Posts by StudeJeff 208 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jan 2015
Google's new tech (Tesla has something similar), reducing memory requirements is a very good thing, but I really wonder just how much demand there really is for AI.
Is anyone really making money off of it other than the hardware companies and the AI girlfriend folks?
As far as I'm concerned the AI crash can't happen soon enough.
A sealed system much like nuclear submarines use. The excess heat could be dissipated on the shady side of the reactor (or artificial shade). Once we have people actually using the power from the reactor some or a lot of the waste heat could be used to keep the living quarters warm during the lunar night, to heat and distill water, and even for cooking (such as a steam kettle).
Nowhere in the Bible does it say Jesus is unique to Earth. It's possible He was also born on other worlds in other guises for the same reason He was born here.
Say on some Jovian world the major form of intelligent life would look to us like a cross between a dirigible, a whale, and an octopus, and He could have born as one of them.
If we ever find alien civilizations comparative religion would be one of the many fascinating fields of study, and we will likely find some interesting surprises!
Probably 25 years ago I went to an exhibit on computers at the Smithsonian. It had the ZX-81, Commodores, Apples, Trash-80s, all that fun stuff... stuff that I remember being cool and new.
I think that's the first time it hit me I really was getting older (now I have no doubt!)
I think there is a strategic reason for the 50% tariff on imported copper.
Raising the price of imported copper makes domestically produced copper relatively cheap, and so encourages its production. We do produce quite a bit of copper here in the US, with the potential to produce far more.
I drove through the Globe, Arizona area a few weeks ago, the number of copper mines in that area is amazing, and that's not even the biggest copper producing area in the US.
According to one report there are about 20,000 Starlink terminals in Iran, and Starlink has turned on access.
It will be interesting to see what, if any, effect that has on events in the coming days, and what news we get via Starlink.
The days when a repressive regime could block it's citizens from being able to communicate with the rest of the world are over.
My work PC, a year or so old Dell Precision workstation has one. I also rebuilt my home office PC a few months ago with all current tech, and it too has a PS/2 port.
And I USE them, one of the reasons I picked the MB that I did was because of the PS/2 port, as I use IBM Model M's at work and at home.
I think the hard core gamer types like PS/2 because of better latency numbers... but you'd have to talk to someone who really cared about such things to know for sure.
Sure, MS tests, kind of like GM does.
The first official releases of new versions of the OS (or a new car), are really the final beta versions. Then it's up to the poor suckers... er users who paid good money and expected to be one of the first to get the latest shiny new model to find all the bugs.
I guess I'm lucky, never really had to deal with that.
In my previous life with a big blue computer company we were working with used equipment, and if some of those parts went into our work machines no one cared... I had a SWEET souped up IntelliStation.
In my current job I was given a bog standard (and dull), Dell desktop, and it 32 bit word just couldn't handled the large documents I worked on. So my boss ordered a Dell workstation for me. Nice dual Xeon machine with lots of RAM, PLUS it had a PS/2 port so I brought in my trusty 1994 vintage Model M keyboard (which I am using even now).
Fast forward, it was time to "refresh" my PC, and as I had a big Dell Precision already I got a new one of those.
Meanwhile most of the office people are using Dell laptops, while I've got this big machine, my Model M, and three monitors. :)
Hmm... "non-violent civil resistance actions”... are they really or "non-violent civil resistance actions” like the BLM mobs on this side of the pond... "mostly peaceful demonstrations with just a few fires"? If it's the former (and they don't do stupid stuff like blocking roads), more power to them, it's their right to express their opinions.
I don't know about "most American's", but I wouldn't believe you.
For instance, there is no such things as "fully funded schools", no matter how much they get they always "need" more. In fact the most expensive government schools have the worst outcomes.
I know she went to Ireland, but many of them are the likes of Rosie O'Donnell.
And as an American who has a lot of respect for the UK, (if not necessarily your leaders), I'm sorry, you folks have enough problems without those people.
I also know many of you feel the same way about OUR leaders!
Building spaceships isn't easy, how many have NASA and the Soviets blown up while getting it figured out?
Look at all the Falcon 9s that blew up during development (SpaceX made it easy, it created a blooper reel!)
It's now our most reliable space craft.
They will get the Starship figured out, and Starship launches will be just as common... if not more so, than Falcon 9 launches.
Last June I was in Florida and watched a Crew Dragon take off for the ISS. It was night and from where I was standing on the banks of the Banana River I could see the ship take off, the stages separate, and then the booster land.
It was incredible.
I look forward to seeing a Starship doing the same thing one of these years. Both ships are magnificent accomplishments, unlike anything any government has accomplished.
We live in amazing times.
So how about we send a ship up, oh say a Starship, and give the thing a nudge so it winds up in orbit. We could then use it as space station, and even mine it depending on what it's made of.
