It's the battery, stupid

Photograph: Andre Tillmann/ Mercedes-Benz AG

High end and electric cars in general are not succeeding as lithium ion batteries are too expensive, fragile and prone to catching fire in ways defying imagination as Lithium-ion fires can't be put out, ever. Additionally, recharging is limited to about a 1000 so, battery tech must evolve for EV vehicles to truly replace gas powered cars like the ones driven by yours truly. The tech will eventually solve the problem but it takes time as creating rugged, cheap and high intensity energy systems is not a trivial process as we all know. Lastly, extraction of lithium is an environmental nightmare but we already know that, right?

Li ion battery from a laptop computer.

It may well be able to wade through deep water, have crawl-assist mode for sketchy terrain, and even perform 360-degree swivel-on-the-spot tank turns, but sales of the seemingly much-anticipated electric Mercedes G-Class SUV have been poor. Actually, that’s an understatement. They’ve been woeful.

And it’s not the only e-flop from a legacy automaker: Just last week Ferrari announced that it is delaying its second EV model (the first will arrive in October) until at least 2028 because of weak demand. Porsche has cut back its plans for EVs amid soft sales of its electric Macan SUV and Taycan models. Indeed, depreciation on the Taycan is so eye-watering that some Porsche dealers have supposedly refused to take their own brand’s performance EV from owners looking to offload or upgrade.

And after the February closure of its Belgian factory, Audi’s Q8 E-tron has been discontinued. The shuttering of the Brussels plant, says Audi, was due to a “global decline in customer orders in the electric luxury class segment.” Yet, at the same time, global sales of EVs are going gangbusters—so what gives?

It's the battery, stupid.

“The transition to EVs is not just a case of putting a battery in a vehicle,” says Peter Wells, a business professor and director of the Center for Automotive Industry Research at Cardiff University in Wales, UK. “Large premium EVs require very large batteries to match anything like the performance of typical ICE versions, and this increases their price.”

Any questions?

In the country of the blind ... rev II

Tropical analysis meteorologist looks at monitors at NOAA's National Hurricane Center
in Miami, Florida, on 30 May. Photograph: Marco Bello/Reuters

In the country of the blind. the one eyed man is king.  

Well, this country is becoming blind thanks to the incredibly intelligent administration that knows everything, right?
No words needed save for the ones seen below.

A critical US atmospheric data collection program will be halted by Monday, giving weather forecasters just days to prepare, according to a public notice sent this week. Scientists that the Guardian spoke with say the change could set hurricane forecasting back “decades”, just as this year’s season ramps up.

In a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) message sent on Wednesday to its scientists, the agency said that “due to recent service changes” the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) will “discontinue ingest, processing and distribution of all DMSP data no later than June 30, 2025”.

Due to their unique characteristics and ability to map the entire world twice a day with extremely high resolution, the three DMSP satellites are a primary source of information for scientists to monitor Arctic sea ice and hurricane development. The DMSP partners with Noaa to make weather data collected from the satellites publicly available.

The reasons for the changes, and which agency was driving them, were not immediately clear. Noaa said they would not affect the quality of forecasting.

However, the Guardian spoke with several scientists inside and outside of the US government whose work depends on the DMSP, and all said there are no other US programs that can form an adequate replacement for its data.

Any questions?

The Blue Screen of Death ...

The 'Blue Screen of Death' or Blue Screen error was displayed if a serious problem caused Windows to shut down or restart unexpectedly to prevent data loss (File Photo: July 19, 2024)

Don't do it, as the BSOD was part and parcel of a demonic methodology designed to enrage MS users to no end when the OS crashed, particularly often when NT ruled the roost. MS, in their infinite wisdom, as far as I can tell, used the B part of the additive color space of RGB to make sure us rubes knew instantly when the OS vapor locked at the worst possible time.

A diagram demonstrating additive color with RGB

To whit.

Microsoft is killing its infamous "Blue Screen of Death" after more than four decades. The notorious error message will soon be set against a black background.

