"Should I pay tax?", world's richest man asks Twitter

[buttgammon]

His response to this was to release a $50 limited edition whistle shaped like the truck.

Although he's obviously within this group too, at least Musk definitively proves the link between wealth and stupidity.

[chveik]

oops

[bespoke]

For someone who purports to believe in the simulation hypothesis, he seems to take 'the mission' very seriously. Hedging bets I assume.

[chveik]

i wonder how his fanboys will react when the cunt is responsible for the next stock market crash

[Johnny Foreigner]

You will pay for that. No, seriously, you will.

[Sebastian Cobb]

this terribly divorced man is the coolest 50 year old on the planet!

[Ferris]

state of this cunt

[Sebastian Cobb]

It's like one of those 'iced gem' haircut all the bellends had a while back but flat.

Ironically it's the opposite of what his hair was doing about 20 years ago.

[Wonderful Butternut]

His response to this was to release a $50 limited edition whistle shaped like the truck.

Fucking hell, what a twat. In remotely equitable world, when the lawsuit finds against Tesla, this could be retroactively deemed contempt of court and the fucker put in jail.

And I bet like all things Musk comes up with, it's less efficient than a regular whistle.

[Johnny Yesno]

The hair is perilously close to being a Kim Jong Un.

And that avatar (and the project it represents) is like another entrepreneur's dream of standing on top of his own skyscraper with a red drink and 'a couple of sorts' with the initials of Trotters Independent Traders in 50 foot high neon lettering behind him.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I was looking into Starlink, his satellite broadband stuff and trying to see how it's useful.

For domestic internet, it's a ridiculous workaround to legislative issues and telco inaction, and even if you didn't want to improve last-mile wired/optical internet you could do better with terrestrial 4/5g and microwave.

For rural internet, yes fine if you have a power connection. For off grid it seems a bit bad because it seems to consume 90w on idle and ~110w on load. Which is probably unsustainable (for comparison, i have an old hp microserver running less than half that, providing 2 vm's and multiple containerised services consuming less than half that... I don't consider it great energy-wise, but also don't think it's worth prematurely retiring for something more efficient, if I went off grid I'd consider it a flagrant waste of power).

Would invite @buzby to comment on this.

[buzby]

I believe it can peak at about 160-170W (the PSU is rated at 180W) which is probably when the antenna heater is working (to prevent ice buildup), so the idle power consumption in winter will almost double (I don't know if the heater runs constantly or is pulsed, but it will probably be based on the outside air temperature).

It's hundreds of times less effieient to transmit data via microwave radiation through the atmosphere than it is over copper, and the power required for microwave transmission increases dramatically the further you go (and the error correction algorithms also have to work harder, especially when atmospheric and weather conditions some into the mix). It's a fundamental physical law that you can't invent your way out of. Mobile phones and WiFi get away with it by being relatively close to the basestation. You can't do that with satellites, even LEO ones.

Like anything Musk is involved in, it's 'green credentials' are a load of whitewash. He goes on about bringing the internet to rural third-world communities, but if they can barely power some LED lighitng via solar or wind at the moment, how are they going to power a Starlink terminal, and the devices that will use the data connection? It's mainly aimed at well-off vaguely libertarian/Randian middle class people who have moved out ot the country (or have their second home there) and found they can't get decent broadband spepds.

[evilcommiedictator]

Mind you, Grimes is an even worse nutter, at least she escaped, but "Player of Games"....

[Sebastian Cobb]

I believe it can peak at about 160-170W (the PSU is rated at 180W) which is probably when the antenna heater is working (to prevent ice buildup), so the idle power consumption in winter will almost double (I don't know if the heater runs constantly or is pulsed, but it will probably be based on the outside air temperature).

It's hundreds of times less effieient to transmit data via microwave radiation through the atmosphere than it is over copper, and the power required for microwave transmission increases dramatically the further you go (and the error correction algorithms also have to work harder, especially when atmospheric and weather conditions some into the mix). It's a fundamental physical law that you can't invent your way out of. Mobile phones and WiFi get away with it by being relatively close to the basestation. You can't do that with satellites, even LEO ones.

Like anything Musk is involved in, it's 'green credentials' are a load of whitewash. He goes on about bringing the internet to rural third-world communities, but if they can barely power some LED lighitng via solar or wind at the moment, how are they going to power a Starlink terminal, and the devices that will use the data connection? It's mainly aimed at well-off vaguely libertarian/Randian middle class people who have moved out ot the country (or have their second home there) and found they can't get decent broadband spepds.

Informative, thanks.

I did think it was largely marketing guff. My first proper job out of uni had me stuck on an assist desk for people on oil rigs and it was interesting how they got internet connections back then (in 2009). 3g was common for the closer ones, as were microwave links, the ones a bit farther out used all sorts of wacky stuff, like bouncing stuff off the ionosphere (I think that was pretty asymmetric) and also using metallic balloons as a relay. I don't recall satellite being used all that much - perhaps because a lot of the (rural aimed) implementations back then relied on pots for the return feed.

I notice that spars and petrol stations still have big dishes with massive lnbs? are they duplex?

[buzby]

I notice that spars and petrol stations still have big dishes with massive lnbs? are they duplex?

They are usually Hughes VSATs for the National Lotteey terminals (and yes, they are transceivers).

[Sebastian Cobb]

Seems a bit mad to still use satellite for that, given nearly every shop will have wired connectivity for its epos/pdq/paypoint/etc stuff.

[chveik]

i've heard there's a very high turnover of engineers in Starlink because of burnout (Musk being a bully cunt). they are often talking about bankrupcy, which is probably a way to funnel more government money into it but it also seems the value of the company is predicated on completely unrealistic prospects

[buzby]

Seems a bit mad to still use satellite for that, given nearly every shop will have wired connectivity for its epos/pdq/paypoint/etc stuff.

They used to use a mix of ISDN and VSAT-based twerminals, depending on the site, but have been migrating to an all-VSAT network for speed, availability and, most importantly, security reasons.

[Blue Jam]

this terribly divorced man is the coolest 50 year old on the planet!

Biggest waste of a hair transplant since Dr Christian Jessen.

Neuralink is complete bollocks as well, just been checking out the job listings for a laugh and, given how they're looking for a load of engineers, robotics peeps etc but relatively few life scientists, I get the impression that they're trying to engineer this thing before figuring out what the fuck they actually want it to do:

https://neuralink.com/careers/

Love this detail:

No prior experience in neuroscience is necessary—we will teach you everything you need to know.

Hahahaha fucking hell.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Biggest waste of a hair transplant since Dr Christian Jessen.

Neuralink is complete bollocks as well, just been checking out the job listings for a laugh and, given how they're looking for a load of engineers, robotics peeps etc but relatively few life scientists, I get the impression that they're trying to engineer this thing before figuring out what the fuck they actually want it to do:

https://neuralink.com/careers/

Love this detail:

Hahahaha fucking hell.

Dunno if I'm supposed to post this in the car thread now, but this cavalier attitude towards their cars self-driving should definitely give anyone pause for thought about letting the man anywhere near their brain.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/technology/tesla-autopilot-elon-musk.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes