Posts by MachDiamond

PayPal decides fining people $2,500 for 'misinformation' wasn't a great idea

Re: Under the Guise of "For the Good of the People"

"All the arguments suggesting/demanding various falsehood-promoting organizations (anti-vaxxers"

After one of the makers wanted to legally seal their testing results for 50 years via court order, questions should be asked. Are vaccines safe? Are ALL vaccines being made for Covid safe? Are ALL Covid vaccines safe for all people? If there are even some anecdotal reports of people with similar health backgrounds as you having issues after receiving a shot, maybe it's not a bad idea to hold off.

Re: Tech firms are trying to make their own laws

"So any photograph, email, manuscript, poem, fiction etc. was immediately copyright someone else. Caused a bit of a stir at the time, and was subsequently removed."

That's pretty much what the social media sites do. They can't claim the Copyright since that requires specific forms and signatures, but instead, they claim unlimited rights to the material except for exclusivity. If you post something on your InstaPintaTwitFace account, you grant them an unlimited and perpetual license to use and resell same with no credit or payment to you. But, you still hold the Copyright so it's all ok. If you need something stronger than Ambien, spend an evening trying to read the text you scrolled through to get to the "I accept" button. You can also search for the words "perpetual", "Worldwide", "Royalty" and "license". The word after "royalty" will be "free".

Re: Probably was a mistake

"and the recipient just blindly copies and pastes the entire thing into the website back end."

That's a big flashing warning sign that there are big very fundamental problems if that's the case. Terms and Conditions statements from a large company such as PayPal are a major process. It's not some marketing fluff being added to a page 4 layers down than only needs a department head sign off to go live. T&C's are a legal statement and part of the contract the company has with customers and users. They aren't something a summer intern is going to be messing with.

Re: Think who this is targeting

"I think this was Paypal's way of trying to prevent sites and organisations using the service to receive payments and raise funds, while promoting causes with which Paypal disagrees."

You are contradicting yourself. If their intended target wasn't both sides of the transactions, they sure didn't write the penalty clause narrow enough to miss the bystanders. If they don't like what a merchant is selling or a group is collecting for, they aren't going to be much for the people sending them money. I'm not going to risk my money using a payment service that might suddenly lock my account and bill me a penalty when I purchase something that's completely legal to own and trade. Something that I might not realize they don't like. One week they could find pet rocks racist and there would go my rent money (metaphorically since I own my home).

"which makes it basically impossible for some even legit businesses (like porn producers) to find a non-sketchy payment processor to do business with."

I smell a business opportunity, but I have zero knowledge of the banking business. I still think that PornHub could do well splitting off a division that hosts conservative political videos. They are already used to lots of controversy and have legal staff that know publishing rights back to front. They could even do their own version of Patreon. I haven't heard that Patreon is "woke", but there's money in handling payments for content producers so what the heck.

Re: re: a main stream banking/financial organisation

"That $2500 was not in the terms of business or the T&Cs when most people signed up. It was added a few weeks ago."

I expect there is a clause somewhere in the T&C's about updating and changing the terms from time to time that gives them an out. There has to be a notification which is often around 30 days unless laws demand 60.

I shut my PayPal account since I didn't use anymore after eBay went to their own payment scheme and even though they backpedaled, these sorts of things usually will come around again in a more sneaky manner until somebody fails to notice they've snuck it through. I'll be having a look as some other services so I can accept debit/credit cards again. Checks and cash are preferred, but some customers would rather pay with plastic these days. Zelle is completely out of the question. That service is riddled with holes and the banks have set it up so they take less than zero responsibility for anything going amiss. I'd rather wait a couple of days to get a check in the mail than to have my whole business checking account cleared out.

Apple remembers it makes iPads, updates fondleslabs

The Walled Garden still makes me want something else.

Cops swoop after crooks use wireless keyfob hack to steal cars

Re: Trunk monkey

"There's no substitute for a trunk monkey!"

