Posts by Flocke Kroes

Elon Musk's X revenues in the UK crashed in 2023, down 66%

Musk sued some former advertisers because buying adverts on X is a legal requirement (now). Some 'returned' to the minimum extent required to avoid being near the top of Musk's hit list. It must have been tempting for those advertisers to promote products from Musk's competitors like BYD and HughesNet.

Windows isn't an OS, it's a bad habit that wants to become an addiction

Price of windows

The cost of dumping Windows is different for everyone*. Microsoft are experts at setting their price a little below what the vast majority think their costs is. There are things you can do to prevent that cost from getting worse. Microsoft Office prefers to save files in their proprietary format. One of their tricks for forcing an upgrade was changing that format: old versions could not read files created by new versions of Microsoft Office. Microsoft Office can be convinced to save files in Open Document Format by default. The rest of the world will immediately thank you because Libre Office works perfectly with ODF but only occasionally with Microsoft's (not)Open XML. WHEN you decide Windows has become too expensive do you want all your documents trapped in Microsoft's encodings like a disk encrypted by malware or do you want them available in Libre Office immediately?

* For me it was a few Windows only games that did not work with WINE last millennium.

DARPA to 'radically' rev up mathematics research. Yes, with AI

Re: errors in roughly half ...

I have confidence that with a few billion dollars AI will be able to increase that ratio. For complete confusion, the most appropriate peer to review AI generated mathematical papers would be another AI.

Elon Musk makes another cut – to his time at DOGE

Re: Investors are strange

Musk's principle skill is securities fraud. He avoided consequences once by promising to have adult supervision on the internet. The next time the prosecution spent most of their time convincing a jury he was guilty but not enough on why to award damages. His success depended on how little the capital markets understood him. That changed when the banks that paid for Twitter found they could not sell the debt. I agree a large proportion of Tesla shareholders are fans. If you are right about sales in China being essential then Tesla is toast. The market is price sensitive. Chinese companies make better electric vehicles cheaper. China's retaliation against Trump's tariffs will prioritise Tesla.

Re: The "waste and fraud" he claims to have stopped

Sutler and cronies had a monopoly on an effective cure before deploying his bio-weapon. Trump convinces people to not vaccinate their children but lacks a monopoly on snake oil. Trump is a flabby pale imitation. I would pick John Hurt to act the role of psychotic fascist over Trump any day.

Investors are strange

Musk threatens to return to Tesla and the share price rises?

Downward DOGE: Elon Musk keeps revising cost-trimming goals in a familiar pattern

Re: minimal viable product

Viable is not a requirement. Train wreck level disaster will be lauded in the non-free press as tax payers' money efficiently saved.

Re: Impeach him, imprison the other

As far as I know, voting machines were not rigged. Republicans used to rely mostly on gerrymandering. The technique for the last election was better voter suppression. I too expected the mid-terms to be cancelled, but in the name of government efficiency. Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat convinced me otherwise. There will be elections with all the old tricks plus arrests of popular opposition candidates. That provides a veneer of legitimacy and fragments support for a counter revolution.

There is a route for impeachment and conviction before the mid-terms. One of the few things Republicans and Democrats can agree on is that the federal government should allocate vast amounts of pork to boondoggles distributed over all the states. Trump's budget proposal targets that pork so there is a compelling bad reason for them to work together to get rid of him. On top of that there will need to be a pretext with popular support. Rampant inflation and a depression caused by tariffs should do the trick. A normal president would negotiate in the face of a serious risk of conviction. That is beyond Trump's ability. He would try to disappear anyone who does not back down when threatened. Vance might have the skill to negotiate but he could delay until after Trump is convicted.

I am not sure Trump wants a world war. He will divert attention with wars. Greenland, Canada and Mexico for a start. It won't end there so it should be easy for those countries to get allies. Getting those allies to provide anything beyond moral support will be more difficult. The US has plenty of weapons but is weak on trade. They will need rare earths from China to replace losses and probably depend on other nations to build more high tech weapon systems.

Re: whole system needs change

No. Absolutely not. The system has to improve.

