I like to think that the heating, much like their ideal govermental oversight, would have no regulation. I can almost hear the anguished cries of pool goers when a new model gets released and the temperature spikes.

Have some free garlic butter cube - and some congnac to cool down.. its on the house.. truffles?

Why, is there some hidden downside to living by a data center? Northern VA real estate is super pricey but they’ve got tons of them

why must we tear up undeveloped areas for data centers instead of backfilling vacant industrial areas? Humanity will never rest until all of the world is a brownfield

An outdoor heated pool that’s open all winter in a cold climate would be a destination worth a drive. A rather decadent use of energy otherwise, it’d be a good use for waste heat. There’s prior art in the Blue Lagoon in Iceland, a destination spa that uses water from a geothermal power plant.

As a kid I have memories of driving a bit out the edge of town to a big steel plant for almost exactly this reason, it's not totally insane.

There's plenty of free parking, free admission, giant pool with some small waterslides and stuff, a bunch of picnic tables and public barbecues, generally some nice greenery and trees for shade, ponds and fountains and stuff, a bandstand, etc.

It's not somewhere you'd pop over to for a "quick swim", but especially for lower income people it's a great place to have around as a "grab a pack of hotdogs and your swim trunks and make a day of it" sort of thing. As a kid we couldn't afford to, say, go to the actual waterslide park or anything so I have a lot of fond memories of visiting the steel plant.

I'm sure the construction and upkeep was less than a rounding error in terms of construction and upkeep costs for the plant itself.

The best waterparks in Tucson, AZ were on the outskirts of the city and worked great as a place to "travel" to for the parents as the kids would be wiped out on the way back. Breakers....Justins....how i miss those days of running around on hot pavement or gravel in bare feat only to also step on some cactus...

The last place I lived, the nearest data centre was a few hundred meters from the local swimming pool, in a business park. Most people would never have known the data centre was there.

Elsewhere, e.g. in London, Docklands is both full of high density data centres and high-end residential buildings and offices that could certain use the waste heat in winter at least.

Most of the data centres there just looks like office buildings on the outside, and most residents won't know they are there.

I was thinking more like if they externalized the heat release of the data centers enough they might even be able to heat the whole globe!

unfortunately, it's like saying all billionaires should let people swim in their pools when they're away.