We can hope but I'm not very optimistic about this not getting crushed again or there being any more than a vague thumbs up from abroad for the protesters. It seems they are on their own. But I could understand Iranians choosing to stay safe rather then risk their lives protesting given the way this has gone in the past.
On the other hand the sudden collapse of the Assad regime in Syria shows these things sometimes do happen. But I don't think similar conditions exist in Iran. There seems to be a lot of anger but very little organized opposition. But there are some reasons to assume the regime might fracture internally where religious extremists and conservative but more pragmatic opportunists running e.g. the military part ways.
An Egyptian model might be more lucrative for those types where you get a kleptocratic elite getting more diplomatic about restoring international relationships in exchange for sanctions lifting and access to international markets to get filthy rich from the natural resources that Iran is currently sitting on. My impression is that the current unrest is caused by economics, not ideology. But a lot would need to change in Iran for this to happen. The poor health of Khamenei might trigger such a thing in the context of a wider leadership battle.
The counter point here is that the US and EU have benefited with a lot of economic growth in the past few decades. The fact that this growth effect has now run its course just means that things may need to change again and that old assumptions may need to re-evaluated. Which might include looking at strategies to re-shore.
Not because off shoring was a mistake 40-50 years ago; but because technology now enables automating a lot of the type of jobs that we off shored. I'm referring to robotics and and other innovations in manufacturing and assembly that reduces the amount of cheap labor needed and calls for higher skilled labor that the west can still provide.
The higher cost of skilled labor can be offset against the also substantial cost of shipping. A typical car from China costs between 1-2K $ to transport. And that's of course before tariffs. Also shipping is slow and building locally means faster delivery of custom orders, which is another thing enabled by modern manufacturing technology. There are many valid reasons to re-shore and re-thinking supply chains.
The Chinese are moving ahead applying the same kind of technologies in e.g. automotive than many other manufacturers with the exception of maybe relatively new companies like Tesla and Rivian that have embraced a software intensive approach to cars already. And that includes spinning up BYD plants on different continents. Compared to a BYD factory, GM and Ford look like they have a bit of catching up to do. Their lack of competitiveness on the international market has a lot to do with the fact that they failed to modernize their businesses. Also, they seem to be repeating their mistake of the nineteen eighties when the Japanese kicked their behinds with better cars and more modern manufacturing. Their reflex to blame the Japanese, Koreans, Chinese (or whomever) for their own failings is not a great one. It's going to yield the same result unless they change.
A bunch of assholes in offices (edit: and a handful of C-suite above them of course) got rich on RSUs at the expense of the entire rest of the economy. The factory shut down and all those workers are getting screwed driving for some gig service or order picking for ecommerce or whatever.
Number go up only matters if the number going up is strongly associated with things getting better.
And it didn't even necessarily get better for the asshole in the office. A few of them won but most of them can't afford to live within an hour of where he works, have a family, etc, etc.
The 2-3%/year economic growth that has been common since the 1980s. People getting rich is nothing new. You can go back 50 years, 100 years, 150 years, etc. and find the same kind of debates.
The difference is that people work less than ever and obesity is now a sign of poverty rather than wealth. Depression era US had people actually starving. The relative wealth of the middle class in the sixties and seventies is something you might rightfully mourn a little. But even then, there was a lot of poverty.
This is the "but iPhones and avocado toast" argument.
Calories and consumer goods are cheaper than ever. Housing, education and healthcare are more expensive than they've ever been. There has been a marked decrease in the amount of personal and economic autonomy available to the middle class and below over the past 40yr. Look at how medium skill level workers lived in the 1980s. It's basically a foreign country compared to today.
Having a robot vacuum to smear your dog's shit all around doesn't actually make you wealthier if you can't afford a house for the dog to shit in and apartments don't allow dogs.
What people want is a comfortable and fulfilling life, both of which are assessed on a relative basis. The modern economy has given them a rat race and shitty highs and they know it. Happy pills don't make depressed people happy. They just make them not depressed.
