Big bet on Gallium

Anastasi in Tech

  Data centers are power-hungry. A lot of the power goes through cooling. Data centers plan to scale to 5 Gigawatt.

  There's a bottleneck that lives between the chips. The gold rush is solving the heat problem.

  Copper is the old way, and now is the wrong way. It has reached its limits. Companies need to get around the copper problem.

  Light is the new way, but it doesn't work well with silicon and copper.

  A new way may have been found with the use of Germanium arsenide.

  Optics works great, and is everywhere where it is needed most, inside the chips themselves. All the power is being lost in the silicon and copper. Just a few more centimeters separate from a solution.

 The one who cracks this problem will control the AI space.

  Materials research non-profit organization (Imec) in Belgium may have found a solution. They searched through all the periodic table. The settled on Gallium arsenide. Once you couldn't build lasers on silicon, but a geometric trick enabled them to place the gallium arsenide on the silicon chip.

 But there's still a problem. Gallium gets it closer, but not all the way. Something new is needed. Enter Germanium. In particular, a compound of Germanium and Silicon. In theory, this should work, but there's a problem with putting it into the crystal. They tweaked it and tweaked it until they got it to work well.

 These two innovations allowed them to finally bridge the 2 cm gap. Now the money guys are betting on this development.

 Optics is the future, not copper.

 

Civilization Decays "by forgetting obvious things"

The scoop:

  Got this link in my mailbox, and it is an interesting read of about 8 minutes.

Basic premises:

  Americans have lost the plot. What is being criticized is called capitalism, but it is not capitalism, but rather, state capitalism. As state capitalism is not truly free enterprise, it cannot be said to be capitalism.



  New money chases fleeting stock market wealth, but old money invests in "real assets"-- like real estate.  Well, hot damn!

Comment:

  Yep, I'm land rich, but money poor. You cannot do that much with land with your own two hands alone. You just may need OPM (other people's money). But there's no substitute for brains and good judgement. Don't know what that says about ME, but it may not be all that impressive. But, I don't give up easily.

LPP Fusion news (Focus Fusion)

Can TAE Start Building A Working Fusion Plant In 2026?

Summary:

Lerner and Karamitsos team up to critique the recent merger of Trump Media and Technology Group with TAE ( a fusion company).

  Lerner is the chief scientist at LPP Fusion.

  Basically, the article says that TAE hasn't done the necessary preliminary scientific work to back up their claims.

Comment:

  Lerner also says that LPP Fusion holds the lead in Fusion Research. Of course he says that. Why would anybody waste their time if they didn't believe in what they're doing?

  The advantage that Trump brings to the table is MONEY. LPP Fusion is nickle and dimes, but Trump is pushing millions into the pile.

  But money doesn't always win.  For example, the Wright Brothers were bicycle mechanics, and they were going up against the heavy hitters of their day. History shows who won that race. I've got my money on LPP Fusion. But that's because I'm not prosperous enough to put what little I have in anything else!  David and Goliath, here we come.

  I've been watching LPP Fusion for a long time now. For over a decade, if memory serves.

  They could always use a bit of help, and I've thrown in what little I can spare. Let the "best man" win, the saying goes.

Learning to code is easier said than done

12/21/25:

Groan! When I went to work on it again this morn, the system seems to have blown up my space. So I saved my files, and reset the space. Nothing is working right now.

Maybe I'm back to square one. Seemed to be so close yesterday. But another snag, and then Kaputski. I went on a search for some answers, and I was going to try something new this morning. Fat chance, as mentioned above.

It looks like W3Schools is not an easy enviornment to do some simple real world computer coding. The project I'm working on is not at all hard, in fact, it is trivial. Yet on W3Schools, it is like pulling teeth in order to do the simplest things. It was like that with these other AI assisted learning environments.

So now I've tried 3 of these-- Boot.dev, Scrimba, and now W3Schools. None of them seem to do what I'd like to do. Sure, you can learn a bit with these systems, but it isn't likely to stay with you if you cannot do anything but read tutorials, and try extraodinarily simple exercises. For example, I finished the Python course on Boot.dev, but when I refreshed my knowledge on W3Schools, it was like starting over.