That one and the two teenagers at lookout point are my favorites.

Re: Progress of car security

"That said, I suspect most steering locks aren't actually strong enough not to be breakable by applying force to the steering wheel."

Most are. They are at least strong enough that the steering wheel would break before the lock did.

Re: Progress of car security

"I once spoiled an Austin Ambassador with a Ferrari washer"

Samcrac has found that many Ferrari parts are rebadged and far less expensive components from other cars. Just take off the back cover, paint it red and put on a Ferrari parts sticker and you are set.

Re: Progress of car security

"None of my keys worked, but I had the back window out in about five minutes"

That was likely the cheapest way to go about it. Fitting the window back in is a quick job for a glass shop. Breaking something would have been far more expensive even if you didn't intend to break the thing. Some girls I knew locked their keys in their car and called me to help since they didn't have the money to call a tow truck. In the process, I pushed the clip off of the back of the lock cylinder in the door and had to spend a half hour removing the door panel and fixing it back again. It did make it very easy to grip the rod inside with some needle nose pliers and unlock the door. They could have been more grateful, if you know what I mean.

Re: Progress of car security

"The policeman told me that to unlock the doors all you need is half a tennis ball. You place it over the keyhole and strike it sharply. The air pressure then unlocks the car."

OMG, that's brilliant. I'll have to send that one to Deviant Ollum. The Lock Picking Lawyer hasn't used that approach before. I might be wrong as I'm way behind on episodes.

Re: Auxiliary, Home-Built "Immobiliser"

""Security through obscurity", true, but how much patience (and time) does the average car-thief have?"

You don't even need to hide the switch. Most cars have spaces for switches that aren't used for anything. Just get the switch for that unused option and it can sit there bold as brass. A multi-position switch adds another layer of obscurity. You have to put it in the correct position rather than just 'on'. There's the added benefit that if it fails for some reason, you just have to twist the wires together to make the car work. An electronic mobilizer going rotten might be far more difficult to bypass.

Re: An alternative

"Nearly got into the wrong Ford Cortina. Same colour, wrong key didn't matter. But the junk on the passenger seat looked wrong...."

I worked for a person that rented movie props. He has several ex-police Crown Vics and didn't realize they all were keyed the same. When he bought another one from an auction we were at that had no key, I opened up the car and started it with one we had for the other cars on his property. I sorta guessed it would have the standard fleet key so I brought one with me.

Re: An alternative

"Me: "Please could you just cut it for me anyway?""

You know you are talking to a complete stooge if you have to bend their arm up their back to take your money. All they have to say is there are no refunds on cut keys.

Re: motors from two French automakers

"Since we haven't seen it in the wild since then, my guess is it wasn't actually a practical attack - if it was real at all."

I equate some of that with the practice of putting a really good and expensive lock on your front door. Past a certain point a more direct attack will take place. Something like smashing a window or towing the car elsewhere and working on any security systems there. I can fit a super high-tech lock to my front door, but I'd expect at that point the burglar would just go around back and carefully break a window to get it. It might even be easier to cut through a wall. The lock just needs to be good enough.

Re: motors from two French automakers

"Apparently criminals don't steal cars to use in other crimes, these days, because they're more likely to get caught than just buying a cheap car with fake ID."

I still see reports of stolen cars being used to ram through the front of a shop to gain access and then abandoned. They can also be used to break the trail after a crime. CCTV might pick up the escape vehicle, but if the thieves transfer from car to car a couple of times, they can obfuscate their trail and wind up with the loot in a properly registered car that won't trigger any alarms. Using a fake ID to buy a cheap used car might be a bit more than those sorts of people want to do. They are looking to steal money, not spend it. The process of buying the car also poses some risk.

