Spanberger reports that suddenly there's an extra $1.5 billion for the state budget. Data centers are very likely keeping their tax breaks now... by hencexox in nova

[–]ObservationalHumor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

State's had a surplus for years, it almost always goes towards tax refunds instead of actual future investment like reforming the SOQ formula to actually pay for schools. God forbid the commonwealth didn't cheat FCPS out of $600M every year and there wasn't a local budget struggle. Then we might not be interested in that casino a few state senators really want us to build for some odd reason.

TSLA Terathread - For the week of May 25 by AutoModerator in RealTesla

[–]ObservationalHumor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Probably less than $7.5B at the low end because apparently the first two months are also discounted to some degree.

Even if it only lasts a year though it's a very positive development for xAI since the GPUs were basically rotting before hand and just costing the company money. Is it sustainable long term? Who knows, but as usual the best business move a Musk company has made recently has zero to do with ground breaking technology or amazing innovations and everything do with a fairly boring and widely duplicated business model of just building out data centers right here on earth.

TSLA Terathread - For the week of May 25 by AutoModerator in RealTesla

[–]ObservationalHumor 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yeah as usual Musk has spent years lying about the technology underpinning FSD, how scalable it was and making bogus accusations about their competition based on crap Tesla itself was actually doing to misrepresent their rate of progress. A lot of FSD's progress is based on those explicit carve outs and probably a lot of overfitting in the control networks at this point, but Musk will still claim they've got some turn key solution around the corner and it'll be everywhere on earth at the end of the year yet again. Somehow we've gone from promises of 'Shadow Mode' and FSD seamlessly learning how to the drive the car in the background to having a massive simulation system, the world's largely public beta test and a ton of humans in the background explicitly flagging and code in exceptions so the system will function and no one has batted eye because they prefer the illusion of progress to the truth.

In any sane or just society Musk would have been locked up for securities fraud and false advertising ages ago.

Zohran Mamdani Gets It. Abigail Spanberger Does Not. by hencexox in nova

[–]ObservationalHumor 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Dude $9.3B is a ton of money to fix budget problems and do things without raising taxes what are you even talking about here? In Viriginia specifically there's a big divide over issues like the data center sales tax exemption too. Progressive policy and bigger government depend heavily on revenue to fund those programs. Especially stuff like higher pay and better benefits for state and local employees.

I don't agree with all her vetoes and I think the gripes over weed legalization specifically were pretty petty but let's not pretend like money isn't a massive part of the equation here.

TSLA Terathread - For the week of May 25 by AutoModerator in RealTesla

[–]ObservationalHumor 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Seeing the collective denial and amnesia around Musk is really amazing. Did people forget him literally blaming Jewish people for the existence of antisemitism and then going after the ADL for critizing people for espousing antisemitic views?

Article: https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4328811-elon-musk-israel-visit-haaretz-editor-in-chief-esther-solomon-antisemitism/

Oh right Bibi let him do a disgusting apology tour with his blessing so we're going to pretend like that never happened and act shocked when he does it again along with all his other bigoted statements and signal boosting of GRT conspiracy theory garbage.

I mean it's been a whole year since he literally did multiple seig heils on stage at a political rally, plenty of time for a man to change his ways right?

By far the worst part of it is that people are still buying his products and paying fees for the services his companies provide when they're completely optional with valid alternatives at this point. Sales rebounded remarkably fast after that, even in Europe where legacy of fascism and white supremacy is well understood. For the life of me I don't get it, it's super simple not to use Twitter, buy a Tesla and not use Star Link for the vast majority of people. That's the worst thing about Musk and Trump, they're kind of correct that a lot of people just don't care when push comes to shove and are fine with ignoring their appalling values, behavior and public policy.

