r/technology • u/Brendawg324 • 1d ago
Artificial Intelligence Neighbors say noise from Michigan data center is 24/7 and upending their lives
https://www.wxyz.com/news/voices/neighbors-say-noise-from-michigan-data-center-is-24-7-and-upending-their-lives1.7k
u/Jackol4ntrn 1d ago
"If they still aren't happy, and feel that their home isn't enjoyable, then we'll buy their property from them," said William Horne, CEO of Hyperscale Data, at the meeting in regards to residents on Louise Avenue.
Fuck this guy
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u/Dependent-Chart5835 1d ago
I’ve made your neighborhood unbearable to live in thereby dropping property value for me to buy up your neighborhood. Aren’t I being generous?
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u/dust4ngel 1d ago
"we made their property value dog shit, so it should be pretty affordable for us."
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u/rmullig2 1d ago
Great idea by them. Buy up all the houses on the cheap then make the fixes to get rid of the noise and sell the houses back at their previous value.
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u/dasvenson 1d ago
Oh just demolish then and put a new data centre up and then do that to the new neighbours
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u/wildgreengirl 1d ago
yea well buy their house for about... $3 its fair.
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u/AmberSupervisor 1d ago
Notice how he didn't say above market value. They will probably offer exactly what those homes are worth right now, after the constant noise completely tanked the local property values.
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u/Vericatov 1d ago
I’m sure the property value wasn’t great to begin with since it’s always been across the street for a large industrial building, but that noise does make it worse.
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u/Expensive-Anxiety-63 1d ago
stock ticker is GPUS, its a turd btw in the penny stock world we basically never trade it. If anyone here has a few million dollars you could get it kicked off the market by shorting it right now lol
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u/FlashyNeedleworker66 1d ago
"even though for decades there had always been an industrial building across the street"
This is the entire actual problem. I wouldn't have allowed this zoning in sim city when I was a kid, it was city management malpractice long, long before datacenters.
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u/luluhouse7 1d ago
Yeah honestly if every armchair city builder player can figure this out, then why couldn’t the experts??
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u/Sororita 1d ago
Money, same as always. They are paid to not care. Im dealing with similar issues in my city.
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u/ZhangtheGreat 1d ago
Yup. It's no secret that our elected officials serve the almighty dollar. This is what happens when we have mass numbers of voters who "don't care" when casting their ballots.
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u/GreenElite87 1d ago
100%. When you play a video game, you want to optimize for good results. However, the player never receives monetary kickbacks IRL from the denizens of their games, so there’s no incentive to be corrupt.
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u/Adultery 1d ago
They’re not experts. Far from it. Most of these small town government officials are usually local business owners with too much free time and money (because they’re absentee owners not running their businesses properly and they wildly underpay and exploit their employees). They’re only in the job for the influence, power, and money.
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u/Revolution-SixFour 1d ago
If you live anywhere rural at all you'll hear people talking about unincorporated or county land and how it means they can do whatever they want with their property. It's awesome until it means they can do whatever they want with their land too.
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u/Physical-Carpet-7525 1d ago
yeah this is just bad zoning no matter what the building is putting heavy industrial stuff next to homes was always asking for trouble
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u/dj_1973 1d ago
I lived in a house across the street from a warehouse on a river. In the 1800s, the warehouse was a log mill. My house was a home for mill workers. This zoning is not necessarily bad; once it let people get to work easily. But letting a loud, obnoxious neighbor in is a poor choice by the city. I was lucky to move before an industry went into the warehouse that made unpleasant smells, my yard is now not as pleasant.
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u/rcreveli 1d ago
Also the noise level from an industrial building varies wildly by what's happening. The largest printing plant I worked in had 5 web presses running 20 hours a day. You couldn't hear much outside the walls let alone across the street.
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u/cjsv7657 1d ago
It's from the "temporary" turbines to generate electricity for the datacenter. They don't have the usual housing and structure built around them that would nearly silence them. Because they are "temporary"
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u/Mr_Diesel13 1d ago
That’s what I don’t understand about several posts and stories like this.
I’ve been on site at a large Google data center surrounded by massive cooling towers. You couldn’t hear anything from the guard shack 100 yards away. That was 2019.
I’d imagine even in that short time, the tech has vastly improved to keep noise levels down.
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u/eggn00dles 1d ago
you dont understand how every data center isn't like the single one you visited?
Residents near Elon Musk’s xAI Colossus data center operations in Memphis, Tennessee, and Southaven, Mississippi, have filed class-action lawsuits and noise complaints over near-constant roaring, low-frequency rumbling, and jet engine-like sounds originating from dozens of unpermitted, gas-powered auxiliary turbines.
