kenhwang

I HOPE people aren’t spending money on AI writing emails. That’s definitely not worth it.

The engineers use the coding AI for everything they don't like to do that distracts them from doing what they like to do. So that's certainly a lot of writing emails, status updates, meeting notes, journaling, Slack messages, and prettifying slide presentations and so so so many docs.

So if you're aghast that hundreds of dollars of AI tokens per engineer per month is being spent on writing emails, you should be even more offended that the more expensive human engineer time used to be wasted on those tasks.

The new Tundra TTV6 had a manufacturing process defect that allowed shavings to get into the engine bearings, which causes catastrophic engine failure.

They still don't have a solution to the problem. The shavings amount/size is supposedly common among all engine manufacturing processes, but the new engine design has such tight tolerances that it's now problematic.

I'm the same way, I hate using Google search for searching because it's basically useless, and their other ecosystem offerings generally get enshittified over time so it's not worth paying for or relying on.

But if they're letting me using AI for free without logging in and I just need a dumb AI slop answer, then I'm more than happy to burn their tokens instead of my own. Any serious work goes to a different LLM provider. The switching cost for moving to a different LLM provider in the future is practically zero.

I was thinking multiple long skinny tubes with etchings that make them more likely to split lengthwise. Maybe with a spring loaded/powered agitator so when the tube breaks there's some mechanical flinging/mixing of the inner chemical.

But I'm not a chemical processes engineer, so I don't know how much mixing is needed. But the existing emergency plan was to inject the the chemical through a single valve, so it seems like the dispersion and mixing requirements in this case seems to be low.

I was thinking maybe have those chemicals sitting in a glass or temperature sensitive container inside the tank. So when there's too much pressure or heat, the container containing the neutralizing chemical is broken like a fuse and the chemical is automatically released.

I always wondered why people don't also ask the AI to generate code comments/documentation, summaries of those documentation, overview of the system, and re-review them all for correctness for the changes they asked the AI to do.

What I've noticed reviewing all my colleagues' AI generated code PRs is: it really is just code, and the rare comment here and there is still added by the human.

We're already trying to light tokens on fire as fast as possible to stay on acceptable required use leaderboards, why not light some more for system understanding and housekeeping.

From what I've seen of the paper, it seems like the catalyst is needed for a full energy release reaction. Regular batteries also have rapid energy release with unintended contamination of a chemical (water), and we still generally have no problems during regular usage.

The reaction triggered by heat doesn't release all the stored energy, which would be the bigger concern for unintended runaway reactions.

From the article:

When exposed to a trigger -- such as a small amount of heat or a catalyst -- the molecule snaps back into its original form, releasing the stored energy as heat.

From the paper abstract, the catalyst is HCl. I don't have access to the full paper, so I don't know how they separate the HCl from the MOST to neutralize it to be rechargeable again.

Just make the punishment the seizure and full release of the game assets (all source code, version control history, tooling, and release of copyright/trademarks).

It's always going to be a wild goose chase trying to take money when there isn't any (actually or by design), just take the product and let the public update it as a last resort.

Costco is for bulk staples and commodities for me. Products that I really don't need the best of the best for, good enough is good enough and as long as I can use it all before it goes bad, I'd rather not waste more thought than needed for it. Milk, eggs, flour, flowers, microfiber towels, batteries, salt and pepper.

Then for all the niche stuff that I do truly care about, there's the specialty stores or really the farmer's market. That's where I'll indulge for the first press seasonal olive oils, all sorts of pluot/apriplums/plumpicots combinations, short shelf life wild berries, blueberry/orange/mint blossum honey and whatnot.

Kernel level anti-cheat also doesn't introduce a giant performance penalty like Denuvo-style DRM. People just want to play their games without it still stuttering on top of the line hardware.

