Posts by bombastic bob 10944 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015
I'm waiting for modern society to GROW UP to the point where "identity accomplishments" become MEANINGLESS.
Until then, in the name of doing the COOL thing of sending humans to the moon again [and it is MOST definitely WAY cool!], I have to keep an adequate supply of pink liquid containing bismuth salicylate on hand, in case of emergency projectile vomiting... because a VERY LOUD *MINORITY* of us *FEEL* (not think) that identity accomplishments actually MEAN something (and aren't merely the hackneyed ebony/ivory style virtue signalling, preachiness, and passively divisive manipulative messaging from THE LEFT that a LOT of us have grown sick of over the years)
I always figured something similar to shoelaces would make this possible
An emergency space suit, that is 'one size fits all', could basically be a giant ziplock bag with shoelaces for arms and legs and torso to "make it fit". So as air is venting, you crawl in, zip up, pull some laces and hit the O2 bottle. "Space suit"
I am looking for a 'smoking gun' connection between ESG and the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.
They definitely had a LOT of investment in this ESG stuff, as I research via an online search. Although I have not yet found any indication that ESG investments were failing more often (as I would expect), or whether their NOT doing venture capital for NON-ESG stuff (let's say a rifle-maker, fossil fuel exploration, a startup that focuses on 'hard workers' instead of 'diversity', or coal-fired power plants), they certainly seem to put a nice public face on their "ESG-ness".
The main reason STATED for SVB's collapse is that bond/interest rate connection. They had $BILLIONS in bonds with near-zero interest, and when interest got jacked up by 'The Fed": to (allegedly) stop inflation [by stifling economic growth, that is how this theory works], the low interest bonds basically got devalued and liquidation lost them nearly $2 bilion.
However, their bread and butter is venture capital, in the Silicon Valley area. But these businesses are laying off now, maybe even defaulting on high risk loans. So there is not a lot of startup activity, and possibly a lot of RED INK.
And if their investment policy EXCLUDES money making business that are "not woke", their potential revenue stream dries up.
I am having a hard time proving it, but my instincts tell me that this IS a major factor that is not being talked about [like so many things are being said quietly, it seems]. Until now.
Meanwhile China funds open pit cobalt mines in the Congo with child slave labor, and provides batteries for the world. Those batteries are then purchased by ESG-qualifying businesses that might be funded by banks like SVB. Solar panels, electric cars, and electricity storage banks for Solar and Wind? No PROBLEM! ESG says those businesses are *WONDERFUL*.
And banks/crypto are going under, and the possible primary driving force of SVB's low cash flow is being ignored...
Gummint. heh. like a meme. Roger Hedgecock was the first person to coin this term I think. I've been using it for decades.
In essence, it takes a government to "gum things up" and of course it sounds kinda "red-neck" to pronounce it that way.
(You know you're a redneck when ... [fill in the blank] - Jeff Foxworthy jokes)
Glad to see the term in use.
Well a bit of a reality check here...
* nobody wants dirty air, dirty water, nor toxic waste contaminated soil
* enviro regulations often go overboard and add YEARS to planning and/or permit and construction times
* "pollute over there" is a HUGE motivation for going offshore
That being said, if governmentium is taken out of the way, below the threshold of dirty air/water/soil, I am good with it.
And, it is very hard to have a wafer fab operation without toxic waste. For starters, you need things like HF in large quantities, as well as OTHER stuff
"saying sync to UTC is missing a whole bunch of thinking needed."
Not if the real purpose is for humans to get a proper day/night cycle going.
For that, just sync to a radio signal from Earth that broadcasts UTC.
Good enough for us meatbags, anyway.
Lunar Regolith is, as I understand it, a bit like cement (not nearly as much calcium though but might still work). I expect you could mix with water and make things out of it
Or, heat it up and melt it into thick glass, even (it seems to have a lot of SiO2 in it). That might be very useful to have local materials to build with on the moon.
Agreed. In the U.S. Navy it was called 'Zulu Time' but basically UTC +0
Since I was on a sub there was no day/night. So after a day or so on extended deployment we'd switch over to Zulu (logs and everything), then before pulling into port switch to local time zone.
