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Comment Nobody else would be allowed (Score 2) 69

If anyone else had their entire fleet of vehicles stalled out and blocking traffic for hours in the middle of the city they would be given hefty fines for obstructing traffic and told to take their cars elsewhere.

But not Waymo, who for some reason are exempt from the rules that everyone else is expected to follow.

Comment Re:Here's What Happens To Me (Score 1) 121

Yeah, one of the things I like about Claude (and Gemini 3 as opposed to 2.5) is that they really clamped down on the use of "Oh, now I've got it! This is absolutely the FINAL fix to the problem, we've totally solved it now! Here, let me write out FIX_FINAL_SOLVED.md" with some half-arse solution. And yep, the answer to going in circles is usually either "nuke the chat" or "switch models".

Comment Bloat Industrial Complex (Score 3) 121

AI seems to be feeding the bloat habit instead of trimming it. It's becoming an auto-bloater.

Very few in the industry are interested in parsimony. Devs would rather collect buzzwords for their resume rather than try to trim out layers and eye-candy toys. It's kind of like letting surgeons also be your general doctor, they'd recommend surgery more often than you really need it.

The principles of typical biz/admin CRUD haven't really changed much since client/server came on the scene in the early 90's. Yet the layers and verbosity seem to keep growing. An ever smaller portion of time is spent on domain issues and ever more on the tech layers and parts to support the domain. Something is wrong but nobody is motivated to do anything about it because bloat is job security.

YAGNI and KISS are still important, but is dismissed because it reduces one's resume buzzword count. The obsession with scaling for normal apps is an example of such insanity: there's only like a 1 in 50k chance your app or company will ever become FANG-sized, yet too many devs want to use a "webscale" stack. You're almost as likely to get struck by lightning while coding it. They patients are running the asylum.

Humans, you are doing CRUD wrong!

Comment Re:Defensive maneuvering is a requirement now (Score 2) 15

Only micro-movements are necessary to avoid most space junk*, using tiny "cold" thrusters which are not enough to serve as a rapid-response spy-probe. High-end spy probes probably have lots of fuel and big nozzles.

Don's spy-probe: "Hey Xi, look, my nozzle's bigger than yours!"

* If they have short notice to swerve, then small engines are probably not good enough, but that situation is probably not (yet) common enough to justify carrying large thruster systems.

Comment Re:No More HP (Score 1) 116

There's like a dozen different ink cartridge gimmicks HP uses to fuck over consumers. In my case one had to press a "confirm" prompt every time one printed if the color cartridge was past an alleged expiration date even if I was only printing in black-and-white.

HP used to have a good reputation, then seemed to turn evil on a dime. Was there a board meeting where they had a "let's be evil" vote and it passed?

Comment Spacecraft been maneuvering for decades (Score 2) 15

...Hydrazine nozzles are probably the simplest technique, being it doesn't need ignition, but are not as powerful as ignition-based path adjustment mini-rockets.

Maybe the speed and degree with which military satellites maneuver has increased of late? They probably can't tells us without having to kill us. You ask first!

Comment Re:Ohhhhh! (Score 1) 102

Yeah, when thinking of the typical air fryer market, think "working mom with kids who wants to serve something nicer than a microwave dinner, but doesn't have the time for much prep or waiting". You can get those mailard reactions that microwaving doesn't really get you, nice crisping and browning of the surface that you normally get from an oven, without having to wait for an oven to preheat. I don't think anyone disputes that an oven will do a better job, but the air fryer does a better job than a microwave, which is what it's really competing against. They're also marketed as easy-clean, which again is a nod to their target audience.

Comment Re:Good (Score 1) 83

How costs build up is really staggering. I'm getting into the business of importing 3d filament. In Iceland, it currently sells for like $35/kg minimum. The actual value of the plastic is like $1. The factory's total cost, all costs included, is like $1,50. If it's not name brand, e.g. they're not dumping money on marketing, they sell it for $3 for the cheapest stuff. Sea freight adds another dollar or two. Taxes here add 24%. But you're still at like $5/kg. The rest is all middlemen, warehousing, air freight for secondary legs from intermediary hubs, and all the markup and taxes on those things.

With me importing direct from the factory, sea freight only, I can get rid of most of those costs. Warehousing is the biggest unavoidable cost. If I want to maintain an average inventory of like 700kg, it adds something like $5/kg to the cost. Scanning in goods and dispatching user orders (not counting shipping) together adds like $2,50. And then add 24% tax (minus the taxes on the imported goods). There's still good margin, but it's amazing how quickly costs inflate.

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