This is why I hesitate updating my laptop. It's a 7 years old intel but my 2 external 4K displays work nicely and I like my setup. Upgrading looks like could mess them up. Doesn't matter how much faster compiling and testing will be, if I have to buy new monitors it's not worth it.
> his report was generated on 2026-03-22 as the final artifact of the SHA-256 Cryptanalysis
Research Project. Collaboration: Robert V. (research direction, strategy) and Claude/Anthropic (implementation, computation).
This Claude guy is pretty prolific it seems.
But I'll wait for some known cryptographers to chime in
>> "Many consumers want to know how long it will take them to make back the upfront costs of solar"
> my answer is that the payback is imediate,
So if I pay $35k for an install, I get a $35k check the first time I connect it to the grid? Pretty sure it doesn't work that way. But it would be a nice subsidy from the government if they were really motivated.
I guess you're saying you start to feel good and validated to have spent the money by seeing _some_ savings every billing period. It's hard to argue with feelings of course, but that's not not the original concern. People want to know how long is it going to take: 1, 5, 10 years or ... never (if panels degrade or break before it will never pay off) to pay off their investment.
> According to Solar Power Europe, it takes an average of two to six years to recoup the cost of the system, depending on what you paid for it, its size and where you mount it.
And then it just keeps working for decades. There's degradation, but even after 25 years I believe it's down to maybe 85% output, which is still huge for something with essentially no operating costs.
Panel degradation is very easy and cheap to fix. Our original panels costed about $2,000 each 400W (made sense in our circumstances, recoup in 7 years). After a couple decades we just added 2kW more power for about $300. In another couple of decades you will buy the same for less than $100 probably.
The fun part is that we might never recoup the cost of our gasoline backup generator, as it only worked for about 10 hours in 30 years.
Anyone that worries today about degradation has zero real interest in this stuff, just complains for the sake of complaining.
> Robert Kingett is a Blind, and gay, obscure writer. He writes fiction where Disabled heroes get their happy endings and nonfiction where life can, sometimes, be educational.
Now I wonder if this is fiction, even if the person is real and they are blind.
> When it is detected that the PDB starts to detach from the interface, the hot-swap controller quickly turns off the MOSFET to block the discharge path from Cin to the system. After the main power path is completely disconnected, the interface is physically detached, and no current flows at this time
> For insertion, long pins (typically for ground and control signals) make contact first to establish a
stable reference and enable pre-insertion checks, while short pins (for power or sensitive signals)
connect later once conditions are safe; during removal, the sequence is reversed, with short pins
disconnecting first to minimize interference.
That's why I included the bottom part describing how some pins are longer than others. It's sort of how some hotplugs work in most cases. First ground connects, then other set of pins and so on. So when is detected a physical act of being disconnected.
The teeth. Yikes! But yeah, I remember having the rotary phone disassembled and touching the wires adjusting something when a ring came. Gave me enough of a jolt to remember.
Now imagine for the same $10k cost making a cruise missile, instead. This is close to what a Shahed is -- the estimate is $20k-$50k / unit, so close enough.
This is bonkers. Countries can now afford for the same cost * to make not a 10-20 mile range artillery shell, but a 1500 mile effective range cruise missile.
* Defense costs are "fake" to a large degree. A lot of that is really corruption with money flowing from the taxpayers to the arms manufacturers, but still if we go by the numbers...
> Adam Smith pointed out the first pencil costs thousands of dollars, but the second is mostly free. Same dynamic here, but multipled by a thousand.
The shells are already made by the 10 and 100s of thousands, Shaheds are also not a research project, so either one is in amortized serial production now.
What I meant is that a $10k shell doesn't cost that much. Russians are making the equivalent artillery shells for an _order_ of magnitude less for around $1k. A lot of defense costs are just overinflated simply because they can be. The government is spending taxpayer money, it's not really coming from the politicians' pockets. If the kickbacks are just right, they may in fact flow back into the politicians pockets.
A lot of defense spending revolves around overall manufacturing capacity. Deals contain options that won't be executed unless it's war time. These options increase the cost of the deal as the manufacturer needs to keep capacity.
It is vastly more complicated to find targets at 1500 miles than at 20. So drones are effective at destroying big stationary civilian infrastructure and much less at long distance strikes at military targets. Russia's inability to destroy Ukrainian aviation is a good example.
But then with solar and batteries civilian infrastructure becomes much more resilient against drone strikes.
At a certain distance, I'd contend all infrastructure is big and static. Our energy comes from large facilities, without these facilities continent scale infrastructure will grind to a halt at 1500 miles. Rail, power lines, warehouses, factories and trucks are all relatively static. It's not unreasonable to expend a Shahed type drone on a simple semi-truck parked overnight from nearly a continent away. There are only 3 million semi-trucks in the entire US, and I'd be shocked if the country could run without them.
Ukraine tried to come up with drones that can fly over 1000 miles. But drones the size of Shaheds just cannot fly that distance without significantly reducing the warhead. To attack things beyond that range Ukraine have used essentially Cessna. Which is much more expensive and visible on radars.
Instead Ukraine came up with an idea of mass producing extremely simple cruise missiles that could fly 2000 miles and deliver up to a ton of explosives with a cost of 100K and make 1000 of them per month. But then it seems Russia was able to discover the production sites and destroy them.
> It is vastly more complicated to find targets at 1500 miles than at 20.
It's true but they are so cheap that launching a whole bunch and/or improving them incrementally is possible. Yeah they are for stationary targets mostly, for sure. And of course their sounds and relatively low speed does make them somewhat easier to shoot down with short range AA guns and can have automated acoustic early warning system (it's like a flying lawnmower or chainsaw).
1500 mile range is questionable in practice I've read - drones require remote control for maximal value and that's a capability that may not extend nearly as far as the paper range of the drones
They can’t be used for moving targets but for infrastructure they can be effective. At the cost of only a few artillery shells send 10 and maybe 3 will hit.
Another advantage is because of simplicity and cost it allows quick iteration and adaptability. Use honeycomb patterns to lower radar signatures, use specialized antijamming gps/glonass antennas. Engine is too slow? Add a small turbojet. Color too light and visible at night? Paint it gray, etc. That can happen at the speed of weeks and months. Try doing that with Tomahawks, artillery pieces or HIMARS.
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