* Posts by MachDiamond

8717 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Aug 2012

Want a Cybertruck? You're stuck with it for a year, says Tesla

MachDiamond Silver badge

"And it'll never sell in Europe because it can't pass EuroNCAP tests."

****This is not me defending Elon Musk***

Elon did make a good point when he explained why FSD wasn't being developed for use outside of the US. The big reason is he would have to work with regulators before it could be used on public roads and he won't put up with people telling him what he can and can't do. He went on to say that it was also easier to get it to work in one place before going on to make it meet requirements in other places rather than trying to do it all at once. Since there are a large number of reservations for Cybertruck in the US that will take them years to fulfill if even half the people go forward with an order and plonk down a deposit (a reservation is not a deposit. It's just a place in line) there is little point in developing models for export. Tesla can't even yet produce enough 48600 battery cells to support a small percentage of what they say they will produce. Maybe that's why Model Y's coming out of Giga-Berlin are fitted with BYD Blade cells, so 48600 production can be aimed entirely at CT.

MachDiamond Silver badge

"you will have to go to them and pay full price for replacement of the entire battery pack should it have any issues"

I find this line of argument a bit suspect. EV battery packs come with an 8-10 year warranty so unless YOU do something really stupid, the manufacturer will replace it if it has issues. The prices quoted are to buy a pack today for a car that's just been delivered. If you bought a new Corvette today and wanted to also buy a spare engine, that engine will be very expensive. Some of this is due to there not being a used market. The early Model S's that are now out of warranty probably aren't worth putting a new battery in as the packs are very modular and all sorts want those modules for EV conversions and DIY projects. I expect a few modules are being bought by people repairing an old Model S, but not in great numbers. If you look at the Prius, there are all sorts of options for battery packs that range from used to refurbished to brand new Li that replaces the NiMh batteries they came with. Independent shops as well as large third party parts suppliers will sell you something so the prices are much less than if you took your car and high limit credit card to a Toyota dealership. With Tesla and the issues with getting parts from them and the lack of service documentation, they have to be regarded separately. Way back, Rich Benoit (Rich Rebuilds) looked at what you could get from Tesla when they said they opened up parts sales to regular people. He took an example of a somewhat minor front end accident and found that while you could buy the exterior front piece, they wouldn't sell a non-certified shop the next few layers of pieces inward. Useless.

MachDiamond Silver badge

"I'd note that the number one problem for EVs is the same thing that makes their batteries safe - crap energy density, whether on a volumetric or mass basis."

If you want to roll the safety dial all the way to safe side, energy density can go to crap. Engineering is often finding a balance between all of the variables. Safety isn't something to be discarded, but absolute battery safety is not a good move either. We have to hope that politicians don't get involved as they have no understanding of these sorts of things. People also have to understand that an EV isn't a 100% drop in replacement for a petrol car. But, if you don't need 400 miles of range on one charge and don't often drive 900 miles in a day, they can be perfectly fine. This can mean that a mean range of 250 miles can be more than adequate which could leave plenty of room to have safer batteries. Trying to shoe horn in 600 miles of range, which can translate to ~10 hours between stops for food and comfort breaks, will need compromises that can include less safe battery chemistries.

MachDiamond Silver badge

"Better than paying $350M for a dead-dinosaur fire = US I-95 collapse"

There was recently a fire under a freeway in Los Angeles that was fed by load of wooden pallets. The cause may have been homeless people either starting the fire deliberately or by having a camp fire get out of control. One might think that a bit of fire isn't an issue for a large concrete structure, but as of today, I think that section of freeway is still closed while repairs are made and they continue doing inspections. Hopefully they take a hint and extend what happened to how much worse it could be if instead of pallets it was a nose to tail collection of EV's the homeless people set on fire.

MachDiamond Silver badge

"Insurers might help. WSJ has an article about EVs saying firefighters might have to let them burn."