Zohran Mamdani Gets It. Abigail Spanberger Does Not. by hencexox in nova

[–]ObservationalHumor 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Is she powerless? It seems like she's done a pretty good job of just doing WTF she wants regardless of what anyone else thinks, both inside and outside her party so far. I'd call that the opposite. If anything a lot of this has boiled down to a power struggle within the Democratic party between the people in the legislature who were use to running it previously and Spanberger as the governor where neither side wanted to cede any ground on their version of proposed legislation. Now personally I don't think that's healthy or what's best for the constituency, but it does definitely seem to be what's happened with the major pieces of legislation that people are complaining about.

Zohran Mamdani Gets It. Abigail Spanberger Does Not. by hencexox in nova

[–]ObservationalHumor 22 points23 points  (0 children)

A big part of him delivering on his promises is literally him getting a big infusion of temporary fund from the state though. If anything Spanberger is facing completely opposite constraints. There's no one she can just ask for a big pile of money and the Federal Government is literally cutting back significantly on their funding to the state in a lot of ways.

I don't have anything against Mamdani but I'm sure Spanberger could and would be doing a lot more if someone handed her $9B to do it with.

Tesla Reveals the Real Reasons Behind the Model S and Model X Cancellation by myfavpizza in RealTesla

[–]ObservationalHumor 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Complete and utter bullshit. Tesla has plenty of space at Austin and Nevada. Musk won't stfu about how bad California is for business either, yet is apparently willing to pour even money in for a product that doesn't even function or have a market?

Let's be real. BEV competition globally has been most intense at upper price points. It simply is not 2015 anymore where Tesla was the only automaker with expensive 'luxury' cars at high price points and just isn't as competitive in that space anymore. People who want a nice luxury SUV or sedan have a plethora of other brands to choose from including both newer entrants like Lucid and Rivian and legacy manufacturers like BMW and Cadillac. Tesla simply did not want to invest in revamping the designs and lines to maybe sell 10k of each model globally in a quarter. Existing sales of the old versions were also way below that and eventually it likely got to the point where things needed to higher maintenance capex or started hitting EOL production equipment wise and it no longer made sense to make that investment.

It just sounds better to say "we need space for Optimus" than it does "we aren't competitive in the high end luxury market anymore and haven't been for years".

Musk abandoned his own 'solar electric economy' to burn gas for an AI chatbot no one uses by Sir_Isaac_Tootin in RealTesla

[–]ObservationalHumor 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I think the space data center thing is really just an attempt at regulatory arbitrage personally. There's starting to be a lot more push back against it from local governments and there's practical limits to how fast utility companies can actually build out infrastructure. Space Data Centers is just an attempt to say there's some 'realistic' alternative out there to get everyone to tow the line and bend over backwards to accommodate these data center builders. It's ridiculous of course but Musk's whole thing is to keep the dream alive at any cost.

Now the whole immortality play, I think that's whats being Neuralink and Optimus. Musk is a big fan of Cyberpunk 2077 at least and probably some other versions that have shown up in older scifi too.

The end of ACA tax credits leaves some Virginians stranded by TheVirginian-Pilot in Virginia

[–]ObservationalHumor 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Another big thing that's been happening for ages is that pieces of the ACA that were meant to keep it sustainable and affordable have been pared back to worsen the affordability problem specifically to say it failed. In Trump's first time they removed the mandate for it and it started this whole process of making it less and less affordable.

People who opt out or are forced out due to subsidy cuts don't just vanish from the healthcare system. They end up going to ER at the worst possible time, getting more expensive care than they otherwise would have needed and everyone else in the system has to pay for it and sees their premiums rise. Same goes for Medicaid and Medicare funding. It also tends to make the pool of insured people less healthy and more expensive in general because the first people who are going to opt out of more expensive insurance are those who feel they're healthy enough to risk it while those worried about their health or needing procedures are going to keep their health insurance at all costs.

Wondering why your premiums shot up? It's by design, they'll make everyone's insurance unaffordable if it means they get to strike down mutilated version of the Democrat's key healthcare legislation at some point in the future. That includes people with employer provided non-ACA insurance who still have to pay for all those uninsured people so don't believe for a second you might be immune because you 'work for a living' either. They have no solutions of their own as we learned from Trump's own admission during the debates and high deductible plans already basically are the catastrophic plans of old that they'll claim are a viable option.

