this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
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[–] eager_eagle 305 points 5 months ago (6 children)

The power of 21000 homes for advertising.

What's most impressive is that it is even legal.

[–] [email protected] 105 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] CosmoNova 40 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Is it? Last I‘ve heard it was bleeding money.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

Makes sense. Gimmicks are gimmicks.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Probably because they're not doing much with it. It's $100/person to see the basic "Planet Earth" showing and almost $200 to see The Grateful Dead show. Previously they showed a Phish show. That's it for options, and none of it sounds really appealing to me.

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[–] blakemiller 2 points 5 months ago

This way some faulty internet lore. The money losses were from a fluke of timing the opening date of operations versus when quarterly finances were reported. Big startup costs meant the first numbers looked silly until they had enough events to get steady profits. They’re doing fine now.

Internet should’ve known better too. It’s hard to lose in Vegas and the investors obviously knew what they were doing. The power costs are shocking for sure though. Yikes!

[–] [email protected] 40 points 5 months ago (5 children)

I love this kind of shit. Building things for the sake of it is worth it. Not only as just expression, which may be hubris but it's still expression. Also entertainment, inspiration, pushing the art of engineering, and just giving people something to do, and all the good that comes with that like personal and trade growth.

A purely utilitarian life is a life only spent on survival. Not a life I want to live.

[–] assassinatedbyCIA 84 points 5 months ago (3 children)

We can do that, but first let’s make sure everyone on the planet has clean water first.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago (7 children)

The money spent on this would not have been spent on giving clean water to people thousands of miles away

[–] [email protected] 35 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Does this really make it any less worthy of criticism, though...?

[–] hoch 3 points 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

Is that where guillotines come in?

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

Maybe it would’ve if governments taxed them properly and spent that money to save the planet

[–] assassinatedbyCIA 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Doesn’t flint still not have clean water?

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[–] danc4498 6 points 5 months ago

This is the equivalent of saying “Eat all your dinner cause there’s starving children in Africa”.

Sure, this sounds nice, but this logic falls apart the instant you start thinking about it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You sound like the people criticising NASA for spending money on science. "Who do X when Y is still an issue?"

I doubt you make that kind of prioritization with your own money.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I understand that perspective, but does it really have to be advertising?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

I'd prefer if it weren't. Though that's not the only use for this thing.

[–] Cosmicomical 12 points 5 months ago (2 children)

This isn't pushing any boundaries, though. This is off the shelf technology. Anybody can do something big by throwing a shit ton of money at it. It would be pushing boundaries of tech or art if it was for instance super power efficient, or mind bending in any way. This is a fucking sphere, it's the simplest shape and a rip off of the pyramids but less original and not even comparable in terms of durability.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

It is absolutely pushing boundaries to be driving this many pixels at a frame rate that doesn't take minutes to refresh. I build a lot of projects with addressable LEDs and the typical hobbyist stuff chokes out when you start trying to control more than a thousand or so. This thing has 256 million pixels inside and 1.2 million outside.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Could it not be argued that building this thing now gives people a chance at looking at the power draw and attempting to make it super efficient? Like now people have a tool to test things on.

[–] danc4498 3 points 5 months ago

They did mention that they are working on making 70% of this powered by solar panels. Maybe this will push forward solar technology in some way.

[–] JJROKCZ 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Sure but we’re burning tons of coal to have this thing advertise minion movies, not anything artistic or worthwhile.

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