Re: motors from two French automakers

"Hard to believe that any of those brands would be such desirable targets"

Any working car has value so an easy target might be preferable. Even a non-working car can be useful broken down into parts. Just the price of an airbag or catalytic converter can be a nice day's pay. Cheaper cars are also lower on the RADAR. If you drive a high end car into a low end neighborhood, it would get noticed. So would the same thing being brought into one of the seedier industrial estates where the door is opened, the car pulled in and the door quickly shut. If the car were some low-spec commuter vehicle, it might not arouse any suspicion. Many of the less expensive cars are worth good money for the parts as they can be thick on the ground.

Re: motors from two French automakers

"Many years ago I owned a Citroen and was surprised that the garage would connect the computer to the OBD port on the car and get the car to reprogram the keyfob."

If the driver's door must be open, I don't see it as being an issue. When I needed to pair a new fob with my last car, I had to do something like turn the key on and off a few times and fiddle the pin switch for the driver's side door a few times until some light came on the dash. If that can be done by a device connected to the OBD port, that's not too bad as long as other conditions are met such as doors being open, lights switched on, whatever. I can remember that it took a few goes to get the car to get into the pairing mode and it was super annoying since I had no feedback on why it didn't do if the first time. Likely it was timing, but was it doing things too slow or too fast?

If somebody has a door open and a truck, they car will be stolen. Cars are meant to be mobile so if thieves want the car bad enough, they'll have it. Any sort of key is going to have some imperfections, but I do see that the current way it's done is a step back from a physical metal key with some sort of fobby thing needing to be in the lock. No key, no unlocking of the steering column and no chip on the key would mean the car won't start. A physical key is also useful to unlock the doors if a battery is flat. I have a chipped key hidden in my car and spare non-chipped keys in various places to gain access. It reminds me that I need to check some batteries and should put that on my calendar as a regular thing. I can't hide a spare modern fob in the car as its presence would unlock the car. If the battery were easier to take out, maybe one could be inside with the battery taped to the thing.

Re: Security is hard!

"I really don't know why people blame 'beancounters' for doing what the customers demand. "

Oh, let's take that apart starting from the end. Customer's demands are hardly a thing. Makers need features they can 'sell'. The sales process has a large component of selling those features as things 'customer's demand'. Is it really the case that somebody that wants heated seats also wants a sunroof (eventual leaking point of failure) 100% of the time? Looking at the new Kia Niro EV, if you want one of those, you have to get both. The bigger package looks more valuable since just heated seats would mean more inventory on hand and wouldn't be able to fetch a high enough price to offset the inventory costs.

The beancounters are looking at things that sell the car. Should they spend $100 on adding racing stripes or $100 for ongoing security testing? It will be the racing stripes every time since the testing isn't readily apparent or tangible. Cars get nicked all of the time so if the vulnerability isn't too egregious, the bad publicity won't be that noticeable. Showing the racing stripes in commercial and brochures WILL be noticeable.

Boffins propose Slinky-like robot that can build stuff in space

"https://yewtu.be/watch?v=r248DPAlavQ"

A full URL is more polite.

Re: Umm?

"If it's in space, and thus microgravity, how does walking help?"

It's called walking, but it's just a way of describing how the tool can reposition itself so it can be used in another location. It would be a waste to have loads of fixed tentacles all over, just in case. They'd be a horrible mass to boost and would get in the way more than they'd help.

Re: a "seven degrees-of-freedom fully dexterous end-over-end walking robot,"

"but this as I said it's just a Canadarm with the ability to grapple onto the stuff it's building."

I'd have to see a bunch of applications where it makes sense to be a believer. Something like a tower crane doesn't need to be a factor in how a building is designed. The crane is erected, possibly anchored along the side of a building as its constructed and then gets removed. A crawly robotic arm would take integration and accommodation into the design from the beginning. In space, there is no way to place something like a tower crane or bring in some other type of construction equipment so the Arm is not a bad choice even though care has to be taken to place enough grappling points that it can get anywhere it needs to.

I'm in the camp of using or designing a piece of machinery to do a job rather than designing the job to fit a certain piece of machinery if there is a choice.

