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Inside the 'Nightmare' Health Crisis of a Texas Bitcoin Town (time.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/technology

61 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/14304762

Over the course of several months in 2024, TIME spoke to more than 40 people in the Granbury area who reported a medical ailment that they believe is connected to the arrival of the Bitcoin mine: hypertension, heart palpitations, chest pain, vertigo, tinnitus, migraines, panic attacks. At least 10 people went to urgent care or the emergency room with these symptoms. The development of large-scale Bitcoin mines and data centers is quite new, and most of them are housed in extremely remote places. There have been no major medical studies on the impacts of living near one. But there is an increasing body of scientific studies linking prolonged exposure to noise pollution with cardiovascular damage.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

It could be but also datacenters are ridiculously loud and the sound is very high pitched. Would drive anyone nuts if they could hear it.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago (1 children)

On the inside, yeah maybe; but a properly designed data center shouldn’t be louder than any typical building on the outside. But hey, this is in a rural Texas town, so I won’t be surprised if the building is not up to code.

[–] Bricriu 11 points 5 months ago

"Properly" and "should" are doing a lot of work here.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Huh? That makes no sense. High pitched sounds are attenuated VERY easily and the only sound you could ever hear outside the dozen or so I've worked in/around you could only hear the HVAC gear outside. There's a reason why when you go see a concert outside there's a linear array of horns facing the audience while the subs are under the stage.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

I agree. So if people are hearing it and demonstrating it with decibel readers then there's probably little to no sound dampening.

[–] Fuzzypyro 6 points 5 months ago

They are deafening but usually they are very well insulated seeing as keeping servers cool is very expensive and extremely important.