Posts by MachDiamond 8907 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Aug 2012
"LEO has other giant advantages over GEO. The shorter distance allows more bandwidth at less power. "
Ok, but Viassat's constellation is three birds and Starlink's build out has been quoted by Elon and Gwynne at 42,000 with a 5 year life span. At the five year mark, it will take launching 70 replacement sats every other day forever to keep the full constellation in service.
"Because there are many, many people in the world who have no access to such bandwidth."
Don't forget to mention that those same people can't afford to pay for that bandwidth with many not able to afford a computer to access the internet at all. There are existing satellite internet providers that cover the regions of the world where average earnings are high enough to afford it from Geosynchronous orbit. The advantage (just about the only one) to LEO sats is ping time. Tribes living a traditional lifestyle in the Amazon rain forest can't afford and don't need internet to begin with and certainly won't be playing Call of Duty if they decide to break with the old ways and start embracing tech.
"It's perhaps a sad indictment of the state of Twitter that the main thing I took away from reading this article is that the European Commission runs adverts. WTF are they advertising?"
I find it annoying that in order to get timely information from a public agency, they want you to follow them on a social media site. If I want to know if my train is late, I find it more logical to visit the web site for the train network and look for "train status" or something along those lines. I'm pretty sure that functionality is available with a Wordpress plugin (or any CMS you choose).
"Biden's not an arsehat and I think AOC would be quite an interesting person to talk to. So if they want to come hang out in my back yard (which is quite large, this used to be a farm) then they're more than welcome."
They could come over to my house after if they'll sign a waiver of liability for injuries (or death) if they fall down and break something. I'd also insist there be no crying and no talk of politics since I like to avoid discussions with people that know little about what they are talking about.
"In the pre-musk days the zeitgeist was always based around the catch-phrase "If you don't like it you are free to go elsewhere". Why are those same people not practicing what they preached ?."
Some have, but Twitter was firmly established as the place to be and watch for "news". In the mean time, there are large banks that many have their accounts with that did a bunch of stupid so there could be impacts when the day comes that things needed to be evened up. I'd be very interested to see how the loans are secured. Is it with some of Elon's Tesla stock. It would have been nuts for the banks to jump without a net since that's a usual practice and their downside can be much more substantial.
"We've reported that advertisers, funnily enough, are sensitive about the content around their ads."
Big companies, especially those whose product isn't particularly unique (fizzy drinks, snack foods, American "beer") have to be very conscious about brand management. We've seen what happened with Bud Light and what happens when somebody is put in charge of the brand and they come in with a social agenda that is much different than the marketing for that product to date. The mystique around the product that the company creates is more important than the product itself. Elon should know this. He put meh Tequila from a company that didn't have any background in that type in a fancy bottle and used hype to sell it to the fans at a premium price.
No company wants their ads to run next to a thread of hate on social media. This makes me recall an example in a newspaper where an ad for frilly girls dresses was placed next to a story about the police catching up to some child botherer. I'm sure the dress company/store was not pleased.
"In order to avoid continous changes in lift, the engines ran on "blaugas", a mixture of combustible gases that, when stored in separate gastight but unpressurized envelopes, had the dame density as the surrounding air. Not a bad solution IMHO"
Elon was proposing a revolutionary 6th mode of transport. There's no way you'll understand unless you read the "White Paper"..... all hail the White Paper.
"So now we have an aluminum tube, suspended below a large hydrogen store. Thus separating our passengers from the burny stuff. And some nice, efficient low-powered engines that can burn some of our excess hydrogen as fuel. And we've invented a new type of aircraft never seen before. What could possibly go wrong..."
Elon, the last line should be "this is really easy, I swear".
"Well, you can leave out hydro, as it's now well established that flooding land for hydro (as opposed to modest alpine dams) is a bit environmental fail"
The reservoir behind Hoover dam isn't backing up water into land that's all that useful for anything else. If you have an example of a more specific location, you may have a good case. To put out a general statement that dams are bad doesn't hold water. (pun intended)
"The volumetric energy density of hydrogen (even as a liquid) is about 10 MJ/l, and......."
The rabbit hole goes even deeper when you have to calculate converting the latent energy into distance travelled or just thrust/time.
