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180717988
comment
bylarryjoe
2026 @08:08PM
(#65963350)
Attached to: Electric Flying Cars Now for Sale by California Company Pivotal
$200k is less than the cost of many Ferraris and Lamborghinis. Ferraris and Lamborghinis are not practical cars, as no one in their right mind would park such a car. So, these cars are purely for joyriding. Same thing for this short-trip plane, purely for joyriding. It's not a huge market, but it's a reasonable one.
180711326
comment
bylarryjoe
2026 @06:52PM
(#65961746)
Attached to: Urban Expansion in the Age of Liberalism
It's not an accident that low density, single family homes are mostly owned by rich white people.
No, they are owned by rich people. Why are you trying to make it about race?
This is an attempt at misdirection because the rich people are overwhelmingly white and the rich people in these types of homes are even more overwhelmingly white.
180711292
comment
bylarryjoe
2026 @06:43PM
(#65961736)
Attached to: Electric Flying Cars Now for Sale by California Company Pivotal
Not really a car. And 30 minutes on a charge is really limited.
According to the company's website, the plane has a 8 kWh battery and can get about 4 miles/kWh. That would be around 32 miles, but the website also says "Range, with 20% Reserve - 20 miles." Maybe that accounts for the extra power needed during takeoff and landing. The total empty weight of the plane is 254 lbs, so likely more than half the weight is for the battery.
The range is indeed very limited, so this is currently only a limited recreational toy. I wonder if the range could be improved with a gas engine, or at least a gas engine that generates electricity.
180694124
comment
bylarryjoe
2026 @06:12PM
(#65957754)
Attached to: Why Private Equity Is Suddenly Awash With Zombie Firms
Private equity always had tons of zombie firms. The spread of performance on private equity was always huge. The top performers can multiply the money by 3x, 4x, or even more. But, most of them show a loss.
If you're willing to take that level of risk, the overall performance of private equity is actually better than the stock market, but you're playing Russian Roulette with 4 of the chambers loaded.
What does performance mean? Well, it depends on who you are. The PE firm and the owners of the company always win. They never lose money regardless of what happens to the company. The employees in the short term always lose because they will either be let go or operating expenses will be "optimized" in a way that doesn't favor employees. The customers generally lose because the products and prices will be "optimized" where optimization refers to company finances and not product quality or prices. In the rare case where the PE firm actually improves and grows the company, the employees and customers might also win, but those are the employees and customers in the long term.
180687880
comment
bylarryjoe
2026 @12:01PM
(#65956902)
Attached to: Seven of the World's Ten Best-Selling Smartphones in 2025 Were iPhones
Apple dominates the top-10 list, and yet the top-10 list only accounts for 19% of all sales. What that shows is that there are a lot of different companies selling phones.
To show that Apple "controls the premium end of the mobile market," better statistics would be gross margin or percentage of global profit.
180681334
comment
bylarryjoe
8, 2026 @07:43PM
(#65955606)
Attached to: Google Says AI Agent Can Now Browse on Users' Behalf
Will Google indemnify and make whole if the AI agent either makes a mistake or does something that is not desired? Having AI gather information is one thing even if the information is not entirely accurate, but agentic actions that involve money or commitments is something else. Or will Google have some mechanism that allows that user to verify the actions before they're done?
180680730
comment
bylarryjoe
8, 2026 @05:12PM
(#65955314)
Attached to: Cancer Might Protect Against Alzheimer's
"cancer and Alzheimer's disease are rarely found in the same person"
"cancer diagnosis was associated with an 11% decreased incidence of Alzheimer's disease"
If cancer and Alzheimer's are rarely coincident, then why is there merely an 11% decrease in Alzheimer's given that cancer exists? I would expect the decrease to be close to 100% unless "rarely" is actually a fuzzy term that is far from 0%.
180680696
comment
bylarryjoe
8, 2026 @05:09PM
(#65955308)
Attached to: Cancer Might Protect Against Alzheimer's
>An MRNA-based vax will never make it anywhere. That term is so tained from COVID no one will touch the trials.
In the United States. With the federal government rapidly disassembling science-based medicine, that's hardly the largest and most immediate concern.
Other countries do medical research, too, and their citizens will have lower Alzheimer's rates should this research pan out.
Yes, the current Trump administration has canceled many science-based programs, people, and ideas. The really big question is how permanent the Trump influence will be after 2028. My take is that most Republicans currently in office are carpetbaggers rather than ideological extremists. They see the opportunity to advance their own careers by riding on Trump's coattails. Those coattails likely disappear after 2028, unless another Trump 2.0 person arises and tries to repeat the Trump strategies.
