I hope they accounted for all the damage that he did. He didn't just destroy some computers that have to be replaced, he's wasting a lot of people's time buying and setting up replacement computers, and may have destroyed work that was stored on the computers. And anybody that does something so randomly destructive needs to be punished in order to discourage future random destruction by others.
You do realize that _every_ new form of transportation is heavily subsidized, right? Airplanes were completely subsidized by government contracts for decades. Ditto trains. Cars are still heavily subsidized - highways, oil company subsidies, numerous wars over oil, etc. EVs are being subsidized because it's in the national interest for us to be able to design and manufacture EVs so that when the costs keep dropping so that in a few years BEVs are straight out cheaper than gas cars that we're not locked out of the market.
The base Tesla Model 3 is $39k (with autopilot, before gas savings and tax refund), which is barely over the $37,500 average new car price in the US. So, as with any car, only people that can afford it will buy and drive it, but it's not an outrageous price.
Then you should also keep in mind the significant operating savings - BEVs cost a lot less to operate and maintain than ICE or hybrid. For me, the Tesla costs 2 cents/mile to run, vs 7-9 cents/mile for my previous gas car. And not only is electricity much cheaper than gas, but there's near-zero maintenance, since the motors, drive train, etc., have 1/10th as many parts to break or wear out. And it's both safer and more fun to drive, all of which is worth something.
Good point, though some cities are requiring apartment buildings to provide charging plugs. Since a standard 110v or 120v plug is sufficient, that's a pretty easy requirement to meet.
The single largest market for EVs is China, and they're making it work despite infrastructure challenges.
I'm not sure where you think there's no electricity available. In terms of charging, most of the planet has 220v plugs easily available, and even the 110v we use in the US is good enough for typical daily driving. As for charging stations for long drives, https://openchargemap.org/site... lists 146,753 charging stations across 73,065 locations. EV chargers are of course more frequent where there are more people likely to own EVs - and less frequent here there are fewer people, so there are 21k in the US, vs 115 in Iceland vs 14 in Serbia and 1 in Aruba. And that's fine - unlike gas cars, EVs don't need to "go to charging station" because you can plug in anywhere and charge. And in Aruba, it'd be pretty hard to drive so far you can't find an outlet eventually.
Exactly. Plugging in an EV at home takes seconds, and then it's charging cheaply overnight, so no waiting at all. It's nice not to have to waste time driving to the gas station, filling, etc. - driving past gas stations now feels a bit like when you walk past a record store after MP3/iTunes came out.
EV's are much cheaper to maintain and "fuel". For some real world data from a substantial fleet, https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dc... . What they're seeing is that maintenance costs for BEV's are much lower than hybrids, and those are much lower than gas cars. For example, the Ford Focus BEV cost about 1/5th as much per year for maintenance as the Ford Focus ICE. Having hundreds of parts instead of thousands makes everything easier and cheaper.
You don't need to stop and recharge overnight for long drives. I can drive 300 miles, then stop for an hour for lunch, then drive another 300 miles, then stop for dinner.
I think your idea of charging times is a bit dated. A Tesla Supercharger can get you 75 miles of range in ten minutes, and a full charge while eating lunch. I've found that if I head out for a long drive early, I can drive a few hours between stops, and breakfast/lunch/dinner work out as naturel breaks. Yes, it's a little slower than driving continuously, but it's a lot nicer and a lot cheaper. Atlanta to Orlando cost 1/4th as much in my Tesla than it did for gas in my Honda Odyssey, and it's way more relaxing to drive with AutoPilot, etc.
Tesla's range is either 220 or 325 miles, That's long enough for most routine drives, and enough to go from Seattle to Victoria and back, and there are superchargers along all the major highways for long-range driving (and in both Seattle and Victoria). And "having to charge up" just means pluggig in while you're doing whatever you went to Victoria to do - it takes less time to plug/unplug an EV to fill a gas tank, you just need to do something else for little while during charging, since you can safely leave your car - like eat lunch, go to the bathroom, etc. The only problem is that Superchargers keep getting faster, so now for me a charge during a long drive takes less time than breakfast/lunch/dinner. https://www.theverge.com/2019/... . The new Superchargers will get you 75 miles of range in 5 minutes, and a full charge in a half hour. Which isn't enough time for a relaxed "purge and fill" before getting back on the road.
