30 years away from it (reduced from the original 100 years they provided only 5 years ago)

More like estimates on this are completely unreliable. As in that 100 years could have as well been 1000 years. It was pretty much “until an unpredictable technological paradigm shift happens”. “100 years in future” is “when we have warp drives and star gates” of estimates. Pretty “when we have advanced to next level of advancement and technology, whenever it happens. 100 years should be good minimum of this not being taken as an actual year number estimate”.

30 years is “we see maybe a potential path to this via hypothetical developments of technology in horizon”. It’s the classical “Fusion is always 30 years away”. Until one time it isn’t, but that 30 year loop can go on indefinitely, if the hypothetical don’t turn to reality. Since you know we thought “maybe that will work, once we put out mind in to it”. Oh it didn’t, on to chasing next path.

I only know of one project, that has 100 year estimate, that is real. That is the Onkalo deep repository of spent fuel in Finland. It has estimate of spending 100 years being filled and is to be sealed in 2120’s and that is an actual date. Since all the tech is known, the sealing process is known, it just happens to take a century to fill the repository bit by bit. Finland is kinda stable country and radiation hazard such long term, that whatever government is to be there in 2120’s, they will most likely seal the repository.

Unless “we invent warp drives” happens before that and some new process of actually efficiently and very safely getting rid of the waste is found in some process. (and no that doesn’t include current recycling methods. Since those aren’t that good to get rid of this large amount and with small enough risk of side harms. Surprise, this was studied by Finland as alternative and it was simply decided “recycling is not good enough, simple enough, efficient enough and safe enough yet. Bury it in bedrock tomb”).

Main issue comes from GDPR. When one uses the consent basis for collecting and using information it has to be a free choice. Thus one can’t offer “Pay us and we collect less information about you”. Hence “pay or consent” is blatantly illegal. Showing ads in generic? You don’t need consent. That consent is “I vote with my browser address bar”. Thing just is nobody anymore wants to use non tracked ads…

So in this case DMA 5(2) is just basically re-enforcement and emphasis of previous GDPR principle. from verge

“exercise their right to freely consent to the combination of their personal data.”

from the regulation

2. The gatekeeper shall not do any of the following:
   (a) process, for the purpose of providing online advertising services, personal data of end users using services of third parties that make use of core platform services of the gatekeeper;
   (b) combine personal data from the relevant core platform service with personal data from any further core platform services or from any other services provided by the gatekeeper or with personal data from third-party services;
   © cross-use personal data from the relevant core platform service in other services provided separately by the gatekeeper, including other core platform services, and vice versa; and
   (d) sign in end users to other services of the gatekeeper in order to combine personal data,

unless the end user has been presented with the specific choice and has given consent within the meaning of Article 4, point (11), and Article 7 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679.

surprise 2016/679 is… GDPR. So yeah it’s new violation, but pretty much it is “Gatekeepers are under extra additional scrutiny for GDPR stuff. You violate, we can charge you for both GDPR and DMA violation, plus with some extra rules and explicity for DMA”.

I think technically already GDPR bans combining without permission, since GDPR demands permission for every use case for consent based processing. There must be consent for processing… combining is processing, needs consent. However this is interpretation of the general principle of GDPR. It’s just that DMA makes it explicit “oh these specific processing, yeah these are processing that need consent per GDPR”. Plus it also rules them out of trying to argue “justified interest” legal basis of processing case of the business. Explicitly ruling “these type of processing don’t fall under justified interest for these companies, these are only and explicitly per consent type actions”.

That is just its core function doing its thing transforming inputs to outputs based on learned pattern matching.

It may not have been trained on translation explicitly, but it very much has been trained on these are matching stuff via its training material. Since you know what its training set most likely contained… dictionaries. Which is as good as asking it to learn translation. Another stuff most likely in training data: language course books, with matching translated sentences in them. Again well you didnt explicitly tell it to learn to translate, but in practice the training data selection did it for you.

Well it could also be a lever or a switch.

