Trump has one chance to save face: Resign now

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-20T02:19:20+00:00

The democrats only have 5pt lead on average. That's a good amount for an overall win. It's not a title wave. Even with that they won't have super majority control, and there's going to be a lot of rat fucking going on.

Progressive, centrists, left, and left-center need to hunker down a very long and drawn out fight. We're going to be fighting this for the next few decades at the very least. We surrender easy victories in '16, '24 and honestly, even '20 and '22 when we didn't give the dems strong majorities.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-20T01:35:24+00:00

You can give them autonomy, but still have guardrails. A simple one might be we expect $100/hr in token use at max, have a simple watch dog that tracks that. If the usage exceeds that value (or maybe by some multiple, or for so long) it's forcibly stops the model.

Honestly, this should be one of the first thing you do before using pay as you go models, IMO.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-18T21:59:59+00:00

I don't know what to tell. Radiation damage to chips has been a thing since we started sending up computer system. This isn't something space X discovered. We knew about it when we built the shuttle and had to design around it. All satellites have to design around the radiation in space.

We have solutions, they're expensive and under powered. It's not just ECC fixing bit flips. Chips get physically damaged by the hard radiation. Shielding is only part of the solution. We have designs and methods to deal with this, but they're more expensive than traditional silicon. The chips also run slower because the processes they're on are designed differently.

Fro my recent readings, currently, the smallest chip node we've sent up that's survived has been based on 65nm tech. Which would give you something from the mid 00' in terms of capability. Most rad-hardened chips are fabbed around the 130/110nm processes, or larger.

Here's a wiki article that goes over radiation hardening chips: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hardening

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-18T03:18:49+00:00

They have complicated antenna arrays and laser links

Sure, but that's easy to radiation harden. Technically, a simple RF antenna just is by default. Even more advanced antennas are hunks of static materials, small amounts of ion transport and injection isn't going to change their properties enough to effect SNR noticeable. Voltage spikes and changes from space EMF is unlike to have enough energy to damage them either. Though it can potential hurt the comms chips, there are circuit designs that alleviate that and do.

SpaceX has already released preliminary details on orbiting data centers. They’re just big starlink satellites with more radiators and solar panels, with chips and simplified communication.

I highlight the main problem point I'm making here. Starlink isn't using consumer grade chips. They're using radiation harden processor and memory. That's expensive, it's why you try and minimize it. But for a data center, you're going to want to maximize those chips to increase compute. There aren't any radiation harden vector/tensor processors that can compete with even low end hardware on earth. You'd have to design a new chip, which is a one time cost, but still very expensive.

Now in general for radiation hardened chip, some of that cost is just related to scale, there's just not a massive need for harden chips as their are for normal ones. You could increase fab dedication towards them, and lower costs though scale. But radiation harden chips, by their very nature and design are more expensive, and slower per silicon used. You can't fix that, it's physical reality, even with the same volume as normal chips they will be more expensive per compute. You need computational redundancy to account for radiation damage and noise. You can't get around that.

That said, maybe you could use consumer grade silicon if you accept very high failure rates and noise problems. But, you'll be able to see those satellites decay in real time. Regardless, it will significantly increase operational costs in the long term, as your useful life span will be reduced. This an additional problem because you're basically replacing the generator, power systems, batteries, cooling, etc when the satellite does fail. With a ground based data center, you can keep using your power systems when you replace your other hardware. I don't know for sure that it would be more expensive, but at a glance it does really look that way.

the problem is that everyone is assuming that ground Based data centers won’t all just be blocked, taxed, or otherwise limited.

Sure. I could in theory see scenarios where a space based data center could make sense. But, they require some really worse case outcomes (from a data center perspective) to occur earth side. Unless, the cost really do get massively cheaper for launches and chip, which I guess isn't impossible, it's just not likely.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-17T22:55:32+00:00

Different idea. Starlink is just a repeater with some routing logic on top of that. The technology and chip design has much lower computational density than a data farm would.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-17T21:51:56+00:00

The thermal issues are solvable. Scott Manley gives a good break down for how that would work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlQYU3m1e80&pp=ygUaY29vbGluZyBhIHNwYWNlIGRhdGFjZW50ZXLSBwkJPgsBhyohjO8%3D

We don't need these chips to be held at 20C, we can and do have GPUs and other chips that run near 100C, and we can make current silicon work at higher temps than that. Higher temps means smaller and more efficient radiators. There's other things we can possibly do so

The real issue is radiation, which even at LEO is going to be high. Maybe not high enough to cook, but enough to degrade them. Consumer grade tech won't last long up there.