Two hackneyed expressions sum it up: 1) You learn by doing, and 2) Use it or lose it. Consequently, without any way to practice your coding skills on useful projects, this W3Schools spaces environment I'm using, is not likely to be very useful.

Consider this last update a type of review. I'm reviewing these 3 websites for learning how to code, and I have to consider them all a big fat failure. I don't think an employer can expect to hire people on the basis of getting cerficates from these places. They'll get some newbies who may know a little, but they won't know much. I cannot believe a certificate at one of these places will do much good--but I could be wrong.

In sum, about all you can accomplish is getting a certificate that says you know something. It may be true when you finish taking the exams, but the shelf life will render all that work meaningless within a short time.

Oh well. It may be time to move on from this. But I hate to concede defeat. But it's just not working out. Quick update: I took down the link from the main page to the W3Schools page I created. Seems little point now to keep it.

12/20/25:

This was one of those days in which past progress looks like a mirage. You think you see a successful ending, and BOOM! The thing rises up out of nowhere, or so it seems; and knocks you back down.

Now there's doubt again. It's getting frustrating. Maybe I can tee it up again tomorrow, but it is getting rather tiresome.

12/19/25: [updated @ 7:45 PM]

'Twas a productive day. Not too much further to go, and it will be a done deal. Then what? I guess I will worry about that later.


[posted @ 8:19 AM]


If you ever get into the middle of something, and realize the whole thing may need to be re-worked, do you do it? Or keep on the same path, since you've put so much effort into it?

That's the question before me now. There's a fix to the work I've got already, but it may as well be all re-written. Anyway, this has all been a learning experience. A few things could have been explained better, so that I wouldn't under-estimate the task I set myself to. There's a whole lot more to this than meets the eye.

Indeed! Which is one of the dark sides of the world wide web. Too much of it is hidden from view. A lot of bad stuff can go on behind the scenes. Know what I mean, Vern?

12/18/25:

Some minor successes to report. From here on out, it will be a hard slog to get to the finish line. But it looks like I just might make it.

12/16/25:

It may be hard to tell, but there's still progress being made. Once I hit an insurmountable wall, I'll throw in the towel. Not to that point yet. I've throw more shit on the wall than can be imagined, and nothing sticks. But there's some hopeful signs that can keep me going.

There may be a way to crack this code, and if there is, I will find it. Hopefully, that's true.

12/15/25:

Just to confirm that the file is public again. It may remain so, although it cannot be guaranteed to be permanent.

Work has moved to another space within the w3 environment. In that space, it may be possible to finish the program. It should be noted that there's a thing called a "front-end", and a "back-end". When I decided that I wanted to input data to be used to update the website, I unknowingly blundered into the "back-end" side of the game. The front-end and the back-end are two different thangs.

So I cannot work on this thang, so I'll go to work on the other thang. I hope that is clear. Frankly, it gives me a headache.

12/14/25:

Looks like I will have to concede a (hopefully temporary) defeat in my intentions for my personal calendar project. Consequently, the calendar will be public for now, while I continue to puzzle it all out. It may never be achievable for reasons I won't go into for right now, but I definitely have an opinion as to why this isn't possible right now.

12/11/25:

At the end of this project, what once seemed difficult may look trivial in retrospect. But that is all the part of the growth process. In this process, I will become more proficient at the craft.

If there's anybody curious about a Computer Science graduate struggling to write a baby program for the internet, please keep in mind that my education was back in the late 70's and early '80's. Personal computers were just a toy back then. There was no world wide web. There was no JavaScript or HTML. Nor any of the other things that you need to day in order to make web pages. There was no web. But I repeat myself. I've gotten old and decrepit too. Repeating myself may be attributed to a declining noodle, amongst other things. But there will be an endeavor to perservere.

