Over the last 40 years I have observed that there has been a breakout, breathless story about a "cold fusion breakthough" every 5-7 years. It is always the same.
News releases, predictions, opinions, completely math-less pictures and descriptions of the "product" and either calls for investment or confident predictions of investors. It is always going to change the world in the next 6-months to 2-years time frame.
In the past several cycles you get youtube videos. The most interesting thing about them is the variation in video production values. (Pro tip: if it has background music it is definitely a snow job.)
Then nobody is able to reproduce the results that the original team reported. Or if they even tried they point out that the energy gain that came out of the rig wasn't the result of fusion it was something else.
That's the Cold Fusion Cycle. It has been about 5 years so I guess we are due.
somehow falsifying their production numbers - fake VINs, or delivering known-defective vehicles to count them as "delivered" even though they'd need to be replaced.
That reminds me of when Miniscribe shipped 26,000 bricks in disk drive boxes. Good times.
I had been a Comcast customer for years. I had Internet, Phone, and Cable TV service. Rate was about $180/month. Two year contract.
The Internet service is excellent. Not only is it fast and reliable (wasn't always but they fixed things) but they actually do IPv6 right.
So last year (about 18 months ago) they decide I must be too pleased some it's TIME FOR A FLEECING!
My contract is up. I want to renew. NOT AN OPTION. I say what do you mean you can't. I'm using it right now. Yes but the 3-service deal is no longer offered. You have to get the 4-service deal. It is called "quad play." In addition to the other services you get home security.
I say I don't want another security service. I have ADP and have invested $1500 in sensors that would be thrown away if I changed now. Not to mention I would have to purchase more sensors.
I won't bore you with the details but the choices boiled down to this: 1) ditch Comcast (and I lose the Internet service i depend on for my business). 2) Get the three services I have been using which will cost about $100 more than what I have been paying, or 3) get the FOUR services for about $40 LESS -- FOR NOW -- than I have been paying.
Now get this. I say ok I'll take the quad play but I'll just not use the home security. So no need to schedule the installers --- hold your horses right there son. We WON'T give you a new contract until AFTER our installers show up to your house, burn a half day of your time, and certify that the service is installed. And there is this wireless pad thing that has to be in the house somewhere.
I bitch enough that the gal gives me a "free" camera.
So now I have two security services running at my house -- I never arm the Xfinity one but I do use the camera which is pretty well implemented. I have to feel grateful that they didn't make me unplug the ADT system.
Somehow the monthly bill has creeped up on me. Now it's $225/month not including the occasional movie my wife buys. Instead of $40 less I was pitched I am now paying $40 more.
That's my Comcast bitching for today. Thanks for listening.
reCAPTCHA v3 will use a secret new Google proprietary technology
OK. So if this is cross-browser I would have to assume this involves or fully relies on in-browser Javascript. In which case calling it "secret" is silly.
If it relies on servers (thus keeping the "secret") run by Google then why bother with it all? Why not just use OAUTH/OAUTH2 authentication against existing Google+ logins and then no need for a 'bot test?
You are assuming the cost of living for a fast food worker is tied to the price of the product they work to produce and sell. I don't think that is a valid assumption.
If I were working fast food at lower-end wages as a head of household, eating out would be a sometimes thing not an everyday thing. You can shop and produce far better burgers at home if you put even a slight amount of effort into it.
I think the really exciting product will be the eventual, inevitable Tesla minivan. All the weight is down low, so it will handle in spite of being a tall box. And it will have enough room to basically live in if you're small. I think that's the product that will really sell like gangbusters.
The Model X is a mini-van. No matter how it is publicized it is not an SUV it is a minivan. No off-road capability. No roof-rack.
But it does have a lot of room inside and it has great performance. Great for soccer moms and real estate professionals who have to drive clients around. For "sports" and "utility?" No.
