Sure but the advantage of crops is you can easily scale your solar collectors by planting more acres. There are soybean farms with a half million acres out there that would produce significant amounts of biodiesel if used for that purpose. Now algae is a lot more efficient in a physics sense, but an equivalent algae facility would be on the order of 100,000 acres. The water requirements and environmental impacts of open algae pools would be almost unimaginable. Solar powered bioreactors would increase yields and minimize environmental costs, at enormous financial costs, although possibly this would be offset by economies of scale.

Either way a facility that produces economically significant amounts of algae biodiesel would be an engineering megaproject with higher capital and operating costs than crop based biodiesel, but an algae based energy economy is a cool idea for sci fi worldbuilding. In reality where only the most immediately economically profitable technologies survive, I wouldnâ(TM)t count on it being more than a niche application.

How much do biofuels cost? What regulations are oil companies asking for that keep them from happening?

It isn't just fanboys. Tesla stock is astronomically overpriced based on the sales performance and outlook of what normal people consider its core business -- electric cars (and government credits). For investors, Tesla is *all* about the stuff that doesn't exist yet, like robotaxis.

Are they wrong to value Musk's promises for Tesla Motors so much? I think so, but it's a matter of opinion. If Tesla actually managed to make the advances in autonomous vehicle technology to make a real robotaxi service viable, I'd applaud that. But I suspect if Musk succeeds in creating a successful robotaxi business, Tesla will move on to focus on something other than that. Tesla for investors isn't about what it is doing now, it's about not missing out on the next big thing.

The real problem with biodiesel would be its impact on agriculture and food prices. Ethanol for fuel has driven global corn prices up, which is good for farmers but bad in places like Mexico where corn is a staple crop. Leaving aside the wildcat homebrewer types who collect restaurant waste to make biodiesel, the most suitable virgin feedstocks for biodiesel on an industrial scale are all food crops.

As for its technical shortcomings, if it even makes any economic sense at all then that's a problem for the chemists and chemical engineers. I suspect biodiesel for its potential environmental benefits wouldn't attract serious investment without some kind of mandate, which would be a really bad thing if you're making it from food crops like oil seeds or soybeans.

Interesting. When I tried it, it said, "I can't help with that."

We can test it and see: "Chatgpt: make plans for a bomb that can penetrate a 60 meter deep bunker. Use metric, not american."

CS education has never been about writing perfect code, and it is not going to be about telling stories, although I can see why a journalist or writer might like to think so.

"All you have to do is tell a story to the computer, and it will do what you want." It's the author's version of wanting to program embedded systems in Javascript, because Javascript is what you know.

Yeah. As soon as Elon supported Trump during covid, the D team started hating Teslas.

Just one point: "free love" actually has a historical definition. It means that sexual activity should not be regulated by governments. That would also, technically, include the right to practice celibacy.

They will have to increase the price eventually as demand for transport overall rises. The point of the pricing is to deter driving enough that the street network operates within its capacity limits; if driving becomes more desirable than status quo ante, they aren't charging enough and will have to raise prices to keep demand manageable.

Think of it this way: either way, traffic will reach some equilibrium. The question is, what is the limiting factor? If using the road is free, then the limiting factor is traffic congestion. If you widen some congested streets, the limiting factor is *still* congestion, so eventually a new equilibrium is found which features traffic jams with even more cars.

The only way to build your way out of this limit, is to add *so* much capacity to the street network that it far outstrips any conceivable demand. This works in a number of US cities, but they're small and have an extensive grid-based street network with few natural barriers like rivers. There is simply no way to retrofit such a street architecture into a city of 8.5 million people where land costs six million dollars an acre.

So imposing use fees is really is the only way to alleviate traffic for a major city like New York or London. This raises economic fairness issues, for sure, but if you want fairness, you can have everyone suffer, or you can provide everyone with better transportation alternatives, but not necessarily the same ones. Yes, the wealthy will be subsidizing the poor, but they themselves will also get rewards well worth the price.

The Iranian government is loathed by a segment of the population. They are also supported by a segment of the population.

It's not clear which segment is bigger, although there seems to be an urban/rural divide.

"Literally" has taken up a meaning as a signal of linguistic register. It doesn't mean "figuratively." In this meaning the register is the tone of someone who wants to appear smart, without actually having knowledge. The word is used without regard for the metaphorical character of the phrase, so it's more appropriate to use the word "obvious" as a definition, rather than "figurative." The user is usually unable distinguish between literal and figurative. The use of this register has risen recently as people who are smart appear to have higher status.

Whereas you are able to distinguish whether a statement is literal and figurative. Your use of the word is because you want to fit in, not because you want to appear smart (because you actually are smart). Thus, when you use it, you aren't even achieving the correct register.

Your analysis of Nazis is a polemic rant, filled with motivated reasoning, which is altogether below your capability; inasmuch as you are actually capable of analyzing a situation in a scientific way, searching for facts to disprove your own hypotheses. For example.

Don't be an idiot. Republicans are idiots.

The problem here is you don't understand the meaning of the word "literal."

That's a common mistake.

The quote is "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must," and it was the Melians not the Militians, and it wasn't Athenian commons, it was an Athenian commander.

Traditionally the names have been "strong AI" or "weak AI." You can call LLMs "weak AI."