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sgustard

3,048 karma · joined May 9, 2013

On the internet, no one knows you're a god.
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sgustard··on The next chapter of the Microsoft–OpenAI partnership
SAE automation levels are the industry standard, not FSD (which is a brand name), and FSD is clearly Level 2 (driver is always responsible and must be engaged, at least in consumer teslas, I don't know about robotaxis). The question is if "AGI" is as well defined as "Level 5" as an independent standard.
sgustard··on California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
CAISO's own documents quote battery capacity in MW. So I don't think you can just blame journalists.

"Battery storage capacity grew from about 500 MW in 2020 to 13,000 MW in December 2024"

https://www.caiso.com/documents/2024-special-report-on-batte...

As another commenter notes, utilities are interested in "capacity on call" i.e. instant power generation.

sgustard··on California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
Well the faster you get off the grid, the cheaper it'll be for the rest of us. All PGE's problems are caused by running powerlines for you through fire-prone kindling wilderness.
sgustard··on California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
Quebec has them both beat. Hydro rules!

https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/CA-QC/5y/yearly

(To be transparent, there's controversy around calling hydroelectric renewable.)

sgustard··on South Africa's one million invisible children without birth certificates
On the other hand, people born in Guam, Puerto Rico, NMI or AVI are US citizens.

https://ballotpedia.org/Citizenship_status_in_territories_of...

sgustard··on Solution to CIA’s Kryptos sculpture is found in Smithsonian vault
Can we even determine if what they found is the key, or just the plaintext? The article mentions they recognized bits of plaintext (Berlin clock) in the archives.
sgustard··on America Is Sliding Toward Illiteracy
The performance of kids in school reflects adult behaviors.

Number of books Americans read per year is "a smaller number than Gallup has measured in any prior survey dating back to 1990"

per https://news.gallup.com/poll/388541/americans-reading-fewer-...

sgustard··on Don't Be a Sucker (1943) [video]
How about "Federal judge rules ICE arrests at Liberty restaurant unlawful"? Does this meet your standard?

https://fox4kc.com/news/federal-judge-rules-ice-arrests-at-l...

sgustard··on Software update bricks some Jeep 4xe hybrids over the weekend
I'm willing to see a difference in software standards between (say) Waymo and Jeep. One is a software company, the other is a sheet-metal company. If you just tar the whole industry you lose an ability to learn from those doing it better.
sgustard··on John Searle has died
But she also claims he "was innocent and falsely accused": https://www.colinmcginn.net/john-searle/
sgustard··on Cloudflare Email Service: private beta
Cloudflare's customers are companies that have to send out, say, reset password emails and verify account emails and other crumbs of the modern web. You want me to build my own infrastructure for that? Personally I can't wait for them to expand to SMS and crush Twilio.
sgustard··on Why our website looks like an operating system
No FPS or CPU issues on my M3, it's all very smooth.

Same slow spreadsheet load as sibling, but that seems like a backend issue.

sgustard··on Apple Watch Ultra 3
Also some existing watches will support BP features:

As of September 9, 2025, hypertension notifications are currently under FDA review and expected to be cleared this month, with availability on Apple Watch Series 9 and later and Apple Watch Ultra 2 and later.

sgustard··on iPhone Air
Good to know! The fine print:

As of September 9, 2025, hypertension notifications are currently under FDA review and expected to be cleared this month, with availability on Apple Watch Series 9 and later and Apple Watch Ultra 2 and later. The feature is not intended for use by people under 22 years old, those who have been previously diagnosed with hypertension, or pregnant persons.

sgustard··on Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed
He's the most famous rich person on the planet, he was in an Iron Man movie, the president picked him to destroy the government, the list goes on. Of course he gets press coverage. Tesla doesn't even have a PR department.
sgustard··on Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android
I save two keystrokes typing "main" these days so I'm happy. Also, words change from time to time, life goes on.
sgustard··on The A.I.-Profits Drought and the Lessons of History
https://archive.ph/CKtWs
sgustard··on Long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution linked to increased risk of dementia
The increase is almost entirely due to aging population.

"The Lancet study indicates that although the total number of dementia cases is expected to increase substantially, the percentage of the global population affected, once age-adjusted, remains nearly constant, with just a 0.1% change globally between 2019 and 2050"

sgustard··on Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says
Do you honestly think a negligent driver who blows through a stop sign at 62 mph would have acted differently in a car marketed to have "SuperCruise" rather than "Autopilot"? I have no strong belief either way, and I shed no tears for Tesla, but I do worry about any chilling effect on technologies that will make driving safer than the bloodbath we currently suffer on the roads every day.
sgustard··on LIGO detects most massive black hole merger to date
estimated distance of 2.2 Gpc per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GW231123
sgustard··on Don’t use “click here” as link text (2001)
The early web was full of these links. Over time more actions became buttons with direct labels. This replaced clearly bad link patterns like:

- To cancel this purchase [click here].

- To complete this purchase [click here].

sgustard··on Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment
I assign only the most nefarious motives to those clowns, but at least her govt profile is intact:

https://www.lbl.gov/people/excellence/nobelists/jennifer-dou...

The fact that this treatment "built on decades of federally funded research" is the scary part, given that such funding may disappear.

sgustard··on Car companies are in a billion-dollar software war
Tesla added a feature via a software update a year ago that lets you change fan speed by holding the left steering wheel button.
sgustard··on From: Steve Jobs. "Great idea, thank you."
You could also have bought $1,000 worth of stock at the time and it would be worth one million today (since 1995 with reinvested dividends, source ChatGPT). Up to you whether the 32 years spent in the office makes the money more worthwhile to you.
sgustard··on I'd rather read the prompt
Why do some countries cheat in the Olympics? Because it is no longer a contest of human achievement, it's just about the medals as a symbol of national glory. Of course: once all countries are doping, the medals will become meaningless. College degrees will suffer the same fate if everyone cheats to get them.
sgustard··on I'd rather read the prompt
"Most financial experts attribute he sudden increases that started in the 1970s with an influx of federal funding designed to make college more affordable."

https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college-by-year

sgustard··on We fell out of love with Next.js and back in love with Ruby on Rails
> How would google maps work in a Web 1.0 world?

We had that in the form of MapQuest, and it was agonizingly slow. Click to load the next tile, wait for the page to reload, and repeat. Modern SPAs are a revelation.

sgustard··on When flat rate movers won't answer your calls
Human movers have phones, they could be making some extra bucks doing this now?
sgustard··on Waymo and Toyota outline partnership to advance autonomous driving deployment
Look, everyone on the planet agrees that calling it FSD was over-promising. You are not adding anything to the conversation by pointing that out, or by confusing technology with "magic". The fact remains that software developed by a competent team can actually improve over time, despite the insanity of corporate leadership, and that's what is happening here.
sgustard··on I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype
I guess OP hated it when Bill Gates said "personal computers have become the most empowering tool we've ever created."

Or Vint Cerf, "The Internet is the most powerful tool we have for creating a more open and connected world."

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