We were thinking of getting the ID.Buzz, but the lack of physical buttons was a big turn-off(our newest car is a 2015). Looks like they aren't even doing a 2026 Buzz, so hopefully we see a 2027 model with physical buttons again.
On a much smaller scale I've been hoping for a small solar powered CO2 compressor to exist so I could use it for mosquito traps. The state of the art for those right now is burning propane for the CO2 combined with a scent emitter for the human smell to attract female mosquitos.
Yeah I guess I'm not the target audience for this because I assumed that "the power problem" was "massive increase in electricity costs for people despite virtually unchanged usage on their part", not "AI companies have to wait too long to be able to start using even more power than they already are":
> Nicole Pastore, who has lived in her large stone home near Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University campus for 18 years, said her utility bills over the past year jumped by 50%. “You look at that and think, ‘Oh my god,’” she said. She has now become the kind of mom who walks around her home turning off lights and unplugging her daughter’s cellphone chargers.
> And because Pastore is a judge who rules on rental disputes in Baltimore City District Court, she regularly sees poor people struggling with their own power bills. “It’s utilities versus rent,” she said. “They want to stay in their home, but they also want to keep their lights on.”
I understand the instinct but if people seriously think that they are solving any problem by unplugging cell phone chargers, they are simply bad at math. Human time is easily worth more than that, even when working at minimum wage.
That said, it obviously sucks that utility prices are rising for people who can not effortlessly cover that (not to speak of the local pollution, if that's an issue). Maybe some special tax to offset that cost to society towards hyper scalers would be a reasonable way to soften the blow, but I have not done the math.
They are not necessarily bad at math, but they probably aren't electricians or EEs or have ever needed or been asked to calculate how much power a cell phone charger uses.
Mom/Dad used to unplug things and turn lights off, so they do too.
I think it's also just how people start acting in situations where they can't control anything that would make a difference. In the presence of an issue you can't solve, if you can do something, even if it's small and won't really help, sometimes it feels good to at least do that. Being able to address the anxiety even a little a bit still might be worthwhile.
And the air quality around these plants is poor, leading to health problems for the neighbors.
This short term, destructive, thinking should be criminalized.
I think it's time to discuss changing the incentives around ai deployment, specifically paying into a ubi fund whenever human jobs are replaced by ai. Musk himself raised the idea.
> specifically paying into a ubi fund whenever human jobs are replaced by ai
Without agreeing or disagreeing with this idea, I’m left wondering how you’d write such a law.
If company A fires Bob and says “Bob’s job is now done with AI”, that’s a clear case.
What if Bob was on a team of 8 and they just go without backfilling Bob? Maybe AI was the cause; maybe it was the better coffee they got for the office; maybe the workload just shrank a bit; maybe they’re worried about the economic outlook for next year…
Or company A fires Bob and his whole team and outsources to company B. Maybe company B is more efficient at that business process. Maybe they were more efficient before using AI. Maybe they don’t even use AI at all. Maybe they were more efficient before AI but are even more efficient now. In which cases were “jobs replaced by AI”?
Maybe I start a company C and do that business process with 4 people and AI that would take other companies 8-25 people. A brand new company D starts and uses my company C instead of hiring a team to do it or contracting with company B. Were any “human jobs replaced by AI”? Whose job(s)?
> specifically paying into a ubi fund whenever human jobs are replaced by ai.
Then existing firms will just go bankrupt, and new firms which never had human employees will use AI, and you’ll have the same job losses but no direct replacement and no payment into the UBI fund. Instead, just tax capital gains and retained corporate profits more than currently (taxing the former the same as normal income, with provision for both advance recognition and deferment of windfalls so that irregular capital income doesn't get unfairly taxed compared to recurring income), and fund UBI with a share of that is initially basically the difference between status quo taxes and the new rates. That realigns the incentives, such that an increased share of the economy being capture by capital (a natural consequence of goods and services being produced in a more capital intensive, less labor intensive way) drives more money into the UBI fund, without needing a specific job-level replacement count to drive the funding.
