uriel238

Here we go. I found you an article by Karl Bode that explains the problems of why Starlink is not a strong valuation strut for SpaceX.

I was reading off the articles that talked about the SpaceX IPO and why it's a bad investment. But a websearch seems to reveal a number of problems, from the collision risks caused by exponentially larger numbers of satellites to the environmental impact of the launches to get them into orbit. And then there's the problem that Starlink satellites are falling from space by the hundreds (and not always fully burning up in the atmosphere).

As it is, congestion, especially in cities, is critical, and Starlink is now charging extreme congestion fees. For now Starlink is being promoted as a rural option, since the US is disinterested in running fiber, or even copper. (We had programs that were so budgeted but now they've been shut down, and Musk has a lot of access to the White House.) But satellite internet doesn't work well for activities that require high bandwidth, such as gaming or high-resolution streaming.

Also revealed by my websearch, Starlink customers are desperate for better customer service, and instead are having to rely on online user groups.

Heh. Ghost printers.

Taking a page from the Fourth International–Posadists, I suspect we're going to have to develop a working socialist / communist society before we will be able to develop a space program robust enough for asteroid mining and offworld colonization.

With the climate-crisis fast approaching critical, we may not make it at all, or may have to wait tens of thousands of years (homo-erectus went through a long stint where there was less than ten-thousand of them), but I don't think there is a capitalist path.

I have faith that the independent 3D printing community will continue to hack its way around printer DRM.

I also have faith that printers that can be modified to print guns (or anything else too spicy for government) will sell better than printers that cannot.

The point of manned missions and colonies now is proof of concept for the expansion of human civilization to other worlds, but yes, that's not a private for profit endeavor but a public interest one.

That said, the research and development done for the Apollo moon shots returned to the economy $14 for every one dollar spent, so it was absolutely a sound investment. Also, those patents were sold to the US government for a dollar each (at most), and so the technology gained like microcircuitry and memory foam, are public domain.

( RANT: The public domain, the creation of a robust one is -- according to the Constitution of the United States -- the very purpose of the whole temporary monopoly system that is the foundation of intellectual property law.)

Another sign that billionaires and Zuckerberg especially, have completely become out of touch with the rest of humanity.

We are merely consumers to them.

When companies try to build new ones, industry analysts say they frequently do so clandestinely without revealing which tech firm would use the facilities. Researchers found that among 31 Virginia localities with existing, approved or proposed datacenters, 80% had non-disclosure agreements with the companies behind the projects, the Virginia Mercury reports

There's an old adage from the 1980s:

California passes new laws regulating the pollutant output of motor vehicles in order to protect the Los Angeles valley. (The smog there routinely posed a dangerous health risk, and probably still does. Cars have since been required to pass smog checks.)

The automotive industry of Japan responded by hiring 30,000 scientists to develop less pollutant cars.

The automotive industry of the United States responded by hiring 30,000 lawyers to contest the new regulation.

(It's a simplification, but the gist of it is based on fact. Eventually the US automotive industry would switch over to Non-Passenger Work Vehicles, id est, SUVs which were not regulated by the California laws. In 2026, 90% of active personal vehicles in the US qualify as NPWVs.)

Once again, the IPO ($135/share or $2.1 Trillion) was based on the success of some long term goals like space-based data centers and a Mars colony of one million permanent residents.

This is from the same guy who promised a fleet of Tesla robotaxis by 2025.

Space experts have since pointed out that the vacuum of space does not sink heat.

Some of the assets thrown into the SpaceX valuation include xAI (which is falling behind OpenAI and Anthropic) and Starlink (which is suffering from congestion problems already and cannot be scaled up).

So this is not unexpected.

Provided the disc doesn't require a phoned-in registration key. I think Bioshock started the trend along with limited installations.

SONY has always been a ~~little~~ enormous shit.

🪟🔪

Hey! Wow! The new 2020-era emoji are tops!