Firefox 106 will let you type directly into browser PDFs

Re: Nice!

"A touch on the basic side, but I so rarely need to annotate PDFs these days, it'll probably work fine."

I don't think I've needed to annotate a .pdf in the last 5 years or more. Anything I get in .pdf format is a final published document that needs to be un-editable. The rest of the time is usually something mangled in Word for which I'll use LibreOffice to work on. Most of what I do are schematics and drawings anyway so .pdf's are fine. There are tools for people to annotate Solidworks files that don't mess with the file itself and things I am documenting from Altium need to be in a fixed format that can't be changed by others.

Ex-WSJ reporter says he was framed in elaborate 'hack-and-smear' operation

"Don't say the USA, because that is overpriced."

Oil is market priced based on its characteristics. It's also not all the same stuff as some people seem to believe. When I hear questions about why the US exports oil, I know the person doesn't understand the subject. Many times the problem is there are no refineries set up to handle the type of oil that is being exported. In the US, it's been decades since a new refinery has been constructed. The long process to get one permitted, designed and built is riskier than many oil companies wish to take on. With some US states enacting laws to prohibit new petroleum fueled cars in the future, there's even less incentive to build anymore refineries. Some byzantine laws in the US also add to the issue.

Collapsed Arecibo telescope to be replaced by school

Re: 'it will become an "educational facility" '

"I wonder whether the "education facility" will cost at least as much (or more) to build and equip than the telescope would have cost to repair."

Much much more all around. When I went to uni, it saved me all sorts of money for it to be located in a densely populated area with plenty of public transportation. I had a car, but not needing it to get to classes and do my shopping saved me tons of money. I had a choice of a couple of more campuses, but they were further out with little around them or they were sat in the middle of a transportation desert. An educational facility can be built just about anywhere. If the telescope was repaired it could make sense for it to have facilities there for students, but not if it's defunct.

"I'm not sure HS2 is the best example"

It's very hard to analyze close up. If you just look at the costs to put it in, the costs to operate and what it might earn from fares and you only scratch the surface. On the positive side, it can take loads of private vehicles off of the road relieving the need to expand motorways. There are various economic benefits that are hard to quantify but it's already well known that a train station greatly improves the value of an area. On the down side, accidents could be more spectacular and costly to address and the line will put barriers across some lands with limited points where crossings will be constructed.

I'm a bit biased as I really love traveling by train. Part of that these days is the lack of a strip search beforehand and the removal of small expensive items from my luggage in the name of public safety (or some such tripe).

"It's only the politics that's changed. We can afford them."

Not only can it be afforded, it's money better spent than on things like safe shoot-up sites and clean needle programs for junkies to do drugs.

The military spending is an easy target. Some base commanders in the US have quietly complained about having equipment foisted on them that they do not need and that equipment creating a drain on their budget to keep maintained by order. Some politician rammed through some pork for a military supplier in their district as a condition that they vote in favor of some other politician's pork project to curry favor, support and kickbacks from companies in their district.

I wish I could give proper credit, but I remember one pundit saying that we don't spend money "in space", we spend it on Earth. Many of the programs spin off all sorts of technologies and advancements in material science that industry can use. Agencies such as NASA have the flavor of Bell Labs back in the day. Funny enough, some of the things NASA and ESA work on apply directly towards efficiency and sustainability that political hacks keep going on about. If you need to support a lunar colony, handling waste and making the most efficient use of power so the base can survive a lunar night can be used right here on Earth (for orders of magnitude less money). With Covid and talk about it escaping a lab, why not shift virus research to an isolated facility on the moon? The research needs to be done so why not sentence it to "transportation" and do it someplace with a really impressive air-gap?

SpaceX reportedly fed up with providing free Starlink to Ukraine

Re: Something missing in the math

"Those aren't in Ukraine though, so hitting the earth stations would be.. bad. "

They wouldn't 'hit' them, but just drill a couple of small holes in the electronics cabinets and mist the inside with something as simple as vinegar. They could also make it look like some 'youths' broke in and stripped out the copper.

