perlgeek (u/perlgeek)

perlgeek commented on xAI joins SpaceX spacex.com/updates#xai-jo... · Posted by u/g-mork

Ekaros · 7 days ago

Strip mining moon is the easy part. Manufacturing anything used for satellites is the very hard part. It is very hard as is seen from number of players here on earth. But just imagine doing everything in hostile environment with significantly smaller benefits of scale.

Might be possible theoretically. But certain infeasible in any level of practise.

perlgeek · 7 days ago

> Strip mining moon is the easy part.

Is it easy though?

The moon surface is full of nasty regolith that can jam up machines pretty quickly. Plus the lack of atmosphere means that any small particle you accelerate fast enough goes into a partial orbit around the moon and hits you on its way back.

perlgeek commented on xAI joins SpaceX spacex.com/updates#xai-jo... · Posted by u/g-mork

bigbuppo · 7 days ago

Not sure if this is stock manipulation trying to push the bubble a little further in a way that doesn't require showing something of substance immediately, or if Elon's having another manic episode after doing too many or not enough drugs, but who didn't see this coming?

I'm sure next week he'll have SpaceX be bought by The Boring Company, sell that to Tesla, then rename all the companies as "X".

Also, whatever happened to his plan to turn twitter into a financial services company?

perlgeek · 7 days ago

Which stock is being manipulated? Both xAI and SpaceX are private, no?

perlgeek commented on xAI joins SpaceX spacex.com/updates#xai-jo... · Posted by u/g-mork

chippiewill · 8 days ago

Ground stations would be the major problem.

Maybe if Elon launched himself and the dev team into orbit and didn't use any ground stations and just Starlink terminals he could start getting into legal loopholes.

perlgeek · 7 days ago

At that point, country could just sanction the company, so that it's illegal for its citizens to pay them any money. Seems like a standard thing to do to a company that breaks laws and that you cannot otherwise reach.

perlgeek commented on xAI joins SpaceX spacex.com/updates#xai-jo... · Posted by u/g-mork

gcanyon · 7 days ago

> orbital data centers

I'm not a rocket scientist, but how do they plan to dispose of all the waste heat? The ISS carefully maintains its temperature, and it's not running racks-full of servers.

edit to add: this guy, who is a rocket scientist, explains exactly why it's a terrible idea, and yes, heat management is one reason. https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horri...

perlgeek · 7 days ago

They don't. It's a con / financial engineering, to hide the losses from Twitter.

perlgeek commented on xAI joins SpaceX spacex.com/updates#xai-jo... · Posted by u/g-mork

rybosworld · 8 days ago

> The basic math is that launching a million tons per year of satellites generating 100 kW of compute power per ton would add 100 gigawatts of AI compute capacity annually, with no ongoing operational or maintenance needs. Ultimately, there is a path to launching 1 TW/year from Earth.

> My estimate is that within 2 to 3 years, the lowest cost way to generate AI compute will be in space.

This is so obviously false. For one thing, in what fantasy world would the ongoing operational and maintenance needs be 0?

perlgeek · 7 days ago

Another aspect: GPUs depreciate very fast. There's not much use case for building GPU satellites and expect them to last for 10-20 years.

So let's say you expect them to do useful work for you for maybe 2 or 3 years? You have to amortize the launch cost and the build-it-for-space premium in a relatively short time frame. And then what? Reentry? With all the pollution that comes with it?

Also, what orbit do you use? Low-earth orbit is already getting pretty full, with starlink and similar constellations taking up quite some space and increasing collision risk. The higher you go, the more your launch costs go up, and the higher your latency. In higher orbits, atmospheric drag doesn't de-orbit failed satellites quickly, increasing risk of Kessler syndrome.

All in all, I don't buy it.

perlgeek commented on France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc. twitter.com/lellouchenico... · Posted by u/bwb

nbardy · 14 days ago

They should probably fund their military first.

It’s petulant the way the EU is throwing a hissy fit after we’ve had lop-sided trade deals for years and funding the entire NATO alliance ourselves.

They act like we’re going to war with them when we’re asking for parity and for their self reliance to increase.

perlgeek · 14 days ago

> They should probably fund their military first.

They should do both. Resilience must be achieved in depth.

> It’s petulant the way the EU is throwing a hissy fit after we’ve had lop-sided trade deals for years and funding the entire NATO alliance ourselves.

Most of the outrage in the EU right now is about Trump's threats against another NATO country (Denmark / Greenland). The funding of the NATO has been slowly shifting for a few years already.

perlgeek commented on Windows 11's Patch Tuesday nightmare gets worse windowscentral.com/micros... · Posted by u/01-_-

pjc50 · 15 days ago

There's no realistic competition because the amount of work to switch your OS ecosystem, especially for businesses, is huge. So the product doesn't have to be good, you can just slam ads in the Start menu or whatever.

perlgeek · 14 days ago

The switching cost keeps decreasing, because more and more stuff is being migrated to the browser and/or cloud.

Combined with some digital independence movements outside the US, I have some hopes that Windows monopoly starts to crumble.

perlgeek commented on Adoption of EVs tied to real-world reductions in air pollution: study keck.usc.edu/news/adoptio... · Posted by u/hhs

wolfi1 · 16 days ago

I know I will be damned for this comment but nevertheless even EVs produce pollution with regard to tire abrasion. Tire abrasion itself is the main contributor to microplastics

perlgeek · 16 days ago

There are three main sources of air pollution from cars:

1) Byproducts from combustion (like soot and nitrogen oxides). Only ICE produce these, EVs don't

2) Break abrasion. EVs tend to do better, because they can do most of their breaking through the motor and recuperate a part of the energy

2) Tire abrasion. EVs tend to do worse here, because they tend to be heavier.

So yes, EVs aren't a panacea, but overall on the topic of air pollution, they score much better than ICEs.

perlgeek commented on Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday · Posted by u/Daemon404

csallen · 20 days ago

I wouldn't even say it's "technically" the truth. It's just the truth. Nothing in the statement even comes close to implying that there wouldn't be layoffs. Hell, one of the quotes even mentions "focus", which if anything is a euphemism or hint for downsizing in these kinds of statements, not the opposite.

perlgeek · 20 days ago

Try to be innovative without staff though...

perlgeek commented on Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic? · Posted by u/publicdebates

LinXitoW · 25 days ago

Just in case you need some recommendations:

Party games: Scale well with more people, easy to explain

- Werewolf

- Werewords

- Codenames (favorite)

Beginner Games: Accept a decent amount, somewhat easy to explain

- Camel Up

- Flip 7

- Dungeon Fighter

- Ticket to Ride

Games that have nothing to do with your problem, but I just wanna mention:

- Everdell: Cute critters prepare for winter

- Root: Cute critters prepare for war

- Azul: Place fancy tiles that look and feel delicious

- Bohnanza: The best part of Catan without the bad parts

perlgeek · 25 days ago

I'd like to add a very simple one: Uno.

With the rules variant that you can play out-of-order if you add an identical card to the one that's on top of the stack, it disrupts the otherwise pretty linear play, and easily scales up to 10ish persons and still be fun.