I actually pay attention to all the Tesla/Musk/Tesla/Musk critics out there and follow their arguments about how the company is going to crash and burn and Musk is delusional and the technology won't work and the production can't work and the quality is crap gasoline is actually greener and cheaper and and the major automakers are going to bury them and the workers have reverted to savagery and yadda yadda.
I have been following all that for, what, five years now? How many portentous pronouncements of Tesla and/or Musk's demise has there been? I have lost count.
A few days ago my e-trade board delivered this little news nugget:
Citron Research, which has previously advocated short positions on Tesla, says it has changed course, and that the electric car maker is "destroying the competition, as Citron makes the case for why it's taking a long-term view.
So apparently there are short sellers out there will actually fold up the tent for another from-scratch assessment. Granted, they were wrong before so they could be wrong again. Tesla could still crash and burn or at least hit a major bump in the road. But if it does it will have nothing to do with what the chronic naysayers that post here say.
I am trying to duplicate this. The older you get the harder it gets to get weight off.
The wakeup call was Stage 2 Hypertension. I never had a history of high blood pressure until very recently. The Dr wants me to take meds for it. Screw that I am getting fit again and then let's see.
Intermittent fasting and high-intensity interval training for me. So far so good I'm down about 3 kilos.
Glenn Greenwald has been one of the most ardent Assange supporters from the get-go. I wonder what he is going to have to say about this.
Assange used to be someone to admire but those days seem long over. It is one thing to have principles but had he just given himself up, gone to Sweden (likely), got tried for bad sex (less likely), convicted (even less likely) spent time in prison (totally unlikely) at the maximum sentence he would have been free and clear for over two years now.
I wish people would stop over-dramatizing what are real technical feats but end up looking lame after the buildup.
Point taken but I am still impressed.
What I expect is going to be this product line's first killer app is in the movie industry. People like over-dramatization and that is what they do. The real specs won't matter as much as what they can show with rehearsed scenes.
But given the rate of improvement all we will really need is about 5 more years and the advent of a 160-year power supply (with backup of course) to have a real T800.
Down this track there will come some point where you just might as well issued everyone a VR helmet to correct or improve everything about a live performance.
Then they don't even need to show up at the theater.
I haven't read the documents yet but from the looks of it the case is pressed purely on legalities of the act they don't like.
What I really would like to see is if the state can force them to explain what is different about their business under the Act versus prior. In other words, once you clear all the "constitutional" arguments what the plaintiffs clearly want is to make more money and they think that the new law will stop them from doing that.
From that you can see where they think that money will come from and how it will get to them. The plaintiffs clearly don't want to talk about this but I would be amazed if the state attorneys don't force them. (Objection! Relevance. Overruled.)
How does spending $200 million to install equate to "not costing the city a dime?"
And for 10,000 kiosks that is about $20K per kiosk. If they made the things bulletproof with titanium steel shells I don't see how the cost of goods can exceed $5,000.
I am pretty sure the rules are the same in your country because this much is pretty global. Nominally the corporate structure is as follows:
Stockholders own the company. There can be different classes as stock but as a whole the majority of stockholders can vote for the corporation to do anything legal.
The stockholders appoint a Board of Directors and the Board Chairman. They can be removed by the stockholders so they are accountable to the stockholders. Directors are usually stockholders themselves but not necessarily or so.
The Board of Directors decide who the CEO and usually who all the major officers of the corporation are, such as the #2 guy and the CFO and corporate counsel. The bylaws (as approved by stockholders) will generally also have the sole power for certain actions like selling dock, taking out loans, etc. Often large lenders want to see Board approval before granting credit. However the CEO reports to the Board.
The CEO is in charge of everything else and if he/she doesn't do what the board likes the board removes him/her and gets someone else.
Why would anyone want to invest in a company in which one perishable asset accounts for 40% of the value?
The track record of the market has been that any slight bit of negative news about Tesla can and will impact the stock price by a significant amount. 10%? 20%?
