Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re:More pointless space junk (Score 4, Insightful) 63

Not to mention the pollution from the launches. Counting down the years until Kessler kicks in.

That's nothing compared to ignorance on the topic. Starlink satellites re-enter the atmosphere within about 5-6 years. They leave zero space junk and don't contribute to Kessler Syndrome. They are in too low of an orbit.

Also give the low orbit, the relative efficiency of spacex launches, and the number of satellites in a payload per launch it turns out each Starlink satellite produces 340/25/5 = 2.72 Tonnes CO2 / year, or about half as much as your car. The entire Starlink program produces less emissions than a tiny tiny country town near bumfuck nowhere, Wisconsin.

There's so many problems with Starlink, how did you pick the two things that are completely irrelevant to complain about?

Comment Re:Say what you will re: free trade or protectioni (Score 1) 63

The James Webb Telescope is a prominent example.

Tell us you don't know what we're talking about without telling us.

The JWST is not space launch or service industry. It's a single product, and there's no limit of who can launch it.
The JWST is also not "US". It's an international joint project by multiple countries (including agencies like the ESA, CSA and NASA) collaborating to develop a telescope.

By the way there is one good example in the JWST of what we're actually talking about: The JWST was launched on an Ariane-5. The Ariane-5 is wholly manufactured in Europe which just like the USA it limits it outsourcing to prevent any external parties manufacturing components for launch vehicles, and that launch proceeded from an a European territory.

Comment Re:They have to keep sending them up (Score 1) 63

I'd be more than happy to invest in SpaceX, the space company. Sadly the company has been poisoned with X and xAI. Looking at the market valuations of each of those individual companies, that doesn't seem to be like a big deal at first glance. But in the IPO filing, the company points out that their addressable market opportunity isn't space, it is almost all AI. Around 3/4ths of their spending in Q1 has been on AI. If you buy into the SpaceX IPO, you're buying into an AI company. Maybe they want us to believe that they will be a vertically integrated AI provider with data centers in space. I am highly doubtful about the latter; there certainly are business cases for having AI datacenters in space, but they are edge cases.

Maybe few people will by enthusiastic to buy into that; even with investing into indices or EFTs, chances are that you're already overexposed to AI. The worrying thing is that SpaceX will be included into the Nasdaq 100 index shortly after their IPO. Doesn't that mean that anyone running EFTs or trackers on that index will have to buy SpaceX stock to cover their position?

Comment Re:Possibly the only good thing... (Score 1) 105

We already had that thanks to Russia. When Europe showed the world fossil fuel dependence on foreign nations isn't a viable strategy, THAT is when a major acceleration to energy independence starts. And ever nation has light and wind.

Yeah like I said positive effect, but one already known. Any country who were looking towards hedging any kind of bet on energy already got the hint a few years ago. Those who didn't are unlikely to be moved this time.

Comment Re:Not including Chinese vehicles (Score 1) 119

So no Chinese EVs, which are the most advanced.

Please don't generalise. Chinese EVs are the most advanced in many areas but they are not the most efficient. Quite the opposite actually, they are focusing in other areas including in battery tech that improves safety and charging speed at the expense of weight and charge density. Their designs are not favouring aerodynamics and their push from range is largely the effort of cramming more battery in.

If you look to Europe you'll find plenty of Chinese EVs tested. They barely rank in the top 10 in terms of efficiency. In fact in this market the Tesla 3 comes out very favourably right behind Mercedes.

I hope Americans who assuming the outside world doesn't exist, and people like you who blindly worship the outside world without looking anything up can meet somewhere in the middle and find sanity.

Comment Re:It's a really light car (Score 1) 119

It's just completely incorrect for cars without controls to even exist. Cars with controls are easier to manage in breakdowns. Not even being able to steer without the computer means it will be difficult to get disabled vehicles onto rollbacks in some circumstances. The correct infrastructure for vehicles without steering wheels is rail.

We have infrastructure in place to deal with cars that are unable to use any controls, it's a case that occurs with many cars in an accident. Also the existence of controls does not help. In virtually all modern cars the parking brake system is computer controlled, failure of a computer to respond means you can't simply roll the car on a flatbed as well. Also EVs, flat batteries result in the parking brake engaging there so also non-trivial to deal with - none the less we deal with it just fine.

That's not to say your concerns aren't real, but they are a mixture of managed and low enough risk to not be something to lose sleep over.

Comment Re:Possibly the only good thing... (Score 4, Insightful) 105

People realizing they need to reduce dependence on fossil fuels is probably the only good thing to come out of the Trump regime's Iran sh*t-show.

Sorry but this has nothing to do with Iran. The trend for wind and solar has been moving this way steady for years before anyone knew where on the map the Strait of Hormuz was. Sure it's not negative, but at best it cements something that that people were already doing.

Comment Re:GMT (Score 1) 128

I expect you to join a meeting at 9am. Since timezones are idiotic I have no idea if this means you'll be asleep, at home, at work, having breakfast, or having dinner with the family. 9am is 9am right? And the social structure we have build to aid a common understanding of when and how people live their lives doesn't matter.

So don't be late.

Comment Re:LOL Exodus (Score 5, Informative) 119

That's a good thing. If their top engineers were leaving, that would be a bad thing. When management leaves, the engineers become more efficient.

That is an incredibly silly generalisation. Yeah some managers are shit and produce inefficiencies, but some managers are the opposite and contribute heavily to successes of projects. Just for fun I had a look at who left. Google's AI results showed 4 people leaving the vehicle division:
1x Chemical Engineer with a history of manufacturing optimisation.
1x Aerospace engineer with a post grad study related to manufacturing.
1x Mechanical engineer with a masters in manufacturing systems (also this guy, Emmanuel Lamacchia, lead multiple wildly successful programs at Tesla including the Model Y program which is Tesla's best selling product)
1x Electrical Engineer with a masters in electrical design.

So yeah let's celebrate getting rid of those "managers" who were holding back the engineers.

On the flip side we just lost a high profile manager where I work, a veteran accountant, with an MBA, and a history working for nothing but consultants. Yeah we were all very fucking happy he's gone.

Don't generalise.

Slashdot Top Deals

"In my opinion, Richard Stallman wouldn't recognise terrorism if it came up and bit him on his Internet." -- Ross M. Greenberg

Working...