If I remember, it might be interesting to take a footprint of a Starlink satellite's coverage and move it around on a map of Ukraine. I think that coverage of Kiev would need a ground station within the country. Just guessing from memory right now.

Re: Russian appeasement

"There won't be any washing machine chips soon anyway. Not content with sanctioning one of the world's largest suppliers of raw materials, Biden's now gone and sanctioned the world's largest supplier of components-"

I noticed that the US gov didn't want Apple using memory from a company that may have also supplied Huawei. It made me want to ask if Apple used that company anyway but didn't ship any of the products made with those components to the US, would they get in any sort of trouble? The chips would likely be stamped with Apple's information anyway.

"We wouldn't see Ford and GM moving to full BEV in the future without Tesla."

EV's have been a DIY thing for many years. They just made no sense for an auto manufacturer due to the costs and what they'd have to sell them for to see a profit. GM figured out that if they put out the Bolt in limited quantities, they'd earn "Carbon Credits" that would allow them to sell more high profit margin trucks and SUV's. This meant they could sell the Bolt at a bit of a loss and still increase their bottom line. If you ever wondered why GM "couldn't sell more Bolts" it wasn't that they couldn't, they didn't want to. A new twist was put in through green credits that could be gamed and that's what they did and the average person pays the price. Take away the 'credits', rebates and subsidies and look again to see if it's really time for the electric vehicle to be a universal thing.

Ford's CEO readily admits that the F-150 Lightning, while very cool, isn't that great for towing big things very far. Battery tech is just at the point where EV's are affordable enough for some cases. The costs have fallen enough that there can be some profits but not so far that all of these auto makers are comfortable switching completely over in the next five years. They can promise 2030 or 2035 and look all eeco, but not really have to deliver when the time comes since there will be some thing out of their control that's holding them back. They'd love to have nothing but EV's but.........reasons. Something's bound to turn up they can use. Recession, war, interest rates, the 'wrong' political party in the majority, whatever, use a big enough hammer and the square peg will go through the round hole.

Re: Something missing in the math

"Especially given he's previously stated that both SpacX and Starlink are in trouble, if they can't launch their V2 satellites that might actually deliver the features promised to justify a higher service charge."

The newest version of the satellites needs to launch on Starship as, it would seem, they won't fit on the Falcon 9 or F9H. Starship won't work until they get the Raptor engine to be more reliable so it doesn't blow up. To date, SpaceX has managed to fly just one Starship engineering prototype that didn't explode. It's not yet a proper working spacecraft. Somehow, they need to get all of the systems working so they can deploy a stack of satellites without them impacting the clam shell door(s) and then be able to refasten those doors so the rocket can be landed without going to pieces as it descends through the atmosphere. Rockets to date just delete the fairing and let it ball back to drop in the sea to get it out of the way once the rocket is out of the atmosphere. Starship won't be able to do that which adds another complication to be sorted out along with all of the other things that still need to be finished and verified. If SpaceX detonates a full stack at the Boca Chica facility, they might lose their ability to be there anymore. It's also won't work for Starlink launches so the pad in Florida needs to be finished and they may also need to construct one at Vandenberg in California to get to to all of the orbits they need. There's still fantastic amounts of money yet to be spent..... and Elon goes off and buys a social media non-profit.

Re: Something missing in the math

"or if Russia's worked out a way to jam/disrupt the service."

The easiest way to do that is find the downlink stations and disable them. That's quicker and easier than trying to jam the satellites.

I would hope that captured user terminals are black listed so the Russians can't use them. That could account for some still held by Ukrainians going off-line by mistake.

Re: Something missing in the math

"Perhaps there is some confusion there between Starlink satellites and red Teslas?"

That particular red Tesla was supposed to go to the founder, Martin Eberhard, so launching it into space was Elon giving him the final bird after taking the car for himself for a bit.