Amusingly, in the early days gas cars had "range anxiety" because there was no such thing as a gas station people bought gasoline from random businesses that also sold gas, or carried cans of gas with them, while electricity could plug in anywhere that had power, and that was a reason that electric cars were more popular back then. https://www.greencarreports.co... . It took 50 years for gas stations to become ubiquitous. High speed EV chargers are already much more available than early gas stations, and are building out fast.
My impression is that they're teaching little kids about coding, meaning the concepts of how computers work and how to tell them what to do, not that they're teaching little kids actual coding. Think of it more like "what is a CPU" and "what is RAM", numerical concepts, logic, instruction sequences, etc., rather than textually writing code. That being said, it'd feed pretty naturally into something more interactive than a TV show, such as Swift Playgrounds or Squeak Etoys - a kid-friendly interactive environment for actually coding.
I think that teaching kids a bit about computers and how to program them is a good idea, since computers are a common thing for people to deal with in modern life, and understanding them, at least conceptually, will help people be more effective with them. Of course, people would also learn to read, write, do math, understand how the country works, etc. - computers aren't the only skill needed in life. But it's a good one...
Makes sense - a bus gets typically 6 miles per diesel gallon, 5 for gasoline, compared to a car's average of 25 mpg, and the duty cycles of busses is typically 25% or more, vs consumer-owned cars that are typically around 5% utilization, so busses burn about 5x as many gallons per mile driven, and are driven about 5x as much of the day, so each bus converted to an EV would equate to 25 cars converts to EVs, so electrifying busses is a very efficient way to reduce gas consumption. And I bet fleet owners like it, too - EVs have much lower operating costs and lower maintenance costs, which are a big deal for fleets.
On the flip side, globally there are over 900 million cars on the road, vs perhaps 100 thousand busses, so there's a lot more fuel consumed by cars than busses, so while each car has less impact, they outnumber busses by 9,000:1, so converting all of them to EVs would have a lot more impact.
Really, you're whole take is to argue terminology. In this case incorrectly, since they're literally labeled "Captain Marvel Reviews / Audience" on the site.
At this point, solar power costs less than coal power delivered in most of the US, to the point where it's cheaper to build new solar power capacity (and cover the capital costs) and operate it than to keep operating the coal plants.
And nuclear power costs more than that - $112/MWh, compare to $40 for industrial scale solar power or $29 for wind power. Coal is $60. (All best-case numbers, from https://www.lazard.com/media/4... ).
And if you look at the costs over time, nuclear power is not only extremely expensive, but the cost has increased dramatically over time, while in contrast the real world cost of wind and solar has dropped dramatically over time.
Cost is relevant because for $X that can be invested in capacity, a strategy that generates 1/4th as much power for the same investment is 1/4th as effective in shifting current capacity away from coal and oil to a clean source.
So while if I were a nuclear power plant salesman, I would certainly try to sell nuclear power as "clean" - because "radioactive" and "expensive" aren't much of a sales pitch - if you are looking for clean energy sources, the most effective clean energy sources are wind and industrial scale solar, because they can produce clean power for 1/4th the cost. And you don't have to figure out how to safely dispose of radioactive waste.
Exactly - it's cheaper and easier to build separate computers engineered for separate purposes. Making one computer that can support everything from realtime engine control to playing Atari games on the console, in a way that guarantees that nothing can interfere with the realtime operation of the car is a very hard (likely impossible) engineering problem, when everything is sharing one CPU and memory. For that pragmatic reason, there are many, many computers inside a Tesla, or any other modern car. There's one for running the infotainment system, which controls the UI and sound. There's a dedicated system that manages the batteries. There's the system running AutoPilot. There are dozens of little controllers for sensors and other devices. This allows each system to be engineered to its own needs, be powered on or off separately, replaced by systems from new suppliers, etc.
In particular, in the Tesla the infotainment system is separate from the system that drives the car. You can even "reboot the car" while driving, and not lose control of the car, because it's only rebooting the infotainment system, but the steering, brakes, etc., keep working.