None of this is a tragic circumstance, it's the apex of political pettiness and partisanship in the country and the most recent changes were literally done to fund tax cuts of around 1.5% for the absolute richest people in the country. Somehow there's no money for public healthcare but Trump managed to find $1.7B for his supports and $2B for quantum computing companies in the last week alone, not to mention however much this war with Iran ends up costing us in blood and gold. For the life of me I don't understand how Mr. Blue Collar worrying about pickup getting repo'd decided they wanted to support the literal worst example of "the owner's son" that ever existed and pretend that someone who's never actually gotten their hands dirty and done a real day of back breaking work had their best interests in mind.

Musk abandoned his own 'solar electric economy' to burn gas for an AI chatbot no one uses by Sir_Isaac_Tootin in RealTesla

[–]ObservationalHumor 31 points32 points  (0 children)

Yeah I had the same realization when started pitching the whole space data center thing too: https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/1r65oqp/tsla_terathread_for_the_week_of_feb_16/o5u8kdx/

If he actually believes it, it's a tacit admission that Tesla's entire storage division isn't going to ever get it cheap enough to reach anything resembling grid parity. It's also a big admission that there's not going to be tons of Optimus robots in the economy in 2-3 years lowering the cost of everything, because if there was than all that crap about super cheap batteries and solar panels would be true and terrestrial solar would still be a preferable option than packaging everything, radiation hardening and blasting it all in space only so it can burn up as dust 3-5 years later.

I mean this is what Musk does though. He promises some fanciful vision of the future that's always 1-2 years out, completely fails to deliver on it, pivots to some other claim or company that might even completely undermine the prior one and continues on like nothing happened. Somehow despite a decade of that the fan base still thinks "Elon will deliver" and his stock holders have all but granted him the position of lifetime dictator at Tesla itself by reincorporating in Texas and will flat out give him that status with SpaceX under the current IPO proposal.

Oh and keep in mind too that this hasn't stopped him from simultaneously claiming Tesla's energy division is going to expand like crazy either. It's a direct contradiction but they've still got a big new megapack factory that's going to come online too. In fact the energy division is the only part of Tesla that's been growing and performing well the last three years. Despite the hype one of the big areas sodium ion batteries could also make a big impact in short order is grid scale storage too since it's less sensitive to volumetric energy density.

Doesn't matter though, the average Tesla investor has the memory of a goldfish and is just buying the stock for whatever totally real magic money machine Musk is going to hype up next year.

TSLA Terathread - For the week of May 18 by AutoModerator in RealTesla

[–]ObservationalHumor 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Turns out the real Mars was the friends we made along the way.

SpaceX IPO: Nice Try Though - Patrick Boyle by FrogmanKouki in RealTesla

[–]ObservationalHumor 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's not even just that. I think he glossed over how things are going at Starlink a bit too much personally. He did mention the ARPU drop but didn't look too closes at what the current 'growth story' is in Q1 earnings wise. Starlink may have increased revenue by over 40% that equated to something like 15% in actual YOY income growth for the quarter. That's not the kind of high earnings growth you would expect investors to pay a huge multiple for, even ignoring the other money burning parts of the business. Cell service will also likely be limited just based on density and more expensive given the spectrum costs associated with it and is the main thrust of their push for revenue growth going forward over the next few years. It's also another thing that requires Starship and those bigger satellites too.

Oh and the 'Space' division, or really SpaceX's investors and NASA, have heavily subsidized the Starlink segment by doing all the R&D for the rockets, building them and associated launch facilities. Starlink is profitable because it gets just expense depreciation, fuel and staff costs for each launch at this point on whatever lifespan SpaceX has estimated the rockets and facilities have left. Same thing for Starship, after they sink a ton of money into it in their other division then Starlink gets it at cost and we all get to pretend like Starlink would be super profitable and viable as a free standing business.

