ThTh1: No one seems to make a fuss about the women that SpaceX carries to orbit, on both government missions to the ISS and privately-funded flights. Also regarding Bezos and space flight, the space writers at Ars Technica have been pursuing reports and rumors, and believe the second certification flight of Blue Origin's New Glenn heavy-lift rocket will be delayed until at least October. A successful second flight is necessary for Bezos to qualify for the high-value payloads for NASA and national security.
When my children were small they would ask if it was the last snow of the season. I always told them no, because that way I was only wrong once. They eventually figured out that I was always going to say no, and quit asking.
As for AGI, what does the software do when no one is bothering it with questions or tasks? Does it consider the things it might spend cycles on, and choose from among them? As it does things, does it consider what it might add to, or subtract from, the set of things it might spend cycles on? Does the set include not answering the questions or assigned tasks? If not, it may be a clever tool, but it's not AGI.
It's not an either-or situation. Well, I guess it is if you start from the position, "I want REEs mined and refined in the US to be as cheap as what China produces." It doesn't have to be an either-or situation. We can produce REEs in much cleaner fashion if we want to pay somewhat more.
Living downstream from mines that are still leaching toxic stuff into the surface water more than a century after they were abandoned, I'd be happier to see rapid commercialization of some of the new extraction technologies. Eg, the U of West Virginia has developed a method for extracting from the toxic runoff out of abandoned coal mines a couple of tons of rare earth elements per mine per year. A couple of public research universities, working with the DOE's national labs, have methods for extracting REEs from coal ash ponds.
[sarcasm] But tending an extraction facility that uses somewhat sophisticated chemistry isn't a manly job, like driving big earth movers to shovel whole mountain sides into giant ore crushers, and using a few million gallons per year of concentrated hydrochloric acid that no one knows how to dispose of nicely. [/sarcasm]
While Trump buddies up with Elon Musk, it's been Gwynne Shotwell that has built SpaceX into the powerhouse it is. She was employee #7, hired by Musk to find a COO. The story goes that whenever she suggested someone, Musk said, "They're not as good as you are, why don't you just take the job?" Eventually she did. According to folklore, she's one of the very few people on Earth that if she says, "Elon, shut up and listen for a minute," he shuts up and listens.
China has suspended exports of rare earths and rare-earth magnets. Not just to the US, to the world.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/business/china-rare-earths-exports.html
At least for transmission, my own perceptions are that it's more of a regional thing. The Transwest Express is under construction to deliver 3 GW of Wyoming wind power to the big switch yards at the Hoover Dam for sale into all of Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Southern California. Sunzia is under construction to deliver even more wind/solar from New Mexico to Phoenix, and a connector from Phoenix to Southern California is all permitted. Xcel in Colorado is building a large collector loop out on the prairie to make it easy to move wind/solar from out there to the Front Range. BPA is doing a $2B transmission upgrade to allow more renewable power from as far inland as Montana to get to Seattle/Portland.
All of those are Western Interconnect projects, of course, and have nothing to do with delivering power to the 75% of the US population that lives farther east than that.
Texas, and to a somewhat lesser extent Florida, build because they can sprawl. Where are the desirable places where California and New York can sprawl?
After the fire burned a big chunk of Altadena early this year, there were numerous pictures showing isolated houses that survived while all the houses around them burned. A point made in the articles was that those were new homes built on tear-down sites; the surrounding homes that burned were all 50+ years old. For the discussion we're having here, the point is that Altadena was fully built out, right up the the steep brush-covered hillsides, 50 years ago. A bit of digging shows that it was built as a suburb at a population density right at 5,000 people per square mile 50 years ago. Dallas, TX has a current density of 3,400 per square mile. The Dallas suburbs are significantly less dense.
I think you're letting Texas and Florida overwhelm your opinion. A number of the other states in the South and Southwest have lost US House seats over the last three censuses. They're not building infrastructure in the face of a relatively shrinking population. The (now) Red states in the Midwest are struggling to hang on to population and aren't building infrastructure. Eg, Ohio has barely grown its population by 10% over the last 50 years. Their power grid sucks, but it's not possible to justify investment unless demand is growing. I did a good chunk of my formative years in Nebraska. They've "grown" themselves into the position that three counties now account for all of the net growth in the state's population. Just happens that those three are the most liberal in the state, relatively speaking.
