Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Comment Re:Comparing the powers (Score 1) 259

by ukoda (#65825311) Attached to: Europe Fears It Can't Catch Up in Great Power Competition

Dear rest of world: FAFO.

You do know that FAFO means "Fuck Around and Find Out"? What has the USA's allies done to the USA? What fucking around have they done? It is the USA is which is threatening it's allies.

Traditionally part of the USA's power has been the solidarity of it's allies. Many New Zealanders have lost the lives in wars started by the USA. As you pull inwards, threatening allies and talking of dissolving alliances, you lose power by not being able to call on those allies. Already your power is less than a before trump. Today allies withhold some intelligence information from the USA because they know trump may chose to post it on X. Ukraine is now the world's leader in drone technology and who are they sharing it with? Europe and the UK, not the USA.

Comment Re:Won't cost them much (Score 1) 53

by ukoda (#65823901) Attached to: Australia's Streaming Quotas Become Law
I suspect the "10% of total Australian expenditure" would be trivial for their accountants to fudge. However the "7.5% of revenues" might be harder for them to mess with, so maybe there is hope. Still what is 'revenue'? One would hope it is what is actually taken from Australian's credit card without offset, fees, adjustments or magic thinking.

I'm reminded of the joke; A mathematician, engineer and account were asked what "2 + 2" is:
The mathematician answered "It can generally be assumed to be 4 in normal use".
The engineer answered "4.0 is a reasonable assumption".
The accountant answered "What do you want it to be?".

Comment What type of AI? (Score 1) 46

by ukoda (#65823443) Attached to: Robots and AI Are Already Remaking the Chinese Economy
AI is such a generic term it is probably misleading this case. When people talk about AI they usually mean LLM like ChatGPT but I doubt that this is the AI that is actually having effect here. I suspect the AI they are actually using is ML when it is trained on the input and output data of the factory systems until it can control them, after which it continues the fine tune things for better numbers.

Comment Won't cost them much (Score 2) 53

by ukoda (#65823425) Attached to: Australia's Streaming Quotas Become Law
The streaming services won't need to spend much as creative accounting means they show little actual profit in Australia. The profit is all seen off shore in places like Ireland. I recall there was a time several years ago when my one man company was paying more taxes in New Zealand that Google, even though they were hauling in a lot of money globally. They were simply fudging the numbers to move their tax obligations away from here to a country where it was cheaper.

You can bet they will do the same in Australia, manipulate the numbers to maximise their profit. I think the important thing is the Australians are only asking for action on the parts of the business that these companies do locally, not basing it on the total operations, making it a reasonable demand.

Comment Comparing the powers (Score 4, Interesting) 259

by ukoda (#65823393) Attached to: Europe Fears It Can't Catch Up in Great Power Competition
If you compare the attitude of the great powers to their people it is interesting. In alphabetical order the way it looks to me is:

China: Controls it's people but is wary of them so tries to keep them happy.
Europe: Values it's people so tries to keep them happy.
Russia: People are a resource to manipulate and use.
USA: People exist to provide resources to make corporations and the rich more profitable.

In that light:

China: Their power continues to grow steady.
Europe: Has realise the USA is no longer there for them and is actively trying to improve.
Russia: Has over played its hand and is paying the price, a reduced power.
USA: Becoming increasing inward focused and chaotic is giving away power rapidly.

That is just how it looks to me, not being from any of the those powers. I'm sure others will see it differently.

Comment Re:Replacing incomprehension with slop (Score 1) 47

by ukoda (#65819653) Attached to: HP To Cut About 6,000 Jobs By 2028, Ramps Up AI Efforts
I don't see how that helps if it can't solve my problem. Will it escalate to a person with the skill to investigate and resolve my problem? As far as I am aware AI can't solve problems that haven't already been solved or can be extrapolated from existing information without doing research.

Therefore I disagree, my original point stands.

Comment Re:Anything for money (Score 3, Interesting) 108

by ukoda (#65817733) Attached to: American Influencers Can't Stop Praising Chinese EVs They Can't Buy
While I'm sure you are right that USA car makers are likely doing that same thing, that link was not a great example. At least they are honest after the click bait head line.

So when Consumer Reports recently backtracked on a Tesla Model 3 review, which criticised the Model 3’s braking as being substandard we wondered if Tesla, aka, Elon Musk twisted a few arms.

...

So did Tesla try to buy positive feedback from a truly independent review source? The answer is no

Tesla do get a lot of hit jobs from media, particularly automotive media, because they refuse to pay for adverts. It does seem to have died down in recent times as most people now know the pros and cons of a Tesla, so the FUD is less effective and hurts their credibility.

Comment Funny about page (Score 1) 49

by ukoda (#65816399) Attached to: Hacker Conference Installed a Literal Antivirus Monitoring System
Worth a read of the about page at https://kawaiicon.org/about/. Maybe I will go to the next one.

Kiwicon came first. Kiwicon started decades ago with a couple of hundred nerds down at Pipitea campus with a sense of bewilderment that anyone showed up at all, and the cleaners refusing to do the men’s bathroom overnight.

We’ve grown up since then. Not too much.

...

We’ll always have black t-shirts and lasers, but we’ll also have glitter fountains. Maybe a petting zoo.

Comment Re:Electric Trucker (Score 2) 79

by ukoda (#65806533) Attached to: China's Diesel Trucks Are Shifting To Electric
So what you are saying is BEV trucks would be a huge bonus because adding electricity along such highways to supply new charging stations is a one time exercise vs trucking in diesel to gas station regularly. Sure, investment will be needed but it just money, not the ongoing logistics problem that diesel would be on such routes.

Actually for many such routes a solar farm and batteries could do the job instead of new cables. I saw some pictures one Tesla already did for one of their desert based charging locations. I think it was earlier this year it came online.

Submission + - China's diesel trucks are shifting to electric

Submitted by ukoda
ukoda writes: An interesting report by msn covers the rapid growth in the usage of electric trucks replacing diesel and LNG and the implications this could have global LNG and diesel demand:

China is replacing its diesel trucks with electric models faster than expected, potentially reshaping global fuel demand and the future of heavy transport.

In 2020, nearly all new trucks in China ran on diesel. By the first half of 2025, battery-powered trucks accounted for 22% of new heavy truck sales, up from 9.2% in the same period in 2024, according to Commercial Vehicle World, a Beijing-based trucking data provider. The British research firm BMI forecasts electric trucks will reach nearly 46% of new sales this year and 60% next year.

China’s trucking fleet, the world’s second-largest after the U.S., still mainly runs on diesel, but the landscape is shifting. Transport fuel demand is plateauing, according to the International Energy Agency and diesel use in China could decline faster than many expect, said Christopher Doleman, an analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Electric trucks now outsell LNG models in China, so its demand for fossil fuels could fall, and "in other countries, it might never take off,” he said.

The share of electrics in new truck sales, from 8% in 2024 to 28% by August 2025, has more than tripled as prices have fallen. Electric trucks outsold LNG-powered vehicles in China for five consecutive months this year, according to Commercial Vehicle World.

While electric trucks are two to three times more expensive than diesel ones and cost roughly 18% more than LNG trucks, their higher energy efficiency and lower costs can save owners an estimated 10% to 26% over the vehicle’s lifetime, according to research by Chinese scientists.

“When it comes to heavy trucks, the fleet owners in China are very bottom-line driven,” Doleman said.

Slashdot Top Deals

"Help Mr. Wizard!" -- Tennessee Tuxedo

Close