because we can't have nice things anymore.
- Speaking of not having nice things, after £175m spent and 12 years of construction, the Old Street roundabout in Islington, London, looks...about the same as before.
Finally, the New York Times ran a story in its Travel section Tuesday claiming Marseille has some of the best pizza in Europe. I will research this assertion and report back on the 24th.
Our lead story today concerns empty suit and Chicago Transit Authority president Dorval Carter, who just can't seem to bother himself with the actual CTA:
From the end of May 2023 to spring 2024, as CTA riders had to cope with frequent delays and filthy conditions, Carter spent nearly 100 days out of town at conferences, some overseas, his schedule shows.
Most of Carter’s trips between June 2023 and May 2024 were for events related to the American Public Transportation Association, a nonprofit advocacy group he chaired in 2022 and 2023. Carter spent a week in Pittsburgh and another in Orlando, six days in Puerto Rico and five days in Washington, D.C. He also took trips to Spain, New Zealand and Australia.
In total, Carter was out of town for 97 of the 345 days Block Club reviewed, according to his schedule. That means he spent 28 percent of that period outside of Chicago.
Block Club previously reported that Carter used his CTA-issued card for rides just 24 times between 2021 and 2022. CTA records show the number of times Carter swiped his work pass increased to 58 in 2023, according to a July op-ed piece in the Tribune.
Spain, I should note, has possibly the best train network in the world outside Japan, so maybe he learned something there? But as is typical with municipal barnacles, grifting along in high-profile city jobs, his office won't say.
In other news:
Finally, Pamela Paul imagines how the RFK Jr campaign looks from inside his head—specifically, to the worm encysted in his brain.
CityNerd lays out the economic benefits to people who live along the Amtrak Northeast Corridor from going straight to 600 km/h magnetic levitation trains instead of just to 300 km/h high-speed rail:
The infrastructure desperately needs some kind of an upgrade, though. It's approaching 100 years old, to the point where a single blown circuit breaker in New Jersey can halt trains from Boston to Harrisburg.
We have another glorious late-summer day in Chicago cool enough to sleep with the windows open. We still have 11 more days of summer, as the forecast reminds me, but I'll take a couple of days with 22°C sun and nights that go down to 15°C.
In other news:
Finally, our biggest eyebrow-raise today: a ridiculous mansion in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood covers 2,300 m² (25,000 ft²) across eight residential lots cost about $85 million to build and went on sale at $50 million back in 2016. The family who built it finally just sold it to a yet-unknown buyer for $15.25 million. I remember when they built it, because Parker and I would walk past the construction site every so often. I can't help but shake my head. But I guess if you can lose $70 million on your house after only 15 years, you probably didn't need the money anyway.
I have painters painting and I'm coding code today, so I'm just noting a couple of interesting stories for later:
- The New York Times explains how the warming climate could send seven systems over the tipping point into unrecoverable damage.
- Bloomberg CityLab climbs through the $80 million effort to make Chicago's Merchandise Mart last another 90 years.
- National governments trying to protect their own railroads have derailed private cross-EU night-train service, hurting passengers.
- The City of Chicago could have to pay over $100 million to the thieves who stole our parking meters in what continues to be the stupidest, and possibly most corrupt, municipal contract in the city's history.
Finally, a pilot ferried a Cessna 172 from Merced, Calif., to Honolulu in 17½ hours last Tuesday, a feat that I would categorize as "stupid risky" rather than "brave." I have a policy never to fly beyond gliding range in a plane with one engine, which means even around Chicago I don't fly more than a few kilometers off shore. Sure, a Cessna 172 can easily get from Chicago to Grand Rapids on a standard load of fuel, but why on earth would you risk ditching even 10 km offshore. This guy flew over 2,000 km from the nearest shore. And it wasn't his first time.
Yesterday I went out to the exurban village of New Lenox to review one of the most remote breweries on the Brews & Choos list, near the Laraway Road station on the Southwest Service. (Fun fact: After decades of living here, I have now taken every one of Chicago's commuter rail lines at least once.)
I had planned to walk from there to Rock Island train station in the center of town, as the Southwest Service didn't have a return train until 10:30pm. I knew the first 2 kilometers of the walk would have some challenges as I would have to walk along two highways. But the satellite photos did not prepare me for how hostile the walking environment would be on the ground:
I'll walk along a shoulder if needed, and I'll even walk along short grass. But that stuff came up to my knees.
Then, this morning, I woke up to three stories about urban planning failures right here in Chicago that make me want to take every engineer in IDOT on a forced march along the stretch of Laraway Road pictured above:
- Despite multiple bike fatalities, the good people of Lincolnwood have decided to reject $2.5 million in state funds to build bike lanes on a dangerous stretch of stroad.
- The Chicago Transit Authority has announced a $4.9 billion plan to install elevators at all of the El and subway stations that need them—by 2038.
- State and local officials joined residents yesterday at Truman College to protest IDOT's backwards-looking plan to redesign DuSable Lake Shore Drive, as the state plan has no concessions for mass transit and would in fact make traffic worse.
Cars are killing us. (Literally: the US has 40,000 traffic deaths a year, far more than any other country.) And yet state transit departments seem to think their only mandate is to increase the number of cars on the road.
My plan this evening will take me to Arrowhead Ales in New Lenox, the only Brews & Choos brewery on Metra's Southwest Service. Because the SWS has such an inconvenient schedule, getting home requires me to get to the Rock Island District station 4.3 km away.
Now, I could simply take a Lyft, but given that I'll have almost 2 hours between arriving at Laraway Road and the train departing New Lenox (with another train an hour later), and also given the weather forecast, I plan to walk there.
The only trouble is, the brewery sits in an exurban, 100% car-oriented area, 1,800 meters from the nearest sidewalk:
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The intersection of Laraway Road and County Route 4, where I take the right turn towards the village of New Lenox, requires me to Frogger across a total of 11 traffic lanes and 3 high-speed turn lanes:
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Then, walking against traffic (always do this!), I have another 1400 meters of 4-lane county highway to follow before I finally reach the village limits. At that point the 4-lane county highway becomes 2-lane Cedar Road, so even in the spots without sidewalks the traffic speed should be much lower.
Wish me luck! And stop funding highway expansion!
The Climate Prediction Center's 6-10 day temperature outlook has generally good news for the upper Midwest, including Chicago:
I wouldn't want to be in New Orleans next week, but that's true most weeks of the year even without this forecast.
While we weather the summer, the news just keeps coming:
And as we go into the election, it's worth remembering that German President Paul von Hindenburg died 90 years ago today, ending the democratic German Republic and elevating you-know-who. Let's keep working to prevent anything like that ever happening here.
The US election is 98 days away, and August starts Thursday. Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'...into the future...
And yet, the ever-present Now keeps us here:
Finally, Bruce Schneier warns that automobile companies and their suppliers have many disincentives to providing software updates for the entire lifetime of their products. Microsoft stops supporting Windows versions after just a few years, while cars live for decades.