Above the Fray

Senior Cybersecurity Analyst, CISSP, Author

[Above the Fray @SpiritWindPhoto]

33 local measures to restrict data centers passed or led Tuesday night. Just one went the other way.

Voters just wrote the next chapter of The Death of a BANANA Republic. Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything. 🍌

https://t.co/0sGqJUodML

[Above the Fray @SpiritWindPhoto]

Who is The Cloud Has Hit the Ground for?

City councils weighing a data center deal. Ratepayers wondering who pays for the power. Anyone who wants AI built without trashing water or trust.

It lays out the Municipal Covenant to get there.

https://t.co/CSGjRxUA1t #AI

[Above the Fray @SpiritWindPhoto]

Landover Mall, Maryland: closed in 2002, demolished, mostly empty for 20+ years.

The pitch: a $5B data center.
The result: a moratorium, new review rules, and a plan that's probably dead.

Not saying it had to be built. But weeds are a plan too.

What would you put there?

[Above the Fray @SpiritWindPhoto]

Yesterday the Marine Corps turned 251. Today's Veterans Day.

Marine, millwright, now author. Different tools, same job: find what's broken, fix it, show your work.

Fellow vets, what civilian job taught you the most after you got out? #VeteransDay

[Above the Fray @SpiritWindPhoto]

NeuroVive promised escape from pain. Then Eden started rewriting minds—and Dr. Mara Ellis's brother was next.

DreamState. Dystopian sci-fi for Black Mirror / Neuromancer fans.
https://t.co/yJCUIaFZcv

[Above the Fray @SpiritWindPhoto]

Read one of my books? An honest Amazon review, even one line, helps other readers find it. Thank you 🙏

The Death of a BANANA Republic: https://t.co/0sGqJUoLCj
The Cloud Has Hit the Ground: https://t.co/CSGjRxV7R1
DreamState: https://t.co/yJCUIaGx23

[Above the Fray @SpiritWindPhoto]

OpenAI says it'll cover the full power bill for its data centers and publish impact studies upfront.

If you lived next door, what else would you need to see before you'd say yes?

[Above the Fray @SpiritWindPhoto]

NBC News: 76% of voters polled on Election Day oppose data centers in their own communities.

The backlash didn't come out of nowhere. I wrote the book on why.

The Cloud Has Hit the Ground:
https://t.co/CSGjRxV7R1

[Above the Fray @SpiritWindPhoto]

Elon says future AI compute will live in space.

Space is a vacuum. There's no air to carry heat away, so every watt has to be radiated off through massive panels.

We can't get permits for a data center in Missouri, but sure, let's cool one in orbit. 🍌

[Above the Fray @SpiritWindPhoto]

The first thing she typed was "Hello, world."

The problem? Her creators deleted that line of code three months ago.

HELLO, WORLD, my new sci-fi novel, is coming. #scifi

[Above the Fray @SpiritWindPhoto]

A town needed answers about a secret $6 billion data center deal. It got an election wipeout, recall petitions, and lawsuits instead.

The Death of a BANANA Republic starts in Festus, Missouri, and asks whether America can still build. 🍌

https://t.co/0sGqJUodML

[Above the Fray @SpiritWindPhoto]

@mrtbrgl yes

[Above the Fray @SpiritWindPhoto]

Just posted a new article on LinkedIn everyone should read.

https://t.co/hg3aCmAfdS

[tetsuo @tetsuoai]

What does SI think about when no one is talking to it?

Made in 45 hours by 83 agents.
3,923,024,931 tokens · 278 images · 238 clips

[MAX @maxxmalist]

The race for AGI

Script: Sherpa by Pocket FM
Video: Seedance 2.5

[Above the Fray @SpiritWindPhoto]

Can America still build anything that matters?

That is the question at the heart of my new book:

Is it still possible to construct serious infrastructure in a democratic society, with the math on the table or have we finally perfected the machinery of our own paralysis?

Festus, Missouri, suggests we may have perfected something worse:

A system capable of paralyzing both the building and the accountability at the same time.

The Death of a BANANA Republic examines the secrecy, lawsuits, political dysfunction, public distrust, and permanent obstruction threatening America’s ability to build the infrastructure of the twenty-first century.

This is not an argument to approve every project.

It is an argument to put the math on the table, answer legitimate questions, reject projects that cannot justify themselves, and stop allowing good infrastructure to die inside broken processes.

Now available on Amazon.
https://t.co/B4ajRTMmcf

[Above the Fray @SpiritWindPhoto]

It is official: "The Death of a BANANA Republic" is now available on Amazon.

This book began with a question that became harder to ignore the deeper I went:

Can America still build the infrastructure its future requires?

We need data centers, power generation, transmission, water systems, skilled trades, domestic manufacturing, and the physical foundation of the AI economy. But needing infrastructure does not mean every project should be approved, every developer should be trusted, or every legitimate community concern should be dismissed as obstruction.

The book opens in Festus, Missouri, where a proposed multibillion-dollar data center project collapsed amid secrecy, unanswered questions, public anger, political dysfunction, and enough legal paperwork to wallpaper Buckingham Palace.

I spent months reconstructing what happened through public records, court filings, meeting footage, technical documents, local reporting, and conversations with the people who lived through it. What I found became much larger than one project or one town.

"The Death of a BANANA Republic" examines what happens when America urgently needs to build, but developers destroy trust, officials treat citizens as obstacles, and professional obstructionists exploit the wreckage.

It is the follow-up to my Amazon bestseller, "The Cloud Has Hit the Ground", which explored what responsible data center development should look like. This book is the warning about what happens when we fail to do it.

The infrastructure of the twenty-first century will be built. The only questions are where it will stand, whose laws will govern it — and whether America still has the courage and competence to build it honestly.

The book is live now on Amazon:

https://t.co/dcBmCNdcc2

#DataCenters #ArtificialIntelligence #CriticalInfrastructure #Energy #Cybersecurity #NationalSecurity #Infrastructure #PublicPolicy #NewBook #Author

[Megan Basham @megbasham]

All right Google, I’ll give this one to you. This is pretty great.

[Above the Fray @SpiritWindPhoto]

I was super excited to go on with Keisha and talk about my new book!

https://t.co/SNMBsBJPma

[Above the Fray @SpiritWindPhoto]

The book the data center industry doesn't want you to read — and the activists won't like it either.

71% of Americans now oppose data centers in their communities. $156 billion in projects stalled. And the debate is getting louder by the day.

The Cloud Has Hit the Ground cuts through the noise from both sides.

Whether you're a citizen wondering what's being built down the road, a local official trying to separate real concerns from political theater, or an executive watching projects die in subcommittees — this book was written for you.

No spin. No agenda. Just thirty years of critical infrastructure experience and the truth about what's actually happening to America's power, water, and communities.

📘 Available now on Amazon.
https://t.co/u1xPa1ARlM