The moon could remain at UTC +0 and it would be perfect.
if you just need something that floats (and no radio) I could probably do it with hydrogen and a trash bag. I used to make hydrogen balloons back in the day with simple household ingredients (like aluminum foil and drain cleaner) and since it is highly exothermic you use plastic soda bottle immersed and weighted down in cooling water (like a big bucket). If you do not melt the bottle you just need to snap a balloon over the hole and inflate it. But something bigger like a trashbag might need a hose of some kind.
Still for higher altitude balloons you fill it with JUST enough gas to float it. As altitude increases it will continue to expand. At some point it either bursts or has enough pressure to expand fully but NOT burst, and it reaches max altitude.
But then with no tracker you cannot tell how high up it went...
Actually if the union is properly managed and contracts properly drafted, it can be an overall 'win' to allow the unions into a shop.
As long as there are 'right to work' provisions, and no mandatory union dues for political purposes, at any rate...
SO if I built a factory I would check with local unions in the desired locations and have them tell me what the labor will cosl and do some research on them on top of it. This way you get a fair cost estimate and the employees are already IN the union. Then you work with the union to hire/fire and do the HR, with contracts that do not limit your ability to automate or or 'adjust staffing'' or hire contractors when needed. Then you make sure the union gets a chunk of stock so that when the company does well, so does the union. Then you build your factory with a known cost and focus on process efficiency and that sort of thing, knowing the costs, knowing the likely productivity, and then adjusting the business around it.
If you are non-union it helps to pay union scale, also. And if employees "feel intimidated" about the continuous monitoring, perhaps they become more productive with INCENTIVES!
Systemd 451 would naturally be preceded by systemd 365 [no need for worry]
I also have to wonder why RH went to a monolithic "thing" that needs regular monolithic top-down updates like Windows...
(perhaps it is a form of job security? sysV makes more sense in that it does NOT need regular monolithic top-down updates)
The Linux kernel grows with new features and new hardware support and the occasional bug fix. THAT should be enough for JUST the kernel to abstract the userland from the hardware on its OWN!
There are at least SOME of us in the USA that would like to see GDPR-like privacy protections here also. Me, for one.
End to end encryption may or may not help in the mean time.
[BUT... if you need to get something done that involves an 'executive order', just hire HUNTER BIDEN and pay him a RIDICULOUS AMOUNT, making sure to get an extra percent in there for "The Big Guy"]
For general market items like cars, "repaired by anyone" makes sense.
For industrial and farming equipment I expect a lot of customers just go to the dealer anyway [the way that managers "buy microsoft"].
It's the independent and family-owned farmer who would be hit the hardest by these practices. Corporate farmers just collect their pay and let management deal with the upkeep.
As a contractor I am used to it. Basically it means adapting to the 'feast-or-famine' environment and always do your best to keep customers happy [then they keep giving you more projects].
Seriously,getting hired into a megacorp and staying there for 40+ years is highly overrated. "Job security" never really existed. The world changes too quickly, especially in IT and tech. Being flexible to 'hiring and layoff cycles' is just necessary for survival in the modern world.
compromised hosts and poor customer support.
Not necessarily. It is well known that in a typical office you have people with varying productivity. So if the layoffs went to the least productive, they'll be fine.
However, in a company that has WAY too many staff members, it's more likely to be arbitrary.
I'm definitely thinking about Elon Musk's recent dealing with Twitter. A whole lot of people were "deemed unnecessary" and from the look of things, that was mostly right. Also apparently gone at Twitter are those meditation rooms, wine dispensers, and free lunches. Yeah, that's where you trim the fat FIRST (not people)
In any case if the staff reductions at Digital Ocean were careful and smart, they'll be OK. [They should also do what they can to help find work for the unlucky ones, since it is in their own best interest as well]. But if they are arbitrary and driven hy anything OTHER than making the new office 'lean and mean', look forward to MORE OF SAME.