What people want never existed. You always find people that want more. But the same apartment that currently houses a couple of people used to house entire families. And it wouldn't have had a lot of the comforts people take for granted these days.
You can optimize things. I have a github action that starts stops a fast google cloud vm for our builds. It only gets used about 3 minutes per build. We maybe have a few dozen builds per month. So that's a few hours of run time. The rest of the time the vm is stopped and not billed (except for storage, which is cents per month at most). It's a simple debian vm so it boots in about 20 seconds.
VMs are expensive if you leave them running 24/7 but the logic to start/stop them is pretty easy. There's no need.
Anyway, you need to balance this against the payoff. Agentic coding is useful enough that it beats spending your own time. And that includes waiting time for the relatively slow/underpowered containerized environments that some tools would use by default. I use codex web and codex cli (with a qemu vm so I can use the --yolo flag). Codex web is a bit limited with memory and CPU. Some of my slower builds are taking forever there. To the point where most of the time it consumes is just waiting for these builds to happen.
With a bit of plumbing, you can do things like the author describes pretty easily. IMHO this needs to be better integrated into tools. With Github you have the option to run your own runners. I don't think codex/claude web have similar options currently. But with the cli versions, you can get more creative if you know your tools. And if you don't, use LLMs to drive them for you. It's mostly just about expressing what you want and how you want it.
If you travel solo, going to cafe's, bars, and especially restaurants can be a bit awkward. But also enjoyable. Mostly, it's just a mental block that people need to get over.
Some venues are really just not designed for solo travelers. You have all these couples and social groups having fun with each other and then the tables they give to social travelers don't tend to be the nicest.
This is annoying if you are hungry and not looking to get another fast food meal. But fast food restaurants are of course perfect for solo travelers otherwise. And there are lots of restaurant types that serve decent food in a bit informal setting where eating by yourself is not that weird. Other good options include hotel restaurants. Because hotels tend to have lots of solo travelers. The bigger the city, the easier it is to find nice places to eat by yourself generally.
Cafes are easier. Lots of people go there to have a coffee by themselves, work, read, or whatever. It's normal. The venue might not like the sub optimal use of tables though. But if it's not too busy and you tip well, they typically don't mind people staying for a few hours and perhaps reading or working on a laptop. I do this a lot.
I don't drink alcohol anymore and getting drunk by yourself in a bar can be a bit weird. Though depending on the bar, it's perfectly normal to have a drink by yourself of course. These days I tend to like to sit down after a day of sight seeing to have a few cold alcohol free beers. Lots of places where this is perfectly normal.
I've been traveling solo for a few decades. I can be quite social but I'm also fine not talking to people for days/weeks when traveling. It's not for everyone. I tend to prefer booking apartments and self catering these days. Going to restaurants for dinner is expensive and not really worth it to me by myself. But I'll have coffees, light lunches, and other beverages.
This is far too simplistic. Yes there are some critical minerals and Russian and Chinese influence. But that's true in many countries. The Chinese are investing in infrastructure and mining all over the globe.
I think it's much simpler. Maduro became a fixation for Trump and the republicans mostly for ideological reasons. It's the same reason he rolled back normalization of relationships with Cuba under Obama. Venezuelan oil is critical to the Cuban economy. Cuban votes in Florida are important for republicans in Florida. Removing Maduro has many beneficial side effects at a very low cost. They might end up with fresh oil supplies, critical minerals, a more friendly regime, and it send a strong signal to countries like Panama, Cuba, and others that all are under a lot of pressure from Trump already. And they get to send back a lot of Venezuelan refugees.
The oil is probably not that critical. Over supply would actually be bad for US producers that are currently extracting at a relatively high cost. Investing in Venezuela sounds like a high risk type thing. The country has a history of revolutions. There's no guarantee that any investments today are worth anything in ten years. I doubt much will happen there.