Re: Something missing in the math

"If SpaceX isn't turning a profit, tax credits aren't helpful."

Depending on the tax credit, they can carry over. Amazon is still recouping losses from the years it lost money every year. The EV tax credits for customers in the US are an example of a one-year credit. If you don't have enough tax due, you don't get to carry the credit over to the next year.

The IRS would have a hard time battling Elon on deducting the cost of the donated equipment. I expect a lot of it was deprecated version 1 hardware that would have had to be scrapped and would be written off anyway. While the country of Ukraine isn't likely a charity, the gear may have been donated to a charity and distributed from there for a veneer of lip gloss on the pig. Lawyers would set it up that way if Elon paid any attention to them.

Re: Russian appeasement

"Russia taking 25% of Ukraine has perhaps also exposed weaknesses in NATO"

Part of that is how much can other countries support Ukraine without crossing a line that puts them firmly in the crosshairs. NATO could marshal a large force, especially in air cover and rout the Russian army rather quickly, but that might push Putin too far and have him bring in a lot more assets himself. If each side keeps upping the ante, things could get completely, world encompassing bad in hours. The game is to find the point where enough pressure is applied that Putin decides it's better to pull out than to keep pushing.

Re: Russian appeasement

"washing machine chips in missile guidance systems and turret controls"

My washing machine has a mechanical timer, but my mom's with digital controls has worked well for the last decade. I can remember when I needed to go over and help get it replaced the last time in 2012. I have some 555 timers in mil spec ceramic packages that I got surplus years ago and they don't seem any better than the much cheaper plastic DIP or surface mount versions I have used. Even in very hot weather conditions. There really isn't a "washing machine chip". There's commercial temp range, extended temp range and really extended temp range. With some sorts of IC's you can get Rad-Hard versions for use on spacecraft but those are very expensive and make no difference if you aren't sending them into space.

Re: Russian appeasement

"The nuclear threats are problematic, because nuclear deterrence is based on MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). That means there HAS to be a punishing response to any use of nuclear weapons. "

I liked Thunderf00ts take on Russia's nuclear arsenal possibly being somewhat unreliable due to a lack of maintenance. Perhaps that is true which would mean that it would be bad for Russia to try and use nukes since it's even worse if they try and deliver a few fizzles. The MAD concept gets a bunch of holes punched in it at that point.

Re: He's clearly ambivalent at best about Ukraine

'Probably the only reason he wanted to donate the Starlink stuff was publicity,"

It also gets rid of a bunch of v1 terminals that they can't send out to anybody in the rest of the world. They can just 'donate' them to Ukraine and put that in the charitable donation column at full MSRP to be set against any profits there may be some time in the future. The alternative is to stick them in the shredder and only be able to write off the actual cost of manufacture.

"But providing and then moaning about it gets Musk in the news and that's good PR for someone looking to keep share prices up."

In the case of Tesla, the price of shares has been dropping. They could even go as low as it takes for the P/E of Tesla to be on par with the rest of the industry if the company starts being valued for the industry they are in.

Re: Nice one, Zelensky and Putin. Well Played, Sirs. We thank you for your Service

The costs are multi-faceted. Ukraine is a major producer of food crops. Just look at a satellite view and it's easy to see that the vast majority of the country is farmland. With droughts in many other parts of the world, having those farms crippled due to war is a global problem. Lots of people are going to starve which means lots of politicians will lose their comfy jobs and some governments will be toppled. There isn't the excess to draw on from other countries at the moment. Does the rest of the world stand off to the sides while an aggressive leader in one of the largest countries continues to annex more territory and thereby take control of a larger percentage of prime agricultural land? Whose next?

"I suspect the biggest problem is that Starlink is not in profit, so they can't write off these costs as losses against tax so it is actually costing them money."

They can just carry more loss on the books until they have some profits they need to write down.

