Posts by MachDiamond 8862 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Aug 2012
"Wouldn't underground cables be well insulated because they're, well, under the ground? "
Just being underground doesn't mean they would be a "ground potential". Even that can be dicey. I recall a recording studio that was sat between two electrical substations that were inducing a ground current between them which caused no end of problems for the studio. It took some time to figure out why they were having problems. I think in the end they moved the studio.
"Also, last time I checked, if a booster doesn't land properly on the Earth it didn't get much of a second chance either ... the terms "kaaboom" and "enormous kaaboom" spring to mind."
You also will wind up damaging your landing site when there are problems such as engine(s) not relighting. So far, SpaceX has a good track record, but that doesn't mean all of the gains won't be knocked out if they miss the landing pad at Vandenberg and damage or destroy the close-by launch rig. It's risk and not enough people take that into account.
"without the Chinese stealing SpaceX's source code and development documentation I don't see them reproducing this feat anytime soon."
They don't need to steal anything. A person I worked with in the US was a MIT grad that emigrated from Cuba. He did a whole flight system as a one man department. Another person I worked with had done the same thing, only with simpler code. I have no doubt that China has plenty of engineers capable of doing the same thing.
"but China is probably a bit more lax safety wise and will skip that intermediate step."
It's a legal and risk issue that the Chinese government didn't see fit to impose upon themselves.
The reason for landing on a barge is often due to the trajectory. There may not be enough fuel left to get a booster back to land.
"I don't think landing a rocket is as hard as people seem to believe. "
Landing the rocket is the hardest part. Going high and fast (the Falcon 9 booster isn't going to orbit) doesn't matter as much as setting down gently and precisely on target. Reuse has been a thing due to financial constraints, not technical issues. Precursor flights to the moon with the Surveyor missions was landing rockets on a different body altogether. The SLS core isn't reused as they need to squeeze all of the performance from the rocket at they can and the flight cadence is too low to make it pay beyond that.
"Corporations are groups of owners, associating together (constitutionally protected) for the purpose of conducting business. So that group (with First Amendment rights) may elect to have the officers of their corporations speak on their behalf as necessary to conduct business."
I don't think that is doctrine, but I find it a good interpretation.
"IANAL, but that doesn't seem to say "within each State"."
There is a distinction between intra-state commerce and inter-state commerce. States are generally left to establish laws that apply within their own state as long as the effect isn't too restrictive or puts somebody in jeopardy for doing something that's legal in the state they come from. If somebody buys a strong ale from a craft brewing company in one state, another state can't prohibit them bringing it with them for personal consumption if that state has a lower limit for what's considered an ale and what might be defined as malt liquor. It's a tax thing.
"This is just all the more reason it needs to be firmly enshrined in law that only meat sack humans have first amendment rights."
I don't have a problem with corporations having 1st Amendment rights as long as those behind the statements (the Board, C-level execs) become sever-ably liable for those statements. Not only can the corporation suffer consequences, so can those behind it or can be shown that they should have reasonably been aware. The out for Tesla's board would be to throw Elon under the bus to save their own skins from fines and prison cells. Big rewards should come with big risks.
"Tesla also claims that the DMV has no right to prosecute it for false advertising of Autopilot's capabilities because it knew perfectly well how the company had been describing it."
Tesla has provided the State of California with written affidavits that Autopilot is and will remain in the near future, a level 2 driver assistance system. The State is now going after them for advertising and marketing it differently from that document. The time delay is typical government. If they go after a company early, they get vilified as being on a witch hunt. It takes a certain body count and call for them to "do something®" before they take action.
"I think the Bill Moyers line "I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one" is relevant."
Thats sort of thing is long overdue. There's been far too much "too big to fail" going on that has been used as the excuse for allowing some corporations (and their execs) to continue living.
"What Musk will make of this article, I wonder:"
The article tells of the problems to peds with the CT's lack of crumple zones, but that same issue doesn't bode well for the driver and passengers either. If the truck comes to a sudden stop, the passengers and their internal organs are still going forward and will suffer. So will buildings, lamp posts, fire hydrants, etc. The energy embodied in the truck won't be dissipated as quickly so if the driver accidentally smashes the accelerator, they are going to make it further into the shop in front of them.