Trump and Musk are both thoroughly in favour of corruption and covering it up. I suppose they would be somewhat against corruption committed by others - unless they get a cut. They lack the skills to identify corruption and even if by some coincidence they accuse someone who is actually guilty no-one with a clue would believe them because they focus their "investations" on anyone who makes a legitimate complaint against them.

Musk is world famously against (other peoples') free speech and Trump is working hard to destroy any independent free press. If you hear about any corruption it is despite their best efforts. AIPAC is an interesting choice of example. The Times of Israel and Al Jazeera agree that Trump thoroughly supports Israel.

Different news sources

We clearly read different sources of news. I have yet to see anything about Trump or Musk finding evidence of corruption by democrats. I do not mean an unsupported accusation or "evidence" without a clear chain of custody. You also cannot count anything voted for by (Republican majority) congress or senate.

HP settles fake discount lawsuit for just $4M. Don’t expect much of a payout

Limited time offer: price is about to drop.

Squid virus epidemic will increase paper clip prices this summer: Just like the previous twenty summers.

SMART hard disk long self test: The useful result is smartctl could not detect the disk. Pass means the disk is broken in a subtle way that you will not notice until you check reading your data back.

Whistleblower describes DOGE IT dept rampage at America's labor watchdog

Trump does not sell anything to Russia. He gives it away then asks: "Please Sir, do you want some more?"

Re: It may not be Russia.

English doesn't really have a wide selection of words for different types of coup. A self-coup is staying in power after being voted out and we saw an attempt at one 2021-01-06. It was too little, too late and hamstrung by lack of competent people. At about that time planning started on the next self-coup. This time the people knew how to plan and had four years to find and train people to do the work. Implementation started 2025-01-20 with 26 executive orders that day. Technically the next self-coup cannot start until 2029-01-20 when the next president should be sworn in. In reality, the coup is effectively complete and what we are seeing now is some extra layers of concrete being poured over the grave of US democracy.

Uncle Sam kills funding for CVE program. Yes, that CVE program

Hard core efficiency

All this vulnerability research, tracking and publication can be scrapped to save money. Just give the Russians the user name and password for an unlimited unmonitored account. Security becomes superfluous and a valid target for efficiency savings.

(/s doesn't seem like the right choice. I /seriously believe this is DOGE's reasoning.)

Self-driving car maker Musk's DOGE rocks up at self-driving car watchdog, cuts staff

Re: Muskrats

That usually triggers a response that muskrats do not deserve the negative association with Pedo Guy. About the only group who do not complain are Nazis.

The bit that caught my attention was the implication that DOGE did any cost trimming.

Not very efficient

Why has it taken DOGE over three months to start gutting the NTSB? Wasn't getting them off Tesla's back one of the big reasons for Musk buying the president? Musk should email all the DOGE employees and give them the choice volunteering to work 170 hours per week or indicate the desire to resign by not replying within 24 minutes.

DOGE dilettantes 'didn't test' Social Security fraud detection tool at appropriate scale

Re: Proably they think they can rebuild it using AI...

There are so many ways the US government can be made more efficient. Step 1: only people with an internet connection can apply for for social security. This can be simplified by restricting access to Starlink subscribers so location can be verified by satellite. The payment side can be simplified by requiring all recipients to receive their money via an x.com account.

Trump tariffs to make prices great – a gain

52% was not enough to get "Made in China" cheaper than "Made in USA". 104% was not enough either, but might be enough to grow the smuggling industry.

One fun part is when the US imports components from China, adds some value then exports. That segment of trade is going out the window faster than a Russian complaining about the war against Ukraine.

"USA's Brexit": So equivalent to disaster that can no longer be hidden behind COVID. Is that why it is time to Make Measles Great Again?

"It could work": Didn't last time and that was without President Farquaad.

The purpose of these tariffs was to force the rest of the world to bribe Trump to stop. Trump tariffs hit Americans harder than the countries he wants to extort so the rest of the world is switching their formerly US trade to other nations. Some nations are targeting their retaliation and Trump's billionaire supporters. Musk is already squealing like a stuck pig. With the currently crippled CDC and reduced trade barriers with Russia there is a good chance of a sudden death syndrome epidemic in the US.

