New York Times Takes Aim At Data Center

Nerval's Lobster writes "The New York Times' latest expose takes on data centers, but the Gray Lady's investigation has prompted its own criticism. While the paper correctly noted that there's a backend cost attached to the storage of photos, cat videos, and old shopping lists, many critics are taking issue with how the Times addresses the issue of those data centers' power consumption. While the Times' contention that the majority of data-center operators prefer secrecy is probably accurate, this industry is public enough that the paper's approach to the article exposes a few puzzling choices. Here are five trouble areas."

mainstream tech reporting is poor...

[MickyTheIdiot]

You can't take anything a news source like NYT, CNN, or any of groups take seriously.

Reporting about everything is bad these days, but it is especially true in tech. Reporters are some of the most arrogant people on the planet and they are *sure* that they know more than the techs do. They're to arrogant to let someone with real knowledge look over their work and say whether it makes any sense.

The fact that they would get a good percentage of it wrong comes to no surprise. CNN, for instance, has mentioned Linux on air maybe two times in the last decade. Meanwhile, they can't go two minutes without mentioning Apple.

Then there was the Fox news story last week that has the phrase "so-called patch" in it. Yeah... patches are so new and mysterious.

Re:mainstream tech reporting is poor...

[DJ Jones]

Actually, if you read the original NYT article and Mark Hachman's "critique" of it, you'll find that the NYT article technically didn't contain any inaccuracies. Hachman points out (rather bitterly) that the article doesn't talk about recent improvements in PUE, visualization, and other green movements in data center design. While I agree, the article left out some "techy" points, none of this changes the fact that data centers consume enormous amounts of energy whether you have a good PUE or not and that is the point of the article. The more data you store, the more energy you consume and it's on an enormous scale at this point and growing every day. Whether your PUE is 1 or 5, data costs energy and money and that's what the article is about.

And please, do not compare Fox News with an organization that still has journalistic integrity like the New York Times.