Most Manufacturers have a website that you can access and pay for a day or more access. Usually it's the exact same one they use at the dealerships. I was able to print the manuals to pdfs.
It improvements in the next generation of VR (e.g., expression and iris tracking) could open up big improvements here, but the inherent latency of long-distance communication feels like a fundamental challenge comparing anything to in-person.
VR and mixed reality is going to be a huge thing for work pretty soon.
There are going to be lots of cases where the latency is really manageable, such as when people are in the same country or general area.
With AI enhancements and eye tracking etc. it could become extremely realistic.
So there will probably be a new fight about virtual attendance where employers want you to be in your virtual office seat so they can monitor you that way.
That may actually be one thing that helps drive realistic AI and robotics in terms of emulating human behavior. People may eventually become their own employment agencies for AIs they train or curate and then rent out or apply for jobs. In some cases the employer may not know for sure if they have a human or not.
Yeah, they're providing a path-of-least-resistance for getting stuff done in your existing data environment.
A common challenge in a lot of organizations is IT as a roadblock to deployment of internal tools coming from data teams. Snowflake is answering this with Streamlit. You get an easy platform for data people to use and deploy on and it can all be done within the business firewall under data governance within Snowflake.
The parent comment is a bit hyperbolic and under-informed, so let me try to provide some color on the Unicomp brand.
I own a half-dozen Unicomp keyboards, have used original IBM Model Ms, Model Fs, and has a pair of the Model F Labs F77s, so I have some familiarity with buckling spring boards.
Unicomp's manufacturing equipment came by way of Lexmark and the quality suffered as the tooling aged. They replaced their tooling in 2020 when the shipped the New Model M. Fit and finish is much improved since then.
From Wikipedia:
"Unicomp continued to use the original IBM machinery to produce Model Ms, leading to a gradual decline in quality as the tooling became worn. This, and various problems with their USB controllers helped keep a market for vintage Model Ms thriving. In 2020 Unicomp replaced its tooling and shipped a "New Model M" with noticeably improved build quality that more closely resembles the classic 1391401 (though with a 104- or 103-key layout and USB); many older variants are no longer sold on Unicomp's website and some still on sale have been deprecated."
There are a few issues with the Unicomp boards:
1. Thinner plastic cases and a lighter backplate. The case was improved with the new tooling, but the backplate still changed the feel compared to the originals.
2. Plastic rivets breaking. The board itself is sandwiched and held together with plastic rivets. These rivets will eventually start failing, which leads to key detection issues or complete board failure. They have to be bolt modded to fix this.
3. Non-customizable USB controller. Programmability has become expected with mechanical keyboards and other than Unicomp themselves flashing a layout at the factory there's nothing here.
Customer service from the company has always been excellent, in my experience, but it's definitely a firm that gives the impression of trying to keep the lights on for 30 years and just barely making the margins pencil out (thus paying for return shipping).
Some people really love buckling springs. Unicomp makes a decent board that gets you that for a price less than $500, but if buckling spring isn't your terminal value in a keyboard, consider one of the dozens of excellent mechanical keyboards out there with modular key switches.
I checked my records. I bought it in 2020. So it was the “new model.”
The keyboard Unicomp sold me was complete crap. It failed after a dozen hours of use (just being plugged in to an rPi is in that number) over a few months. Otherwise it sat in its box on a shelf.
I was into the original keyboard for $150. Another $28 for shipping under warranty.
It didn’t feel like quality.
It didn’t perform like quality.
Unicomp didn’t stand behind it as if they believed it was quality.
I bought a Unicomp 15 years ago, no regrets. A couple years ago i had to replace it (a couple dead keys) and 8 keys on the new one didn't feel right. Kind of mushy and wiggly when fully depressed? I swapped in the keycaps from the old keyboard and now they're fine. This keyboard has a date of 2/25/2020 but my issue was with keycaps so no idea when they were made. In 2038 when this one dies I'd prefer to buy another Unicomp but we'll see.
There's truth in your point. People do feel the difference even when they don't notice it, but it doesn't seem like that's always (or even often?) reflected in the bottom line. Nissan sells an awful lot of cars with their crappy CVT transmissions and crossovers continue to be hugely popular in the US.