"If the courts upheld that view then for example the FDA would no longer be able to regulate claims drugmakers make or require them to notify potential users of that drug of side effects."
It would also allow vitamin/supplement makers to advertise anecdotal claims about their products. Myths such as vitamin C curing a cold and certain preparations being great for healthy joints. With marijuana being legalized, there are some fantastic claims regarding CBD and other derivatives being amazing cures for all sorts of things. None of that can be used in advertising as there is no solid research to back up those claims. At least not in the US to the standard that would be required.
New York lost a billion dollars building a factory for a company that was purchased by Solar City with SC being bailed out later by Tesla. Initially, Tesla scrapped the production machinery in the building since it wasn't suitable for Panasonic's process in building solar products for Tesla and that partnership went by the wayside leading to a massive devaluation of the facility. With the mass exodus of financial businesses from NY, maybe they are going to try to attract another industry to diversify. What I didn't see mentioned was how much money NY was going to spend buying this new program. They already have problems with the cost of paying for thousands of invaders demanding services so another corporate handout when they've done so poorly doing them in the past doesn't seem like a good move.
"If he is let out of this legally binding agreement, the same thing should apply to those that he made sign NDAs. Let them all speak freely."
There a bit of a conundrum in that. He claims to be a "free speech absolutist", buy Twitter to make sure there is an unfettered platform and then requires the remaining employees to sign a strict NDA. He goes on to threaten them all with swift and severe punishment, on Twitter, should they violate that agreement. Hmmmmmm. One for me, another for thee.
"Run Xitter into the ground, bankrupt it and wind up the company."
I don't think the company will be wound up. There is sufficient outside investment that a BK judge would allow the creditors to install an interim management team to replace Elon and what's-her-name to preserve the value of what remains. The big question is how much the new managers would be allowed to do and the magnitude to which they can do them.
"At a strategic decision level, yes there would be a delay between Musk being shown the door and the new regime taking over, but that's unlikely to affect day to day ops."
One of the concerns of major investors is that Tesla does not have a succession plan for its executive positions including the CEO. Elon has already removed many of the positions found in normal corporations such as media relations and taken them upon himself. This is why there are no responses to media inquiries. He even fired his secretary that had been with him for a bunch of years when she asked for a rise claiming he could do all of the tasks she was doing for him. It will mean that if Elon is abruptly replaced/dismissed, a new team will have a job getting their feet under them as the existing structure is non-standard. I don't believe that Tesla vehicles would suddenly brick themselves, but there could be issues with contracts for mapping data, details regarding charging stations that require C-level sign-offs and other things that could suffer.
""...set the controls for the heart of the sun"?"
Going inward towards the sun is actually more energy intensive. It wouldn't be a problem to miss Venus and Mercury, but sending valuable metals to burn up in the sun is a waste. I'm not sure how deep the ocean spacecraft graveyard is, but it's going to be mineable for some amount of money should it be needed.
"Rather than 'safely de-orbit', which is a polite euphemism for crash into the earth with a degree of probability for where it will hit, why not push the orbit further out to a point where it has an acceptably low probability of coming back?"
There's a spot in the ocean designated as a place to splash spacecraft. It's away from shipping lanes, fisheries and not even private yachts go there. There is the technology and math to hit that spot with a good degree of accuracy, not just a "maybe if we're lucky".
Boosting it to a higher orbit is a short term solution and it would remain a problem for decades or even hundreds of years afterwards with little chance of reversing that decision in the future. I expect it would be easiest to delete modules rather than the whole thing in one go.
"SLS rocket boosters burn money faster than if they were burning actual cash. "
Adjusted for inflation, the Apollo program was as costly. The point isn't to turn a profit, but to return an increase in knowledge. Space programs tend to pay back in spades just by trying to do something difficult. NASA Tech Briefs used to publish and annual compendium of technology spin-offs and I still have those publications. It's everything from metallurgy to sanitation to medical devices.
