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Comment Re:But but!! (Score 1) 65

But the simple act of betting (which I think is stupid most of the time) should be a freedom we keep. Our constitution didn't strip us of the right to wager. Where does the government get the power to do so?

Does this thinking extend to the stock markets, which are arguably another form of gambling this is now heavily regulated. Are you arguing for the pre-SEC days where there were no required public disclosures and no prohibitions on insider trading?

Comment Re:This is what evil looks like - OH PLEASE (Score 2) 243

Even if all of that were true, oil companies are still not solely to blame for it all. And what would be the point in suing them?

Same as the tobacco companies.

Imagine what the tobacco settlement would have been like under the current MAGA government. Instead of a deal to essentially heavily tax cigarettes and allow the evil to continue (i.e., a win-win for everyone except for the people that are killed by cigarettes), the tobacco settlement would have been replaced by a government protection law with only a one-time lobbying cost. That would have also resulted in a win-win, where the tobacco companies get to avoid the settlement tax and the politicians get to pocket the lobbying bribes as well as the insider trading jackpots. Of course, more people would get killed by cigarettes and state taxpayers and employees paying health premiums would all lose, but they don't matter.

Comment Re:Why GPUs? (Score 1) 43

Serious question, why haven't they architected something better than GPUs for running inference? Surely something specifically designed for the task that could do it faster using less power? Something like Groq ASIC (that's just one I've heard of). Why aren't these the future and eclipsing the stop-gap that is GPUs because they already existed and were the best fit at the time?

The answer is that everyone is already doing exactly what you said. Groq is now essentially Nvidia, so even Nvidia is expanding their product portfolio. They offer GPUs (Blackwells and Vera Rubins), inference systems (Groq), CPUs (Vera), and networking (including InfiniBand and ethernet, where Nvidia now has higher data center networking revenue than Cisco). Currently about 70% of Nvidia data center revenue is from GPUs, and that percentage will drop when the Groq systems ramp up.

Comment Re:Nobody can afford them (Score 1) 43

The AI companies will pay with the money they don't have to put in the datacenters that haven't been built.

Yes, the AI customers don't have the money for all the data centers. Even the money-rich hyperscalars don't have the money and have to borrow. However, these hyperscalars are self-funding for the most part and borrowing is only for around 10-20% of their spending. They are being stretched, but a case could be made that they can "handle" the financial strain. Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta have a combined annual profit of over $350 billion, and their actual operating cash flow is over $500 billion.

It's the newcomers (OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI) that don't have the huge profits and cash flow. They have to depend on venture capital, private equity, circular "partnerships," etc. However, their levels of spending are far lower than for the hyperscalars, "only" in the $20-30 billion (each) range.

Comment False reasoning (Score 1) 156

"In its release regarding the changing product plans, Honda was shockingly blunt about its situation, saying that it was simply unable to deliver products that offer a better value than that of newer Chinese manufacturers."

This makes no sense. The only reason to build cars in the US is to sell to the US market. While there are a few minor models available in the US that are made by companies with Chinese owners, there is essentially no Chinese competition in the US market because the all major Chinese models are blocked. So, Honda should have absolutely no worries about competing with Chinese manufacturers today, and with likely future US politics, the same can probably be said many years in the future.

Comment Re:Anyone can sue... (Score 1) 137

the YOB expects most of those loses to eventually get reversed by "his" pet SCOTUS.

His record on that is actually pretty bad. SCOTUS tends to give him his way on shadow docket rulings but he's much less successful in the actual on-the-merits rulings. Granted that he's had a few incredible (as in "impossible to believe") successes like the ridiculous immunity ruling, but on the whole the court goes against him more often than not.

What's sort of interesting is that one of Trump's main failings with his executive orders or other edicts is an obvious lack of due process. Yet, his cronies on the Supreme Court use the shadow docket to act as wingmen to validate the lack of executive due process by essentially using judicial lack of due process. It's actually sort of fitting.

