Remote

Tom

@Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

mastodon 4.7.2

Aging geek.
Lefty on a line somewhere between Anarco Syndicalism and Nordic Social Democracy.

Excited by clean energy, ecology, biodiversity and wilding.

Desperately trying to hang onto some nuance in a world of microblogging.

He/Him

218 Followers

314 Following

20 Posts

Joined April 26, 2025

Tom @Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

· 2mo ago

#spacex Does anyone know if Musk is doing/funding any research on actually living for extended periods away from the Earth? If he was serious about Mars I would expect some kind of research on growing/brewing food at least. The viability of physical work after long periods of microgravity? etc. I guess its easy on the moon, you just lob up supplies and rotate people reasonably frequently. But is there anything or is he just playing with the hardware?

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Tom @Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

· 5mo ago

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/04/28/catl-secures-worlds-largest-sodium-ion-battery-order-with-hyperstrong/

This is important 60GWh is certainly a big step on the scaling road for sodium-ion.

#bess #energy #energytransition #batteries

pv-magazine.com

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Tom @Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@Tooden @marnanel or a bot.

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Tom @Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

· 5mo ago

I am wondering if Trump thinks this is his best card? It's fits with his comment that Iran's oil infrastructure will "blow up" in a few days.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Irans-Oil-Industry-Faces-a-Geological-Time-Bomb.html

And he may be right. OTOH it may leave him facing off against an Iran that has ZERO reason to ever let anyone use the Straight of Hormuz without exacting a big toll. Or just to leave it shut.

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Tom @Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

· 5mo ago

I assume the data centers that were planned to go-live in 2026 (but are not) have already bought the Nvidia chips? (otherwise they risked having building, power and racks but no AI).

What is happening to those chips now? I assume 2026 chips will not be popular in 2027/28?

https://futurism.com/science-energy/data-centers-construction-supply

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Tom @Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@alter_kaker @slyborg @glyph @jalefkowit Thank you, I did not know that.

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Tom @Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

· 5mo ago

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/code-red-why-your-city-cant-affordor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JcCISp5S64

Ambulances in USA - $500,000 and 3 year waitlist.

Ambulances (Same chassis as USA) in China <$50,000 and 90 day delivery time.

Difference - UAS Ambulance manufacturing competition has been eliminated by Private Equity. Competition is still full-on in China.

Isn't this mean't to be the other way round?

#USA #china #capitalism

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Tom @Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@godofbiscuits @jonmsterling @mitchellh @nicklockwood The resource issues will be partly (mostly?) solved by the new open source/weight models coming out from China; focusing on running on fewer resources &, as a side benefit, breaking the big US players' business models. OTOH anyone using the current crop of LLMs (me included) are implicitly accepting that LLMs are allowed to pillage the knowledge and creativity of real people for the profit of a few oligarchs.

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Tom @Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

· 11mo ago

Replying to

@bonfire@indieweb.social Congratulations and well done. Looking forward to the next one!

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Tom @Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

· 10mo ago

Replying to

@cstross@wandering.shop Wait, what? You're done?

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Tom @Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

· 10mo ago

Replying to

@cstross@wandering.shop Damn right I'm not! Just lost track, diary marked!

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Tom @Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

· 10mo ago

Replying to

@mattblaze@federate.social Smart move, I guess it makes sense, can't have all those foreigners using up all the views. #ustourism #ustourismdecline

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Tom @Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

· 5mo ago

I know she didn't actually say it but I'm still going with this:

"If I can't dance, I don't want your revolution!"

(Even though I'm painfully self conscious and require chemical assistance to get me out there, it's still true)

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Tom @Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

· 5mo ago

Is there any actual use case for orbital data centers? They are no good for training (need loads of power (=heat) and network latency would cripple training times). Inference - might as well build small distributed DCs on the ground. And the cost is 3-5 times (minimum) what it would cost to build on the ground, leaving aside the pollution of all those 10s of thousands of launches.

Why are people even considering this?

#AI #datacenters

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Tom @Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

· 5mo ago

I cannot begin to express how excited I am about this! 😃

The Lovecraft Investigations are out on a new investigation!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cou28XeCpyk&t=7s

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Tom @Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@slyborg @glyph @jalefkowit Fascism?

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Tom @Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@GeofCox@climatejustice.social I don't think it would work. Too hypothetical and hard to imagine. Too many "mights", "possibles", etc. Even a timeline of 25 years is too long for most people to care (many, maybe, but certainly not most). Controversial headlines need the core of a grievance (real or not) that is felt today. not a risk that won't be felt for 20+ years time. Better to focus on energy security and winning the argument that renewables will lower bills for now.

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Tom @Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@paynesofren@kolektiva.social @notjustbikes@social.notjustbikes.com I suspect the whole structure can be lighter and cheaper (without sacrificing durability and quality) when building for cycles/foot traffic and trams as opposed to traffic including HGVs. Which would be a win.

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Tom @Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@bjn@mstdn.social It is a bit weird how people categorise some electricity (renewables) as a bit "girly" and only suitable for fripperies like homes and light industry while other electricity (nuclear and fossil) is properly "manly" and can power manly things like mines and steel mills.

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Tom @Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot

· 9mo ago

Replying to

@cstross@wandering.shop I like it. It's wrong in the absolute technical sense, but we do that a lot, and it captures the "same but different" vibe.

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