I don't think you need to worry too much, you have a sufficiently analytical approach that it's not likely to be a problem.

He probably is. I would too if I had his ego and told everyone it'll cost less than $60 million. But at the end of the day, it's just speculation.

I think the true cost is not too far off, i.e. within 3x of the advertised price. They've launched ~90 rockets, so $20 billion in government contracts is ~$200 million per rocket launched. Normally, businesses spend about 20% in management, and for high tech industries, 20% in R&D. That leaves about $120 million for each rocket. Of course they also made some profit from private launches, but that's offset by the amount of cash they have on hand and a number of rockets that haven't been finished

I mean, that would be an interesting result scientifically.

I'm ok with this.

Remember, ChatGPT was also trained on the entire archives of https://thedailywtf.com/

What you are describing is a good way to play blindfolded chess. Every time someone makes a move, repeat in your mind all previous moves from the beginning until the present. I've taught several people to play blindfolded chess this way (and also learned it myself, from George Koltanowski).

The Qianfan program has existed only since Nov 2023. So for a fair comparison, we should look at the first 1.5 years of Starlink. Starlink launched ~960 satellites between May 2019 and Dec 2020. The satellites were 250 kg each. Each Falcon 9 was able to launch 60 of them, so 16 launches. Meanwhile each Qianfan is about 300 kg, same weight as modern Starlinks. The Long March 6A that they use can only carry 18 of them. They have 90 satellites, so it's just 5 launches.

Around 2019, most Falcon 9 boosters could only be reused 2-3 times, with a cost of $50-60 million per launch taking reusability into account. There's no information on the Long March 6A, but the Long March 6C costs around $70 million. There simply isn't a 3x difference in per-launch cost that could explain why Qianfan only did 5 launches as opposed to Starlink's 16.

My guess is they're waiting on the development of cheaper launch systems before spending a lot of money on it. The Long March 6A is made by the government and costs a lot more than it should. There's several private Chinese launch companies that are developing low cost reusable rockets. At least two have completed soft landings, one of those companies has a rocket that reached orbit (though with a disposable one). Check back in a year or two and I suspect the numbers will be very different.

Also keep in mind SpaceX started the reusability program in 2011. It was 2017 when reusing the rockets became economically feasible (i.e. costs less than a new rocket to refurbish). Looking at the advertised price of a Falcon 9 today, I think reusability might have cut the cost by 20% or so at most so that's not the main reason there's been so few Qianfan launches.

Still has the word "elephant".

Rather than countering GP's argument, you actually proved it. Adding the instruction actually causes the model to veer towards patterns that relate to the instruction itself, because it's lacking the ability to understand the words you're using to negate the rest of the sentence.

I'd watch that.

I/O speeds over what interface?

Not much in that report is about Crooks. It's about the protection service around the president, and how an incompetent kid managed to get so close.

There's a lot of info about him.

Would be more accurate to say, "We know why the Coldplay couple did what they did, we have no clue why Matthew did what he did."

That was my question too.

Here's the image, pixelated. You can see the car has the camera mounted with quite an elevation.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world...

We need to get over Biden. He's the past. Trump is our present, but not for long. The future is coming.

The author left researching (involuntarily) after the paper was published. She spent the next decade teaching and performing the oboe. Recently she got funding to study magnetotactic bacteria.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...