Amazon's Project Kuiper satellites now boarding the rocket to relevance

Re: FCC

An understaffed FCC cannot issue or collect fines when satellites transmit without a license. The important step has already been taken: Musk and Bezos have both bribed Trump before and will have to do so regularly to continue. Having an FCC to get in the way was just 'inefficient'.

Musk's xAI swallows Musk's X in ego-friendly, all-stock deal

We have always been at war with Eastasia

A few years ago Musk said that Twitter was not worth the price he committed to pay because it was infested with bots. Now he is making Twitter a subsidiary of a company whose purported main asset is a bot.

Re: Really??

If the future cannot be brighter then it could possibly stay the same or will more likely go darker. First believable statement Yaccarino has made about X.

Boeing's Starliner may fly again, pending fixes to literally everything

Re: Whether or not astronauts will be aboard has not been decided yet

What is supposed to happen is NASA gathers enough evidence to calculate the probability for loss of crew. If it is better than 1 in 270, crew otherwise no crew. Last year I had confidence in their abilty to do that. With Musk's efficient budget that confidence has gone.

NASA rewrites Moon mission goals in quiet DEI retreat

Re: Insane

2020-01-06 was too little, too late and 'organised' by an incompetent.

That fact that it came close to working incentivised competent people to plan something better. They spent four years planning and had people ready and waiting to go on inauguration day. The key objectives of version 2 have already been achieved. There might still be elections just for show. If there are there will only be one candidate who can win.

Tesla Cybertruck recall #8: Exterior trim peels itself off, again

Re: Is it not now a federal offence?

You ask, Trump's Attorney General Pam Bondi answers.

(Pam first caught my attention by taking a bribe to not prosecute Trump for fraud. According to Trump and Bondi, giving and receiving bribes is perfectly acceptable so we will just has to judge her character by the long list of other awful things she has done.)

Political poker? Tariff hunger games? Trump creates havoc for PC industry

Re: Silver linings.

The wealthy are easy. A few of them fall out of high windows. Trump inherits their money and the rest fall into line.

The crazies are easy. Blame the loudest critic.

Crew-9 splashes down while NASA floats along with Trump and Musk nonsense

Re: Every one that I've heard today called it "the Gulf" or "the Gulf of Mexico"

I am surprised it is not the Gulf of Trump. I am all for naming things after the narcissists responsible. How about Trump pox or Musk flu?

As Elon Musk makes thousands of federal workers jobless, tycoon pushes for $56B Tesla pay deal

Re: $3B so far

The good news is it is a firm fixed price contract with only $1B to $1.4B left. It does not matter how many Starships explode, tax payers pay the same and Musk still has to actually launch whatever number of the tankers are required.

Re: To be fair ...

Tesla employed about 130,000 people with an average pay of $150,000. That makes 19.5B/year. Fire all employees 2.9 times each or fire the one man personally responsible for tanking sales?

The federal government is a bit bigger. Taking out a quarter of them would match Musk's pay. The effect of those firings is more complicated to assess. For example, killing USAID also takes out its budget - a healthy chunk of which used to go on buying food from US farms. Tax fraud investigators are very revenue positive...

CISA pen-tester says 100-strong red team binned after DOGE canceled contract

Re: Do you really need them?

They use CC so the default "reply to all" copies replies to the required recipients.

Re: Stolen Elections

This is efficiency working as planned. King Donnald the First does not need any more elections. Election security is clear a waste of money. Likewise what is the point of CISA if there are no more schools, emergency services or local government?

Is NASA's science budget heading for a black hole?

Re: All part of the plan

There are different plans. Trump's plan is to replace the top level of military officers with toadies and have the armed forces shoot anyone who objects. Musk's plan is to have complete control of money and payments systems. Soldiers will have to choose between obeying orders and getting paid. Which ever way that turns out it will not involve SpaceX getting payed for government contracts. No taxes, no government so no contracts. Instead all payments will go through X. Americans' bank balances will be what Musk decides they can keep and he will take the rest.

