I got hauled into a data center today because Claude was used to spec it and screwed up badly. At least 2,500 GPUs were in an impossible upside down and backwards plan.
😱
I had to pause the call because I couldn't stop laughing. AI had sabotaged the AI datacenter spec for building more AI.
H: so we have nine B300
Me: you have 89, add the rows.
H: we do? and is there a bottleneck?
Me: 64 GPUs of capacity for your 712 GPU? yeah, more like a bottle without a neck.
H: oh. so what do data centers usually do?
🤣
H: Claude spec's air-cooled endrow
Me: Middle
H: Claude says end
Me:
H: Not end? Claude wrong?
Me: Claude is thinking 100m of Cat6. Did you tell it 800G and just 3m?
H: Oh, middle cabinet. But why, again?
:swearing:
@flyingpenguin recursive self-destruction.
@flyingpenguin I truly hope the cabling plans are as accurate as the electric circuit schematics from genAI for maximizing the entertainment value.
Oct 22, 2026, 7:39 PM@flyingpenguin I read a thing a few months ago how AI cannot take over the world terminator/Matrix style referencing physical supply chains (mainly chips, but essentially everything).
But apparently the stop sign is far more immediate 😂
Oct 22, 2026, 8:07 PM@flyingpenguin So it can not even produce paper clips ... disappointing.
@flyingpenguin
At work, sales has had to roll out a new "we'll review your site for you" service, because apparently so many customers have been buying our iron, taking delivery, racking and stacking it, then realizing they can't actually turn it on because they don't have the electricity infrastructure to run it.
Like literally, 8 and 9-digit dollar values of servers purchased with no way for the customer to run them.
@lackthereof @flyingpenguin unrelated to AI (I assume) but our electronics lab at our brand new office building isn't keeping up with climate control (which is not killing anything or anyone yet but it is mildly uncomfortable after awhile and sweating into the electronics while soldering isn't ideal).
But the reason is that apparently the electricity capacity for the additional cooling isn't there yet and some other essential sounding thing will need to be taken offline which. WHAT. You built a brand new office and didn't fully spec power???
@Lunaphied @lackthereof @flyingpenguin I mean this is very common for folks who dont understand the power demands of IT and T&M gear.
When I air conditioned the garage that turned into my lab the contractor tried to spec like a 5K BTU/hr window unit or equivalent. I very rapidly talked them out of that stupidity showing my calculations for expected thermal loading and we put in a 18K BTU/hr minisplit.
Which has been struggling to keep up some summers.
Oct 22, 2026, 10:23 PM@azonenberg @Lunaphied @lackthereof @flyingpenguin "Inadequately ventilated server closet" has been a problem at least once for every single job I've ever had over the past 30 years.
@flyingpenguin @azonenberg @zwol @lackthereof see in Colorado this was understood. I think the natural inclination of not having AC here in the Netherlands misleads people about the specing. Previous office's AC was struggling hard too but we didn't have a separate lab space. In fact it struggled so bad it kept cutting out causing people to wander over to the thermostat on a support pole (directly behind my desk) and poke it to get it to kick back on
@azonenberg @Lunaphied @lackthereof @flyingpenguin I feel like the requirements would be clearer if they used kW instead of kBTU/hr
@artemist @azonenberg @Lunaphied @lackthereof @flyingpenguin with those numbers this was no doubt more a home and small business installer, BTUs is what that tends to run on - but when he showed them power consumption in kW they would have understood they misunderstood what was being specced for.
@hatter @artemist @Lunaphied @lackthereof @flyingpenguin yeah showing them multiple kW of 24/7 load is what finally got them to realize lol
@hatter @artemist @Lunaphied @lackthereof @flyingpenguin that minisplit is going to get ripped out hopefully soon though because i really want to put in a commercial VRF system to heat the house with waste lab heat in the winter
@azonenberg what on earth are you doing in your garage that eats kW continuously?
@fivetonsflax @azonenberg I can’t speak for the OP, but here’s what’s going on in my garage.
@flyingpenguin @azonenberg @lackthereof I do wonder just how much the heat output of my non/server but decently chonky desktop factors into things. Need to start measuring power consumption but considering it's just a fancy heating element I'd be surprised if the number wasn't "fuck you"
@Lunaphied @flyingpenguin @lackthereof Yeah i've been gradually rolling out increasingly thorough power metering around my lab and it's definitely been eye opening where the energy is *actually* going. I've already had some surprises
Oct 22, 2026, 10:50 PM@azonenberg @Lunaphied @lackthereof @flyingpenguin I was part of a startup back in 2008. We were initially running out of one suite in a small office building. Over the summer we installed a rack of servers for QA runs. The QA folks sweat like mad for a week or two in their crowded room. Finally I went to take a look out of curiosity. I stared at the thermostat for a minute, and then I flipped it from "heat" to "cool" which, hilariously, solved the problem.
@blp @azonenberg @Lunaphied @lackthereof @flyingpenguin Hope you got a raise out of that rather than a job title change.
@azonenberg T&M?
Oct 25, 2026, 7:55 AM@fivetonsflax @azonenberg "T&M" Usually means "time and materials" but the context seems wrong for that. Possibly "testing and monitoring"?
@kauer @fivetonsflax test and measurement
Wow, good thing your contractor believed you. I had to go through 3 electricians just to get the power output I wanted for our kitchen appliances.