Newer ever take Klarnas word for anything. They are the fine and Dandy company whose business model involved by routine fishing for customers bank authorization credentials.

Well difference is you have to know coming to know did the AI produce what you actually wanted.

Anyone can read the letter and know did the AI hallucinate or actually produce what you wanted.

On code. It might produce code, that by first try does what you ask. However turns AI hallucinated a bug into the code for some edge or specialty case.

Hallucinating is not a minor hiccup or minor bug, it is fundamental feature of LLMs. Since it isn’t actually smart. It is a stochastic requrgitator. It doesn’t know what you asked or understand what it is actually doing. It is matching prompt patterns to output. With enough training patterns to match one statistically usually ends up about there. However this is not quaranteed. Thus the main weakness of the system. More good training data makes it more likely it more often produces good results. However for example for business critical stuff, you aren’t interested did it get it about right the 99 other times. It 100% has to get it right, this one time. Since this code goes to a production business deployment.

I guess one can code comprehensive enough verified testing pattern including all the edge cases and with thay verify the result. However now you have just shifted the job. Instead of programmer programming the programming, you have programmer programming the very very comprehensive testing routines. Which can’t be LLM done, since the whole point is the testing routines are there to check for the inherent unreliability of the LLM output.

It’s a nice toy for someone wanting to make a quick and dirty test code (maybe) to do thing X. Then try to find out does this actually do what I asked or does it have unforeseen behavior. Since I don’t know what the behavior of the code is designed to be. Since I didn’t write the code. good for toying around and maybe for quick and dirty brainstorming. Not good enough for anything critical, that has to be guaranteed to work with promise of service contract and so on.

So what the future real big job will be is not prompt engineers, but quality assurance and testing engineers who have to be around to guard against hallucinating LLM/ similar AIs. Prompts can be gotten from anyone, what is harder is finding out did the prompt actually produced what it was supposed to produce.

Road or cycleway. Pedestrian only sidewalk is not place for bicycles or scooters due to their greater speed.

There is combined cycleway and walkways, but there the point is those are wider than mere sidewalks, so there is room for cycles and scooters to safely overtake pedestrians.

Also not only would they need more satellites, but satellites more densely in any area with multitude of customers. Which eventually hits RF interference saturation.

Radio signal has only so much bandwidth in certain amount of frequency band. Infact being high up and far away makes it worse. Since more receivers hit the beam of the satellite transmission. One would have to acquire more radio bands, but we’ll unused global satellite transmission bands don’t grow in trees.

Tighter transmitters and better filtering receivers can help, but usually at great expense and in the end eventually one hits a limit of “can’t cheat laws of physics”

Well he never won in the first place. This is the original final decision of him losing in the first place. What was “won” previously was SpaceX getting short listed as one of the companies to be seriously considered for award. Then followed the actual final full decision checks and SpaceX failed to meet criterion for the subsidy.

However this isn’t about your anecdotal experience. This is about what level of service they can guarantee as minimum and overall to meet the conditions of the subsidy.

I would also note this isn’t reinstatement matter. FCC refused to give them the subsidy in the first place with this decision. What SpaceX are trying to spin as reneg on previous decision is them making the short list of companies to be considered. Well, getting short listed is not same as being selected fully.

They passed the criterion for the short list check, but the final authorization and selection included more wide and more through checking on the promises of companies to meet criterion and SpaceX failed the more through final round of scrutiny before being awarded the subsidy.

Government having awarded bad money previously isn’t fixed by following up bad awards with more bad awards. SpaceX exactly failed since previously money was handed out too losely and FCC has tightened the scrutiny on subsidy awards to not follow up bad money with more bad money.

Nobody is prevented from buying Starlink, this just means Starlink isn’t getting subsidized with tax payer money.

He is successful enough, old enough and made enough money, that he can just retire. Threatening him is an empty threat. He is 60 and probably given his long career earned more than he can spend in rest of his life, unless he goes super yacht and private jet crazy.

The whole show was a come back from retirement essentially. A voluntary indulgence on his part. Surely lucrative indulgence, but indulgence still. Apple needed him, he didn’t need Apple.

