Just forwarded the search link to a friend. He coauthored a long out-of-date book on podcasting, and it’s on their list. A lot of these authors will get a nice bonus.

Toyota CEO: “Unless things change, we will not survive.”

https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/toyota-just-issued-stark-warning-173055087.html

It’s sad watching the U.S. and Japanese auto industry self-destruct in slow motion. There are a lot of smart and capable people in the auto industry, but the management are stuck in an 80s design and manufacturing process.

It’s really unfortunate Apple dropped the iPod Nano. The ones with a physical scroll wheel and small display were just the right size for sticking in your pocket and going for a walk, run, or bike. Great way to leave distractions behind.

This one looks like it’s got some good design ideas. Nowadays, most people have streaming playlists. If they add software to snapshot those playlists onto the device in high quality, they might have something.

Google and Microsoft already tried underwater data centers to better handle heat dissipation. It wasn’t worth it. Hardware can fail and you need somebody to go in and swap boards and faulty cables. Every complex system has multiple points of failure. The wrong board and the whole container stops working. It was so much pain trying to maintain it under water they all gave up after the Proof of Concept stage.

How are they going to deal with it cost effectively up in orbit? Little nanosat modules? Humanoid robots that barely work today?

Be a lot cheaper (and faster) sending a tech in a little cargo van and a toolbox out to the suburbs of Memphis, Phoenix, or Bakersfield.

Hyundai USA has been taking social influencer types on tours of their GA factory lately.

The location is pretty sparse already. Super automated. Mainly floor lift robots rolling partly assembled cars from station to station, with big Fanuc arms moving and welding other parts. All pre-programmed. Nothing we haven’t already seen in Chinese car factories. They all hide the final assembly stages requiring humans fitting and finishing the harnesses and sensitive parts.

In the last video I saw, Hyundai had sprinkled their tour route with a few Boston Dynamics robots. The humanoid one was just standing around. The Spot yellow doggy ones, however, were doing synchronized dancing, similar to what they did on America’s Got Talent. Nobody’s figured out what to do with them that doesn’t require machine-gun attachments. They’re so desperate they’re even floating them as glorified package delivery platforms: https://www.theverge.com/tech/965378/boston-dynamics-spot-robot-dog-delivery-assistant

If all these robots were anywhere ready near for full production, you can bet they would be showing them building the whole car. Boston Dynamics, despite all the robot gymnastics and being around for 30+ years, has not really shipped anything commercially viable. It’s already been passed around to Google, Softbank, and now Hyundai, and its CEO of many years just resigned in February.

My guess is this is all a lot of marketing flaff.

Thank you, that would be great to know. Had no idea they charged differently. There’s obviously history behind it.

Was also told by a friend that in some countries there are glass pour-lines below the lip of the glass. They are required to fill beer to the line, but different glasses have different levels for amount of foam.

Around us, there are no such rules. In some breweries you get 1cm, in other 3-4cm of foam, all for the same price.

The more foam, the longer a keg stretches (pure profit for the house). But sure, let’s gaslight the consumer into thinking foam is BETTER than beer: https://www.brewer-world.com/3-pours-of-pilsner-urquell/

Don’t be a potential meat-crayon. Always wear a helmet and pads, folks.

The problem is not enough RPis. If you get enough running in parallel, you achieve AGI, Nirvana, and quite possibly exit velocity.

Argentina played some of the dirtiest WC soccer I’ve ever seen. Grabbing the English goalie’s arms during a corner kick, regularly shoving opposing players in the back and grabbing their jerseys when they got the ball during a fast break. The referee only handed out a single yellow card, and let everything else pass.

Messi wasn’t doing it so overtly, but everyone else especially Simeone, were just blatant. Have no dog in this race, but that was just gross.

Jabba the Hutt reference.

I did a lot of work in ElderTech. There were a lot of complex psychological issues around caring, connection, and fear of abandonment.

Tech can help, or at least mitigate the harm. But fooling people, or messing with their emotions really isn’t a winning recipe.

Used to drive through there regularly. Yep. It was for real. If the wind blew a certain way or there was a heatwave, it was unbearable.

Felt the same way on a tour of a brewery where they were cooking the hops. Except that had a bit of sweetness. The Tacoma Aroma was just stultifyingly, not as sharp as sulphurous, rotten eggs. More like heavy, warm milk that had gone bad.

All day, every day. Everywhere.

Hey, they could connect the car ‘driver attention camera’ thing, the OBD car speed stuff, and the in-car GPS to the municipality, the insurance company, and your credit card or bank account.

That way, the minute you look away, go a little over the speed limit, or check your phone message, they just gouge some cash out of your bank account. After three of these, your insurance rate goes up. After the tenth time, your health insurance and employer will be notified.

Fun times! 🎉

Edit: every damn step of this is now available via APIs or Agentic MCPs. There is zero technical barrier for this happening. Sleep tight y’all.

Gives new meaning to ‘Tools Lending Library.’

https://www.techspot.com/news/109745-openai-jony-face-major-challenges-building-next-gen.html

Doesn’t OpenAI’s hardware group include Jony Ive’s group? Is Apple suing Jony?

🤩That’s not true! 🚀 You people are so mean. 😤

“On the one hand, this is good news. On the other hand…”