This is about opportunism. Maduro was weak. Taking him out creates opportunities. Trump can score some points, send back some refugees, please oil companies, and put pressure on other countries in the region. I wouldn't credit him with any kind of long term strategy or vision. I don't think he actually cares what happens in ten years. And I don't think he cares about the significant international/diplomatic cost either. Some bridges were burned yesterday on that side. That might actually create problems elsewhere.
This has been planned since Trump's first term, so it's definitely not opportunism, but at the same time I think you're right that there's a personal element.
But it's overwhelmed by the geopolitics. China invests in minerals all over the world, but this is literally America's backyard, and America does not want to cede control.
My guess is that this is going to shift rapidly for new games. Once the Steam PC launches, most new games will probably run fine on it. There's no logical reason for game studios to throw way significant market share over weird legacy crap related to "anti cheat". I expect the already significant amount of Linux using Steam users will grow to the point where game studios can no longer ignore it in terms of revenue and angry users and will actively test and ensure their games work flawlessly.
Of course one point here is that MS owns some of the more problematic game studios. Anti cheat here might be less about users cheating and more about them using this as a control point to ensure gamers keep on preferring Windows. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I don't think MS has much of a moat left for gaming. And it will be tempting for them as well to tap into the few percent of Linux using Steam users for selling them games. They've long stopped insisting on windows for things like Office or SQL Server as well. The whole of Azure is pretty much Linux based at this point. So, they might dig in for a bit but they'll be under growing pressure to give in.
Like BYD, there's nothing stopping GM, Ford, and other manufacturers from opening factories anywhere in the world and employing the locals at a discount. They certainly did that in the past. But that's not leveling the playing field because their products are simply lacking. Too expensive to make, too inefficient. That's fixable but it would require investment and right now the US car manufacturers seem to want to invest less instead of more. It's hard to see how they would catch up. Ford is currently doing the pragmatic thing which is partnering with other companies to produce cars for the international market. VW and Renault in the EU, various Chinese manufacturers in China. US models are a non starter for those markets.
The Chinese are actually investing heavily in robotics and automation. They rely a lot less on cheap labor than you seem to assume. And their production is going global as well they are building manufacturing plants on most continents. They are opening plants in Europe and South America. BYD factories are state of the art.
The Guardian article glosses over a few things that are actually interesting about this ship:
- It's made out of aluminum instead of steel. The resulting weight savings make it a bit more efficient. That's something this shipping yard specializes in.
- Because it is going to run in shallow water on the river Plate, it doesn't actually have propellers but a water jet propulsion system.
The project of getting this ship from Tasmania to South America is also going to be interesting as well. It can't do it under its own power; it's designed for a ~50km crossing, not a trans Pacific/Atlantic journey. At the time, they were thinking tug boats.
I'd wager they will use what is known as a 'Float-on/float-off' ship for transport... it's rather common actually-
It's a ship with a very low deck line that partially submerges itself, with the center of the deck underwater deep enough so the other vessel can 'float on' over the deck. They they pump the water back out, raising the deck above water and the boat on top it just rests flat.
> The project of getting this ship from Tasmania to South America is also going to be interesting as well.
Indeed. As I remarked last time (1) "it's long distance and can be rough seas" They get to pick a good time of year, but either route goes past places known for storms and shipwrecks in the winter (June to September). Would you choose to go via Cape Agulhas or around Cape Horn?
It would be annoying to be ready to deliver the ship, but due to schedule over-runs, to have to wait 4 months for the weather to improve.
If it’s anything like the electric ferries that cross the Öresund beween Helsingborg and Helsingør, they grab charge while they’re unloading and loading at each terminal:
Each trip consumes approximately 1,175 kWh, which is nearly the same amount a residential home consumes in a month. In each port is a tower with a robot arm that connects the charging cable automatically every time the ship comes to the dock. The system charges 10.5 kV, 600Amp and 10.5MW. The batteries have a total capacity of 4,160 kWh, which means that we always have a surplus of electricity if for some reason we cannot load during a stop or if the transit takes more time than usual.