Most of the crew probably will leave for other project with a letter of recommendation from John in their pocket.

Well many adblockers can be clever enough to load the asset, but then just drop it. As in yeah the ad image got downloaded to browser, but then the page content got edited to drop the display of the add or turn it to not shown asset in css.

This is age old battle. Site owners go you must do X or no media. However then ad blocker just goes “sure we do that, but then we just ghost the ad to the user”.

Some script needs to be loaded, that would display the ad? All the parts of the script get executed and… then CSS intervention just ghosts the ad that should be playing and so on.

Since the browser and extension are in ultimate control. As said the actual add video might be technically “playing” in the background going through motions, but it’s a no show, no audio player… ergo in practice the ad was blocked, while technically completely executed.

Hence why they want to scan for the software, since only way they can be sure ad will be shown is by verifying a known adhering to showing the ad software stack.

Well EU says that is not allowed, because privacy. Ergo the adblocker prevention is playing a losing battle. Whatever they do on the “make sure ad is shown” side, adblocker maker will just implement counter move.

Don’t threaten us with good time, Elon.

Also no way he is going through. He is way too much in financial hole to give up European market. Like Google or Meta, sure they have the financial standing to maybe pull such move and survive.

Xitter? They need every visitor and account they can have globally to even think about staying viable.

Empty bluster and pointless empty bluster, since EU would just go “fine. Our continental economy or prosperity doesn’t depend on your social media company. Social media isn’t a critical industry, so we are just fine with you leaving. Plus there is 10 others like you anyway”.

You can’t threaten people with something that doesn’t damage them and heck might be seen as benefit.

already enacted, vote went through in July. However the “come to force” of the earliest part of the regulation is 2025 and the replaceable battery mandate come to force date is 2027. However I would assume stuff starts going with replaceable battery 2025-2026, since by 2027 it’s illegal to not have that for on sale item. So one would transition year or two early to have ones retail and supply chains empty of the old non-replaceable stuff to avoid having unsold stock or get hit with punishment for being caught selling non regulation items*. So you want the replaceable battery products designed and in production before 2027.

Also one key I would point out, that is often left out. It doesn’t only cover phones. It covers pretty much all battery powered electronics. SO lots of those other small electronic gadget with built in Li-ions will start sprouting battery covers or possibly moving back to their old power of choice, banks of AAs. Since those are inherently replaceable. Well plus non-recycleables aren’t covered by the regulation. However also the maker can argue their green credibility with “well customer can put rechargeable AAs in it. Then it’s a replaceable battery product.”

* Well in reality one’s retail partners would refuse to accept the stuff for sale, since upon it being on sale at their shelf it’s now their ass on the firing line by regulators.

Also I would add inflation went up, prices jumped. Meaning not so much free spending cash any more. People might have previously had the cash to update phone, just for sake of update even without it being necessary. Now days? People have way more important things they have to spend more money on.

third option is he sets up some kind of foundation or trust arrangement and testaments his shares to that trust, which is then run by board of trustees as per trust charter. Usually meaning “well board of trustees is entrusted to see to the continued profitable management of the company by selecting suitable new management as comes necessary” combined with possible whatever extra instructions there is as to how to and underwhat principles the company is to be run.

Be it either private trust to benefit the descendants/described beneficiaries or a charitable trust with funds to be used for charitable causes.

Family trusts aren’t that unheard of to exactly avoid the splintering of the ownership and thus risk take over bit by bit.

At some point you really do just have enough money.

Well there is people to whom no amount of money is enough money. Not that it is at that point about, what you can do with that money. Rather by then the amount of money is a leader board and score board all to it’s own. The desire to be Forbes number 1 and then to be forbes number 1 with ever increasing lead to the number 2.

However all indications are, Gabe Newell isn’t one of those people. He would have had plenty of opportunities to cash out and then do some other business dealings to get ever bigger score card number. Don’t really know exactly what else it would tell of him or his character, but the one thing we can pretty confidently tell is “it seems he isn’t about just singularly amassing ever growing pile of wealth as large as possible”. He would have had plenty opportunity to enrich himself way more aggressively and he didn’t.

