Essentially no processors follow a standard. There are some that have become a de facto standard and had both backwards compatibility and clones produced like x86. But it is certainly not an open standard, and many lawsuits have been filed to limit the ability of other companies to produce compatible replacement chips.

RISC-V is an attempt to make an open instruction set that any manufacturer can make a compatible chip for, and any software developer can code for.

While braking suddenly is something that can happen on the roads, it’s still a potentially dangerous maneuver. It’s often better than the alternative (crashing into something/someone), but there’s still risk involved.

If these vehicles are doing panic stops frequently and unnecessarily, that’s a major problem. It’s a common type of insurance fraud, for starters.

I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the computer has a faster initial braking response whereas it takes time for peoples’ feet to fully depress the brake pedal. A shorter time from the brake lights coming on to the brakes being at full service pressure.

Blackadder: Would that be the plan to continue with total slaughter until everyone’s dead except for Field Marshall Haig, Lady Haig and their tortoise, Alan?

Yeah, I have no idea either, but it’s been around for more than a decade so it should be fairly easy to find a library that duplicates it.

I would be wary of AI-based solutions. There’s a risk of it picking up e.g. satirical/spoof sponsorships as actual ads, and perhaps not detecting unusual ads.

I’m slightly terrified of the day someone starts getting AI to reword and read out individual ads for each stream.

Indeed, the US has a major lack of fixed-line competition and lack of regulation. Starlink doesn’t really help with that, at least in urban areas.

I’m not familiar with the wireless situation. You’re saying that there are significant coverage discrepancies to the point where many if not most consumers are choosing a carrier based on coverage, not pricing/plans? There’s always areas with unequal coverage but I didn’t think they were that common.

Here in NZ, the state funding for very rural 4G broadband (Rural Broadband Initiative 2 / RBI-2) went to the Rural Connectivity Group, setting up sites used and owned equally by all three providers, to reduce costs where capacity isn’t the constraint.

You definitely would have legal issues redistributing the ad-free version.

Sponsor block works partly because it simply automates something the user is already allowed to do - it’s legally very safe. No modification or distribution of the source file is necessary, only some metadata.

It’s an approach that works against the one-off sponsorships read by the actual performers, but isn’t effective against ads dynamically inserted by the download server.

One option could be to crowdsource a database of signatures of audio ads, Shazam style. This could then be used by software controlled by the user (c.f. SB browser extension) to detect the ads and skip them, or have the software cut the ads out of files the user had legitimately downloaded, regardless of which podcast or where the ads appear.

Sponsorships by the actual content producers could then be handled in the same way as SB: check the podcast ID and total track length is right (to ensure no ads were missed) then flag and skip certain timestamps.

Starlink plugs the rural coverage gaps, but in urban areas it’s still more expensive than either conventional fixed-line connections or wireless (4G/5G) broadband. Even in rural areas, while it’s the best option, it’s rarely the cheapest, at least in the NZ market I’m familiar with.

It also doesn’t have the bandwidth per square kilometre/mile to serve urban areas well, and it’s probably never going to work in apartment buildings.

This is a funding/subsidisation issue, not so much a technical one. I imagine Starlink connections are eligible for the current subsidy, but in most cases it’s probably going to conventional DSL/cable/fibre/4G connections.

‘Changing gender’ to become a queen implies a non-female initial gender.

Aggregate bandwidth now rivals or slightly exceeds gigabit wired connections.

Where that aggregate bandwidth is shared amongst large numbers of users, bandwidth per user can suffer dramatically.

Low density areas may be fine, but cube farms are an issue especially when staff are doing data intensive or latency sensitive tasks.

If you’re giving employees docking stations for their laptops, running ethernet to those docking stations is a no-brainer.

Moving most of the traffic to wired connections frees up spectrum/bandwidth for situations that do need to be wireless.

Things might be different in the US, but here in NZ the first meter or two off the road is usually road reserve, which is council property. That’s where footpaths/sidewalks, street trees, and utilities are run.

The bit of your driveway that is actually yours doesn’t start until about where your front fence is, if you have one.

Secondhand stuff can be really cheap if you know where to look, but the drawbacks are usually power and noise.

The main cause of acid rain is/was sulfur in diesel fuel and coal. When burned and then mixed with water in the air, you get sulfuric acid.

Ultra-low sulfur diesel and flue gas desulfurization (scrubbers) have more-or-less eliminated actual acid rain as a serious issue in the western world.

Like the ozone layer issues, lead paint, and leaded fuel, this was a relatively easy problem to deal with, and could for the most part be corrected by moderate tech changes/substitution and better handling, though China is backsliding on CFCs.

Greenhouse gases and plastics are much harder to deal with because the issues are fundamental to the actual purpose the product serves.

The main cause of acid rain is/was sulfur in diesel fuel and coal. When burned and then mixed with water in the air, you get sulfuric acid.

Ultra-low sulfur diesel and flue gas desulfurization (scrubbers) have more-or-less eliminated actual acid rain as a serious issue in the western world.

Like the ozone layer issues, lead paint, and leaded fuel, this was a relatively easy problem to deal with, and could for the most part be corrected by moderate tech changes/substitution and better handling, though China is backsliding on CFCs.

Greenhouse gases and plastics are much harder to deal with because the issues are fundamental to the actual purpose the product serves.

The main cause of acid rain is/was sulfur in diesel fuel and coal. When burned and then mixed with water in the air, you get sulfuric acid.

Ultra-low sulfur diesel and flue gas desulfurization (scrubbers) have more-or-less eliminated actual acid rain as a serious issue in the western world.

Like the ozone layer issues, lead paint, and leaded fuel, this was a relatively easy problem to deal with, and could for the most part be corrected by moderate tech changes/substitution and better handling, though China is backsliding on CFCs.

Greenhouse gases and plastics are much harder to deal with because the issues are fundamental to the actual purpose the product serves.

I wouldn’t start worrying until 50k+ hours.

There should be a way to view SMART info and that includes an hour count.

Turbos spin far faster than (Roots-type) superchargers, and can therefore be much smaller.

Besides that, I don’t think rotating mass is really the issue. Yes, more inertia is like having a bigger flywheel so the engine will be slower to spin up/down, but that doesn’t consume much energy, especially in steady-state cruising.

Superchargers compress air - that takes energy. You then restrict it through the throttle body, because you’re not cruising with a wide-open throttle. That throws away all the compression.

You also have pumping losses and bearing/gear/belt losses.

Biggest question to me is why you need an IP in the first place?

I think you mean Alaska.

For the authentic US experience, I’ve heard some clubs print their own $1 house currency, which the ATMs/bar staff sells.

I’m sure the strippers would love to be paid in fivers, though.

Most of the rest of the world moved the roughly $1 to $2 values to coins rather than bills/notes.