Counterpoint: I've been using Hue bulbs for over 10 years, currently have around 120 lights operating and have had maybe a 5% failure rate (mostly 2nd and 3rd generation A19 bulbs). Flicker due to PSU failure, some completely dead bulbs, some which have lost specific colors in the array (maybe FET failure) so they turn weird colors (like green or purple) at certain white temperature settings.
I suspect the cause is mostly heat-related. As newer bulbs run much cooler I expect reliability will be better, but the product line is definitely not bullet-proof.
Indeed, though the author is T1 and referring to a T1 cure. From the article:
> During that time, I've heard various things about a cure for type 1 diabetes. Funnily enough, it's always 5-10 years away. I won't get my hopes up, but what I do know is that over the last couple of decades, despite there not being a cure, the technology available to treat and manage the disease has improved dramatically.
The merchant pays at least double the rate compared to a normal credit card transaction fees. Merchant pays more for the payment processing and gets better conversion.
But Apple BNPL applies to all merchants that accept Apple Pay. I cannot imagine that Target/Albertsons/Trader Joes/Costco/etc agreed to pay an extra 3% in payment processing fees if their customer chooses to use Apple BNPL.
I am referring to this line in the bitsaboutmoney.com article:
>BNPLs pitch themselves to businesses as more marketing efforts and less simple payments rails. They’re more expensive than cards by about 300 bps.
I assume this is all the same as Goldman Sachs’ Apple credit card. The same payment fees from merchant to Goldman Sachs, and then Apple might get a little too. Since Goldman is taking all the underwriting risk, I would be surprised if Apple is getting the lions’ share.
Apple’s reward is their devices becoming more popular among people who cannot get credit cards and might find utility in Apple BNPL.
During a keynote speech on May 10, Elon Musk commended Tesla factory workers in China for working under conditions that break labor laws in many parts of the world — including those in China, as The Guardian pointed out. The high praise from Elon went out to workers who are being pushed to meet production goals in the middle of pandemic lockdowns, which have been ongoing at the Gigafactory in Shanghai since April. The Tesla CEO went on to compare Chinese workers with their American counterparts, who Musk says lack work ethic he considers impressive and vital for EV companies to succeed.
"There’s just a lot of super talented and hardworking people in China that strongly believe in manufacturing. And they won’t just be burning the midnight oil. They’ll be burning the 3am oil. So they won’t even leave the factory type of thing. Whereas in America, people are trying to avoid going to work at all."
Going by what Musk says, it sure sounds like what they say is true: nobody wants to work anymore. That is, except for workers in China, where conditions enabling Tesla to meet production goals during lockdowns have less to do with burning oil past midnight, and more to do with China’s extreme work culture. Meaning Musk isn’t really praising hardworking people so much as a disregard for labor rules.
During the lockdowns, workers at the Gigafactory reportedly worked 12-hour shifts, six days a week and slept on the floor. Again, that’s not only during recent lockdowns. This is actually common enough to be nicknamed “996.” That’s shorthand for work shifts going from 9am to 9pm, six days a week.
Jerry Pournelle once wrote that "unregulated capitalism will eventually end with human meat sold in market places, and slavery." Seems like Musk and his ultra-libertarian ilk are heading down that same path.
If you knew anything about Pournelle (his books are good, especially his collaborations with Niven), you'd realize he'd be the last to espouse communism. This is someone who arguably came up with the SDI during the Reagan administration.
No, he's advocating for effective, efficient (and limited) government regulation.
I come from the soviet block and I like to see when westerners keep flagging my post for laughing out communist advocates ( they are growing as you see ). My country ( Poland ) was an example for this unregulated capitalism transformation in 90s and I can say, I am glad somebody has tried it. Regarding regulations please see mifid 2 regulation and see how efficient and concise it is ( tousands of pages ). So to all westerners please come to eastern Europe and see these "efficient regulations" - they never are
I don't see how you can so confidently connect labor issues in a Gigafactory to his beliefs surrounding the efficacy of remote work. You still have not addressed this part of your claim:
> He's banning remote work because he's an authoritarian micromanager
You don't know why he's banning remote work, and you're guessing that its the most inflammatory reason you can come up with. You do not know.
We know he's banning remote work, and we know he's an authoritarian micromanager (because he brags about that). What is added to the conversation by quibbling over the precise causative relationship between those two facts?
Really, the idea that there isn't a connection is the less likely option. I think it's on you to prove that, not on others to disprove it. "When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras."
