> Punctures through the tread are usually repairable.

Sure. If they are not catastrophic (e.g. just a nail/screw and not something that causes a gash) and you catch them in time (e.g. not driving on a flat tire which will destroy the sidewalls).

And if the tire can't lose air you don't even need to get the puncture fixed at all.
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I believe the thinking goes;

"Of all tire failures, X% of them can be attributed to punctures or improper inflation (e.g. excessive sidewall stress or premature tread wear). Therefore, airless tires can reduce tire failures by approximately X%."

So it's less about one specific set of tires lasting longer, it's about the *average* service life of the tires, and a bit of safety.
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Internal parts of a gasoline engine routinely reach over 300C in normal operation. The combustion event itself can hit something like 2500C.

The temperature isn't really an issue.
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I was pretty explicit that China can and does produce best-in-class products. Not even throwing shade that way.

What I am saying is, if there is an opportunity to do anything less to make a little extra profit, they will. This is why counterfeit components and products are so ubiquitous; if you're not a billion-dollar company that's able to twist some arms and make sure quality standards are met, Chinese manufacturers will absolutely produce the cheapest, scammiest shit they can get away with. China is pure Capitalism crystalized to perfection, and often coated with a callus disregard for human well being.
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https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fne...

That was less than 50 years ago and is what I immediately thought of, because it's actually impressive.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2022%2F05%2F05...

That was just a few years ago. Considerably less funny, because a bunch of people died that time.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2025%2F08%2F07...

That was earlier this year. As a culture it seems they have learned basically nothing when it comes to doing a job right for the sake of doing it right; if they don't have someone breathing down their necks making sure it's done by the book, they WILL cut corners and people WILL die because of it. Fortunately, enough national pride might be on the line to get that kind of oversight.
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I have to assume that's a joke, 'cause this new dam is a little more than 1000 times the generating capacity... (60 gigawatts vs. 54 megawatts)

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...that they do a better job than last time.

China can and does produce some of the best work in the world these days... but they only bother to put in the effort if someone is looking over their shoulder the whole time. If they think they can get away with it, they will cut every corner imaginable. This being a prestige government project it will probably get the oversight it needs to not be a disaster... probably.
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So... it takes a spine to throw even more of ratepayer's money at the problem that these data centers are causing?

The whole argument is that these large consumers are being indirectly subsidized by households. Everything you have suggested will just make that worse.

Charge these places out the ass for all the power they're sucking up. They got the money to pay it, or they can build their own power infrastructure.
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> If you can grown from those conversations what is the problem?

The problem is when the chat bot, which basically plays along with whatever you say and creates a feedback loop that reinforces your beliefs, starts picking up on hints you might harm yourself and starts encouraging you to do it.

The problem is when amplifies, rater than alleviates, delusions and psychopathy.

AI is not intelligent.

> And the people making the decisions don't understand what an LLM is, what it does, and where it fails.

Feels like the people defending/advocating it are failing to understand it. The rest of us just look at what's already actually happening and realize that it should probably be regulated if not stopped completely.
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Anyone seeking to browse those kinds of sites that has a lick of sense is already using a VPN or Tor browser, and if it's somehow possible to get a VPN service to block sites they will quickly find themselves losing users for doing so; either to find a service that doesn't block web traffic, or simply out of protest for being untrustworthy.

The only use this could have is as a cudgel for rightsholders to harass sites they don't like.
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Some saner countries have child protection laws.

But I suspect the main reason is children don't have money so they tend to be targeted by a different class of advertiser. Views are more valuable if you can show the people watching are at least old enough to want/buy the products.
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That article doesn't seem to say what you think it does.

"Self-oxidizing" does not mean excess oxygen. Oxidizing means electrons are being transferred, and since that's how batteries work yeah that's kind of a no-brainer. Exactly as I said: They continue to generate heat by self-discharging, and that heat can trigger burning if and when atmospheric oxygen is allowed back in. Hence, the primary strategy to fighting lithium battery fires is to keep them cool (with water) so the flammable chemicals stay inside the cells where there is no oxygen.

You can put out a battery fire by smothering it. Blanket and foam systems are effective. But, if the cells are damaged to the point they are shorted, the chemical reactions will continue and generate heat, releasing more flammable vapors that can re-ignite. As long as you prevent those vapors from mixing with air and heat, you will not have a fire.
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> lithium ion batteries don't even need oxygen to burn as they're self oxidizing

This is incorrect. I don't even know where this bullshit originated.

Flame testing is a routine thing - it's really good to know what kind of fumes and particles a fire might be producing, y'know? - and while the proportions of combustion products for lithium batteries varies with the exact chemistry and state of charge, they always produce non-trivial amounts of carbon monoxide, carbon particulates (soot), and hydrogen gas.

You do not get any of those combustion products if there is excess oxygen available, which you'd think there would be if you had both ambient air AND supposed oxygen generation within the chemical reaction itself. Instead, you always get incomplete combustion characteristic of a insufficient oxygen.

As with any fire, you can put them out by depriving them of air. What you can't do is prevent the other chemical reactions from continuing to generate heat by simply cutting off the oxygen, which is a separate issue. This is why a constant flow of water is recommended to extinguish battery fires; to keep them cool so the flammable chemicals stay inside the cells where there is no air to support combustion.
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> However while the total area may be pretty large, the area doesn't have to be as cleared or denied sunlight

Agrivoltaics is a thing; Solar PV and crops sharing the land.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...

Meanwhile I still argue that the kite system will need an exclusion zone. On the ground for personnel safety, but also in potentially the air as structures above a certain height (on the order of 100 meters usually) require warning beacons for aircraft... I imagine something that will be airborne above 400 meters and flying around would pose an even bigger hazard. You'd also need to consider anything that's within maybe 500 meters of the base station because if things DO go wrong that kite could hit the ground anywhere in that radius. Buildings, roads, high voltage lines, etc. are all things to worry about.

And if it's so remote that none of this is a concern, it's probably best to install something that doesn't need to be actively managed and maintained by a specialist.
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> The example they give is farms that want to produce power but don't want to dedicate as much space as is required for solar panels in that power output range.

A few problems with that, though; 10kw worth of solar is not that much space. 10kw is barely enough to part a tractor under.

Sure the winch and *folded* airfoil is compact, but so is a stack of solar panels. You can install solar panels on racking - also very compact when knocked down for transport - and do stuff underneath them. You probably need a reasonably large exclusion zone around the winch because you'll have a steel cable under several tons of tension whipping around unpredictably. You'll need to be clear of buildings, overhead utilities, and trees for several hundred feet at least I reckon in case the kite dips low too fast to be reeled in safely.

Okay the airfoil works at night and on cloudy days... is this not for temporary power though? You still need a storage system too, and the system is not self-restarting. They do not mention how they get the kite aloft in the first place but traditionally they've used rockets, small aircraft, or lately drones to carry it up until the wind catches it.
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