Handling large volumes of H2, especially LH2, is very dangerous. That means a highly trained workforce wrapped up in conductive bunny suits made from natural fibers (synthetics melt and fuse into skin where natural fibers will turn to ash in a fire). It was once thought that NOX was not an issue to handle until Scaled Composites had an explosion during a tanking test while developing Space Ship Two. Two people died in the explosion just a couple of meters from somebody I know when that happened. Use rocket fuel, expect rocket fuel danger.
"Thank China for making solar panels that gets the MWh below 10$ in some countries. This is where Green H2 cheaper than grey H2 will come. This is cheaper than electricity from coal."
I'd want to see some analysis with fully amortized costs. A coal fired power plant will last decades and solar panels top out at around 25 years although it can be more economic to replace them more frequently. Yes, the coal has to be mined and transported, but it's essentially dirt and doesn't need further processing or a need to be handled carefully.
"China burns over 3 billion tonnes of coal every year, and in the first six months alone of 2023 started work on 37 GW of new coal fired generating capacity, resurrected 8 GW of deferred coal plans, and additionally approved 52 GW of new coal capacity."
They are also working feverishly on Molten Salt Reactors to be able to start replacing coal power. Even so, they aren't going to pull back in their quest to be the source of all manufactured goods until they've proven that there is no such thing as infinite growth and they have to some up with new economic models.
China is also frequently exempted from emissions reductions that are proposed at all of these conferences that everybody takes their private jet to attend. There's no point to crippling themselves and the massive pollution is likely solving their population problems.
"I'm not familiar with 401k accounts specifically, only regular retirement style funds as practiced in the UK, Aus and the EU."
In broad terms, they are likely the same. The details are likely not understandable for the US when using common sense.
If I were just entering the workforce now with a freshly laser printed degree, I'd not start a retirement savings account. The fees and penalties for touching that money before retirement can make it a net loss. I'd be happier to see a mortgage matching plan. Companies might want to consider that as people that own a home are more likely to stay put than those that rent. I expect that it all comes down to what the company might get in tax savings doing one thing over the other if both are useful to attract and retain the people they want to hang on to.
The US government, Federal Division, only knows to throw money at things. If it was economic to produce batteries in the US rather than elsewhere, somebody would be doing it. Those that are manufacturing in he US tend to be captive in that the batteries are being made for a specific customer. While there may be good deposits of raw materials, it will be years or as long as a decade to get permissions to start mining and even longer to add refining operations if the processes for them haven't already been banned on some level. All that may be needed is for the Department of <fill in the blank>/National Laboratory to do some research into reducing waste output for concentrating piles of dirt into ore and then into useful materials which could be fairly expensive, but that data and the techniques would be publicly available rather than the same money just being handed to some company that turns around and files for bankruptcy in a couple of years locking up all of their IP the money was spent developing. If there is too much red tape and hot/cold running regulatory agencies constantly making them shut down for inspections so they can find things to issue fines over, that's just going to continue making companies choose to locate elsewhere in the world and pay the cheaper import tariffs. All levels of government need to all agree on a plan and besides to giving companies money, they need to find way for it to be an advantage to manufacture in the US. Been there.
"The West learned a lesson after the spate of terrorist plane hijackings in the 70s - don't negotiate, don't pay ransoms, don't give in to demands.
And surprise surprise, the hijackings stopped."
The two scenarios aren't the same. If a group has compromised a target, if they are smart, they have a plan B if they don't get paid by that target. If airplane hijackers kill their hostages, they lose their bargaining chip. Even starting to kill hostages could trigger authorities to move in. Back when hijacking planes was popular, it was rare for airports to have something as basic as a magnetometer for screening passengers and the perps really stood out as air travel was expensive and the vast majority of people would be dressed more formally. These days it's not unusual to see people getting on planes wearing pajamas, hair in curlers, house slippers, etc. You'd think they were just running down to Walmart to do their weekly shop dressed like that.
Isn't there always?
I see this debacle as yet another misfire from Elon that is very unlikely to have been reviewed by the Board or Tesla's legal department. Elon does this sort of thing all of the time. He comes up with some drug-induced plan, puts it out (typically on Xitter) and has to walk it back a day or two later. His latest rantings have lost advertising money from IBM in the last couple of days and a small drop in Tesla stock price. I get the feeling that there's nobody around him he respects that will tell him an idea is stupid/illegal/in poor taste. He's well known for firing employees that criticize him. He's a circuit with lots of power (money) and no negative feedback. The bets are on for when there's a bang and lots of magic smoke getting let out.