In cases where the battery pack is well involved, the end result is a melted down lump of metal regardless. Fire brigades don't have the equipment to effectively fight a battery fire. The only leg of the fire triangle that will work is removing heat, but just pouring water on the car isn't going to be effective if it just runs off as something very hot will create an insulation layer of steam in that case. They need to be able to contain water around the car so it has a chance at cooling. Submerging the car makes it a total write off but there could be some salvage. Another tool for fire fighters will be a grappling hook so they can drag the car out of a garage or just to someplace where it won't do as much damage as it burns.

Electric two-wheelers are set to scoot past EVs in road race

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Bought E-Assist Bicycle Last Year

"I can cram 2-3 days worth of supplies for 2 people into those pannier bags and even added a coolbag for chilled stuff."

That sounds like a good way to make the bike work. I'm very unconvinced about "15 minute cities". For one, it isn't a concept that is going to get implemented in just a couple of years. There's also the problem with local planning/permissions boards that are already doing all they can do to prevent it. It used to be that most shops on the high street would have the owner living in flats above or there would be some for let, but mixed use has been rooted out in many places even though it's awesome for small shops, creatives, independent professionals, etc. I was impressed with so much of the thinking that went into Larry Niven's "Oath of Fealty". While his planned city cube goes over the top, skimming off some of the more plausible ideas and implementing them on a vacant ghost mall could work. Something that was part residential and part retail/office under one roof could be quite nice for some people. If it straddled a train/underground line, had a bus depot and basic auto service shops around the perimeter, many people wouldn't need they own vehicle but would just rent one from a service located at the archaeology. Given a certain scale, food could be ordered and delivered by robots since they'd be inside the building and within a secured residential block.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: What do these give you that an electric bicycle does not?

"3) Combine this with gyros, and rental e-scooters could be summoned back to a home base, especially if they auto-folded. Would perhaps make for an even more interesting pavement hazard though."

Even easier is to add a charge to somebodies bill if they don't return the scooter/bike to a designated rack. If they just leave it lying somewhere, £30. Do it twice and person is also banned from renting for a month in addition to the charge. Third offense is a year ban, etc. If a person disputes the charge, the payment method/account they used is banned.

Suits ignored IT's warnings, so the tech team went for the neck

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Ahhh...the early days. (Part 2)

"The bank never solved the problem, we went back to the old system, pen and paper."

When new tech is hot off the press, always think "that sounds great, but does it work?" Another good thought is "is this really necessary?" You don't want to be in the beta test group. If the service works, the vendor should have a few customers that can provide references.

If you have studied your XKCD properly, you will remember a chart that calculates what the breakeven is for something you set up to save time to see if it's worth the effort. The same thought process is valid for many things. If you buy this new shiny, will customers pay you anymore for your finished product? Will is save enough time to see a return in a reasonably short period of time? How many people will die if it F's up? (metaphorically). So, how much more time did it take to cut physical checks with the proper deductions after you switched systems? How much longer would it take a couple of months down the road when you've forgotten how and have to re-learn the process? When I switched to a PR service and people were getting paid via direct deposit, it was as common as muck to do it that way. I don't recall having any issues, but by then the company would have seen most of the most common faults and know how to patch it all up since they were on the hook to pay penalties if the tax authority wasn't sent the withholding on time.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Doubling time

Dr Al Bartlett does a good job explaining the exponential function. He puts 100% at midnight and then works back so 50% is at 11:59 and 25% is at 11:58, and so forth. If it takes a month to provision more bandwidth, at what time do you have to start worrying if your needs are growing quickly? It's a much shorter time frame than a suit might guess.

Hardware hacker: Walling off China from RISC-V ain't such a great idea, Mr President

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: How does this even work?

"Then there's the Taiwanese question, which could easily spin out of control if China invades the island."

I have to wonder if at least some of the larger Taiwanese companies have back up plans to move operations to another country should China invade with a scorched Earth policy so they don't leave behind any proprietary IP. Given the rumblings, if I had operations in Taiwan, I'd be building up new facilities somewhere like Indonesia. When it came time to run, all that would be left behind is tired machinery buried under a mound of ashes.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: How does this even work?

"Cheap Chinese labour equals even more shareholder profits..."

