Lugh

It's still early days for this tech. Right now its maximum output is 800W, which is not a lot. OP mentions this delivering 3kWh on a typical day, about 10% of a typical US household's consumption.

But it's the direction of travel that is interesting here. This will get better, and cheaper. Then systems like it will be able to deliver 25% of daily consumption, then half. All with affordable systems you can install and set up yourself.

Many people have nightmares about dystopian and apocalyptic futures. I would feel safer in a world where electricity production was decentralized and could survive major disasters.

Thanks Everett. We'll be in touch soon.

The US has imposed 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs, and the EU is considering increasing its tariffs. I'm sympathetic to the worker/industry protection argument, but many people will look at decent EVs being sold in China for $15,000 & feel they are being cheated.

The Unitree G1 base model is priced at $16,000. It doesn't often get talked about in discussions of robots, but I think Chinese manufacturing capability is very important. They will likely be the first to make affordable humanoid robots that take off at the consumer level and sell in the millions.

Thanks Philofuel. Like I said above. We'll get back to people in a couple of weeks or so.

Thanks threelonmusketeers. We haven't thought about how to organize contributions yet. We'll leave this up for a couple of weeks and sort it out when we see how many people want to help.

There are surprising edge-cases for life on Earth. Microbes that live off the energy from undersea vents for example. Tidally locked planets may have day-night border zones that are habitable. I think it's worth spreading the net wide. We don't know for sure what's impossible, and we're only starting to understand all the myriad ways other solar systems & planetary systems might function.

People have grumbled and put up with Big Tech privacy invasions before, but I wonder if this time is different. Microsoft's plan for Windows with AI sounds deeply unappealing. The idea of an AI tracking everything you do on your computer might be a red line for many people. Microsoft promised that they wouldn't harvest or use the data, but that promise has been broken so many times by Big Tech, that many have lost trust.

This article is an interesting look at an alternative path for a private open-source desktop OS. Interestingly, although it's Linux-compatible, it's not Linux, and OP says it's superior.

I suspect lots of people will do more than grumble this time around, and the backlash against AI, data harvesting, and the loss of privacy will grow.

Caveats. It may not have an atmosphere, or if it does, it might be as bleakley unpromising as Venus's. Still, this is exciting news. I wonder how close we are to detecting evidence of simple microbial life on an exo-planet? It feels like it's just a matter of time, and could happen any year.

How is this at all like having your own AI…

There's a certain logic to this. The more useful a personal AI is, the more it knows about your activities, so as to master helping you do them better. I'm not saying I like this new Microsoft feature, but the underlying logic is not exclusive to them - it will be everywhere else in the world too eventually as AI grows.

A great many people will hate this, but they'll do it anyway. I guess its the logical conclusion of having your own personal AI.

My theory would be that some western people are very disquieted to see China take the lead in various technological fields. When I post in r/futurology on Reddit I constantly observe this in China related comments and discussion.