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They mention a botched drug study but I'm curious why that wasn't redone correctly given how many years we've been at this. And growing plants for that matter. Hop to it guys, we have to get this figured out while we have a station.

I think the unicorn is only for web pages. Things like git api services might be broken independently (and often are!) and they might show up on the status page after some time.

This feels correct. Their business model is squeezing anyone who can't migrate off their properties and suing the rest.

Why would go $58B in debt to support a new feature that no one will want after alienating everyone above?


> Why would go $58B in debt to support a new feature that no one will want after alienating everyone above?

Short term shareholder equity gains during an over exuberant hype cycle you do not know when might repeat.

"As long as the music is playing, you've got to get up and dance." -- Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince (symbolizing Wall Street's reckless persistence in risky lending despite signs of a market downturn)

The Overvaluation Trap - https://hbr.org/2015/12/the-overvaluation-trap - December 2015

> The trap is an almost inevitable consequence of what many managers might regard as a blessing, because it occurs when the capital markets overvalue a company’s equity—and especially when stock overvaluation is common in a particular sector. In the following pages, we’ll describe the trap, show how it has played out in various industries, and suggest where it may be playing out once again.

"If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you." -- Paul Newman

Edit: tsunamifury wrote a prescient comment a decade ago, referencing the same hrb piece: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10851527


They have not pulled the pin on the ZFS grenade yet, but I expect at some point it happens.

but what would be the blast radius for ZFS?

Most enterprises don't seem to be running ZFS with Linux, and the only large target using FreeBSD I can think of is Netflix, but AFAIR they don't use ZFS either.

Oracle sues when there's $$$ to make, but I don't think ZFS would warrant them much.


> the only large target using FreeBSD I can think of is Netflix, but AFAIR they don't use ZFS either.

I can't quite remember, but I think they might have mentioned using ZFS rather than UFS for the OS, but I'm pretty sure they're not using it for the CDN data partitions. I love ZFS, but for CDN nodes, I think it would be more harmful than helpful; especially how ARC is separate from the FreeBSD 'Unified Buffer Cache', and how much work Netflix has done to reduce the number of times data hits RAM on the way from disk to the user.

> Oracle sues when there's $$$ to make, but I don't think ZFS would warrant them much.

(Agreeing with you), if they are using ZFS for the OS and Oracle makes ZFS toxic, it shouldn't take long to ditch it.


It’s why I run btrfs on my lab machines. I’ve used ZFS for, looks at calendar oh, wow, literally decades now. It’s fantastic. But the miasma of Oracle’s infection keeps me from recommending it for anything commercial.

ZFS, in a vacuum is fantastic. But it’s not in a vacuum.


There's no zfs grenade. It's CDDL, feel free to use it wherever you want. Oracle can't come after you for violating the gpl even if somehow using zfs on linux violates the gpl.

Everything I have read is that the cddl is not compatible with binary deployments of zfs on linux so actually wouldnt that mean yes they could press that if you bundled it with gpl? Actual lawyers have said yes it could which is what I am refering to, however I think the actual answer is that Oracle has created a latch by inaction on this subject for so long now.

CDDL is more permissive than gpl. It's not a violation of cddl to intermingle with code under a different license. GPL is the issue and it's the individual contributors to linux that _could_ sue.

I'm not a lawyer. I don't k is what Oracle's lawyers can and can't do. Even if I'm legally in the right, Oracle's lawyers could break me if they wanted. I can't know if there is a ZFS grenade, and neither can you. But we can choose to not deal with Oracle.

At that point, if they wanted to, they could sue mort96 for saying something bad about Oracle. It's unlikely they'll do that and perhaps a bit less unlikely they'll sue over ZFS.

Most of their legal shenanigans appear to be restricted to companies that already license some software from them.


We have pretty good laws and systems protecting our right to say something bad about companies. I trust that to protect me.

We have less good laws and systems protecting our right to use software in ways which Oracle considers breach of license.


They can sue for a variety of reasons from trade secret to trademark.

It doesn't mean they'll win anything in court but they'll ruin you long before they notice the spend.


I'm not sure Larry would be interested in suing Matt Ahrens (one of the original designers), or a handful of LLNL employees (ie the US government).

The present US government would delight in finding a new way to funnel more yachtloads of cash to Larry Ellison, legally or otherwise, as long as someone in the regime gets something out of it.

Because you can get the government to buy it via corruption?

There are glasses that do only captions, no recording or camera.