It can't be "criminalized" if govt and justice system is effectively actively bribed by the AI cartel because AI-related GDP "growth" is only veneer hiding the economical fuckups of the government
In the case of Grok's turbines, no emissions controls means sick people. Plus all the CO2 pushing climate collapse faster which hurts every coming generation.
Gas plants are not bad… but imagine 400 MW of gas plants in a concentrated area. You’ll always have NOx and SOx by products whenever you’re burning gas.
Gas is certainly less of a problem than coal, but they still produce plenty of bad stuff: nitrogen oxides and bad VOCs like formaldehyde that are well studied to increase risk of asthma and some types of cancer. I certainly wouldn’t want to live close to one.
The only way to solve problems like this IMO is to price in the externalities. Tax fossil fuels for the damage they do, in order to reveal their true cost. Then they will never look like the most affordable option, because they're not.
True. The same is true for nuclear energy. I never heard of a nuclear power plant that did not receive substantial subsidies throughout lifetime. Not to forget the nuclear fuel and the efforts required to create it and later to store it.
The natural gas turbines used are relatively efficient as far as engines go. Having them on-site makes transmission losses basically negligible.
Nothing short of full solar connected to batteries produced without any difficult to mine elements will make some people happy, but as far as pollution and fuel consumption data centers aren’t really a global concern at the same level as things like transportation.
> as far as pollution and fuel consumption data centers aren’t really a global concern at the same level as things like transportation.
Same level doesn't remove the concern for this unnecessary pollution. Stop changing the subject from the environmental problems that AI usage can have by their increased power consumption.
Natural gas engines are efficient!
Ok! But what about the pollution they produce to nearby neighborhoods? What about the health repercussions? Do human lives not matter?
I'm honestly curious whether you yourself are even aware of the disingenuousness of this argument. It's fairly impressive in its density!
1. Nobody complained about the efficiency of natural gas turbines. You can efficiently do a lot of useless stuff with deep negative externalities, and the fact it's efficient is not all that helpful.
2. Saying "the extreme far end would not be satisfied even by much better solutions" is not an excuse not to pursue better solutions!
3. There are many dimensions of this that people care about beyond the "global concern" level regarding "pollution and fuel consumption."
4. There are many problems that are significant and worth thinking about even if they are not the largest singular problems that could be included by some arbitrarily defined criteria
> I'm honestly curious whether you yourself are even aware of the disingenuousness of this argument.
Unnecessarily condescending and smug, but I’ll try to respond.
That said, you’re putting forth your own disingenuous assumptions and misconceptions. The natural gas turbines are an intermediate solution to get up and running due to the extremely long and arduous process of getting connected to the grid.
Arguing pedantry about the word efficiency isn’t helpful either. The data centers are being built, sorry to anyone who gets triggered by that. The gas turbines are an efficient way to power them while waiting for grid interconnect and longterm renewables to come online.
Disingenuous is acting like this is a permanent solution to the exclusion of others. The whole point is that it gets them started now with portable generation that is efficient.
> The data centers are being built, sorry to anyone who gets triggered by that.
Unnecessarily smug?
Beyond that they can be stopped. They're being met with a lot of resistance in the Midwest as they're attempting to be built without much understanding of the public utilities impact. People are catching on to the fact that energy and water consumption is pushing up costs for residents. A lot of assumptions are supporting this argument.
> The gas turbines are an efficient way to power them while waiting for grid interconnect and longterm renewables to come online.
I like the gymnastics of wordplay here. Efficient only when you look at them through the lens of some ephemeral timeframe that may or may not exist.
The gas turbines are hopefully an intermediate solution due to the long and not guaranteed process of grid connection and renewable buildout. History is of course full of such bets that did not work out the way their proponents hoped.
> The data centers are being built, sorry to anyone who gets triggered by that.
It's obvious that you're starting from your conclusion and working backwards, which is probably how your initial comment was full of so much motivated reasoning to begin with.
In your mind, is there any set of negative externalities that would justify not building the data centers, or at least not building them now, or at least not building them now in specific areas that require these types of interim solutions?