It's been some time since labor in China was demonstrably cheaper than other developed parts of the world. One thing that automation does for you is reduce the labor input to products, especially products that lend themselves to being built on an assembly line in factories. What China has is access to raw materials, a very pro-business and proactive government (just ignore all the warts) and an understanding that if they ban all of the industrial processes used in making goods, there's nothing to export. The people that are left on the assembly line can be paid a reasonable wage and good wages bring in competition from applicants. People with good skills aren't going to stay with a company that pays poorly. It's also not just pay, but working conditions, company provided housing and transportation, etc.

Apple exec defends 8GB $1,599 MacBook Pro, claims it's like 16GB in a PC

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Mac system requirements

"You realise that 8GB RAM and 256SSD is only the entry level model, right? There are more options available."

Yes. And if you order that or even something more at a massively inflated price that fits your needs today, what happens when a critical piece of software gets an upgrade and is an even bigger memory hog? Do you sell your one year old machine and buy a bigger one? What do you do if it's not just one machine but a few pallets worth that have to be replaced because some software that the company has built its entire comms around requires an OS upgrade and more resources for that application?

I'm self-employed so I can continue on with lots of software long past its end of support date and often do. I'm exhausted by having to upgrade the OS and track down all of the broken bits only to find out I'll need to part with another few thousand for upgrades and new peripherals and come away with nothing that benefits me. I have some ancient software that works really well for what it does and is why I keep some old boxes around to run it. I have a Mac Mini strapped to the underside of my desk that I use for audio stuff. I don't need to spend more money for software that does more than I need just to have something that is compatible with the latest OS. The monitor on the desk has multiple inputs and I can switch the KB/Mouse that's already there, no itch.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: I was gonna say...

"Normally, that kind of thing gets outsourced to some big servers running Linux, often in some cloud provider's DC, but the point of the discussion the article covered was to show off doing it locally, and people sometimes do."

Outsourcing can be a good way for small companies to reduce costs until they get some growth, but it means accepting the risk to your company of having to rely on somebody else that does not care at all about your business and if it survives. If they have a problem, you can't even throw money at them to get you back up and running again as quickly as possible.

When I had a manufacturing company I outsourced a bunch of machining since buying CNC lathes and leasing a bigger building to have room for them wasn't in our budget. There were plenty of local machine shops that could do the work so If one was booked, I could use another even if they charged a bit more or their turn around time wasn't as fast as our first choice. Once material was delivered, it would be like hosting data or using off-site computing. To change at that point would mean having to hire a truck to pick up the material and move it to another shop unless the reason was the shop that had the material was shut for one reason or another and there was no access.

I find it preferable to keep things important to keeping the company working in house or have multiple suppliers I can switch between instantly.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Insult to injury

"I can understand companies buying new gear but cannot understand how any sensible person pays the kind of prices Apple and other manufacturers charge for new gear."

I have no problem paying what might be called a high price if it holds some sort of advantage. If I'm editing photos and video and can shave 15-20 minutes off of each job multiplied by 100 jobs/year, the added cost is giving me back the one thing that money can't buy, time. If the bottleneck is not me waiting on the computer to do something, I see a big gain every time I improve my skills and find new techniques to do things faster which wouldn't mean much otherwise. If it's costing me $1,000 more of Apple hardware that gives me back a week of time every year, I don't have a problem with that. Just paying the money to have a device with the logo on it holds no value for me. In the same way, I'd never own a top spec watch. My phone is referenced back to an official atomic clock and adjusts automatically. I have several clocks in the house that pick up the broadcast time signal and I never have to adjust them. I could get a cheaper clock from Ikea, which I have, but that one needs to be adjusted at least once a month depending on my tolerance for it being off.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Insult to injury

"How will the current generation of tightly integrated Apple hardware fare in the aftermarket? Anyone got any informed ideas?"

So far, each new iteration of every OS requires more HP to run as it doesn't seem as any vendor is spending any effort to get more performance from existing hardware. Windows and MacOS more than Linux, but still to some extent with Linux unless you want to compile your own. I will go out on a limb and suggest that this will continue until increasing hardware performance hits a wall or the cost of hardware becomes so onerous that not even companies with deep pockets are going to see much advantage in upgrading.