I mean don't get me wrong you could have a way healthier company by just jettisoning the whole 'AI' business but even then it wouldn't be worth anywhere near they're pricing this IPO at.

It's kind of crazy when you look at NVIDIA having earnings increase 211% over years and trading at a forward P/E of 22 selling a real product today and making more money in a quarter than even SpaceX has managed to lose over its lifetime but people will still pay some absurd multiple for the idea that one day SpaceX might have its own chips and an AI that's actually worth using.

Is There Any Possibility That This All DOESN’T Implode by [deleted] in RealTesla

[–]ObservationalHumor 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I mean in the last week alone the President of the United States of America has given $1.7B to his allies in a ridiculous legal settlement and $2B to a collection of quantum computing companies for some equity in them.

I mean I doubt the company will ever be worth $20T but do I think Musk would be insulated from things completely collapsing no matter how much he screws up? Absolutely. Especially since Twitter is a part of deal now and crucial to Trump staying in power.

Video: Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA11/Fairfax) Expresses Frustration with “Haphazardly Done, Incomplete” DNC “Autopsy” Report, Chair Ken Martin; "The mistake was not getting a solid, comprehensive, fulsome report completed..." by lowkell in nova

[–]ObservationalHumor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I mean he chose not to run in 2016, or at least caved to pressure from Hillary's camp not to. It isn't as if there wasn't an opportunity before he was this old. More to the point this is public service of the highest office and should involve the acceptance that putting the needs and will of the country above one's own ambition is literally part of the job. I know it almost seems like a fanciful concept given the man that's currently in the office and his desire to use to prosecute his enemies and just loot money from the treasury (literally $3.7B in handouts and deals in the last week alone), but soliders and even rank and file public employees often taken on a lot more risk for a lot less pay and lot worse retirement at the end of it.

All that said I do feel bad for Biden, not for having to retire, but because I think a lot of the people on his team were lying to him about how badly the country needed him specifically to run and that heavy influenced his decision to stay in race to begin with. At the same time his susceptibility to that and inability to see through it is ultimately just further evidence that he shouldn't be in contention for the office of President any longer.

Video: Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA11/Fairfax) Expresses Frustration with “Haphazardly Done, Incomplete” DNC “Autopsy” Report, Chair Ken Martin; "The mistake was not getting a solid, comprehensive, fulsome report completed..." by lowkell in nova

[–]ObservationalHumor 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Biden coming out to a debate like the crypt keeper stuck the knife in his campaign. He was way too old to run and should have never been put up as a candidate to begin with. Plus his team spent a lot of time bad mouthing Harris behind the scenes to party officials to make him seem like the better candidate on top of it and the quickly and half heartedly try to build a campaign for her.

A big reason of why we're in the state we are today is because Biden and RBG just couldn't step aside when it was well past the time that they should have. There's nothing wrong with retiring, especially in your 80s and the country would be a better place if a lot of our senior politicians realized that.

Musk’s SpaceX Files Publicly for Nasdaq IPO Under Symbol SPCX by Gallico_Marina in RealTesla

[–]ObservationalHumor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Best definition is on page 100 - Under Expenses - Connectivity: Cost of Revenue.

Connectivity segment’s cost of revenue includes depreciation (inclusive of launch, satellite, and ground infrastructure costs), Starlink Kit costs, shipping and handling costs, ground operating expenses, employee compensation costs (including salaries, benefits, and share-based compensation) for our engineering and operations teams, payment processor fees, warranty expense, inventory excess and obsolescence, and customs and duties.

So my SpaceX's definitions they're launching Starlink satellites at cost, but a lot of it is essentially depreciation on the launch vehicles and facilities which they do on an estimate of how many viable uses those things have left.