This is exactly right. These are glorified emergency generators, and grid power is ordinarily far cheaper; especially for interruptible loads like training new models (checkpointing work in progress and resuming it later is cheap and easy). The article mentions that quite clearly.
And imagine all this poorly located, overpriced, haphazardly thrown together and polluting infrastructure will basically get flushed down the toilet once either the AI bubble pops, or they figure out a new way of doing AI that doesn't require terawatts of power.
One problem is that the more you have happen without it being caused by/linked to player interaction, the more you need to have be possible to happen. Then you're either wrestling with a small chaotic world that doesn't make much sense, or you need to scale it up so much that there's no way the player will actually get to experience most of it. If you have 10 villages in your game world, then how many off-screen events can you realistically fit in while the player is away and have it still be interesting for the player when they come back?
Flock "invented" CCTV in the USA that doesn't requiring going to multiple locations and asking for their tapes in order to track someone across locations.
>Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.
These things don't just happen overnight. It's not crying wolf when you see the wolf on the horizon running towards you.
>These things don't just happen overnight. It's not crying wolf when you see the wolf on the horizon running towards you.
So were vaccine mandates and passports "fascism" as well, even though they melted away after the pandemic ended, contrary to some who thought it was going to be part of some new world order?
>Group A: "Mandatory masks in crowds during an airborne pandemic is fascism! Watch out!"
>You: "Group A was foolish, therefore Group B is foolish, because all warnings against fascism are equally un-grounded and meritless for some reason."
So it's only "fascism" if it's not for a Good Reason? Who decides whether something is a good reason? Is it us, because we're obviously the Good Guys? Doesn't this seem suspiciously close to a defense of Flock that others have referenced[1]? ie. "Doesn't vaccine passports seem pretty dystopian? You're thinking of [other group] authoritarianism. Our authoritarianism helps granny from getting sick and stops the spread of covid". This kind of attitude is exactly the reason why people tuned "fascism" out. It just became a tool for partisan in-group signaling.
> Good Guys [...] Our authoritarianism helps granny
That's quite a *whooooosh* of missing-the-point. Perhaps because you've confused me with another poster, and you're smushing a bunch of unfinished tu-quoque accusations together?
I'll simplify it further, you're acting like these are equivalent:
1. Yelling "Wolf! Danger!" ... because you were in downtown Chicago and saw a fur hoodie.
2. Yelling "Wolf! Danger!" ... because you were in rural Albania and saw a paw-print and a dead deer.
It's foolish to consider them the same just because the same two words were uttered. The accuracy or reasonableness of one does not reflect on the other.
> Who decides whether something is a good reason?
Well, in this case I decide that seeing a fur hoodie downtown is a bad reason to warn of an imminent wolf attack, and that seeing a paw-print in the European hinterlands is... a much-less-bad reason.
If I (or you) are somehow not permitted to make that decision about 1-vs-2, please explain why.
>That's quite a whooooosh of missing-the-point. I'll simplify it even further. You're acting like these are equivalent: [...]
No, you're missing the point. You're just doubling down on "our claims of fascism is so obviously correct, whereas their claims of fascism is so obliviously meritless and hyperbolic!". Yes. The person yelling "fascism!" obviously belies it's so obviously correct, otherwise he wouldn't be yelling it.
>Well, seeing a fur hoodie downtown is a bad reason, and seeing a pawprint in the forest is a less-bad reason. I can comfortably declare it so and the vast majority of people will agree.
"vast majority"? If only things were so obvious. Otherwise Trump wouldn't have gotten elected in both 2016 and 2024, despite exasperated cries of "fascism!" for 8+ years.
This Whataboutism[0] is quite silly, because the vaccine mandates "melted away" due to the checks and balances of the government operating to make them go away. Meanwhile we're seeing checks and balances themselves melting away.
Not every counterexample you don't like is "Whataboutism".
>because the vaccine mandates "melted away" due to the checks and balances of the government operating to make them go away.
