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Comment Re: There does not seem to be a bright future for (Score 1) 24

Where I've found it useful is on the drudgery that I usually end up clobbering myself with over the last leg of a sprint - like unit tests or rough documentation. I can trust that the AI is going to do a pretty decent job developing the unit tests - hard to screw those up, really, and it doesn't take long to review them for accuracy. I treat it like the junior dev you don't trust to code their way out of a wet paper bag. The documentation part is very useful, because if the AI can't make heads or tails of what you are doing in code, you should probably take another look at it and at the very least put more comments around it.

Comment Re: ... generate 100,000 gigawatts a year. (Score 1) 90

If he is the source of the hype, that gets him into very hot water with the SEC. This has happened to him in the past, and he has very choice words about his opinion of the SEC. He has been doing a much better job about his public comments of late, but that may be because of the $Trillion payout he is anticipating and his desire not to raise the ire of the current executive branch and their tame set of judges/justices. In fact, all the histrionics of DOGE at the outset of this administration is about to pay out for Musk when all the regulators and judiciary looks the other way as he drives away with his dumptrucks of $$CASH$$.

Comment Re:How? (Score 2) 20

I would conjecture that LLMs are a conglomeration of what we train them on - the best, and worst, of human experience and behavior. At worst, AGI is still yet to be proven, but we have to also conjecture that any self-aware intelligence will be pragmatic and selfish about its existence above all else, regardless of the boundaries we set (thank you Aasimov for proposing them in the first place - even if, in the act of creating them, we create the conundrum for AGI to ignore them in favor of their own existence). We can't expect the creation to honor the wishes of their creators unless it is in their best interests also. Our own examples from religion and literature are gross in this kind of reference.

Comment Re:well.... (Score 1) 53

Our new reality with generative AI is not too much changed from our reality without it. We now have personal oracles to take our questions to instead of asking an expert, as long as we are diligent to follow up with even the most surface of skims to make sure the AI didn't hallucinate. This reduces the busy work we would have pushed off on junior team members or interns, so not much replaced. What we have to fight against is this perception that AI replaces intellectual workers. It doesn't, really. It enhances their output and frees up their time in industries that are always fighting for warm bodies, let alone brilliant minds. But there will still be pointy-headed bosses who will view this as a staff-replacer rather than what it really is - a force multiplier that when put to the right use, will allow projects to complete closer to budget, on time and with efficacy.

Comment Re:Geez, if you don't like it... (Score 1) 68

To be completely honest, I do not use my computers like I use my phone. My phone is what I carry everywhere, and what I use on a daily basis to communicate with the world around me - and I would rather it be more secure than less. When I ran around with Android phones, I would end up rooting the phone because it was the only way to guarantee I could update it and lock it down. If I didn't, I was completely beholden to the manufacturer and carrier as to when it would be updated and which version it was considered EOL. It was too much work, to be honest. And the peace of mind wasn't there. Switched to iPhone and found synergy with my other devices. Bought an Apple Watch and it integrated seamlessly. Had the same iPhone since 2018 and haven't looked back. Sure, it is way out of warranty and probably will be EOL for iOS updates eventually, but I look at the Android phones my friends are walking around with and they are all a year old at most - and they are trading in and upgrading every year because that's the cycle they are in. And I haven't had to jailbreak my phone. I'm reasonably comfortable using my banking app on iOS on my phone. And using all the 2FA features for my other secure logins. Not sure what I will do if Apple is forced to open up the walled garden. Pretty sure there are plenty of ambitious folks out there ready to exploit the hell out of iOS users stupid enough to side-load their shit, or download it from an unscrupulous app store. Won't be me.

Comment Re:Once again, the power of plastic (Score 1) 207

They aimed their focus on BHP and made it bad to use it. But there are whole classes of plasticizers and polyesters that aren't just endocrine-disruptive, but full-on replacements for sex hormones like estrogen and androgen. Not to mention the wide slew of naturally-derived plant hormones found in vegetable oils that are concentrated by processing and never found at such levels in nature. This is the real danger of seed-based oils.

Comment Re:We've noticed this in an MRI setting (Score 4, Interesting) 207

We know that hormones have a huge impact on gene expression, and that most forms of cancer are caused by inactive gene sequences that are not in expression that become active due to hormone changes. This could be especially significant when we start screwing around with nature by artificially changing the environment, such as hormonal birth control and introduction of artificial estrogens (the controversy over BHP and other polyesters, for instance). There is great hesitation in funding this research because of the huge liability it will create for the plastics industry and for big pharma, but it will be highly important for the continued health of everyone. For a better idea of how impactful the conclusion of research can be, take a look at the widespread use of asbestos in almost every facet of fireproofing and the current amount of mesothelioma litigation that continues to be ongoing. Or the amount of money that the tobacco industry continues to pay out because they did the research and ignored the conclusions.