It depends on the culture. My current employer is fairly large and successful, but very much has a startup mentality in that they keep resources lean and focused on delivering value to customers. And they've got a very low turnover rate - lots of 10-15 year employees in the mix, so there's strong institutional knowledge.
I've certainly been other places that weren't that way, of course, so I don't disagree with your generalization about big companies. But it doesn't always have to be that way. Some companies have a "big company" mindset, and some companies have a "small company" mindset, independently of the actual company size. I've been in a huge corporation that was super-entrepreneurial and efficient, and a tiny company that was super-political and bureaucratic. And the reverse. Weird, I know.
I strongly disagree. I've switched jobs, and I've hired hundreds of developers, and the article missed the distinction between being a good programmer and being effective in the job. When a good developer switches jobs, they'll be temporarily less effective for a while as they learn how to work with the new team, tools, and code base. But that doesn't mean they're a 'worse programmer' - they are just as good as they were before - and as they learn how to work with the team, learn the new tools, and learn the new code base, they'll be just as good as they were. And because they've got a broader experience, they'll often make the team better, because they'll add new skills and techniques to the team. So, of course, there's a tradeoff that bringing in a new developer costs you time/effort/money in the short term that is a long-term benefit, but that's hardly a new observation. The Mythical Man Month https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... published in 1075 covered this thoroughly. I'm not sure the blog post added much to the discussion.
The 'touch' pressure is an interesting point! It'd have to be pretty sensitive to respond to finger-touches on a flexible screen that will bend when you press it. Or perhaps the screen could somehow harden when it's straightened out? Perhaps little inflatable tubes?
The obvious answer is that you have a tablet when you want a tablet (to work, watch video, etc.), and something that fits in your pocket when you're carrying it around or using it as a handheld phone, so it's more convenient.
Well, one time pads are secure from compute-driven attacks, when used properly, but they have logistical problems. To be used broadly, you have to distribute the "pad" to everyone, repeatedly sending new "pads" periodically as you use up the old ones, and anyone who gets the new "pad" can read everything, so security is only as good as pad distribution. So, really, one time pads really only work in very specific cases, like communication between a very small group of trusted individuals who meet physically to exchange pads, and who can be trusted never to give a pad to anyone else. So it's not useful for (for example) eCommerce, banking, or general communications.
No, the 2nd Amendment was written so that the People could form a citizen army to defend the country (i.e. the state guards), to prevent the formation of a standing army. The Founders opposed the US having a standing army, as it would corrupt the Democracy.
The Founders also were quite clear that they didn't think that civilians had the right to military oppose their own elected government. When people tried, the Founders labeled that treason, but the rebellion down, and arrested and/or executed the the traitors. If you don't like what our government is doing, you have free speech and the vote. If you can't make a case, and you lose the vote, you don't have the "right" to start shooting at the majority who voted against you.
And the article says that the injection is lethal only to starfish, so even if it somehow thought that a human was a starfish, it would only be annoying.
If the requirements are fully specified in advance and can't change or be prioritized, then all agile gives you is the ability to measure velocity and thus predict future delivery a bit better. And that's not bad. But agile isn't for everything.
Now, if you could prioritize the work, and get customer feedback about which capabilities of the old OS they needed or didn't need, or needed improved, then agile would make more sense.
Even 'boring reporting tables' have interested stakeholders. Who's asking for the compliance, and has to sign off that the tech team does exactly what's legally required? The stakeholder can be the finance team or an audit/compliance officer, and you bet those guys care a lot about 'boring reports'.
If there's no stakeholder that cares enough to review the team's output and confirm or correct their work product, then I (as CTO) cancel the project because it's clearly not a business priority. Sometimes it turns out not to be as important as they made it sound, in which case I saved my team's time, and sometimes they started showing up at the sprint demo's. Either is fine with me - our job is to work on whatever the business values most. Not showing up for meetings tells me the business doesn't value it.
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I hope they accounted for all the damage that he did. He didn't just destroy some computers that have to be replaced, he's wasting a lot of people's time buying and setting up replacement computers, and may have destroyed work that was stored on the computers. And anybody that does something so randomly destructive needs to be punished in order to discourage future random destruction by others.
