Sunday, December 31
Daily News Stuff 31 December 2023
Year's End Edition
Year's End Edition
Top Story
- Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cost-cutting and mergers as losses mount in their streaming services. (Ars Technica)
But not, so far as I can tell, giving much thought to making content people want to watch.
Amazon is propped up by the river of money flowing from AWS - and oh boy di I have a rant there - so they won't feel the same pain until Jeff Bezos decides he wants that money for something else. When the axe finally swings there, it will be swift and brutal.
Plus they have a wide selection of old content that you can get access to for a few bucks a month. I think it's A$5 to get MGM's entire back catalogue on Prime Video, which is how I'm watching Stargate. When I'm done, I just cancel that and pick up a channel with something else.
Or just watch Hololive.
Tech News
- How do red flour beetles absorb water through their butts? (Ars Technica)
On second thought, never mind.
- Can we build solar power satellites? (CNN)
Maybe.
It used to be completely infeasible due simply to the cost of launching the required material into space. SpaceX has fixed that, and now it's just a very difficult engineering problem.
It does solve the obvious problems with ground-based solar, at least: Put your satellites in the right orbit and the Sun shines all the time.
- Why I'm skeptical of "low code". (Scialli)
Because it doesn't work. Basically.
Disclaimer: Farewell, 2023. Or rather, get out, and stay out.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
06:55 PM
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Should we build solar power satellites?
Answer may be "No. What are you, crazy?"
"Renewables" so far have two traits. 1. The argument against 'fossil fuels' is probably garbage. 2. Renewables are very very inefficient, and are effectively a way to spend fossil fuel energy. The energy value of the subsidy scheme is important, especially when the government spends recklessly to get plants up fast, that then die fast.
Space engineering is not inherently trivially easy. The mismatch between govenrment claims, and actual quality of work, when it comes to several related issues is perhaps a wee bit predictive of their ability to create a bunch of space junk.
Other space junk can be predicted to damage critical elements of the power satellite, which has design constraints just from the concept proposed. Either space engineers all of a sudden get the art of repairing satellites down cold, or the thing breaks and has to be entirely replaced. Which may happen well before all components are broken. Time to break down does not have to be really fast, to make the thing a constant waste.
Recovering ninety percent of energy used is still a complete waste.
Answer may be "No. What are you, crazy?"
"Renewables" so far have two traits. 1. The argument against 'fossil fuels' is probably garbage. 2. Renewables are very very inefficient, and are effectively a way to spend fossil fuel energy. The energy value of the subsidy scheme is important, especially when the government spends recklessly to get plants up fast, that then die fast.
Space engineering is not inherently trivially easy. The mismatch between govenrment claims, and actual quality of work, when it comes to several related issues is perhaps a wee bit predictive of their ability to create a bunch of space junk.
Other space junk can be predicted to damage critical elements of the power satellite, which has design constraints just from the concept proposed. Either space engineers all of a sudden get the art of repairing satellites down cold, or the thing breaks and has to be entirely replaced. Which may happen well before all components are broken. Time to break down does not have to be really fast, to make the thing a constant waste.
Recovering ninety percent of energy used is still a complete waste.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Monday, January 01 2024 03:37 PM (r9O5h)
2
The problem with solar satellites are twofold: First, collecting the energy is non-trivial, and second, launch costs make the whole thing infeasible in the first place.
The second problem has largely been solved, and if Starship meets projections, will be completely solved within five years.
Lots of things in space because easy once they become cheap.
The second problem has largely been solved, and if Starship meets projections, will be completely solved within five years.
Lots of things in space because easy once they become cheap.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Monday, January 01 2024 04:56 PM (PiXy!)
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