Posts by gecho

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

Just like Starship

V1 was supposed to be 100t to orbit. Then V2 was supposed to be 100t with V3 200t. Now V3 is supposed to be 100t to orbit. Or Tesla Robotaxi coming next year every year since 2016.

Dems fret over DOGE feeding sensitive data into random AI

Great Deal

$250 million for all the government's data and the ability to fire the regulators of your businesses / end investigations. Blow up a rocket, don't get grounded, blow up the next one the exact same way and still not grounded.

Los Alamos boffins whip up a speedometer for satellites

Free Market

When all the government scientists are gone the free market will have to invent this stuff. There's a big market for it right?

Trump says US should kill CHIPS Act, use the cash to cut debt

Debt? HA!

Every cent from the DOGE massacre and tariffs will go to tax cuts for the rich. As the plan currently stands, those tax cuts will add 4 trillion to the national debt. The US needs to ramp up chip production as they'll be cut off from the leading edge once China invades Taiwan possibly leading to TSMC destroying their EUV machines.

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

Not tariffs

More like a Taiwan existence threat by the mob boss in chief.

Trump administration threatens tariffs for any nation that dares to tax Big Tech

Took long enough

I'm surprised this took so long to announce with Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg at the inauguration I figured it would have been a day one issue. Or at the very least come up over Trump Canada shitposting, since Meta is in an ongoing standoff with the Canadian government.

NASA's on-again, off-again job cuts – what's the plan?

Unions

The plan is to fire as many unionized employees across the government as possible and if replacements are deemed necessary contract that work out to private companies with ties to Trump.

Trump can't quickly or easily kill the CHIPS Act, but he can fire the workers funded by it

What?

Complains about semi conductors coming into the country ... doesn't want to make semi conductors in the country.

Windows 10's demise nears, but Linux is forever

So far so good

I got a newer computer last week and decided to install Ubuntu. Pretty much everything I was using on Windows works on Linux. Switched my copy of Office 2007 for OnlyOffice which looks pretty similar. Struggled a bit on the weekend converting my windows batch files to bash scripts, but its all good now. So I've got my bicycle gps trace Spatialite database and batch gpx file import running with QGIS front end. And my mkgmap scripts to generate custom Garmin maps for my bike GPS. JOSM OpenStreetMap editor. Kdenlive video editor. I finished setting up GIMP yesterday because unlike the Windows version the batch plugin needs to be compiled separately.

I also installed digiKam for managing my photos. Since most of my photos were taken while cycling I was able to a utility called Geotagging to update all the photos with gps coordinates where they were taking. Unfortunately that required a lot of manual intervention over 2 days. My camera loses about a minute a month requiring constant tweaking of the offset between gps time and camera time. And there was half a year where the camera date was off by a month. By the time I got to the latest images the camera time was off by 53 minutes.

As a compromise to keyboard muscle memory I mapped Windows Key + E to open the Ubuntu file browser.

One piece of advice from an Ubuntu noob, is that when setting up your applications you may want to install Debian packages instead of using the App Center to install Snap packages. With Snap packages being read only I couldn't modify the default document templates for OnlyOffice. And in another instance I couldn't get the current version of an app.

Astronomers red-faced after mistaking Musk's Tesla Roadster for asteroid

Vera Rubin to the rescue

It is said when the Vera Rubin telescope goes online it should be able to detect pretty much every visible object in the solar system within a year with its 3.2 gigapixel camera.

Blue Origin postpones New Glenn's maiden flight to January 12

Despite SpaceX's huge lead, New Glenn appears to be about to beat Starship to putting something in orbit. Who's got the suborbital rocket now Elon?

Microsoft declares 2025 'the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh'

Re: They Got Me

I might actually do that as I've used Linux before and most of the few apps I use have Linux versions. The only Windows specific app I use regularly is Office 2007 to open a spreadsheet with a bunch of formulas and a few charts. I've also got a few batch files that I'd need to convert to shell scripts.

They Got Me

With Windows 10 entering the final stretch I finally decided to retire my first generation Core i5 750 and get an off lease Core i5 10500. I'm moving up from a 16 year old computer to a 5 year old one. I recently got a drone and 4K h.264 encoding is painful, and it can't handle h.265 encoding at all. Also the USB has been getting flakey dropping devices during large file transfers. Getting videos off my drone I've started using robocopy for the resume feature.

Axiom Space shuffles space station assembly sequence – to get it standalone sooner

$$$$

Probably got word that the chose few space bros are about to get a massive influx of government cash.

AI hiring bias? Men with Anglo-Saxon names score lower in tech interviews

Re: You can't add arbitrary data to remove bias.

System programmed with idealized social values concocted in liberal echo chambers, but AI can't understand society doesn't actually believe in any of that stuff.

AWS boss: Don't want to come back to the office? Go work somewhere else

Moved!

I suspect many of the holdout remote workers no longer live in the city which they were employed. Apparently a large number of Californians moved out of state to places with lower costs of living, driving up the cost of living in many cities in Arizona and Nevada.