Except that if you're innocent, you can often get the other side to cover legal costs.
Of course, in this case not only did he do something blatantly illegal, he filmed himself doing it, so 'innocent' isn't really an option.
You do realize that _every_ new form of transportation is heavily subsidized, right? Airplanes were completely subsidized by government contracts for decades. Ditto trains. Cars are still heavily subsidized - highways, oil company subsidies, numerous wars over oil, etc. EVs are being subsidized because it's in the national interest for us to be able to design and manufacture EVs so that when the costs keep dropping so that in a few years BEVs are straight out cheaper than gas cars that we're not locked out of the market.
The base Tesla Model 3 is $39k (with autopilot, before gas savings and tax refund), which is barely over the $37,500 average new car price in the US. So, as with any car, only people that can afford it will buy and drive it, but it's not an outrageous price.
Then you should also keep in mind the significant operating savings - BEVs cost a lot less to operate and maintain than ICE or hybrid. For me, the Tesla costs 2 cents/mile to run, vs 7-9 cents/mile for my previous gas car. And not only is electricity much cheaper than gas, but there's near-zero maintenance, since the motors, drive train, etc., have 1/10th as many parts to break or wear out. And it's both safer and more fun to drive, all of which is worth something.
Good point, though some cities are requiring apartment buildings to provide charging plugs. Since a standard 110v or 120v plug is sufficient, that's a pretty easy requirement to meet.
The single largest market for EVs is China, and they're making it work despite infrastructure challenges.
I'm not sure where you think there's no electricity available. In terms of charging, most of the planet has 220v plugs easily available, and even the 110v we use in the US is good enough for typical daily driving. As for charging stations for long drives, https://openchargemap.org/site... lists 146,753 charging stations across 73,065 locations. EV chargers are of course more frequent where there are more people likely to own EVs - and less frequent here there are fewer people, so there are 21k in the US, vs 115 in Iceland vs 14 in Serbia and 1 in Aruba. And that's fine - unlike gas cars, EVs don't need to "go to charging station" because you can plug in anywhere and charge. And in Aruba, it'd be pretty hard to drive so far you can't find an outlet eventually.
Exactly. Plugging in an EV at home takes seconds, and then it's charging cheaply overnight, so no waiting at all. It's nice not to have to waste time driving to the gas station, filling, etc. - driving past gas stations now feels a bit like when you walk past a record store after MP3/iTunes came out.
EV's are much cheaper to maintain and "fuel". For some real world data from a substantial fleet, https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dc... . What they're seeing is that maintenance costs for BEV's are much lower than hybrids, and those are much lower than gas cars. For example, the Ford Focus BEV cost about 1/5th as much per year for maintenance as the Ford Focus ICE. Having hundreds of parts instead of thousands makes everything easier and cheaper.
You don't need to stop and recharge overnight for long drives. I can drive 300 miles, then stop for an hour for lunch, then drive another 300 miles, then stop for dinner.
I think your idea of charging times is a bit dated. A Tesla Supercharger can get you 75 miles of range in ten minutes, and a full charge while eating lunch. I've found that if I head out for a long drive early, I can drive a few hours between stops, and breakfast/lunch/dinner work out as naturel breaks. Yes, it's a little slower than driving continuously, but it's a lot nicer and a lot cheaper. Atlanta to Orlando cost 1/4th as much in my Tesla than it did for gas in my Honda Odyssey, and it's way more relaxing to drive with AutoPilot, etc.
Tesla's range is either 220 or 325 miles, That's long enough for most routine drives, and enough to go from Seattle to Victoria and back, and there are superchargers along all the major highways for long-range driving (and in both Seattle and Victoria). And "having to charge up" just means pluggig in while you're doing whatever you went to Victoria to do - it takes less time to plug/unplug an EV to fill a gas tank, you just need to do something else for little while during charging, since you can safely leave your car - like eat lunch, go to the bathroom, etc. The only problem is that Superchargers keep getting faster, so now for me a charge during a long drive takes less time than breakfast/lunch/dinner. https://www.theverge.com/2019/... . The new Superchargers will get you 75 miles of range in 5 minutes, and a full charge in a half hour. Which isn't enough time for a relaxed "purge and fill" before getting back on the road.
