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Comment Launch video (Score 1) 117

I started watching the "launch video"...

The first 12 seconds is just the Commodore brand flying into view
0:12 to 0:24 is introducing the Callback name, without actually telling you what it is.
0:24 to 0:36 are some computer-rendered fly-throughs of a vaguely computer-y object: PCBs, chips, LEDs
0:36 to 0:46 is a smash of vaguely retro video clips
0:46 to 0:57 are headlines and audio about how awful smartphones and social media are for everyone

At 0:58 you finally get a view of the product! But still computer renderings.

1:10 to 1:20 are spent showing you all the awesome colors it comes in. Silver! White! Beige! Transparent!
1:20 to 1:26 finally tells you, via voiceover what's the big deal: apps but not social media 1:26 to the end (1:32) encourages you to buy.

I'm not sold.

The opening of every Star Wars movie, from "long ago" to the fade of John Williams' score, is about the same length. And in that time it provided way more information and drew you into the movie to follow. And that was just text on a screen you had to read for yourself! Maybe Commodore should have just done that. I guess there is a long history in advertising to put out weird videos for a product without actually, ya know, showing you the product (much). See, for instance, the campaign for the EV1, or even the Macintosh "1984" commercial. Still, I think those could be categorized as teasers - which this Commodore video most certainly is. You want a launch video? Go back to Jobs in 2007. Or the best launch video of all time.

Comment Or, hear me out... (Score 1) 27

Or, the noodly appendage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster came down and did a giant turntable scratch on the planet.

It is a hypothesis that explains the present evidence about as well as their proposed hypothesis. Sure, they can run a numerical simulation and say "hey, this could have messed with Venus' rotation". I also can calculate angular momenta. But is there anything testable to come out of this? Is there any evidence we could spot today that favors the impact hypothesis over some other one?

Submission + - Trump's "Made in the USA" Phone is just a reskinned HTC U24 Pro 1

necro81 writes: The heavily promoted, $499 T1 "Trump Phone" was originally said to be "Made in the USA" and ship in September 2025. Later, that was downgraded to "Assembled in the USA". Given the Trump Organization's lack of engineering or supply chain expertise, many assumed the "T1" would just be a private-label phone made by someone else. After a number of delays, the first phones are finally shipping.

iFixit has performed a teardown and concluded that the T1 is a just gold-painted 2024 HTC U24 Pro — a device from a Taiwanese company, probably using mainland China design and supply chains. In collaboration with NBC News, the iFixit team examined both phones using CT scans, side-by-side teardowns, and even reassembled a working T1 using a U24 Pro main board. As for "assembled in the USA", that may be true, in the same sense that your phone's repairman can "assemble" a phone from a handful of subassemblies sourced from someone else. Or it may have been assembled in Guangdong, China like the other U24 Pros.

iFixit sums it up: "What you have is not an 'American-Proud Design', but a phone designed in China, made in China, with the vast majority of parts sourced from China. I’m failing to find any stirring of American pride within me. I’ve certainly felt it before, so I can confirm that it is absent at this time."

Comment Re:Pictures of pictures (Score 1) 79

Yep. All those pesky CRT sets out there.

I recognize that it's on-brand for an AC to also be daft, but have you been living under a rock as well? What makes you think that any other monitor technology out there would be immune? Try this: pull out your smartphone and point its camera at the screen you're reading this on now. Notice the fringe-y rainbow patterns?

Comment Weird slant in the article (Score 1) 17

The article seems to focus a lot on the "oooh, Prada made this! What does this mean for luxury brands?" rather than, I dunno, flying to the fucking moon!

I guess it's kinda interesting that Prada was the company to fabricate the garment. On the other hand, they do know a lot about manipulating materials onto the human form, so I guess that fits. The author also missed the opportunity to point out that the Apollo lunar suits were fabricated by International Latex Company - the makers of the Playtex bra.

Comment Incomplete (Score 2) 6

I do mechanical design around COTS components as part of my job. What Google has provided is incomplete documentation. If someone were to ask me to design a custom band or something to accept this, I'd tell them that, because of the complex 3D shapes at play, the 2D drawings they've provided don't have enough information. I may be able to get close, and with enough iteration get to something that works. But it'd be a whole lot faster if they provided a representational 3D CAD file (STEP, STL, IGES, parasolid, whatever).

Comment Re:D.o.g.e. (Score 2) 180

Wouldn't it be more efficient to leave the monitors in the ocean and do nothing. Why waste money/effort collecting them.

There is an adage: "don't ask a question you don't actually want to know the answer to." Dismantling this monitor system is a way to make sure the question cannot even be asked.

The Trump administration, and the Republican party generally, has a deep antipathy towards science - climate science especially. Most of them go on and on about climate change being a hoax, but for most of them that's probably performative. Deep down or away from cameras, they know better, and are either in denial or prefer to ignore it as long as possible, because doing so is in their own venial best interest (money, position of power, etc.). Another adage: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

Comment Re:Beholden to shareholders? (Score 1) 36

Doesn't this place the business at the mercy of the shareholder's whims?

Don't this just make them chase never-ending profit to the detriment of all?

As to the first: it depends a lot on how the stock issuance is written. If it's anything like the SpaceX structure, or Facebook's IPO, the voting shares will be jealously guarded; most stockholders will be junior status, non-voting.

As to the second: is that any different than thing now? Do you think Anthropic hasn't already been chasing never-ending profit to the detriment of all? They may talk and dress Claude up a bit nicer than Altman or Musk, but the rapacious desire is still all over it.

Comment Re:that is a lot of land if my calcs are correct (Score 1) 103

So that's a block 140.71247279 miles on a side (someone recheck my math)

Rather than piling on with the math, I'll point out a widely-stated metric about solar: the entire US could be powered by a solar farm in Nevada roughly 100x100 miles. This rough calculation is widely attributed to Elon Musk, but it's been floating around for at least two decades (it was even mentioned in an episode of The West Wing in 2004) - ever since monocrystalline silicon PV panels got above 20% efficiency.

It's not strictly true: the US would need more area than that today, and it's better to distribute that as many smaller sites, but it's not far off.

Comment Re:They have to keep sending them up (Score 1) 129

The only benefit is 24/7 solar power

And a total lack of zoning, or jurisdictional restrictions of any sort (save Isaac Newton). No one whinging about noise, water consumption, land use, or any of that. No state/local/federal politicians to pay off. No public meetings where you have to at least pretend to care about local citizens' concerns...

but that benefit is more than offset by the cost of launching everything into orbit

I've got no retort for that. But the potential upsides listed above are compelling enough that you better believe the AIntelligensia will keep trying to make it happen.

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