When Gabe Newell at some point leaves Valve, the company will change, no matter if it stays private or goes public.

Depends how that happens. Since frankly I think people think “the way Gabe Newell leaves ownership of Valve is by him eventually dying”. Since he has never shown any indication to sell. He has offered shares to employees as part of compensation packages, but as I understand even then he has controlling share.

So ofcourse the most simplest way is “Gabe dies and has done no special arrangement”… shares go to inheritance to his family. So his wife and children. Which might mean nothing changes or everything changes. Maybe he has given private last wishes, maybe not. However they get to decide. They might decide to keep the company as is. Since given they are inheritors of Gabes fortune, not like they would be immediately hurting for cash.

Second option is… Gabe does actual official arrangements. This isn’t unheard of in case of big private family or personal companies or holdings. For example he might put his shares in a foundation or trust with legally binding last wishes unlike non legally binding personal last wishes. Then what happens is whatever the trust charter is. Given example of say some European industrialist foundadtions like Bosch, instructions are left to run the company as commercial business by board of managers to best benefit of the company finances. However the one option the holders don’t have is “sell the company”, since the shares are hold up in the foundation/trust with instructions “never sell”. Company is to be run profitable enterprise as his and best ability of managers and then… the trust gets the profits and uses them for it’s purposes. It might be a private family trust, where upon the money is then shared to Gabes descendants, but don’t really have say in “we want to cash out, just lump sell our shares”. It could also be as in case of Bosch, that it is charitable foundation. After which all of the business profits of the Bosch conglomerate end up financing various charities, foundations, clinics and so on run by the Bosch stifftung.

It will change no doubt, since well Gabe isn’t there anymore with his personal personality and well each person has their own personality and influence. However it might not change as much as people think, if say his heirs decide to keep running the company based on same base ethos and principles as Gabe did.

That or everything might change. Two days after he dies, his estate sells Valve to Electronic Arts.

Well the thing is … yes Valve has shareholding investors… Only one that matter as far as anyone knows is Gabe Newell. Given it’s private corp, they don’t have to publicly tell what his exact ownership is and I think it is known it isn’t anymore 100% unlike at some point. However all “as far as we know” indications are, Gabe Newell maintains 50%+ controlling shareholding. Rest of the shareholders as people understand are employees and ex employees, who got private shares as part of compensation packages.

We don’t have actual look at the books, but Valve people have on multiple occasion said “Valve doesn’t have external investors”. Given it was public official comments by official people, I would think they wouldn’t lie about it. So there is no external VCs or share external investor investors.

Gabe pretty much has probably pretty universal control only limited by business regulation and maybe whatever clauses the corporate charter has. However since he was at one point sole owner, I doubt it contains anything too much curtailing him. Since the way any other people have gotten shares is by Gabe agreeing to give them or sell them to people in the first place.

As far as I understand at no point has Valve been cash strapped such as to need to ask for external investors. Since it is company founded by two early ex-Microsoft people who had made decently money at Microsoft already before Founding Valve. Gabe ended as sole owner as the other founding owner decided to leave the business and Gabe bought him out.

Well as per article yes, but 600$ is the reporting limit. If Ticketmaster, stubhub and so on has a reseller account with sales income of more than 600$ per year, they have to file it to IRS. Whether its single sale or thousands of separate small sales doesn’t matter.

Completely normal tax procedure. Pretty much all big such platforms of various fields stock exchanges, commodity markets etc. have such obligation ledges on them for avoidance of tax evasion.

Nor as second note is anyone being “punished”. Punishing is what happens on breaking law. This is business taxes, you make profits selling stuff, income taxes start applying. Normal cost of doing business in society for the services society provides (national military keeps the Mongol horde from wrecking your business and so on, transport atluthority builds roads to run business trucks on so the music tour entourage can get to the arena, so one can sell tickets to that conce for profit and son on).