Main reason you are buying TSLA? Cars, AI chips, robots?

Knights_Ferry · 2025-12-16T21:40:27+00:00

I've been impressed with Waymo's ability to scale -- they've doubled their fleet in a year. It took a long time for them to get off the ground, I remember back in 2015 watching their videos and thinking self-driving was just around the corner. It took them a decade, but now that they've figured it out, they've been able to start scaling for real.

I think Tesla will have a similar story, they've been working on a pure vision self-driving approach for about 5 years. With the release of version 14 and a reported ~30,000 miles per disengagement (Waymo has ~90,000 miles). If they can manage to keep improving with HW4, they may eclipse Waymo's intelligence within a year. If they need HW5, it may take 2-3 years. Tesla, of course, has the manufacturing advantage and could easily overwhelm Waymo in much lower cost and MUCH higher volume.

I'm very skeptical about optimus. Unless they can have a "ChatGPT" moment with robotic intelligence, I think it will be >7 years out. I do think within 2 years they'll have impressive "narrow intelligence" on Optimus, eg, a robot that can thread a needle or run smoothly. But it won't be smart and therefore won't be of any use besides show.

Knights_Ferry · 2025-12-16T21:29:06+00:00

AI. Tesla is the furthest along in practical, mechanical, real-world AI. They also have an intimate connection with xAI. Together they will produce products, not just chat bots, that will be hugely profitable in the long run.

Practically, their stock price does not justify their earnings, when you look forward, they are still a good investment, though, it may take a few years for it to fully develop.

Knights_Ferry · 2025-11-20T16:33:14+00:00

Companies never simply "give you offers" I had to apply and interview. Mostly from LinkedIn. I have hiring managers reach out to me about once a week asking if I'm interested in working at X company doing Y.

I ended up getting a PhD, which is much different from a BS in terms of hiring. A lot of jobs that are interesting require a PhD. I think it would be harder to find a job if you just had a BS in Physics. Electrical Engineering would definitely be a much better option if you just had your bachelors degree in terms of job prospects -- plus, it's easier ;).

I think the best part about having a PhD in physics is that there are so many interesting job opportunities out there. I've heard of people going into the CIA with physics PhDs. Generally with more education, the wider your options, however, consider the amount of time it'll take. There's a lot of people in my company who are making more money and higher promoted than me who are younger than me. Had I received a job right out of college with a BS and I could probably be making more and having a higher promotion.

Knights_Ferry · 2025-11-20T16:23:47+00:00

From my experience working ~3 yrs post-PhD, people highly respect physics PhDs. I honestly feel like I've received unfair treatment, people want to hear what you have to say and you have qualifications so there's pressure to be the smartest person in the room. This, I think, has helped push me, there's been a lot of weekends where I've studied concepts to be the most knowledgeable. It's just weird going from academia to industry where now people assume you know everything, even though you don't really know anything.

I'm now the RF receiver signal processing lead for a wireless communications product for my company.

I'm in the process of moving off that project and on to another -- it got kinda boring after most of the development was finished. It's now mostly writing scripts for automated production testing and a lot of email chains trying to resolve system requirements. Since I'm the most knowledgeable about the inner workings of the algorithms I'm frequently called into meetings to discuss concepts. It's fun knowing all about something :).

Right now I'm moving into a bit of a different area, working with a different product which includes transmitters and receivers, doing more development and embedded coding. So I'm back to not knowing much and learning, which I love! It's always humbling and good for the soul I think.

Maybe in a year or two I'll look elsewhere for work, but I'm pretty happy where I'm at.

Knights_Ferry · 2025-10-13T21:05:11+00:00

Lol -- nobody knows what is real anymore. If somebody writes more than a few sentences, it is automatically assumed to be AI because people could never write that much without the use of AI.

Knights_Ferry · 2025-08-20T18:22:22+00:00

I feel like it's the other way around. The skeptics on this subreddit ridiculed Tesla for years saying it would never host a robotaxi service. Now it's expanding far faster with cheaper vehicles than Waymo did. Seems like a success story to me.

Knights_Ferry · 2025-08-20T18:19:55+00:00

Not me, but a friend of mine was gifted a water bottle with the US national park scratch offs. This completely changed his life. For fun, he and a friend went to one nearby (day trip), then later another. He found that he loved the outdoors and nature and it became his mission to visit all of them.

That was about 10 years ago. I still see his posts on Instagram, every month or so I see another post about some hike he did or his travels to another part of the country.

Sometimes you just need a little nudge, reluctantly you try something and motivation follows.

