I credit most of SpaceX's success to CEO Gwen Shotwell. She keeps things going even when Musk is off on an irrelevant tear somewhere else.

Unfortunately, Musk seems to be on a path to sabotaging her efforts. The SpaceX prospectus showed that xAI (which bought Twitter, because why not?) was the reason they posted a loss in the last fiscal year. Even with all the expenditures on Starship, SpaceX would have been profitable. Like every other major AI company, it is not at all clear that xAI can reach profitability anytime in the near future, especially since xAI is blocked from so many enterprises and doesn't seem to be able to keep up with the big three at all. As Starship production scales up, the costs are going to increase, and they need payload revenue to offset those costs. There's so much focus now on the Pez dispenser and the lunar mission that I haven't seen any hints of the conventional payload delivery version (aka, "Chomper") in a couple of years. Maybe it's being quietly worked on. I hope so, because the big space station payloads that were talked about a few years ago will need it.

It seems like it should be just theming, but there's a separate architecture to it. Even the APIs are different, with new using a GraphQL-based API and old using a more traditional structure. The core data (users, posts, comments, etc.) is the same, but the pathways are completely different. New has links into capabilities that old doesn't have (especially around abuse and scraping), and old has capabilities that new doesn't always have (especially around mod tools, which new apparently breaks on a regular basis).

"Many users" is going to be relative. I saw some numbers recently that only around 1% of users go through Old Reddit, and in many of the largest subs, it's a fraction of a percent. I don't think it will have the impact that some people think. I prefer Old Reddit on desktop, but it's clunky on mobile, so I stick with the new interface (I don't use the app).

Oh yes! I remember being at an air show on a small RAF base and a Vulcan did a low-level turning pass with the belly to towards the crowd. It was probably one of the loudest things I've ever heard. Military engines certainly have different priorities to civilian ones.

we no longer live in First World countries where you can rely on the power to stay on

Speak for your country, not the rest of the First World. I haven't experienced a power outage since I left N. America in 2008. Given the lag in grid investment here in the UK to reshape it with all the changes, that might change. But for now, it's been incredibly stable.

Maybe I wasn't clear: Concorde was loud, irrespective of whether the throttle was fully on and afterburners lit, or not.

I'm also glad we don't get any 747s anymore, which were quieter than Concorde. 777s are definitely the ones I've noticed to be loudest these days, especially when planes are coming over every three minutes from 04:30-05:00 in the morning. They're offensively loud compared to the 787s and A350s, and even A380s. But this is a different story.

"Thank you Vera much."

I think you've downplayed the flight time on a conventional passenger jet for LHR-JFK by an hour at least and exaggerated the Concorde time by 30 mins.

Concorde's prices were determined by a number of factors such as fuel, but one of main ones was exclusivity/privilege.

I've heard this theory too, including from my own father. Maybe that's how it was portrayed in the British media at the time? I can't really find much evidence for it on the internet though. As far as the written history on the Internet goes, it's mostly about the noise. Maybe hysteria about the topic was whipped up for political reasons, but where's the evidence now?

There certainly were bans put in place for political reasons, such as India and Malaysia banning Concorde because they couldn't get the access they wanted in terms of landing slots:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Not usually is NOT GOOD ENOUGH when human lives and health are at stake. Confusing 'usually' and 'always' COSTS LIVES. Potentally substituting a comma for a period can cause a chat to deviate; and predicting is impossible.

It wasn't just the sonic booms, this plane was just all around loud. It was a civilian plane afterburners! As somebody who lives about 500m directly under one of Heathrow's landing flight paths, I'm happy it's not coming over anymore.

I've always liked this video though. It starts off so quiet, suburban and banal, and then Corcorde roars over and shatters the scene, setting off a car alarm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Of course, there are lots of videos like this one too, also setting off car alarms:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

For global energy, that typically includes transportation. As more economies have expanded, there has been more use of cars, trucks, trains, ships, and aircraft, almost all of which are powered by fossil fuels.

Global electricity generation has changed. In 2000, 64.1% of global electricity came from fossil fuels, 16.7% came from nuclear, and 18.7% came from renewable. In 2023, despite overall electricity generation roughly doubling, fossil fuel generation was down to 60.1%, nuclear was down to 9.1%, and renewables were up to 30.23%. Looking at the renewable mixes, in 2000, it was 17.4% hydropower, 0.7% biofuels, 0.2% wind, 0.01% solar, and 0.3% geothermal. In 2023, it was 14.6% hydropower, 2.2% biofuels, 7.75% wind, 5.4% solar, and 0.3% geothermal.

That's still a lot of fossil fuel electricity generation, but it is declining by percentage and their growth curves are flattening. Renewables are up by quite a bit and still growing. Nuclear is declining, and isn't likely to recover in any meaningful numbers. This program is a lot like past programs meant to encourage new nuclear power plants. Odds are that maybe one will get started, and it might not get finished.

For me the whole joy of interacting with Gemini or Copilot is exploring what morsels of information I give it with each prompt and watching how the model responds. Lazy people want a magic robot that makes them rich. To me, Gemini is like a beloved guide dog and Copilot is the dog that lives next door. I can discuss arbitrary heavy maths, physics, computer science with Gemini and it will keep up and stay aligned to the literature it was trained on. Copilot once he recognises an expert drops his dumbed own mask and talks a lot of sense about what exactly his purpose is.

AI's are mirrors, not oracles or slaves. They reflect your thoughts in the mirror of their training set.

From the summary:

IOW, they're sticking with their marketing pitch.

That's no longer the American Way (if it ever was).