rgmerk

In practice, in Ukraine distributed solar power has been an increasingly important source of resilience in their power supply system.

There are legit reasons to push back against “solar and batteries everywhere” but I find it hard to credit resilience in a conflict situation as one of them.

One of the primary markets for cracked phones is for spying on partners.

In the abstract I’m a strong supporter of the idea that you should be able to use and modify a device you own as you see fit…but in the real world “ownership” is a whole lot murkier than the mental model a lot of tech people have.

Prohibition did reduce alcohol consumption by at least one-third. Didn’t necessarily make it good policy, but it did reduce alcohol consumption and did reduce a lot of the health harms associated with alcohol consumption.

There were plenty of gambling addicts who lost everything through old-school betting shops back in the day too.

My view is that there should be limits imposed on how much people can lose across all forms of gambling annually, with a high-friction process if you want to raise your limit above say, $5,000 per year.

No, because they’re mostly gambling with other people’s money, not their own.

Hmmmm....how can I phrase this sensitively?

The OP is understandably desperate for something that can save his wife. I would be too!

However, they appear to be seeking something akin to a miracle via chatting to LLMs, and the likelihood of such an approach yielding anything useful is very, very low.

And my point is that life has gotten better for 30 years despite Energy Line Goes Sideways, and what we care about is the life getting better part, not which direction the line goes.

That's incorrect. It's in the order of 25% of the heat reaching the Earth's surface, or maybe 35-40 watts of heat per square metre.

That's roughly ten times the warming effect of doubling CO2.

Now, I don't have a climate model handy to simulate this in detail but I would suggest "render the Earth uninhabitable" is a close enough approximation to the actual effects to suggest it's a terrible idea and anyone seriously proposing it should be laughed out of the room until they've done their homework.

I am aware of the need for carbon removal and (some) desalination, but 1000x-ing our energy production is ludicrous stuff. The waste heat from energy production on that scale would render Earth uninhabitable.

That is self-evidently true but misses the point.

The point of using energy is not to use energy. What matters is the services that energy delivers, be it a hot shower, a drive to the grocery store, a new house, a squillion tokens of AI computation. If we can get the services we want more cheaply by energy more efficiently, this is a good thing, not a disaster for humanity.

For completeness, I acknowledge that there are people for whom energy usage is inherently bad, which is equally silly. What matters are the downside impacts of the energy use, not the energy use itself.

There's a lot of HN and YC-aligned people who don't believe this, despite the empirical evidence of the last few decades.

To take the stupidest version of the argument (not going to sugarcoat it, I think it was embarrassingly stupid) there was Marc Andreesen's Techno-Optimist Manifesto where he called for a 1000x increase in energy production from nuclear fission and fusion. I quote directly:

"We believe energy should be in an upward spiral. Energy is the foundational engine of our civilization. The more energy we have, the more people we can have, and the better everyone’s lives can be. We should raise everyone to the energy consumption level we have, then increase our energy 1,000x, then raise everyone else’s energy 1,000x as well."

“Just don’t talk to other people” is self-evidently unviable when you’re developing software in a corporate environment.

My point is that what you can achieve when prototyping or writing hobby projects is not replicable in the kind of corporate coding that pays people’s bills.

This. So much this.

Are AI models incredibly powerful tools? Yes.

Do they have the ability to telepathically sense what the various stakeholders in the development process actually wanted? No.

It's the modern equivalent of the Dilbert classic about Goodhart's Law:

https://devhumor.com/media/dilbert-s-team-writes-a-minivan

Yawn. Anybody that has looked into the data knows that nuclear is acceptably safe, particularly compared to fossil fuels.

The problem with nuclear is cost, not safety, and thus far it appears intractable in the real world rather than the fantasy world that the likes of BTI inhabit, whereas the problems and limitations of renewable energy are actually being solved.

They’re two different products and market classes. In many markets you can drive up to a 12-seater on a regular car license.

Just like an instrument panel and an indicator stalk.

It’s a shame, because even after all these years Teslas are still state of the art in quite a few aspects (their packaging and drivetrain efficiency, among others). But here in Oz where we have a smorgasbord of cheap and excellent Chinese EVs, there are better options unless you want FSD above all else.

Sure, but if they're losing money, you go looking for ways to make a bit more money without having to spend too much. My contention is at least some of these things could be done relatively cheaply and would generate additional sales.

Tesla may be getting belted from pillar to post elsewhere in the world by the Chinese but they a) still have a near-monopoly in EVs in the US, and b) have a cost-competitive EV manufacturing operation in China from which they can supply other parts of the world.

That still doesn't help their image problem, which is still very real for many left-leaning affluent consumers around the world, but that's less of a problem for commercial vehicles.

Look, I get that Elon wants to chase AI, but why not do relatively simple, low-cost things like build a proper 7-seat SUV that uses the Cybertruck platform - or even a properly stretched Model Y platform (rather than the six-seater L)? Or how about a delivery van on a stretched Y platform?

Tesla's product line is narrow and aging rapidly.

To add to this, China’s overall greenhouse gas emissions have been flat or declining for a couple of years now: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-ha...

That’s just not true.

An energy source with an EROI of 20 but which requires thousands of highly skilled people to tend it is going to lose to an energy source with an EROI of 15 that sits in a field and just works for 30 years.

Maybe I’m just old and cynical but that sounds like the kind of assumption of independence of events that led to the GFC .

I would too...but an off-grid solar and battery setup sufficient to run the induction stove and microwave is still well into four figures - cheap for a developed country resident who wants some basic comforts in their wilderness lodge, but still well out of reach for a subsistence farmer in the poorest parts of the world.

This arguably had some relevance in 2011. In 2026, cheap solar and batteries make human-powered static devices that would benefit from the extra power of a stationary cyclist completely redundant.

Not to mention they’re talking about lead-acid batteries, which have been replaced for pretty much every application, except (for now) starter motor batteries for combustion vehicles, by the various lithium batteries.

Non-commercial projects and individuals can do bad stuff too.

I agree the bar is a lot higher for those projects than massive corporations, but I think it's a pretty arguable case that "people are using 3D printers to make guns with features that would otherwise be illegal, and they are being used in crimes in some number" clears that bar.

A quick search suggests that 3D-printed guns being used in crime is an actual, for-real, and growing problem.

I take it that you wouldn't be OK with somebody building a uranium enrichment facility in their backyard for their hobby reactor. So there is a line to be drawn on where people's freedom to tinker ends; it's just a question of where you draw it.

Personally, I think given there is an actual documented, non-isolated problem with 3D printed guns being used for violent crime, there's a debate to be had that's more sophisticated than "REGULATION BAD".

Amazing games. It'll be fun to give this a spin some time.

Gates was a ruthless businessman who fought his way to a couple of monopolies and would have happily had a lot more if he could.

That's awesome that medical science is making a big difference for your family member.

I suppose my point on "are we there yet?" is that the benefit of knowing is limited when there aren't any preventative treatments you can take. I can see both sides but I'm not sure I'd want to take such a test.