We may start seeing systems take a step back to where users are issued something that acts more like a terminal where simple things are done locally and more complex tasks will be sent to some big iron as it will make more sense to max out a mainframe rather than issue everybody a very powerful box that doesn't get pushed very often.

If hardware a few years old has zero upgradability, it won't run the latest OS and applications and will become yet another word processor and email checker since that's all it will be good for. The problem is that most of us have plenty of those already.

UK throws millions at scheme to heat homes with waste energy from datacenters

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Assumptions

"Is one massive heater more efficient that say 50 individual heaters?"

What do you want the answer to be? It's going to be about what assumptions you go in with. An ideal system with no losses will favor a central location. As soon as you start factoring in losses throughout, construction costs, ongoing maintenance and periodic replacement of piping, 50 individual installations can be much more efficient.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Assumptions

"although John Robson is correct that 50C is deemed adequate for instantaneous hot water systems."

55C is the regulation in Australia. There might be some regional differences due to what bugs are common.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Assumptions

"If it made sense economically then the data centres would be on it already as an extra income stream, not needing the taxpayer to pay for it."

The people in the company that did the planning for those centres are only slightly smarter than Government wonks. They'll decide they want to locate in the middle of a big city for .... reasons rather than spend a bit more time coming up with a way to turn their waste stream into an income stream by locating outside the city somewhere along a fiber corridor. Using the heat for agriculture seems like one of the most obvious applications, but ag needs inexpensive land that won't be found in a city. Data centres can be just about anywhere and I expect there can be found some staff that don't want to spend half their pay on a 20sqm third floor flat in the middle of a big city.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Assumptions

"Trouble is that is the problem with solar thermal systems - to stop them overheating you have to have a radiator on the wall somewhere (ideally in a shady place) so the heat can be vented from the system."

I picked up a 20 tube solar water heater that I need to rebuild and I was thinking that during the summer, I'd fit a cover over the number of tubes I don't to cut down on how much heat was being generated in the system. I may also split the system into two 10-tube manifolds so I can direct heat in different ways. My evaporative cooler pumps out its reservoir every 6 hours and I need to get a holding tank before next season. From that holding tank, I'd like to distill the water and store the output in another tank as the water is from a well and very hard. It gets even more mineralized after having gone through the swamp cooler. I might also need to process the water from time to time to combat algae. Spores are very prevalent in the area and still open water turns green in short order.

I'm trying to contemplate all the uses I could have for heat and at least make some allowance in my thermal system to add things on as time goes by. The overall goal is to eliminate using gas for everything other than the range. It's currently run it on propane via 5gal tanks and the cost to upgrade the electrical service and run the wiring doesn't seem to have any ROI over a time period worthwhile to me. It also means I can cook meals if the electricity goes off.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Assumptions

"The best use would be to locate the datacentre under a market garden/greenhouse complex.

If you are a little more up market, perhaps the roof might make a nice vineyard or even support the large scale cultivation of pineapples. (See https://www.heligan.com/news/pineapple-success/ )."

The main comment that I wanted to make is that it will be more cost effective to find a limited number of commercial users of the heat rather than thousands of houses being hooked to the hot water supply. They'd also be digging up the roads yet again for the installation and constantly for repairs if heating homes was the plan.

As stated, it's low grade heat and would need boosting for many applications, but if the data center was installed outside of a city centre and greenhouses are next door, that could be a great combination. Not only can veg (technically fruit) like tomatoes be grown year round, so can many other things that don't tolerate cold temperatures. Heat is often used for processing as well and even if the water needs to be hotter, starting with warm water is much better. Even citrus trees grown outside can be kept warm enough with underground pipes providing heat. The return water could be brought back into a chiller, but in a similar argument as above, it would start with colder water than if it had just come from the racks. Apiaries could be put on the roof of the data center so heat leaking through the roof will keep the bees warm in winter if there aren't solar panels installed.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Assumptions

"Except that if you go back to the early years of the underground network (and remember that the earliest deep level tube lines have now been in near constant operation for over 100 years), it WAS noticeably cooler down there than at surface level"

There's a massive cooling system on the Underground. Secrets of the London Underground often shows how they've repurposed disused lift shafts to add more ventilation because it's been in operation for so long that things have heated up. Some of the old station buildings that aren't used anymore hide the points where air is discharged.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Assumptions

"Datacentres run flat out 24/7 because otherwise they are not making maximum profit and suffer from asset depreciation."

