Engineer, formerly of the automotive sector, now battling entrepreneurship designing dreams, realities for clients and self. Economics and philosophy for sport
No longer in Melbourne, VIC
Joined April 2013
- Tweets37K
- Following636
- Followers769
- Likes28K
It seems the Grok tap has been turned down to a trickle these days. Are tokens getting too expensive...?
Gone down a Fiat/Alfa/Stellantis MultiAir rabbit hole - does anyone wish to opine why such interesting and promising technology singularly fails to deliver any meaningful fuel consumption benefit?
Andrew Rabbitt retweeted
Interesting commercial that just ran during the 49ers/Falcons game.
“Liberals are the new racists”
Dan Gelbart spittin' them useful facts for everyone again. The dude is an international treasure!
youtube.com/watch?v=v5d8nwgi…
Any engineer out there that can't watch this and get really excited about the future should definitely check their pulse.
Also, it's occurs to me that unboxed assembly will lend itself to CKD operations around the world. If you win in manufacture with unboxing, you can also win in transport for similar reasons.
youtube.com/watch?v=UIrK8oSt…
Andrew Rabbitt retweeted
Correct.
Using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes to kill people has never been allowed, nor should it be.
Starshield, a different system, is controlled by the US government. What they decide to do is up to them.
Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week.
Starlink remains critical to the defense of Ukraine, as it is the only system that cannot be jammed or blown up, at least for now. Were Starlink to be turned off, the Ukrainian front line would collapse immediately. This is NOT a threat, it is simply a statement of fact.
Starlink was also crucial to preventing Russia from overrunning Ukraine in the early days of the war, as all other means of communication were destroyed or jammed by Russia.
SpaceX has done more to defend Ukraine than any private company on Earth BY FAR.
That said, I have nothing but UTTER CONTEMPT for the virtue-signaling evil warmongers who push for endless slaughter and offer no realistic solution to the conflict. May you burn in hell.
End of story.
I didn't expect this to be such a gripping yarn but both episodes are worth a watch and listen.
youtube.com/watch?v=vV80ygz4…
The @Bunnings sausage makes the top three!
Who says there isn't any monocultural ideals in Australia...?
Andrew Rabbitt retweeted
So it turns out that Ukraine's issues with Starlink were caused by Ukraine.
Starlink terminals disconnected at speeds above 160 KPH, as determined by the Starlink terminals internal GPS.
To get around this, Ukraine hacked the Starlink terminals to think they were stationary regardless of speed.
SpaceX figured this out, and updated the system software to detect excessive speed by seeing how rapidly the terminal switched from on satellite to another. This broke Ukraine's hack, and Starlink would no longer work at high speeds.
Ukraine was using Starlink in a way that violated the terms of service.
Starlink figured it out and stopped it.
The only reason people study economics is because they want to meddle and control.
John Cowperthwaite did more for human prosperity than any development economist drawing a government salary ever managed, and he did it by refusing to do almost anything at all.
As Hong Kong's Financial Secretary from 1961 to 1971, Cowperthwaite ran one of the most radically free economies the modern world has ever seen. He kept taxes flat and low (the top income tax rate sat at 15%), ran consistent budget surpluses, abolished import tariffs, and blocked nearly every subsidy request that crossed his desk. When British civil servants demanded economic statistics to justify intervention, he refused to collect them. Not out of laziness. He genuinely believed that giving planners numbers gave them excuses.
The results? In 1960, Hong Kong's per capita income stood at roughly 28% of Britain's. By 1997, Hong Kong had surpassed Britain. That trajectory happened without natural resources, without foreign aid, and without a single five-year plan drafted by well-intentioned economists from Oxford. Hong Kong had a harbor, people willing to work, and a bureaucrat with enough intellectual discipline to keep the state out of their way.
Capital flows toward secure property rights and reliable rules, and flees the moment politicians start allocating it. Every industry Beijing picked as a "priority sector" during those same decades burned through subsidies and produced junk. Hong Kong's industries emerged organically, serving real demand, building real wealth.
You benefit from this history whether you know it or not, because Hong Kong's success gave the world a controlled experiment that still embarrasses every advocate of managed development. The control group thrived. The planned economies didn't.
Cowperthwaite retired to St Andrews, received a knighthood, and gave almost no interviews. That restraint was entirely in character.
Just in case you forgot how far they've fallen, this is still on @BBCPolitics Youtube channel after eleven years...
youtu.be/TefIxw438FI?si=-ueC…