Tesla's big reveal: Steering-wheel-free Robotaxi will charge wirelessly

The latest stock pump. If they can't even get autonomous driving to work in the very controlled environment of Vegas Loop, what chance to they have on the open road.

Starlink was offered for free to those hit by Hurricane Helene. It is not entirely free

Re: you'd never know there is an election soon....

Part of what will be the biggest quid pro quo in history should Trump win cementing Musk as Trump's first oligarch.

Biden tackles trade loophole used by cheap Chinese e-tailers

I wish!

In Canada the import threshold for taxes is $40, and $150 for duty, usually accompanied with a minimum $10 processing fee. Duty can be a surprisingly big hit, like 25% for clothing and they charge consumers on the retail value declared which is probably double / triple what a wholesale importer pays.

Elon Musk's assassination 'joke' bombs, internet calls for his deportation

Isn't an autocracy worth it so Elon's businesses and be freed from government regulation while getting government subsidies and contracts? Dude's got one foot off the planet already, why not light a match as he's leaving.

The Windows Control Panel joins the ranks of the undead

Functionality

I find it amusing how the last several versions of Windows have prettied up the management screens. But if you go deep enough Windows will throw you dialogs straight out of Windows 95 once you get to the point they never got around to fully implementing replacement interfaces.

Boeing's Starliner proves better at torching cash than reaching orbit

Boeing has vowed ...

to never bid on one of those stupid fixed price contracts again. If they had a cost+ contract they'd have turned a tidy profit.

Boeing Starliner crew get their ISS sleepover extended

Island Getaway

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale a tale of a fateful trip, that started from this tropic port, aboard this tiny ship.

Musk deflects sluggish Tesla car sales with Optimus optimism

Robotaxi "next year" since 2017

Everything that comes out of Musk's mouth is a shameless stock pump. I'm surprised he hasn't run afoul of the SEC again. Of course he's supporting Trump in the hope Trump will eliminate the SEC among other federal agencies in return. Oh and subsidize every Musk company with public government debt.

Microsoft founder Paul Allen's tech museum closes, sells off collection

Re: You would think

I thought the same thing when Stratolaunch fell apart and was sold off.

Battery electric vehicles lose their spark in Europe as hybrids steal the show

Too Early

I think the industry jumped the gun on full BEVs at scale gambling that bypassing hybrids was worth the risk. Though given product development timelines it was unlikely they'd manage to time it just right. This backward step will likely only last a few model years before batteries make BEVs better in terms of cost and performance.

McDonald's not lovin' its AI drive-thru experiment with IBM

Incoherent Customers

If you ever listen to the way some people order, particularly the elderly it often comes across as complete nonsense and confusion. They'll ask for non-existent products, or describe them in bizarre ways and a human will somehow steer them to a valid choice. Often they'll refer to a deal they heard about that might have been for a totally different company. Countless times I've heard people order a sausage mcmuffin from a fast food chain that isn't mcdonalds, but the cahier does the conversion.

Sodium ion batteries: Yet another innovation poised to be dominated by China

China Singing

Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye

Energy buffs give small modular reactors a gigantic reality check

Delay Tactic

The local right wing government in my province has embraced SMRs as an alternative to doing anything to reduce reliance on gas / coal. Toss in some token research dollars and sign onto a coalition, and they get to kick the can down the road 15-20 years when it will be someone else's problem. The magical promises of SMRs has surprisingly broad support across the political spectrum.

IT infrastructure scared away potential buyers of struggling e-commerce site

I loved buying from Wiggle to ship to Canada until Shimano banned them from selling stuff to North America combined with them changing their shipping options which lead to more fees. I could get bike stuff for less than local bike shop's wholesale price. I could get 3 tires for the price of one locally. Also stuff from the UK would rarely get taxed, while stuff I ordered from the US got taxed nearly 100% of the time. Though Wiggle did some kind of shady shit. They had their own brand of bikes, but would order vastly more bike components than bike they sold, then re-sold the OEM components cheap. Order a set of pedals and they'd come in a bag instead of retail packaging.

The bike market in Canada is fucked up, there is a duopoly at the wholesale distribution level resulting in massive markups. It effectively eliminates many brands from being available here at all. Trek / Specialized sell directly to bike shops and provide smoking credit deals, so they've got most of the market share as shops are highly incentivized to just carry those brands.

Valve vexation: Boeing's Starliner grounded again

Also Notable

>This launch was set to be the 100th flight of the Atlas V rocket, and notably the first carrying humans.

The Atlas V is no longer being produced. Boeing purchased enough to fulfill the NASA crew contract. So far Vulcan has only launched once, and it sounds like ULA is waiting for someone to foot the bill before they human rate it.

Tesla layoff circus runs into fourth week with another round of cuts

Sandy Munro went on an unhinged Youtube rant yesterday. Going full conspiracy nut railing against Wall Street, the FED, and the fake news media. He's done this numerous times in the past, probably when his wife asked how his Tesla stock is doing. I think he bought a large amount just before the Twitter thing cut the stock in half.

Efficiencies

If Musk wants to help out the poor shareholders he can stop trying to reinstate his $56 billion compensation package.