The article says "any eyewear with video and audio recording capability" which makes sense. Although even that is unreasonably specific and should just say "recording or transmission device" to ban the activity and not the item.


Pretty sure any device which subtitles audio could be used to record that audio.

Then it's up to the company to make a compliant device if they want it to be used in a courtroom.

Which is not the problem when the device has no interface to get the data out and no storage media to store it.

I wonder if it's possible for a regular machine with two high speed ports to do a cable test by itself. Maybe it can't test all the attributes but could it at least verify speed claims in software?

Apparently the USB driver stack doesn't report the cable's eMarker chip data back to the OS. However benchmarking actual transfer throughput is the ultimate test for data connections (vs charging use cases). Unfortunately, TFA doesn't really go into this aspect of cable testing as the tester seems to only report eMarker data, which pins are connected and copper resistance.

Since a >$1,000 automated lab cable throughput tester is overkill, my thumbnail test for high-speed USB-C data cables is to run a disk speed benchmark to a very fast, well-characterized external NVMe enclosure with a known-fast NVMe drive. I know what the throughput should be based on prior tests with an $80 active 1M Thunderbolt cable made for high-end USB-C docks and confirmed by online benchmark reviews from credible sources.


There would be too many factors involved for a proper test. Many laptop USB controllers would probably not even have the capacity to run two ports at full speed simultaneously.

Is there a good prompt addition to skip all the gratuitous affirmation and tell me when I'm wrong?

It doesn't know when you're wrong! Pretend I'm shaking you by your shoulders as I'm saying this, because it's really important to understand!

And it can NEVER know when you’re wrong!

yes:

> skip all the gratuitous affirmation and tell me when I'm wrong


That seems to imply concern for the gambler, who at least has chosen to play.

A much bigger problem might be when these markets bet on a meatspace event and then a bunch go out and try to influence innocents in meatspace, to great detriment of society. Like this journalist https://readwrite.com/threats-israeli-reporter-polymarket


What's also interesting is the Russians adopted a similar color for aircraft cockpits, eg this MiG 31. https://cdn.jetphotos.com/full/2/75332_1265484412.jpg

Meanwhile the Yanks stayed with mil-spec gray on a similar ship, the F-15: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:F-15_Eagle_Cockpit.jpg


Yes it's different: it will match anywhere in the previous command lines.

The marketers did this for 5G also, calling their product 5G before it was actually deployed, only because theirs came after 4G but wanted to ride the upcoming 5G buzz.

It seems marketing /depends/ on conflating terms and misleading consumers. Shakespeare might have gotten it wrong with his quip about lawyers.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/att-to-drop-misleading-...


There was soooo much intentional disinformation around 5G. Everyone who wanted to sell anything intentionally confused the >1Gbps millimeter wave line-of-sight kind of 5G with the "4G but with some changes to handle more devices connected to one tower" kind of 5G. I wonder how many bought a "5G phone" expecting millimeter wave but only got the slightly improved 4G.

This is mostly the standard’s fault, right? Putting more conventional wavelengths and the mm stuff together in one standard was… a choice.

From a standards design perspective, there is nothing wrong with it. It's the same protocol running on two very different frequency bands. They co-exist and support each other.

The problem is how marketing interacted with it.


They should share a specification (I know this is correctly called a 'standard') but the should have been a separate logo for each non-interoperable group of useful features (a different concept also often called a 'standard'); as USB has proved.

Wait til you search the term “6g”.

Bill Hicks had some thoughts, too:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=GaD8y-CGhMw


It’s been a long long time since I’ve heard that name come up in conversation.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane.


Yes, my wireless router has "5G WiFi" but only does 4G. I didn't have a choice about using it since it comes from the provider, but still stupid.

5G and 4G are not terms applied to WiFi. We have 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax and WiFi6/7

WiFi operates in the 2.4, 5, 6GHz bands, but those frequency bands are not used to differentiate WiFi standards because you can mix and match WiFi 6/7 on all three bands.

There are also more WiFi bands below 2.4 and above 6GHz, but they're not common worldwide.


I know that, but you misunderstand. This is a 4G model and WiFi router in one. The company that made it is pretending there's something called "5G WiFi" though.

> 5G and 4G are not terms applied to WiFi.

Tell that to Netgear, AT&T and several other Wifi hub manufacturers.

The default SSIDs on many hubs are names like “NETGEAR23” and NETGEAR23-5G”.


What is 5G WiFi? Do you mean 5Ghz WiFi?

It's nothing. It's just made up deceptive marketing terms. That's my point.

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