" they either should have made more, or they should have charged more themselves. With something like this, they could probably have got away with charging more"
Perhaps Tesla should have started with the first hand built units being sold via auction. Put them on eBay with a reserve and see what the market will put forth to get one. They'd have to pay eBay a chunk of money, but might be able to wangle a fixed fee or a lower percentage/cap. Anybody willing to go 6 figures would enrich Tesla rather than somebody selling on the one they bought.
"That sounds like speculation in itself. Cracking down on scalpers is possible,"
The "problem" with scalpers is that the venue/artist aren't getting the money instead. The scalpers have to risk that they won't be able to sell the tickets they've bought or can't sell them at a profit. The solution is to auction tickets for large shows that are expected to sell out or come close. They can even start prices for the nose bleed seats at a $1, £1 or whatever nominal price and even if they only sell for that, they make money on parking, concessions and the artist plays to a full house which is always nice. People with means can sit in the first 10 rows and pay out the ... for the privilege. Nice things cost money, life's a Biatch, get over it. Artist makes money (more people to buy merch) and the venue gets more via their percentage cut. Everybody happy, no need to waste resources going after scalpers.
"Production isnt difficult,"
It is for Tesla as they haven't sorted out how they can make these at a profit in sufficient quantities. It's been pointed out in many places that they haven't figured out how to press the stainless panels consistently so they line up properly when installed. The entire premise behind the assembly line is based on interchangeable parts. If every vehicle requires a bunch of test fitting to get things to align correctly, that's a show stopper. They have admitted that they can't produce the preferred battery cells in enough quantity to support volume production.
"The courts decided that the change in specification wasn't sufficient grounds to void the contract."
IIRC, the specs weren't made part of the contract so the company was able to weasel out or there was some clause about the specs being subject to change. Caveat Emptor. If you enter into a contract, make sure it's very specific about what you get and what it will cost you. I expect that very few of the people involved had their attorney review the contract before signing. I'm a huge cynic so I look at contracts closely to find the loopholes since there will be plenty and it's a matter of whether I'm willing to risk it or not. I've walked away from plenty when the other side wouldn't budge.
"I would have thought that a contract change AFTER you've put down your deposit (which constitutes a contract for them to sell and you to buy) would be void anyway."
Somebody that's only given Tesla $100 has a reservation that secures a place in line to be allowed to purchase the CT. They haven't made a deposit on a firm order yet. In the past, Tesla has required a non-refundable deposit of $2,500 for a Model 3 at configuration/order. The yet to be produced Roadster 2.0 required a $50k deposit (which might be called a reservation) and those wanting an early "Founder's Model" have had to pony up $250k in advance. Companies that got suckered into reserving a Semi had to put down $125k each (can't recall what version, but Tesla may have dropped the 300 mile range version).
"You can put whatever you want into a contact, it doesn't make it enforceable."
A contract is supposed to be balanced between the parties. If Tesla wants to have a clause that says you can't sell the car for a year, they'd need to give something back in exchange for that. It would be great if that could mean Tesla has to buy the truck back at fair market value and it can be shown that they'd owe the buyer thousands more than the purchase price as early on, a fair-market price could be much more that the purchase price do to limited availability. You have to also consider that Tesla won't be selling these in other countries for some time so somebody in the Emirates with stacks of cash that wants one may be willing to offer somebody who gets one quite a premium further increasing the fair market price. Aussie reservation holders were given back their money. There might be some laws where Tesla can't retain the money without a reasonable delivery date for the product.
" once fitted an entire 12 foot shed into a standard hatchback Mondeo, I moved house entirely with a Mondeo (lots of trips, and a roof rack, and a car full of stuff, but took double-beds, sofas, bookcases, etc. no problem at all), and I put a 9ft live Christmas tree in one every year (saves me buying pine-scented air freshener...)."
I did something like that before and it taught me that it's cheaper to hire a proper moving van and do the move in as few trips as possible. It's a lot easier to get enough mates to help with the move for a single day than an entire weekend or off and on over a whole week. If you are ready to move and aren't faffing about with packing stuff at the last minute, the cost of a moving van plus fuel, insurance and squeeze isn't that much if you can get the job done in one day. It's also only one round of beer and pizza.
"Every month, I'm "required" to overpay a company for electricity that I know I haven't used."
