Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a "super bad feeling" about the economy and needs to cut about 10% of salaried staff at the electric carmaker, he said in emails seen by Reuters.
He just wanted to get rid of people without paying them their contracted severance. Weasel fuck.
I’ve been saying for a long time that the Soviets had some secret material science/metallurgy technique that the West is lagging far behind
There’s an interesting Jonathan Blow talk where he talks about how technology has been forgotten throughout history. And he happens to talk about Elon Musk for a while and how a lot of the specifics of the engineering of space travel were lost after the end of the space race. Not that the information wasn’t available, but assembling people who were familiar enough with the info to act on it were scarce.
That's a very interesting theory and it makes a lot of sense to me. The old space-race era NASA engineers are all dead or mostly dead, I'm not going to look it up. But they had a wealth of knowledge that went beyond the things they created. I got this theory about how knowledge works and how you might know 100% you only use like 20%-50% to develop the applicable technology. Other people then become familiar with replicating and maintaining the technology but that is not the same as creating. All the knowledge they had that wasn't directly applied died with them, or isn't understood with the same familiarity they had, like those old rocket engineers at JPL watching the stress tests etc.
Part of the theory is also about what I have come to call "bridge zones" or "transmission states" where you graduate out of one technology (say, prop plane design) and move onto the next (jet plane design) and so you have this incumbent wealth of knowledge that doesn't really tell you what to do but it definitely tells you what doesn't apply anymore. It's a sort of foundational knowledge that gets lost as the new technology supplants the old.
To use a clumsy example: human beings are the greatest survivalists on the planet. We migrated across continents and all environments. We are not innately capable of doing that. We learned and taught subsequent generations. We still teach wilderness survival to soldiers etc because it's not a trait, its learned behavior. The ones who discovered how to do this probably had more in their heads that wasn't applicable at the time but it might have been applicable later. Nikola Tesla developed the rotorless induction motor but it wasn't possible at the time because we did not possess the alloys capable of creating it. Later on the design was proven successful.
Yeah. Less abstractly, engineers are disincentivized from documenting what they build in non-unionized workplaces, because it gives them a tech moat which is a hedge against being fired.
They can’t fire you today if the system will break tomorrow and you haven’t written down how to fix it.
Or, well , they can and will, but absent class organizing this is the shit people resort to.
Yet another absurd counterproductive trait of capitalist hierarchy.
This is why droids in Star Wars have imperfect aim: because all droid programming modules are built on centuries of ancient code that nobody knows how to write in anymore. All droid programming is tweaks on jury-rigs on hacks on slapdash upgrades on upgrades on upgrades. Nobody knows how to write a droid's brain from scratch anymore. Star Wars, incidentally, takes place in a galaxy ravaged by capitalism.
The old space-race era NASA engineers are all dead or mostly dead, I’m not going to look it up. But they had a wealth of knowledge that went beyond the things they created.
This is obviously a significant factor, but even if they're all healthy enough to "document" everything they know somehow, only a fraction of that is going to be usefully passed down. There needs to be an institution where all the smart folks get together and work on these complex and difficult problems, and continue to refine their solutions.... something like a well-funded space travel and exploration project....
SpaceX is kinda this, I've heard from an acquaintance that one of the solid things about working there is that it's filled with plenty of sharp minds that want to "do rockets", but like you're saying there's a huge portion of getting back to where we used to be that bogs things down. There needs to be some sort of continuity
How much long-term engineering talent is even in SpaceX? The company's notorious for taking tons of fresh graduates and burning them out completely in a year or two leading to constant turnover.
I can't answer your question, but the retention issue is definitely a significant issue. At the same time, the person I know has been there almost 5 years now, so some people stick with it.
