Maxar was "no longer profiting from their work on OSAM-1," after which the xproject appeared not "to be a high priority for Maxar in terms of the quality of its staffing."

Well yeah that'll do it. It "appeared" to not be a priority now that it was losing money. Thank you Cpt. Obv.

Space is hard. But spacce is also expensive.

It's a "dark day for the India internet,

... when big companies start getting forced to pay for services they've been stealing for years.

yeah, truly dark. Companies being held accountable for the kind of behavior that they otherwise tend to send armies of lawyers out to protect themselves from.

Over in India, enforcement is especially lax, and companies are used to getting away with all kinds of things. They're just plain not used to having to follow the law.

cry me a river.

So they're not breaking any law, and the only thing that Nintendo is upset about is they're doing something that's reducing their profits - like that can't be legal for some reason.

I'd love to see some comparison stats between their safety record and the record of say, new drivers. I'm expecting to see Waymo with a better safety record, and they're just getting focused on by the media right now.

You can't make them all happy. You must accept that someone is always going to complain. You're simply outnumbered.

EVERY new product to hit the market wll get some returns. What are the stats? 0.1% of people returning it is a lot different than say, 10%.

Also IIRC Apple had a 10 day "like it or return it" policy, so I'd imagine there's also going to be a chunk of people that had NO intention of keeping it and just wanted one to play with a little bit when it came out.

It's unclear how this all got through the editing, peer review, and publishing process.

Perhaps AI sending them laughably absurd things that they "automatically review and publish" is what it will take to make them start actually REVIEWING things before they publish them.

Getting your work peer reviewed nowadays no longer means anything because they'll publish ANYTHING. And AI is making them a laughing stock.

and so it begins...

I hear they're taking reading off the SATs down there lately.

I don't think energy is the problem. Fuel IS energy, bound densely in a transportable and storable form. You either get it from a natural reserve (like oil) or you have to make it yourself some other way, by inputting the energy to be stored, and that will ALWAYS involve collection, concentration, and conversion of energy, and that will never be "cheap", because ultimately all "cheap" means is "not requiring a lot of energy". And as we're finally coming to terms with, you can't just keep relying on conveniently collected, concentrated, and packaged energy laying around just waiting to be picked up.

When it comes right down to it, we may NEVER find a more convenient and energy-dense form of fuel than gasoline. (or other hydrocarbons) We could be working harder on technology to create gasoline (or some other form of hydrocarbon) from other sources of energy, but the biggest complaint I see is that it's too expensive to make. IE it requires more energy input. But it creates a more energy-dense fuel, that's easier to transport. But the public doesn't see it as a "good value" yet because there's still a lot of hydrocarbons just lying around to be picked up. That's changing of course, but it's going to be awhile before it reaches the tipping point,

Most chemical fuels are things that can be stored and later combined with oxygen (burned) to release energy. You could even say that the energy isn't in the gasoline or the hydrogen, it's in the oxygen in the air that's the actual fuel, and all we're carrying around is the catalyst to harvest the energy out of the air. Hydrogen is the best thing to combine with oxygen for energy release, and it's he hydrogen in the hydrocarbon that we're using. (but then we have that pesky carbon to get rid of, and we choose to release it into the air as CO2 instead of say, storing or recycling it, because it's more convenient)

But that carbon is very useful in increasing energy density by tying that hydrogen down so we can store it as a liquid instead of as a gas. We just traded problems, we got rid of the pesky carbon, but now we have to store our fuel as a gas. It really wasn't a very good trade-off, just look at all the problems that hydrogen has that gasoline lacks.

Getting back to your comment though, hydrogen generation by hydrolysis has NEVER been "cheap" because you're storing just about the maximum amount of energy by splitting hydrogen from water. It will ALWAYS take a lot of energy input because that's what you're doing - concentrating and packaging energy. Energy IS the product. The problem boils down to exactly two things: (1) find an abundant source of energy, and (2) reduce inefficiencies in the packing process. That's it, just those two things. Solar is a no-brainer for power but the middle east is naturally using their oil to do it. That's not a long-term solution of course. As for efficiency, we're already pretty good at that, there's not a lot less to optimize.

