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vonzepp's comments

vonzepp | 10 months ago | on: Even Tesla's Insurance Arm Is Getting Wrecked

When you write off a car, you don't get the value of a new car, you get the value of the car at the point of time it was written off. So if you write a 3 year old car, you get the value of a 3 year old second hand car. Uncertainty on the price I guess increase financial risk.

vonzepp | 10 months ago | on: Elon Musk is wrong about GDP

NASA is a government agency and as a government agency it is used as a vehicle to implement the general purpose of the government.

To put a different example of the point. If the cheapest way to launch items into space was for NASA to buy rockets off Russia, would that be what it would do? No, because government policy includes independent launch capacity.

NASA isn't a private company, it is a tool of government and as such it can have have a wider role in society then a compariable private company will have.

vonzepp | 10 months ago | on: Elon Musk is wrong about GDP

Another note worth considering is that state and companies have different roles. Take NASA vs SpaceX. SpaceX launches cheaper rockets. But NASA for example does alot of its work in Alabama, which is supporting a poor regions econonmy and its communities. It might be more optimal to do this in Silicon Valley, or even China but as a government organisation this is part of it's remit. Like wise space science for the purpose of knowledge. SpaceX only remit is cheap rockets. Comparing the two on launch costs which I see alot, misses alot of the purpose of the spending.

vonzepp | 10 months ago | on: Elon Musk is wrong about GDP

Comparing private schools and state schools is far from easy without going really deep into the subject. Superfically comparing grades without taking into account the self-selecting nature of private education vs state schooling. The school bodies are very different and thus the burden on resources.

vonzepp | 11 months ago | on: US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU

If India buys a widget off Brazil it will probably be paid in dollars. Therefore, people need to own dollars. Thus a demand for US debt. This lowers the potential interest rate. Other countries who's currency is not a need for people to buy, their debt is purchased by the attractiveness of its offering (i.e interest rate). If US dollar is no longer required than government bonds have to be attractive. Also, not all sovereign debt is issued in the home countries currency, which means that the printing press doesn't help. US debt is very large, interest repayment are close to military spending. Without the reserve currency that would get worse. Something like 68% of world holding is dollar 17% Euro, nothing else of note.

The other side is that as there is a demand for dollars. The value of the currency is higher than if it wasn't which increases the price of exports and reduce price of imports. Trump might want to weaken the dollar.

vonzepp | 1 year ago | on: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

If there is a finite amount of software to be written in the world, and an increase in productivity of developers than that amount of software is done with less people. Also, if AI allows an non-software person say an marketing person, write a python script to query a few databases. Than the 10 person business data science team might not need a body as they no longer have to deal with the 10% lower level stuff.

vonzepp | 1 year ago | on: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

I'm Irish and the later is more correct. There isn't going to be a major political crisis over this. Irish corporate taxation is to the Irish electorate what the flag is to Americans. It's quasi religious.

The government isn't really blaming lack of money on the housing crisis more they are claiming it takes time.

vonzepp | 1 year ago | on: Ireland's datacentres overtake electricity use of all urban homes combined

I find this debate a bit odd. Climate change is a global issue. So moving these emissions out of Ireland so Ireland can reach it's targets doesn't help if those emissions mearly happen elsewhere in the world. In reality, there is two options either these data centers are simply not built, which isn't going to happen. Or rich countries such as Ireland, take it on to themselves to see taken on datacenters as a burden they must carry, coupled with increased renewables. With Ireland's wind on the west coast potential, this is something we must Especially with a temperant climate

Moving the datacenters away from East coast Dublin to West coast. Galway in an ideal world would be also useful.

vonzepp | 1 year ago | on: Femtosecond lasers create 3D midair plasma displays you can touch (2015)

This is quite hard to do safely. Generating air breakdown with IR femto requires a reasonable amount of fluence. They are probably using galvo scanners to shift the beam in xy, but to get the required intensity they have to also shift the focal plane. Given the distances they are projecting away from the car that NA is low meaning they would need a reasonable power. Probably why they are running it at 1kHz. Given its 2015 it is probably a ti-sapphire at 80fs, galvos and an optotune lens. The reason this isn't a thing is that it very hard to make this eye safe.

vonzepp | 1 year ago | on: A tiny ultrabright laser that can melt steel

Proper laser goggles come with ratings. Dependent on the laser wavelength, beamsize, energy/power and pulse duration. Most goggle suppliers will tell you what you need if you supply the laser specs.

vonzepp | 2 years ago | on: Old vs. new growth trees and the wood products they make

Even pension funds can't think on that length of time. Really only institutions like university can. Lots of Oxford colleges are known to look at these time scales. It has been around for As someone said Harvard will probably be around longer than the united States.

vonzepp | 2 years ago | on: Grade inflation at UC Riverside, and institutional pressures for easier grading

During COVID in UK alot of grades were given by teacher assessment not by an exam. There was grade inflation. For one reason I didn't see was, people mess up exams, run out of time, spend too much time on an answer, misread a question, panic, don't turn over a page, feel ill on the day. Predictied grades don't predict non knowledge based exam performance. I wonder have there been studies covering how many grades are lost due to such failings.
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