That same thing can be said of large scale crypto mining centers and there are plenty of those that have shut down with all of the gear abandoned in place. Some external factor caused them to not be profitable so they shut down. It doesn't have to be reduced demand. It could be a corrupt management that was cooking the books and extracting all of the cash until the utility company starts calling about unpaid invoices. Even if the assets are bought by somebody else and the facility put back in operation, that could be weeks of zero heat output and then, since customers would have fled, a very scaled back operation for some time.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Assumptions

"potentially acting as "nuclear garbage disposals" for existing waste/depleted uranium"

Even more exciting could be that since most MSR designs aren't pressurized, cells can be built to produce radioactive Molybdenum for medical applications. It has too short a half-life to extract it from a PWR. I expect there are more things that can be done that nobody has pursued due to the constraints of being able to access the core of a PWR while it's running and for sometime while it cools down.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Assumptions

"It also turns out that China's been stockpiling thorium for a while - this has a lot to do with WHY they managed to corner the rare earths market (lower mining costs if they don't have to try and sequester tailings contaiing thorium)"

It's the Chinese government that's storing the Thorium rather than requiring the mining concerns (likely also government) from having to deal with what's classified in the West as hazardous nuclear waste. I see this public-private partnership as a very good idea. Western governments will spend outrageous sums of money to prop up businesses (battery factories, semiconductor fabs, Amazon office blocks) when they could do something more proactive and less of things that are blatant favoritism. In the US, where there are also plenty of Lanthanides, if the government contracted to remove Thorium and take it away to be stored at the Nevada Proving Range where there's a slight issue with radioactivity already, there could be rare-earth mining and a way to put some distance between the West and China.

WeBroke WeWork, WePromise WeFix it: How subleasing giant hopes to survive bankruptcy

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Purpose

"to use my table saw I have to carry it outside the shed"

Mine folds up and I roll it out on the driveway mainly due to having too much crap I need to get rid of in the garage. I'd still do my cutting outside to keep the dust down. It's vacant all the way around my house so sawdust isn't a problem. I don't yet have room for my lathe/mill set up. I'm about half done with insulating which requires moving loads of stuff out of the way to get to the walls. I still need to add drywall and buy more shelving to make the most of the space. I thought of adding a shed, but in my town I'd be worried about large two legged rats making midnight visits. The garage is well secured and alarmed and feet from my bedroom.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: WeWorkFromHome

"Co-working is a hard sell in those places, since you can just get your own dedicated space cheaply."

It's depends on the flavor of Co-Working space. Offices with shared amenities can be great for independent professionals (accountants, attorneys, financial planners, civil engineers) that need some office services, but not on a full time basis. It's not just rent, but the cost for HVAC, minimum utility charges, cleaning....

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: WeWorkFromHome

"They're relatively immune to economic cycles as they mostly own space in secondary or tertiary locations for which grant funding was available to support either the purchase or refurbishment and operate with the minimum of staff and overheads."

If you are a startup, being in those secondary and tertiary locations is a great way to save money. Everything will be cheaper for the business and the people involved. Living in a 18sqm closet because that's all you can afford in a major city downtown district is soul crushing. Trying to start a business in that sort of area is also a massive waste of funds just to be in an upscale post code. A WeWork sublease isn't going to be any better.

Twitter engineer calls out Elon Musk for technical BS in unusual career move

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Bit klunky, but...

