1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:00,500
Hello.

2
00:00:00,500 --> 00:00:05,500
I didn't start the fire, but stuff still happens.

3
00:00:05,500 --> 00:00:06,400
So what's up?

4
00:00:06,400 --> 00:00:08,400
Ah, bummer.

5
00:00:08,400 --> 00:00:09,300
Fair warning.

6
00:00:09,300 --> 00:00:13,300
I'm sorry. It's bummers today, but it's an important bummer.

7
00:00:13,300 --> 00:00:15,400
We should talk about the earthquake in Morocco.

8
00:00:15,400 --> 00:00:19,000
A massive earthquake has hit Morocco, and it's not good.

9
00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:20,400
Jokes.

10
00:00:20,400 --> 00:00:24,700
The earthquake was somewhere between a 6.8 and a 7.0 magnitude on the Richter scale,

11
00:00:24,700 --> 00:00:26,200
depending on who you ask,

12
00:00:26,200 --> 00:00:30,400
and it has unfortunately already claimed at least 2,400 lives.

13
00:00:30,400 --> 00:00:33,700
That number is expected to continue to grow.

14
00:00:33,700 --> 00:00:36,500
Hey, take care of yourself.

15
00:00:36,500 --> 00:00:38,600
Like, there's not really much you can do about it, you know?

16
00:00:38,600 --> 00:00:44,500
Like, it was an earthquake, and people who woke up just thought that they were going to go about their lives,

17
00:00:44,500 --> 00:00:45,700
and, bleh.

18
00:00:45,700 --> 00:00:48,300
I am genuinely speechless and do not know what to say here,

19
00:00:48,300 --> 00:00:52,300
but I have included some links for if you want to donate, you can check them out in my newsletter.

20
00:00:52,300 --> 00:00:53,400
Um, let's...

21
00:00:53,400 --> 00:00:54,800
Um, alright, vibes.

22
00:00:54,800 --> 00:00:55,700
Vibes, everyone.

23
00:00:55,700 --> 00:00:56,900
Bring them up. Stretch them out.

24
00:00:56,900 --> 00:00:58,400
Alright, stretch them out.

25
00:00:58,400 --> 00:00:59,900
Okay? Stretch out those vibes.

26
00:00:59,900 --> 00:01:01,800
Let's talk about technology.

27
00:01:01,800 --> 00:01:02,800
Damn it!

28
00:01:02,800 --> 00:01:04,500
This one's... This one's a bummer, too!

29
00:01:04,500 --> 00:01:10,000
Uh, so it turns out that all those AIs that all these tech companies are erasing each other to have...

30
00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:12,100
Take a heavy toll on the environment.

31
00:01:12,100 --> 00:01:14,800
A report from the Associated Press has come out talking about this,

32
00:01:14,800 --> 00:01:18,700
and apparently between 2021 and 2022 alone,

33
00:01:18,700 --> 00:01:26,100
Microsoft's water consumption rose 34% to 1.7 billion gallons of water.

34
00:01:26,100 --> 00:01:28,900
For reference, that's more water than I drink in a day.

35
00:01:28,900 --> 00:01:35,400
This water is pumped into the facilities that are used to train these AIs and cool them off so they don't overheat,

36
00:01:35,400 --> 00:01:39,700
as they're processing millions upon millions of probably stolen documents.

37
00:01:39,700 --> 00:01:44,500
The water and energy requirements to train these AIs is astronomical,

38
00:01:44,500 --> 00:01:46,100
and tech companies are aware of this.

39
00:01:46,100 --> 00:01:47,100
They literally are like,

40
00:01:47,100 --> 00:01:49,300
Yeah, we know. We'll fix it later.

41
00:01:49,300 --> 00:01:55,400
The amount of money that they see floating around in the AI space right now is just too much for them to give a shit about the ramifications.

42
00:01:55,400 --> 00:01:59,800
And so they're racing as fast as they can to trying to get the biggest cut of that pie,

43
00:01:59,800 --> 00:02:00,300
and they're like,

44
00:02:00,300 --> 00:02:03,000
I mean, we're gonna look into how to optimize this.

45
00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:03,800
Trust us.

46
00:02:03,800 --> 00:02:06,800
Like, they're working on new chips and stuff that are going to improve efficiency,

47
00:02:06,800 --> 00:02:11,100
but just because they improve efficiency doesn't mean that they're going to reduce their footprint.

48
00:02:11,100 --> 00:02:14,800
You can improve efficiency and then just scale up.

49
00:02:14,800 --> 00:02:19,700
So Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, all of them, they're burning through water and electricity at an alarming rate.

50
00:02:19,700 --> 00:02:23,700
And in Microsoft's case, they're literally siphoning water from the Des Moines River,

51
00:02:23,700 --> 00:02:28,900
just diverting that water from farmland to AI land.

52
00:02:28,900 --> 00:02:34,200
Also, these AIs can remix copyrighted materials and hallucinate stuff and whatnot.

53
00:02:34,200 --> 00:02:40,200
But on that topic, Microsoft said that they'll take legal responsibility for if you get in hot water from like using their AIs

54
00:02:40,200 --> 00:02:43,600
and it pumps out copyrighted information or something.

55
00:02:43,600 --> 00:02:49,600
Like they straight up said that they're going to take legal responsibility for all the people who are getting caught using AIs to do stuff,

56
00:02:49,600 --> 00:02:54,100
because that's cheaper than revealing the sources that they stole all their information from.