The technology giant made the announcement in a blog post on Thursday as it outlined wider measures to improve the resilience of the Windows operating system.

"Now it's easier than ever to navigate unexpected restarts and recover faster," the company wrote.

The efforts by Microsoft come in light of the 2024 Crowdstike incident which led to a mammoth IT outage, crashing millions of Windows systems across the globe.

How is Microsoft changing its error messages?

The "Blue Screen of Death" or Blue Screen error was displayed if a serious problem caused Windows to shut down or restart unexpectedly to prevent data loss.

This is akin to George Carlin explaining why Shell Shock is far more effective in describing trauma in wartime vs PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) as MS is doing the same thing via corporate speak in ending the most effective way possible in showing us when Windows exited the scene, as stated before, at the worst possible time. :)

47 ...

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in New Jersey on 12 June 2025.
Photograph: Olga Fedorova/AP

ICE going amok is no longer news unless it's so patently outrageous it does make the news
as per the story depicted below.

A 64-year-old Iranian woman, who has lived in the US for 47 years, was detained by immigration agents on Sunday morning while gardening outside her home in New Orleans.

According to a witness, plainclothes officers in unmarked vehicles handcuffed Madonna “Donna” Kashanian and transported her to a Mississippi jail before transferring her to the South Louisiana Ice processing center in Basile, reports Nola.

Kashanian arrived in the US in 1978 on a student visa and later applied for asylum, citing fears of persecution due to her father’s ties to the US-backed Shah of Iran. Her asylum request was ultimately denied, but she was granted a stay of removal on the condition she comply with immigration requirements, a condition her family says she always met.

She has no criminal record but remains in Ice custody.

Statistics from early June, previously reported on by the Guardian, demonstrated an 807% increase in arrests of people without criminal histories since before Donald Trump’s second inauguration this January. Data suggests Ice is holding about 59,000 detainees in facilities across the country.

Question, how important is the removal of law abiding immigrants to the survivability of the US?

I thought so.

The Garden of Forking Paths ...

Freepix AI image generated by yours truly. Spiral 1

AI Prompt ...

An endless, Escher-like staircase representing Borges's forking paths.

Here's another.

Contemplation 101

In an odd way, this pix reminds me of the time spent in Le Louvre on a bitter cold October day back in 1987. I was the ONLY ONE THERE save for the guards. Never will forget that awesome and strange experience seeing all the art without anyone in sight. :)

Walid El Khoury - Le Louvre

"The Garden of Forking Paths"

Short story by Jorge Luis Borges

Unsung heroes

Mert Erogul, a physician and professor, is Airway’s co-founder.
Credit...Laila Stevens for The New York Times

I had a dear friend who started out being an ER Doc. One day I asked him about ER as the sight of blood, though I'm getting better being a cancer survivor, proved I was a wuss but I digress. To. quote A, "It was the best time of being a doc. Terrifying, intense, oftentimes disheartening and brutal, you realized you matter. It tests you to the max as there's no time to fool around. You either have it or you don't. I did."

I miss him big time but I digress ...

Grace Glassman took the mic. A 56-year-old emergency physician, she launched into a story of the day she was preparing to do a rare and gruesome procedure called a lateral canthotomy.

The patient was an intoxicated male who had tried to hang himself with his bedsheets the previous night. Now he had a bloody mass behind his eyeball. “If people are squeamish, I suggest you get your AirPods out, put them in and you turn up your music now,” Glassman said. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Nine doctors were gathered at a Brooklyn Public Library branch in Fort Greene on a Saturday night to tell true stories at an event called Airway. All work in Brooklyn at Maimonides Health, most of them in the hospital’s emergency room. They were taking the night off to try to talk honestly about the pride and occasional inadequacy they felt in their work. In concept, Airway is like the Moth — ordinary people telling everyday stories — but with all the vérité drama of HBO Max’s scripted E.R. show “The Pitt.”