"> Electric cars are not new at all, they've been around longer than petrol or diesel cars

True, but electric cars were generally seen as a novelty and in general, the vehicle industry is pretty moribund, complacent and very labour intensive. So it was ripe for disruption."

The early electric vehicles weren't a novelty as petrol wasn't stocked in tins by every chemist and it was dangerous to hand crank petrol engines with people getting injured and killed. The distance one might travel was short compared to today as there wasn't the well maintained motorways we have now and many goods were transported by train and sold in shops on the high street. If a product wasn't available, you did without or worked around it. Luxuries you might buy if you visited a city on the train and brought those goods home with you. You wouldn't get in the car and drive miles.

EV's aren't a disruption, it's just another powerplant and drive train. They are also very expensive with very little in the way of a used market. It remains to be seen how a used market shapes up and how much resale value is left at the end of the battery warranty. There aren't the third party replacement companies for battery packs on BEV's. For hybrids such as the Prius, there are companies with new replacements as well as rebuilt and refurbished packs. One can even swap out an old NiMh Prius pack for a higher capacity Li pack at a reasonable price.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Bit klunky, but...

"YouTube were successful, yes, but pretty much all the other video streaming services from that time are gone now."

YouTube is also solidifying their position by getting governments to institute laws that require any similar service to have copyright controls that only an operation as big as YouTube can implement. That just raises the bar so high that only somebody coming in with billions they can risk has any sort of chance.

US actors are still on strike – and yup, it's about those looming AI clones

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"but it's very difficult to survive on quality, because most consumers don't care. It's hard to see how this is not going to be hugely disruptive to studios."

The reason I only go to the cinema every few years is the lack of quality. Even if there is some quality, the usual formula is to take a book and reduce it down to a tiny bit of dialog that's only used to connect action scenes. The last Dune remake was a tour-de-force of woke. I did like the ornithopters, but changing Dr Kynes from male to a black female was pandering in my eyes. There are already strong female characters in the story as long as they don't get cut out. I'm also a fan of Max Von Sydow and loved his portrayal. I'll still watch the second installment if the trailers look good, but I might just wait the extra couple weeks for it to come out on streaming services. I do like that they felt they could go with a longer presentation. All of the Harry Potter movies could have been made much longer to cover the entire books and people would have bought tickets for each one as each installment was released. I identified with Fred and George and their roles were chopped down to almost nothing in the films.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Brand management

"In my case it's 'how little are you paid?'"

Less than minimum wage some weeks.

Being self-employed can be a lot of boom and bust.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Brand management

"How the hell much do movies cost where you're from???"

So much that it has to be something I really really really am interested in seeing in a cinema. I think the last one was Ghostbusters: Afterlife and it was a whole paycheck, but not cheap. With winter on the way, it's easier to smuggle in snacks and drinks under heavy clothing. I'm self-employed so I can choose a mid-week matinee at a discount. The nearest cinema is a 90mile round trip so petrol has to be put in the cost calculation. Since it had been a while before that last visit, the higher prices were a shock and I'm guessing prices have gone up since then. When I was a kid, we'd go to a matinee and chose a cinema that has lots of theaters so we could the most bang for our pocket money. As kids we could get away with bringing our snacks if we at least put some effort into not flaunting it. Dragging in a bin bag full of popcorn wouldn't have been allowed.

IBM to scrap 401(k) matching, offer something else instead

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Saving are good but

"If your mortgage rate is 3% and your 401(k) account is getting 5%+, it's smarter to put extra money into 401(k). And the mortgage interest is tax-deductible, which (if you're itemizing) makes it a little cheaper in the long run."

With only a first order analysis, you would be correct. If you take into account the equity you gain through the principal portion of the mortgage, subtracting the rent money you would be throwing away each month and a 2% difference between mortgage interest paid and retirement plan interest earned gets swamped out in favor of the home purchase. YMMV and it's worth putting it in a spreadsheet and adding details until the difference is much wider in favor of one or the other. I am assuming that you aren't in a situation where you are paying below market rent from a family member where, in time, you will ultimately inherit the property. That would be quite different. It's also very different if your parents or another family member would give you money for a down payment on a home as a gift which may be an option if/when you marry. Getting the same sort of gift for a contribution to your retirement isn't as likely. The parents and in-laws would likely be thinking of it as an investment in future grandchildren having a nice place to live.

