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bespokedevelopr

Re:OpenAI raises less than half of $30B target on Saturday October 31, 2026 @12:25PM (#50317558)
DOE, private labs, and universities are all working on building open models.

Here’s one example https://allenai.org/olmo

Salaries across the board are also a non-insignificant factor. Not just CEO but for brevity,

Seattle City Light CEO $340k 8% bonus

Bonneville Power Administration CEO $245k

Avista Energy CEO $4.77 Million

Puget Sound Energy CEO $1.7 Million up to 9 Million (includes bonus ramp targets)

Now let’s play a game of which are public and which are private.

Paper owned by billionaire who is trying to wipe out pesky humans publishes article saying trust us you’ll be fine
In the end I'm happy it turned out the way it did. I've had some great experiences since and stayed in tech. Plus that freed up a slot for one of the many early 20s kids that were trying to get in.
I applied for an apprenticeship several years ago when I was testing the waters to rotate out of tech after covid. Tested into the highest percentile, had previous high voltage experience with OEMs, a mech eng degree, still ended up like 200 people deep in the queue. That was the end of that interest. You basically have to be friends or family with someone to get into IBEW.
Re:First Robotic Satellite Servicer Launched on Monday July 27, 2026 @03:01PM (#49074185)
Yes, China demonstrated this capability a couple year ago with towing a geo sat to a different orbit. It only makes sense to go tit-for-tat on these capabilities for servicing and the unspoken offensive ability.

https://spacenews.com/chinas-orbital-maneuvers-blur-the-line...

If Oracle can't acquire power generation for their WI facilities they've been asleep. Generac is based out of WI and rapidly expanding their manufacturing footprint to match DC demand. Connect the dots to political lobbying and tax breaks to one of the biggest local businesses in an now-recovering manufacturing state to secure generation equipment. A year ago Oracle could've bought Generac outright for less than some of these flailing partnerships they've done.
Re:Gemini 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite, and 3.5 Flash Cyber on Tuesday July 21, 2026 @12:57PM (#48994988)
I do not, however I am curious about Jules support. I didn't know if this was a dead project or not. Seemed really interesting but then I didn't see much development/announcements/discussions around it. Last update from their changelog was as you said 3.1-pro support in March.
The security aspect is the main driver why I’m seeing so many businesses investing in local hardware. They know the models aren’t as good (caveat that they also can’t run Chinese models) and that’s ok. Places that really care about security and data governance already aren’t on the bleeding edge. They wait for the nice stable lts version, they lock down dev machines in frustrating ways and have lots of IT admin layers.

But they also want to taste the sweet fruit of AI so the only way to do this that a CISO will approve is on local air gapped hardware. It’s a niche but still a billion dollar niche.

FWIW you can go back and look at historical data rather than rely on a snapshot of 2022 written in April.

Basically it’s complicated. Some areas did experience extreme droughts that year and others faired well.

BPA was able to lever up their reserves early due to those same forecasts which allowed them excess supply to sell when other utilities experienced extreme heat (drought) and couldn’t produce enough.

> Notably, Bonneville was able to offer much needed support to other Pacific Northwest and California utilities during late-summer heatwaves and scarcity events. Our hydropower operations planners and traders positioned the power system to maximize supply, enabling us to deliver significant amounts of power across the West to help keep the lights on during a string of energy emergencies.

https://www.bpa.gov/-/media/Aep/finance/annual-reports/ar202...

Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2026) on Monday May 11, 2026 @02:45PM (#48099023)
Helping my wife with building out Fine Dining classes. I’m doing the tech stuff, she does all the real work.

It started with informal among friends things, and we’ve found through our networks there’s a lot of demand beyond her girlfriends wanting high tea etiquette. Now she's diving into tech people who have elevated into higher ranks but don’t have experience yet in fine dining with clients and leaders.

It’s been a lot of fun doing something that has nothing to do with AI and really minimal tech in general. The events have been a lot of fun, really feels like we’re cooking something.

Re:Warren Buffett dumps $1.7B of Amazon stock on Wednesday February 18, 2026 @03:28PM (#47065946)
Blaming AI for Amazon’s accelerating downturn is a cop-out. This has been going on long before genAI was allowed there. Even now many teams within the products you called out aren’t using it at all.
Re:Warren Buffett dumps $1.7B of Amazon stock on Wednesday February 18, 2026 @03:22PM (#47065879)
> Don’t turn into TJ Maxx.

