Posts by MachDiamond

Re: Tesla Drivers Have the Highest Crash Rate of Any Brand

"Study by car loan giant LendingTree:"

Big heavy trucks have the problem of inertia and less visibility than a passenger car which may contribute to RAM owners bashing their way through life.

The drink driving and BMW pairing doesn't surprise me in the least.

Re: I'm sorry, what was that?

"In any case, for criminals and terrorists, cash is still king,"

It's a problem too. If you watch some of the border patrol TV shows, large sums of cash are sought and they even have dogs trained to sniff out banknotes. This makes crypto something like Western Union without the oversight as a convenient way to move large sums of money from country to country. It's a good argument for governments to keep cash around as moving it, even in large denomination notes, is cumbersome in large amounts. One million US is 10kgs and fits in a large carry-on. Gold is 22-23kgs but much more compact. The downside with Gold is it's hard to transact in large quantities without going off-grid and accepting a heavy discount from spot. Wheat, no the other hand, might be a good way to transfer money if it's transported from one country to another. You lose the shipping cost, but then again, you could also make money while at the same time moving value from place to place.

Re: Only $610,000?

"The old adage about a fool and his money comes to mind every time I hear about someone getting scammed, hacked, rug pulled etc. etc."

I think many people are looking for easy money and haven't yet learned that 'easy' and 'low-risk' are on opposite sides of the graph. Any investment worth getting into is not going to be simple. It will take some knowledge and skill to make a proper evaluation of the risks and rewards.

Plain old currency speculation at least has the benefit of historical records that are based on something real. If you use Euros to buy US Dollars thinking the Dollar will go up, even if you jump wrong, the Dollar will still have value. It's not going to evaporate leaving behind a news story about somebody missing and believed to currently be in a country with no extradition treaties with any other country.

Re: Next steps

"Good stuff but it will also nullify all that guff we hear about crypto transactions being anonymous and free from state or indeed any central control."

The sorts of transactions you would want to hide that would make crypto the medium of choice will be automatically flagged as suspicious. If you make a large transaction using crypto for something like a car or land, the tax authority is going to want a chat about where the money came from and that they've carved out and been paid what they think would be due on that money. If you can't provide a good paper trail on that money, there will be a reckoning. That's the problem with big transactions, they're usually for something that is registered or licensed if they're legit. You could buy tonnes of wheat for delivery somewhere, but what would be the reason for using crypto?

A number of people that were duped by SBF (strange family name since his parents never married) have been screaming for more regulation. I have yet to see the media interview somebody that is just shrugging and saying it was the chance they took and nothing should change.

Re: I'm sorry, what was that?

"Digital pound or dollar anyone? (I hope not....)"

I'd not want to participate in those either. It's those cash purchases that I mentioned above where a Three Letter Agency can really get to know you. If all of your day to day purchases are computerized, it just makes it easier to build a detailed file about you since computers can spot the patterns and spit out matches rather than trained humans pouring over endless minutia.

Re: I'm sorry, what was that?

"if cryptocurrencies were widely used and you were fleeing a despotic government you could walk across the border with your keys memorised or steganographically hidden"

That is way off to one side of the graph. Not impossible, but it might be improbable that somebody with enough money to diddle with crypto would have enough of anything to hide when crossing a border. That would also be crossing a border at a formal crossing.

Sewing a pattern in your clothes would be really extreme. A microSD card is very easy to hide and a simple RFID is even easier.

Re: Spread too thin

"Coat

Re: Spread too thin

"Where else is there left to turn except AI?"

Blockchain!!!!"

Umm, Elon is the lead defendant in the largest lawsuit ever over his pump of Doge. Not only is Elon listed, so are all of the companies he operates. It may not go well for his defense if he continues on with crypto at this time.

Re: Spread too thin

"So, he's not even necessarily spending 40hrs/week at any of those businesses actually doing work."

Deducting the time he spends taking xitts, he may not even be spending a cumulative 40 hours per week working.

