gimmeThaBeet

that was definitely one of those "wait, what?" moments. i still love it when software feels like a magic trick

yeah i was like huh? you wanna bandy about on valuation etc. whatever. but part of why the whole circular financing is a thing is nvidia has so much cash flow, it is not trivial to allocate

It's sort a "broken clock right twice a day" thing, but I agree with not doing offshore wind in the US. The divergence immediately follows in that I wish they would just push onshore wind.

It's sort of a circular issue, it's madly expensive because we haven't built a lot and aren't super good at it, and we don't get much of it built because we aren't great at it and it always is ludicrously expensive.

The US has a uniquely underdeveloped maritime sector, we don't build a lot of the massive turbines you use offshore. You drive through central and west texas, it feels like there might be more wind turbines than people. We've kind of already made the decision based on what works.

I said accused mainly because the big 3 won their last antitrust suit in the US, sort of "what have you caught me for, lately?" approach.

For all I know, maybe they are dumb enough to try and actually coordinate again, my hunch would be no, or they've tried something new and inventive. Like Matt Levine talked about how so many landlords were using the same software to set prices, that one was pretty shady.

But it is interesting where it is popping up at the moment, like power transformers is another area. These companies have lived through these cycles before, and know there is no one to save them if they overleverage and get it wrong.

I struggle to think of a line of business as cyclical as DRAM, maybe like certain kinds of mining would be my only thought.

The DRAM fabs have been on a roundabout for 40 years going from getting accused of price fixing and cartel behavior, to struggling to keep the lights on.

And imo it's not really their fault, it's all the lead time of advanced semiconductors, combined with the commodity dynamics of oil. And the goal is to match that supply to the demand of everything from consumer electronics to more datacenters than you can shake a stick at.

It's maddening to try and solve that, so at this point I really don't fault them for prioritizing survival.

yeah this seems to be the catch 22 to me. the laws are out there to limit the e-bikes to speeds and power. i want an irresponsibly powered one because i have an endorsement and want a non-sketch electric motorcycle that isn't mad expensive compared to petrol bikes in north america.

but because that would indeed kill their market because most people don't have motorcycle licenses, no one gets them approved, or countries won't allow them.

I agree, or at least I would stress that people should be allowed to consent to that. I don't know what the prevailing medical ethics of doing that kind of thing in consenting patients in that state, but my uninformed intuition is I would disagree with it.

Though one thing that I might think researchers might not want is people may be too sick to recover even if their cancer disappeared tomorrow.

the aphorism that comes to mind with that prospect these days is: "populism is like cigarettes, it's not the first one that kills you, it's the last"

jeez 8-18 years, is that a record or is it one of those things they don't know enough about them to narrow down? that's another thing to think about when my ignorant self is eating my sushi. i used to assume that farmed salmon was marginally better than wild, but given how much wild fish gets fed to farmed fish, not sure that is even a plus on top of the ecological effects of fish farming.

Jeopardy style, Who is Lee Child?

Dang that 6k is pretty prohibitive not for the overall level, but because it's 4 hobs or nothing. Hardly a "give it a swag" kind of level. I assume they are probably somewhat comparable to the Breville Control Freak, so at a single hob you'd be competing against $1500.

But the battery is a nice philosophy, similar to hybrid/mild electric cars. You don't need all the power forever. You just need more than a 120V circuit can provide.

Not sure if any of my anecdata when I was a contractor are relevant anymore given current circumstances, but among all the NASA facilities I worked with, JPL really seemed to be doing its own thing, mostly for better. They were a bit quirky to work with though, because they did seem to do so much more in-house than elsewhere. So I don't know if it's that independence or their zip code that has made them such a target, but I wonder if it has been that they have less political capital from moneyed interests keeping them off the chopping block. But any gutting of JPL is probably irreplaceable damage.

I can add a minimal anecdote. I got some support from a couple engineers on a telecom project, and it wasn't even that big of a thing, but they were more than decent to work with. I did say to one guy, "you guys are a lot cooler to work with than some of the stuff you see in the news" and matter-of-fact he was just like "oh, yeah that's legal"

my vision of them is that the engineering side can be great to deal with when they want to be (and my personal experience is they want to be). but the other part of their business is like set the standard, and then enforce it.

This is what sticks with me the deepest.

With immigration are unquestionably tough decisions, tradeoffs, philosophies on the issue, and demographics in general. It gets heated, fast. I know I'm biased, but I wish trust had not degraded to such an extent you could believe people could deal with these topics in good faith.

But how can anyone support this kind of craven policymaking where uncertainty and cruelty are features and not bugs? Just shock and awe and deafening silence.

That's what's so dishearterning. Is that who we are now, or is this just a timely excuse to be who we always have?