Buy, steal, find online military survival manuals (US Army Survival FM 21-76 manual is available in full as a PDF online. There should be a survival manual for US Pilots for when they fall from the sky that should be pretty solid but I've never taken the time to find one). If you're not in the US, I don't see why other countries wouldn't have something similar available tailored to their local environments/language/culture). Survival manuals marketed for civilians but try to never pay full price, always look for discounted/free, civilian ones typically have the most instances of nonsensical explanations and incorrect diagrams/descriptions - this can be amusing but also dangerous. Skim through them well before trying to do any of the things, check out videos online to get an idea of "how" the task might look, then make some time to go out and attempt the task. Be prepared to spend a lot of time practicing. Never put yourself into a "survival situation" alone to do any dangerous task before you already are comfortable confident you can complete the task in a non-survival setting. Electronic copies are great for when you need things to do when bored and to figure out which manuals you can find that are reliable, but make an effort to get a few physical copies of manuals that you feel are the most reliable with one going with you for field training and one that stays safe back home. NOTE: Its rarely a good idea to need to learn something when you need to know it. Much better to learn about how to apply a tourniquet well before meeting a casualty that is bleeding out than it is to try to learn right then what to do.
Get lucky and have a friend/family member/acquaintance who is into this stuff and already gone through the two things mentioned above and see if they can be an in person instructor. Somebody who can 1) watch what you're doing and critique your technique and 2) go through the troubleshooting parts of failing at a task that pretty much NO survival manual takes the time to go in to.
lmao, thanks I needed that, I wasn't really considering those guys but I'm glad you brought that up because yes, the goddamned nazis were involved in NASA's foundation and it needs to be remembered.
The relevant example from the talk I mentioned was electrical engineers making microchips. The newest generation of chips at a specific company (maybe Texas Instruments?) was consistently giving wrong answers and when confronted, they basically said, “yeah all the old guys retired so now these fresh kids out of grad school don’t know all the little pitfalls that come with avoiding interference and heat buildup”
The soviets created the first transistor and they don't get credit for it. Cause it was top secret and therefore not used to kick off a computer revolution. There are some things that the soviets were good at, pumping a huge amount of money, skill and facilities into scientists and esp. physicists for one.
deleted by creator
There’s an interesting Jonathan Blow talk where he talks about how technology has been forgotten throughout history. And he happens to talk about Elon Musk for a while and how a lot of the specifics of the engineering of space travel were lost after the end of the space race. Not that the information wasn’t available, but assembling people who were familiar enough with the info to act on it were scarce.
That's a very interesting theory and it makes a lot of sense to me. The old space-race era NASA engineers are all dead or mostly dead, I'm not going to look it up. But they had a wealth of knowledge that went beyond the things they created. I got this theory about how knowledge works and how you might know 100% you only use like 20%-50% to develop the applicable technology. Other people then become familiar with replicating and maintaining the technology but that is not the same as creating. All the knowledge they had that wasn't directly applied died with them, or isn't understood with the same familiarity they had, like those old rocket engineers at JPL watching the stress tests etc.
Part of the theory is also about what I have come to call "bridge zones" or "transmission states" where you graduate out of one technology (say, prop plane design) and move onto the next (jet plane design) and so you have this incumbent wealth of knowledge that doesn't really tell you what to do but it definitely tells you what doesn't apply anymore. It's a sort of foundational knowledge that gets lost as the new technology supplants the old.
To use a clumsy example: human beings are the greatest survivalists on the planet. We migrated across continents and all environments. We are not innately capable of doing that. We learned and taught subsequent generations. We still teach wilderness survival to soldiers etc because it's not a trait, its learned behavior. The ones who discovered how to do this probably had more in their heads that wasn't applicable at the time but it might have been applicable later. Nikola Tesla developed the rotorless induction motor but it wasn't possible at the time because we did not possess the alloys capable of creating it. Later on the design was proven successful.
Yeah. Less abstractly, engineers are disincentivized from documenting what they build in non-unionized workplaces, because it gives them a tech moat which is a hedge against being fired.
They can’t fire you today if the system will break tomorrow and you haven’t written down how to fix it.
Or, well , they can and will, but absent class organizing this is the shit people resort to.
Yet another absurd counterproductive trait of capitalist hierarchy.