I won't disagree that there is a lot of political waste and "good ol' boyism" going on, but anytime a government is involved in something, that happens. This is why the US can't have nice things. Turkey has high speed rail, for pete's sake. The US (well, California) thought to do one without much planning and it tripled in cost while now planning to deliver 1/3 the distance between two points nobody has a keen interest in traveling between at high speed. It's worked out so well for the politicians and their friends that plans are being laid (again) to have a route again between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. HSR, of course, when something as well matured at the Intercity 125 would be cheaper, faster to construct and more likely to get completed.
"Making the military cheaper........"
I believe that making the military cheaper is a good thing. Less money, smaller military. I can't live with a mindset that says "Can't we all just get along?" because as soon as I think that, a country such as Venezuela thinks it would be a good idea to annex their neighbor to subsume their reserves of fossil fuels.
"No longer do I have to get up at unholy o'clock to travel for half a day to have a half hour meeting with a prospective client on the other side of the country."
I'm not too bothered about that sort of thing if it means $$/££ and it's infrequent. If it was a daily commute, that would bother me. I do get a bit fed up with the four walls of my office, so a trip out now and then is a nice break.
"They will less likely to be the "employer of choice" for talented new graduates, women (actually anyone with children or dependents), the more creative and imaginative and any that enjoy the work they do."
We think of women and children, but as the population ages, more of us will be looking after older family members.
"Remember never send an email that can be a phone call, never make a phone call that can be a private conversation and never say something which can be a wink - especially if you are a democratically elected government."
I'm amazed at how so many people these days commit things to writing that are dangerous enough to whisper in somebody's ear. I notice lots of people that will send and receive texts when it would be simpler to hold a voice call since they are both not in a situation where talking on the phone would be disruptive.
" I live in the country and it is necessary to enter my property to even pick up a wifi signal. "
You better be way off the road. Back in my more naughty days, we'd use a high gain antenna and a modified wi-fi card to do our "war driving". We could be quite a distance from an open access point and not nearly as obvious.
"because the receptionist has never seen you before"
Receptionist? Perhaps for a larger business, but I see more and more with just a phone and a directory to reach somebody. The receptionist could be someplace else entirely and have many other duties so that they can't keep track of who people are. If they are covered by random people for breaks and lunch, that temp person may not know everybody.
A good receptionist will have a memory for faces and be strict about entry rules, so they are useful. The problem is that many companies see that position as a good place to chop heads and save money rather than find more tasks to keep them busy. In some places, reception is part of security, but the problem there is that staff isn't answering phones or doing other tasks.
"Nor can the transport services rejoice in the reduction in demand "
It might be a good thing for the trains. With a reduction in peak demand, the usage could be more consistent which is less expensive to operate since they don't have to build out so much capacity only to deploy it twice a day, five days a week. If at the same time large companies can break up their staff into functional groups and have remote offices spread around, that also changes transportation patterns so not everybody is traveling into London in the morning and away every evening. A bonus is staff don't have to live in very high cost of living places or spend enormous amounts of time commuting just to pursue a career in something they enjoy
Were made in the discussion. Jess is a perfect example of how she can manage a family and work at the same time by breaking up her day between work and taking care of the kids. An office at the bottom of the garden is another great adaptation for those that need to be separate from the household to get anything done. It's also a good way to shift your brain from 'home' to 'work'. Most of the books I've read about working from home stress the importance of having a dedicated workspace rather than the dining room table or a desk in the bedroom. WFH can also be shifted to WFRO (Work from Remote Office) which could be a small rented space in your own town that lets you get away from home yet still not have much of a commute and the ease of returning home or running errands during the day. The owners of retail buildings on High Streets with upstairs space might want to think about turning some of those to shared space offices or just bare bones offices. I'm thinking mainly of smaller towns and villages more than big downtown city centers.
"a good proportion of pointy-haired bosses are like Musk, and think that anybody whom they can't see in the office is clearly at home skiving."
It could be a problem for Elon as he isn't a good manager of people. With good employees, you set them a task, a time frame and support them as necessary to get jobs done. If you have to wander by and make sure they're working once an hour, they aren't worth keeping. With good pay and a good working environment, keeping good people and having stiff competition where there are openings is not that hard.