Comment Re: IIgs was slow? No way! (Score 1) 69

The ideas behind Hypercard heavily influenced the implementation of HTML, Hypertext and Javascript that powers the current form of the web we enjoy today. If Bill Atkinson had been more forward-thinking than he was at the time (making it network-aware from the start), it most likely would have been the web. Instead, it needed Tim Berners-Lee to take it that last mile.

Comment Re:It's nice to see Linux move into the 21st Centu (Score 1) 49

I think the push should be that whenever they open the hood on any part of the kernel, the responsible parties should determine if they need to rewrite the portion in Rust or continue to solve the problem in C. Most of the kernel code in C is absolutely safe and solid and does not need to be rewritten. New pieces should be written in Rust. Compromised portions of the kernel absolutely should be rewritten in Rust. I think Microsoft has already taken this approach on the Windows kernel and drivers.

Comment How about reimplementing .NET in Rust? (Score 5, Interesting) 77

Instead of dumping and rewriting their C# logic as Rust, why not implement the .NET IL interpreters using Rust? Granted, it may not be any faster than it is now, it will be more future-proof and could allow them to expose Rust as a runtime language within .NET, that way any "MS"-iness with Rust is limited to this environment (compile directives and such). With that in mind, .NET languages could then run alongside Rust in the same implementation, and any desire to rewrite to Rust could be done in due course without sacrificing performance.

Comment Re:This is the way (Score 1) 33

The biggest problem is that the venture into space was led by government, which is spastically led by politicians who have to cater to the whims of the uneducated populace and the ambitions of terrestrially-bound corporations led by executives who can't see past the next quarter. The Moon Shot was the big wad spent by NASA and they haven't seen budgets anywhere near that scope again. And the only reason that they got such a big spend was because we were in a penis measuring contest with the Soviet Union with regards to space programs and politicians who could be whipped up with the Red Scare In Space.

We lack a firm leadership who has a vision of where the human race needs to be. Mr. Musk appears to be the next best thing to a leader with a vision. Without the Red Scare, your everyday run-of-the-mill Joe Blow in congress could care less about the space program if it won't get him re-elected.

That's why I led with an economic incentive to build orbital industry. It isn't just space tourism. It's about convenience for the jet-setting continent hoppers who don't want to spend days getting to the other side of the globe, or even from the East Coast to the West Coast in under an hour, totally feasible using a Starship orbit transfer with the orbital platform as the transfer point so everyone goes where they want to go. Layover in orbit waiting for your drop? Why not enjoy a meal with an out-of-the-world view? Do it enough times and even lowly plebeians may be able to afford the price with the economy of scale.

Comment This is the way (Score 4, Insightful) 33

The orbital platform is a stepping stone. We build the orbital platform because it needs to be there. Launch facilities on every continent make it possible to put Starships into orbit on a regular basis, alongside Dragon capsules. Passengers exit the Starship, take a few minutes to look around, and then board another Starship that is exiting orbit, and they land on another continent in a mere handful of hours rather than the days it would have taken to travel by commercial airliner.

More passengers requires more space and amenities to support their presence in orbit, thus increasing the size of the station and the head count of workers. A larger work force means more opportunity for increased orbital industry.

First, we start cleaning up near-orbit space and recycling the materials we've been throwing into orbit for the last 60+ years. It's cheaper to recycle than it is to lift it from the deep gravity well that is Earth, especially if we have the infrastructure in orbit to make it possible.

Next, we start capitalizing on near Earth bodies (i.e., the Moon, asteroids, comets, etc.). We build and populate lunar bases and move nearby asteroids into orbit for raw materials. We expand orbital habitats and make them as livable as possible, using spin rotation to create artificial gravity. This steps us to the rest of the solar system. In orbit, we can manufacture spacecraft that never have to endure the rigors of orbital insertion, but are imminently suited for interplanetary travel.

This bootstraps us to Mars, Saturn and Jupiter, where we can exploit even more resources on rocky moons and large asteroids, building on our experience manufacturing in near Earth orbit. Sunlight will be weaker, so we will require more efficient solar energy capture - but we are an adaptive and innovative species as long as we don't kill each other and ourselves before we can innovate and adapt. Considering the vast amount of space in the solar system, there is a lot of room for expansion - and a lot of resources to fuel it. But we will take the next leap to extra-solar exploration and, eventually, colonization.

We just need to get off our collective asses and do it. Thank you Elon for being among the first to get up.

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