Posts by Charlie Clark

Re: Welcome to DARPA-Land where budgets never get cut…

Ahem, have you looked at the comparative budgets? And, of course, NASA is famous for having its budget cut and having its priorities set by the politicians.

Meanwhile, at DARPA, there's pretty much nothing you can't get funding for. The internet was strictly while it was just plain old ARPA, and things like the rest of the government still mattered. Now it's pretty much weapons, baby, yeah! But sharks with frickin' lasers are cool, right?

Re: Is this their final 'footgun' moment?

That's not necessarily possible for everyone. However, it is advisable for everyone to install Windows 11 with the network disabled so that no account with Microsoft, from which they assume they have all kinds of rights, is required. I personally found this guide extremely helpful. That, and Shutup Windows!, make the OS almost bearable again.

Re: Bugger ye off!!

Because of the very many problems with the Mac app store (or should that be App Store) the better apps for MacOS largely went back to having their own distribution systems. A little more work for them but far less hassle when things go wrong with the store, which they frequently do.

Re: Dominate

We already have limits on the number of charge points that can be put on a street. Peak demand is what you have to plan for and that means lots of vehicles wanting to be charged at the same time. Meanwhile, generation is shifting away from baseload so "off-peak" is less relevant: California imports MWs as soon as the sun goes down.

Re: Dominate

You're missing one: electricity grids will have to expand both generation and distribution to meet significant new peak demand.

You need to know who was buying and how much.

If numbers are above some expectations, an option to buy might be exercised. It could also be some gullible fanboys wanting to help their hero by buying some shares; even if they only buy one the valuation of the whole company will reflected in that transaction. Or someone who had been shorting the stock hit their numbers and got out.

Two different economists got Nobel Prizes for pointing out how erratic and asymmetric markets are, with information unevenly and unequally distributed; but that they eventually get things right.

Re: Not all a bed of roses

I think several accident blackspots led to the mixed design with lights introduced essentially to enforce speed restrictions. IIRC there is data around the number of vehicles using the junctions at peak times suggesting whether you can get away with no traffic management, a roundabout, one with lights, multiple systems of lights. I grew up watching major changes to the junction of Princess Parkway and Barlow Moor Road and the end of the Mancunian Way in Manchester. Accident rates increased with traffic volumes so changes were necessary. But I think the data also shows that mini roundabouts (the ones you can drive over) are worse than having nothing.

Like the Kölner Ring…

I think speed control is an essential corollary as is making sure the damn satnav understands the system. Everybody hates speed restrictions but in any situation where lane-changing is required, they demonstably improve throughput and reduce the risk of accidents: 5 mins at 30 km/h or 2 mins at 80 km/h followed by an hour at 5 km/h!

I don't understand the fools that thought Tesla was worth more than the 10 biggest automakers combined.

I'm not sure if anyone really did, just like they didn't believe AOL was really worth more than Time Warner. But that's not how capital markets really work. Tesla initially had an advantage by being first mover in a new market and with fairly impressive numbers. But the real reason for the high valuation was the financial engineering Musk employed to juice returns: the company never made much money on the cars but it did on the CO2 certificates they were eligible. With the higher valuation, Musk was then able to get better funding terms, which allowed him to do more deals such as Solar City. Huge balance sheet but very low debt and nearly positive cashflow, what's not to like when Treasuries have zero or negative yields? Small investors pile in buying small quantities of shares, driving the valuation even higher. I've lost count of how often we've seen Silicon Valley and the banks dupe retail investors like that. Suddenly, it seems everyone has a got a turkey.

Then inflation appears, as if by magic, along with competition and Musk offers Tesla shares as collateral in the Twitter deal. But, hey, everything he touches turns to gold, right? The competition appears and governments start winding down ruinous subsidies, and the valuation starts going backwards.

Even then, if I was getting into a price war, I wouldn't go with 4 or 5 % discounts. But, hey I'm not a dope-smoking sociopath! And shareholders will probably still award him the stock options.

Re: I predict.......

Yes, except that Schleswih-Holstein is one of the smallest states. It has a good reputation for data protection but it's also the location of online gambling in Germany…

Re: I predict.......

The file format problem was solved a while ago and, to their credit, Microsoft have largely kept to their word and even publish the specifications for the extensions, though these are generally black box implementations, at least as far as the GUI goes. Macros are being increasingly phased out but support for them in other applications has been available for years. There only really VBA blobs so disassembling was never too onerous. Some people might like the "collaborative" aspects of working on the same document together but I suspect most people don't know about and there are other alternatives.