"It seems to me that the main reason to have large and centralized gatherings of people (at school, work, or county fairs) is mostly to socialize and party (certainly not do actual work). Important and serious practical matters of the greatest utility are best taken care of at home, and in small highly-localized groups of knowledgeable folks. MDs and other pros can surely make house calls as needed "
Having a MD dropping by for a visit might be a bit uncomfortable. Certainly and unannounced visit would be a problem.
I don't see a problem with a periodic meet up for a functional group somewhere to discuss things in person and also socialize to some extent. "Partying" would be a bit extreme since you would have a mixture of people that are tea-total, older/younger, married/single, etc. Locations with a transportation nexus would be the most handy.
"both inside on LAN and outside on WAN"
My computers at home are hard wired. I get much better speed and can restrict the wi-fi to the two devices that I might want to have untethered via their MAC addresses. The computers are password protected and really sensitive stuff is encrypted with some hidden so it's not obvious. I'm not fooling a TLA, but good enough for somebody that needs to be in a bigger hurry. Sensitive files are also on an NAS that isn't sitting with everything else in the office.
"I guess you have never worked in an office. There are multiple ways to gain entry to a company. "
Deviant Ollum did a talk where he accessed an office via an lift with access from the employee parking lot. The vestibule was open but it took an access card to call the lift. The thing with lifts is they have to comply with fire regulations and that's what they exploited. Many times and in many places there has to be a common key for fire brigades to use. Once inside past the security barriers, they were able to freely roam. I don't recall if they posed as workman, but they could have easily put on a lanyard with a facsimile of the company access card to allay people's concern about who they were and if they should be there.
"There are just different security concerns that have to be addressed not larger. All those security concerns of workers commuting can be addressed by not allowing documents and computers to be taken home."
There can be serious security issues when working from home. If the work involves state secrets or company "secret formulas", having that data accessible and able to be printed out remotely can be an issue. The same things goes for entities that handle PII. In an office environment, a company can place physical restrictions to access and people can be prevented from simply toting a laptop full of sensitive information out of the front door.
I can envision (and there likely already is) the technology that allows people to see and work on documents remotely over a secure connection that prevents them from printing, downloaded or making screen shots. It would be quite the project to use a mobile to take shots of screen after screen of PII, but if data like that were found outside of the fences, logs could show who had been given access and the pattern could be very telling even if several people are all looking at those files. It comes down to people thinking about the issue and coming up with ways to mitigate the problems. For very sensitive data, it could make sense for people to need to visit an office with stricter controls and layers of physical security.
"I had to do it for a while, and I almost went crazy. I'm quite concerned that at some point the office will close for good and I'll have to find another place to work in a world with a rapidly decreasing number of offices to work in."
You can rent a small office in most towns. It might be a closet in the back of some shop, but it would get you out of the house. My local airport seems to always have some small offices available in the terminal building. It's not a passenger airport and pretty dead now that the cafe shut and nobody has picked up the lease on it. The offices have big windows that look out on the apron and there are some really neat aircraft hangered there. If you need to escape the kids or roommates, something like that could be an option.
" but if you pay the penalty rates, they can get around it."
Way back when I did some extra work, we got a set amount for 8 hours, time and a half for 8-10 hours and double time after that. If there were a max, I was never told. One day we worked a very long day and through talking with one of the grips, he told me that he was at $200/hour at that point and wanted to go home. Since I could move lights around too, I told him to give me $400 cash and I'd take over his job for as long as it took to finish the "day". I was joking, of course, since I'd be drawn and quartered for even touching a light since I wasn't employed by the union. The issue at the time was the location. They had to be out by the end of the next day and it would take a day to clean up. They either had to pay OT to finish filming the scene or come up with a way to edit around it which might involve paying some union writers OT to change the script in a hurry.
It really blows the budget to go into overtime so they avoid it, but if it will be more expensive to not pay for overtime, they'll do that. It's how my mother got her SAG card (damn her). If you ever rent Friday the 13th, Part 3, my mom is the doctor that says "There nothing we can do for him, he's in a deep coma". She was hired as a medical consultant and got thrown into the role since they had to clear out of the hospital where they were shooting that night and the guy they cast for the role was thrown in jail the day before unbeknownst to the production company. Right place, right time. I never got a SAG card and did a lot more movie work.