Amusingly, in the early days gas cars had "range anxiety" because there was no such thing as a gas station people bought gasoline from random businesses that also sold gas, or carried cans of gas with them, while electricity could plug in anywhere that had power, and that was a reason that electric cars were more popular back then. https://www.greencarreports.co... . It took 50 years for gas stations to become ubiquitous. High speed EV chargers are already much more available than early gas stations, and are building out fast.
My impression is that they're teaching little kids about coding, meaning the concepts of how computers work and how to tell them what to do, not that they're teaching little kids actual coding. Think of it more like "what is a CPU" and "what is RAM", numerical concepts, logic, instruction sequences, etc., rather than textually writing code. That being said, it'd feed pretty naturally into something more interactive than a TV show, such as Swift Playgrounds or Squeak Etoys - a kid-friendly interactive environment for actually coding.
I think that teaching kids a bit about computers and how to program them is a good idea, since computers are a common thing for people to deal with in modern life, and understanding them, at least conceptually, will help people be more effective with them. Of course, people would also learn to read, write, do math, understand how the country works, etc. - computers aren't the only skill needed in life. But it's a good one...
Makes sense - a bus gets typically 6 miles per diesel gallon, 5 for gasoline, compared to a car's average of 25 mpg, and the duty cycles of busses is typically 25% or more, vs consumer-owned cars that are typically around 5% utilization, so busses burn about 5x as many gallons per mile driven, and are driven about 5x as much of the day, so each bus converted to an EV would equate to 25 cars converts to EVs, so electrifying busses is a very efficient way to reduce gas consumption. And I bet fleet owners like it, too - EVs have much lower operating costs and lower maintenance costs, which are a big deal for fleets.
On the flip side, globally there are over 900 million cars on the road, vs perhaps 100 thousand busses, so there's a lot more fuel consumed by cars than busses, so while each car has less impact, they outnumber busses by 9,000:1, so converting all of them to EVs would have a lot more impact.
Really, you're whole take is to argue terminology. In this case incorrectly, since they're literally labeled "Captain Marvel Reviews / Audience" on the site.
Look for yourself: https://www.rottentomatoes.com... .
At this point, solar power costs less than coal power delivered in most of the US, to the point where it's cheaper to build new solar power capacity (and cover the capital costs) and operate it than to keep operating the coal plants.
And nuclear power costs more than that - $112/MWh, compare to $40 for industrial scale solar power or $29 for wind power. Coal is $60. (All best-case numbers, from https://www.lazard.com/media/4... ).
And if you look at the costs over time, nuclear power is not only extremely expensive, but the cost has increased dramatically over time, while in contrast the real world cost of wind and solar has dropped dramatically over time.
Cost is relevant because for $X that can be invested in capacity, a strategy that generates 1/4th as much power for the same investment is 1/4th as effective in shifting current capacity away from coal and oil to a clean source.
So while if I were a nuclear power plant salesman, I would certainly try to sell nuclear power as "clean" - because "radioactive" and "expensive" aren't much of a sales pitch - if you are looking for clean energy sources, the most effective clean energy sources are wind and industrial scale solar, because they can produce clean power for 1/4th the cost. And you don't have to figure out how to safely dispose of radioactive waste.
The SuperCharger can hit 250 amps of power. No "extension cord" can survive that. Though perhaps you could plug into a 110 socket somewhere...
Exactly - it's cheaper and easier to build separate computers engineered for separate purposes. Making one computer that can support everything from realtime engine control to playing Atari games on the console, in a way that guarantees that nothing can interfere with the realtime operation of the car is a very hard (likely impossible) engineering problem, when everything is sharing one CPU and memory. For that pragmatic reason, there are many, many computers inside a Tesla, or any other modern car. There's one for running the infotainment system, which controls the UI and sound. There's a dedicated system that manages the batteries. There's the system running AutoPilot. There are dozens of little controllers for sensors and other devices. This allows each system to be engineered to its own needs, be powered on or off separately, replaced by systems from new suppliers, etc.