180680636
comment
bylarryjoe
8, 2026 @05:00PM
(#65955296)
Attached to: Urban Expansion in the Age of Liberalism
Another factor in restrictive zoning is discrimination against other races and lower social economic classes. It's not an accident that low density, single family homes are mostly owned by rich white people. In these neighborhoods, apartments are negatively correlated with school test scores, which significantly affect home values.
Yet an other factor in the US is the huge disparity in the quality of neighborhood schools. This desire toward "better" schools creates an artificial scarcity even in the face of a huge abundance of land.
180666650
comment
bylarryjoe
2026 @03:10PM
(#65952980)
Attached to: OpenAI's Science Chief Says LLMs Aren't Ready For Novel Discoveries and That's Fine
There's a difference between a technology being used as a tool for innovation and that technology producing a packaged tool or report with a finished innovation. As an example, digging up and testing different microbes in randomly collected soil is a valid technique for finding new antibiotics and microbes with useful characteristics. In no way does this technique point to a specific innovation, but its use leads to specific innovations. Likewise, LLMs can lead to new innovations with having to produce a neatly finished, packaged answer to queries.
180663316
comment
bylarryjoe
2026 @12:33AM
(#65951604)
Attached to: Television Turns 100
It's hard for us to think about the spinning mechanical disk TV because it's so different. A light shines on a spinning disk that has holes in a spiral pattern such that the light rasterizes across an object. The light bounces off the object and is detected by a sensor which then transmits the state of the sensor to the viewing device. The viewing device has the same type of spinning disk in front of a light that turns on or off based on the transmitted signal.
There are several problems with this technology. Only one person can view the image, and that person must be exactly lined up. Eventually Baird created a projector system. The rasterization is limited by the rotational speed of the spinning disk, so the images are not that clear, and the resolution was limited. A bright light to illuminate the object was needed, and that projected a lot of heat into the object, enough to make it uncomfortable for a human. The spinning disk also required a big, loud motor.
180663234
comment
bylarryjoe
2026 @12:11AM
(#65951592)
Attached to: New California Law Means Big Changes For Photos of Homes in Real Estate Listings
The whole point of the fake photos is to get foot traffic. Potential buyers who never walk in the door won't even consider buying the home, so the fake photo moves the buyer to at least consider buying the home.
This is especially important in the areas of California where supply is extremely constrained.
Fake photos are a form of bait and switch, and unfortunately bait and switch does lead to more sales.
180655924
comment
bylarryjoe
2026 @07:14PM
(#65948804)
Attached to: Cheap Green Tech Allows Faster Path To Electrification For the Developing World
The big difference between China and India is the ability of their governments to implement economic policy and large-scale projects. The Chinese have a dictatorship/autocracy which can implement policy forcefully and immediately without political challenges. And the Chinese have a money-printing machine with their export-driven economy. Meanwhile, although Modi and his party may dominate the national government, the Indian government system is unable to develop large-scale projects like power grids and large-scale solar, wind, or hydro generation, at least not on a scale even close to what the Chinese have done. The challenges at the government level include corruption and the lack of true dictatorial powers for Modi. India also faces a lack of funding, both at the national level and at the consumer level, and that funding problem will likely not improve due to the governmental problem. These two challenges are not going to change in our lifetimes.
180655884
comment
bylarryjoe
2026 @07:03PM
(#65948788)
Attached to: The Risks of AI in Schools Outweigh the Benefits, Report Says
Another way of looking at AI is that some students will use AI chatbots as a tutor to stimulate their own thinking and learning. Smart students use all the resources they have to obtain new ideas, generate questions, and then augment their personal understanding. These resources could be teachers, textbooks, classmates, etc. Now AI chatbots can be added to the set of resources.
Then there are students that will copy and paste (or slightly modify) AI output for assignments and projects, bypassing personal learning in order to make their lives easier and potentially raise their grades. However, this type of behavior is a reflection of personal characteristics. These students existed in the pre-AI age, and they similarly faked or plodded their way through school without mastering concepts. Pre-AI resources included Cliff Notes, smarter buddies, cheating strategies, etc. The availability of AI doesn't dumb down these students because their internal personality determines their ability to learning independently of AI.
Perhaps one could argue that the temptation of AI making life easier changes the former into the latter. But I would argue that the personality of the former largely avoids that trap.
180651974
comment
bylarryjoe
2026 @09:24PM
(#65947392)
Attached to: Work-From-Office Mandate? Expect Top Talent Turnover, Culture Rot
Since forever and way before the pandemic, truly top talent has been able to work from home or wherever they want. But that's only for truly top talent where the guy would be hired even if there's no position. Most people who think they're top talent actually aren't because the company can find other people who are equally competent.
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