LOL. Since I'm the one who actually implements the solution as well, we don't actually have the Jump to Conclusions guy in our company.

Most of my job isn't typing lines of code into a computer screen. It's gathering requirements from the real world (and the people in it) and then inventing/designing a system (or a modification to an existing system) that will actually accomplish the goal. People have an innate advantage over an AI because we live in the world where the problem exists. We understand both the problem domain (the world) and the solution domain (what a computer program is capable of doing) and we're imagining a solution, and even imagining what it would be like for a human being to use that system.

That's even assuming that the AI hype is real and that they're going to reach AGI. I don't see any evidence that LLMs are going to lead to AGI. The current crop of LLMs don't even come close to what an experienced programmer can do. And no amount of simply adding CPU and memory is going to get them there.

You can all avoid getting a CS major if you want. That's great news for my wages when companies can't hire anyone who actually knows how to program, and their vibe-coded solution erases their database and nobody knows why.

I'm certainly not saying you can take a product with a lead acid battery and drop in an LFP battery and be done with it. I just mean the use cases where you are using a lead acid battery (automotive batteries, UPS, emergency lighting, electric wheelchairs) could start using LFP batteries because the temperature ranges are similar, and LFP is just better overall, particularly with longevity. Of course you'd need to change your product a bit to make it work with an LFP.

I thought there was a study on wearables (like the fitbit) a few years ago that says they don't seem to have any significant impact on a person's health. Are you sure JFK Jr. doesn't own shares of fitbit?

Manufacturing is returning, albeit slowly, and in a highly automated way. As someone who's been in automation for the last 25 years, and also done a lot of desktop app development on large LOB applications, I have a hard time seeing AI completely taking over. It's a tool to help with certain problems, but the fundamental day-to-day issues aren't going to be solved by AI. Much of the day involves fabricating and gluing together simple stuff to make a solution. May times in the physical world. I don't see an AI being able to realize that we need to fabricate a little spillway to prevent drips off the machine from falling on the material and soiling it, and then going and doing that. Or swapping out a robot control board. Or shortening a cable so the forklift operator stops running over it. The ability to truly understand a problem and make a solution is still firmly in the realm of human beings. And the dexterity of robots is still nowhere near the dexterity of humans. Don't buy into the AI hype. There's a lot of smoke and few actual flames.

I recommend a separate document printer and a photo printer. For the document printer you can get by with a standard black & white laser printer from Brother (never buy an inkjet) or go for a color laser if you've got the money (never buy an inkjet). The toner lasts a long time, and it's good enough for any schoolwork they have. But for nice photo prints I recommend a dedicated photo printer, like a Canon SELPHY. They produce excellent quality prints.

For those who aren't familiar with LFP batteries, traditional lithium batteries (such as nickel-manganese-cobalt, or NMC) have good energy density and last a long time if you pamper them, but have this problem where they burst into flames if you puncture them. And the metals in them are very expensive.

LFP is lithium-iron-phosphate. They have less energy density (CATL's LFP have 205 Wh/kg compared to 260 Wh/kg or even over 300 Wh/kg in some NMC battery cells). However, LFP are much safer and less likely to explode if they're punctured. LFP also contains no nickel or cobalt, which is a huge advantage. LFP also has better longevity, supporting 3000 to 10,000 cycles vs 1000 to 2300 cycles for NMC.

So LFP is not the highest performance battery cell, but it has a lot of advantages (safety, cost, longevity) that make it a winning product. You're already seeing them in "solar generator" products (basically a fancy UPS box, e.g. the EcoFlow product line) and my understanding is that Tesla's Standard Range Model 3 vehicle has used LFP cells for a while. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw LFP replace most usages of lead acid batteries in the near future since the cell voltage is 3.2V nominal, and you can stack 4 cells to get a 12.8V battery, which would be a drop-in replacement for most lead acid applications.

I'm honestly shocked that existing credit scores don't take BNPL loans into account. The one time I bought a piece of furniture on credit, that ended up on my credit report. Why wouldn't other forms of consumer credit be included?

It just... isn't. If you were to launch right at high noon from the equator on the equinox and aim straight at the sun, you'd miss. You'd just end up in a slightly different orbit than the Earth. There's a huge amount of momentum that anything launching from Earth already has, and you need to cancel that out. This is a good thing actually (it's what keeps the Earth from hitting the sun).

Unless you throw it out of the solar system entirely, which is almost as hard as hitting the sun, then you still run the risk of the orbit eventually intersecting Earth again. Store it in proper containers in a geologically stable place.

We just watched a Blake Lively movie called "another simple favor" on Amazon prime. After watching, we agreed that it was written by someone who's apparently never talked to actual people, and the acting involved not acting at all. My daughter walked through the living room while we were watching, paused to watch for a minute, and then said, "are these characters supposed to know each other?" It was so bad. It tried to play incest as a joke. I can't believe the movies that these streaming companies are funding these days.

That's the price to low Earth orbit. The orbit will just decay and it'll fall back into the atmosphere. You want this thing in the sun. That's about the most expensive place you could try to get to in our solar system. Delta-V is a cruel mistress. We have the technology to store stuff in really good containers now, and put those in a geologically stable location. You don't need to just dump stuff down a hole anymore.

The thing to be careful with, and why MAID needs sufficient oversight, is because there's a surprising number of people, like yourself, who think most people would be better off dead. And those people end up infiltrating the MAID ecosystem. That's where we need constant vigilance.

Sorry, I worded (or recalled) that a little wrong. She didn't originally request MAID. She was seeing a counsellor for depression, partly due to being unable to pay her rent, and the counsellor suggested MAID as a possible solution for her. That's where it seemed to go off the rails.

Most of the concern these days isn't some old notion of it being a "sin". It's concern over abuse. That is, are there children in the picture that are trying to convince an elderly person to get MAID? Or is the system incentivized to offer MAID to people who are no longer paying into the system? In one case in Canada, a woman who was getting therapy for depression because she couldn't pay rent was *offered* MAID as a solution to her problems. I think this crosses an ethical line. There's a difference between someone requesting it, and it being offered as a solution. These are difficult ethical issues, and there's no simple right/wrong answers.