I didn't get Tesla stock as early as I wanted because I wasn't paying attention. My next big chance was during all the hysteria about "Tesla fires." The stock went down 20% and I bought then. The fires disaster/problem was obviously as insignificant as hindsight has show it to be. But the fear-ridden-panic-prone backbrain of the market was in control and that's when you should buy.
It has been my impression that the trumped-up scares about Tesla have been having less and less effect than they used to. I have no math to back it up but if Elon left or abandoned his stock compensation package I am sure that would cause another panic sell-off again and 40% would be least of it.
Elon is by no means the only one who can drive Telsa forward successfully, but convincing the market of that is totally a different matter.
I think it was back in December we stockholders got asked to approve a whopping great compensation package for Musk. To collect it I think he had to stay on as CEO for a certain amount of time and hit certain financial milestones. I think it was 10 years.
So if he takes this SEC "deal" and has to step down as CEO would he lose all that? I think so.
And I think it is bullshit. Imagine what would happen if Musk left. Nobody but the shorts (who are desperate for this to happen) would win because the stock would dive 40% minimum.
And I don't see what Musk did wrong. He said he had a deal. He never said he was taking it which would have been a board (and possibly stockholder) action anyway. The SEC is being totally arbitrary. Let them take it to court if they want to be embarrassed.
We just had a Musk/SEC/Fraud thread, so I checked in here and was amazed to see about 7 posts and not one yet called Musk delusional. The haters are off their game I guess.
What I would like to know is:
1. Will the Model S and Model X ever get a retrofit to the 2170 battery type? What are the economics of this? Is there a reason now not to do it?
2. Is Tesla planning on selling these batteries to other EV makers?
3. How much of the production of the Gigafactory allocated to the Model 3 verses the power wall product?
What about Disney's famous peoplemover experiment?
Or for that matter the automated inter-terminal trams found in Denver, San Francisco, Dallas, or dozens of other major airports all around the world?
All those systems are automated and remote monitored and extremely high reliability while being very highly utilized and relied upon. Imagine the chaos if one of those automated rail systems went down at a busy time. So they have to have damn near five-nines availability and they seem to.
There is simply no point in letting people own their own family farms..
Citizen komrade. The Politburo approves your thinking but we have suspicions regarding your levels of activism. You will therefore be taken to the State educational and rehabilitation facility in Kbuxluiztik until such time The People determine you are not a threat.
The following is probably wasted on you but here it is anyway:
Yes there is absolutely a good reason for family farms. They produce vastly better product. Go to any Farmers market in any of thousands of cities that take place weekly surrounded by large-scale grocery stores that are selling the factory-farmed products (produce, meats, jams). Every week they are packed. Many times if you get there later than 9AM you will find all the eggs have been sold.
Why is that? The head of lettuce farmed locally (organically farmed or not) tasted better and is better nutrition as opposed to the one trucked in from a factory farm 2000 miles away. The factory farms and big agribusiness are extremely efficient at selling cheap calories. For good nutrition and better living not so much.
nothing in orbit around the earth can go 30,000 MPH with respect to the ground though, that's some serious rounding! just over 25,000 MPH is the max, otherwise it's leaving
Even with an elliptical orbit at perigee? Or does escape velocity still apply regardless?
Capitalism only works because of competition, but companies do everything they can to avoid actually competing...
Good observation. I like to say that there is absolutely one thing that you can always count on a corporate entity to do: protect an established revenue stream.
A corporation does not have morals or loyalty even though many of them do their best to create the illusion. They will lie about science, bribe governments, destroy competitors if they can get away with it and often, if they have the short-term mindset and think they can get away with it, wring out their customer base like a dirty washrag. That last seems to be what is happening here.
Slashdot Mirror
This seems like a case study that can determine whether it is more important to be right or be polite.
So, was he right? (check yes or no)
Did he discriminate against someone? (check yes or no)
Did he sexually harass someone? (check yes or no)
Was he polite? (check yes or no)
One of these questions does not seem nearly as important as the others. Can you guess which it is?