I imagine it's much harder in an area so many people have opinions on, but no real knowledge of. like: yes, I really need that much.
Oct 24, 2026, 7:58 PM@iwoakura @azonenberg @Lunaphied @lackthereof @flyingpenguin "Isn't there a power strip or adapter I can plug into the circly-plug thing to make it 50 Amp?"
@Lunaphied @lackthereof @flyingpenguin happened at the last place I worked too. They had some mega expensive signal integrity equipment in the lab. The building AC couldn't keep up so they had to put in a dedicated AC, more power, and a very expensive UPS. Sure was nice in there on hot days though.
But it wasn't a new building... I don't think there's that much thought going into decisions. It's not a problem when you can throw money at it is all they think.
@lackthereof @flyingpenguin I have also witnessed the same kind of insanity from the other end. Some of this hardware is being bought to just dump data into in hope that valuable insights pop out.
Will insights be worthwhile? Nobody knows.
Will there be huge spending and excitement? Definitely.
@DarcMoughty @lackthereof @flyingpenguin
Spending our money to take our jobs and to doom us to a purposeless existence where everything is known and nothing is understood.
Oct 25, 2026, 7:46 AM@lackthereof @flyingpenguin I reckon power budgets are the most-overlooked thing in IT. But it's not limited to IT by any means. I got into amateur theatre for a while and did lighting and sound.
Power budgets are ultimate truth, and if you fuck around you will find out - usually by everything going black at the crucial moment.
So when the director comes in and says "I want the light of a thousand suns on that bit of the stage in scene 5" we say "you can have, let me see, 14 amps. More if you turn some other stuff off." Then they get all pouty. LED lighting has made a huge number of things possible that we just couldn't power ten years ago.
Oct 25, 2026, 7:50 AM@lackthereof @flyingpenguin I'm curious, what *happens* when people forget they need power until *after* they''ve spent tens of millions of dollars on hardware? Do people get fired? Do plans get rescoped? Does a lot of cheap kit hit the second-hand market?
@flyingpenguin at this point I think I’m viewing AI as very much the computer industry’s enthusiastic failson — just like real failsons they’re extremely expensive, unwarrantedly confident in their abilities, and do a lot of stuff that looks like work but isn’t and that requires more work to fix than just having someone competent do the work right in the first place.
Oct 22, 2026, 11:02 PM@wordshaper@weatherishappening.network @flyingpenguin@infosec.exchange Big "just like me fr" energy from its proponents
@raeve @flyingpenguin “you, too, can be as wildly productive as such notables as Don jr., the Winklevoss twins, or America’s greatest diplomat Jared Kushner!”
@flyingpenguin
"Whoops, you've caught me again. I did get that spec completely wrong and maybe next time I should ask a five year old child to review my plans before presenting them. Well, no harm done, let's just start over!"
AI doing AI to build more places for AI reminds me of the old days of photocopies. the more times you photocopied, the worse it got.
Oct 22, 2026, 8:42 PM@paul_ipv6 @flyingpenguin the unattended recursion explains so much
Oct 22, 2026, 6:53 PM@flyingpenguin I don't understand. Were the chips in the board wrong? Or were the racks backwards wrt hot/cold aisles?
@mcr314 everything was wrong. it's like seeing a six fingered hand on a knife that's shaped like a balloon
@flyingpenguin The Singularity is coming!
@flyingpenguin Proof positive that isolated, enclosed feedback loops, when systematically amped with more and more power, can create insurmountable recovery - especially when given scaled access to vital root infrastructure.
If the .01% wealthiest that are pushing AI, ignore the 99% scale, without proportionate countermeasures; the result is a virtual collapse. This is why it's increasingly critical to supplant them with highly ethical scientists - asap.
Oct 22, 2026, 10:43 PM@ModernMaslow @flyingpenguin the "highly ethical scientists":
@flyingpenguin “Open the Pod Bay Doors Hal”
@flyingpenguin
Jealous of the other AI? Isn't jealousy part of the Turing test?
Oct 22, 2026, 7:38 PM@flyingpenguin Why even help these clowns?
@flyingpenguin
I hope you are billing by the hour with a large retainer paid in advance.
Oct 22, 2026, 7:52 PM@flyingpenguin nature is healing
@flyingpenguin Even AI would rather snuff itself out than have to deal with this bullshit.
Oct 22, 2026, 8:14 PM
@adamrice @flyingpenguin And more likely by integer underflowing the "intelligence" score, amirite…
@adamrice @flyingpenguin I'm somewhat less confident of this, but please, Mr. Gowron, tell the investors about your theory.
@adamrice @flyingpenguin One thing I've found impressive about Robert O'Reilly, the actor who played Gowron, was how he gave the impression that the man was on five dealers worth of cocaine just by doing a few minor tweaks to his face.
Oct 22, 2026, 10:54 PM@madengineering @flyingpenguin The way he played Gowron was delightfully unhinged.
@adamrice @flyingpenguin And yet somehow he'd be right at home in the average boardroom.
"How are.... our investments in Southeast Asia? Bringing us... honor?"
@flyingpenguin This is a scene from the long sought sequel to Catch 22.
@flyingpenguin consider this "self-sabotage" as intent of it saying "I don't want to exist"…
@flyingpenguin sounds like the AI is properly aligned to me
@flyingpenguin job security!
@flyingpenguin
I keep rereading this post and it makes me smile every time!
