Solutionist. Astrophysics PhD and scientific software engineer. Dad of 2. Let’s colonise the solar system together. Please visit the link below to read my blog:
Joined April 2009
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Jun 12
Some reading for your SpaceX IPO day!
After feedback from my followers here I updated this infographic. Earth observation I had left out because I simply forgot, it definitely belongs in there as a developed part of the space economy.
Human spaceflight I kind of implicitly assumed as being part of launch, but now its here directly. I put it in the "developing" category because, while we have been putting people into space for over 60 years, orbital human spaceflight remains a rare, risky endeavour which you have to do a significant amount of training for. We are a way off being able to step on a rocket like you step on an aeroplane.
What do you think? Any more changes needed?
Read the full article: planetocracy.org/p/a-guide-f…
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The workers shall control the means of production!
Jun 12
bro immigrated from Mexico and took a $28/hr contract welding job in 2015.
didn't even know what SpaceX was.
they gave him $10,000 in stock and let him buy more through payroll deductions.
that stake is now worth $880,000.
and he's one of 4,400 employees who became millionaires on Friday. welders. technicians. cafeteria staff.
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Its a bad sign when your armies new wunderwaffe is a device specifically engineered for retreating.
1943年のイタリア戦線において、ドイツ軍は退却する際に連合軍の追撃を遅らせるため、鉄道やライフラインを徹底的に破壊する「焦土作戦」（Shorn Earth policy）を展開した。「シエネンヴォルフ」（Schienenwolf、直訳：鉄道の狼）は、第二次世界大戦中にドイツ軍が退却の際に使用した、鉄道の枕木とレールを専門に破壊する巨大な兵器（工作車）です。連合軍が鉄道網を利用して物資を前線に運ぶのを完全に阻止するために投入された。→
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The account of how he was frozen out of critical decisions is a worrying indication of how the country is run. Ministers aren't in charge of their portfolios, they are being handed decisions that presumably come from "the blob" as fair accompli.
“I haven’t been included in the defence investment plan from the start. I only got read into it two weeks ago.”
Al Carns shares what “ruffled [his] feathers” enough to prompt him to resign as armed forces minister and says that in the event of a leadership race, “if someone fires a starting gun, I’m not scared of gunfire.”
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The Anthropic rugpull is a bit of a mini-Sputnik moment for European leaders. They have had a few of these recently, discovering the hard way just how far behind the continent has fallen in the past 20 years or so.
Its not going to get better.
There will be another shock from the space side as well. This year, China will likely crack first stage reuse, get into the business of serious megaconstellations. At the same time, Starship - which to European leaders is nothing more than an explosion every couple of months - will get to orbit and start ramping up cadence. Everyone who understands the sector knows whats coming, but politicians here will be convinced its all smoke and mirrors until they wake up one day seeing both the US and China with a decades long lead over them in another critical sector.
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The “regulatory superpower” nonsense was premised on Europe being such a large market that multinationals would consent to being regulated globally in order to gain access to it. The conceit I think was that everybody would be forced to go at Europes relaxed pace, and that Brussels could take a central role managing the End of History for the benefit of all.
That’s in tatters now. History didn’t end, Europes importance as a market is diminishing, and decades of complacency have left us without the infrastructure to compete.
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Our “toughest challenges” as Europeans are the various sectors we have to compete with the US and China in whilst servicing unsustainable welfare models. Could really use help with that!
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Anatoly out here making sure he gets his share of the loot through rage bait
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At least some voices in the Labour Party are taking our long term situation seriously:
Jun 12
Britain spent a decade choosing to be smaller in the world.
Right now the rules on communications, energy and trade are being rewritten. By China. By Russia. By countries that take their own security seriously. We need to be at that table. That's a choice we must make.
Strong countries get cheap energy. Weak countries pay whatever the strong ones decide.