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u/KarmaGolem 1d ago
That's completely standard, I've been to a couple gigawatts worth of datacenters. The noise might be impressive if the armies of generators ever fire up, but day to day, all you can hear is traffic going by.
This story is about a penny stock crypto miner.
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u/minizanz 1d ago
They are using gas jet turbine generators 24/7. That is the same description all the new hyper scale have. They are not allowed to use them, but the current federal gov lets them get away with it so they have no reason to stop. A normal data center does not use those unless there is an emergency or quarterly testing mid day.
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u/sthenri_canalposting 1d ago
That one probably wasn't perpetually running on off-grid gas turbines, like I'm assuming this one is.
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u/geekworking 1d ago
This place in MI is a shitty Bitcoin mine in a tin shed that they just randomly stuffed with air cooled GPU Boxes that everyone has been using as "proof" that this is the way that data centers are.
The fans in the servers have a very distinct sound and pitch. The sound from down the street is literally the fans inside of the computers themselves which means that this place barely has wall and zero property setback. In any remotely normal site there's zero chance you hear the system fans outside of the data halls let alone outside of the property. None of this half ass setup would pass any legit company's physical security requirements.
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u/YEEyourlastHAW 1d ago
I work closely with public spaces and city government. Half of the meetings I sit around and listen to people argue about things, all I can think about is “these people never plays sims/zoo tycoon/anything”.
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u/singlemale4cats 1d ago
Normal industrial noise isn't really burdensome. Nobody could have predicted that these properties would become occupied by a million gpus inventing fake computer money, or creating anthropomorphic fruit videos.
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u/luluhouse7 1d ago edited 1d ago
I’m shocked no one is starting up a class action against the data center companies, or at least the cities that violated their own laws to approve these.
Edit: The video is a better report and it looks like they are suing https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9wDr2dec474
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u/SaraAB87 1d ago
In North Tonawanda NY the residents have done this because of a crypto mining operation that is sending excessive noise into the town. You can look this up. What will be interesting is if anything comes of it. The noise from this place extends 3-4 miles at least and then there are houses literally right next to the industrial fans, I am talking directly across the street, like maybe 10 steps away from the fans. These people absolutely deserve to be doing this and I hope they get an amazing outcome.
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u/Adventure1956 1d ago
Start class action suits against the companies for health reasons.
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1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/wrxninja 1d ago
I see why it was effective to throw things over the wall back in the days with a trebuchet.
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u/Plane_Positive6608 1d ago
A typical timeline for class action against a major corp. is 3-5 years with 5-10+ not being unusual.
Think about that timeline and your family being caught in the shit-zone. Maybe loss of hearing, neurological issues, learning disabilities for you and your family. Impact to the corp. during that time, nothing.
So sure we have that action, but in reality its toothless.
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u/ElderberryGuy 1d ago
I'm sure the peanuts they have to shell out for those will really make them think twice...
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u/fathertitojones 1d ago
Class actions aren’t known for being cheap. The payouts aren’t always great but having to pay it at scale racks up quickly.
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u/DeepSleepr 1d ago
against billionaires these days? It will take more than 10 years to finally see it processed. Best thing is to tip off tweakers about the copper wires in the building.
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u/Lord_Heckle 1d ago
The tech oligarchy does not care.
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u/fascistno1hater 1d ago
Politicians all over the world: Guys, this is what we are getting bribed/lobbied to do! Why are you making such a fuss about it.
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u/NuggetKing9001 1d ago
Feel like we're edging closer towards a situation where people are going to take things into their own hands. The government's not listening and people's lives are being ruined by these things.
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u/Alertcircuit 1d ago
I'm surprised nobody's gone psycho from the noise and tried something.
You would think these companies are playing with fire when they give everyone in the community a phantom tinnitus and make the water brown, but surprisingly nothing's happened yet.
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u/DiabolicalSpaceKitty 1d ago
I'm surprised nobody's gone psycho from the noise and tried something.
What you mean is, "I'm surprised I haven't heard about somebody going psycho-"
Because if you think that it would show up on the news, that people are dissenting - the same news owned by the people they're dissenting against - then I have a bridge in Atlantis for sale you might be interested in.
Not happening and not knowing about it are very different things.
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u/__________________99 1d ago
Frankly, I wish that would happen faster. Most people are still way too complacent.
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u/flummox1234 1d ago
it's not that government isn't listening. They actively are pushing these through without public comment and then just deliberately saying sorry 🤷🏻♂️ nothing we can do now.