And if the thing DOES hit us, considering most of the Earth is covered with water it will likely land in an ocean. No cities getting squashed... but there would be a HUGE splash and the resulting waves could cause SERIOUS damage.
Too many people in the government follow the old dictum "Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime", that kind of behavior is even more odious in the United States than it was in Russia.
And the people responsible should be held criminally liable. Doesn't matter if they work for the FBI, if they are a DA, a county sheriff, or whatever.
I can't speak to the laptops, I don't deal with them much, but in our plant I manage over 200 Dell OptiPlex's.
I've never been a fan of Dell (which is, of course, a four letter word), but this is a manufacturing environment, and in some places there is a lot of dust and oil vapor.
And the Dell's keep running. I've had a couple with bad USB ports, and one had a damaged Ethernet port, but I've yet to have one actually fail.
There was even one where the complaint was it kept shutting down. It was... all the vents were TOTALY clogged with oily dust, along with a thick coat of the mess on the fans and heat sink. So, I pulled it, cleaned it up, put it back, and it ran flawlessly before I replaced it with a Windows 10 system.
I'm no fan of Dell, but I'm very impressed with the reliability of the OptiPlex's.
The bottom line of this isn't really about net neutrality, it's about the authority of government agencies to come up with rules that have the power of law with no law to support them.
The agencies don't get to do that. It is there job to carry out laws passed by Congress. If Congress doesn't give an agency authority to do something it just doesn't have the authority, and the SCOTUS made that clear with the Loper Bright decision.
If the politicians in Congress feel so strongly that net neutrality is the right way to go they have a proper, Constitutional tool to make it happen, all they have to do is pass it into law.
The fact that they haven't done that, even during the Obama years when the Democrats who support it, had solid control of both houses, shows that they really don't care that much.
You've pointed out the real problem with Linux.
There are so many different distros, some very different than others, they very often run very differently and will support different things.
So if one wants to make the switch there is no easy choice to make, unlike switching from Mac to Windows or vice versa.
In a previous life I worked in a plat that refurbished computers. Our big blue customer wanted us to come up with a way to package some of these machines with Linux so they wouldn't have to buy Windows licenses for them.
The customer gave no other guidance, so I got to work. I picked Red Hat because it was popular, was (relatively) easy to use, and the price was right, free. Our software boffins created an image we could load on the machines that had the OS, plus Open Office and a few games. I also wrote a booklet titled "What is this Linux thing anyway", that would give the user what they needed to get started.
We presented it as a nice, neat package, ready for the go ahead and we could start shipping.
The big blue sales guy liked what we did, but then said we really needed to use a distro made by a company the big blue company owned, that wasn't compatible with much of anything AND there was a charge for it.
And... that was the end of that project.
There is a simple fix that all too often is ignored.
When it comes right down to it in every decision, whether it be from an AI, a committee, a company, Congress or Parliament, there are ALWAYS people who have to sign off on it.
Name names and hold them responsible.
Well... if something like the Alcubierre drive really is not only possible but practical for an advanced enough civilization there very well may be alien starships wandering the cosmos.
As any technologically advanced civilization almost certainly had to pass though a phase something like we are now, with technology advancing at an exponential rate and all the challenges that go with that they would likely find us fascinating to study.
We are also making ourselves known, as for most of the past century if you look at our solar system with a radio telescope the brightest object in the system isn't the Sun, it's the Earth with all our broadcasts. (and if they can actually make those out I'm not sure I want to know what they think of them!)
There is great potential in Doge successfully cutting government waste, and it won't be because of suggestions to President Trump or Congress.
Dog will likely be posting what it finds on social media, and asking for suggestions, and comments.
This won't be like one of these government reports, such as the "Pig Book" of years gone by, that gets released, gets a lot of attention for a few days, and is then forgotten.
Doge will likely be posting what it finds regularly, daily or weekly, and ten's of thousands, if not millions of people will be following and commenting on the posts.
Radio talk show hosts will be talking about the latest examples of government waste, talking heads and podcasters will be talking about them and picking out the ones they find most egregious.
And regular people will notice, and demand their Congresscritters do something.
I mean really... did we HAVE to give Bowdoin College $3.9 million of taxpayers hard earned money to determine what makes goldfish feel sexy?!?
With all due respect to Mr. Hunt I've no doubt Humans will walk on Mars, and likely a lot sooner than many of us think.
As the great Arther C. Clarke said, "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
Musk might be a bit of flake, but he is a very smart flake, and he's already done a lot of things many people have said were impossible.
The Robotaxi is all well and good, lets see how it works out.
But as long as Tesla is building that platform I hope they also build a version for people who want to drive, IE with things like a steering wheel.
A two seat Tesla this size could be a LOT of fun, and if Tesla gets anywhere close to the price target for the Cybertaxi a more conventional one could be even less expensive.