They are the TJ Maxx of software development.

I personally haven’t expected anything more of them for years. Once you’ve seen how the sausage is made and all that.

This article is written by a Wisconsin publication about data centers in Wisconsin. My comments are specific to Wisconsin. Like I said in my comment, some states aren’t well equipped to handle new manufacturing/dc.

I cannot take your comment very serious when so much of it is plainly wrong. You fall into the later category of what I described in my original comment. Outside of reddit-sphere people do not take these flippant and short-sighted comments seriously.

So add 0 jobs because people don’t like chatgpt and it won’t create the same amount as 1960’s manufacturing; or add some jobs to rural WI?

You only have to look at Hermiston/Umatilla OR to see how impactful data centers can be on rural communities. There’s a lot more than 40 new jobs there since Amazon started building data centers.

Which is a straw man no? This thread is about building data centers, not F35s. Microsoft and FB aren’t competing against LM for land or jobs in Beaver Dam WI nor is it a zero-sum outcome, both can exist ie ‘manufacturing hubs’.
That only means they have to be built in counties which are part of that compact, or have approved provisions to return the water back to be net-neutral and comply with environmental impact laws (unless your Foxconn or legacy manufacturer or farmer). However, Beaver Dam WI as this article calls out is along a fresh water source and does not require Lake Michigan water.

The other locations like Oracle’s dc in Port Washington or MS in Racine/Kenosha area are located such that they are within the defined boundaries outlined and dc unlike Foxconn are all ‘closed-loop’ which of course isn’t entirely perfect but certainly not on the scale of Foxcon’s 7mil gal/day nonsense.

I don’t like that county officials are willing to sign NDAs in order to bring data centers to their counties. It should be public, there should be competition if it is so desirable or important to be located in that county. The leaders in these companies love to talk up free-market, but then do everything to Standard Oil their way in.

I also don’t understand the vehement push back against data centers in WI. It is a prime location for both residents and business. WI and all of the upper midwest was gutted of their manufacturing in my parents time. Now companies are bringing back long term commitments and the people there don’t want it?

I can understand not wanting a data center in AZ or NM. But WI has the resources, climate, and power generating capabilities to support this. There is talk of bringing back the Kewaunee nuclear plant even to support growth.

How does a former manufacturing power house state, not want to bring back jobs and the tax revenue a dc will pull in?

One of the boomer-issues I’ve heard, as I characterize it since it comes from my fam, is that data centers along with solar are taking away farm land and they’re pouty about it. However that farm land is soybeans grown for export to other countries, acting as a fresh water subsidy for those places. The farmers aren’t feeding the state anyways.

Most of the fervent opposition however comes from my generation who are mad about AI so therefore data centers can’t be built because they don’t like it. It isn’t a very compelling argument.

Also the nurses in the floor learn the system and many are not great at adapting to different interfaces. Travel nurses who come in and only worked with GE or Cerner and now having to use Epic causes all kinds of issues.

Also from what I’ve seen is big city hospitals use a mix of all three. Which I believe actually creates an opening as it shows a willingness to use different walled gardens.

However I think there are a lot of opportunities to just build on top of these systems rather than wholesale replace. Because they’re one size fits all and the people who work on them haven’t a single designer bone in their body the interfaces are terribly clunky and slow. Macros exist but seemingly no one is aware of them. It’s rife to build better interfaces tied into macros behind the scenes.

Re:Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (January 2026) on Sunday January 11, 2026 @01:32PM (#46578274)
For work related items I’ve been building out agent tooling for building some models and PoC projects related to energy industry applications. Been doing the consulting thing for a bit now and gaining more broad knowledge on some of these data center builds. Hoping to spin this into a product soon.

Started playing with gas town which is really cool. I had a naive version built that was just not good enough. This feels like a step in the right direction.

Haven’t had much time to work on any of my physical hands on hobbies lately but maybe when the weather gets better I’ll head back out to the shop again.