But I suspect 'not OK', and the main reason for revenue loss has been a general failure in marketing and forecasting. 2022 saw a HORRENDOUS amount of inflation, especially for the energy sector, interest rate hikes to "fix" it [but when inflation is caused by runaway gummint spending, it just stag-flates things], and apparently they are headquartered in New York City which is NOT helping. [NYC is an extremely expensive place to live and wages are artificially high, like San Francisco, Palo Alto, etc.]
In other words, if they had kept their eyes open they might have seen this coming. I actually expected the inflation etc. to happen as soon as oil prices began to rise due to 'new gummint policies' on U.S. domestic oil etc. because to ME it was obvious. But I digress. [hedging their bets or planning to move out of expensive areas might have been a way to avoid the layoffs]
And of course the ones who lose the most are the ones who were relying on them for a paycheck, and got sacked.
I would qualify that statement.
If you want to get paid, do not release your software for free WITHOUT a revenue path, such as paid support, customization, or some kind of value that you personally benefit from that's related to it.
If I write a FOSS program to do XXX and it is related to the normal kinds of work I do, then I can haul XXX along with me wherever I go and make it a selling feature for my software development services. Hiring me to contract develop a YYY that can use XXX as its basis and save a month's work _IS_ a benefit, and you can haul your FOSS portfolio around with you wherever you go.
(Also helps to write up a free license for using a customized version AND customer keeping it closed source, and reference the online repo so others can maintain it later)
FOSS is broken,
Not really. You can still work on it for free or get someone else to take over the project if you cannot volunteer.
people need funding to work on it,
Some do some do not.
If I write a FOSS thing that is useful to me getting programming gigs, then it helps me personally to work on it [I have and do].
If others also benefit, you can at least partially rely on them to submit patches and just manage it.
Contributions in the form of patch/test are extremely helpful. I prefer this over money as I have all of my income from other/different sources, and fixing the FOSS code would indirectly help me personally. But yeah, it is often hard to work on FOSS _AND_ earn a living at the same time. I just get too tired to work on the FOSS.
So as far as I am concerned, "in kind" contributions of quality patches and testing are as good as donations for a community supported project.
Customized software and support definitely generate revenue, though, and it is that "value added" part that earns the most, my 25¢ worth.
my understanding is that EV batteries need full replacement every 3-5 years, at a cost of around $10k. YMMV of course [bad PUNishment I know] but my car is >20 years old and the total major drive train maintenance (other than tires ad breaks) was $2000 or so when I got a new exhaust system less than 10 years ago.
If it were an EV I probably would have replaced the battery 3 or 4 times at the price of A WHOLE NEW CAR.
And resale on EVs kinda stinks, because of that foreboding battery replacement cost.
well you are right. The assumption I was making here is that the wind and solar plants were actually working as intended.
But of course when they do not (bad weather, night time) then you do not need a peaker plant (or batteries), you need a standby fossil fuel plant to take up the slack, usually an oil burner or natural gas plant.
yeah maybe it wasn't stated correctly. Here is how it works.
Electrical power demand varies throughout the day and night for obvious reasons. But rather than just having one ginormous plant throttle output to the demand (expensive, inefficient) you run many power plants of varying kinds, some of which (nuclear, coal) run at 100% all of the time, and others (hydro, solar, wind, "peaker") that can be turned on and off as needed.
But to use the wind and solar plants as much as possible, the power grid often has battery storage to suck up power when demand is lower,l and deliver it when demand is higher, thereby evening out demand a bit to make it possible to (let's say) NOT start up gas-powered plants for only a few hours a day during peak demand times (rather better to leave them running at lower power and throttle up when needed and rotate demand to different plants to 'level out the wear/tear' and always have them ready for unexpected demand).
In any case batteries are an effective way to level out demand somewhat and (hopefully) keep costs down. They come with a price (lose around 10% of what they store) but is good enough.
So yeah building more battery storage out of used car batteries is a GOOD thing - as long as they do not burst into flames.
