Yeah, Musk could definitely drive the whole thing sideways. I'm afraid he might be getting increasingly detached from reality. I'm not so worried about the lack of focus on the chomper; it seems to me that the real issues facing Starship are all about how to handle re-entry heat. Also engine re-lights, but I have little concern they can solve that; it's been done many times before, including by SpaceX. If they can solve the rapid reuse after reentry problem, something no one else has done, ever, building various form factors will be a simple matter of engineering.

Yes, it was all super entertaining, especially with PJ covering all of it, and rarely missing a trick. Good times for those of us watching from the cheap seats. A huge waste of time and resources for IBM.

That's absolutely not what it means.

"Left the labor force" doesn't mean "they lost their job" it means "they aren't looking for a job". Examples of cases where people "leave the labor force" include (but aren't limited to):

* Retired.
* Had a child and decided to become a stay-at-home parent.
* Decided to spend their time caring for an elderly relative.
* Decided to go back to school.
* Gave up on working after being unable to find a job.
* Had a financial windfall and decided to stop working.

And so on. The "gave up after being unable to find a job" is not particularly likely in a job market where only 4.2% of people who want a job don't have one, though I suppose some may choose not to work rather than work in a less-desirable job than they had before.

Also, it's July 2. June employment numbers are basically worthless at this point. Give them a quarter or so to get more data and correct the numbers. The initial numbers are based on only on employer reporting data, which skews it in various ways. The government uses several other data sources including surveys, but it takes time for that data to come in, which is why these numbers are generally corrected 2-3 months after they come out.

Counterargument: Who would have predicted a few years ago that one private company would dominate global launch, launching more by every metric than the rest of the world combined, and -- all by itself -- triple the number of satellites in orbit in 7 years.

Sure, 200Xing the satellite count is a lot harder than tripling the satellite count, about 66 times harder. But if Starship is successful (by no means a given, also far from impossible), SpaceX will reduce per-kg launch costs by 100X, maybe more.

I'm skeptical... but I would also not just write it off as a "pack of lies". The things SpaceX is actively working on should make the launch part of it feasible. Will it be cost-effective? That's a harder question, and heat dissipation is the core thing that may make it infeasible.

Also, the final paragraph of the summary seems to be confused:

So, why are the hyperscalers hyping orbital data centers? Answer: because it's lucrative. "The Elon Musk part of it is honestly genius because he's got xAI building the data centers, SpaceX sending them to space, and Tesla building solar panels," Genkina says. "It's almost like he's paying himself."

Yes, SpaceX will be incredibly lucrative if it owns the whole vertical stack, building, launching and powering -- but only if it works. If it doesn't work, and if orbital compute isn't cheaper than planet-bound compute, then SpaceX will have no buyers.

The other possibility is that it's just a pump and dump, but that's not how Musk has ever worked in the past. Yes, he makes crazy promises, and delivers only half of them, and delivers years after the promised date, but those half-realized, years-late results are still often world-changing.

Doesn't really matter because it has to be done, unless we want to pay the much, much higher costs of just living with the hotter planet. We're all going to pay, one way or the other. It's just a question of whether we want it to be expensive or really, really expensive.

That's it, he is doing it to generate fake potential future business for SpaceX. In reality, what will probably happen is others enter the market and undercut Starlink and launching to LEO, and that business dries up. It's already happening with Tesla cars, which are constantly heavily discounted because rivals make better ones at lower prices. They are hanging on in the UK by somehow being a "prestige" badge along side BMW and the like... Actually I can see the connection there.

There are plenty of car batteries well over 10 years old now. As long as they are treated reasonably well, 10 years isn't difficult at all for many chemistries.

Typically home batteries are cycled between 20 and 80%, as degradation is faster at low and high states of charge. They are also kept at a reasonable temperature and charged relatively slowly compared to their size. Mine are around 0.5C charge/discharge rate, for example.

For that reason most home batteries here come with a 10 year warranty. Some are longer, and some are insurance backed.

I took Reddit to Small Claims Court for failure to process a GDPR Subject Access Request (SAR), and as part of their defence they accidentally admitted that their system is badly broken. The particular account I was requesting data for was apparently automatically banned because the system thought it was a bot, and then when I appealed a *manual review* also decided that it was a bot. To compound the error, they then lied about it in emails and on their login page, and failed to process the SAR.

I expect that will offer to settle soon, which is fine (I don't care about the money, beyond my costs) as long as they complete the SAR. The details will be fascinating. Their website gaslights you, their staff lie to you, and it all seems to be in aid of dealing with a bot problem that they have very little control over.

Using it will be like having your head up Elon Musk's arse 24/7.

In case Steam ever shuts down. Also what happens if your Steam account gets banned for some reason?

I tend to avoid games that use DRM as well, because I don't want that shit screwing up my system.

It was a prestigious service for Air France and British Airways. When they decided to stop flying Concorde, Virgin Atlantic wanted to buy the aircraft and keep flying them. Of course, BA refused to sell them and made sure that every single one ended up beyond the point where it could be returned to service, because they didn't want anyone else to operate a supersonic service.

It took a long time for a few reasons. You can reduce the boom with an exotic shape vehicle, but then it starts to suck as an aircraft. Less lift, awkward to use existing airport facilities, difficult to take off and land, pilots need a lot of training etc.

To be commercially viable it has to carry a reasonable number of people, in relative comfort, and be relatively fuel efficient for a supersonic aircraft.

Some of the tech to enable that is relatively recent, or still in development. Engines in particular.

It should be mandatory to allow sales of used digital games. There is no reason why these companies couldn't allow it on their platforms, other than greed.

Some people got partial refunds for them removing Linux. I wonder if it might be possible to do the same here. Harder to argue as the Playstation itself has not been altered, just the opportunity to buy physical copies has been removed.

I would buy a physical copy but then pirate it anyway. Quicker and easier than ripping, adding all the metadata, encoding etc.

For digital only stuff I will only use platforms like GOG where you get an offline installer you can backup and keep forever. I used to buy a few games on Steam but don't now. If a game is Steam only I just won't play it.