More progress has been made. I will get there one of these days, but the pace seems rather slow... @ 6:44 AM

circa 5:45 PM:

It's getting closer all the time. I may put it back up with the new code, which will integrate the new calendar part. But it's like the "Gulf Freeway", always under construction. Except when it isn't.

So the way I will work it, for awhile at least, the page will become available again when there's no construction. That might be after 10 PM local time each day. This may not always hold, though. It's still too early to put back, I will announce the schedule for viewing the page, if anyone's interested.@ 5:44 PM

12/6/25:

Progress is being made... There are many ways to attack the problem as outlined in the webpage... There's one idea that is coming along, but how to demonstrate it on a web page? I can't really do that unless I want to make the thing available to anybody viewing the page.. Or password protect it. Otherwise, anybody could mess with my page... Anyway, a way to edit the calendar data, and then display it on a page could be sufficient.

The problem with it as it is, is that it is hardwired into the code. I have to change the code, not the data. To edit the data could be a private thing that anybody could do with a text editor, but I wanted an interactive page, not a text editor. Can't be done without introducing the risk mentioned in the above paragraph.

So what good is it? Well, the aforementioned text editor and the file layout is harder to read. This code simplifies the input and output of the webpage. Unfortunately, it cannot be done unless someone has their own private web page. Those can be had for a price. But I'm not selling those.

12/5/25:

It seems that I've hit another snag with my calendar page, drat it. There are details to this business that can be quite puzzling at times. Well, that's a good word for the situation. I'm very puzzled about something. Par for the course, I guess.

11/15/25:

8:25 PM:

No javascript is necessary.  Just a little html.

2:42 PM:

There's this idea that has popped up, and it involves embedding my own videos on my own site. That means, no more YouTube. Or Rumble. Is that possible? Well, before it is over, I will find out. Basically, the javascript just plays the video. You supply the video, and the javascript plays it. It may involve some other things, but that is the basic concept. If so, I just may embed a video into the spot that I've reserved on my page.

I have a video in mind. It took a little while to locate it. It is a video of my trip out to the land, so it fits right into the site. I want to edit it a bit before I put it up. My narration sucks, so I'll just dub in some music or something. I need a video editor. There's one that will work in Linux, but probably not on my Raspberry Pi.

If all goes according to plan, I'll kill a couple birds with one stone. I'll be able to present the land for sale (if I choose), and be able to show it as an example of my computer skills. Who knows? Somebody might think it is good enough to pay for.

11/14/25:: (oops!--got the date wrong, fixed now)

Time flies, it's almost halfway through this month. As time goes by, I'll continue practicing my html. I'm working new ideas I learn as I go, and put it into places on this website, and on the main site. Plus there's a couple other sites that I work with for practice.

See what this paragraph does in blogger..., looks like it doesn't do anything at all. hmmm, it works on a standalone page, but that cannot be proven here.

I messed with the font, and that may be getting blocked. The blogger platform has font directives available--shown in this paragraph. Maybe I have to content myself with those, and cannot add my own. Or there could be some other explanation.

Update:  Now all these a linked together.  Starting from the canva page, I can get here, or to the one I designed from scratch and back again.  Made a few changes to the canva page too.

11/11/25:

I'm collecting practice pages as a hobby. Another one here.

11/9/25:

A glutton for punishment. Back to this again. I found another place that has a few features that will allow me to practice some skills. It doesn't cost anything either. (w3schools) Actually, I've tried this one before, but stopped for some reason. Maybe I didn't like it.

So it's back to where I began a few years ago. At this rate, it will take me 20 years to learn anything if I learn anything at all. Twenty years is never as far as I'm concerned. Good reason for it. I won't last that long.

10/29/25:

Now we're talking. After watching many videos, and experimenting, I finally got a button on the darned thing. It goes to a website of my choice. Also a text box as link that goes to a website. It isn't much, but it is something. I try to do a little something to the new site each day.

10/26/25:

If you want to learn to code, you may spend a lot of time, and you may not be able to do anything significant.

 

Trouble is in finding a place and a way to practice some skills. The online teaching may leave something to be desired also.

So far it has proved to be a disappointment.