In particular, in the Tesla the infotainment system is separate from the system that drives the car. You can even "reboot the car" while driving, and not lose control of the car, because it's only rebooting the infotainment system, but the steering, brakes, etc., keep working.
It depends on the culture. My current employer is fairly large and successful, but very much has a startup mentality in that they keep resources lean and focused on delivering value to customers. And they've got a very low turnover rate - lots of 10-15 year employees in the mix, so there's strong institutional knowledge.
I've certainly been other places that weren't that way, of course, so I don't disagree with your generalization about big companies. But it doesn't always have to be that way. Some companies have a "big company" mindset, and some companies have a "small company" mindset, independently of the actual company size. I've been in a huge corporation that was super-entrepreneurial and efficient, and a tiny company that was super-political and bureaucratic. And the reverse. Weird, I know.
I strongly disagree. I've switched jobs, and I've hired hundreds of developers, and the article missed the distinction between being a good programmer and being effective in the job. When a good developer switches jobs, they'll be temporarily less effective for a while as they learn how to work with the new team, tools, and code base. But that doesn't mean they're a 'worse programmer' - they are just as good as they were before - and as they learn how to work with the team, learn the new tools, and learn the new code base, they'll be just as good as they were. And because they've got a broader experience, they'll often make the team better, because they'll add new skills and techniques to the team. So, of course, there's a tradeoff that bringing in a new developer costs you time/effort/money in the short term that is a long-term benefit, but that's hardly a new observation. The Mythical Man Month https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... published in 1075 covered this thoroughly. I'm not sure the blog post added much to the discussion.
The 'touch' pressure is an interesting point! It'd have to be pretty sensitive to respond to finger-touches on a flexible screen that will bend when you press it. Or perhaps the screen could somehow harden when it's straightened out? Perhaps little inflatable tubes?
The obvious answer is that you have a tablet when you want a tablet (to work, watch video, etc.), and something that fits in your pocket when you're carrying it around or using it as a handheld phone, so it's more convenient.
Well, one time pads are secure from compute-driven attacks, when used properly, but they have logistical problems. To be used broadly, you have to distribute the "pad" to everyone, repeatedly sending new "pads" periodically as you use up the old ones, and anyone who gets the new "pad" can read everything, so security is only as good as pad distribution. So, really, one time pads really only work in very specific cases, like communication between a very small group of trusted individuals who meet physically to exchange pads, and who can be trusted never to give a pad to anyone else. So it's not useful for (for example) eCommerce, banking, or general communications.
No, the 2nd Amendment was written so that the People could form a citizen army to defend the country (i.e. the state guards), to prevent the formation of a standing army. The Founders opposed the US having a standing army, as it would corrupt the Democracy.
The Founders also were quite clear that they didn't think that civilians had the right to military oppose their own elected government. When people tried, the Founders labeled that treason, but the rebellion down, and arrested and/or executed the the traitors. If you don't like what our government is doing, you have free speech and the vote. If you can't make a case, and you lose the vote, you don't have the "right" to start shooting at the majority who voted against you.
And the article says that the injection is lethal only to starfish, so even if it somehow thought that a human was a starfish, it would only be annoying.
If the requirements are fully specified in advance and can't change or be prioritized, then all agile gives you is the ability to measure velocity and thus predict future delivery a bit better. And that's not bad. But agile isn't for everything.
Now, if you could prioritize the work, and get customer feedback about which capabilities of the old OS they needed or didn't need, or needed improved, then agile would make more sense.
Even 'boring reporting tables' have interested stakeholders. Who's asking for the compliance, and has to sign off that the tech team does exactly what's legally required? The stakeholder can be the finance team or an audit/compliance officer, and you bet those guys care a lot about 'boring reports'.
If there's no stakeholder that cares enough to review the team's output and confirm or correct their work product, then I (as CTO) cancel the project because it's clearly not a business priority. Sometimes it turns out not to be as important as they made it sound, in which case I saved my team's time, and sometimes they started showing up at the sprint demo's. Either is fine with me - our job is to work on whatever the business values most. Not showing up for meetings tells me the business doesn't value it.