Athena Moon lander officially FOADs – falls over and dies – in crater

Take a look at the Alpaca lander which has a different set of compromises. It starts long and thin to fit in a fairing for launch. When it separates from the launch veheicle it moves sideways so it is short and wide. Just before landing on the Moon it drops the outer pair of tanks. After landing it extends solar panels vertically to catch some sun light at the south pole.

Alpaca beats Athena for stability at the cost of needing moving parts to get power. This is less of a risk for Alpaca because if the solar panels get stuck someone can get out and push.

Starship HLS uses the weeble strategy. Tons of take-off propellant settle to the bottom of the tanks shortly before the landing burn.

The intuitive design changes for Athena V2 are to replace the payloads with take-off propellant, land near an inhabited Moon base and move the sun underneath the south pole.

SpaceX's 'Days Since Starship Exploded' counter made it to 48. It's back to zero again now

Re: Bodge job

Yes, this was a bodge. The long term fix is to switch to Raptor 3 which has fewer places to leak. Raptor 3 is not ready and SpaceX really wants make progress on the heat shield in the mean time. Re-routing a bunch of aircraft around falling debris does not cost SpaceX money so IFT8 makes a kind* of sense.

* selfish, irresponsible, ...

Re: "Blowing up Starships can’t be cheap."

Blowing up Starships is relatively cheap. This one was intended to blow up. The problem for SpaceX is it blew up before testing the heat shield. Starship HLS is a tiny firm fixed price contract compared to the money lost to Musk's rapid fire government policy.

Please fasten your seatbelts. A third of US air traffic control systems are 'unsustainable'

Re: I have an easy solution...

Of course counting crashes is a waste of money. It is not like those figures will ever be avialable to the public. With a little more DOGE efficiency the GAO will never publish a report like this again.

Re: "Eminense grease"???

Éminence grise.

SpaceX loses a Falcon 9 booster and scrubs a Starship

Re: X-Money

Give it a few months and there will be an executive order requiring all payments to be made through Xitler.

Re: plutocracy

The new plan is far more efficient: eliminate government. No more funds wasted on campaigns, elections, bribes or taxes.

Re: However ...

SpaceX and Tesla usually perform better with Musk active elsewhere. Musk thinks rockets are hard and listens so does minimal damage there. He thinks cars are easy so Tesla went through production hell because Musk insisted on robots everywhere even though for some tasks humans are cheaper. At the start of COVID Telsa and government employees worked hard to quickly set up a safe working environment for production could re-start. Musk helped by threatening to sue. The government employees stopped useful work and instead consulted with lawyers to ensure they had all the potentially required evidence ready to file. Cyber truck.

This time it is a little different. Musk used SpaceX, Tesla and Twitter as a hatching ground for DOGE employees. It is possible some of them were doing something useful before they moved. Musk's rampage through government has been destructive enough to have consequences back at SpaceX. There used to be a genuine pretense that launch licenses were required. Now there is less incentive to work through safety checks: the FAA does not have the resources to check as thoroughly as they did before. No point worrying if they are either on the way to being a rubber stamp agency or completely toothless when SpaceX launches without a license. Over the last few months there has been a dramatic loss of interest among space enthusiasts. The same may well be true of SpaceX employees. This has a great opportunity for RocketLab, Stoke, Firefly and European rocket builders to pick up experienced staff.

TSMC promises $100B US expansion that Trump hails without clarifying chip tariff threat

Trump is not planning to be president for life because there will not be a government to be president of. He is aiming for king, backed by personally loyal senior military officers. That loyalty will be tested because Musk controls the treasury (soon to be replaced by the Bank of X). The senior staff will be loyal but drop down a rank or two and loyalty will follow the money.

SpaceX receives FAA blessing for another Starship test

The delay in destroying the FAA does not depend on whether or not they issue SpaceX a license. SpaceX have already launched three times without a valid license. They got one slapped wrist for SN8 and a fine that will never be collected for the two Falcon launches. Next time I doubt there will be anyone to left issue a fine.

