There’s a water shortage in the UK right now, and one of the measures
the Government is suggesting to try to save water is ... deleting old
emails <https://www.theverge.com/science/758275/drought-delete-files-email-data-center-water-uk>.

Yes, data centres do chew through a lot of power, and use a lot of
cooling water to take away the waste heat from that power. But do they
really think that the deletion of, say, a few hundred million or even
a few billion emails nationwide, will make much difference to the
water consumption of even a *single* email server?

Of course Amber “Necessary Hashtags” Rudd was one UK politician who immediately came to mind ...

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <[email protected]d> wrote at 07:52 this Wednesday (GMT):

There’s a water shortage in the UK right now, and one of the measures
the Government is suggesting to try to save water is ... deleting old
emails
<https://www.theverge.com/science/758275/drought-delete-files-email-data-center-water-uk>.

Yes, data centres do chew through a lot of power, and use a lot of
cooling water to take away the waste heat from that power. But do they
really think that the deletion of, say, a few hundred million or even
a few billion emails nationwide, will make much difference to the
water consumption of even a *single* email server?

Of course Amber “Necessary Hashtags” Rudd was one UK politician who immediately came to mind ...

Idly keeping something stored really shouldn't be taking that much
power, unless it's indexing every single email every boot.... or they
just want users to remove "useless" data from the AI training set.
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

candycanearter07 <[email protected]> wrote:

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <[email protected]d> wrote at 07:52 this Wednesday (GMT):

There’s a water shortage in the UK right now, and one of the
measures the Government is suggesting to try to save water is ...
deleting old emails >><https://www.theverge.com/science/758275/drought-delete-files-email-data-center-water-uk>.

Yes, data centres do chew through a lot of power, and use a lot of
cooling water to take away the waste heat from that power. But do
they really think that the deletion of, say, a few hundred million
or even a few billion emails nationwide, will make much difference
to the water consumption of even a *single* email server?

Of course Amber “Necessary Hashtags” Rudd was one UK politician who
immediately came to mind ...

Idly keeping something stored really shouldn't be taking that much
power, unless it's indexing every single email every boot.... or
they just want users to remove "useless" data from the AI training
set.

This kind of declaration from govts is the direct result of everyone in
the chain responsible for the decree having zero technical skill level regarding computers. No one with even a basic understanding of
computer tech. would have let that whopper of a guffaw see the light
of day.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Rich <[email protected]d> wrote:

This kind of declaration from govts is the direct result of everyone in
the chain responsible for the decree having zero technical skill level regarding computers. No one with even a basic understanding of
computer tech. would have let that whopper of a guffaw see the light
of day.

The more skeptical side of me wonders if someone in that government
does know that deleting emails wouldn't solve anything, but they
expect most of the population to believe it anyway. Hence they
don't have to do some work themselves in regulating datacentres to
limit how much drinking water they can use. Instead it's all _our_
fault so it's _our_ task to (not) fix it.

It's the same with water here in Aus. You can't water your garden
with tap water when water restrictions are in effect, but any
business can buy in water and waste as much of it as they like,
even pouring any excess down the drain if they ordered a truck load
and don't need all of it. Our government is currently courting big
tech companies to get them to build lots of AI datacentres here
too, of course, ignoring the water issue. They ought to insist the
tech companies build condensers at their datacentres so the water
can be reused, or build their own reservoirs to catch it
themselves, but again maybe it's easier for them to just call it
_our_ problem instead (while probably also accepting "donations"
from those same tech companies).

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 15 Aug 2025 06:52:18 +1000, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

It's the same with water here in Aus. You can't water your garden with
tap water when water restrictions are in effect, but any business can
buy in water and waste as much of it as they like, even pouring any
excess down the drain if they ordered a truck load and don't need all of
it.

It turns out residents watering their lawns use up more water than all the businesses put together -- at least here in NZ. So those restrictions do
make sense.

Me, I’ve never bothered watering my lawn. Certain rose and other flower bushes that I value, yes -- when I remember, which is not often ...

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 14/08/2025 23:36, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On 15 Aug 2025 06:52:18 +1000, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

It's the same with water here in Aus. You can't water your garden with
tap water when water restrictions are in effect, but any business can
buy in water and waste as much of it as they like, even pouring any
excess down the drain if they ordered a truck load and don't need all of
it.

It turns out residents watering their lawns use up more water than all the >businesses put together -- at least here in NZ. So those restrictions do
make sense.

Me, I’ve never bothered watering my lawn. Certain rose and other flower >bushes that I value, yes -- when I remember, which is not often ...

Some of my Texan colleagues at a former employer would save water from the
bath or shower so they could use it to water their gardens from a can. I've
no idea if using slightly soapy water would cause a problem...
--
A PICKER OF UNCONSIDERED TRIFLES

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 15 Aug 2025 14:08:52 -0000 (UTC), Jason H wrote:

Some of my Texan colleagues at a former employer would save water
from the bath or shower so they could use it to water their gardens
from a can. I've no idea if using slightly soapy water would cause a problem...

This is an argument for having two separate water supplies: one of
drinkable quality for human consumption, and a separate one of lesser
quality for “bulk” purposes (like flushing the toilet and watering the garden). That way you save on the cost of supplying the latter where
the former is not needed.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <[email protected]d> wrote:

On 15 Aug 2025 06:52:18 +1000, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

It's the same with water here in Aus. You can't water your garden with
tap water when water restrictions are in effect, but any business can
buy in water and waste as much of it as they like, even pouring any
excess down the drain if they ordered a truck load and don't need all of
it.

It turns out residents watering their lawns use up more water than all the businesses put together -- at least here in NZ.

I'd have thought irrigation for agriculture would top the list here
in Aus - effectively the same thing without all the concrete in
between the lawns. Of course that's often supplied from untreated
water, and reservoirs have been built specifically for it. However
even then it's full of controversy as irrigated agriculture expands
and begins to take capacity from water sources also relied on for
drinking water and wildlife.

Still it seems like that approach would make more sense for
datacentres - put them where there's already surplus water (you
don't need accommodating climate and terrain to go with it like
with agriculture), and build the infrastructure to catch/supply the
extra water required. Somewhere in the mountains near a
hydroelectric power station would be ideal, and I believe there are
datacentres located like that in Europe. But it's cheaper/easier to
build one in the city and tell the government it's their job to
supply the water. So as long as the gov. goes along with that, of
course that's what they'll do.

Mines are similar, some use lots of water and contruct their own
water storage even when they're in a town with its own water
supply. I'm not sure if they have to use it exclusively though.

Me, I've never bothered watering my lawn. Certain rose and other flower bushes that I value, yes -- when I remember, which is not often ...

No lawn here, I spray weed killer around the house yearly to create
a firebreak before summer. Roses fend for themselves unless I
happen to have a bucket of water I need to empty somewhere. But I
have to collect that water myself too.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Jason H <[email protected]> wrote:

Some of my Texan colleagues at a former employer would save water from the
bath or shower so they could use it to water their gardens from a can. I've no idea if using slightly soapy water would cause a problem...

It's good. The lower surface tension helps drown bugs. We soap our fruit trees down every spring.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)