Over the last 40 years I have observed that there has been a breakout, breathless story about a "cold fusion breakthough" every 5-7 years. It is always the same.
News releases, predictions, opinions, completely math-less pictures and descriptions of the "product" and either calls for investment or confident predictions of investors. It is always going to change the world in the next 6-months to 2-years time frame.
In the past several cycles you get youtube videos. The most interesting thing about them is the variation in video production values. (Pro tip: if it has background music it is definitely a snow job.)
Then nobody is able to reproduce the results that the original team reported. Or if they even tried they point out that the energy gain that came out of the rig wasn't the result of fusion it was something else.
That's the Cold Fusion Cycle. It has been about 5 years so I guess we are due.
somehow falsifying their production numbers - fake VINs, or delivering known-defective vehicles to count them as "delivered" even though they'd need to be replaced.
That reminds me of when Miniscribe shipped 26,000 bricks in disk drive boxes. Good times.
I had been a Comcast customer for years. I had Internet, Phone, and Cable TV service. Rate was about $180/month. Two year contract.
The Internet service is excellent. Not only is it fast and reliable (wasn't always but they fixed things) but they actually do IPv6 right.
So last year (about 18 months ago) they decide I must be too pleased some it's TIME FOR A FLEECING!
My contract is up. I want to renew. NOT AN OPTION. I say what do you mean you can't. I'm using it right now. Yes but the 3-service deal is no longer offered. You have to get the 4-service deal. It is called "quad play." In addition to the other services you get home security.
I say I don't want another security service. I have ADP and have invested $1500 in sensors that would be thrown away if I changed now. Not to mention I would have to purchase more sensors.
I won't bore you with the details but the choices boiled down to this: 1) ditch Comcast (and I lose the Internet service i depend on for my business). 2) Get the three services I have been using which will cost about $100 more than what I have been paying, or 3) get the FOUR services for about $40 LESS -- FOR NOW -- than I have been paying.
Now get this. I say ok I'll take the quad play but I'll just not use the home security. So no need to schedule the installers --- hold your horses right there son. We WON'T give you a new contract until AFTER our installers show up to your house, burn a half day of your time, and certify that the service is installed. And there is this wireless pad thing that has to be in the house somewhere.
I bitch enough that the gal gives me a "free" camera.
So now I have two security services running at my house -- I never arm the Xfinity one but I do use the camera which is pretty well implemented. I have to feel grateful that they didn't make me unplug the ADT system.
Somehow the monthly bill has creeped up on me. Now it's $225/month not including the occasional movie my wife buys. Instead of $40 less I was pitched I am now paying $40 more.
That's my Comcast bitching for today. Thanks for listening.
reCAPTCHA v3 will use a secret new Google proprietary technology
OK. So if this is cross-browser I would have to assume this involves or fully relies on in-browser Javascript. In which case calling it "secret" is silly.
If it relies on servers (thus keeping the "secret") run by Google then why bother with it all? Why not just use OAUTH/OAUTH2 authentication against existing Google+ logins and then no need for a 'bot test?
You are assuming the cost of living for a fast food worker is tied to the price of the product they work to produce and sell. I don't think that is a valid assumption.
If I were working fast food at lower-end wages as a head of household, eating out would be a sometimes thing not an everyday thing. You can shop and produce far better burgers at home if you put even a slight amount of effort into it.
I think the really exciting product will be the eventual, inevitable Tesla minivan. All the weight is down low, so it will handle in spite of being a tall box. And it will have enough room to basically live in if you're small. I think that's the product that will really sell like gangbusters.
The Model X is a mini-van. No matter how it is publicized it is not an SUV it is a minivan. No off-road capability. No roof-rack.
But it does have a lot of room inside and it has great performance. Great for soccer moms and real estate professionals who have to drive clients around. For "sports" and "utility?" No.
It is selling pretty well.
I actually pay attention to all the Tesla/Musk/Tesla/Musk critics out there and follow their arguments about how the company is going to crash and burn and Musk is delusional and the technology won't work and the production can't work and the quality is crap gasoline is actually greener and cheaper and and the major automakers are going to bury them and the workers have reverted to savagery and yadda yadda.