Safest large city in the USA

The video is about El Paso, Texas. Which happens to be about a two hour drive from my land out in West Texas. Interesting video.

X-15 rocket plane

12/13/25:

  A consideration to the subject of being "worth it" to do this, would be in how much energy could be expected to be recovered from this? A calculation from the Nuclear Rocket pegged the energy to thrust ratio at about 1 Mw per 50 lb of thrust. Hence, if 10 Mw could be recovered, then 500 lb of thrust could potentially be produced.

  So that question must be answered before you could answer the question as to whether or not it would be "worth it". You'd also have to consider the additional weight added to the vehicle, because if you add more weight than thrust, it wouldn't be worth it at ground level, but maybe at high velocities and altitudes. It all depends.

  For example, the Space Shuttle did not achieve orbit with the hydrogen tank and main engines. It achieved only 98% orbit velocity. Then the tank was dropped into the Indian Ocean, and the OMS thrusters took the Shuttle the rest of the way. The Shuttle massed out maybe 150 tons,but those OMS thrusters did not generate that kind of thrust.

  The point being that you wouldn't need a great amount of thrust, but you would still need enough in order to make it all worthwhile. What would that be? Looking at energy potential recovery as one consideration, there are others. Among these is weight added through this additional capability, and complexity in terms of reliability and so forth.

12/12/25:

  The link references the x-15 rocket plane of the late 50's early 60's. It could be a way to use the energy of the atmosphere as a recycled energy that could add thrust, and increase ISP, or so I speculate.

  This may be a cockeyed idea, so it goes here on the speculation blog.

  The idea is from the study of nuclear thermal engines, and Parkin's doctoral thesis, written about here many years ago. If you heat up something, and then use that heat to expand a gas, such as hydrogen; you can achieve some pretty high ISP. Or so the thinking goes here.

  At hypersonic velocities, as you travel through the atmosphere, there is a tremendous amount of heat generated. So, what if there was a way to harvest some of that, as well as some of the atmospheric oxygen, so as to lessen the amount of fuel that is needed to reach high velocities?

  Fuel can be used to cool the surfaces down so that the vehicle doesn't burn up. If that fuel were also to be used as an afterburner with oxygen gathered from the atmosphere at high velocities, would it be worth it in terms of complexities and so forth?

  Indeed, would it even be feasible to exploit that? If temperatures on the skin of a vehicle get hot enough, it can in principle, work the same as a nuclear thermal engine, or on an aeroshell that Parkin's envisioned.

  The reaction mass would be hydrogen, which is the preferred reaction mass in a nuclear thermal engine. After the massive expansion from cryogenic temperatures to a much hotter temperature, plus the added effect of burning the hydrogen, perhaps on could get an extra boost, and thereby increasing performance.

  Anyway, it is an idea.

New e-bike has arrived

 Haven't tried it out yet. Wrong! It has, see the scrollable window below for new details.

12/12/25:

   Another one bites the dust. Can't use the thing because... well, because. So it's gone now.

   I'll have to try something else for exercise. That idea didn't work.

11/26/25:

Well now. There's progress, but it is not there yet. Which reminds me of the kid in the car who likes to ask: "Are we there yet?" No, we aren't there yet.

The reverse stirrup mentioned earlier consists of old speaker wire,velcro, and duct tape. Ah, duct tape. It comes in handy for a lot of situations. The duct tape gives a nice surface for the velcro to stick to. One side of the velcro attaches to my shoe laces,and the other attaches to the stirrup. So when I want to take my foot off the pedal, the velcro will give way, and my foot doesn't stay stuck in the stirrup.

It's hard for me to get the pedal in position so that I can get going with the bike. The e-bike seems to need some help getting going.  Perhaps the design assumption was that the rider would press down on the pedals to get started. This is easier said than done in my condition, as my legs have gotten weak.

In other words, I haven't even gotten the e-bike moving yet. But I'm getting there. It's like learning how to ride a bike all over again. This has a few complications that I didn't think about.