Comment Is he allowed to mention the agreement? (Score 1) 48

Can Sweeney qualify all his public statements praising the arrangement by saying that he is contractually obligated to praise the arrangement? If he's allowed to do so, that's the equivalent of commercials with annotations saying that the actors were compensated for their portrayals.

Comment Re:Learn how to read before commenting (Score 3, Interesting) 58

>>It is assumed that the solar-battery home installation is completely free. This is a huge cost that is completely absent from the analysis.

This statement is completely false.

Yes, you are correct, and my statement is incorrect.

I think I missed that SOG analysis because in Figure 1, the SOG (solar off grid) costs are so low. I had expected them to be much higher. In the study, the household car is associated with a 2.5 kWp system with an associated 6 kWh battery. That means that the SOG can provide an average range of somewhere around 30 miles per day.

The costs in Africa are also far cheaper than in the US. A 5kW solar PV system with 5kW of stationary battery storage is quoted at USD $3,234 – $5,390, which is far below the US cost, which is likely around 5x the cost.

Comment How bad is the report? (Score 2) 106

"Still, Wednesday’s report also shows that not nearly as many jobs were added in 2025 as thought and last year will go down as the worst year for hiring since 2020, or since 2003 outside of a recession."

Furthermore, most of the jobs added last month were in health care and social assistance which are generally regarded as less susceptible to economic cycles.

The question is whether this is simply reflective of the trough of an economic cycle or more fundamental, lasting shifts due to tariffs, geopolitics, or technology/business shifts (like AI).

Comment Re:US bases probably in uninhabitable regions anyw (Score 1) 81

I take talk of potential US invasions of us deadly seriously.

I don't think the US invasion talks are serious. If you think TACO is a real thing, saber rattling about Greenland is orders of magnitude beyond TACO. Trump likes to talk without thinking things through, and his yes-men have no choice but to amplify his non-thought out thoughts.

The previous slight saber rattling about Greenland already led to visible opposition, even from Republicans. The Republicans are already facing the real possibility of losing the House. If real moves toward a Greenland invasion actually happened, the Democrats would send a love letter to Trump, as that would essentially hand the House to the Democrats. There has been relative quiet about Greenland lately to calm Republican restlessness. If Trump revived the focus on Greenland again, moderate Republicans would have no choice but to speak out against the idea because to do otherwise would be political suicide for the midterm elections.

Comment Is this an AI or startup thing? (Score 1) 61

I remember visiting Google with a friend in the mid-2000's. The food in the cafeteria was great, even better than it is now. My friend and I would sit in the outdoor cafeteria area of the Googleplex and enjoy our lunch. However, I was stunned that almost every Google employee would spend about 30 minutes enjoying their high-end food and then return immediately to work. By 1pm, the eating area was almost empty. This was an example of Google culture, and it happened entirely without AI. From the article's descriptions, it sounds more like a small company culture thing and not an AI thing.

Comment Force vs. Choice (Score 1) 247

The previous cry under the Biden administration was that vaccinations were being forced on people who didn't want them. Although there's certainly a public interest motivation to that push for vaccination, there is at least some moral and legal logic to allowing people the choice to be vaccinated or not. However, now that the anti-vaxxers are in power, the viewpoint is completely reversed. Instead of allowing choice, the policy now is to remove choice by preempting the availability of at least some vaccines. Unfortunately this flip-flopping of fundamental principles is not an aberration.

Comment Big caveats (Score 0, Redundant) 58

The study has huge caveats:

It is assumed that BEV costs are essentially equivalent to ICE costs. Part of this comes from an assumption that all cars of any type are only leased. However, even with that assumption, this equivalence assumption is certainly not true now and remains to be seen whether it will be true in the future.

It is assumed that the solar-battery home installation is completely free. This is a huge cost that is completely absent from the analysis.

The solar-battery home installation necessarily assumes that the car owner has a home where the car can be parked and where the solar-battery equipment can be located, which restricts car owners to fairly rich people.

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