Glassman continued. The lateral canthotomy — a cut, then a probe and snip under the skin at the outer corner of the eye — would save the patient’s vision. If done correctly, the eyeball would “not come, like, out out, like roll off the table,” she said, with a canny smile. It would merely relieve the pressure on the optic nerve by loosening the eyeball in its socket. The audience — doctors intermingled with members of the lay public — laughed uneasily.

One idea behind Airway is to show doctors not as godlike figures but as real people.
Credit...Laila Stevens for The New York Times

Unsung indeed.

Better to remain silent ...

Protesters carry Iranian national flags and posters while chanting anti-US and Israel slogans in Tehran, Iran.
Follow live for latest updates. Photograph: Vahid Salemi/AP

As one who has worked for himself for years, you learn never to talk about anything until the check clears. Whatever is discussed, you never talk about it until it's a done deal because if you don't, you look like a fool. As an odd but relevant segue to this blurb's main topic, bunker buster bombs, Trump and Iran, a good friend of mine, who actually IS a nuclear scientist, said, It won't work. Why? Because BBs have but 5000 lbs of explosives connected to 25,000 lbs of passive casing, resulting in real destructive power but not enough to obliterate Iran's nuke site Fordo 
as Fordo's too deep.

The satellite imagery, provided by Maxar Technologies, shows vehicles at the
Fordo Enrichment Facility on June 19, 2025

Any potential strike also faces the challenge of actually reaching the facility. Fordo sits an estimated 80 meters (260 feet) under rock and soil. That would require a weapon like a U.S. “bunker-buster” bomb, a 30,000-pound explosive known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator. Israel is not known to have a similarly powerful conventional weapon.

To whit

Airmen look at a GBU-57, or the Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb,
 at Whiteman Air Base in Missouri, 2023. (U.S. Air Force via AP)

The latest GBU-57 A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb in the American arsenal. The roughly 30,000 pound precision-guided bomb is designed to attack deeply buried and hardened bunkers and tunnels, according to the U.S. Air Force.

It’s believed to be able to penetrate about 200 feet (61 meters) below the surface before exploding, and the bombs can be dropped one after another, effectively drilling deeper and deeper with each successive blast. It was not immediately known how many were used in the Sunday morning strike.

End result

An initial classified US assessment of Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend says they did not destroy two of the sites and likely only set back the nuclear program by a few months, according to two people familiar with the report.

The report produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency – the intelligence arm of the Pentagon – concluded key components of the nuclear program, including centrifuges, were capable of being restarted within months.

The report also found that much of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium that could be put to use for a possible nuclear weapon was moved before the strikes and may have been moved to other secret nuclear sites maintained by Iran.

Needless to say ...

FAKE NEWS CNN, TOGETHER WITH THE FAILING NEW YORK TIMES, HAVE TEAMED UP IN AN ATTEMPT TO DEMEAN ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL MILITARY STRIKES IN HISTORY. THE NUCLEAR SITES IN IRAN ARE COMPLETELY DESTROYED! BOTH THE TIIMES AND CNN ARE GETTING SLAMMED BY THE PUBLIC!

In closing ...

Any questions?

Beta testing ...

Illustration by Akshita Chandra / The Atlantic

The Atlantic's right, we are in a new age, requiring diligence, curiosity and skepticism in order to get valid information thanks to AI taking over the net. Search is now becoming problematic as AI can hallucinate without question, which brings up the importance of education to determining whether the information on the net is actually true. The other part of the equation is how people are letting AI do the job without truly understanding what the job entails as knowing how to do something requires effort because there's always a cost to doing anything.

Even without actively seeking out a chatbot, billions of people are now pushed to interact with AI when searching the web, checking their email, using social media, and online shopping. Ninety-two percent of Fortune 500 companies use OpenAI products, universities are providing free chatbot access to potentially millions of students, and U.S. national-intelligence agencies are deploying AI programs across their workflows.

