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Comment Re:Or just pollute all the time like Musk does (Score 1) 72

Even if they don't pollute all the time, consider when a "power emergency" will be most likely. One common situation is when there is a stagnant heat dome sitting on the area forcing everyone to crank up their A/C.

Then the data centers will fire up their gas and diesel generators with short exhaust stacks, and with no wind all those fumes will just linger in the general vicinity.

Comment Totally fair (Score 1) 30

reinstating the arbitration clause will offer customers a fast, cost-effective way to resolve disputes while still giving them the option of going to small claims court.

Gee, if a counterfeit lithium ion battery peddled by Amazon burns your house down, you get to sort it out in small claims court.

Or else let some guy whose salary ultimately comes from Amazon decide whether they're liable.

Comment Re:Uh, what? (Score 4, Insightful) 67

If 1,000 Kilowatts only costs "about $5", that puts each Kilowatt at about 1/2 cent? Seems kind low...

Time to turn in your geek card. A "watt" is a unit of *power*. People pay for *energy*. Energy = power X time.

Electricity is often sold in energy units called kWh (which is 3.6 megajoules). At a retail price of 20 cents/kWh, five dollars of electric ital energy is 25 kWh.

With a power consumption rate of 1000 kW, that amount of energy is used in 90 seconds. Presumably, the 1MW peak power rate was only used briefly, just like a car with a 300hp peak power engine usually cruises around only generating a couple of dozen hp.

Comment Re:Landfills are such a bad idea (Score 0) 183

I'm curious as to what the "pollution control" measure are that the article alludes to being the possible reason for the fires ignition....

What are these measure....should they be stopped/altered?

You're overthinking this.

The top of the blame flowchart starts with: "If state has democrat governor: blame democrat governor; Goto end."

"Blame the environmentalists" is several layers down in the other branches of the flowchart.

Comment Ding ding ding ding! (Score 1) 174

Astra correctly answers all 10 questions in the $2000 lightning round!

And now on to the final round. To win $32,000 cash, a brand new Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser, and an all-expense paid vacation for two to Puerto Vallarta, all you have to do is answer this single question to the satisfaction of our judges:

The Riemann Hypothesis: True or False?

AI

Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta Warn Against 'Premature Restrictions' of Open-Weight Models 18

Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, Palantir, and more than 20 other tech companies signed an open letter urging policymakers not to impose "premature restrictions" on open-weight AI models, warning that broad limits could "stifle competition or drive innovation overseas." CNBC reports: They wrote that open-weight models strengthen competition and ensure that the benefits of the technology are "broadly shared rather than concentrated in a few hands." "Relying solely on closed models is not inherently safe: they can be breached, misused, or fail in ways that outsiders cannot detect," the letter said. "And concentrating advanced AI capabilities behind a small number of closed models compounds that risk."

Elon Musk, who runs an AI business under his rocket company SpaceX, also amplified the letter on social media, writing that it has his "full support" in a post on X. SpaceX did not officially sign the letter. Greg Brockman, OpenAI's president, said Thursday that the company believes in broad access, and that he has not been involved in any conversations with the Trump administration about potentially banning Chinese open-weight models in the U.S.

"I think that, that fundamentally, AI and AI usage is something that is actually very important to democratize," Brockman told reporters during a briefing in New York City. "And so, for me, at a sort of deep level, I think that having more models, more usage, that is a good thing." OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed the letter in a post on X on Friday, writing that he wants the U.S. to win with both open-weight and proprietary models, and that he is "glad to see this."

[...] In the letter on Friday, the U.S. tech companies said that concerns about unlawful distillation should be addressed through "targeted legal and commercial frameworks" instead of with "sweeping restrictions on techniques that play an important role in AI innovation." "Our AI leadership will be judged not by one frontier AI model, but by whether the United States builds a strong, open ecosystem that diffuses into every sector," the letter said. "This is essential for creating opportunities for innovation and prosperity across the country."
The letter follows a separate appeal signed by nearly 200 Silicon Valley companies, including Proton and Y Combinator, warning that restricting U.S. access to Chinese open-weight AI models could cripple the next generation of American startups. "American leadership requires two things: world-leading American open-weight models and continued access for U.S. builders to open models already available worldwide," the startup founders wrote. Instead of broad prohibitions, they argue the government should adopt targeted safeguards.

Of course, these signees "have an obvious economic stake in seeing open AI models flourish," notes TechCrunch. "Companies like Nvidia, Microsoft Azure, and other infrastructure providers have a vested interest in pushing for commoditized models: If models are interchangeable, people will buy more GPUs, rent more cloud capacity, and build more applications."

Comment Re:Survivable crashes are now rare (Score 2) 63

Crashes are now rare in general. When I was a kid, it seemed like there was a major air crash in the US almost annually. I may be wrong, but I don't remember a full-sized airliner (bigger than a regional jet) having a catastrophic crash in the US since shortly after 9/11 when that Airbus lost its tail and crashed in NYC. (Being a natural pessimist, I find this outcome hard to believe and would have lost a good deal of money if I had bet on it.)

However, there still continue to be a large number of hard landings, runway slideoffs, engine fires, cabin fires and other emergency situations where the passengers still need to evacuate quickly because their lives are at risk. (Not to mention the "Miracle on the Hudson".) The safety briefings are still relevant in all those situations.

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