In Helsingör the ferries charge for approx. 6 minutes and in Helsingborg the ferries charge for approx. 9 minutes. This is enough to suffice for the journey across the strait.[1]
Side note: you can also charge your car on board from the boat’s batteries.
The Cruise Ship Terminal in San Francisco has 12 mW. Apparently it's uncommon in that it's wired with enough power available so the cruise ships don't have to run their on board generators while docked in port here. It's a major pollution thing.
> The ship... will travel between the ports of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. The two cities are 60 kilometers apart, a distance it is expected to travel in 90 minutes.
> Direct-current charging stations will be installed at each port... A full charge is expected to take just 40 minutes.
Something people overlook with these things is that you don't actually need to fully charge batteries because they won't be completely empty and probably a 70-80% charge is more than enough for a single crossing with a healthy safety margin. Also charging speeds are non linear. Charging speeds typically drop when the battery gets closer being full. Charging from 80% to 100% is a lot slower than charging from 20% to 80%. And depending on the battery chemistry, completely discharging or charging them to the max isn't necessarily great for battery longevity.
Another point with battery powered ships is that the rate at which they discharge is speed dependent and that's a non linear relationship because the drag increases quadratic with speed. So, if you are at 30%, you can still make it across. Just not at the full speed. This is less about range anxiety than it is about just being able to stick to schedules. If the ship did not charge enough it would have to go slower. But it would still get there. This ship is designed to go quite fast which means it would have a lot of wiggle room. So they might make it across at full speed even at maybe a 60% charge. The risk is that they'd run low and might have to slow down a bit. It would get there but with a delay if that happens. And then it would have to sit there a bit longer recharging leading to more delays.
The trick is optimizing the amount of batteries to minimize turnover and delays; not around being able to charge them from 0 to 100%. The sweet spot is probably around the 20-80% mark, meaning you'd want to be able do a crossing at full speed using about 50-60% of the battery capacity. The rest is just there as safety margin to avoid delays. If you burn into that, you need to charge a bit more. With 40-50 minutes turnover, there's plenty of time to do that typically.
Indeed, that's why I say "keep charge", i.e. be in a steady state such as always leaving at 80% charge. Not charging from zero, and not necessarily charging to 100%.
People who charge electric vehicles at home emphasise that you plug it in as a matter of routine every night (ABC: Always Be Charging) and since it's software-controlled, you can e.g. tell it to charge up to 80%, and figure out the most cost-effective way to do that by 8am.
The ABC of such a ship, is that it would be plugged whenever it is docked, during the turnarounds. And there is enough time in that turnaround to keep charge. It likely also has some downtime at night as well, but that matters less in this case.
I think that makes a ton of sense, esp since you can retrofit diesel-electric ferries.
Skips expensive DC charging infrastructure, but does require to buy two batteries which can get expensive. Over time vpp / market arbitrage can pay for battery itself tho.
Also sacrifices some of the cargo capacity. I.e. for wellington - picton that’s about 4 rail cars or 6 semi trailers.
apparently, 40MWh of capacity is enough to travel 40 nautical miles. The distance between Tasmania and South America is around 6,500–7,500 nautical miles.
It also needs to beat up that air enough to make the resultant forces overcome gravity acting on the airliner whereas the ship just gets to float there.
2025 was the year of development tool using AI agents. I think we'll shift attention to non development tool using AI agents. Most business users are still stuck using chat gpt as some kind of grand oracle that will write their email or powerpoint slides. There are bits and pieces of mostly technology demo level solutions but nothing that is widely used like AI coding tools are so far. I don't think this is bottle necked on model quality.
