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Comment Re: Misses the point. (Score 1) 80

What OS will let you install virtualization software without granting root/admin?
None.

You are misinformed, you can install and run many virtualization software in user-space, for example QEMU, Firecracker, UML and others. There are even VM-solutions you can run in a browser.

Regardless, this law is like setting up a door that you pinky swear you'll use. The problem is that it is freestanding and you can simply walk around it. The only thing this law does, is to penalize operating system/software vendors for something that is clearly the parents responsibility.

Your argument that "derp parents need to parent harder derp" is bullshit implies that parents have no responsibility. Bad parenting should have consequences but it seems many people think we should just let 3rd parties and the government shoulder the consequences of that, which to me seem ass-backwards. And parents need to parent harder, which includes actually educating their offspring of all the shit they can run into, both in the real world and on the internet.

A law that it is functionally worthless doesn't solve anything but it does add a ton of complications, liabilities and costs, and those will only increase every time they try to patch or fix the law in the future.

Comment Re:Negative growth (Score 1) 30

There's a big difference with AI compared to other technological shifts, prior shifts displaced specific type of jobs but currently they are trying to cram AI into every type of job - mostly white collar jobs, ie that's the middle class taking a hit which in turn will affect blue collar jobs. Some projections suggest that in the US 50% of all entry-level positions will be gone in 5 years but other projections say 10-20%, which means between 9 to 46 million workers will be displaced or unable to get a job. I doubt a fraction of those will find jobs in content curation.

Comment Re:Negative growth (Score 4, Insightful) 30

Plus, it doesn't take into account how wages/income are actually spent on services, food, goods, rent, insurance and other stuff that props up a myriad of other industries which in turn props up other industries. Unemployed people tend to only spend money on the most critical necessities.

Anyone with a modicum of knowledge about economics can see how replacing people with AI will affect local, national and eventually the global economy negatively. It will be a race to the bottom when companies starts feeling the squeeze and think the solution is to replace more people with AI to placate investors and shareholders.

Unless steps are taken to mitigate this, expect some interesting times ahead.

Comment Re: They used to be annoying (Score 1) 304

Really? You can't imagine what to compare with?

Type of battery for example. I do hope you know that there are different types of battery technologies used in cars with start/stop.

It wears the battery down quicker when compared to a battery in an "always on" vehicle, and I'd imagine the engine doesn't benefit from the start/stop technology.

And you know this how? It seems you are basing your argument on what you think would happen and not actual facts.

The lifespan of batteries in cars with start/stop functionality (ie AGM/EFB batteries) is the same as cars without it (ie regular led-acid), the major factor that affects the lifespan is how the car is used.

If you want a bit more facts you can find them here: https://publications.anl.gov/a...

Comment Re: They used to be annoying (Score 5, Interesting) 304

The cars have a BMS which turns off the start/stop function if the battery gets low, there are other criteria that affects this too like engine/transmission temp, other electrical draw (heaters/defrosters etc) plus a bunch of others.

In practice, the car will never turn the engine off if you got a bad battery. And regarding batteries, it is a wear item that will go bad eventually regardless of what you do. Will the start/stop shorten the lifespan, absolutely, but compared to what?

Comment Re:Not all orbits (Score 1) 245

Data centres are (comparatively) point sources of heat; they can't be "spread out" or laid out flat in 2d.

Yes you can if latency isn't an issue which it isn't if you are crunching data to train models.

Also,Sstarlink antennas are their own radiators. They get very hot and correspondingly radiate quickly (waste heat from the thrusters is also quite high temp).

As I understood it, they are basing the satellites on the coming Starlink Gen 3 and they are adding a large radiator sticking out on the back of it for added cooling and thermal management is a solved problem. Your reasoning here seems to be based on the idea that the satellites are running full tilt the whole time which isn't necessary how they will be operated.

This is an economics question, datacentres on Earth vs. datacentres in space.

Yes, which I actually talked about in my closing paragraph.

And you can't talk about the power advantages without also talking about the disadvantages like thermal management.

It's not about the power advantage, it's about the cost of the power which is 0 in space (disregarding initial fixed cost). The gen 3 satellites PV's are supposed to generate ~25 kW which needs a total radiator area of ~40 sqm if the temperature being radiated is in the ~80C range (assuming a low emissivity of 0.8, a 10% efficiency loss in the cooling system and that I calculated P=sigma*epsilon*A×T^4 right).

Regardless of the technical details and feasibility, we can both agree on that it comes down to economics in the end. Musk certainly have money to burn which may be the deciding factor for this to actually work in the end.

Comment Re:Not all orbits (Score 4, Interesting) 245

The waste heat problem has been solved for a very long time, but not if the satellites are always facing the sun and are used all the time which means you shut them down when they reach a certain temperature so they can cool down before being used again. Starlink satellites do this today except they aren't always in the sun which provides an increased efficiency in cooling. Shutting down a satellite to expediate cooling only works if you don't need 24/7 operation or if you have a constellation of satellites (like Starlink, Iridium etc) were other satellites provides redundancy.

In short, the engineering challenges are known and solved but this boondoggle hinges on building out production and launch capabilities at scale based on the idea that AI will make sense and function like the evangelists proclaim it will all the while attracting paying customers that can provide a ROI anchored in reality.

Comment Re:Not all orbits (Score 4, Funny) 245

They plan to put the satellites in a polar orbit that are slowly rotates around the Earth-axis about 1 degree/day to track the sun.

The no 1 problem is the amount of satellites in the same orbit and if there's a collision we will likely see a Kessler syndrome.
The no 2 problem is the service life of the satellites which mean tens of thousands of them will be de-orbited to burn up in the atmosphere each year when it runs out, each one weighing about 2 tonnes, but perhaps all that material burning up and spreading particles in the upper atmosphere will be an unintended solution to global warming.

Comment Re: Too bad... (Score 3, Insightful) 28

Why is it that if you look at Sankey energy flow diagrams for each state (on llnl.gov), you ses that each state produces around the same amount of rejected electrical energy (about 60%) no matter if it is primarily hydro- or fossil-fuel-generated, which is far less efficient than hydropower or natural gas plants should be?

It's not actually rejected electrical energy, it's rejected heat energy which is why the diagrams uses BTU as an unit. Also, all states mainly uses fossil fuel generation (coal, LNG or oil) for their base-load services.

Is it wrong to interpret that data as representing a pervasive energy surplus, everywhere?

Yes, because rejected heat energy isn't a surplus - it's a measure of loss due to the inescapable second law of thermodynamics which plays the biggest role in conversion and transmission.

When you hear power lines humming, is it misinformation to say demand is less than supply and the electricity is trying to escape the wire into the air?

Yes, power lines always humm when in use but also because demand and supply must be balanced and when they aren't balanced you get things like voltage and frequency changes which introduces unnecessary wear and tear or even brown/black outs.

Comment Re: Major potential loss for science (Score 1) 284

Idiocy is making an argument based solely on a headline or title. To top that off, you seem to think socioeconomic issues has nothing to do with race which flies in the face of everything we know about socioeconomic issues among heterogeneous populations.

Add to that, the sheer stupidity in digging up a paper as proof for your argument and then not reading it is just mindboggling.

It always amazes me when people willingly reduce themselves to idiots to avoid factual reality.

Comment Re:god damn it (Score 1) 284

For example, all of this Epstein nonsense, why the fuck wasn't this released when the Democrats were in power?

If you have to ask this question you haven't looked at the timeline and what happened when. I do hope you are familiar with the concept of linear time and how events can't happen before they actually happen.

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