I have been following all that for, what, five years now? How many portentous pronouncements of Tesla and/or Musk's demise has there been? I have lost count.
A few days ago my e-trade board delivered this little news nugget:
Citron Research, which has previously advocated short positions on Tesla, says it has changed course, and that the electric car maker is "destroying the competition, as Citron makes the case for why it's taking a long-term view.
So apparently there are short sellers out there will actually fold up the tent for another from-scratch assessment. Granted, they were wrong before so they could be wrong again. Tesla could still crash and burn or at least hit a major bump in the road. But if it does it will have nothing to do with what the chronic naysayers that post here say.
I am trying to duplicate this. The older you get the harder it gets to get weight off.
The wakeup call was Stage 2 Hypertension. I never had a history of high blood pressure until very recently. The Dr wants me to take meds for it. Screw that I am getting fit again and then let's see.
Intermittent fasting and high-intensity interval training for me. So far so good I'm down about 3 kilos.
It helps to read good-outcome stories like t his.
Glenn Greenwald has been one of the most ardent Assange supporters from the get-go. I wonder what he is going to have to say about this.
Assange used to be someone to admire but those days seem long over. It is one thing to have principles but had he just given himself up, gone to Sweden (likely), got tried for bad sex (less likely), convicted (even less likely) spent time in prison (totally unlikely) at the maximum sentence he would have been free and clear for over two years now.
Prone to bad decisions.
They can always amp-up the emitters if they have a lawless uprising in the city.
Don't pretend for even a nanosecond that they didn't think of that, regardless of engineering feasibility.
I wish people would stop over-dramatizing what are real technical feats but end up looking lame after the buildup.
Point taken but I am still impressed.
What I expect is going to be this product line's first killer app is in the movie industry. People like over-dramatization and that is what they do. The real specs won't matter as much as what they can show with rehearsed scenes.
But given the rate of improvement all we will really need is about 5 more years and the advent of a 160-year power supply (with backup of course) to have a real T800.
Down this track there will come some point where you just might as well issued everyone a VR helmet to correct or improve everything about a live performance.
Then they don't even need to show up at the theater.
That's progress I guess.
I haven't read the documents yet but from the looks of it the case is pressed purely on legalities of the act they don't like.
What I really would like to see is if the state can force them to explain what is different about their business under the Act versus prior. In other words, once you clear all the "constitutional" arguments what the plaintiffs clearly want is to make more money and they think that the new law will stop them from doing that.
From that you can see where they think that money will come from and how it will get to them. The plaintiffs clearly don't want to talk about this but I would be amazed if the state attorneys don't force them. (Objection! Relevance. Overruled.)
Those Chinese hoaxers are thorough, aren't they?
How does spending $200 million to install equate to "not costing the city a dime?"
And for 10,000 kiosks that is about $20K per kiosk. If they made the things bulletproof with titanium steel shells I don't see how the cost of goods can exceed $5,000.
That subcontractor made a killing.
I am pretty sure the rules are the same in your country because this much is pretty global. Nominally the corporate structure is as follows:
Stockholders own the company. There can be different classes as stock but as a whole the majority of stockholders can vote for the corporation to do anything legal.
The stockholders appoint a Board of Directors and the Board Chairman. They can be removed by the stockholders so they are accountable to the stockholders. Directors are usually stockholders themselves but not necessarily or so.
The Board of Directors decide who the CEO and usually who all the major officers of the corporation are, such as the #2 guy and the CFO and corporate counsel. The bylaws (as approved by stockholders) will generally also have the sole power for certain actions like selling dock, taking out loans, etc. Often large lenders want to see Board approval before granting credit. However the CEO reports to the Board.
The CEO is in charge of everything else and if he/she doesn't do what the board likes the board removes him/her and gets someone else.
