2000 mile range of a diesel. Probably only 200 to 300 for this POS (I doubt even that but trying to be nice). Electric motors drain batteries super fast under heavy load conditions, and long and even short haul cargo trucks are expected to carry up to 40,000 pounds of cargo. The whole truck including tractor, trailer, and cargo can weigh up to 80,000 pounds. This electric tractor might make it 500 miles on its own. Add the trailer and cargo and likely not even 200 miles. A half hour wasted every 200 miles will bankrupt the trucker. No one will want to hire his/her truck if it wastes that much time.

It doesn't matter how fast it charges if it can't drive as far as a diesel with 40,000 pounds of cargo. The heavier the weight, the more toque required, which is the Achilles Heel of electric motors and batteries. They aren't telling us anything if they don't show how far it drive pulling a 40,000 pound cargo on a long trailer. 80,000 pounds altogether. Diesel tractor trailers can drive up to 2000 miles on a full fuel load, depending on tank size. I seriously doubt a Tesla semi can drive even 200 to 300 miles with a full cargo load of 40,000 pounds.

It was $1500 and a fun project. An old pre-computer carburetor engine is simple to work on.

[looks at my micro compact (40-60 mpg) and 1969 power wagon with 8x12 flatbed]

Micro handles 98% of yearly motor usage while flatbed, driven less than 2000 miles a year is good for everything else.

Lucky to live in the country with space for an oversize vehicle.

A dozen decent croissants for $5.99 is hard to beat.

Whatâ(TM)s interesting here is that as a professional musician, this guy is a public figure and the âoeactual maliceâ standard for defamation applies â" a standard that was designed when defamation could only be done by a human being.

This requires the defendant to make a defamatory statement either (1) knowing it is untrue or (2) with reckless disregard for the truth.

Neither condition applies to the LLM itself; it has no conception of truth, only linguistic probability. But the LLM isnâ(TM)t the defendant here. Itâ(TM)s the company offering it as a service. Here the company is not even aware of the defamatory statement being made. But it is fully aware of their modelâ(TM)s capacity to hallucinate defamatory âoefactsâ.

I think that because the tort is based in the common law concept of a duty of care, we may well see the company held liable in some way for this kind of thing. But itâ(TM)s new law; it could go the other way.

The laborious, linear interface is of course another limitation of all kinds of tapes -- digital or analog. But getting rid of this also changes human behavior. People don't listen as much to long form collections; they don't even necesssarily listen to entire songs.

A mix tape is essentially a long format program manually and personally curated for you by another human being, unmediated and indeed untracked by any third corporate party. Losing the mix tape was a real cultural loss. Sure they didn't sound great, but they didn't have to.

I suppose every technological advance is potentially double edged. When people get books and literacy, verbal storytelling declines. That doesn't make books bad. the technical limitations of verbal stories -- say limited repeatbility -- are real limitations, but that doesn't mean something wasn't lost.

[La'An Noonien-Singh stares in Toronto]

I thought Australia was the land of sunshine and shahks?

Isn't there a way to build shahk collectors across the land and power desal plants?

Check please!

[stares in Wall-E]

Oh god, this is gonna be one of the Marky Mark straight-to-netflix films, right?

Meanwhile, at Anthropic

Claudius Sennet 1:45 p.m.
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https://archive.is/2025.12.18-...

I don't even give vendors and utilities access to my banking accounts, why would I allow some rando agent the keys to my (rather small) personal kingdom?

I know some folks who exist solely on box food (usually frozen heat and eat stuff) and I can see how someone heading home from work on a friday would ping their fridge to see if they have frozen pizza or whatever it is they want, in case they have to hit the supermercado on the way home.

And maybe some folks with memory issues, when they're out grocery shopping/

But other than that, naw.