57
00:02:54,100 --> 00:02:59,100
Anyway, speaking of tech companies doing sh- I'm so su- I warned you.

58
00:02:59,100 --> 00:03:00,600
I told you about this.

59
00:03:00,600 --> 00:03:03,100
More bummers, but it's more tech bummers.

60
00:03:03,100 --> 00:03:04,600
So it's not like huge bummers.

61
00:03:04,600 --> 00:03:06,300
And like this time you have control.

62
00:03:06,300 --> 00:03:09,700
If you use Google Chrome, your entire web browser is spyware.

63
00:03:09,700 --> 00:03:14,700
Google is rolling out a new quote-unquote feature called the Privacy Sandbox.

64
00:03:14,700 --> 00:03:15,900
Sounds real good.

65
00:03:15,900 --> 00:03:18,600
It's actually just a new way for Google to spy on you.

66
00:03:18,600 --> 00:03:19,900
You know cookies?

67
00:03:19,900 --> 00:03:23,000
That thing that you're constantly having to accept on websites?

68
00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:26,000
Well, those are the things that they use to track you around the internet, right?

69
00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:27,800
And those are the big bag boogeyman.

70
00:03:27,800 --> 00:03:31,200
And so here comes Big Daddy Google saying, oh, we're going to get rid of the cookies.

71
00:03:31,200 --> 00:03:34,700
Instead, use our Privacy Sandbox.

72
00:03:34,700 --> 00:03:42,600
To be clear, the Privacy Sandbox is a replacement for cookies that gives them more control and just furthers the whole surveillance capitalism thing.

73
00:03:42,600 --> 00:03:45,200
It's just now baked directly into your web browser.

74
00:03:45,200 --> 00:03:52,200
Privacy and security experts, as well as foundations like the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, have been pushing back against this for literal years.

75
00:03:52,200 --> 00:03:55,400
Google has changed the name on it multiple times to try to throw people off.

76
00:03:55,400 --> 00:03:59,400
It was originally called Flock, and then it was called the Topics API.

77
00:03:59,400 --> 00:04:01,200
And now it's the Privacy Sandbox.

78
00:04:01,200 --> 00:04:05,000
But look, it is genuinely not a big deal to change your web browser.

79
00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:06,400
Like, it's really just not.

80
00:04:06,400 --> 00:04:12,100
There exist other browsers that are a lot like Chrome and are 100% compatible with Chrome extensions.

81
00:04:12,100 --> 00:04:14,300
I would recommend Vivaldi or Opera.

82
00:04:14,300 --> 00:04:15,500
You could also try Brave.

83
00:04:15,500 --> 00:04:18,100
I don't highly recommend Brave, but it's good enough.

84
00:04:18,100 --> 00:04:22,100
They've got a lot of crypto ties and a history of some shitty stuff.

85
00:04:22,100 --> 00:04:24,700
But what I would ultimately recommend actually is Firefox.

86
00:04:24,700 --> 00:04:25,700
Firefox is good.

87
00:04:25,700 --> 00:04:26,700
It's fine.

88
00:04:26,700 --> 00:04:29,600
If you go into deep nerd stuff, there are many more options.

89
00:04:29,600 --> 00:04:32,900
But for the common consumer, I would recommend one of those.

90
00:04:32,900 --> 00:04:34,000
On this day.

91
00:04:37,300 --> 00:04:39,600
I think I'm going to skip the history fact on this one.

92
00:04:39,600 --> 00:04:40,300
Lightning round.

93
00:04:40,300 --> 00:04:45,300
The co-creator of PowerPoint has died, which is really weird to think about.

94
00:04:45,300 --> 00:04:53,500
Ron DeSantis is supporting the state surgeon general of Florida in saying that residents of Florida should not get vaccinated against COVID.

95
00:04:53,500 --> 00:04:55,300
Because that's a thing that happens now.

96
00:04:55,300 --> 00:04:58,700
Nancy Pelosi has announced that she's running for reelection.

97
00:04:58,700 --> 00:05:00,800
I do not know why.

98
00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:08,200
Hurricane Lee, while not a direct threat to land right now, is gaining strength and meteorologists are like, what's going on there?

99
00:05:08,200 --> 00:05:12,800
So if you live on the East Coast of the US, just keep an eye out for updates about Hurricane Lee.

100
00:05:12,800 --> 00:05:15,500
And finally for today, I'm just going to let me get hype.

101
00:05:15,500 --> 00:05:16,900
Let me get hype about one thing.

102
00:05:16,900 --> 00:05:19,000
I just want to be hype about City of Skylines 2.

103
00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:24,700
There's been a lot of good games this year and City of Skylines 2 is going to hopefully continue that trend.

104
00:05:24,700 --> 00:05:33,300
If you haven't played the first game, big city simulator and home of Lane Man and City of Skylines 2 just makes it bigger and city-er.

105
00:05:33,300 --> 00:05:34,800
And I'm very excited about that.

106
00:05:34,800 --> 00:05:39,400
I tried so hard to find like fun positive stuff this time.

107
00:05:39,400 --> 00:05:42,000
But I mean, next time, I promise.

108
00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:45,000
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Stuff Keeps Happening.

109
00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:53,800
Head to StuffKeepsHappening.online for sources, bonus content, and I can guarantee you it's not going to be AI generated bonus content.

110
00:05:53,800 --> 00:05:54,900
My name is Endeavorance.

111
00:05:54,900 --> 00:05:56,400
I'll be back on Wednesday.

112
00:05:56,400 --> 00:06:24,400
Take care and be well.