Oracle Fusion rollout costs 15 times council's estimates in SAP rip-'n-replace

AI

I wonder if AI will be able to figure out ERP implementation, but humans certainly suck at it.

Elon Musk's latest brainfart is to turn Tesla cars into AWS on wheels

The Discount is Baked In!

Want to opt-out, that will be an extra $5,000.

Tesla slashes vehicle and self-driving-ish software prices as shares plummet

Once solid state batteries hit the market in volume around 2027-28 I think most vehicles with liquid electrolyte batteries are going to take a huge value hit. On the plus side those batteries will be much smaller and cheaper, so it might be possible to put one in an older vehicle, while at the same time significantly reducing the vehicle weight. Vehicles like some of the newer Teslas with structural battery packs would be problematic. Structural battery packs probably should have waited until the batteries were good enough to last the life of a vehicle.

Also ...

Resale value.

Wing Commander III changed how the copy hotkey works in Windows 95

Interview

The Win95 testing story came up in an interview with Dave Plummer, along with the USB cart of death. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vJQv4rgHYE

He also told a story about how Pinball had no frame limiter so it would internally redraw as fast as it could, pinning a core on any CPU not matter how powerful. He also mentioned that he likes to keep 6 months of blog posts queued.

Boffins build world's largest astronomical digital camera to map the heavens

RIP amateur asteroid spotters

The telescope will cover the entire night sky every few nights. The data center computers will compare the new images with old ones looking for anything that changed. Within the first year it is expected to find millions of new objects in the solar system. It will to send out alerts for new object detection within a few minutes of the new image being taken, useful for stuff like new supernova.

TSMC's 3nm node powers up, setting stage for tech giants' next-gen chips

EUV

I watched a few videos about the ASML EUV machines used for the state of the art process nodes, and those things are more complex than I could have imagined. The light is borderline X-ray and is readily absorbed so they can't use lenses in the system. The entire focusing chain are special 100 layer mirrors, even the chip mask is a mirror. The machines total power consumption is 1MW. To generate the light they need to hit tin droplets traveling at 70 meters / second with a laser once to flatten the drop and a second time to vaporize it at a rate of 50,000 times per second.

Tesla's Cybertruck may not be so stainless after all

Copium

So much cope in that Cybertruck owners forum. You've got people calling the original poster a liar / bot. Then others blaming it from metal particles from being shipped by rail. And pollen. Cultists can't bear bad things being said about the totems of their leader. Of course the owners will gladly shell out extra money to get the entire vehicle wrapped in paint protection film.

I truly cruel social media "prank" would be to encourage people to throw iron powder at Cybertrucks, nothing I'd encourage myself.

Elon Musk can't wriggle out of SEC Twitter fraud inquiry

Bravo! Many people use the false dilemma fallacy that we can only do 1 thing at a time, however you believe we can do 4 things, it's just the 5th one that is a problem.

Ford pulls the plug on EV strategy as losses pile up

Platform

I think its important that any automaker that wants to continue existing have a mature EV platform that they can rapidly ramp up production on since it takes years to roll out a new product. Mass adoption is still dependent on further battery energy density improvements that will reduce size, weight and cost. Perversely there seems to be a last mover advantage, waiting for battery prices to fall further. Toyota is only now just starting to think about EVs. I think the Japanese manufacturers in general have been holding out for solid state batteries.

CERN seeks €20B to build a bigger, faster, particle accelerator

Could never build that in America

They hate roundabouts, let alone a double roundabout.

Missed expectations, zero guidance: Tesla's 'great year' was anything but

FSD on old Hardware

I wonder what kind of performance people that shelled out $15,000 for FSD hardware can expect from neural algorithms. Tesla will likely add AI accelerators to new hardware, but the older hardware without them will likely perform far worse.

HP's CEO spells it out: You're a 'bad investment' if you don't buy HP supplies

HP Toner

I bought a color HP printer back around 2006 on sale for under $400. Today a set of official HP toner cartridges would come to $1100. A set of refilled cartridges is about $200. Crazy price spread. I've had a few problem cartridges over the years so I've been keeping a few known good ones around to swap out rollers and the printer is still doing fine after 22,000 pages. I think toner is priced for businesses who are less likely to care since they can use it as an expense for tax purposes.

Musk claims that venting liquid oxygen caused Starship explosion

Deluge

Their version of deluge is somewhat novel. Instead of spraying down onto the launch pad, it fills the launch pad and sprays out.

Going green Hertz: Rental giant axes third of EV fleet over lack of demand

Reparability

The reparability of EVs is quickly becoming a bigger issue than charging, and directly related to that insurance cost.

Not even poor Notepad is safe from Microsoft's AI obsession

Formatting

I use Notepad when copying and pasting to remove text formatting before pasting it into another program. I was going to mention that in the Wordpad article last week, but figured there had to be easier way to accomplish that task. A quick search indicated that Ctrl-Shift-V does that in many apps.

America's first private lunar lander suffers 'critical' fuel leak en route to Moon

Good news bad news

Your package is arriving early but ...