I have made myself a terrible person to have opinions about appearance things like gray-on-gray or vertical text spacing or whatever. I have a piece of JavaScript that runs in my browser that I have built (over several years now). With the exception of a couple of my regular sites (eg, my bank), that JavaScript goes through every page I download and does its best to confine the text to my small set of chosen fonts and sizes, vertical and horizontal spacing, appropriate fg/bg contrast, etc. From my perspective, the new theme has moved things around on the page, but the text itself is still formatted in the same basic style. I also make judicious use of ad (and other suspicious content) blocking. Someone was looking over my shoulder some time back while I jumped through a few sites. They remarked on how my view of the web was much simpler and more consistent than what they got on their computer.
As I've mentioned before, WordPress has managed to recreate all of the worst aspects of Windows 95 from a developer's perspective. Those of us who are old enough remember installing Windows 95 updates and watching some subset of critical application software break. Install a new version of WordPress and watch assorted themes and/or plugins break. Will does really good work; I read Outside the Beltway regularly, and a few weeks ago they went completely offline for most of a week because a WordPress update broke other things so badly.
As I've said before, my working assumption is that the goal is the North American Empire under Donald the First. If you're on the Donald's side, it doesn't matter how you justify the walls at this point, so long as the walls go up.
Isn't this the case where the DOJ's argument is "Neither we nor the Salvadorans can find him"? With a sort of implicit "No one's actually keeping any records"?
One China in theory, two in practice. For example, Taiwan has long had permission to buy almost leading edge US weapons systems that China would never get. Taiwan has purchased both Patriot and HIMARS missile systems. There is active discussion to let them buy Excalibur artillery rounds. Remember when F-35 deliveries were curtailed after it was discovered that some parts supplier had included Chinese magnets? The F-35 incorporates integrated circuits fabbed in Taiwan without any complaints.
Among the things the administration doesn't understand is that every department is different. Different research interests across all of topic, framework, etc, shape things. And that pushes into which classes are taught, reading material, and all that. It's not like Calc I, where they're teaching language as much as anything, consistent across the needs of math majors, physics majors, engineering majors, history majors, and so on.
My perception is that the administration wants there to be a single narrative about Middle Eastern history and current politics. No room for variance. Exactly the opposite of what universities are supposed to be.
It is possible to break things beyond fixing in any stretch of time the Democrats are likely to get. Once the US pulls its military assets from Europe, they're not going back. Once Japan builds its own nukes, they're not going to give them up. He and the Supreme Court are going to drive lots of wedges between the states and the federal government, and between different groups of states. You don't rebuild NOAA or NIST in less than a decade.
What I want is the Broadway version delivered to my home. Fixed camera view of the entire stage delivered to the big screen TV, theater-quality audio. Because I like stage musicals, and because I am unlikely to spend the money to go to NYC, or even to a national touring company closer to me.
Back during 1978-1982 I was in a Bell Labs bowling league. After enough beer, Labs' bowlers picked arguments with the automatic scoring machines' addition. The machines were never wrong at adding. You did have to keep an eye on them because they occasionally got the pin count wrong.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Throughput: Telling Women They’re Womening Wrong, But In Space”
ThTh1: No one seems to make a fuss about the women that SpaceX carries to orbit, on both government missions to the ISS and privately-funded flights. Also regarding Bezos and space flight, the space writers at Ars Technica have been pursuing reports and rumors, and believe the second certification flight of Blue Origin's New Glenn heavy-lift rocket will be delayed until at least October. A successful second flight is necessary for Bezos to qualify for the high-value payloads for NASA and national security.
On “From Marginal Revolution: o3 and AGI, is April 16th AGI day?”
