MEET THE PHOTOVOLTAIC GOATS OF THE GOBI DESERT

The 2.2GW Talatan Solar Park is the second largest solar installation in the world. It also accidentally greened the desert. Before the panels arrived starting 2012, it was a barren landscape, 98.5% desert, and so windy the swept-up…

Wired 14 years ago (my hyperbolic cover story) and The Atlantic today.

I suspect that Web, one way or another, will outlive us all

eVTOL narrative violation

.Anduril Industries just beat out Boeing and Lockheed to make autonomous fighter craft for the Air Force.

This is a very big deal for a bunch of reasons

This is cool and all, but I don't get what the point of 'dogfighting' in combat is anymore. Don't fighter jets just detect the enemy at great distance, fire a couple missiles, and scram?

1974-2024 RIP

50 years is a hell of a run for a processor chip

Many people are hating on this video, but I actually think it's a fascinating display of the two very distinct modes that exist to relate with reality: mimesis vs. first principles thinking.

95% of people operate by mimesis. Truth doesn't matter to them as much as getting…

San Francisco just stopped enforcing the law about five years ago. Traffic, shoplifting, drug use, car break-ins, etc

If nothing else, the catastrophic results will be fodder for a generation of economists & social scientists to digest & learn from. And in the meantime, a prod…

China is really leading the way in agricultural drones, mostly because their regulations allow it and ours don't. Instead, in the US we have pilots fly crop-dusting airplanes at head height; ten were killed doing this last year alone

linkedin.com/posts/travis-h…

We are members of two NextDoor neighborhoods, one in Berkeley/Oakland and other in Barnes, London. It's interesting to compare them

The Berkeley/Oakland one is full of armed carjackings, break-ins and police inaction

Meanwhile, this is the UK one:

Question for the married guys (for a scifi short story I'm writing):

I assume your wife would consider you having an AI girlfriend is still cheating.

But what if you had a really good AI version of *her*?

Like a sandbox to explore/extend the boundaries of your relationship.…

Congrats Eric Migicovsky!
techcrunch.com/2024/04/09/wor…

First SF Bay Area amateur SciFi writers (and wannabe SciFi writers, like most of us) meetup happening tomorrow in Los Altos
meetup.com/san-francisco-…