Employees also have no moat, and that is not unique to OAI. You either work as much as the other people on your team or you get replaced by one of the many people eager to work harder than you for that money.
Re:AI Labs Are Solving the Power Problem on Wednesday December 31, 2025 @01:40PM (#46446942)
I previously worked directly for some of the power generation manufacturers listed in the article and later on the grid/power transmission side.

My takeaway is they get it correct enough but no deep insight on the power generation industry.

I was surprised by and learned a few things from the article though. Definitely gives me some ideas of reaching out to old contacts to see if there’s any opportunities with building models and analytics for the new demands.

Focusing on Bloom is fun because they’re new and startup vibes but Innio and cat are really having a resurgence of demand with their generators and building diesel/natg engines is much simpler than gas turbines. I’m sure the heads at GE wish they hadn’t sold that off now.

On steam/gas turbine blade manufacturing there most certainly are more big players than 4 and many US based. You have to remember this is an old industry with existing supply chains and maintenance companies.

As long as the demand for new data centers doesn’t lose steam these onsite options will continue to flourish. Fed grid access builds are currently a 10+ year wait and they are reworking the system to be “fast”, only 5-6 years for build outs now. They’re also changing how the bidding process works which was touched on here. You need skin in the game if you want to be taken seriously now. There’s so many requests from companies arbing who can give them the best deal/timeline. Now you need to put money up if you even want a call back.

Re:Ask HN: What would you do if you didn't work in tech? on Monday December 22, 2025 @07:30PM (#46360980)
Are you self-employed now? Why stick with residential repair work instead of trying commercial or new construction?
Some of my friends who are senior/staff engs at various fang companies are basically convinced their jobs are at risk over the next few years due to how good the llms have gotten this year.

I switched over to consulting/contracting so I don’t have the visibility like they do, but my work is heavily dependent on llms. However I don’t see it wiping out the industry but rather making people more efficient.

They have much more robust tooling though around their llms and internal products that have automated much of their workflows which is I believe where the concern is coming from. They can see first hand how much of their job has turned into reviewing outputs and feeding outputs into other tools. A shift in skills but not fully automated solution yet.

It’s hard to gauge where things are going and where we’ll be in 5 years. If we only get incremental improvements there’s still huge gains to be made in building out tooling ecosystems to make this all better.

What does that look like for new college grads though? How much of this is really computer science if you are only an llm consumer?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_the_Standard_Oi...

This was a fascinating read. It’s been a few years since I finished but gives about the most thorough analysis you’ll find.

Not an essay but you can probably find an ai to summarize it for you.

Re:Nano Banana Pro on Thursday November 20, 2025 @01:15PM (#45995773)
It’s interesting, I’m trying to use it to create a themed collage by providing a few images and it does that wonderfully, but in the process it is also hallucinating the images I use so I end up with weird distorted faces. Other tools can do this without issue, but something about faces in images this model just has to modify them every time. Ask it to remove background objects and the faces get distorted as well.

Using it for non-people involved images and it’s pretty good although I haven’t done much and it isn’t doing anything 2.5-flash wasn’t already doing in the same amount of requests.

Re:Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright on Tuesday November 18, 2025 @05:29PM (#45973114)
Well all the Uber/Lyft drivers have led light bars mounted on their Prius’ now so the class warfare is well underway I suppose.
Re:Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright on Tuesday November 18, 2025 @05:19PM (#45973008)
Maybe it’s an overcorrection because the Tacoma I had, a couple years older than yours, had auto high beams and they would just stay on all the time. They only turned off from reflecting on road signs or when a car was only a few lengths away approaching. Quickly found the button to disable that feature.

The feature seems to be poorly implemented by all manufacturers. I see Teslas driving around flashing high beams every night because they trigger on/off really quickly and the drivers seem oblivious to the rapid change.

Re:Gemini 3 Pro Preview Live in AI Studio on Tuesday November 18, 2025 @11:34AM (#45968488)
Wow so the polymarket insider bet was true then..

https://old.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1oz6gjp/new...

> On another note, heard on Bloomberg today that they've been working on GTA 6 for 10 years at this point.

It’s incredible to think about what else has happened during these past 10 years of development. Or think about other decade long stretches and what was accomplished.

Not cutting short what the undertaking of this is, just that the scale of this project spanning a decade is fascinating.

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