Why would anyone want to invest in a company in which one perishable asset accounts for 40% of the value?
The track record of the market has been that any slight bit of negative news about Tesla can and will impact the stock price by a significant amount. 10%? 20%?
I didn't get Tesla stock as early as I wanted because I wasn't paying attention. My next big chance was during all the hysteria about "Tesla fires." The stock went down 20% and I bought then. The fires disaster/problem was obviously as insignificant as hindsight has show it to be. But the fear-ridden-panic-prone backbrain of the market was in control and that's when you should buy.
It has been my impression that the trumped-up scares about Tesla have been having less and less effect than they used to. I have no math to back it up but if Elon left or abandoned his stock compensation package I am sure that would cause another panic sell-off again and 40% would be least of it.
Elon is by no means the only one who can drive Telsa forward successfully, but convincing the market of that is totally a different matter.
I think it was back in December we stockholders got asked to approve a whopping great compensation package for Musk. To collect it I think he had to stay on as CEO for a certain amount of time and hit certain financial milestones. I think it was 10 years.
So if he takes this SEC "deal" and has to step down as CEO would he lose all that? I think so.
And I think it is bullshit. Imagine what would happen if Musk left. Nobody but the shorts (who are desperate for this to happen) would win because the stock would dive 40% minimum.
And I don't see what Musk did wrong. He said he had a deal. He never said he was taking it which would have been a board (and possibly stockholder) action anyway. The SEC is being totally arbitrary. Let them take it to court if they want to be embarrassed.
We just had a Musk/SEC/Fraud thread, so I checked in here and was amazed to see about 7 posts and not one yet called Musk delusional. The haters are off their game I guess.
What I would like to know is:
1. Will the Model S and Model X ever get a retrofit to the 2170 battery type? What are the economics of this? Is there a reason now not to do it?
2. Is Tesla planning on selling these batteries to other EV makers?
3. How much of the production of the Gigafactory allocated to the Model 3 verses the power wall product?
A Musk hate thread to distract me from the Kavanaugh heardings. Well done, /. Well done.
What about Disney's famous peoplemover experiment?
Or for that matter the automated inter-terminal trams found in Denver, San Francisco, Dallas, or dozens of other major airports all around the world?
All those systems are automated and remote monitored and extremely high reliability while being very highly utilized and relied upon. Imagine the chaos if one of those automated rail systems went down at a busy time. So they have to have damn near five-nines availability and they seem to.
There is simply no point in letting people own their own family farms..
Citizen komrade. The Politburo approves your thinking but we have suspicions regarding your levels of activism. You will therefore be taken to the State educational and rehabilitation facility in Kbuxluiztik until such time The People determine you are not a threat.
The following is probably wasted on you but here it is anyway:
Yes there is absolutely a good reason for family farms. They produce vastly better product. Go to any Farmers market in any of thousands of cities that take place weekly surrounded by large-scale grocery stores that are selling the factory-farmed products (produce, meats, jams). Every week they are packed. Many times if you get there later than 9AM you will find all the eggs have been sold.
Why is that? The head of lettuce farmed locally (organically farmed or not) tasted better and is better nutrition as opposed to the one trucked in from a factory farm 2000 miles away. The factory farms and big agribusiness are extremely efficient at selling cheap calories. For good nutrition and better living not so much.
nothing in orbit around the earth can go 30,000 MPH with respect to the ground though, that's some serious rounding! just over 25,000 MPH is the max, otherwise it's leaving
Even with an elliptical orbit at perigee? Or does escape velocity still apply regardless?
Capitalism only works because of competition, but companies do everything they can to avoid actually competing ...
Good observation. I like to say that there is absolutely one thing that you can always count on a corporate entity to do: protect an established revenue stream.
A corporation does not have morals or loyalty even though many of them do their best to create the illusion. They will lie about science, bribe governments, destroy competitors if they can get away with it and often, if they have the short-term mindset and think they can get away with it, wring out their customer base like a dirty washrag. That last seems to be what is happening here.