It looks like this guy is the maestro of the Davinci Xi, which is the standard surgical robot

https://blogs.bcm.edu/2025/02/...

I had no idea how huge these things are.

https://aimis.com/assets/image...

They must have some really fancy attachments to get the dexterity (such as angle of approach) they would need. I can't imagine trying to change an oil filter shoved up behind a radiator with this...

Yep it sounds like they've gotten right up there with Oracle

They're still using VMWare, they just didn't pay for a new support license. The perpetual license they previously bought probably allows VMWare to audit compliance with it. So their choices may be, quickly re-engineer VMWare out of their systems, or bend over.

Yeah. "LLM users spent less time researching, exerted less effort..." from the summary could be restated as, "their productivity went up." Whether it's worth it to get more original insights would be heavily context-dependent.

It definitely will be rage porn. But conservatives have their beef with Facebook too, for labeling falsehoods and perhaps some censoring of posts during Covid? Not sure. But accusations of pro-Dem for sure.

In any case it's not happening yet, since the average age of cars on the road continues to increase:

https://hedgescompany.com/blog...

Actually it astounds me that the average age of passenger cars on the road is now 14 years. It's difficult to believe.

Even Tesas had a normal 12v lead acid car battery until just a few years ago, even though of course it had its huge lithium battery from its inception. I guess even a "clean sheet" design is not actually a clean sheet below a certain level, when they need to re-use traditional components and designs.

https://electrek.co/2021/02/02...

Perhaps because XBox dropped below 3 million units sold last year, the lowest number in their history.

I like Waymo, they're the ones getting it done. I know they've partnered with Uber, but I hope it's not exclusive. Waymo's technology is about a million times more sophisticated than Uber. It will save many lives. I would like to see it be used more widely.

This is why we can't have nice things. I'd like to not carry a wallet, but I refuse to have my credit card arguing with me about what to buy.

if the energy they produce more than pays for themselves many homeowners lack the capital to install them or have other uses for that capital. If government created the means for people to finance them, then they could install them.

This was already done, but without the government. Many companies would offer to install panels on your roof and guarantee an immediate decline in your electricity expenses. Basically they extended you a loan for the panels and you paid them back monthly with part of your electricity costs. Or the company owned them and you leased them.

I think these companies have mostly died off. Not sure if the numbers didn't work, or customers just couldn't be bothered, or what.

Looks like they still are. Doesn't seem to be taking over though.

https://www.posigen.com/blog/s...

I still don't get how batteries could see Germany through the winter, for example? You have low PV production for months.

https://gemenergyanalytics.sub...

Our strategy is working. In the third quarter of 2024, we achieved another GM record for EV sales, delivering more than 32,000 all-electric vehicles in the U.S. - an increase of 46% quarter-over-quarter and a 60% improvement year-over-year.

https://news.gm.com/home.detai...

What's at risk of dying off is not EV's as a whole, but Tesla's first-mover advantage.

Musk placed all their chips on Robotaxi. I am very skeptical since "full self driving" is so short of solving that "last 5%" and they are so far behind Waymo in demonstrated capability and deployment. But, we shall see.

Synthetic fuels? They have two primary use cases: 1. When an oil-poor nation is at war. 2. When the fossil fuel industry wants to keep ass-fucking the world.

How about airplanes?

I would be happy to have pure EVs for my family's around-town vehicles, then a PHEV for the SUV which would make it affordable around-town (currently we avoid it) but still useful for longer trips, often with towing, to very out-of-the-way places.

How is that conservatism? It makes perfect sense.