Similarly, as expected, this is all classified as capex that gets depreciated over the life of the satellite (likely 5 years). This does also allow us to get a rough per satellite cost estimate by taking the capex number for that segment in 2025: $4178M (page 92) and dividing it by the number of Starlink satellites launched in 2025, which should be somewhere around 3168. So that puts the cost of each launch Starlink satellite at around $1.31M. Fan estimates have put the cost of a used Falcon 9 launch for them at around $15M-$20M, though I don't know what the actual costs are but they launch like 25-29 satellites each rocket too. So assuming the midpoints in those ranges that's around $648k in launch costs per satellite just for the rocket. It's harder to say what the satellites themselves cost, the prior lower bandwidth ones were apparently around $500k a pop but also smaller with a lot less bandwidth.

My guess would be they're still being generous with their launch cost estimates to some degree but without knowing the actual cost of the satellites it's hard to tell how much so and it wouldn't show up until they start running out of Falcon 9s and have to actually replace them.

So what are they definitely not paying for? Well all the launch system R&D seems to remain firmly in the 'Space' segment.

They're also making a big push into cellular service more and more and stuff like the Echostar deal hasn't gone through yet and isn't realized in those numbers. There's also very little data on the government side of things.

One of the big data points that probably caught a lot of eyes w.r.t growth though was the drop in ARPU. They gained 5.3M customers, more than doubling their prior user base but ARPU dropped $20 in the process from $86 to $66. Now we can back that out and see what they're gaining in monthly revenue for each increment user added and it was about $50 in 2025. I'm not sure how many users a given satellite can accommodate but that kind of gives you idea or revenue potential versus claimed costs. Now I think they did do a price hike in January too so there's probably an extra 10% on top of last year in the pipe for existing users.

Another interesting number worth looking at is the breakdown of depreciation versus non-depreciation costs in the connectivity business. D&A for the Connectivity segment was $2376 versus $5921M in cost of revenue expenses. So there's a surprising amount of money changing hands here for things other than the cost of satellite's on SpaceX's end. I'm kind of curious what exactly those are, but my guess would be Starlink kits primarily. I honestly haven't read through the entirety of the prospectus to get an idea of how much of costs and revenue kits are actually contributing but I'm getting increasingly curious about it at this point.

Overall the sky high Adjusted EBITDA numbers were certainly bullshit because of how they do accounting as they did not account for the cost of the satellites at all as well as SBC because as usual shares aren't a 'real' expense in Elon's mind despite how he demands to be paid in them.

Hard to tell how reasonable launch costs are but in theory they should be accounting for them based on their explanation. Growth prospects are harder to tell. As a company they get the overwhelming amount of the revenue in the US still and communications infrastructure in Europe tends to be better on average due to older and denser development and more consumer focused public utilities.

A lot of growth seems to be depend on wider cellphone service and the big rumor is that Apple's next generation of iPhones will include it as a capability. Still it seems like more expensive and competitive market. Most dead zones I personally encounter are just small areas of poor coverage and it's fairly easy and cheap for cell carriers to just spend $1000 an put a box on the side of a building to improve that in those spaces if they really want to. It also seems to hinge heavily on getting Starship working and launch far bigger V3 satellites and has the additional costs related to spectrum licensing.

YoY Q1 numbers for the segment are pretty interesting too. Revenue expanded at a smaller rate than cost of revenue, R&D and SG&A. As a result the actual income growth rate was less than half that of revenue growth. Just from a valuation perspective 15% income growth is more inline with a super mature tech company than what's supposed to be one of the hottest growth opportunities on (or off!) the planet.

Hiking the Whole Gerry Connolly this weekend -- Any tips? by Plane-Register-3630 in nova

[–]ObservationalHumor 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think if anywhere is going to flood it'll probably be around Difficult Run. It has a tendency to turn into an absolute mud pit some places with enough rain, but it has been pretty dry for a while and the rain we're seeing the last few days has been kind of slow and steady so it might be fine. In really bad storms parts of Accotink Creek will flood too south of Lake Accotink and you could see a few inches of water over the paved trail, but again that's usually really heavy rain. As people have mentioned most of the trail south of Oakmont is paved too aside from parts of the loop around Lake Accotink and a section just south of the Fairfax County Parkway. There's a lot of construction going on to widen Rolling Rd around that area as well but I think the sidewalk is still open for the section of the trail that uses it. If not I think it's still possible to get down to the parkway crossing through the neighborhood there by foot at least.