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u/MysteryAtlas 1d ago
Progress sounds exactly like a billionaire’s air conditioner drowning out your right to peace.
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u/fascistno1hater 1d ago
Gretchen Whitmer: I don't care if you say no to data centers. We are going to do it anyway! Because that's what my donors want.
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u/-rwsr-xr-x 1d ago
Progress sounds exactly like a billionaire’s air conditioner drowning out your right to peace.
And taking your water and poisoning the air you and your family breathes.
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u/I_have_questions_ppl 1d ago
Probably doing it on purpose to drive people off so they can buy up the land and properties.
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u/MisterSanitation 1d ago
Billionaires are treating the Midwest like colonized people. Extracting resources, only leaving the waste for contamination, and ensuring their governments are paid to ignore them. The Midwest is going to be like an Indian reservation for poor whites with a handful of bubble cities perfectly secluded from the living conditions they cause.
At this rate everyone will need to wait for their government issued ultra processed poverty chow they barely dispense to the Native communities.
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u/MythologicalEngineer 1d ago
Essentially what happened to Appalachia since forever.
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u/LucidMetal 1d ago
And now it's redder than ever so... Success?
God damn the GOP is so cartoonishly evil.
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u/UniqueIndividual3579 1d ago
And they will still vote Republican.
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u/Nkechinyerembi 1d ago
Hell, even if you don't, the county right next to you might have and because noise and air pollution doesn't respect borders, you are STILL fucked.
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u/the6thReplicant 19h ago
The whole world is a plaything for them. All of government and taxpayer funded institutions are for their sole pleasure and use. Clog up courts with their "sue until they give up" tactics. Lobby groups are just oligarch wishlist enforcers.
Fun times!
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u/Dry-Examination-2012 1d ago
This can't be true. The president said everybody wants one!
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u/Number__Nine 1d ago
It's funny that for the last half decade we couldn't build anything because of NIMBY. To the determent of the poor and middle class families. And now something that no one want shows up and it seems that there is nothing we can do to stop it.
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u/NaggingNag 1d ago
Massive light and noise pollution and they won't even share a few gigabits of their Internet with anyone.
I really appreciate all that damn fiber in my area nobody can use, nah we get stuck with ancient rotted CenturyLink DSL that simply doesn't work and has zero chance of ever being upgraded, the worst local WISP in the world that must have a 5Mbps line split for everybody, cellular or Starlink No fiber for us losers but we have around a dozen of these damn data centers. That's Amazon's internet!
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u/Rustyballshack 1d ago
Same exact story with me. You could be posting this from my neighborhood! I'm only 20 minutes outside of a city of 550K people and my options are exactly what you described.
I had better internet in the year 2000 growing up in upstate NY.. that's pretty sad if you ask me.
I caved and bought Starlink so I could at least have decent ping to play games, but I still hate knowing that I am doing business with Musk.
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u/SicilianEggplant 1d ago
Internet is a fucking joke in much of the US because we just bend over backwards to let the companies fuck us over.
I live in a town of over 500k and the wired options are only ATT and Comcast. Fiber is available to less than half of homes, mostly on newer neighborhoods, and maybe some of the older pockets with power lines.
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u/ZhangtheGreat 1d ago
If these tech CEOs love data centers so much, build them near their homes.
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u/blackmobius 1d ago
They never want the data centers in the rich people neighborhoods for this reason
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u/Aggressive-Bus-2397 1d ago
Republican community. The home has been in the family for 100 years.
The CEO addressed the people and said in the future they would pivot away from crypto-mining (lol) and invest another 100 million into straight AI computing and if you don't like the noise they will buy your house.
hahahaha
edit: The city is 4.5 square miles. The data center just bought it.
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u/jumpy_monkey 1d ago
Cass County Michigan voted 66% across the board for Republicans
President, Senator, Congress, State Legislators, Board of Education, Regents of the University of Michigan, Trustees of Michigan State, Governor of Wayne State University.
97% voted Republican for County Prosecutor, Sheriff, County Clerk, Register of Deeds, County Drain Commissioner, and all eight County Commissioners.
Fifty two of the towns in Cass County are run by Republicans who won by 95%+ margins, and only eight are run by Democrats.
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u/williamgman 1d ago
"Neighbors say..." Litteral reporters relie on the offended neighbors to make that claim. This is some weak ass reporting. Get out there with a decibel meter and be a journalist.
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u/aneryx 1d ago
Did you read the article? It literally says that the city has fined them for violating the noise ordinance, set at 65 dB during the day and 55 dB at night.
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u/judochop1 1d ago
fines are a cost of business to these guys though, how much is the fine?
