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Comment Re: "far too small to generate any lift"?? (Score 3, Interesting) 53

That's how I read it. It should say it has no thrust.

A typical jet turbofan airframe has two engines that each have a generator shaft taking turbine energy and making electrical current. It then has a whole 'nother turbine engine used on the ground and in some other flight legs called the APU; this exhausts out the tail cone usually, and can start engines or provide extra hydraulic power if needed, but is slow to start just like the main engines.

For power loss emergencies, a small spring-loaded fan pops into action super fast, called a Ram Air Turbine or RAT. It can only make enough electrical power to reboot key systems like engine FADECs or avionics, often only on one electrical channel instead of all channels. It's only a turbine, not a thrust-producing fan. It's a pinwheel toy in comparison to the APU and even the APU cannot produce significant thrust.

Comment Re:Even USAs own rating agencies ... (Score 4, Informative) 237

I don't think the problem is with the Constitution. Any Constitution is just a piece of paper, unless people collectively honor it. You could say it makes the Executive too strong, but this has happened gradually as we allowed it, or asked for it, since Congress has become crippled with partisan politics. For example the Constitution gives the power to set tariffs to Congress, not the President. Yet look where we are now.

Comment Re:not newsworthy (Score 1) 51

I think it's kind of delicious to see chess used as a benchmark of intelligence again. Of course the chatbot could be augmented with a chess engine that it knows how to invoke to easily beat any human. But using an LLM as a chess engine itself is a nice challenge. Maybe there's a way to do it, or maybe AI as we know it needs more visualization capability. Or maybe if the AI can write a good chess engine given the rules.

In any case a single guy trying to prove a negative by failing to do something (set up an LLM to play chess) is not very convincing.

Comment Re: Eating the seed corn (Score 1) 265

"What did Paul Volker do to stop inflation? To subdue double-digit inflation, Chairman Volcker announced, in October 1979, a dramatic break in the way that monetary policy would operate. In practice, the new approach to monetary policy involved high interest rates (tight money) to slow the economy and fight inflation." Carter basically sacrifices political career by allowing this to happen. Then Reagan opened the floodgates of debt and made everybody feel good.

Comment Re:And nothing of value was lost (Score 5, Informative) 48

I think they expected that since they had paid to purchase the game, they would be able to play that game for as long as they cared to, i.e. same as the deal you get when you purchase a book or a DVD.

You can argue that they were wrong to expect that, but that's the usual way of thinking about items that you buy, so that's what people (who haven't yet thought through the implications of software shrink-wrap licensing agreements) naturally expect.

If being able to play the game perpetually isn't a viable business model, then perhaps the publisher should be required to specify up-front how long (at minimum) they will guarantee purchasers access to the game; that way nobody will be surprised when their access goes away, because they understood the time-limit on what they were purchasing before they made the purchase.

Comment Re:And yet, somehow... (Score 1) 217

... and in 2020 it was "anyone but Trump", as it will be again in 2028, assuming we still have elections then.

Step back a bit, and you realize the real voting pattern is "anyone but the incumbent", because the system has deteriorated to the point where problems don't get solved anymore, so voters are just blindly switching back and forth from one party to the other in the hopes that doing that will somehow lead to improvement. American Democracy has devolved into the world's most elaborate ring oscillator.

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