I agree that a system in which we reward one man for building a vast loss-making empire is fundamentally broken and will eventually need to correct course. Elon Musk is not the problem, the irrational valuations of his (and his team's) work are. This said, the article is not terribly articulate in it's arguments and clings to an anachronistic view of how capital markets currently allocate wealth (and I am deliberately avoiding saying "how capital markets work" because I can't see this model working too long past this current wave of massive hyped up IPOs). Also, just to throw spice into the conversation, I bought into the IPO and cashed out above $160. So thanks for that.
"That’s equivalent to an estimated total of more than 11,000 microplastic particles in each Danone
Happy Baby Organics pouch, and more than 5,000 particles in each Nestlé Gerber Organics pouch." - Wow.
On that topic: this is both entertaining and scary, especially the bit that says they fast-tracked into the NASDAQ 100 so whether you like it or not you have to buy into Elon Musk's financial house of cards. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHD8BDFYyGI
At the moment, the economics of software are out of whack. It's not about agentic replacing traditional painstakingly coded applications, but more about the massive influx of capital, and the subsidies from the newcomers to try and gain ground and demonstrate aggressive growth. In the early 2000's, Facebook's growth was described as "selling dollar bills for 90 cents." That is where we are now. Nobody will know for sure where all this lands until companies have to demonstrate their worth through real profits and stable growth.
"Among the biggest customers for car data are insurance companies, and they're using it to charge some people higher prices. But there's no telling where your information is going. Some car companies admit they sell your data, but they don't have to say who's buying. That's to say nothing of the fact that you might find it a little creepy. Most consumers, experts say, have no idea it's even happening."
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback. Yes, i literally threw the faux-satellite version together in response to suggestions on this thread. Plenty of room for improvement there!
Thanks for the notes on marker positioning. Let me look into that.
Each source map has its pros and cons, but Fonstad's canonical version would be ideal. Copyright could be an issue as you point out.
Yep. When I get some time I will do a metadata layer to clarify water vs land vs prairies vs forest etc... then I will rerun the process with that additional Context. Should be fun. Thanks for the suggestion.
I added some notes above on the tiling technology. As for the base map itself I posted a link to the original file. I hope that helps but happy to answer any other questions you might have.
I totally get that. Sorry if it was a letdown. In reality I built this map as part of a personal exploration of the lore and background of Tolkien's lore, because i am fascinated by it. This felt like a productive way to share my learnings with others in a fun way. I certainly learnt a lot from going through the process.
Ha ha. Yeah. That was a first wild attempt. If I get time I will figure out how to fine tune the mock-satellite imagery to properly reflect ocean, lakes, trees, castles etc.