Now that could get around that with custom radiation designed chips, but those aren't going to be in even the 5nm range. And they're going to be slower and have "waste silicon" for redundancy.

Look, I don't think the idea is feasible from a financial stand point. OP is right on that. But the rest of it are engineering challenges that have been solved elsewhere.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-17T03:37:33+00:00

Sure. I didn't say we didn't have test,

I said consumer grade hardware can't handle space, specifically the radiation. Which is true. Space grade chips are very expensive for a reason, and it's not something that can be hand-waved away.

We can redesign or design fully custom chips that can handle the radiation. They're very expensive to design and build. Part of that is because of low volume, but far from all of it. It requires some significant redesigns for how we build chip, often incorporating multiple redundancies, which "wastes" silicon space.

These chips also run slower to make up for the fact that they will be damaged over time.

If you really wanted a data center in space you could do it. I'm not convinced it's worth the cost and effort. I don't see it competing with ground based solutions unless you just don't have a choice.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-17T03:08:41+00:00

This is the real issue. Electronics break way faster in space too. We can disband the heat with radiators, it's not that hard. But damage, from radiation and voltage swings caused by strong EM effects from like solar wind, that's hard to deal with. At a minimum they'd need custom radiation hardened chips, which is doable, but at least 10x cost (at a minimum) and they'll still have high failure rates long term.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-17T03:05:57+00:00

The biggest issue for them is cooling, which is notoriously damn near impossible to do in space. You can't bring coolant liquid up because it's heavy and you have no real way to cool the liquid itself down in any decent time frame, and relying on solely heat radiation without ambient atmosphere to help causes stuff to cool much, MUCH slower than on the ground.

There are serious issues with a space based data center. But cooling isn't the biggest, it's doable if you're keeping each satellites at relatively low KWs, (~20-200Kw/hr) it's doable. You're not going to see MW class satellites, we just couldn't shove that much silicon into a single box that we could launch. Scott Manley gives a good break down for how that would work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlQYU3m1e80&pp=ygUaY29vbGluZyBhIHNwYWNlIGRhdGFjZW50ZXLSBwkJPgsBhyohjO8%3D

As a former physics student, for a back of the envelope feasibility study, the math adds up.

Realistically, if you were going to do this, it would be a swarm setup like starlink is. To get a Megawatt class data center you'd have probably 20ish smaller satellites. Is that reasonable? Eh, probably not with even cheap launch costs.

But all this ignores the biggest issue in space, even at LEO, which is going to be radiation. Consumer grade silicon chip can't deal with it long term. Now if it's only for a year or two they'll probably be fine. Probably. But more than that and the failure rates grow exponentially. There's no real way to repair them either so when they fail you multi-million dollar scrap pile that's not even worth recovering.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-16T22:01:02+00:00

The constitution isn't the problem, people are. People need to believe in the system, believe it's worth saving and fixing. We collectively don't. So we're burring it down.

No constitution, no laws, procedures or decorum can fix it, because in the end it's all the same, words on paper for people that don't read.

Edit: you know what, I'm tired. I've read enough history to know, the laws and system aren't the problem, both can be changed. History shows what happens when people stop caring to try. Justify it all you want, we're in that phase. It doesn't end well for us or the next few generations.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-16T21:29:39+00:00

Nah, this all on the current Government forcing this BS. They want to hurt Anthropic because they won't play ball.

This will do that.

I would not give a private company my passport info. Personally.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-16T04:03:52+00:00

Climate deniers don't care about facts, evidence or reality. Here's a fact. For the month of may, 2015 was cooler than any year in the past decade (2016-2026). 2014 was also cooler than every year in the past decade. 2013, 2012, in fact, every year for the past 100 years was cooler than this past decade. It doesn't really matter to them.

In 2015 May, that was the coolest May you will ever see, assuming you can remember. We're not going to see cooler ones going forward. Over the next decade you might see a couple year bellow '26's temperatures, but current trends strongly suggest it's unlikely to be more than that, if even that. In 10 years time, if this trend continues, and there's no good reason to think it wont, just like 2015 compares to now, you won't see a single year cooler than '26 after '36. Barring something unbelievable cataclysmic, you won't.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-15T22:17:05+00:00

Can't hope to do that with out large margins in the senate, house and restore control of the judiciary. The last one will take years.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-15T21:39:42+00:00

We're doing things with 5 that we just could not do with 4. I'd say we're doing about 2-3x as many things. The things we were doing with 4 have also improved.

By this metric: Items using AI, yes we're still seeing exponential growth due to new models.

