True, but we aren't that far off. Metal 3D printers exist and are coming down towards hobbyist reach. The range of materials available to hobbyists has increased a lot. There are also hobbyist CNC systems that are a lot easier to use than the industrial versions.

They encode data in phase, so the number of bits per voxel depend on the sensitivity of the phase detector.

They are also able to encode data from multiple directions, so the phase can be different depending on the angle that light enters from. How many different angles they can have will depend on the precision that they can move the emitter with.

Would be nice if it ever came to market and was affordable, but I'm not optimistic.

It's designed to keep people alive but alleviating some of their loneliness. It's hard to explain to someone who has not experienced it themselves, but that little question, even automated, somehow helps.

I've got chronic health issues, and I found that keeping a really simple diary helped. There is an app called Migraine Log for Android, open source and stores data locally. It just asks you a single question - rate your pain on a scale of green, yellow, or red. I have a reminder set for it once a day.

I initially thought I would use it to track how effective different treatments are, but I found that just taking literally a couple of seconds to think about how I was feeling and log it somewhere was actually quite nice. I know nobody else will ever look at it, I know I'll probably never look at it, but knowing that there is a record of the suffering somewhere helps. Human emotions are not rational.

I don't think it's that simple. When you ask the more advanced AIs a question, they do work through the problem. Maybe it's not reasoning in the same way a human does, but they research the issues, research the solutions, evaluate them, and then issue a response. Some will then test and refine that response, e.g. Claude can create tests using data you supply, or even find its own sample data, and then do the testing and refinement cycles automatically. You can have multiple Claude bots, some doing coding and some doing testing.

I hate to say it, but it is capable of replacing human teams, sometimes. It still needs experts to guide it and check the results, and it still fails sometimes. But I wouldn't write it off as just "predicting the next word" or "reworking stolen Stack Exchange answers".

The same argument that anyone who knows how to work metal can make a gun ignored that 3D printers are different. If they were not, they wouldn't be so desirable. The whole point is to make it easier, trivial even, to make things.

Star Trek understood it, and it's been stated that the replicators won't make weapons. We aren't quite at the "push a button, gun comes out" phase, but there is a line somewhere.

The movement to switch to European, or at least non-US technology, is gaining momentum here. People aren't going to switch back in 3 years.

There are some gaps, but those are opportunities.

While that's how it is supposed to work, you do have to be careful with people abusing science for their own ends.

The classic example is scientific racism. It started centuries ago, as a way to justify slavery by "scientifically" proving that white people were superior and black people were simply meant to be dominated and controlled. More recently we have had things like The Bell Curve, which was arguing that some races are more intelligent than others, based on obviously flawed but "scientific" methodology.

Sadly even peer review is no guarantee that it's good science, although it is certainly worthwhile.

Sadly I doubt that the Andrew thing will go very far. He might get a slap on the wrist. They are only looking at if he gave Epstein sensitive information as part of his job as ambassador. While it seems likely that he gave out the information in exchange for access to girls to rape, or because Epstein was blackmailing him, the chances of anything that harms Trump coming out of this are low.

I wonder how much of this is due to funding problems. They are under pressure to get Americans on the moon before China lands people there around 2030, but to accelerate the programme and do it safely requires money.

The issue is the US may take steps to interfere with exported equipment, or the NSA might get involved. Okay, China could do that too in theory, but even if they did, the Chinese government is much less of an issue for us. Historically, in the last 10 years in particular, it's tended to be US companies that lock stuff down, that remove features after you paid for them, that decide to stop supporting open source, that force updates.

The problem with Ubiquity is that I'm European and they are American.

They seem like an okay company, but with the way things are going, it seems unwise to rely on anything American.

Everything's a grift with that guy. Everything.

BEV will be cheaper to operate, even with heavily subsidised oil. It's a long term saving.

The last line of the summary is the interesting bit: "That has made new EVs cost-competitive with old gasoline cars."

They reached price parity, so people do have a choice. They can buy a fossil car still, albeit a used one. I'm not saying it's a completely equal, free choice, but it's also not fully compelled either.

I can be both. Fortunately the arrest of that nonce Andrew Windsor should shift attention back to Epstein.