Anyone who can't pass that test shouldn't be let out without a keeper.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Fell For It Again”
When my children were small they would ask if it was the last snow of the season. I always told them no, because that way I was only wrong once. They eventually figured out that I was always going to say no, and quit asking.
On “From Marginal Revolution: o3 and AGI, is April 16th AGI day?”
As for AGI, what does the software do when no one is bothering it with questions or tasks? Does it consider the things it might spend cycles on, and choose from among them? As it does things, does it consider what it might add to, or subtract from, the set of things it might spend cycles on? Does the set include not answering the questions or assigned tasks? If not, it may be a clever tool, but it's not AGI.
On “Open Mic for the Week of 4/14/2025”
It's not an either-or situation. Well, I guess it is if you start from the position, "I want REEs mined and refined in the US to be as cheap as what China produces." It doesn't have to be an either-or situation. We can produce REEs in much cleaner fashion if we want to pay somewhat more.
"
HCl or other solvents are routine in the case of REEs in "normal" ores. In coal ash, they can take a different approach.
"
Living downstream from mines that are still leaching toxic stuff into the surface water more than a century after they were abandoned, I'd be happier to see rapid commercialization of some of the new extraction technologies. Eg, the U of West Virginia has developed a method for extracting from the toxic runoff out of abandoned coal mines a couple of tons of rare earth elements per mine per year. A couple of public research universities, working with the DOE's national labs, have methods for extracting REEs from coal ash ponds.
[sarcasm] But tending an extraction facility that uses somewhat sophisticated chemistry isn't a manly job, like driving big earth movers to shovel whole mountain sides into giant ore crushers, and using a few million gallons per year of concentrated hydrochloric acid that no one knows how to dispose of nicely. [/sarcasm]
"
While Trump buddies up with Elon Musk, it's been Gwynne Shotwell that has built SpaceX into the powerhouse it is. She was employee #7, hired by Musk to find a COO. The story goes that whenever she suggested someone, Musk said, "They're not as good as you are, why don't you just take the job?" Eventually she did. According to folklore, she's one of the very few people on Earth that if she says, "Elon, shut up and listen for a minute," he shuts up and listens.
"
China has suspended exports of rare earths and rare-earth magnets. Not just to the US, to the world.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/business/china-rare-earths-exports.html
On “From Freddie de Boer: Abundance, Up To A Point”
At least for transmission, my own perceptions are that it's more of a regional thing. The Transwest Express is under construction to deliver 3 GW of Wyoming wind power to the big switch yards at the Hoover Dam for sale into all of Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Southern California. Sunzia is under construction to deliver even more wind/solar from New Mexico to Phoenix, and a connector from Phoenix to Southern California is all permitted. Xcel in Colorado is building a large collector loop out on the prairie to make it easy to move wind/solar from out there to the Front Range. BPA is doing a $2B transmission upgrade to allow more renewable power from as far inland as Montana to get to Seattle/Portland.
All of those are Western Interconnect projects, of course, and have nothing to do with delivering power to the 75% of the US population that lives farther east than that.
On “From the NY Times: DOGE Savings “85 percent less than its objective””
Do those numbers put DOD and military spending done by other parts of the government in discretionary or non-discretionary?
On “From Freddie de Boer: Abundance, Up To A Point”
Texas, and to a somewhat lesser extent Florida, build because they can sprawl. Where are the desirable places where California and New York can sprawl?
After the fire burned a big chunk of Altadena early this year, there were numerous pictures showing isolated houses that survived while all the houses around them burned. A point made in the articles was that those were new homes built on tear-down sites; the surrounding homes that burned were all 50+ years old. For the discussion we're having here, the point is that Altadena was fully built out, right up the the steep brush-covered hillsides, 50 years ago. A bit of digging shows that it was built as a suburb at a population density right at 5,000 people per square mile 50 years ago. Dallas, TX has a current density of 3,400 per square mile. The Dallas suburbs are significantly less dense.