11/25/25:

There's a significant problem here that needs solving. The solution is to make a "reverse-stirrup", which would solve the problem of getting my feet on the pedals. Also, to keep them on the pedals. A stirrup for riding a horse may serve a similar purpose. But no need to get into that. I need this reverse-stirrup to stay on my feet, but not too firmly. That's because I need my feet on the ground when standing up.

So I made this reverse-stirrup, and I have to make it fit before I can make it so that it can be tested. So the test was to see if this can be a feasible solution. So far, nothing has ruled it in or out. Call it a "meh" so far.

7:39 PM, 11/23/25:

There's something different about my posts lately. The difference is the scrollable windows, with a different background color and text combination.

The advantage is that it extends how much can go on one page. Other posts don't get lost in the verbiage of long posts. If a post is long with a lot of updates, the reader can scroll through as long as it is of interest to the reader.

It wasn't used here on this post because I got lazy. It takes a bit more effort to set it up. ---on the other hand, it wasn't so hard, and I cut and pasted it on this post instead!  BTW, I got an idea that I will try out tomorrow.  If it works, then I can use the e-bike after all.

9:10 AM:

Putting the e-bike together was a dream. But the road test was a nightmare. The problem isn't the bike. It's me. I'm in such poor condition that I cannot manage the thing. At least not yet. There's no alternative here. Either I get this thing working, or it's another  mistake.   

Incidentally, this came as a bit of a surprise.  I didn't even consider the possibility that I would have a physical problem handling it.

5:38 AM:

It still needs some assembly. It pleases me to report that the e-bike looks almost ready to go. It is mostly assembled already. Happy days.

The items left to put on should be no problem. But it is still dark as I type this in. I'm anxious to try it out.

This gives me an idea. Rather than to go on YouTube or Rumble, why not make a video about this e-bike?

Bet the Big Tech companies don't like you cutting them out of their action. If you learn to code, then you can make your own webpages, and you won't need their services anymore. How nice!

I can be a real a-hole if you get me going. Seems like these Big Tech guys want to get something going. Well, we'll see about that.

 

Best part of the show was this part

A bit of nostalgia about the 70's nostalgia period that produced this show--"Sha na na".

It is best to acknowledge your errors. Only then can you move forward.

12/04/25:

Never mind, it is working now... Not my Personal Calendar though, but I'm on the right track (cross my fingers)...



12/03/25:

   One could legitimately ask how much are you willing to share with strangers? Everybody who comes here is a stranger, since nobody wants to fraternize in the least. Oh well. One never really learns until one really learns.

   There's plenty being shared here, but there's a lot of this one-way street kind of stuff. People are more willing to take than to give. Funny how that works. Am I complaining about my readers? It may seem so, but a thing is what it is.

   The latest feeling, expressed just above, has entered the mix all around.

   I just realized that I may have been scammed yet again. Not necessarily here, but not necessarily not necessarily. Make sense of that! The deal is this: The W3Schools thing went gangbusters for awhile, but those other two sites did the same before I soured on them. It seems that not very much of value can actually be accomplished on these sites. But they'll take your money, oh yeah. I did get refunds on those last two places. This one may be a problem getting refunds. I don't recall one being offered.

   The calendar page that I'm developing has hit a wall. There may be a solution, but that solution may end up costing something. All this for something really pretty simple. Well, I have to tell yuse people---it may not be worth it.

   Incidentally, the e-bike thing isn't going so well, either. This wasn't a scam, just a mistake. The web tutorials thing seems to be a scam, because it promises things, and those things are not materializing. When I've sought answers, there weren't any. They just refer you to someone else.  I think I smell a rat.

11/29/25:

Making a calendar on my own personal website. It is really mine? Not really... But it looks like it. May fool a few folks.

As for my future plans with the calendar, I'd like to make it more capable. It is pretty simple, and it's not very interactive. For someone besides myself, it isn't even very useful.

Not that anyone but me would be interested in using this calendar in order to do some useful things. I've used other calendars before. Like Microsoft's. Google has one. But this one is MINE. Bwah, hah hah! There's one little hitch. I won't mention it because it may give the bad boys some funny ideas. Leave it at that.