But people love Outlook and I haven't seen an open source client that does all the calendar and mailbox sharing people say they need. I'd love to be proved wrong. Maybe OX (formerly Open Exchange, handily developed in Germany is up to snuff).

Re: Really?

Since when did the users matter?

My old machine was an HP and this was in the era before they changed the business model.

Messrs Gillette and Wilkinson-Sword would beg to differ. They got about a century out of the model until the Dollar Shaving Company came along… And then there's the electric toothbrush nonsense. Nope, loss-leading subscription models are likely to be with us forever.

Can you give the model. Having recently fought yet again with MacOS to get my Samsung M2070 MFP to work via a Digitus print server, I'm preparing for the inevitable and looking for a compact replacement. I had been thinking of the HP 204 SDW but the brother would be an alternative. Print volume is minimal but I do have to scan stuff quite a lot.

Inkjets are a great technology and, as you show, the costs can be reasonable. However, I ditched my last one 20 years ago because I was using it so infrequently, the heads dried up and had to be cleaned every time I used it. That used up ink quite a bit faster than it should.

Re: HP claimed it went "to great lengths"…

This kind of contract is illegal in most countries outside the US. Even in the US there's case law against this kind of restrictive practice. However, as usual, it will take a big enough class action suit to make them change their practices. They should just hope they're caught colluding with other manufacturers to try and make the subscription-model, the only model.

Re: NDAs

There's no doubt about whether hush money was paid. The case is about the potential misuse of campaign funds for this. As for intimidation: Trump has for years used legal threats to intimidate and silence people, including Stormy Daniels. Reap what you sow, as it says.

Re: Is there a better advertisement

In a criminal case, the evidence would have to be turned over. But, because US tort law is so generous, many cases are civil, NDAs and other gag orders apply and no one gets a subpoena. Lots of examples like this on Wall St cases precisely because out of court settlements cannot be treated as admissions of guilt.

Now if, for example, this was about a self-flying plane then the FAA would have demanded and got all the necessary data and I doubt that anything would be kept secret. They might also have demanded the grounding of all vehicles or at least disabling the software while investigations were carried out. The same would also be the case in many other countries where a criminal case would take precedence but also severely limit potential civil suits. But I'm not seeking to make any point other than that regulatory environments vary: the US traditionally prefers "light touch" after the fact regulation.

Re: NDAs

If the case did go to court and Tesla lost, Musk will still not be on the line, except if other shareholders decided to go after him. This is one of the reasons why the SEC came down on his unverifiable claims: he could be materially affecting shareholders.

But please keep your conspiracy theories to yourself. Facts: Trump was convicted of sexual assault and then of defamation. He has the right to appeal.

When it comes the fraud case, I'd refer you to the excellent analysis of financial crimes in Terry Pratchett's Going Postal: lots of victims even if you can't point to them. Again, he has the right to appeal.

Re: Tesla and Musk's reputations are foundering?

You forgot to mention the incentives Tesla is offering to stop that market share dropping even faster.

BYD isn't exactly playing fair, but it's arguable that Tesla wasn't either as long as it could use its stellar market value to get preferential terms. When it comes to technology, the Chinese companies overtook most of the others a couple of years ago.

Re: Is there a better advertisement

Yes, but the NDA prevents any disclosures from the case being used in other civil suits. That makes finding a "smoking gun" quite a bit harder.

In the meantime BYD will continue to eat Tesla's lunch and drive its value down further.

Re: Is there a better advertisement

Whilst I think the original poster may be overinterpreting the judgement, you're not short of a little exaggeration yourself. Whatever Musk says, most of Tesla's employees are not engineers. Those that are unlikely to find it getting another employer and Musk might well be planning to "let them go" anyway. But, given how much protection US law provides for companies, that particular apocalypse is unlikely.

The settlement is to avoid any admission of liability and thus the possibility of class action suits, which regardless of their merits, could drag down the largest of companies.

Re: NDAs

Heh? Are you trying to turn this into a partisan issue? Musk would only personally be on the line in a case that demonstrated personal negligence by the board. That would almost certainly have to be something like fraud or embezzlement.

But, let's play the game: which particular victimless crime are you referring to? The one that saw Trump convicted of sexual assault? Definitely a victim there with compensation to show for it.

Re: NDAs

And it should be added that the judge will have been involved in discussions and see any rejection of a deal in a poor light.