No, it would be "checks and balances" if there was actually some conflict between the branches of government. If like in most jurisdictions, the restrictions were imposed by the executive, and then lifted by the executive, it's just the executive changing its mind. The Trump administration starting a trade war against china, and then backing down isn't "checks and balance", for instance. The supreme court telling the executive to stop, would be "checks and balance".
That is how it's supposed to work. Civic engagement and average level of education make this unlikely though. Representatives as disconnected from their constituency as those in the US are a serious threat to democracy, and there's no silver bullet fix, just a lot of obvious reforms that are really hard to pass. (Campaign finance, ranked choice voting, education funding, punishing politicians who break the law...)
Then again, some governing actually does need to get done. That’s not much time to do anything that requires patient coordination and thorough consideration—especially anything of any complexity—even when people broadly agree that it needs to happen.
It’s also not much time to implement or reflect on anything: in the 2-3 month term, the new highway means construction noise and road closures, even if a year from now everyone might be glad to have a speedier commute.
It seems like, when the elected representatives are disposable like that, the power to mold policy devolves to the permanent political classes instead: lobbyists, policy shops, people whose paycheck comes from purses other than the public one…
You can absolutely frame enshrining privacy and punishing those who would spy on you in a populist way. The messaging writes itself. The problem is that anti-power populism is considered extremely dangerous and tamped down on far more strongly than the most virulent bigots and fascists.
Populism is how you win votes, but only one form of populism is allowed. For now, at least.
Fascism requires an authoritarian state. If you don't want the horrors of the 20th century, be it fascists with a world war, or socialism with even more deaths despite being in peacetime, you don't want authoritarianism to take hold, and you want to move power out of the state.
People get all of their information about what's going on in the world from people who are pushing these laws. People who contradict this information are suppressed or actually prosecuted by people who are pushing these laws. That is what these laws are intended to support. There are too many people talking to too many other people.
You need to stop blaming the victims. Europe is banning entire classes of political speech and political parties. It's always been a right they reserved - Europe has never had guarantees of freedom of speech or association, but it used to even have to debate and defend suppressing Nazi speech and parties. Now, they don't: the average middle-class European now finds it a patriotic point of pride to explain how they don't allow the wrong speech in Europe, unlike stupid America. Absolute cows.
If telling people that it's their own fault makes you feel better, you're part of the problem too. Perpetrators love when you blame victims. These garbage institutions of Europe are run by the same elites who have always run Europe, except secularly cleansed of any religious or moral obligation to the public. In America we understand that we would have secular nobles without noblesse oblige, and created a bill of rights. Europe wasn't expecting it and instead "declared" a list of suggestions.
The only thing that keeps me optimistic is how weak the EU actually is, and the tendency of the citizenry of European countries to periodically purge all of their elites simultaneously.
I do have a fear that Gladio permanently lowered Europe's IQ and level of courage, though. Being smart and brave was deadly after WWII.
Two times this week I biked past a parked car and it emitted a horrible high pitched buzzing at me. I'm guessing it's supposed to be an anti-theft mechanism(entirely unnecessary in a Midwest suburb). I of course had no intention of stealing the car, but the noise triggers a desire to do other things to the car. I guess the owner is lucky I'm not an angsty teenager.
There's so much unnecessary noise pollution in our society, it makes me really sad.
I've noticed that car alarms that go off for no good reason seem to be back. Those used to be a thing, but they'd mostly disappeared. But I keep hearing them in parking lots, with nobody anywhere near the car. At least they shut off after a while. That was legislated back in the 1980s.
I was in my garage with my keys in my back pocket, checking the tire pressure on my truck, when it started honking at me. My butt triggered the panic button.
I have acute hearing. That was painful and hardly deliberate!
>>I've noticed that car alarms that go off for no good reason seem to be back.
So in the 2000s, this was fairly common in India. Then one day a installation mechanic told me the sensor had various calibration settings. You could get the trigger to be as sensitive as you wanted.
At times a rodent or a crow could trigger the alarm.
Not sure if it's the same thing but many stores will put noise emitting machines in their parking lots to make it hostile for people who wanna sleep in their cars there
Once you first notice it you'll realize these machines are kinda everywhere
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