I think GPU waterblocks are becoming fully enclosed because there are so many hot components on the back of the GPU now. They were designed to rely on random case air turbulence to passively cool, but there typically isn't much airflow over the back of the card when the stock cooler is replaced with a waterblock.

Problem becomes worse when the cards are driven harder because there's more cooling capacity from the watercooling in the front, but the passive cooling capacity on the back is still the same.

I used to stick a giant fin block on the back of the card to keep temps there reasonable. I'd love it if actively cooled backplates become the norm for watercooling.

One of the first things mentioned on that page is:

To protect our intellectual property, certain features – such as fan impeller geometries – have been slightly modified while remaining visually very close to the actual product.

So you do have to 3d scan them yourself if you're trying to print a copy.

If we're going by anecdotes, my last Noctuas showing signs of failure (I had 6 of them, one was ~200rpm slower than it should be, one took a several seconds longer to start spinning from a stop) about a year after the end of warranty was partially why I retired them. Same with the set of Noctuas before them (apparently my first set was from 2010). I suppose they all technically still spun so they were still usable, just not to original performance; still, hard to be too upset about the product making it through the long warranty period without issue.

But my Arctics that was installed in the same case that ran for the same amount of time are still chugging along strong, and those are about as cheap as fans get. Different load/use case though so it's probably not a fair comparison.

These days, I really think the competition has caught up or passed Noctua.

It's funny because I replaced my NF-A14 and NF-F12 because they had hums at certain rpms when used on radiators, and neither the Arctics before them, nor the BeQuiets that replaced them, had that issue.

2x more than other premium offerings that often perform noticeably better, which I'd say are usually from BeQuiet, LianLi, and Phanteks.

But yes, sometimes up to 5x more than the comparative Arctic in common size categories where it basically trades blows for most metrics that matter. Arctic is seriously unbeatable in value:performance if you just need a basic fan without other QoL or aesthetic features.

120mm is the most competitive category, and it's the most obvious category how Noctua can't keep up with the faster iterating/innovating competition.

I used to really like Noctua fans, for a while they were obviously the best fans by a significant margin.

But for all their tight tolerances and exotic materials and a high price to match, they generally don't outperform BeQuiet's more regular materials but use-focused fans that are half the price. Nor are they significantly better than Arctic's general purpose fans at a quarter the price.

It'd make more sense to just buy the fan optimized for the specific common purpose (airflow or radiator) than pay double for the Noctua for a more generalized fan, but is not the best at either common use case.

Seems like these days their target audience is those who believe their marketing materials about them being the best, instead of believing the benchmark performance data.

I wouldn't be surprised if the AI usage model moves towards a bidder/auction model. Set how much you'd willing to pay for your AI request, and they evaluate requests starting from the highest to lowest bids.

Also a lot of recent features are AI related and rely on talking to Adobe servers, which would require a valid subscription. They're probably betting the AI features are valuable enough that local only pirated copies aren't a threat long term.

Keycaps were the expansion that came after the era of group buys and keyboard/headphones/audio/EDC curated niches. I'd say because the preceding eras weren't sustainable.

If you think about it, keycaps makes sense strategically. They're cheap and small enough for hoarding, with a wide range of easy customization, with all sorts of trends that could be capitalized on for seasonal/repeat customers, they also last basically forever and are light so it's dirt cheap to ship. All for probably 90%+ profit margin.

Why grind away at heavy, expensive, complex, fragile, or specialized hardware for thin margins when you can ship colorful plastic at high markup? Sell the disposable personalized accessories to the hardware: keycaps, cases, dongles, cables, straps!

Well, customers like you wise up and cut out the middleman and buy straight from the source. If there's a profit to be made for those things, almost anyone can make those things for niche sized demand.

Seems like Corsair is taking it one step further, why even have a quality/niche hardware base? Just do trendy accessories or modifications to commodity hardware.

Drop ran into the problem every other high quality retailer/manufacturer did before it, when you sell good enough stuff, you don't get repeat business fast enough because the original is still working, and eventually fail due to lack of new buyers to sustain the business.