"Better you negotiate terms ahead of taking the job so you are compensated for the commute time."
If they insist on a London office, they should need to pay a wage high enough to afford living at a moderate level IN London or the cost to commute from someplace further out. During peak hours, I couldn't say if it's any cheaper to live outside the city and take the train or pay going rates for a nice flat in the city with no travel. As it's been throughout history, property values and costs near train stations will be higher than for properties away from them.
The outgoing former US Speaker of the House has been very anti-train. I remember one time when I was traveling from Seattle to LA (Bakersfield) on the train and couldn't change my ticket in Sacramento, CA to an earlier train due to it being sold out when Mr. McCarthy said nobody likes trains. As a big time politician, I wouldn't boggle if he'd never taken a train anywhere. When I would go someplace such as Prague I'd never rent a car and drive. It was cheaper and more convenient to take public transportation. I haven't been for some time, but I seem to recall that the return ticket from Prague to Dresden was under $20. Maybe it was one-way, but a deal either way. Petrol and parking would have been far more. There's an added benefit of less wait at borders too. I'm hoping that the next time I visit California, the LA to SF overnight train will be operating. I could visit SF for the day and GTFO before nightfall for zero travel time (effectively).
"So my point is, it doesn't matter that some people can WFH and some can't. The solidarity between workers that should make this relatable to everybody is that we hate being required to do things for the company that inconvenience us without good reason."
I know it's unfashionable these days, but if a male and female (old definition) decide to commit to a relationship where they live together in one home and decide to procreate, having one of them working from home could be advantageous while their offspring mature. Just sayin'.
"According to the US BLS, office and administrative support occupations make up nearly 16 percent of U.S. employment as of May 2013."
2013, huh? Are those the latest figures published?
Now how about engineering, art, marketing and design positions. Many of those jobs could be done from home. If I were head chef at a restaurant, I wouldn't want to work from home. Some jobs don't lend themselves to WFH arrangements, but that shouldn't mean that those who can should be denied for that reason. We don't have a blanket ban on peanuts because some people could die if they eat them.
"There is no reason to even have those kind of meetings if they could have been an email."
It can be nice to be able to put a face to the email address. It can also be useful to get group members physically together from time to time. Too much non-verbal communication gets lost even with video. These meetups can be regularly scheduled or set up when there is a need. The site could be company offices or someplace that can be rented by the day/hour. There are a few boutique hotels I've seen that offer small meeting spaces with catering and internet. Some even have white boards and recording.
"Hybrid has all the downsides of offices/WFH and none of the upsides, "
I disagree with that as a blanket statement. One job we all met Monday morning for a company wide telcon (small company with most people in one place) to go over what was accomplished the week prior, what we expected to get done that week and what input we needed from each other. Management would let us know if priorities shifted (too common). It took between 45 and 60 minutes. The rest of the week we could have been anywhere on the planet and during some big projects as it didn't take the engineering group all being in the office to get things done. The upside was big white boards and marker pens. One day we outlined a new rocket lander, chopped up the work and had it flying 6 months later. The first day/two we needed to be together and over the next couple of months we didn't. It was only towards the end when the parts were in so we could build the lander and start testing. The definition of "hybrid" is important. Another job that I was hired for but never went forward had the group working one week in a rented house and three weeks at our own homes with commitments towards the end for more time on-site when hardware would be worked on. I expect that if we had done what we needed to do in a few days rather than a whole week, we would just return home.
"Unfortunately our management seem to be getting off on an unnecessary return to an increasingly over populated office."
If that's the direction you see it going, you might want to explore some options. If you don't mind working in a crowded office elbow to elbow with your colleagues on the long table, you need do nothing as that's likely where you will land.
"My last last office was quite difficult to find so only the intelligent could find it (who weren't looking anyway.)
So years before I went WFH (long before covid) I was effectively working remotely."
That can be said for many office jobs. People will send a DM, Text or email more often than getting up, taking the lift to another floor and sitting in that floor's reception until the person you want to see will badge you in. You are working remotely from a much shorter distance at a much greater expense to the company.
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