Notices by Jorge Stolfi (jorgestolfi@mas.to), page 2

#ZuckNews Of The Day*

SAN FRANCISCO, CA Jan 24, 2025: Capitalizing on Mark Zuckerberg's plan to flood Facebook with AI-powered fake accounts, the new HornAI startup is developing artificial personas that are optimized for watching porn videos, whether real or AI-generated. "With our proprietary algorithm, simulating the emotions and personality of the typical porn addict turned out to be much easier than anticipated", observed HornAI's CEO Dick Schlaff.

*100 Community Approved

@gerrymcgovern

I dare predict that 90% of all those new AI datacenters will be dead ruins in a few years. As for the "hydrogen economy", it is 100% a scam.

Thoughts are free.
Still. For now?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h6ZZ28QtX4

@easrng @elilla

AFAIK they are indeed synonyms in contexts like "he went to college in Texas" or "she has a college degree". But in the name of an institution, a "College" seems to mean a school with university-level courses but with options and resources more limited than a "University". Isn't that so? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Community_Colleges

@elilla

College:
Brazil: high school, but if you are old.
Germany: ?
USA: third-tier university
Japan: ?

@Yaku

Servono per constringere il soggetto a indagare, prima di recarsi a un altro paese, se il governo di questo si compromette a ignorare il mandato di arresto "per questa volta, eccezionalmente". Esempi non mancano...

Uma ou duas décadas atrás, o Banco Real financiou o plantio de pelo menos 100,000 mudas de árvores no canteiro central e laterais da Rodovia dos Bandeirantes, entre Campinas e Sampa (e talvez outros lugares, não sei).

O serviço foi tão mal-feito que, até onde pude ver, todas as mudas morreram logo em seguida.

Alguém sabe de pelo menos UMA dessas mudas que tenha sobrevivido?

@iliana

"Bit Gulags"

ZuckNews Of The Day*

WASINGTON, DC - Jan 23, 2025: Continuing his drive to make America great again, President Donald T. Rump today signed executive orders determining that there are only two genders, that Canada is the 51st State of the US, that hurricanes are not allowed to enter the territory of the US, and that the sky is striped white and red.

Morris Albert, /Fillings/

#PieASongOrPoem
#HashTagGames

@sean @pluralistic

I modestly submit this one: https://mas.to/@JorgeStolfi/113812395001551674

Hey Joe, this was supposed to be a JOKE! https://mas.to/@JorgeStolfi/113812395001551674

#METAnews Of The Day*

MEXICO CITY, MX Jan 22m 2025: Reacting to President Donald T. Rump's executive order, Mexican President Claudia S. Pardo issued a decree that renames the Gulf of Mexico as "Golfo de Mexico No de America No No Estupido Gringo Loco".

*100% community approved.

@Salty

Also, $4 billion is only what *NASA* gave Elon to delvelop the Starship. No one knows how much money was spent on it from other sources.

@Salty

By the way, the Space Shuttle reused the solid boosters; only the external fuel tank was discarded. As for returning a rocket on its own to the launch site, I suppose you know about NASA's DC-XA (30 years ago): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X. The project was cancelled because of internal politicking and lack of $50 million...

@Salty

The goal of the SLS was to send a crewed capsule to Moon orbit and bring it back. It achieved that result on the first launch, except that there was no crew in the capsule. Just normal NASA performance.

The goal of Starship was to take 100 tons of payload to LEO, fly a crew to the Moon, land on the Moon, lift off, return to Earth. And then go to Mars etc. There is no reason to believe that it will ever be able to do any of those things.

@Salty

The Falcon part of SpaceX is entirely separated from the Starship program, and is run by competent rocket engineers, not by Elon. (I read somewhere that he cannot even set foot there, because it launches military satellites and he does not have security clearance.)

The Starship program is devoted to implementing Elon's paper napkin idea of a rocket -- which is the rocket version of a Cybertruck. Or, better, of the Boring Company tunnels.

@Salty

But the cost/result ratio is $10B/1 for the SLS, $4B/0 for Starship...

@Salty

But Elon is not trying to do those things because his team knows that they just cannot do them. It is pretty clear by now that Starship V1 cannot take a single pound of payload to the lowest low earth orbit. Will V2 and V3 will fare any better? We have only Elon's promises for that...

Elon received some 4 billion US$ from the gov to develop Starship. THAT is the number one should compare to the cost of the SLS.

Score sheet of Elon Musk's "fully reusable, Moon/Mars capable" Starship to date:

Full test launches: 7
First stage recoveries: 2
Insertions into orbit: 0
Tons of payload to orbit: 0
Second stage de-orbits: 0
Second stage recoveries: 0
Fuel transfers in orbit: 0
Moon flybys: 0
Moon landings: 0
Moon lif-offs: 0
Returns from Moon: 0
Crewed flights: 0

I will leave to others the sheet of Bezos's new Glenn and NASA's SLS.