NOTE: When I was in the Navy I worked in the engine room (nuclear sub) and so I became VERY familiar with battery storage and electrical power generation. A properly designed system can easily and automatically shift loads between generators and battery storage systems,. As an example, certain loads would trip shore power breakers if started, but running was OK. So I'd typically take up load on the battery for a bit to allow the equipment to start without tripping breakers, then zero out the battery again. Battery charges were generally scheduled unless we specifically did something to drain it, and there was enough capacity to handle short term peak loads like that.
"If the lithium and nickel are valuable (which they are), why would they be in landfill?"
It's the usual short-sightedness plus expediency, deceit, and green-washing
I understand that plastic recycling suffers the same kind of fate. That is, when I dutifully put plastic in the blue can I assume (in good faith) that Mr. Gummint is also following through and turning these plastic throwaways into more plastic at some recycling plant somewhere.
Unfortunately that often means a landfill in someone else's back yard, possibly in a 3rd world country, who might decide to put it in a barge and dump it at sea instead [and they DO].
Battery recycling *IS* what we all want. But for SOME reason it is NOT what we get!!!
Usually I laugh at this and point fingers at the hypocrisy, but right now i am too saddened by it all. WE THE PEOPLE suffer from it, while virtue signalling elitists say "Nothing to see here"
Of course re-purposing battery assemblies for a few more years [as peak electrical demand storage] IS good so let's keep doing that.
(and do not forget that the energy density of GASOLINE, by weight, is considerably better than a battery pack - and there is no man-made CO2 climate change, either)
Althouh there is some validity to rocket exhaust affecting ozone, the actual amount would be mininmal.
* Ozone holes are fund near the poles where cosmic radiation is less effective at creating it from O2 high in the atmosphere
* In general each ozone hole can be mostly attributed to volcanic activity in which the effluent gasses flow towards the hole
* The chemicals alleged to cause these holes are MUCH heavier than air,.and although for a short period of time the rocket will pass through the ozone layer, the amount of these chemicals that could interact with the ozone layer will be relatively small (in other words only a fraction can affect the ozone layer)
On a relate note...
Until we launch nuclear engines that have NO air pollution, our cell phones, internet, television, and other worldwide communications are going to need *ROCKETS* to get them satellites into orbit, and those rockets are going to affect things... minimally.
I thought "double-decker bus" was an El Reg unit of measure already...
https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html
(it's listed under 'length')
If you shoot a few small holes in the gas bag it will come down slowly enough to avoid damaging things.
Then we recover the payload and figure out what they hell they were up to.
[Except that the Bidas family has been taking CCP money for so long that their puppet-masters won't let them.]
(If the balloon goes over Texas, Gov, Abbott will probably shoot it down. Same for DeSantis in Florida.)
this most DEFINITELY fails the 'shoe on the other foot' test.
Am I correct in thinking the Gnome people just don’t care?
I suspect they are either a) paid NOT to care, or b) exist in the same 'bubble world' as Win-10-nic TIFKAM etc.
Gnome, like Micros~1, seeking to "migrate US" to THEIR way, instead of 'customer service'
"One Adwaita to rule them all"
from the article: "we humbly suggest that another such replacement is in order."
Forking from upstream 'prior to latest gnome' would be a good start.
[/me absolutely DESPISES 'Adwaita', went out of my way to get it out of firefox, documented the process]
I always figured amber alerts were MOSTLY divorced dads late on returning the kid to the wacky X he divorced because she was wacky, but the courts "saw fit" to give HER custody for political reasons, and therefore he's constantly being subjected to excess scrutiny...
(at least they do not go over the emergency alert system any more, like they did at first)
icon, for snarky reasons
actually when I hear the lead-in and two tones I'm using profanities because "I was trying to listen" and it's always something irritating like a monthly test or 'yet another storm//flash-flood warning' when you have been hearing them all day and it has been raining all day.
I recall at one time AMBER ALERTS were going over this system (think missing kid except probably just some divorced parent late on returning the kid from "visitation" and wacky X waiting for an opportunity to "GET HIM" but I digress). This practice QUICKLY stopped.
if there were an actual nuclear war, I live within a few miles of several important Navy and Marine bases. I would never hear it. *BOOM*
