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Comment Re:Microsoft has a serious culture problem (Score 1) 63

And instead of fixing this, they focus on AI and...notepad...for some fucking reason.

Because for the past 30 or so years, it has worked very well for MS to keep their main products barely useable, rely on lock-in and chase the next big thing so they can get their dirty hands on it early and lock more people into more products.

Comment vibe (Score 1) 63

'vibe-scheduling'

I guess "vibe-something" is going to be the anti-word of 2026. People are slowly waking up to what it actually means to let the AI do the work.

I'm not dissing AI, I'm using it extensively myself and there's a few AI whitepapers with my name on them. But like any tool, it can be great when used correctly and ruin your day when not.

Comment Re:Did the city of SF... (Score 1) 138

[smoking] Why? Tax revenue.

Also: Voters. Smokers are still a fairly substantial fraction of the population, enough to swing a vote, especially if, and that appears to be the trend in most western democracies these days, there are two opposing political sides roughly evenly matched.

I mean, does it not strike anyone as a very weird coincidence that we have almost perfect 50/50 splits in so many countries?

Comment Re:Excellent! Can we do this here in the uk? (Score 1) 138

No one forced anyone to eat those ultraprocessed foods.

No, but they do everything BUT force to make it the most attractive option. Just as one silly example: With wages and prices as they are, having both partners work full-time is basically required unless you're in the top few percent of earners or inherited wealth. So who's going to cook? After a long work day? Convenience food is the obvious choice. You are not being forced, but unless food is a high-priority item in your life, you are very much steered into that direction.

Comment Re:Anomalies are a learning experience (Score 1) 77

It's ability to hover, and fixing itself to the deck allows for a much expanded launch envelope.

How so? I don't see how hovering makes any difference at all... it's just a waste of fuel, increasing gravity loss. It's nicer from a controllability standpoint, but SpaceX has clearly perfected the hoverslam maneuver and once you have that down it makes more sense than to waste fuel hovering and translating. Bolting itself into the deck helps with rough seas, I suppose, but it seems unlikely you'd want to try landing in very rough conditions anyway.

Spacex doesn't seem to care for doing this all that often any more.

Nah. They do it when it makes sense. They don't do it for Starlink launches because it's cheaper to launch a slightly lighter load and shorten turnaround time, to avoid waiting for the droneship to ferry the rocket back to land. Plus their launch cadence is so high that they'd need a big fleet of droneships. So they reserve those for paying customers who need the greater capacity. I don't think anything about New Glenn's capabilities changes those calculations.

Comment Re:Zig (Score 1) 63

It's been around for quite a while. It's seems to be a replacement for C and C++. Some see it as an alternative to Rust, but it doesn't have the same safety features. I would love to find a language that's a replacement for C++ that can be used to migrated existing code bases to, but none of them are, really. That's partly C++'s fault. It's very hard to interoperate with C++ code and libraries from other languages, without layers of wrappers (PySide comes to mind for Qt). Even interop between different C++ compilers is difficult. So for now I stick with C++.

Comment Re:Anomalies are a learning experience (Score 1) 77

New Glenn booster can also glide a bit during descent, not unlike the Starship. The strakes on the rocket create a tiny bit of lift, so it has a more flexible landing envelope than the mostly ballistic descent of the Falcon 9. I was very impressed by what New Glenn did on its first successful landing.

Comment Re:Unleashed animal runs into street? (Score 1) 159

The AI is significantly more aware of other cars around it. Unlike a human, the self-driving system has continuous 360-degree visibility.

While I agree that it *should* always be safe to hit the brakes, the truth is that when you're driving on busy roads most of the time it's not safe to brake hard. People follow too close more often than they maintain proper separation.

I also agree that drivers should always have sufficient situational awareness to know whether or not it's safe to brake, they often don't, and they often react without considering the consequences. This isn't a "man vs woman" thing, it's a human thing.

Comment Re:Just shoddy... (Score 1) 91

something about 'AI' seems to have caused people who should have known better to just ignore precautions

The cynic in me wants to say that they see "intelligence" and go "great, it has something I don't, let's just 100% trust it".

The social critic in me wants to say that it's due to the gigantic hype about AI and how it'll revolutionize everything, replace everyone and solve all problems.

And the tech/security guy in me wants to say "doh, people do dumb shit. What else is new?"

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