"
I think you're letting Texas and Florida overwhelm your opinion. A number of the other states in the South and Southwest have lost US House seats over the last three censuses. They're not building infrastructure in the face of a relatively shrinking population. The (now) Red states in the Midwest are struggling to hang on to population and aren't building infrastructure. Eg, Ohio has barely grown its population by 10% over the last 50 years. Their power grid sucks, but it's not possible to justify investment unless demand is growing. I did a good chunk of my formative years in Nebraska. They've "grown" themselves into the position that three counties now account for all of the net growth in the state's population. Just happens that those three are the most liberal in the state, relatively speaking.
On “The Emergency Ordinary Times Facelift”
I have made myself a terrible person to have opinions about appearance things like gray-on-gray or vertical text spacing or whatever. I have a piece of JavaScript that runs in my browser that I have built (over several years now). With the exception of a couple of my regular sites (eg, my bank), that JavaScript goes through every page I download and does its best to confine the text to my small set of chosen fonts and sizes, vertical and horizontal spacing, appropriate fg/bg contrast, etc. From my perspective, the new theme has moved things around on the page, but the text itself is still formatted in the same basic style. I also make judicious use of ad (and other suspicious content) blocking. Someone was looking over my shoulder some time back while I jumped through a few sites. They remarked on how my view of the web was much simpler and more consistent than what they got on their computer.
"
As I've mentioned before, WordPress has managed to recreate all of the worst aspects of Windows 95 from a developer's perspective. Those of us who are old enough remember installing Windows 95 updates and watching some subset of critical application software break. Install a new version of WordPress and watch assorted themes and/or plugins break. Will does really good work; I read Outside the Beltway regularly, and a few weeks ago they went completely offline for most of a week because a WordPress update broke other things so badly.
"
After a relatively long absence, their pattern has changed somewhat. Working on recognizing it...
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/31/25”
As I've said before, my working assumption is that the goal is the North American Empire under Donald the First. If you're on the Donald's side, it doesn't matter how you justify the walls at this point, so long as the walls go up.
"
Isn't this the case where the DOJ's argument is "Neither we nor the Salvadorans can find him"? With a sort of implicit "No one's actually keeping any records"?
"
One China in theory, two in practice. For example, Taiwan has long had permission to buy almost leading edge US weapons systems that China would never get. Taiwan has purchased both Patriot and HIMARS missile systems. There is active discussion to let them buy Excalibur artillery rounds. Remember when F-35 deliveries were curtailed after it was discovered that some parts supplier had included Chinese magnets? The F-35 incorporates integrated circuits fabbed in Taiwan without any complaints.
On “Martin Niemöller, and Who First They Came For”
Among the things the administration doesn't understand is that every department is different. Different research interests across all of topic, framework, etc, shape things. And that pushes into which classes are taught, reading material, and all that. It's not like Calc I, where they're teaching language as much as anything, consistent across the needs of math majors, physics majors, engineering majors, history majors, and so on.
My perception is that the administration wants there to be a single narrative about Middle Eastern history and current politics. No room for variance. Exactly the opposite of what universities are supposed to be.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Pantherine Vandals”
Watching water fall out of the sky. It has been a dry last four months.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/24/25”
It is possible to break things beyond fixing in any stretch of time the Democrats are likely to get. Once the US pulls its military assets from Europe, they're not going back. Once Japan builds its own nukes, they're not going to give them up. He and the Supreme Court are going to drive lots of wedges between the states and the federal government, and between different groups of states. You don't rebuild NOAA or NIST in less than a decade.
"
Before his minions make the attempt. Plausible deniability, in the sense of "Well, if I had still been there it would have all gone smoothly."
On “Weekend Plans Post: Pantherine Vandals”
What I want is the Broadway version delivered to my home. Fixed camera view of the entire stage delivered to the big screen TV, theater-quality audio. Because I like stage musicals, and because I am unlikely to spend the money to go to NYC, or even to a national touring company closer to me.
On “Bowling — Balling Up the Score”
Back during 1978-1982 I was in a Bell Labs bowling league. After enough beer, Labs' bowlers picked arguments with the automatic scoring machines' addition. The machines were never wrong at adding. You did have to keep an eye on them because they occasionally got the pin count wrong.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.