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Comment Re:Depth? (Score 1) 95

I remember reading about the fight between polished aluminum planes and painted. The paint adds weight, and thus increases fuel consumption, but the paint lowers maintenance costs.
A dirty airplane can absolutely burn a noticeably larger amount of fuel.
A car is operating at much lower speeds, generally, so the effect is probably much less.

Comment Re: Thank you (Score 0) 81

LPR surveillance is unconstitutional.

No, it is not. There is no such article in the Constitution.

If they want to use LPR information, then make it a warranting process.

Ah, you're implying, the 4th Amendment covers license plates? No, it doesn't — the license is outside in plain sight. If I can legally see it, I can record it.

Now, the very requirement to have the license plate in the first place — that seems quite bogus to me. Not unconstitutional — just wrong. There is no argument for license plates on personal vehicles on the road, that wouldn't also apply to actual persons on the same road...

Comment Re:Investing = Polymarket betting (Score 2) 120

NASA contracts out missions, they don't really do missions in-house. SpaceX is currently winning the launch and visit ISS missions by a mile. Competition like Boeing is more expensive and less reliable.

$500 hammer was actually a set of hammer, shovel, and pick. It had to be non-magnetic, non-sparking, yet durable enough for work. Intended use was for digging out old unstable explosives that the government had let sit around for far too long after WWII.

Pencil that could write in space - standard pencils use graphite, and shed graphite dust when used. Graphite is carbon, it is both conductive and flammable as a powder. Can one see why that might be bad in zero g constrained atmospheres?
The Fisher space pen was developed by Fisher, on his dime, and subsequently sold to both space agencies, US and Russia.

The USA is not "literally Russia". There might be the occasional commonality, but the problems Russia faces are far more severe and deeply run.

Comment Re:Depends on your goals, I guess. (Score 3, Interesting) 85

I looked at a waterfall project where the mayor ended up spending $3M to have an audit done on the current state of a project that was way behind on time and way over budget, only for them to come back and say that it'd be cheaper to burn all the effort to date and start fresh.

Comment Re: Rebecca Watson covered this on YouTube (Score 1) 244

They arent selling the product, most likely, a reseller or importer is.
With zero presence in country, they use a 3rd party for shipping, it is basically impossible to go after them.
Think like a small time comic artist selling art getting a commission and mailing it to the country of the buyer, only to find out that the art was 'illegal'.
Thus the go after amazon thing, because they are the enabling party inside the USA.
Another issue is jailbreaking the bikes.
A bike that can do the legal limits with a 200 pound adult on it can do quite a bit more with the limiters removed and a kid only weighing 100 on it.

Comment Communists demand Communism (Score 0) 82

So yeah your AI can outperform a doctor that gets 5 minutes with the patient before having to move on to the next one in order to keep their private equity Masters satisfied.

So, suppose, we stick it to the "private equity Masters", compel them to double the number of doctors — forget for a second, who is going to pay for them — and afford them a whopping 10 minutes with the patient.

ChatGPT will still beat humans... And it will be getting better with every month, whereas the humans will not...

Comment Don't seek an ideal (Score 0) 82

A new study from Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess found that an OpenAI reasoning model outperformed experienced ER doctors at diagnosing and managing patient cases

AI is sufficiently anthropomorphic to be capable of making mistakes. Demanding perfection from it is stupid. It does not need to be error-free. It just needs to be better than humans...

Comment Re:Same solution as with ICE (Score 1) 296

Five day drive? Wow, I drove from Alaska to Florida in that timeframe.
No, it wouldn't increase it to 7 days, and would only increase it to six if you also substantially decreased driving time.
As for stopping at a dog park - that's why they're installing chargers "all over". So it'd be the "same difference".
Also, why sit at a charger for 40 minutes? Just fill up for 15 minutes and head for the next one.
A 40 minute charging stop would be if you're having a sit-down meal or such outside of the car.
Charging to full with the current batteries is something you'd only really do when stopped for the night.

Comment Re: Chargers can be moved. (Score 1) 296

More expensive might not last that much longer. They were around 50% more expensive in 2021, down to 15% in 2023. Sometime in the next decade or so.
They're already hitting price parity in China.
And that's before considering that the fuel and maintenance savings, where they already win on total cost of ownership, despite the occasional talk of tire consumption.

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