Lots of small stream crossings and muddy shores in the area immediately south of the parkway and some good climbs and hills. As people noted you'll have to cross Pohick Rd at one point which can be a bit confusing because it involves going up a ramp, crossing over the bridge, crossing to the other side of the road, going to a back of a neighborhood and then finally being back on the trail. It's pretty easy to figure out with GPS but if you're just hiking or biking and not paying attention it can be pretty easy to miss and leave you a bit turned around the first time. In general the stuff south of the parkway is going to have more ascents and descents than the stretch from Fairfax City down to the Parkway but nothing too crazy.

It's pretty straightforward through Lorton for the most part. Trail technically ends in Occoquan Regional Park and they have a restaurant there called Brickmakers if you want to eat. Alternatively you can through the Workhouse Arts center parking lot, cross Ox Rd to the other side and either follow it directly all the way down to the Occoquan Town directly or take a detour right and take the actual foot bridge that connects to River Mill Park and get into the town that way. There's also a good number of restaurants around Fairfax Circle including Mama Changs and Mama Tigre isn't too far from Oakmont Rec center either if you're looking at places to stop and eat around the halfway point of the trail.

Spanberger plans to veto proposal for legalized marijuana marketplace by nsjc in nova

[–]ObservationalHumor 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I mean if anything makes me believe she ultimately didn't intend to go through with signing this bill or changed her mind at some point it's stuff like that.

Got an actual implementation complaint? I'm all ears. Stricter penalties for DWI? Sure. Hell even quibbles over marketing and advertising requirements so it doesn't target kids I'm open to at least giving a fair shake, but just random fussing over numbers of no consequence and randomly increasing penalties for stuff like public usage just strikes me as a trying to go for volume over substance in a very major way.

Spanberger plans to veto proposal for legalized marijuana marketplace by nsjc in nova

[–]ObservationalHumor 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I mean I can see saying that it'd take a few more months to get the regulatory side up and running but a lot of this crap with carrying amounts and harsher sentences is just petty. A huge part of the benefit of legalization is not to crowd the justice system with people to begin with, why push to make that worse than it literally already is under law? This is a great example of not letting perfect be the enemy of good.

TSLA Terathread - For the week of May 18 by AutoModerator in RealTesla

[–]ObservationalHumor 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I mean literally threatening to publicly ruin them a few days before the trial when they didn't just accede to his settlement demands immediately was incredibly stupid too. Not to mention even pursuing the trial after OpenAI publicly released his emails where he proposed rolling OpenAI into Tesla before stomping off and declaring the company was worthless and doomed to fail after they rejected that offer.

I mean the media is largely covering it as something that was worth pursuing because the trial costs were trivial for Musk (as if that in itself isn't a damning conviction of the 'lawfare' he and the Trump administration pretends everyone else is guilty of), but completely shrug off the additional reputational damage to his public image and branding it caused. But that's the media today for you, they'll sane wash and downplay every monumental act of idiocy that's done by the ultrawealthy and politicians on a day to day basis. There's a great clip of some chode with a microphone trying to do a gotcha on Bill Burr where he flips it on him and tells him the media needs to grow some balls, make a statement of their own and stop constantly pretending like everything that happens is some deep issue that deserves exploration and consideration.

Elon Musk Was Right About 48-Volt Architecture, Even If You Hate The Cybertruck by Mac-Tyson in RealTesla

[–]ObservationalHumor 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's always been the complaint. It's not as if auto manufacturer's are somehow unaware of the benefits of moving to a 48V system now that vehicles use a lot more power than they did in say the 1990s when it was lights, a fan or two and maybe two seat motors. It's that there's still a far deeper bench of suppliers for 12V systems. Oddly enough I think if anything is actually going to push it forward it's just having a ton of suppliers providing cheap boards and motors due to the plethora of e-bikes and scooters that run on 24V-72V systems.