When ChatGPT went down for several hours last week, everyday users, students with exams, and office workers posted in despair: “If it doesnt come back soon my boss is gonna start asking why I havent done anything all day,” one person commented on Downdetector, a website that tracks internet outages. “I have an interview tomorrow for a position I know practically nothing about, who will coach me??” wrote another. That same day—June 10, 2025—a Google AI overview told me the date was June 18, 2024.

Question, what happens when the power goes out? I thought so.

Into the valley of death ...

Reuters

Into the valley of death ... the raison d'ete of Tennyson's The Charge of the Light Brigade comes to mind as Bibi may be getting his wish of the US teaming up with Israel to take out Iran's nuclear facilities. What could possibly go wrong? 

Well, Iran's a real country with hostile terrain and serious military capabilities for starters along with Russian and Chinese backing but that's no problem, right? Iran was set up when entering negotiations  with the US, assuming good faith, regarding nukes when Israel attacked, an act similar to Operation Barbarossa when the Germans launched a surprise attack against Russia in 1941 as prior to said op, they were erstwhile allies. From a military perspective, the possible attack against Iran is suicide as The Art of War is not understood by this deranged administration in any way, shape or fashion. 

Factoid: 

But as we heard from Tulsi Gabbard, the US director of national intelligence in March, it was the assessment of the US intelligence community that Iran was not building a bomb and the supreme leader had not decided to restart the nuclear weapons programme he had suspended years earlier.

That, of course, is an assessment that Donald Trump has just said in the past 24 hours is wrong.

Well, Trump did the deed with 3 B2’s and Bunker Buster Bombs on 6/21/25 in attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities with the end result, Bibi got his wish, war with Iran with the US as prime player. The abyss looms.

In viewing this ongoing fubar, one readily sees Israel's been running US foreign policy for years, leading to 8 trillion dollars spent favoring that country while hurting ours in conducting  a Middle East disaster of biblical proportions. The question to ask now is, where the hell is congress on this as a possible WW III looms.

German soldiers advance through northern Russia. German flamethrower crew burns down a house in the background. German Panzer IV stuck in the snow with white camouflage paint. Soviet Ilyushin Il-2s hovering over German positions near Moscow. Soviet POWs on the way to prison campsSoviet soldiers fire artillery.

Trump weighs joing Iran strikes after calling for 'unconditional surrender'.

US President Donald Trump is considering whether to join Israel's strikes on Iran's nuclear sites, as the conflict continues for a sixth day and angry rhetoric ramps up between all sides.

American strikes could involve using superior weaponry to hit an underground nuclear site at Fordo, according to five sources who spoke to the BBC's US partner CBS News.

The president met with his national security team on Tuesday to discuss next steps.

n a social media post on Tuesday, Trump threatened Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and said the US knew where he was.

"He is an easy target, but is safe there," Trump wrote. "We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don't want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin."

Another post from Trump simply read: "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!"

That's odd, we're not at war with Iran for now so how can Trump demand unconditional surrender?
Not logical but then again, is there anything logical in Trump world? And ... in response ...

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, last year. On Wednesday, he vowed to “stand firm” in the face of what he called Israeli aggression.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Wednesday dismissed President Trump’s threats and rejected his call for an “unconditional surrender,” adding to fears of a wider conflagration in the Middle East.

“Intelligent people who know Iran, the nation and the history of Iran will never speak to this nation in the language of threats, because the Iranian nation cannot be surrendered,” he said in a televised statement, according to Iranian state media. “The Americans should know that any U.S. military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage.”

One cannot make this up.The hubris of the US continues to amaze. Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan, all losses against entities not possessing nearly the kind of military power of the US, is being ignored when confronting a real country with real assets, defies logic but a demented Agent Orange presses on no matter the cost.

I

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!” he said.

Into the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred.

II

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”

Was there a man dismayed?

Not though the soldier knew

   Someone had blundered.

   Theirs not to make reply,

   Theirs not to reason why,

   Theirs but to do and die.