I don't need an AGI. I do need a secretary type agent that deals with all the simple but yet laborious non technical tasks that keep infringing on my quality engineering time. I'm CTO for a small startup and the amount of non technical bullshit that I need to deal with is enormous. Some examples of random crap I deal with: figuring out contracts, their meaning/implication to situations, and deciding on a course of action; Customer offers, price calculations, scraping invoices from emails and online SAAS accounts, formulating detailed replies to customer requests, HR legal work, corporate bureaucracy, financial planning, etc.
A lot of this stuff can be AI assisted (and we get a lot of value out of ai tools for this) but context engineering is taking up a non trivial amount of my time. Also most tools are completely useless at modifying structured documents. Refactoring a big code base, no problem. Adding structured text to an existing structured document, hardest thing ever. The state of the art here is an ff-ing sidebar that will suggest you a markdown formatted text that you might copy/paste. Tool quality is very primitive. And then you find yourself just stripping all formatting and reformatting it manually. Because the tools really suck at this.
I do care about it; kind of my duty as a co-founder. Which is why I'm spending double digit percentages of my time doing this stuff. But I absolutely could use some tools to cut down on a lot of the drudgery that is involved with this. And me reading through 40 pages of dense legal German isn't one of my strengths since I 1) do not speak German 2) am not a lawyer and 3) am not necessarily deeply familiar with all the bureaucracy, laws, etc.
But I can ask intelligent questions about that contract from an LLM (in English) and shoot back and forth a few things, come up with some kind of action plan, and then run it by our laywers and other advisors.
That's not some kind of hypothetical thing. That's something that happened multiple times in our company in the last few months. LLMs are very empowering for dealing with this sort of thing. You still need experts for some stuff. But you can do a lot more yourself now. And as we've found out, some of the "experts" that we relied on in the past actually did a pretty shoddy job. A lot of this stuff was about picking apart the mess they made and fixing it.
As soon as you start drafting contracts, it gets a lot harder. I just went through a process like that as well. It involves a lot of manual work that is basically about formatting documents, drafting text, running pdfs and text snippets through chat gpt for feedback, sparring, criticism, etc. and iterating on that. This is not about vibe coding some contract but making sure every letter of a contract is right. That ultimately involves lawyers and negotiating with other stakeholders but it helps if you come prepared with a more or less ready to sign off on document.
It's not about handing stuff off but about making LLMs work for you. Just like with coding tools. I care about code quality as well. But I still use the tools to save me a lot of time.
One of the lessons I learned running a startup is that it doesn't matter how good the professionals you hire are for things like legal and accounting, you still need to put work in yourself.
Everyone makes mistakes and misses things, and as the co-founder you have to care more about the details than anyone else does.
I would have loved to have weird-unreliable-paralegal-Claude available back when I was doing that!
`Also most tools are completely useless at modifying structured documents`
we built a tool for this for the life science space and are opening it up to the general public very soon. Email me I can give you access (topaz at vespper dot com)
I use a qemu vm for running codex cli in yolo mode and use simple ssh based git operations for getting code in and out of there. Works great. And you can also do fun things like let it loose on multiple git projects in one prompt. The vm can run docker as well which helps with containerized tests and other more complicated things. One thing I've started to observe is that you spend more time waiting for tool execution than for model inference. So having a fast local vm is better than a slower remote one.
On the other hand the sudden collapse of the Assad regime in Syria shows these things sometimes do happen. But I don't think similar conditions exist in Iran. There seems to be a lot of anger but very little organized opposition. But there are some reasons to assume the regime might fracture internally where religious extremists and conservative but more pragmatic opportunists running e.g. the military part ways.
An Egyptian model might be more lucrative for those types where you get a kleptocratic elite getting more diplomatic about restoring international relationships in exchange for sanctions lifting and access to international markets to get filthy rich from the natural resources that Iran is currently sitting on. My impression is that the current unrest is caused by economics, not ideology. But a lot would need to change in Iran for this to happen. The poor health of Khamenei might trigger such a thing in the context of a wider leadership battle.
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