Musk has adopted Curtis Yarvin's plan for the future. There will be no more government, only corporations with unlimited power. Any functions of government that matter to corporations will be handled by corporations directly. Corporations currently benefit from government air traffic control. The last of the FAA will be de-funded when corporations say they can do business perfectly well without them.

The IFT8 license might possibly be legit because it makes no difference to Musk one way or the other. Having it ready at this time may well have caused delays to licenses for ULA, RocketLab, Stoke, Firefly, etc because of where limited resources are deployed.

DARPA seeks ideas for 'large bio-mechanical space structures'

Re: Ha s someone at DARPA been watching "The Expanse"

Apparently they haven't all been fired yet.

Feds: Army soldier suspected of AT&T heist Googled ‘can hacking be treason,’ ‘defecting to Russia’

After exfiltrating President Krasnov's phone logs sane people would stay well clear of Russia.

Trump tariffs forcing rethink of PC purchases stateside

Re: Price of eggs

Some of that price comes from bird flu. The good news is that the US's new efficient government will soon not report any cases of bird flu. With that excuse dealt with the Trump regime will have to look elsewhere. Perhaps they will fire all chickens still in the probationary period of their employment. They will get rid of any chickens hired under DEI policies. LGBTQ will be sent to compulsory conversion therapy and all brown chickens will be deported.

FAA confirms it's testing Starlink, maybe for tasks Elon says Verizon is doing badly

Re: remove most regualtion

Musk does not need to bother. SpaceX has launched three times without a license. In 2020 the FAA phoned SpaceX and said "you do not have a license to launch SN8 today. They could not get through to anyone with the authority to scrub the launch. The punishment was that SpaceX were required to hire someone the FAA could contact with the authority to scrub a launch. For the next two times the FAA issued a fine which SpaceX disputed (with at least one blatant lie). If the fine has not already been cancelled then Musk can say he paid the fine and no-one can prove otherwise because he back-doored the treasury. In future there will be no-one left at the FAA to issue a fine.

Satya Nadella says AI is yet to find a killer app that matches the combined impact of email and Excel

AI is yet to find a killer app that matches the combined impact of email and Excel

Email has given us Reply to all, To or CC instead of BCC and simply sending an email to the wrong person. A top ten list of excel disasters misses out that 20% of genetics papers have errors introduced by Excel autocorrupt.

I am sure AI is yet to find a killer but is is doing well at false accusations. Given a bit more time AI should be able to generate spectacular news headlines, just like email and Excel.

SpaceX has an explanation for the Falcon 9 bits that hit Poland

Re: no stall / delays

SpaceX do the investigation and decide what to do to fix things. FAA read the report, decide if SpaceX identified the cause, decide if SpaceX picked the right remedial actions and check those actions have been implemented. That section will be delayed by lack of staff so there will be delays to getting a new launch license. SpaceX does not need launch licenses any more. They have launched twice without one. They got a wrist slap the first time and have got the fine for the second one cancelled.

Why clean up

1) Because SpaceX cleaning up their own litter is the right thing to do.

(when you have stopped laughing)

2) The bits I have seen reach the ground are smashed composite over-wrapped pressure vessels. The handling precautions for carbon fiber suggest that staying away and leaving the clean up to someone who knows what they are doing is a good idea.

3) The back end of the engine is made of hafnium and might reach the ground. Hafnium is expensive.

4) Many bits of rockets are proprietary or covered by ITAR. It is possible SpaceX could lose competitive advantage if an important piece came down intact. It used to be remotely possible for SpaceX to get into trouble for ITAR violations.

The only toxic material I can think of is the TEA/TEB starter fluid for Merlin engines. These both score 3/4:"extreme danger" on the health hazard corner of their NFPA 704 diamonds. The good news is these should have been vented in space during passivation. If that failed they both score 4/4:"Below 25°C" for fire hazard and 3or4/4: (Heat+shock) may detonate for reactivity. These chemicals will not survive re-entry.

No reason to expect a spike in popcorn shares

In future NTSB accident reports and investigations will be published on X. SpaceX could wipe out a US town, if there is anything left of the NTSB they could report the accident on X. X might decide that only a few select individuals see the report.