Justus Zimmerman

"Never forget that Justus is what love looks like in public." -Cornel West. CEO @AustinSymphony. Opinions my own, retweets are others’.

[Russ Greene @GreenPlusAnE]

"What do I owe society?", asked the guy in the green.

[David Goldblatt @davidtgoldblatt]

It's crazy that there's a tool out there that's become vital to they way I do my job, parent my kids, and make major life decisions; and yet we barely spend more on it than AI

[Craig Caplan @CraigCaplan]

Bipartisan Senators Shaheen (D-NH), Collins (R-ME), Blumenthal (D-CT), Murkowski (R-AK), Wyden (D-OR), Tillis (R-NC) & Curtis (R-UT) today questioned the legality of Trump’s diesel deal with Russia that they say may violate a 2022 law signed by President Biden that statutorily banned Russian oil imports unless certain conditions were met: “Congress explicitly banned Russian energy imports in 2022 to prevent American dollars from financing Putin’s brutal war against Ukraine. Congress was clear: the U.S. should not import oil from Russia until it ends its aggression against Ukraine and ceases threats against our NATO Allies.”

[Justus Zimmerman @ASocialJustus]

Missed opportunities are so painful.

https://t.co/U3GKWKkiIo

[Justus Zimmerman @ASocialJustus]

@lavitalenta

[𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀 @Old_But_Gold50s]

A little Bach accompanied by the sound of rain. For anyone who needs a beautiful, peaceful moment today. 🎻🌧️

[Jessica Riedl 🧀 🇺🇦 @JessicaBRiedl]

The party that won in 2024 promising lower prices and no wars is now telling voters to quit whining about the higher prices caused by their wars.

Good luck with that.

[Justus Zimmerman @ASocialJustus]

Hitting my benchmarks pretty consistently.

[𝙷𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚖𝚊𝚗 @shagbark_hick]

This updated version of the ancient provberb is quite useful. Prophetic, really.

[Justus Zimmerman @ASocialJustus]

Just once I want Claude to come back with “Damn. You’re good.”

[Paul Graham @paulg]

If the Chinese government were sufficiently organized, they'd be funding opposition to data centers in the US. But the Chinese government is very organized. So they presumably already are.

[Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil]

This is a fun exercise:

How large a data center would your town need to replace your property taxes?

In 2023, U.S. local governments collected $1,965 per resident in property taxes, which includes municipalities, counties, school districts, and other local taxing jurisdictions.

So, for a 20,000-person town, that nets out to $39.3 million in annual revenue. Let's be conservative and call it $40m. We'll also combine the city, school, and county so we make the case even fairer to people who are data center-skeptical (if we didn't, this would mean cutting down the number to ~$15m on average).

Commercial effective property tax rates in major U.S. cities are usually in the range of 1-3%, so split the difference and call it 2%. That means our target annual property tax being $40m would require a taxable value of $2b.

Current U.S. hyperscale DC construction runs ~$9.5-$13/W of critical IT capacity before considering any other costs, and if the facilities are liquid-cooled as most of the more recent ones are, then they run ~7-10% higher on average. Luckily, Turner & Townsend have provided a model that includes shell/core, M&E, equipment, contractor costs, and everything else we need to consider, simplifying things for us.

With $10-$12/MW as approximate building/infra investment, $2b/$10m per MW = 200 MW, so if all construction value was taxable, a ~160-200MW DC campus would be sufficient to generate a ~$40m/yr bounty. It would do this while increasing electricity prices by ~5-10% on average (I have a post prepared on this; coming soon, just waiting on a final outside review), so well worth it, and also something the DC itself could offer to handle.

Municipal-only, the DC could be much smaller: $750m/$10-$12/MW is ~60-75 MW, with basically no effect on electricity prices on average.

In short, being generous, you could drop your property taxes entirely with a data center that doesn't even hit the hyperscale threshold of 250MW. And if we count the taxes done on business personal property in some jurisdictions, then this scales even better for local residents, because the revenue generated to the municipality is even greater per MW.

Sources:

https://t.co/cqVKNPRc7C

https://t.co/B8JIQvq8cF

https://t.co/I1YBhgS7Ue

https://t.co/kFq1N4MIY8

https://t.co/bheIpXssgz

[回 @3_under_scores_]

New academic study: Inclusionary zoning costs renters $800k per "affordable" unit created. This is more than the per unit cost for the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program. While LIHTC which is largely funded by the rich via income taxes, IZOs are regressive & funded by renters.

[Alec Stapp @AlecStapp]

Incoming miracle:

We are about to have mRNA cancer vaccines.

No thanks to those have demonized this technology and tried to smother it.

[Justus Zimmerman @ASocialJustus]

“ You don’t get rich being an Attorney General in a Southern state. At least, you aren’t supposed to.”

-All the Presidents Men

[Justus Zimmerman @ASocialJustus]

The track record is sort of hard to argue with.

[Rachel Bitecofer 🗽🦆 @RachelBitecofer]

Ossoff: They made you pay more for everything, and took us to war on lies. They spent most of last year trying to cover up for the world's most famous pedophile while the crook President raked in billions.

[Boyan Slat @BoyanSlat]

Did you know that cardiovascular deaths in the USA are down by 75% since the 1950s?

That CPR didn’t even exist a few decades ago?

That 5-year survival rates for childhood leukemia have increased from 15% to 85% since the 70s?

That a twice-a-year injection can now prevent HIV infection by almost 100%?

Problems are there to be solved. 
Innovation is amazing. 
Humans are amazing.

Loved this article by @salonium

[Justus Zimmerman @ASocialJustus]

My name is Inigo Manchego. I cut the cheese: prepare to die.

[Justus Zimmerman @ASocialJustus]

Wrestling with a Bryan Stevenson bastardization: “Each of us is smarter than the stupidest thing we’ve ever said.”

[YIMBYLAND @YIMBYLAND]

Here is your reminder that you can buy a pack of 160 earbuds for $50 and you can literally just hand them out to people and politely ask that they stop disturbing the public space.

[Natural Philosophy @Naturalphilosy]

“Practice any art… no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow.”

- McKellen reciting Vonnegut

[Alex Tabarrok @ATabarrok]

It's legit crazy that we are going to get autonomous cars before we get autonomous subways and trains. #UnionPower