Re: Why not just make methane?

"It is pretty trivial using the Sabatier reaction to add CO2 to hydrogen to make methane,"

Most commercial Hydrogen is made from natural gas in the first place. It also makes no sense to use energy to create Hydrogen by splitting water to have a feedstock to use more power turning it into CH4, not to mention what it will take to suck in air and separate CO2 to take that apart for the Carbon.

Re: Hydrogen is absolute SHIT for energy storage or transfer

I'd love to see some commentary to go with the downvotes. In the US, there have been plenty of stories of people going off-grid and having their homes condemned for occupation due to regulations that require connection to utilities if they are available. There's been a couple where kids are involved that are even more painful to hear about. It's nothing about the livability of the home, just that it isn't connected with an active billing account.

Re: Well, duh

"A lot of new houses today seem to be being built with heat pumps installed. It'll be interesting to see how those work out before spending well over £10k to retrofit our older houses."

It will also be useful to get data based on microclimates. There could be swaths that do really well with a ASHP and some that do rather poorly.

Re: Correction

"Hot air is a valuable form of heating."

While what politicians spew is often called "hot" air, it's only slightly above ambient and completely useless. Not enough delta-T.

Re: Hydrogen is absolute SHIT for energy storage or transfer

"And if you don't like it you can just freeze to death without heating as they'll just cut you off."

Depends on where you are. In some places you won't be able to occupy a house that isn't connected to utilities and they'll move mountains to make sure you are out of there even though for 1/4 of the price of doing that, they could pay your bill for you. Chances are a law will be passed that you must be connected and if you fail to pay your bill, they'll put a lien on the property.

Re: I have to wonder

"And somewhere around about 1,054 ministerial appointments up until April of this year. That includes junior minister appointments, and is based on parliamentary data. What a shower of dishonest, incompetent shit."

Do any of them have qualifications in engineering or science? In the US they are mainly failed attorneys so complete shite when it comes to anything very useful.

Re: Well, duh

"Say an all in price of £15k for the heat pump and full system retrofit and make-good."

That's sounds a bit too cheap. Are you including permits and inspections?

Re: Heat pump crump.

"California building code requires heating units, whether you need them or not, but essentially says zip about requiring AC."

The building codes require heating, but that doesn't mean you have to use it or decide to take it out if you like. My heater hasn't been on for 8 years and it's on the chopping block when I get around to redoing the utility room where it lives. I'm eying the space for more storage for my canning habit. I'm in the process of building two more solar collectors for heating the house. I don't mind wearing a jumper most of the time, but not always when indoors. I'm aiming to have most of the south wall of the house covered in collectors in the next year or so. The eves shade the sun from the wall in the warmer months so I won't have to buy blocks of ice come July to compensate. The vent on the roof for the gas heater will also be able to go which will make installing solar PV easier.

"It's currently 12C in my bedroom and about 7C in the kitchen. That's good enough for winter."

I think I sleep better in winter when it's a bit cold in my room. I'm slid under a stack of blankets with the second away from me being electric. It makes more sense to just heat me rather than the whole house. I have electric heat in the bathroom I turn on when I shower.

"To meet the 2050 deadline they would need to be converting 20,000 properties a *week* to heatpumps"

That would also mean the immediate cessation of boiler installation and the scrapping of boilers with plenty of life left in them which also tosses out all of the energy used to create them.

Re: Which Led Zep Album?

"Because it is the smallest sized atom making perfect seals that work year in, year out is next to impossible."

Actually, He is smaller. H likes to live as a pair while Helium is happy as a single atom.

Re: Its a competitiveness issue

" I live in Southern California where this is literally everywhere -- you could fall and die of exposure in what's nominally a park if you're off trail "

It's another argument for not going 'off-trail' and only in a group of at least 3 people. If you can't get a couple more people to go with you, just stick to a very popular trail. That said, a co-worker standing on one foot, facing Mecca and holding one hand at the proper angle was able to get service at the top of Mt. Whitney. Too much of a hike for me, but I'd have taken my Ham radio with me and been able to talk to just about every repeater in California with the right antenna.