Hot Take: Anybody that enjoys making things also hates writing the documentation about how they made the things.
deleted by creator
true
This is why droids in Star Wars have imperfect aim: because all droid programming modules are built on centuries of ancient code that nobody knows how to write in anymore. All droid programming is tweaks on jury-rigs on hacks on slapdash upgrades on upgrades on upgrades. Nobody knows how to write a droid's brain from scratch anymore. Star Wars, incidentally, takes place in a galaxy ravaged by capitalism.
Similar theme in Cloudpunk.
This is obviously a significant factor, but even if they're all healthy enough to "document" everything they know somehow, only a fraction of that is going to be usefully passed down. There needs to be an institution where all the smart folks get together and work on these complex and difficult problems, and continue to refine their solutions.... something like a well-funded space travel and exploration project....
SpaceX is kinda this, I've heard from an acquaintance that one of the solid things about working there is that it's filled with plenty of sharp minds that want to "do rockets", but like you're saying there's a huge portion of getting back to where we used to be that bogs things down. There needs to be some sort of continuity
How much long-term engineering talent is even in SpaceX? The company's notorious for taking tons of fresh graduates and burning them out completely in a year or two leading to constant turnover.
I can't answer your question, but the retention issue is definitely a significant issue. At the same time, the person I know has been there almost 5 years now, so some people stick with it.
how do I learn wilderness survival without joining the dang army?
Can't tell if sarcasm or not, so...
Spend money and go to a wilderness survival camp.
Buy, steal, find online military survival manuals (US Army Survival FM 21-76 manual is available in full as a PDF online. There should be a survival manual for US Pilots for when they fall from the sky that should be pretty solid but I've never taken the time to find one). If you're not in the US, I don't see why other countries wouldn't have something similar available tailored to their local environments/language/culture). Survival manuals marketed for civilians but try to never pay full price, always look for discounted/free, civilian ones typically have the most instances of nonsensical explanations and incorrect diagrams/descriptions - this can be amusing but also dangerous. Skim through them well before trying to do any of the things, check out videos online to get an idea of "how" the task might look, then make some time to go out and attempt the task. Be prepared to spend a lot of time practicing. Never put yourself into a "survival situation" alone to do any dangerous task before you already are comfortable confident you can complete the task in a non-survival setting. Electronic copies are great for when you need things to do when bored and to figure out which manuals you can find that are reliable, but make an effort to get a few physical copies of manuals that you feel are the most reliable with one going with you for field training and one that stays safe back home. NOTE: Its rarely a good idea to need to learn something when you need to know it. Much better to learn about how to apply a tourniquet well before meeting a casualty that is bleeding out than it is to try to learn right then what to do.
Get lucky and have a friend/family member/acquaintance who is into this stuff and already gone through the two things mentioned above and see if they can be an in person instructor. Somebody who can 1) watch what you're doing and critique your technique and 2) go through the troubleshooting parts of failing at a task that pretty much NO survival manual takes the time to go in to.
The Nazis?
lmao, thanks I needed that, I wasn't really considering those guys but I'm glad you brought that up because yes, the goddamned nazis were involved in NASA's foundation and it needs to be remembered.
There is a world of difference between the blueprints/written instructions and then trying to follow them in the physical world.
The relevant example from the talk I mentioned was electrical engineers making microchips. The newest generation of chips at a specific company (maybe Texas Instruments?) was consistently giving wrong answers and when confronted, they basically said, “yeah all the old guys retired so now these fresh kids out of grad school don’t know all the little pitfalls that come with avoiding interference and heat buildup”
Link?
This is the only Johnathan Blow vid I've ever seen lol
https://youtu.be/ZSRHeXYDLko
He’s a bit of a tech bro Elon Stan but the talk is neat
thanks dino
Please, call me Mr. Spumoni
The soviets created the first transistor and they don't get credit for it. Cause it was top secret and therefore not used to kick off a computer revolution. There are some things that the soviets were good at, pumping a huge amount of money, skill and facilities into scientists and esp. physicists for one.