Back on Christmas Eve of last year there were some reports that Elon Musk was in the process of shutting down Twitter’s Sacramento data center. In that article, a number of ex-Twitter employees wer…

Back on Christmas Eve of last year there were some reports that Elon Musk was in the process of shutting down Twitter’s Sacramento data center. In that article, a number of ex-Twitter employees wer…

  • dukk@programming.devEnglish
    6·
    1 year ago

    The CEO then told him that some of the floors could not handle more than 500 pounds of pressure, so rolling a 2,000-pound server would cause damage. Musk replied that the servers had four wheels, so the pressure at any one point was only 500 pounds. “The dude is not very good at math,” Musk told the musketeers.

    This guy is considered to be a genius? This guy is a fucking billionaire?

    I’m dead.

    • tatterdemalion@programming.devEnglish
      11·
      1 year ago

      As a non-physicist, what is the technical reason Elon was wrong? I assume that when the CEO said 500 pounds, they meant 500 pounds of force relative to some surface area of the floor? I’m guessing that surface area was significantly larger than one wheel on the rack, so the combined force of all 4 wheels was still well over the limit. Maybe someone who knows physics could explain better.

      • dukk@programming.devEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        I don’t know physics too well, but I’ll try to explain.

        First of all, look out for pressure. Slamming your hand on a desk(lots of surface area) may not hurt much, but doing the same thing on a thumb tack(very low surface area) will suck, even though it’s the same amount of force. Pressure is just force/area (I’m probably oversimplifying).

        So not only is there still 2000 pounds of force on the floor, it’s all concentrated on one(well, four) areas. Meaning that there’s a high chance the floor will break under those wheels. You’d actually have better luck just sliding the server across the floor.

        Elons logic is also just stupid here. An elevator can’t lift a 1,000 pound box, but can it lift four 250 pound boxes? No! Even a child could answer that. The fact that he just assumed that adding four wheels magically distributed the weight is stupid. What if you had five wheels? Eleven? It’s not rocket science (which is quite ironic, given the company he owns).

        So yeah. I’ve got no idea how he’s a billionaire. No fucking clue.