I'm still using my Drop CTRL keyboard from 2018. I haven't bought another keyboard since then because it's a good keyboard.

Going through my order history, everything I've bought from their early days are still in use or usable. Keycaps. Mics. Pocket knives. A leather belt. Titanium reusable straws. A couple of headphones and DAC/amps. Ultralight camping/hiking gear.

There hasn't been any reason I needed more of those things I already had, so unless Drop continuously expanded its customer base or product offerings, there wasn't a strong case for repeat business. Then the quality and uniqueness of their offerings dropped and I had even less reason to buy from them.

I don't know what the solution is for survival for retailers and manufacturers offering long lasting products, but I really hope someone figures it out because I really don't like how the world is racing towards disposable low quality junk. But disposable products leads to repeat business.

Memory training seems to be getting faster with each bios update. In 2024 when I upgraded to AM5, 64GB memory training took like 15 minutes. Now the same setup takes about a minute when it needs to retrain, then near instant with MCR (Windows 11 takes significantly longer to load than the POST process).

I wonder what the average career tenure of the userbase here is now, because Github was slow and flaky well before Microsoft got involved.

Maybe it wasn't as noticeable when Github had less features, but our CI runners and other automation using the API a decade ago always had weekly issues caused by Github being down/degraded.

Probably by the Sea Viper system from a destroyer parked in the Dover Strait. Now, the UK probably doesn't have enough interceptors or destroyers carrying them to be confident they'll be able to stop a proper all out attack, but that seems to be a common problem with every Western country right now with a peacetime military budget in an increasingly unpeaceful time.

The problem is alfalfa is a high value crop and a water efficient crop relative to value.

So as water/weather gets more unpredictable and beef/dairy rises in price, alfalfa becomes even more attractive to grow.

I want a PHEV Cayenne. If budget wasn't a concern, that'd actually be my first choice for replacing my ICE SUV. The convenience and flexibility of a PHEV far outweighs any cost savings from fuel economy improvements for me. A Porsche was never about financial sensibility anyway.

On the other hand, if I'm in the market for a Porsche or BMW commuter, the cost of fuel is basically negligible and a PHEV for performance or convenience or comfort would influence my decision far more than a relatively insignificant amount of fuel savings.

The problem is alfalfa is expensive to transport (heavy due to desired moisture content). So while it can be cheaply grown in the Midwest, it can't be cheaply transported from the Midwest to where buyers of alfalfa are (typically overseas).

Alfalfa is also a staple for crop rotation, so any farming operation will still grow some alfalfa to maintain rotation for good soil health (or during bad condition seasons since it's hardier to poor conditions and not a permanent crop).

If alfalfa cannot be exported (through policy or economic conditions), the low price attracts more livestock production in-state (which would be even worse for water use).

Those things makes it a hard crop to target for sustainability and export.

Yep, Owens valley is basically an environmental disaster created by LA. So in the grand scheme of things, buying water from NorCal is better than stealing from the Owens valley through antiquated water rights.

But really, California (and really the entire Western US) needs a water rights governance overhaul. Right now the focus is all on urban water use, which is practically negligible compared to the agricultural water rights usage.

SoCal does, yes; about half the water going through the SWP from NorCal, or ~75% if you include Bakersfield/Kern as part of SoCal (though most would consider it Central Valley).

But SoCal isn't only LA. LA itself gets a bit less than half of their water from MWP, which manages the water from the SWP and the Colorado. About the same amount it gets from the the eastern Sierras. These are supposed to drop to ~10% of LA's water supply as recapture/recycling projects complete.

Or computed the other way around, LA only has rights to ~20% of the water managed by MWD. Of course water supply, distribution, and rights are all blended and traded around all the time, but generally speaking it's not "LA" using up that water from NorCal, the consumption is significantly more from the cities and farms that came after.