this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
1043 points (95.9% liked)

Technology

59440 readers
5898 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Back on Christmas Eve of last year there were some reports that Elon Musk was in the process of shutting down Twitter’s Sacramento data center. In that article, a number of ex-Twitter employees wer…

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 76 points 1 year ago (5 children)

The CEO then told him that some of the floors could not handle more than 500 pounds of pressure, so rolling a 2,000-pound server would cause damage. Musk replied that the servers had four wheels, so the pressure at any one point was only 500 pounds. “The dude is not very good at math,” Musk told the musketeers.

This guy is considered to be a genius? This guy is a fucking billionaire?

I’m dead.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

As a non-physicist, what is the technical reason Elon was wrong? I assume that when the CEO said 500 pounds, they meant 500 pounds of force relative to some surface area of the floor? I'm guessing that surface area was significantly larger than one wheel on the rack, so the combined force of all 4 wheels was still well over the limit. Maybe someone who knows physics could explain better.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Let's say you weigh 200 lbs. When you stand on a scale with two feet, that's 200lbs ÷ 2 feet. So the scale reads 100 lbs, right? Of course not. Increasing the number of touch points doesn't reduce the mass.

Now what if you stand on two scales side by side, one foot on each? Then they'll each read 100lbs. The load is distributed across the touch points, but the total mass when you add them back up remains the same.

So what does that mean for ol muskaroo? It's hard to say who's correct without knowing more about the floor. If it's server tiles that are hollow underneath and each tile can hold 500lbs individually, maybe it's ok if the cart was large enough that two wheels would never be on the same tile.

But the bottom line is that when the guy that runs the server room says not to do it, you don't fucking do it. Have a little respect. Sure, Musk is the owner so it's kind of technically his server room, but he's being a prick regardless.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Musk is the owner so it’s kind of technically his server room, but he’s being a prick regardless.

I think he was renting the space, so he doesn't own the server room, just the servers in it.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)