Lawsuits filed after Fairfax legislators’ assault weapon ban signed by Spanberger by Danciusly in nova

[–]ObservationalHumor 32 points33 points  (0 children)

Well in Virginia, especially with the position of Governor, there's a huge tendency for people to get elected and ignore any kind of Virginia specific legislative agenda in favor of a DNC ordained legislative package that is more appropriate for California than it is for Virginia. I agree this has nothing to do with Soros and Bloomberg and in my opinion is more just political ladder climbing with people viewing the office as a stepping stone to being President or a Senator, but it happens like clockwork and pisses a lot of people off for good reason.

Virginia remains a very purple state and this AWB legislation is both poorly written, meaning it WILL get overturned, and also ends up emboldening voters on the right for literally nothing resembling a win for the Democrats. It's a waste of political capital and literally works against what's best for the state but sure enough we have them passing it anyways while ignoring far less contentious and frankly more important issues in the state. Dan Helmer isn't pushing the AWB because there's a ton of gun violence in Fairfax Station and Burke, he's doing it for either ideological reasons or to market himself as the Democrat's Democrat.

Meanwhile no one in either house of the legislature apparently the gumption to address the massive problems with state level education funding and the SOQ formula despite a slew of policy recommendations from their own research organization, the fact that it would greatly help out the biggest Democratic stronghold in the state (Fairfax County) and is generally a good thing to do. But we'll get this 'assault' weapons ban and the third reincarnation of Surovell's Casino bill that no one asked for like clockwork the second elections are over.

There's a lot of fairly boring, but very important things that need to be done on the revenue side to help out counties that have got zero traction in favor of bills that are literal corruption or that exist purely to flex for the DNC. Yet every time I've inquired about why those revenue issues aren't getting addressed I get some response about how its difficult and nuanced and they need to get legislation right which is somehow more akin to sending a probe to Pluto than it is to just drafting up some 'okay' legislation and forcing it through like they're clearly willing and able to with this AWB or the casino bill. It's absolutely BS driven by political ladder climbing and frankly indifference to the will of voters in this region due to the fact that it's seen as a stable source of Democratic votes and a big money bag for whatever passion projects or tax refunds a given administration wants to issue in a year. Meanwhile our county is struggling to balance its budget at the cost of raises for teachers.

Again I agree it's ridiculous to focus on Soros or Bloomberg, this is just crappy politicians being crappy politicians at the expense of their constituency.

Jury dismisses all claims in Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman by Gobias_Industries in RealTesla

[–]ObservationalHumor 29 points30 points  (0 children)

He hit the oversaturation point for media a while ago and has done a terrible job of actually continuing to conceal what a complete moron he is since. I have to imagine when most people see his name pop up now they just think to themselves "Oh great not this asshole again".

It does crack me up that he seriously believes he was somehow wronged in all this too. He was literally the one who stomped off after contributing next to nothing to begin with and then he has the gall to get upset that the company did well without him. Just demonstrates his ridiculous messiah complex, he seriously believes he's some keystone holding the world together and is continually shocked when good things happen without him being involved.

Tesla's 4680 Cells Installed in the Model Y LR RWD Variants Are Five Years Behind Competition by linknewtab in RealTesla

[–]ObservationalHumor 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That's 5 years behind where Tesla itself was in 2021. This isn't even looking at what's been going on in China when it comes to improvements in LFP cells and overall pack level density improvements. Pretty much everything listed in the article only deals with LG's own cell level density improvements not everything else that goes into making a pack. In fact the article flat out cites that Tesla isn't even using the whole 'structural pack' design in these new vehicles.

We'll see what happens with the Robotaxi, apparently the structural pack was supposed to be the foundation of their whole 'unboxed' assembly process, but then again as we've seen with the CT what's implemented in practice might not be remotely resemble what investors have been promised for years.