From TFA:
Western governments historically have offered limited incentives to chip-makers, even as Asian countries eager to build up their domestic industries dangled free land, discounted utilities and tax breaks. That led to a shift in the industry toward [Asia]...

Right. Free land and free water made Asian semiconductor companies successful, and not the inability for western tech firms to look beyond the next four quarters....Good job WSJ. Very neutral and insightful.

https://semianalysis.com/tesla...

The article claims 11 cabinets are enough to get 1.1 Exoflops .

Brightline Florida, with its diesel hybrid locomotives, averages around 200km/hr. Since 1 of the points of trains is to lessen emission, it's not out of question that some kind of hybrid battery-hydrogen locomotives would work (heck, Britian and France are already testing them.)

As for serving Marysville...they are nice towns, except that's what they are, towns. If the goal is solely to serve these small communities, a heavy rail commuter train running at 120km/hr would be more than sufficient. The line would be much cheaper (although with the rate Seattle's light rail system is costing, I might have to take this back.)

HSR is mostly for end-to-end transportation, with communities in-between being secondary beneficiary. If the demand from/to Vancouver is not big enough, building a HSR is sort of pointless.

Overhead electric line would be the most logical choice, but high speed rail projects have enough trouble just to get off the ground. Simplifying the construction to the bare minimal, while leaving things for future upgrades, is necessary to get this approved.

>Vancouver to Seattle

I live in Vancouver (hence the km/hr) and 1 of my pals live in Seattle. I visit him every other months before COVID. I work in tech so I can afford the ticket. I am right in the middle of the target audience for the train. I am autistic and I love trains. I take high speed trains whenever I can, even when it doesn't make sense.

The area north of Seattle just doesn't have enough population to make high speed rail work, I feel. In 50 years, when Greater Vancouver doubles its population? Maybe yes, but until then...

Portland is markedly smaller than Vancouver, but it is still part of US, so imo the synergy between Portland and Seattle is much greater than Vancouver.

Why would taxpayers be 'required' to bail out a private enterprise? I keep on seeing this excuse but no one can convincingly show me why the government will for sure step in when a railroad company fail.

I don't see this thing getting built under $80 billions, unless

1. 240km/hr
2. hydrogen-powered trains and skip the overhead electrification. Better yet, reuse some of the existing rail right of way for extended straight stretches
2. Pre-fab overhead viaducts whenever possible.
3. Follow the I-5 right of way for the entire route.
4. Build the Portland-Seattle stretch first.

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-spacex-beat-blue-origin-for-nasa-lunar-lander-project-2021-8

In response, the GAO pointed to NASA's limited funds for the mission. The group even took a stab at Blue Origin, saying NASA was not "required" to choose an applicant whose proposal NASA did not find attractive. In other words, NASA was not forced to take on two companies if it only found one company up to par.

Despite Bezos' offer to lower Blue Origin's $5.9 billion contract and take on $2 billion out-of-pocket, the GAO said NASA had found it "implausible" that the company could reduce its price without significantly changing its design.

Bezos said NASA had unfairly evaluated Blue Origin. For example, the company argued that it was not specified that the vehicle should be able to land in the dark. The GAO contended that NASA was not required to lay out all minute details, and Blue Origin should take into account the conditions on the moon or space itself â" which is dark.

Blue Origin also raised issue with the fact that SpaceX received extra points for developing a system that focused on the health and safety of the crew â" an objective that NASA had not made a requirement. The GAO said NASA had the freedom to choose which design function to prioritize.

With Sparkplug, Ignition, Turbofan, and Turboprop as V8's interpreters/JIT engines, and having them interact and giving type feed backs between them for optimization and de-optimization, V8 exchanges speed for incredible amount of complexity.

As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport.

-Gloucester, King Lear

Speaking of Monero, I was at a tech conference a few years ago in which Monero has its own booth.

Monero held a 'after party' at a local nightclub and I went in to take a peek. More specifically, I stood beside the bar and looked at how the attendees pay for their drinks (what, you think the drinks are free? Heh.)

Everyone was paying with their credit cards. Granted it was dark and I couldn't tell if all the cards are crypto-back debit cards, but for such a large concentration of crypto enthusiasts that like to yell "crypto is king", I was amused to see not even 1 person pay for the drink with their phone, let alone whip out a hardware wallet and try to pay with that.

(I looked at about 30 people before I finished my drinks and left.)

Competent planning?

To clarify, I mean a leading company as the result of a European Union national strategy. ASML's success stems more from Netherland's own doing, than what EU's governance had done.

In addition, lithography is only 1 part of the silicon production. Different countries dominate different part of the production process-

https://asia.nikkei.com/Busine...

Finally, a large part of ASML's R&D is based in the US (from buying US company Cymer 9 years ago.)

Name a company from the EU from the last 50 years, that's not Airbus, that is successful in taking the lead of its respective field.

Do you think they were out to rip you guys off, or were just so incompetent that that they didn't realized how ridiculous the request was?