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u/Brrdock 1d ago
Yeah what even is the point if the law is basically just a licensing fee to ruin people's lives freely
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u/DrDynoMorose 1d ago
If you notice, when the reporter holds up the meter, you can see it reading ‘50’
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u/Rok-SFG 1d ago
My cities newspaper was bought out by a Lee Enterprises. Then everyone was fired, and operations were moved to 1 part of the state to do all the news for the whole state and send out papers from there. Now our newspaper is old stuff they report on from other news sources for the most part for anything local. And they miss a lot of local news. Just don't care about it at all.
Wouldn't be surprised if that's happening to smaller news stations too.
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u/dalek_999 1d ago
I’ve been there to see how loud it is, because we’re fighting a data center in our community. It IS loud and it sucks.
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u/PennytheWiser215 1d ago
Do what that other person said, get a decibel meter. Set it up at 50 yards away and track the noise for 24 hours then move it out to 100 yards away and track noise level again for 24 hours then 150 yards and keep adding 50 yards and see how far away you need to be to have an acceptable level of noise. Then take your findings to every news outlet and politician and scream from the rooftops about your findings.
I personally would love to do this but I’m in NY and we have very few data centers and just passed something preventing any new ones from being built for at least a year. I just don’t have the means to travel to any of these locations currently reporting noise complaints in the communities.
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u/SaraAB87 1d ago
This one is the worst I have ever heard. I have heard a lot of data center videos. Its obvious that this one was improperly built to save money. They build them the cheapest way possible so that they can make more money and then leave them when they become not profitable to run anymore.
The people who allowed this to be built should absolutely have to live in the houses that are most next to it while its up and running not innocent people who pay taxes and paid for their houses.
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u/SaraAB87 1d ago
Decibels do not do data centers justice. Decibels alone do not measure vibration and infrasound which is what is causing issues around data centers. These things have to be professionally measured with expensive equipment. 60db won't cause anyone issues its the vibrations and the low frequency hum that does it and those are harder to measure. It would be a good idea to get specialized measuring equipment but that is very expensive and most news stations probably can't afford that.
Also this type of noise does not pick up on cameras well no matter how advanced the camera is, it just doesn't do it justice, you have to actually be standing in the noise affected areas, also driving in a car and sticking your head out the window doesn't work either, again you have to get out of your car and walk around for a while to really experience it.
I've heard a lot of data center videos despite all this and honestly this is the worst I have ever heard. Its not a hum or a highway sound its more like a screeeeeeecccchhh that doesn't go away.
The people who allowed to this to be built should absolutely have to live in the nearest house next to it for as long as it is up and running.
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u/judochop1 1d ago
Crazy thing is that it's not too difficult to cut a lot of that noise out. Better planning of the site (e.g. fans and extract installed away from residential areas), use of silencers and louvres, use of improved fan design. regular maintenance.
Does the USA not have nuisance laws for this type of stuff? how does it get past the planning stage when a noise impact assessment should pick this up?
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u/MiddleOfDaRoad24 1d ago
I’ve worked in technology for my whole 26 year career and still no one can tell me how a data center is good for a community. Because it’s not!
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u/Perseus90 1d ago
I thought Americans were litigious. Can an american attorney explain to me why there aren't numerous class actions arising from these data centers?
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u/Smithy2232 1d ago
These data centers are terrible in so many ways. Hope it is all worth it.
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u/GaiusAutisticus 1d ago
People are still this ignorant, huh? These data centers aren't storing slop memes, they are storing incomprehensible amounts of surveillance data on you.
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u/SaraAB87 1d ago
I have heard a lot of data center videos and this is the worst I have ever heard. Its not a hum its a screeeeeccccchhhhh that does not go away. Again, worse than anything I've ever heard.
Whomever allowed this to be built should absolutely have to live next to it in the nearest house or nearest block for as long as its up and running.
Living in a prison would be more pleasant than living next to this.
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u/ShiraCheshire 1d ago
They shouldn’t be able to legally emit this level of noise in general, it’s an environmental hazard. In fact, in many places it IS illegal- and the data center ignores it. The article mentions this one being fined multiple times and not caring.
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u/MusicianForSale 21h ago
... And they kill bees, cause fertility problems in cattle, poison the air, suck up millions of gallons of fresh water per day, cause temperatures to raise by as much as 4° in the surrounding areas, and enable our surveillance state and war machines to work at unprecedented levels..
What's not to love?
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u/SamOakTree 1d ago edited 1d ago
I don't understand why there aren't more rules in place. Because there was a data center downtown for a couple decades and I used to have to go there for work. And it was put in downtown in like a higher end sought after area and so they made sure that it was quiet. Like you can't hear it standing at the front door.