   Into the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred.

III

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

   Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of hell

   Rode the six hundred.

IV

Flashed all their sabres bare,

Flashed as they turned in air

Sabring the gunners there,

Charging an army, while

   All the world wondered.

Plunged in the battery-smoke

Right through the line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reeled from the sabre stroke

   Shattered and sundered.

Then they rode back, but not

   Not the six hundred.

V

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

   Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell.

They that had fought so well

Came through the jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of hell,

All that was left of them,

   Left of six hundred.

VI

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

   All the world wondered.

Honour the charge they made!

Honour the Light Brigade,

   Noble six hundred!

Dynamic soaring

Flying as art form ...

The infrastructure equation ...

Roberts Rurans

We all have been there, stuck in traffic, navigating crappy roads and dealing with infrastructure that's falling apart as we speak. As a personal example, yours truly likes taking trains as there's less hassle dealing with security and the insanity of airports but efficient train service, like everything else, is slipping by the wayside as we speak. For example, going from CT to VA via AMTRAK takes 10+ hours, something patently ridiculous as the distance is less than 400 but the US cannot build a high speed train in any way, shape or fashion. 

To whit.

Most Americans don’t think about infrastructure unless it fails. But when it does, it’s personal. When subways stall or highways clog, you’re late for work. When a bridge closes, your commute reroutes into chaos. When the storm drain overflows, your basement floods. And when transmission lines fail, the power goes out, leaving homes sweltering, grocery shelves empty and businesses offline.

Weak infrastructure makes your life just a little bit worse.

The United States is sleepwalking into an infrastructure crisis — one that will quietly degrade our quality of life and kneecap our ability to compete in the global economy. It’s not just the older infrastructure that’s in need of repair and replacement; it’s also support for the new systems, such as artificial intelligence.

The crisis calls for a national recommitment to modernization — not as a partisan project, but as a precondition for global competitiveness, national security and basic dignity in daily life. And while responsibility ultimately lies with Congress, it’s also with all of us who understand the stakes.

As an aside, try driving in CT, a nightmare of epic proportions as I 95's a death trap,The Merritt's but two lanes and congested to the max and there is no real mass transit save for Metro North, which does function, but it's not enough. As for quality of roads, marginal at best so ... we have all been there without question.

Regarding high speed rail, CA has a most interesting tale to tell ...

Image Credit: Pxhere | CC0 Public Domain (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)

When California shifted its bullet train plan into high gear in 2008, it had just 10 employees to manage and oversee design of the largest public construction project in state history.

Consultants assured the state there was little reason to hire hundreds or thousands of in-house engineers and rail experts, because the consultants could handle the heavy work themselves and save California money. It would take them only 12 years to bore under mountains, bridge rivers and build 520 miles of rail bed — all at a cost of just $33 billion….

But significant portions of this work have been flawed or mismanaged, according to records reviewed by The Times and interviews with dozens of people involved in the project. Despite repeated warnings since 2010 about weaknesses in its staffing, the rail authority believed it could reduce overall costs by relying on consultants and avoiding a large permanent workforce. But that strategy has failed to keep project costs from soaring. Ten years after voters approved it, the project is $44 billion over budget and 13 years behind schedule.

And it "ain't" done. 

China's take.

A CRH2A (based on E2-1000 Series Shinkansen) in Xiamen

The economics of high-speed rail in China has been a topic of much discussion.[9][10] A 2019 study produced by TransFORM, a knowledge platform developed by the World Bank and China’s Ministry of Transport, estimated the annual rate of economic return of China's high-speed rail network in 2015 to be at 8%, which is well above the opportunity cost of capital in China for major long term infrastructure investments. The study also noted a range of benefits which included shortened travel times, improved safety and better facilitation of tourism, labor and mobility, as well as reducing highway congestion, accidents and greenhouse emissions as some automobile travellers switch from car use to rail.[11][12] A 2020 study by Paulson Institute has estimated the net benefit of the high-speed rail system to be approximately $378 billion, with an annual return on investment of 6.5%.[13]

Any questions?