The user terminal hardware is suspected to be rather costly so that's where he's be losing any money. The easy cure for that is to not endlessly supply replacements. There needs to be downlink stations for the satellites to exchange data with but the internet traffic is next to nothing in cost.

The quote I've seen that mentions the cost of the launches and satellites is utter tripe (or would that be udder tripe?). Starlink isn't launching satellites just to service Ukraine. The ones that fly over might wind up being rather idle otherwise since people in a war zone might not spend money on something like Starlink with so many other things costing more and all of the uncertainties. I found a statement that each sat can cover about a 285 mile diameter. Obviously you need to be in that footprint to connect to the satellite, but a ground station also needs to be in that footprint for the satellite to connect with unless it's a new model that can use a laser side link (and there is a cousin that it can work with) to get to the ground and onto the backbone. This is why Elon has stated it will take around 42,000 birds to cover the whole Earth other than the poles. Each one of the sats has an estimated 5yr lifespan according to SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell.

Re: missed the point

"Every single one of his projects depends completely on government payouts."

There does seem to be some sort of government lash up with all of his businesses. What surprises me is that he hasn't put Tesla's designers to work on a fleet vehicle he could sell to government agencies by the thousands. Not police cars or other vehicles that need lots of specialized gear, but something the welfare mobs (and there are loads of them) can drive around to visit all of the poor people to make sure they are poor and can keep getting free stuff. Cars that building inspectors, public works supervisors and all sorts of other functionaries that get provided with a "company" car can use. They don't need hundreds of miles of range, driver assistance features or luxury touches.

Fleet cars are great. They have no frills beyond an AM/FM radio with maybe a 3.5mm socket to plug in an iPod or phone. Nothing is motorized other than the windows. They come in one, maybe two colors. The interior is done up in the cheapest hard wearing material there is to be had. They can even be equipped with tracking and logging as well as a dash cam and rear facing cam that's accessible to the fleet managers. Being all electric means that users don't need to be provided with a card for gas and can't fill up an extra can every time they fill up to take home. Some EV's, most notably Teslas, send the VIN through the charger to pay for the juice. For a government car, setting up accounts with the major charging firms means the cars could always be charged if needed without issuing drivers with any sort of charge card.

"That's a bit of a paradox in the perception of charity. If you donate to charity, and then stop, you get far more shit thrown at you than someone who never donated to begin with."

It doesn't seem like Elon is donating because he is extremely concerned about something. It always seems to have the aire of a PR stunt and a way to build himself up as a techno super hero.

Elon also has a lack of grace. He could have come in with a set number of Starlink terminals and accounts and made it clear that there won't be more hardware so look after what you get. Instead he created the expectation that he'd replace failed and damaged units and manage the accounts so captured hardware would be deactivated. Then one day, he says it's all far too expensive and he's cutting them off and goes on to suggest that the US or some other entity take up the costs of supporting everything he's been doing to date and send him checks. Now that people have become accustomed to relying on the gear, it's harder to disengage especially for the military.

I agree that too many people are critical that wealthy people don't give enough or should keep giving to a charity after they have already endowed them with a bundle of money. I can easily see that there are more hands out than packets of banknotes to put in them. Charities need to make the most of what they are given and not get too used to a limited number of generous benefactors. If the charity does good work and doesn't squander money, they can use the donation of one entity to chivy a couple more to donate to them too. If they are paying their directors fat salaries and fly them around on private jets, the first big donor may elect to cut them off and while not criticizing them in public, will let other philanthropists know that there may be better places to donate money. I'm sure Bill Gates would love to be known as the person that sponsored a group's success in coming up with a cancer cure so Mr Bill is going to want to donate money to the groups that seem to have the best hope of achieving their goals.

