I firmly believe that Renewable energy, the Solar+battery+EV stack, not LLMs, really is the biggest technology transformation of our times. Renewable energy really is surging, just it's on a longer timeline and unlike LLMs, it doesn't benefit venture capitalists to hype it. In fact many existing sectors deliberately downplay it. But we are in the middle of it.
Robotics? lights-out operations in automated factories are already a thing, so I don't know if they're the "next thing".
mRNA vaccines? Sure, they're a huge medical advance. With great potential, in that area. But it's just an area.
Space? Maybe, if we get past LEO, find something useful to do there, and don't succumb to Kessler syndrome.
>Robotics? lights-out operations in automated factories are already a thing, so I don't know if they're the "next thing".
Eh, I do think this is kind of underestimating the changes in robotics that are occurring. LLMs incorporated with other ML kernels extend the capabilities a long way. That and the amount of computing power now usable to train robotics is far far larger.
I mean yes, just tell a robot to go pick up a green apple that has an integrated LLM and it can setup a course of actions to the other things like movement models to accomplish that task.
I take your word that there is progress in this area, but it doesn't change my view that the Solar+battery+EV stack really is the biggest technology transformation of our times.
I once got a Root Beer brewing kit as a gift. It noted that a trivial amount of alcohol would be produced by the process (no included or added yeast either!) and it wasn't a big deal.
Yes, this video (and HN commentary https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46543509
) are an amazing nerdy deep dive into a taste chemistry subject. And seems to have uncovered new information (to the general public that is, maybe not new to Cola co insiders)
You know it's getting serious when they science it, using a mass spectrometer. And then keep at it for a year through many experiments that did not produce a result. That attitude of "the experiment didn't fail, it successfully eliminated one of the possibilities" is very scientific.
To me that "compiler-verified" maps to "sealed", not "on the fly". Probably.
Their example is:
public union Pet(Cat, Dog, Bird);
Pet pet = new Cat("Whiskers");
- the union type is declared upfront, as is usually the case in c#. And the types that it contains are a fixed set in that declaration. Meaning "sealed" ?
I think your "sealed" is misleading here, as that is used for sum types in similar languages (java).
As the language designer notes in the comments, these are named unions, as opposed to anonymous ones, but they are also working on the latter.
"Sealed" is probably not the correct word to use here, as it would be sealed in both case (it doesn't really make sense to "add" a type to the A | B union). The difference is that you have to add a definition and name it.
var someUser = new { Name = "SideburnsOfDoom", CommentValue = 3 };
What type is `someUser` ? Not one that you can reference by name in code, it is "anonymous" in that regard. But the compiler knows the type.
A type can be given at compile-time in a declaration, or generated at compile-time by the compiler like this. But it is still "Compiler-verified" and not ad-hoc or at runtime.
the type (Dog, Cat) pet seems similar, it's known at compile-time and won't change. A type without a usable name is still a type.
Is this "ad-hoc"? It depends entirely on what you mean by that.
> Cat, Dog and Bird don't have to inherit from the union, you can declare a union of completely random types, as opposed to saying "Animal has three subtypes, no more, no less"
"Animal has three subtypes" is more like the c# "sealed" modifier on a class, meaning that subtyping is not allowed. Except in this case I guess for three existing subtypes.
I mean that Cat, Dog and Bird don't have to inherit from the union, you can declare a union of completely random types, as opposed to saying "Animal has three subtypes, no more, no less", which is what F# does more or less.
Two things can be true at the same time, such as: Germany decommissioning nuclear power was a huge loss, and also, rising use of renewables is a success story.
Prices being negative for one day does not make energy prices low. The "green shift" in Germany has increased the use of fossil fuels and the price of energy.
From JP Morgan's 16th Annual Energy Paper, March 2026
> In 2024 we estimated that had Germany not decommissioned nuclear power after the Fukushima accident, it would have needed 50% less electricity generation from fossil fuels, 84% less generation from imported natural gas, 27% less fossil fuel capacity and 42% less natural gas capacity. Another road less traveled: Germany’s electricity prices in 2024 were almost 25% higher than they would have been had the country kept its nuclear power online . And as shown below, Germany might not have experienced such a sharp increase in its electricity imports which are 2x higher than a decade ago as a share of consumption.
> More nuclear shutdown repercussions: Germany’s industrial power prices were 3x higher than the US and China in 2024, and part of the reason why Germany has been experiencing the deindustrialization shown on the right.
> Prices being negative for one day does not make energy prices low.
My apologies, that was poorly worded - I didn't mean to imply that all energy prices were low across the board. Of course they are not.
It's an interesting indicator, not (yet) a systemic change. And as I said in answer to the parent comment, it's a important subject right now because of the petrochemical price shock.
Nevertheless, if I were to interpret your statement as unilaterally as you interpreted mine: you said "negative prices are not low prices", which is wrong as a matter of arithmetic.
I think that one of the reasons for this "popular European sentiment" is the purely emotional one - it's emotionally more affecting when someone who was a close friend starts behaving badly towards you, than when someone who was a colleague with no close relationship remains thus.
The the popular European sentiment is understandable and IMHO correct though. Saying "it's off-putting" is no in way a coherent argument that it's wrong.
> It forces someone to pick between two bad options, and I always gain respect for people who decide to pick one instead of intentionally avoiding it
IDK, if someone sees that a question is bullshit and refuses to play along with it, you lose respect for them? This is not a heuristic that will help you in life.
> This IS the popular European sentiment. And this is what is off-putting to many Americans.
You're not saying that it's wrong though. Just that you don't like it. So what, that means nothing. It's not wrong. Rejecting reality because it's "off-putting" will not help you.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinbirnbaum/2022/02/18/how-a...
https://www.fastcompany.com/90711340/whats-happening-with-ga...
edit and of course https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47780223 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Blockchain_Corp.
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