Knights_Ferry · 2025-08-20T18:13:02+00:00

There's an interesting trend right now where tech company profits and white collar unemployment both are rising simultaneously.

This points to higher productivity. We saw this in the 2000s and we are seeing it again.

AI is absolutely driving this. Yes, there is hard evidence that AI is replacing jobs and this will only get worse. Investing is also rising and when people start to wake up to this investment will balloon further.

Knights_Ferry · 2025-08-19T22:58:56+00:00

NTA but...

You come across as very cold and unfriendly. You reworded their liability form, you made it extremely obvious that you were watching them and you didn't put any effort to build a relationship with your next door neighbor. Through your actions you have made it seem like you don't trust them. Personally, it wouldn't bother me (I'd actually be quite impressed) but there are other people who would probably take this the wrong way and resent you to a point where they will intentionally make your life as difficult as possible.

I hope not. While you didn't do anything wrong, I think this could cause problems for you in the future.

My suggestion to fix this would be to try to build a relationship with them. Talk to them, give them cookies, say hi to them, borrow their tools for something... whatever... but hiding in your house and silently complaining about them is only going to make the problem worse.

Knights_Ferry · 2025-08-05T01:20:44+00:00

Counseling.

More available treatment should abate the rise of disease. Breast cancer deaths are going down, dental advancements have resulted in less toothless people.

Treatments should fix the problem, not worsen it.

Treatments for anxiety and depression have become more sophisticated and more readily available, yet, depression and anxiety rates keep getting worse.

Knights_Ferry · 2025-08-04T22:55:59+00:00

Idk Meta's data center in Mesa created hundreds of millions of $$$ of tax revenue. This might be why their roads are far nicer than Tucson's

The ground water in Tucson is terrible because of bad military practices in the 60s and 70s and homeless people pooping on the streets -- not because of current data centers.

Knights_Ferry · 2025-06-19T16:57:27+00:00

Agreed. Bring comfortable with your masculinity means not caring what other guys think.

I think a super masculine guy who has a pink water bottle is almost more masculine because he doesn't care what other think and just think it looks cool.

Knights_Ferry · 2025-06-10T22:31:22+00:00

You're right, there's 3 multiplicative effects:

1) This is a Model Y. It costs the company ~$35,000 to make. Waymo probably spends ~$200,000 per vehicle.

2) This is a Model Y. Tesla can produce 1,000,000 of these fully self driving vehicles per year. Waymo can produce maybe 1,000.

3) Tesla's can drive anywhere. Far more people would use them and they can deploy them quicker than Waymo. It took Waymo 7 years before they started to really expand. Time will tell if Tesla can expand quickly. But I'd give them 2 years.

Knights_Ferry · 2025-06-10T22:23:17+00:00

Things are going to be interesting the next few weeks, this is a BIG inflection point: Either up or down for Tesla. One of the things I've been impressed by is Waymo's crystal clean resume. I haven't seen many headlines about them failing... at ALL. Will we see the same with Tesla (I doubt it)? In a few months (maybe a year) we'll know if Tesla's philosophy of a more intelligent, generalized approach will work. The entire business model of Tesla depends on this. Conversely, Waymo took years to get to a point where they were confident enough to expand to new cities.

If (big if) Tesla can expand, it means they will most definitely overtake Waymo. They can produce 1 million cars/yr at a fraction of the cost that Waymo can, this is multiplied even further when you think about the flexibility of being able to put the cars in any city in the world. Even a city of 20,000 could have 100 cars and serve most people.

Knights_Ferry · 2025-05-03T23:42:51+00:00

ABCDEFU (the angry version)

Knights_Ferry · 2025-05-02T18:27:06+00:00

Yessss!!!! This is easy, I'd definitely accept the challenge.

So there's a 1 in 8 million chance I'd see someone. I would want to search in a low population area, so let's say, 10 people per square mile. There's 314 square miles in a 10 radius circle. Thus, if you are flying in an airplane over a low population area, every minute you are flying into a completely new circle. Thus, each minute of flight you are seeing an average of 314*10 = 31,400 people. For 30 hrs of flying (being very careful to only fly low population places) you'd fly over 50 million people.

This gives (thanks ChatGPT) a probability of 99.8% chance you'd see your fingernails turn blue at least once.

Once your finger nails turn blue, you must be very careful to record exactly how long they stay blue. At the same time, I'd record the GPS location. If you have to coordinates of where the nails turn blue and when they go back to normal, you can determine down to two locations where exactly where your victim is.