So I may be moving on to the next project. It is still practice and all that. Even though I'm finished the the curricula on web development, I'm not hardly proficient with it. Not yet... Cya around. I'll still blog here and my main site, of course.

11/23/25:

Deleted update or put it on a different post as an update.

11/18/25:

 

Let's see here. Since the last update, I've gone back and repeated the same things over again. I'm coding again, and I'm going to try an e-bike! It's on order--another powered thingie, but this one will have pedals. Maybe I learned from my mistake, and this purchase will be a better one. Otherwise, it will be another mistake! By the way, in case I haven't mentioned it, I've got the Microsoft app called "GitHub" mentioned earlier. But I hardly use it.

 

10/21/25:

 

Yep. Got out of those mistakes. Not learning to code anymore. That was quick, huh? The problem was GitHub. A little digging uncovered a fact that triggered a "a hah!" moment. The damned thing seems to be geared towards Microsoft. You may be able to use it with Linux, but I had a lot of trouble. So that's when I started digging and found out that it might go a lot easier if you used a Microsoft product to interface with GitHub--that idea was a non-starter. Then, a little more digging finds that Microsoft owns GitHub--ah hah!

 

While digging around, I found this video. It may give me some leads on how to do it myself. That is, if I want to actually follow through and learn to code another way.

 

That was one of the mistakes. The other was the scooter. I gave it away. So on to the video.

 

 

10/5/25:

 

It is also good to make the most of your mistakes. For example, if the purchases I made were in error, the error may be minimized through getting the most out of what I've already committed to, or get out of the situation.

 

To get out of the scooter, I could get rid out it. This will incur a loss. Maybe I want to keep using it until I figure out if I want to get rid of it. Likewise, with the programming course that I purchased. I'll keep using it until I figure out if I want to stop or not.

 

It may turn out to not be a mistake after all. That's why it is a speculative post, and is posted here.

 

Here's one way to get the most out of the Python course:

 

 

9/28/25:

 

Just took a look at the course that I'm on. I was under a false impression, because I didn't look closely enough. This course is pretty comprehensive. There's a lot of stuff that can be learned here.

 

It might well be useful for getting a job in the real world. But it would require a commitment in time. This will take a substantial amount of time. Now the kicker here is whether or not I can complete the course. In terms of ability, at this time, I feel good enough to do it. The risk is that I may not feel as good along the way as I do now.

 

9/27/25: Buying that scooter awhile back may have been a mistake. It seems that I've been making some mistakes like this in recent times. Another example was to buy Rick Beato's music course. That was definitely a mistake too. Now I've gone and done it again, maybe.

I bought an AI-directed computer programming course. The sales pitch asked why would you do this, and I responded "for fun". After doing some of the exercises, I'm finding it not as much fun as I thought. Indeed, if it was primarily for fun, then it was a mistake. But rarely do I do anything for fun. Fun has its consequences. If this really was for fun, and not some other reason ( in which case, another reason could be to make money), then maybe that will have to be the reason going forward.

After thinking about that one, the effort at making a living at programming didn't work out too well before. Why would it work now? I didn't think this through very well, and it may be a mistake. If it is indeed a mistake, then at least I can get a refund. But wait! I'm just wondering maybe I COULD make money this time. This could pay-off. Maybe. Kinda sorta.

That'll be the day. Even if the demand exists for this kind of skill, there may be other issues involved. I don't want to punch a time clock, or go into an office. I'd prefer to work right here. That was presented as a possibility, but are such possibilites really feasible? It has to play out in order to see.

So it is a matter of sticking with it and see what develops from it. I know from before that programming is very time-consuming, and it really isn't fun. It is work. There's a saying these days---learn to code. I learned this skill before, but it has been so long that I have to almost start over. But not from scratch. It should go easier, but I'm no spring chicken.

I could use a little extra spending money... Blogging isn't going to pay, either. Nor do I wish it to. But I've got this land in West Texas that is just sitting there. Another mistake. Maybe.