India's lunar landing made a mess on the Moon

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Microwaves

"Wait!, do you live in the same country I do?"

No, I've formed my own country. There's only been a wee problem getting it recognized in the UN, but the signs are posted. I need to put one of those stripy poles across the driveway with a little hut for border control.

Tenfold electric vehicles on 2030 roads could be a shock to the system

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Peak.times

"So incentivising off peak electric charging makes me wonder what off peak will actually end up being.

If we all go electric, peak demand will be overnight presumably which will make it the new peak.

Indeed, I suspect that going all electric for everything will mean no peak or off peak at all"

It will be some time before any of that happens and I suspect there will still be a reduced "off peak" tariff to make it less expensive to charge an EV at night rather than add to daytime peak loads. Generation will need to be increased just to keep up with data centers and increased population. In the wee hours those people will be sleeping and if the data center is slinging data locally, it will have reduced requirements as well. Now there's more capability that's been added to keep up with daytime demand available at night after businesses close and people go to bed. Paraphrasing Prof De La Paz, solve the part of the problem you can and look at it again afterwards.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: NIMBY

"There seems to be a whooshing sound round here and it's not wind turbines."

It's just President Biden breaking wind in front of another world leader.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: It's ok, there are non car options..

"Great, then it can be run as well as other government-run services, like the NHS. That'll be a big help."

Where would they find enough 1980's era computer equipment to use when they nationalize it is what I'd like to know. That's the latest period they have certified systems from. Anything newer is "unproven technology" and therefore can't be purchased.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: And then there's Insurance

"But it's pushing up the premiums for ICE drivers too, because if you prang an EV and it's your fault then it's your insurance company on the hook to pay for the battery"

Your insurance company is only on the hook to pay UP TO the limits on your policy. If that doesn't cover it, you are still liable.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: No shit

"The price of any EV is not "a pittance"."

It's all relative. The cost of a used 1st gen Leaf is a pittance compared to the entry level cost of a Tesla Model 3. If you must have a car and your daily commute isn't too far, a cheap limited range EV that sells for less than many other cars of the same age could be a good way to go.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: If you bid too low

"Just plug the car charger cable into a 13A socket that has one of those square mechanical timers on it."

A time of charge function is already built into the car. It's based on where you are as well so if you plug in while out, the car will immediately begin charging. There's a bypass too so if you are at home and want the car to charge right away, you can press a button and it will.

CompSci academic thought tech support was useless – until he needed it

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Depends.

"American has roots in other languages"

Decidedly so. Lots of immigrants have come to the US from places that spoke languages other than English and lots of words got "Americanized". Since the mix of people's backgrounds and ratios are different for the US vs England/UK, word use and grammar is different. I've also noticed that those educated in the UK have and use a much larger vocabulary than people in the US.

We're getting that fry-day feeling... US Army gets hold of drone-cooking microwave rig

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: AGM-88 HARM and the like

"It's a definite risk, but one presumes that these devices would be used in asymmetric warfare conditions such as counterinsurgency, wherein it's highly unlikely that the enemy would have AGMs. They could also be used in conjunction with conventional air defense systems and/or fighter jets, which would focus on neutralizing incoming missiles and fighters."

An AGM-88 is the big boy's MIC toy. Somebody working on a smaller scale could come up with something that does a similar job, maybe not as big or as well, if the need becomes great. The trailer mounted unit shown doesn't look like it lends itself for use on a fighter. If its power requirements are substantial, even a larger aircraft may have issues with it. The 747 used for Sophia, the jet mounted telescope, has a nice big door they could open to this drone killer could see out and Sophia has been discontinued so maybe the plane is available.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: star wars II ?

"If you wanted to kill a corporate jet full of nuclear weapons? Well, you're not going to do that by remote scanning. That's called searching people's luggage."