So what that means is it's NOT going to get "cheaper", because we're nearing the theoretical max. It only LOOKS like we might be able to get the cost down because of how expensive it currently is. The requirement for energy input is NOT negotiable. So almost all of hydrogen's production cost is a fixed-cost, that can never be reduced.

In summary, hydrogen will NEVER be a "cheap" source of energy. It's already very close to its theoretical lowest "price". All that can happen now is the cost of production of OTHER fuels will continue to rise, making hydrogen look better.

There's something not right. Heat pumps should run for years with zero maintenance.

MY repairs:

- exhaust unit motor failed less than 2 yrs old and had to be replaced (warranty) The first motor they brought out was DOA, so they were out working in my yard well after nightfall installing another motor.
- starter cap failed and had to be replaced (warranty)
- ghost problem causing reversing valve in exhaust unit to not reverse, came home to 95 degree house in june. they never were able to figure out why it did that, but it never happened again
- woke up saturday morning to 48 degrees in the house, vacuum sense switch failed and furnace refused to run, removed and exercised switch and reinstalled it, has been working fine ever since
- fuse kept blowing on control board, wire in exhaust unit not dressed in loom, wore through due to vibration and was shorting to ground, wiring redone
- mice got in through badly sealed entry, had to trap out several mice and re-seal entry
- loud rattle in exhaust unit, exhaust motor bearings loose, replaced motor (again)
- other starter cap failed (bought spare, haven't replaced it yet)

so yeah... "zero maintenance"... not so much. Not for me anyway. Fortunately not a lot of cost involved. (it's not like I lost a compressor, heat exchanger, or control board) BUT they did TRY bleed me:

- when the vacuum switch failed, a crooked repair shop told me it was a $300 part, and I bought a spare (OEM) off amazon for $18. (never have had to use it)
- when the exhaust unit was rattling, a different crooked shop told me the entire thing was "too old to repair" (just over 10 yrs old then) and said I had to replace the entire exhaust unit. (including compressor)

I installed a hybrid gas / heat pump system here several years ago, and it's been okay. I've had to have it repaired a few times though, it's higher maintenance than straight natural gas, mostly due to the outdoor "exhaust unit" as they call it. The big metal box with the fan.

One important thing for people to know - their capacity isn't really high. If you live in a really cold climate, your heat pump will struggle to provide enough heat, or it may just plain not be able to run at all. Mine is set to click over automatically to natural gas if it starts falling behind, and it WILL do that periodically when it's below zero (F) outside. I tried to leave it set on electrical only, and it fell behind several degrees before I re-enabled "emergency heat' mode, and the natural gas didn't take long to catch me up.

I'm currently on emergency heat only, because my starter capacitors have gone out AGAIN in the outside unit and it's a bit chilly to be outside doing repairs yet. I've got the replacement caps, just need a bit of warm weather and some motivation to get out there and swap them.

So make sure you "get both sides of the story" before making any expensive decisions. They're not all roses, but it's NICE to finally have central air conditioning. Also, make sure the peeps that install it did a good job of sealing up the entry into the house. I had to evict some mice and re-seal it myself a few years ago. Great Stuff works well for that. And depending on where you live, natural gas may be a cheaper source of heat than electrical is. I wouldn't trust the sellers to be honest about that - talk with a neighbor that's switched, to see if they're really saving money like the salesman told them they would.

When a driverless car gets into a collision, the news outlets almost universally leave that critical detail out of the headline, that the driverless car was driving legally and the other party in the collision broke a traffic law. Or even making it sound like the driverless car was at fault.

Grabs more headlines that way I suppose, a bit clickbait-ish.

declare it illegal you say? well, THAT'LL stop them! Goodness knows a telemarketing firm would NEVER break the law!

That works for awhile, but eventually the fine dust sticks and starts to accumulate. Then, the only way to get it off requires physical contact. (usually washing, even with a water spray - which can also be done with drones

I've seen some panel designs that include automatic washers, though I don't know if that ends up better or worse than drone maintenance. (or just plain people rotating through them with a squeegee)