Oh, you wanted a citation. Okay, you get AI slop since you're too lazy to search your self The paper "Cascading risks: Understanding the 2021 winter blackout in Texas" (Joshua W. Busby et al., Energy Research & Social Science, 2021): "Imported power would not have fully compensated for the loss of production inside Texas, but it's possible that a few GW of additional capacity would have reduced the scope and duration of blackouts." This directly supports the point: the generation shortfalls of 34 GW average outages/derates in ERCOT, peaking higher were driven by widespread freezing and fuel supply failures. Even with stronger interconnections, neighbors (SPP, MISO South) faced their own major outages (~20 GW and ~14.5 GW unavailable, respectively) and had to shed some load, limiting available surplus. The FERC/NERC report similarly notes the regional nature of the issues, with imports helping interconnected areas but not eliminating the need for load shed due to the scale of correlated failures. There, cited.

Ah, I see. You're trying to change the subject and building a straw man. 2021 Winter was mostly about Winterization failures. It's been addressed and improvements are obvious (read the the article from Texas Tribune I've already linked and you tried to ignore). You said "Their grid collapse a few winters ago would (probably) not have happened if they were connected to the big grid like everyone else is." Again, rather than change the subject as you hand-wave, I'll simply say on topic I think you are completely wrong on that point (and ignore whatever else you were saying about "truth" and, lol "MAGA blah blah horseshit subject-change-attempt-here"). So, try to substantiate that one point on other states having the ability to fill the gap. How would other states, who were barely treading water themselves during a widespread severe blizzard, helped to make up the huge deficit in Texas caused by winterization-related outages? I want to see facts based on data and citations. All you have so far is your own specious assumptions and likewise hollow assertions. BTW, Sherlock, I don't live in Texas, but nice try.

It costs next to nothing to bring on a new customer since there's no widget to make and ship.

Growing marketshare is *the* priority. Give it away for free. Pay people to use it if you must.

Then once they're hooked, start charging licensing fees. Just a little. More for bigger customers. Maybe keep a free tier for personal use. A little times a huge userbase is enormous cashflow for a little bit of nre.

It's great cuz the customer supplies his own platform, pays for training his own people, and even pays for the electricity to run your product on premises.

Now about this building full of expensive and power-hungry silicon needed to deliver the ai hotness...

Those are the only Macs I own. They are quite entertaining, now, too. I run A/UX on the Quadra 700 and MacOS 8.1 on the Centris 660AV (with a 50Mhz upgraded 68040, by dog!). Good times.

I didn't need see the re-runs from NeXT. I already know how that movie ends.

This proposed large HVDC line (Texas to Southeast via Southern Spirit ) is designed specifically to preserve ERCOT independence. FERC approved it without triggering full federal jurisdiction over ERCOT operations because HVDC keeps the grids asynchronous (controlled, scheduled flows via converters). It's not "leeching"; it's bilateral trade that benefits reliability and markets. Texas exports power often (cheap renewables/gas); imports during peaks. Other regions do the same and none of it's free or some kind of enforced exchange outside of the market.

You're also ignoring that during the 2021 ERCOT outage, many of the neighboring states had severe outages and problems of their own. Some limited tie capacity and the scale of failures mean it likely wouldn't have eliminated rolling blackouts. In other words, you're arguement against the parent post is insufficiently backed with any facts and poorly reasoned. Interconnection helps margins but doesn't fix frozen wells, un-winterized plants, or fuel delivery.

One fundamental problem for your anti-texas rant is that they are net exporter of energy and that includes electricity. That kinda calls bullshit on just about every point you tried rather weakly to make.

Citation needed. Nobody actually thinks that but it seems you're making it up to make your anti-Texas hopes seem more realistic.

There isn't that much interconnection because Texas (mostly ERCOT) runs its own grid to avoid federal regulation (FERC oversight) since lines don't cross state borders much. This dates to the 1930s. It gives more local control, faster renewable buildout (Texas leads in wind, big in solar), and a competitive market.

What I'm seeing is someone who is always lefty-style-hateful and probably also jealous of Texas's success while hoping they'll have problems they probably won't have (recent changes improved weatherization and other grid countermeasures) in order to feel morally smug or vindicated while simultaneously offering no real evidence for a flaw-filled thesis.

While that's technically true, what I'm asserting is that it's being used by other API's (various game and GL libraries) across platforms in a way that actually works.

There are only a handful of ways to implement something like Vulkan across so many different display strategies. Frankly, I think they've adopted the most sane and straightforward solution: do first class support for all of them as best you can and abstract those behind your API. If Khronos were selling Wayland or X11, they'd be stuck in the same divide as all the 'next gen' solutions that are busy failing or building a walled garden.

Vulkan is friendly to both X11 (x11vk) and Wayland (waylandvk). It works on Linux (with Mesa or proprietary drivers), Windows, and elsewhere, regardless of the underlying display protocol. Thank you, Khronos for side stepping that quagmire.

Because he's a communist. He never saw a business or asset he didn't want to pocket "for the people."

If I ran any kind of business, I'd have my money in various kinds of places that balanced risk, return, and liquidity against my perceived need for keeping the lights on, paying vendors, and and anticipated revenue. Same as everyone.

I wouldn't operate like I had a fountain of money nor do I believe I would be perceived as having one.

Hospitals don't have a fountain of money. They purchase malpractice insurance on behalf of their providers and the premiums for that insurance pay for these jury awards.

Insurance companies don't print their own money either. They redistribute the costs of these payouts over their risk pool. And those premium hikes is one of several reasons why your emergency room visit costs 10k if you had to pay for it out of pocket.

The other reason it costs 10k is that enough of these lawsuits and jury awards have forced hospitals into doing medically unnecessary (but expensive) tests for everyone, rather than coming up with some kind of cost-conscious criteria, to cover their bases and their asses so they don't get sued.

Say it with me now: tort reform. The lawyers don't like it, which is how you can tell it's a good idea.

But why is the traffic so bad and why does stuff cost so much?

Yes, and in general it's just a lot easier when the whole world, including your would-be adversaries, use technical standards, software, and electronics that your own private sector sells to them.

A corollary is that it's less easy when your would-be adversary makes moves to undercut your industry and/or try to assert their own dominance in any such domain. One might even read it as a strategic prelude to conflict.

Correct. Yes, I'm bitter. I'm not directly accusing you or anyone else in the thread of being a Communist. I don't really recognize you and most of the others besides dfghjk are ACs.

Now, dfghjk is a TDS guy who posts standard anti-Trump rhetoric 9-out-of-10 times. I don't know if he's a Communist or a different brand of far-Left person. I do know that as son as he gets any pushback whatsoever he simply reaches straight for ad hominem and never wins any debates that I've seen on Slashdot.

I would never eat something given to me by a random stranger. Yet, folks are perfectly sanguine to run code given to them by folks who hate them. It blows my mind.