One of the good things about flying on a corporate jet is there isn't people out of your sight having a good rummage through your bags.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Hmmmm..

"But my point was, fully-autonomous systems can have an option 4: Automatically search, identify and engage new targets using "AI". This is where it becomes a potential genocide machine. Anyone with <insert ethnic identifying features here> beware."

Riiiiiiight. You'd need to fit a computer with appropriate software into the drone that might be too massy or expensive.

A good IMU (Inertial Management Unit) is very accurate these days and much less expensive than ones I was working with 12 years ago. Using GPS is very good to nullify the drift you get with an IMU, but that drift is part of the spec with a min/max that is known and it's a function of time. If you lost a satellite module and don't have those corrections anymore, your drone could continue on and not be as accurate or there could be a list of alternate targets and it could redirect to the closest before the IMU error bars are much of an issue.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Hmmmm..

"does not really 'fry the electronics' of drones as if they were in a microwave oven, but rather fries just the LNA (receiver amplifier) of their data-links, because that is the part attached to an antenna"

That might not do the business. One could fit what might be described as a fuse inline with an antenna and seeing that fuse blow could tell the drone to go into autonomous mode and either carry out a mission or divert back to base and when close, activate a backup comms link that was kept physically disconnected for just such a situation.

For every measure, there can be a counter measure. The exception is when one side is reduced to lots of little pieces. Not much can be done at that point.

NASA gasping for ideas to extract oxygen from Moon dirt

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Still looking

Algae is a bad idea. On the surface it sounds good, but it goes places you don't want and clogs up pumps and filters that would be hard to service on/in the moon.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Still looking

"It wasnt that long ago, that the thought of reusable rockets was just a pipe dream"

The 1960's when NASA was autonomously landing rockets on the moon for the Surveyor missions is long ago.

I was working at a company developing lander technologies where we were taking off and landing rockets several times a day before SpaceX started their Grasshopper program.

I'm not saying they should stop looking, but that they shouldn't be so focused on getting O2 from rocks that they're missing things. What's going to be a bigger issue is Nitrogen. Most of what we inhale and exhale on Earth is Nitrogen. Plants need N too.

Italy seizes from Airbnb $836M in alleged unpaid taxes

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: @katrinab

"I read it as AirBnB having to figure out which set of rules they need to play by between the Italian and EU versions."

I'm seeing it as where AirBnb is required to submit payment statements in some jurisdictions and Italy wants them to also collect and submit the taxes as well so the hosts don't fail to make the required tax payments. So much simpler to make AirBnb responsible than to have to go after all of the little fish that might not have anything they can be sued out of. The "Deeper Pockets" tactic. It also puts a bunch of work on AirBnb's plate so the Italian tax office doesn't have to do it.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: No AirBnB, no visits.

" Do keep in mind, however, that we have a pretty strong tendency to talk crap about Italy to foreigners; I'm not sure why. "

Likely to keep down the influx of "ugly Americans". They don't actually have to be from the US, but so many tourists are highly disrespectful and just coat areas in the high season making it impossible for the locals to get around, eat out or do much of anything.

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: No AirBnB, no visits.

"instead of actually renting through AirBnB, they'll do it informally over the phone, pay cash, and dodge everything - tax, health & safety, all of it"

Like eBay, I expect that AirBnb does what they can to make sure you aren't contacting the host directly and making deals outside of their service. For the host, they are risking being kicked off and then having to find some other way to advertise their let. I bought some bookshelves and finally got the last of my boxes of books put out on shelves and ran across a directory of BnB and boutique hotels in the UK. I need to look and see if the directory is even published anymore. The vendors pay to be listed and you contact them directly so there wasn't some company sticking themselves in the middle and telling people what to do. Try to search online now for the same information and there will be page after page of "search" results that are useless. I could flip through the book which is organized by region and find a good place to stay much faster. If one was full up, I could find another in a minute and talk to the host about their offerings. On more than one occasion I was able to get a very good rate at the last minute as they normally require a 2 night stay but only had one night available that they'd love to fill. Dealing direct is so much better.