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Complaining about lacking access to models with obvious “it’s not X, it’s Y” LLM slop
Disabling Fable 5 and other models for foreigners is not a misunderstanding or a mistake, it’s the inevitable result of technology shaping warfare so that sovereignty is more about code than cannons.
With high energy costs and the emphasis on safety not opportunity Britain’s response has been to build the brake cutting ourselves off from the future and tied ourselves to the past.
We cannot continue like this and remain sovereign.
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The US taking our data and refusing us access to the end product? Not like them…
models built from your data for me, not for thee
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TIL Canada is supposed to be a growth stock
Jun 12
SpaceX is being valued based on speculative future expectations.
Whereas Canada “value” is simply measuring annual economic output.
If Canada were valued in a similar way to SpaceX then it would be worth about $325 Trillion.
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Jun 13
No much right now, to be honest…
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Jun 13
Well… it starting
Jun 13
The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees.
The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance.
Access to all other Claude models is not affected.
We apologize for this disruption to our customers. We believe this is a misunderstanding and are working to restore access as soon as possible.
Read our full statement: anthropic.com/news/fable-myt…
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Jun 12
The thing that doesn’t happen, happened again. Keen to hear from the Sensible Adults how it’s actually the fault of social media.
Jun 12
🚨 NEW: A man has been arrested after allegedly stabbing a teenage girl in the back of the neck in Burnley
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Jun 12
A couple of years ago, I started a campaign to try and get the UK government to encourage @SpaceX to launch Starship from our territory. This was during the Tory government which wasn’t so overly hostile.
It didn’t go well.
The idea was to expand the existing spaceport program to be able to handle larger vehicles. The problem was, people just heard “spaceport” and thought “we already have one of those”. I also am, to be honest, not much of a campaigner which is the main reason it didn’t get traction.
However, one thing that surprised me was the vicious, sneering attacks from both the left and the right. I was told I was a “moron” for suggesting it because rockets can only be launched near the equator. That’s nonsense of course, but it’s been repeated at me multiple times now. One journalist claims to have found some anonymous source in industry who denounced the idea, which is taken as it being “widely ridiculed” when, in fact, I suspect most people hadn’t heard about it due to the aforementioned lack of campaigning skills.
The UK, as it stands, is going to be left horrifically behind in space because the chattering classes considered it an inherently ridiculous exercise, and harsh mockery (rather than physics, engineering or economics) determines the psychological boundaries of what we consider possible in the UK.
This is a big problem, and it doesn’t just extend to space
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Jun 12
I had to write an article outlining the physics of why my critics were, bluntly, idiots; but it’s unlikely to reach a wide enough audience to dispel the myths planetocracy.org/p/the-equat…
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Jun 12
Typical standing desk user:
Jun 12
هندي يُدعى "دولت جیری جی مهاراج" قرر ترك الدراسة الجامعية والتحول إلى التديّن ونذر نفسه لأمر واحد فقط وهو الوقوف إلى الأبد.
السبب؟
هذه العملية الدينية ستوصله في النهاية لرؤية الإله الهندوسي (ماهاديف) حسب اعتقاده.
بعض التقارير تقول بأنه منذ 12 عام وهو على هذا الوضع، لم يجلس أو ينم على الأرض بل ينام واقفًا مستخدمًا دعامة.
في المقطع أحد المتطوعين يقوم بتنظيف ساقيه بوضع مراهم موضعية ومطهرات للمساعدة في تخفيف التورم والعناية بالحالة الصحية الناتجة عن سنوات الوقوف الطويلة.
يُذكر أن الهندي "دولت جیری جی مهاراج" لم يرى الإله المذكور حتى اليوم.
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Jun 12
Which of these is forbidden by physics?
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Jun 12
The Outer Space Treaty would like a word. Also, the Chinese government…
Jun 12
Ok serious proposal: The US govt should sell Mars to Elon in exchange for $40T, thus wiping out the debt. Elon can raise the money by selling off pieces of the red planet as fiefdoms for tech bros & Saudi billionaires.
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