this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
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[–] [email protected] 305 points 4 months ago (6 children)

The power of 21000 homes for advertising.

What's most impressive is that it is even legal.

[–] [email protected] 105 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 40 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Is it? Last I‘ve heard it was bleeding money.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

Makes sense. Gimmicks are gimmicks.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Probably because they're not doing much with it. It's $100/person to see the basic "Planet Earth" showing and almost $200 to see The Grateful Dead show. Previously they showed a Phish show. That's it for options, and none of it sounds really appealing to me.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

This way some faulty internet lore. The money losses were from a fluke of timing the opening date of operations versus when quarterly finances were reported. Big startup costs meant the first numbers looked silly until they had enough events to get steady profits. They’re doing fine now.

Internet should’ve known better too. It’s hard to lose in Vegas and the investors obviously knew what they were doing. The power costs are shocking for sure though. Yikes!

[–] [email protected] 40 points 4 months ago (5 children)

I love this kind of shit. Building things for the sake of it is worth it. Not only as just expression, which may be hubris but it's still expression. Also entertainment, inspiration, pushing the art of engineering, and just giving people something to do, and all the good that comes with that like personal and trade growth.

A purely utilitarian life is a life only spent on survival. Not a life I want to live.

[–] [email protected] 84 points 4 months ago (3 children)

We can do that, but first let’s make sure everyone on the planet has clean water first.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago (7 children)

The money spent on this would not have been spent on giving clean water to people thousands of miles away

[–] [email protected] 35 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Does this really make it any less worthy of criticism, though...?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

Is that where guillotines come in?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

Maybe it would’ve if governments taxed them properly and spent that money to save the planet

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Doesn’t flint still not have clean water?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

This is the equivalent of saying “Eat all your dinner cause there’s starving children in Africa”.

Sure, this sounds nice, but this logic falls apart the instant you start thinking about it.

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

You sound like the people criticising NASA for spending money on science. "Who do X when Y is still an issue?"

I doubt you make that kind of prioritization with your own money.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 4 months ago (1 children)

A purely utilitarian life is a life only spent on survival. Not a life I want to live.

Well, that hubris won't afford you a livable world for much longer.

We could have respected the planet that birthed us, and taken only what we needed. Instead we extracted every natural resource we could find, and left behind countless shattered ecosystems. Even as the walls close in, we accelerate our pettiness and perform acts of wastefulness that alone do measurable ecological damage, and we celebrate it because it is "cool".

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (151 children)

If this is something you feel strongly about, then please stop eating factory farmed meat and animal products if you havent already. It is something you personally can actually do. It helps, and it will genuinely make you feel better. You may not have much power, but using the power you do have to help the team you claim to be on instead of the other team is a massive step forward.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Look, you're not really wrong, but you get that this shit is why people get irritated with vegans right? We were talking about being wasteful with energy resources for the sake of capitalism and you came in with a lazy segue to animal rights and nutritional health.

It's a conversation that we should be having, but it's also insufferable to constantly be shoehorning it into every conversation.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (24 children)

I don't agree. The comment points out the single most effektive move an individal without political nor financial power can make to cut personal co2-emissions with just a change of habit. It's not about veganism, animal rights or your health, it's just about sanity. Us still eating meat even though we know better is an incredibly dumb waste of energy for the sake of pleasure, exactly like this shitty powereating globe.
As long as >95% of the global population still consumes meat I understand the urge to bring this topic everywhere.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

You came in here with your absolutist utilitarian life above all else or we all die post just to respond with this because someone suggested you to stop eating meat. Beautiful.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I understand that perspective, but does it really have to be advertising?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

I'd prefer if it weren't. Though that's not the only use for this thing.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (2 children)

This isn't pushing any boundaries, though. This is off the shelf technology. Anybody can do something big by throwing a shit ton of money at it. It would be pushing boundaries of tech or art if it was for instance super power efficient, or mind bending in any way. This is a fucking sphere, it's the simplest shape and a rip off of the pyramids but less original and not even comparable in terms of durability.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

It is absolutely pushing boundaries to be driving this many pixels at a frame rate that doesn't take minutes to refresh. I build a lot of projects with addressable LEDs and the typical hobbyist stuff chokes out when you start trying to control more than a thousand or so. This thing has 256 million pixels inside and 1.2 million outside.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Could it not be argued that building this thing now gives people a chance at looking at the power draw and attempting to make it super efficient? Like now people have a tool to test things on.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

They did mention that they are working on making 70% of this powered by solar panels. Maybe this will push forward solar technology in some way.

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

Sure but we’re burning tons of coal to have this thing advertise minion movies, not anything artistic or worthwhile.

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