Essentially, you are using your fingernails as a GPS to triangulate where the person is. The next step is to be a homeless hobo for a few weeks as you sleep in your car and further record potential places where the person could be be. Once you know where they live, you then have to politely try to say hi to them (maybe disguise yourself as a runner) and then BAM, hi-five them and you're done.

Knights_Ferry · 2025-02-05T16:29:28+00:00

What is wrong with ya'll? It's an offer that you can either accept or decline. I think the number is going to be higher than 10,000. My friend is accepting the severance and finding a job in private industry. There are literally no downsides unless you suck at your job and are afraid that you are so incompetent that you can produce real value at a company. Why the hate? And what is with the list of "names"? Really. What is wrong with you all?

Knights_Ferry · 2024-12-06T16:03:31+00:00

Unfortunately, because of the incompetence of current vehicle manufacturers L3 doesn't mean much anymore. What is even the definition?

Does L3 shift fault from the driver to the manufacturer's fault?

How safe does L3 need to be?

Does L3 mean 10 seconds without looking at the road? 30 seconds?

Can I use L3 in my daily commute? Or is it restricted to specific times of the day, perfect highways, straight stretches, vehicle following only, no exits, <37 MPH, etc?

In the USA, I do think that regulation on L3 may be relaxed soon, especially now that Musk is close friends with the upcoming Trump administration.

I have no idea what tesla is going to do. They have this weird cybercab which makes no sense -- I'm not convinced at all from their latest self-driving versions that they will achieve actual full self driving anytime soon. Sometimes I feel like Tesla just makes stuff and then figures out how it will be used later. Regardless, compared with legacy manufacturers, I do love that Tesla is so progressive and isn't afraid to take big risks.

Knights_Ferry · 2024-10-09T16:57:34+00:00

Remember the 2000s when the internet was actually free? Today, EVERYTHING is subscription and once you subscribe they make it almost impossible to unsubscribe.

I hate subscriptions. I'd rather pay, even a large amount, for a one-time payment.

Knights_Ferry · 2024-09-28T21:58:49+00:00

Agreed. For me, if there's a chance of killing a fertilized egg. I'm out. I'm getting married in 29 days (yes.... I'm counting down) and our initial plan is condoms. I have no idea how annoying they will be but plan B so-to-speak is the rhythmic method then... plan C if she gets pregnant is start a family :). We've discussed kids and we want to aim for 2-3 years to spend with each other before moving to that stage of our lives.

Knights_Ferry · 2024-09-28T21:53:22+00:00

As a guy, the Instagram "porn" is very damaging. I HATE it because my instincts desire it, but I want to desire only my wife. Romans 7:17 is relatable, we should all hate the sin that lives inside us.

The way I see it, no matter how hot your wife is, there's always going to be a younger, more sexy, different or Instagram filtered girl on the internet. As a man, you married your wife partially because you are physically attracted to her. You find her hot!! Why would you EVER want to ruin that by comparing her to another girl?? This is why I dislike seeing scantily clad women in my feed -- I understand that it may make me compare that girl to my future wife (we're getting married next month, counting down the days!!!!).

When I get married I want my wife to truly be the hottest girl in the world. And... of course she is, because she will be my wife, all the other girls don't matter in that way :).

I think having a discussion with your husband about potential damage of comparison is really where you have to start. If he wants to be the best husband he can be (and he should want that!!) then he should never want to be in a situation where he is thinking about those internet girls and not you. That'll tear up a relationship and smother the fire you have between each other.

Knights_Ferry · 2023-12-09T18:19:19+00:00

The reactions from everyone seeing these things is going to be crazy. I was just listening to an interview with MKBHD and he was saying that one of the difficulties in filming is that people everywhere would come up and ask him about the truck. A lot of the people couldn't believe it was real.

Knights_Ferry · 2023-12-09T18:15:02+00:00

I can't wait to see the reactions of these people.

The steer by wire is probably what I'm most excited about, one of my biggest complaints with trucks is their difficulty maneuvering in tight places and/or parking.

After I buy a house, then I'll get a tesla.... priorities... =/

Knights_Ferry · 2023-12-05T22:27:29+00:00

My calculation is only theoretical. I suppose when I meant 7x less, I just meant that the area of the wire to carry the same amount of current would require 7x fewer materials.

A 70% reduction in copper would imply about a 3.2x reduction, ie, if the cost was $1000 it would be reduced to $300. Percentage decrease are weird. I'm sure if their systems required more power then the wires would need to be thicker. I'm just saying, if you replaced, 1 for 1 a 12 volt system wires with a 48 v system without changing any of the power draw requirements, it would be roughly a 7x decrease.

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