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Comment Re:Good! (Score 1) 54

It's not clear that when you include all externalities fission power is the cheapest way to power the grid. But there are places where it probably is the cheapest way to power something. (Or if not cheapest, has other overriding benefits.)

OTOH, including all externalities is tricky. I'm always dubious when I read a claim that it's been done.

Comment Re:Robot vacuum cleaners - meh (Score 1) 93

A real vacuum cleaner just about maxes out a standard residential 120v 15a circuit, as anyone who remembers the incandescent bulb era can attest to. A circuit with a few lamps shared with a vacuum cleaner could easily end with you flipping a breaker or replacing a blown fuse.

When you look at the absolutely tiny lithium ion pack these robo-vacs come with, ...

Sitting on my kitchen table right now is a drone pack. It's 57,5Wh, smaller the batteries of most modern Roombas. It's 50C - thus it can output up to 2,9kW. And there's even higher packs available than that. Lithium ion cells can handle some truly high power outputs. It's *energy*, not *power*, that is their limitation. Run a pack at 50C and it'll be empty in a bit over a minute. That said, on hard floor surfaces there is absolutely no reason why you should be drawing more than 300-400W or so, and you can get by with well less than that. High powers are for like shag carpeting and the like. Also, the head matters more than the power (though of course contribute) - for a hard floor, for example, a fluffy roller head is ideal.

Comment Re:Rejected the AMZN Aquisition? (Score 3, Insightful) 93

Facts. I used to have a Roomba for years, but as I live in Europe, it was getting increasingly hard to deal with modern features (like the self-emptying base which needs 120V power). I reluctantly switched to a Roborock when my power converter died, and just, wow, they're light years ahead of iRobot. I think iRobot has been coasting on its name for a while now.

Comment Re:As predicted (Score 3, Interesting) 76

It may be temporary (I doubt it), but it's not "very temporary" as the same thing has been reported for months with pretty steadily increasing urgency.

OTOH, the AIs clearly aren't good enough to replace programmers, or probably even coders. So what's currently happening is probably jobs being redesigned to use an AI where it makes sense. Expect LOTS of failures in this redesign, but it will be the successes that shape the future...unless the AIs get a LOT better. (Currently they don't understand the problem they're trying to answer.)

Comment Re:Easy fix (Score 1) 67

Plausible, if it's good enough. The real problem here is lots of shitty code being submitted. So much that they need quick ways to get rid of most of it.

As for "explain the code", that's trickier. I remember struggling to explain why I did something a particular way a few months later. When I figured it out again, it was the right approach, but it wasn't obvious why.

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