Re: Autopilot may undermine the effectiveness of the driver's supervision

"Unless you do what sane people do ... purchase a car with logically thought out controls."

The evolution of controls in cars has been over many years and the reason most cars are very similar is that the designs have all converged on what works.

Re: Autopilot may undermine the effectiveness of the driver's supervision

"BTW, how does one toggle turn signals with both hands on the wheel?"

Fair question since I've heard they removed the stalk control that could be operated with finger tips.

Re: In Other News

"The recall/update is because a minority of morons can't be trusted to use it properly "

It's also too easy to use it improperly. At least some of the cases have been on roads where the system shouldn't have been able to be engaged.

Re: "recall"

"So while there are more ICE fires it would be interesting to know what proportion of them result in a write off to make a more meaningful comparison."

The car is likely an insurance write-off in either case. The ICEV may have more parts left that can be salvaged.

Re: There's a movie in there.

"Elon and other auto makers may not like the idea of being tighly regulated. But speaking as potential collateral damage, I think regulating these folks tightly is a just dandy idea."

Surprisingly, lots of industries welcome regulation. If Elon creates a bad name for autonomous driving systems, that spills over on all of the others who may have done a much better job. Not saying that have, mind, just using it as an example.

Re: "recall"

"Obviously, USA isn't the UK, so perhaps to get American's attention they might want to bring back televised crucifixion."

Stonings!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffwFXGPRDu4

Obligatory Python link.

Re: "recall"

"Though owners might get a bit narked at realising functionality could be removed at whim of manufacturer."

If they don't know that already, they've been living under a rock.

Re: "recall"

"One of the major causes of Tesla accidents isn't just that Tesla doesn't use Lidar, it's that it doesn't use cameras to monitor for driver attention, "

Do you really want a car that's watching and recording you while you drive? It's already come to light that Tesla cars send video back to the mothership. If there is any sort of incident, you are also ratting yourself out if the video shows something you'd have rather wasn't brought up.

Re: Where are the Pythons?

"Are you asking us to 'spam' Eric? (or maybe his pet fish)"

Well, yes.

Now I'll need to see if I can add a viking helmet logo to my envelope program.

Re: Have they tried

"I use "give it a kick in the guts"."

We'll let nobby kick it in the fork.

Re: Excelent design - aliens must be proud

"Would need billions of gigabytes of storage for any onboard software, would need to upgrade online very few days with a billion times more bandwidth that V1 and V2 have, would need constant rebooting and troubleshooting with at least half the time not working. Would be filled with useless shit and nagging adverts."

I'll give you one guess why NASA doesn't use Windows as a basis for spacecraft software.

Re: According to Musk, fraud is protected under the 1st Amendment

"custard-based microelectronics"

So all of the processing is done in YouSpace?

Re: According to Musk, fraud is protected under the 1st Amendment

"So, we started advising them to keep the batteries warm, perhaps wrapping them up in something warm when in the field."

I put camera batteries in my pocket where they will be warmed by my body. A coat pocket doesn't work as well since it can be insulated from me as well as the outside so the battery won't be warmed up.

Re: According to Musk, fraud is protected under the 1st Amendment

"Seriously though, why does "the land of the free" not have a law against unfair dismissal,"

The US does and doesn't. Each state formulates their own employment laws with some Federal laws that supersede them (discrimination and such). In most places, you work "at will" so you can be dismissed or quit. Even with this, it's not too hard to open a case if you've been sacked and either get your job back (why would you?) or be compensated.

I had a manufacturing company for many years and was taught by my mentors to be very careful about hiring and firing. I was told that if I wanted to let an employee go, I should document everything and also give them warnings or I could be on the hook for a lawsuit or back wages. Sadly, dismissing People of Color tends to lead to the most lawsuits so one is advised to tread most carefully there.