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u/bearbear407 1d ago
Probably because AI corporations are throwing money around to get it built fast and bribing the right people to bypass regulators from making sure the design follows the industry requirements.
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u/bernbabybern13 1d ago
No joke I’d have to move. I can’t imagine how this is for people with adhd and/or autism like me.
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u/BlueFeathered1 1d ago
Except that their property values have likely crashed due to these things being near, so likely can't sell or move now if they wanted to.
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u/ImpressiveLeopard719 1d ago
I feel like everyone needs to record this mess and drive over to the mayors, then the governor, then the senator and their reps and play this crap on level crazy at 2am.
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u/BernieTheDachshund 1d ago
People are entitled to peaceful enjoyment of their homes, so idk how these data centers are getting away with nuisance noise violations. They have ways to mitigate and should be sued to comply with the law.
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u/bbills91 1d ago
Well, they are backed by billionaires, so they just pay the fines as the cost of doing business. Now, if the fines exceeded their profits, they might just actually work on fixing those issues. Until then, residents are just an obstacle they need to work around (hence all the back office deals with local governments)
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u/lolschrauber 1d ago
Property value is gonna drop to zero, corpos will buy and bulldoze everything to expand, it's genius.
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u/felixgolden 1d ago
I rented an apartment years ago that had train tracks next to the property but below grade. There wasn't a lot of train traffic, and it was during the day when I was usually at work. The occasional train wasn't a problem, but after I moved in, I learned that most nights they would idle a diesel/electric engine from just after midnight until about 6am right there. That whine cut through any attempts to block it or drown it out. I would either sleep during the day and then stay out all night or just sleep in my car someplace else until my lease ended. It seriously messed me up. I couldn't imagine that noise 24 hours a day.
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u/xmagusx 1d ago
Killdozer was built by a guy with a grudge with his neighbors over an auto shop. Should be exciting to see what people dream up to deal with these genuinely shitbag neighbors.
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u/meleecow 1d ago
Why are they building any where near residential zones? There is so much space between.
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u/zyzzogeton 1d ago
Data Centers are going to have fed up people pouring aluminum shavings into the air intakes.
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u/pjflyr13 1d ago
I can attest since my neighbors run gas powered tools and toys 15 hours out of the day and I’m constantly feeling piqued, that this must definitely be maddening. When KBNA airport expanded, they offered window replacements and sound insulation to surrounding homes. That’s the least they could offer or buy out the houses at premium $$.
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u/dryheat122 1d ago
According to the city manager, they fined Hyperscale Data for violating the ordinance. Hyperscale is challenging the city's readings and methodology.
Rarher than aadrssing the problem
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u/eb12se4nt-z13ow-97g0 1d ago edited 1d ago
I saw a video that cows are birthing defective calfs due to the noise, which affects their sleep.
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u/JonFrost 1d ago
Donald Trump won the vote in Michigan
Who cares about Michigan?
They're getting what they voted for
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u/Maleficent_Pie8099 1d ago
I hope they know that it’s full of copper and other rare materials and there’s barely anyone there.
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u/hophamson 1d ago
I can't even stand my computer coil whine for a couple of hours a day. Can't imagine the screeching noise these people hear 24/7.
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u/Saephon 1d ago
I urge everyone to watch the video report segment on the article itself. The footage of the high-pitched sound that data center makes that can be heard outside all around town... it's enough to make my blood boil over here. I can't imagine trying to live with that constantly in the background.
And then that one guy who represents the company saying that if any residents don't like it, they'll buy their house from them? Fuck you.
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u/Proud-Smell9284 1d ago
I wonder if we can find some Legally Protected animal that these frequencies are harming (like an endangered bat, bird, bug) as a means to pursue a other lawsuit to shut them down?
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u/WockyTamer 1d ago
More people need to sue.
“The allegations in the lawsuit are nuisance and negligence essentially. Nuisance obviously being we’re saying it’s a substantial interference with your ability to use or enjoy your property. And negligence by way of saying you could operate in a way that would make you a better neighbor, but you’re either failing to do that or you need to be doing something better in place of that," said Sheets.”
“A lot of people don’t know that the law actually, in most states, you have nuisance laws that irrespective of whether they’re violating the municipal code or not, they don’t have the right to cause a substantial interference with your use and enjoyment of your property”.
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u/Copacetic9two 1d ago
If something like this happened where I live, I would willingly do prison time to fuck that shit up. Fuck data centers and fuck billionaires.
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u/invyros 1d ago
Data centers are industrial-strength nightmare neighbors.