There's your problem. If you are paying an estimated bill every month and only getting evened up once a quarter, semi-annually, annually, you want to get away from that so you aren't overpaying. I'd be in the face of the utility if they put me on that sort of regime but my last usage report shows me being close to half the usage of the most efficient neighbors. I'm working to widen that gap AND be using more power as time goes by. I want my home to be warming in winter and cooler in summer and be able to run power tools in the shop a lot more. I'm economizing now to have the money to build out the means to lower my bills even more or keep them same in better comfort.
"Liquid fuels are easy, just grow soybeans or corn,"
The only reason you see that being done today is government subsidies/guarantees. A S-ton of diesel is being used to grow those crops so if your entire fuel cycle is based on biofuels, how many more acres do you need to grow and process to be at a point where you are generating enough capacity to use for transportation? One bad crop and you could be sunk if you run too close to the edge assuming you can be net fuel positive at all.
All of that will require a lot of infrastructure in a fixed place. If your SHTF scenario is based on a natural disaster, will you lose that location in such a case. If you plan to build what you need after something happens, will you have the resources to get it done? In winter? Under fire?
"Gas/petrol engines will run on benzene, ethanol, plenty of different industrial hydrocarbons, heck they'll even run on gas, as in propane, butane, LPG, methane, you have a huge range of options."
All of those options have long supply chains and will also be first targets. While you can run a petrol engine on LPG, Butane, natural gas, etc, they won't work without some extensive modifications to the top end of the engine and EMU programming. A diesel engine can be happy with lots of things with no modifications. I know somebody that owns a military "Deuce and a Half" that he runs exclusively on filtered used motor oil (off-road mainly). It works just fine though it's still a bit harder on the fuel filters as he doesn't do a great job prepping the oil first. Using alcohol in a petrol engine will work as long as the seals are made for that (Viton). Vehicles that aren't "flex-fuel" often have standard Buna-N seals that don't have good alcohol resistance and will dissolve. The ECU units in modern cars will adjust fuel/air mix, idle speeds, etc with no problem.
"Good luck finding enough working solar capacity that's small enough to tow behind your EV but large enough to charge it in any reasonable length of time."
If you intend to drive all day every day, yes, you would be correct. If you plan to only drive periodically to go on salvage trips, solar can work just fine and the EV becomes an energy storage device as well as transportation.
"Any tech isn't going fare too well. Personally I would stick with a donkey (indestructible and long lived if a bit gloomy.) You can not eat a cybertruck but donkey should be edible - I think donkey sausages were a specially of Arles pre WWI."
Keeping donkeys just in case doesn't sound like a great use of resources. While any sort of EV might not be a long term solution, it could be a good tool to bootstrap into something better before it's unserviceable. That could be longer than something that runs on petrol. Diesel could be a good intermediate solution as it can use more things as fuel including used motor oil and transmission fluid scavenged from dead vehicles.
"Sure, the original diesel engines were designed to run on nut oils, but what's easier to run - a solid state solar panel, or uncle Jimmy's peanut farm and fuel refinery?"
An argument in favor of EV's is they are generation agnostic and don't care how the electricity is made. If you can whomp up a waterwheel connected to a generator, you could charge an EV (yes, lots of details ignored). It would be far more complex to have to keep making liquid fuels and the apparatus would be larger and more complicated. A fixed fuel station would be too much of a target in a SHTF situation such as Yellowstone going bang, or Toba, Deccan traps..... There would be competition to control it. OTOH, a modest stack of solar panels could be set up, taken down and transported much easier.
I have one of those Chinese 296cc small diesel engines on my list and I've been storing up my used motor oil and transmission fluid to run it on. The power doesn't go out that often, but it has been out for some hours on occasion. The city I live in is at the end of a longish transmission line (one) so having a small backup is good insurance against the power company needing time to make repairs.
"I mean, if the fanboys don't want them then why should anyone else?"
Many of the first publicly available Model 3's were driving straight to the port, loaded in a container and sent off to other countries for examination. The same thing will happen with CT and some entities might be willing to pay somebody with a place in line a premium to get one straight away to take to bits. For a person, the initial prices will be crazy money, but for a company getting one for "research", it's just a cost of doing business and they'll be spending much more for the labor to do the analysis so an additional $20k isn't a big deal.
"Hopefully it supports the 240 watt USB-PD option so a full charge takes less than a month"
You still wouldn't get there. Tesla's have a high parasitic power draw when charging. As much as 1kW. US owners have been very frustrated when they try to charge using a granny charger on 120V where they wind up with a couple of hundred watts making its way into the battery pack.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
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