Part of Elon's problem is his gross lack of social skills and king sized braggadocio. He's not a clear speaker and fails to consider the political and social impacts of what he says and does. The term "bow out gracefully" has no meaning for him. He could tell a little white lie that due to the chip shortage and needing to keep Starlink a going concern, he has to pull back on replacing hardware but he can keep the accounts going. As time goes by, those accounts will drop off as hardware fails, gets damaged and captured. The whole thing fades into the background without creating a bunch of negative publicity and he can use his support down the road without people instantly remembering that he tried to pull out and stick some government with the bill for his "charity".

Infosec still (mostly) a boys club

Re: Bias built in?

"Show me a man working in those fields who hasn't had their masculinity questioned""

My mother was a nurse for decades and confided in me that the vast majority of male nurses were gay. It's surprising as it's a very in-demand job and can be very high pay. After my mom retired she worked for about a year looking after some small children with rich parents. She travelled quite a bit with them and made a pile of money doing it. She was hired mostly due to her nursing background. If you are going to hire a nanny, a licensed nurse is a good way to go. Other wealthy parents might like to have a male nanny with nursing qualifications and a teaching credential.

I worked in entertainment for a number of years and male dancers were mostly gay. There's another odd situation. If you happen to like hanging out with lots of very pretty scantily clad women, being a dancer is a job for you. Certain jobs in the movie industry almost make being gay mandatory or at least one could come away thinking that. Lucky for me, sound, lighting and staging was primarily heterosexual.

Re: Schooling

"(I learned BASIC in high school but I think Python would be better)"

I learned BASIC, but any language is fine. It's more about the process than the syntax and learning how a program is designed. Just being able to whip up a simple program to do a three-point interpolation is useful. I mention that as I did one at a job I had where I needed to 'cut' antennas to customer specs and all I had was a table of frequencies and element lengths. Being able to provide a very specific antenna was something we were known for after that. All we had to do was stock the sub-model with the longest parts and cut them to size. It took about 15 minutes and cut the company's inventory down quite a lot.

Re: Sometimes they're just not interested

"The thing is that up until about the 1970s, computer programming was pretty much entirely done by women."

It's an indoor job that doesn't involve any heavy lifting and much more respectable than anything that has to do with religion.

I liked working on rockets, but during the hottest part of the summer, I really could have been happier doing something else. The same went for the dead of winter too. The test range didn't have HVAC. I suppose the 'ventilation' part was about as good as it gets.

"Her answer was "It's a boys sport" and trust me that didn't come from me."

It is often cultural. It does start at home, though. Even if kids won't listen to their parents as teenagers, they do pay attention when they are younger. I know a couple of women that are a dab hand at auto repair. Their dads encouraged them by having them help him work on the family car. It wasn't about the mechanics, it was founded in spending time with a parent. If teachers and other authority figures also encourage interest in STEM topics when kids are young, the message gets embedded. It is likely a good idea to stomp on bad information they get from their friends. There are plenty of great examples of women in science. I've met a bunch of them and there are many more I wish I could have met (Marie Curie and Lise Meitner are two examples).

Aerobot designed for hell-world Venus first braves something worse: Nevada

Re: Separated by a common tongue

"Or perhaps we all should revert to the original “alumium?”"

Or both, I don't really care that much.

Junk cellphones on Earth would stack higher than the International Space Station

No, yeah, no

"literal goldmine"

First, drop the word "literal", it makes you sound like the parody of a 15yo girl.

Second, the vanishingly small amount of precious metals used in a phone don't add up to much and "rare-earth" metals aren't particularly rare, it's just an unfortunate name. It's much like saying "honest politician". To extract the metals is a nasty chemical process and can wind up doing more harm to the environment than the initial mining.

Gold has, for the most part, been weaned from the electronics industry. What is still very useful is Silver. This is why I like silver as a medium of savings. It's used in tiny tiny amounts and in doing so, it's prevalence is getting smeared out more and more over time. Every mining company in the world is looking for places where they can extract big heavy lumps of something in every scoop. At least they want the target material in high enough concentration that it's worth recovering. Mobiles might be the complete opposite.