Words cannot describe ...

The Department of Veterans Affairs headquarters in Washington DC on 13 February.
Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Words cannot describe ...

‘Extremely disturbing and unethical’: new rules allow VA doctors
to refuse to treat Democrats, unmarried veterans

Department of Veterans Affairs says the changes come in response
to a Trump executive order ‘defending women’

Doctors at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals nationwide could refuse to treat unmarried veterans and Democrats under new hospital guidelines imposed following an executive order by Donald Trump.

The new rules, obtained by the Guardian, also apply to psychologists, dentists and a host of other occupations. They have already gone into effect in at least some VA medical centers.

Medical staff are still required to treat veterans regardless of race, color, religion and sex, and all veterans remain entitled to treatment. But individual workers are now free to decline to care for patients based on personal characteristics not explicitly prohibited by federal law.

Language requiring healthcare professionals to care for veterans regardless of their politics and marital status has been explicitly eliminated.

Doctors and other medical staff can also be barred from working at VA hospitals based on their marital status, political party affiliation or union activity, documents reviewed by the Guardian show. The changes also affect chiropractors, certified nurse practitioners, optometrists, podiatrists, licensed clinical social workers and speech therapists.

Being a married vet means I passed the test along with the fact I'm an independent but
I know vets who are unmarried and are dems so I guess they don't pass the test.

As stated before, words cannot describe ...

Life finds a way ...

Life finds a way, always. 

Fit for a king ...

 

It “is the only throne fit for this King"

Time keeps on ...

Time keeps on ... Paleo Edits rules :)

It's a toaster ...

© PJ Ace / Screen shot by Gizmodo

This screen grab of stupid stuff to the extreme shows, to the ad agencies, their days are numbered as yours truly has been talking about AI generated video doing a number on advertising and Hollywood for years as it matters not what you create content on as long as the script's good, the talent rocks and the video and special effects pass muster. Well, said predictions made by this rube now rings true as seen by folks generating ads via Veo 3 without leaving the comforts of home. As an aside, I guess as long as you generate content able to be broadcast, it does pass muster but hey, what do I know. :)

Just when I thought I met my slop quota for the month, Google had to go ahead and pile on. With Veo 3, AI-generated video has reached a whole new and stupefying level. YouTube slop; video game slop; VR slop; app slop—you name it. All of that slop, however interesting, disheartening, or inane, has been pretty low stakes, but apparently it’s all pointed in one direction, and that’s straight for prime time.

On Thursday night, Veo 3 made its debut as a tool for AI advertising, becoming the engine behind this commercial for the financial services company Kalshi, which aired during the NBA finals. This isn’t the first AI-generated ad—those have been happening for a little while now and were a pretty major theme at this past year’s Super Bowl—but it’s certainly an ascension for Veo 3, which was just unveiled at Google’s I/O conference last month. But just because AI ads aren’t new doesn’t mean the idea of video generation didn’t simultaneously reach new heights and new lows.

This reminds me of Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future where there is no cash, AI is everywhere and Channel 23 rules ...

Max Headroom

In the movie, Edison Carter (portrayed by Frewer) is a journalist fleeing enemies into a parking garage, crashing his motorcycle through the entrance barrier reading "Max. headroom 2.3 metres" – UK vehicle clearance signs use the phrase "Max headroom". While Carter is unconscious, an AI program based on his mind is created. The AI develops a personality identified as "Max Headroom", and becomes a TV host who exists only on broadcast signals and computer systems. Like Carter, Max openly challenges the corporations that run his world, but using commentary and sarcastic wit rather than journalism.[4],

This amazing take on reality was done in 1985, think about that, I know I have. :)

Remember, when new tech is first created, like CG, it's precious and rare. (Think Silicon Graphics) but within a few years, it's a toaster. - Robert E.