I wrote a simple tool, when I was a kid, that dumped binaries into VGA mode 0x13 and allowed me to vary the width. Mode 0x13 is one byte per pixel so it was just a simple REP MOVSB to put data into the buffer (no worrying about bitplanes). It was so useful in reverse engineering software. Besides raster data, regular data structures often jump out.
One gram of finished 3nm packaged semiconductor is roughly equivalent to half a kilogram of refined aluminum in terms of energy cost. If you want to spend a lot of energy for not much mass, photolithography is fantastic.
"Maintenance costs of the lines may be increased by electrification, but many systems claim lower costs due to reduced wear-and-tear on the track from lighter rolling stock. There are some additional maintenance costs associated with the electrical equipment around the track, such as power sub-stations and the catenary wire itself, but, if there is sufficient traffic, the reduced track and especially the lower engine maintenance and running costs exceed the costs of this maintenance significantly."
We once dammed basically every river in the nation because it was in vogue at the time.
Maybe building overhead power lines for rail infrastructure should be the "hip" thing right now instead of AI. Maybe building oodles of solar power farms and batteries should be "hip"
We built electrical infrastructure to the most remote residences just because we could and because it was an investment in our people. We directly funded our massive and formerly world class rail network because we could, and because it would pay off. We built a world class road network half as a make-work project, and it still pays dividends. We purchased Alaska, with no obvious reason. We built a space program to have slightly better nuclear weapons, and it's part of the reason we were so dominant in computer chips for so long.
We have spent something like 40 trillion dollars over the past 25 years, and almost none of it on anything of real value. More than a little of that debt is just handouts to already rich people.
We can build new electric transmission lines and I'm so tired of things that we absolutely 100% can do if we just demand it be done being somehow treated as a problem. America can afford infrastructure.
> Would this be less efficient than battery powered EVs?
Measured in terms of mass * distance, trains with steel wheels will beat anything with rubber pneumatic tires.
Part of the magic of hybrid trains is that you can have multiple generation units that can be turned on or off as needed.
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Efficiency is just one consideration for a power plant.
Historically, reliability has been more important than efficiency, especially for industrial applications like locomotives. In other words, locomotives are probably not as efficient as they could be. For instance, you could use a lower viscosity engine oil for lubrication, but that would reduce reliability as engines fail due to friction.
For any particular person, you can tell a story that satisfies "Why?". But for a large number of people, you have to answer "Why?" for one sub-group at a time.
In other words, there's not a single answer that will answer this in a satisfying way.
To answer a different question: It appears that the Israeli government and military wanted to bomb Iran again, and the United States executive branch and military decided to help out. This is an incomplete and unsatisfying answer. Sorry.
> In other words, there's not a single answer that will answer this in a satisfying way.
There could be one, but it would be a book-sized answer (and probably a Tolkien one, if not more).
Every conflict is multi-faceted and happened for a variety of reason, some mattering more than other. Any conflict involving the middle east and you have to go back almost 80-years of history to really provide a satisfying answer. Control of world oil supply, trades with China, opportunistic war to appease local voter pool, diversion from problematic affairs, diplomacy with Israel (which as it own thousand fold reasons for this war), Iran being left weak after losing most of their local allied militia, internal uprising due to a economical crisis caused in part to the removal of the agreement on nuclear and the trade ban that followed ... They all probably play a part.
Of course, working in a legacy codebase is also torture.
Software development is a hyper-rational endeavor, so we don't often talk about feelings. This article also does not talk much about feelings.
Reading between the lines, it looks like reverting the code is supposed to affect how you feel about the work. Knowing that failure is an explicit option can help to set an expectation; however, without a mature understanding of failure, that expectation may just be misery.
With a mature understanding of failure, the possibility of a forced rollback should help you "let go" of those changes. It's like starting a day of painting or drawing with one that you force yourself to throw away; or a writing session with a silly page.
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If someone thinks that they are giving you good advice, but it sounds terrible, then maybe they are expecting you to do some more work to realize the value of that advice.
If you are giving someone advice and they push back, maybe you are implying some extra work or expectations that you have not actually said out loud.
I'm reminded of a talk I enjoyed about "extreme rewriting" [1] — how rewriting the same code many times (in certain contexts) can help uncover powerful underlying abstractions.
It makes intuitive sense to me that this would be true in complex domains (e.g. legacy code) where you really need to find the right solution, even if it takes a bit longer. Our first ideas are rarely our best ideas, and it's easy to get too attached to your first solution and try to tweak it into shape when it would be better just to start fresh.
Maybe it is the framing of the step as a "reversion" or "roll-back" rather than "spike" or "prototype" that is causing that sense. Personally, I would never throw away the code I spent time and effort writing just to stick to a systematized refactoring method like this "Mikado." I don't think the advice is unsound, and I have done exactly this many times in my own career, but instead of throwing it away I would shelve it, put it in a branch, write a document about what has been/needs to be done, and write a corresponding tech debt or feature/fix ticket for it with the new and realistic estimate.
Regarding "Conspiracy Theories" - they make a lot more sense to me if you call them "Low Information, High Satisfaction" Theories.
Regarding the rest of the article: it reminds me of how things like nursery rhymes or fairy tales or Shakespeare's plays used to mean something very different and very specific.
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