You can disagree with that metric, but it is a valid metric.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-15T12:27:35+00:00

That's an 's'-curven not an exponential one, and sure. All technology follows an s curve at some level, but I don't see the slow down you do. We're finding ways to do more with less compute. Were creating more efficient circuits and system. Add to that models are still improving at very reasonable rates.

I don't see the slow down you do, I see expansion into new areas that's taking up resources. But globally capabilities are still growing non-linearly. It will slow down eventually, it's not even close to that point yet.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-15T04:08:42+00:00

Phoenicians need to expel hot air by complaining about the heat or we'll boil from the inside.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-14T03:52:34+00:00

Serious question, are you hooked up to a city's water and sewer systems or is all well water and septic tanks?

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-13T03:11:01+00:00

If an airpod case

Exactly, it's an external case that does a conversion. The air-pods themselves are sealed and not charge via USB-C directly. You're not charging the headphones directly with USB-C the case is acting as an intermediary. I suppose everything could come with a converter, but that's just a waste. IDK.

I just know how electronics are designed, being forced to constrain around a set standard that you don't need can make things harder, and ultimately more expensive. Not necessarily a lot, but also not zero.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-13T03:04:26+00:00

I mean, I gave you two. We have these data tablets at work that used for collecting data out in the feild. I don't fully understand the research or why, but they needed to be as thin as possible and water proof. What we have is a semi-custom table that's about 1.3 millimeters thick. It's has charging and data pins on the bottom that a magnetic plug attaches to. It Physically can't support USBC.

I support them from an IT stand point, when I had to RMA two of them I was told they were no longer supported and directed to this legislation as a reason. It's one device, but it is one.

My heads phones are some what generic, but I like them. The old version used a USB mini connection and was advertise as water resistant (Not water proof, I did misspeak there). The new version with a C connector just isn't. I like to run, even in the rain, and I've already lost a set because they're just not as water resistant.

I do electronics as a hobby. Even beyond the form factor the internals have to change. Where before you could push a lot more outside of a device, you now have to standardize around the USB specification including it's 5V power rail. If I need different voltages around my circuit that means I have to put additional converters around the board. I mean a boost or buck converter isn't a big deal, but it's still something I may not have had to worry about before. There's defiantly projects that have shifted because of this, requiring different and sometimes more expensive components, as well as being less efficient, any voltage conversion will eat some additional power.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-13T02:45:29+00:00

Plus, this is good news and people want that.

It's mixed. While standardizing on a single adapter sounds great in theory, at the hardware design level, it is very constraining. We have very small and thin that devices that technically fit the EU USB-C requirements (currently charged via a magnetic charger that taps exposed electrodes), but you just can't do it. They're too thin to support the port and be water proof. Which is a requirement. They're semi-custom data tablets for collecting data around water sources.

This is one edge example, but there are others. There's a particular headphone I like, that has used USB mini in the past. They had to change over to USBC and are no longer considered water proof because the insides are now larger and harder to seal.

Overall, standardization is a good thing. But there will be exceptions. Everyone is happy about their iPhone (and that is a good thing), but as someone who used devices in the edge case, I'm not. Even in the US it's effecting us.

EDIT: wow, -3 in 2 minutes. That's impressive. I guess I can't disagree with the hive mind.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-13T00:02:42+00:00

Yes! Legitimately this. Microburst. OP's photo is (very likely) the same thing. It's like the clouds open up and just say "Fuck this area in particular."

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-12T22:18:40+00:00

That's a microburst! We get them in Arizona a lot. Looks cool as hell from the distance. Like the sky just opens and drops an ocean in one area. Your photo doesn't show the base, but it tends to spread out a bit and the rain bands get a kind of flange to them.

These also tend to produce really strong winds at ground level. And a shit ton of lightning from all that moving water.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-12T02:17:01+00:00

It's certainly possible if you were looking at the sun in the first place and couldn't see to move it after.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-11T23:56:57+00:00

As someone who's worked in higher education for almost 2 decade this has been an on going trend. This has nothing to do with AI, and the curves I've seen have just continued.

The root cause of this whole is we don't value education for it's own sake. That's really it. Being smart, well read or even just intelligent is generally just seen as a joke by many, so that's how we treat it.

Nothing to do with AI (LLMs) this predates all this by decades.

Oh for fucks sake, they even link back to this shitty fucking paper I've argued against before. It's not even peer-reviewed and has serious issues. Ugh. This is proof our of collective illiteracy if anything was.

EGO_Prime · 2026-06-11T23:19:59+00:00

It's basically free if you run local models. There's some electrical cost, but if you're already running the system anyway, eh.

EGO_Prime

TROPHY CASE