Oh god. If I spent enough time digging through my ancient Slashdot posts, somewhere back there there are posts of me going, "While I loved the strategy behind Falcon 9, I'm really not keen on this plan to make Starship out of huge carbon fibre tanks, that sounds like a really failure-prone solution..." I'm glad they only spent like a year on that idea before deciding it was dumb; somewhere back there there's also a bunch of posts of me cheering their switch to steel ;) . SpaceX still keep having random COPV problems (most of which they don't even make themselves). Not too encouraging for the notion of the cold gas thruster add-on to the Roadster, where the plan is to replace the back seat with COPVs, so you have a COPV right behind your head.

Electron has been getting by on CF, and honestly I'm impressed, but they've also been only working with very small launch vehicles thusfar. We'll see how neutron goes...

Garbage regulations like IP create these behemoths. If you want freedom, stop regulating monopolies into existence.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to say about printing small rocket parts, such as for the engines. But they were printing basically sheet metal cylinders, which is such an immensely slow and inefficient way to go about it, and it left them with parts that were heavier and less aerodynamic (rougher surface). Crazy that idea ever got any funding.

The one seen over Moscow might have been, with a bit more thrust...

"SapceX has got to be a huge scam too" - SpaceX launches the vast majority of the world's commercial cargo to orbit. The Falcon 9 FT has the highest success rate of any rocket with a statistically significant number of launches under its belt, and is dirt cheap. SpaceX's core operations are roughly breakeven, but that's including subsidizing the development of Starship. Starlink is a money printer.

There are lots of things sketchy about the SpaceX IPO, to say the least, but SpaceX, as a company, has been extremely successful with rocketry.

Statism creates billionaires.

MidJourney was the first sizable AI company to become profitable, having done so back in 2022.

I listened to a radio interview with Bernie... apparently he wants this so that "citizens can block harmful policies". So that probably explains the 50% - they want voting shares in order to control the boards.

This is a bit more than just taking a stake in companies in order to give taxpayers an opportunity to share in the gains... this is basically nationalization without taking over the entire company.

So I guess I was wrong about where this was coming from. Too bad, since if the tech bros are right and this leads to the ultimate infinite money glitch, having a resource wealth fund that pays dividends would have been one way of softening the massive dislocation in labor allocation for both white and blue collar work.

Correct. Presumably if your investors don't like the idea of getting diluted by uncle sam, they'll cut off sales once you hit 199M a year.

You'd need to get tangible benefits for letting the government "buy in"... enough that your existing investors and share holding employees would be ok with crossing the 200M cutoff.

Probably a foreign held corporation in Ireland that owns all the IP and gets paid licensing revenue from all the sub 200M companies will serve as the controlling entity.

What's odd is you could accomplish something similar to Bernie's plan by funding AI startups and taking an equity stake. Upon IPO, you sell the stake and then take the money to go incubate more companies. The leftists complain about the massive imbalance of wealth, but are unwilling to go and take the risk that the VC funds are taking by backing a bunch of unproven companies that may never pay off.

The funny thing was that I knew him for like six months online before I realized he was fully paralyzed. He's been covered in the Finnish press a number of times. Amazing guy. Up until recently he was living in a house he built himself before ALS struck, but the medical service decided he was too far away and he had to move closer. You lose a lot of control over your life with ALS.

He wrote a book about nuclear safety engineering recently, which is a fascinating read, and which I strongly recommend.

Dilution is preferable to paying cash taxes on unrealized gains - the other socialist/progressive "solution" to people being successful. And, one would hope that negotiations would get things closer to a reasonable percentage from 50%, like the 10% the US government took in Intel.

It aligns the interests of the government with the company - you can't pay dividends on a wealth fund based on equity stakes if you take actions (policy or otherwise) that tank the value of the stock.

If anything, having the government as a partner (preferably a silent one) can help boost the stock price. If those shares aren't trading, then they aren't impacting daily price discovery. The only impact is that if the company ever pays dividends, half of the dividends go to uncle sam.

I'm not a proponent of nationalizing companies, but for AI companies to hit max velocity for spend, they need every advantage they can get to clear red tape and public opposition out of the way.

From an October 15th Pew Research report:

https://www.pewresearch.org/gl...

"But many are worried about AIâ(TM)s effects on daily life. A median of 34% of adults say they are more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI, while 42% are equally concerned and excited. A median of 16% are more excited than concerned.

Concerns about AI are especially common in the United States, Italy, Australia, Brazil and Greece, where about half of adults say they are more concerned than excited. But as few as 16% in South Korea are mainly concerned about the prospect of AI in their lives."

Contrast this to Biden era view on AI - which was to legislate regulations and restrictions on development which most likely would have been only to the benefit of the largest players. Open source players in this space would remain unaffected, since the metric is 200M in sales.

That Bernie and Trump are talking similar language (US government taking a stake in AI companies) makes this at least a starting point in discussions. People talking about UBI without proposing a mechanism for financing UBI - this is one possible way of financing things.

Nevermind, I was reading the Ars Technica version of the article that leaves out the part where they take stock instead of cash under the 50% haircut, and are proposing to pay dividends based on that fund.

Strangely enough, I don't have any objections to this plan.

Either:

1. AI is a scam, in which case Bernie is proposing they rob the robbers before the public figures out that they're getting taken. Definitely a heist film.

2. AI is the real deal, in which case Bernie is skimming 50% off the top as part of their deal to let AI have their way with the American economy. Notice he's not promising that he won't came back later to take another 50% haircut.

I'm a little weirded out by the fact that you could also just take an non-voting equity stake in these companies, considering that their spending is powering the US economy. Yes, nationalization is bad, but getting in before the IPO sounds like a really smart idea if your goal is to maximize return the US taxpayer.

BTW, AI is a godsend for ALS patients. Even with an eye tracker, your writing throughput is low / tiring compared to typing, and of course you can't do anything that requires physical activity (painting, playing an instrument, speaking, etc). AI tools help fill the gaps.

Did *she* want to die? Did *she* want to be "released"?

Did she have an eye tracker, to allow her to communicate naturally?