I agree with you that you can't rely on hydro alone to power your country. It also seems like you're trying to be reasonable and suggest that any new nuclear production in your country needs to be done as ethically and environmentally friendly as possible.
Your statement about "We can't be buying France's nuclear energy all the time" really stood out to me.
Are Swiss folks maybe acting a bit NIMBY by not allowing nuclear in their own country, but are fine with buying French nuclear power? It seems a tad hypocritical to be against nuclear, while simultaneously using it as long as it's "not in my country".
In my opinion, as long as the majority of their profits come from people continuing to buy the self-host devices, it is fairly unlikely they'll ever stop offering those devices. Why change a working business model?
Yes, subscription models are enticing for that recurring revenue... number must go up, right? /s
If a majority of your sales are not in subscription products though, I think it would be foolish for a business to blow off its own leg trying to chase that particular dragon.
Then again... businesses have made dumber calls in the past out of nowhere...
They can sell subscriptions to people who buy them and allow self contained as possible. For securities sake requiring off-site storage of a security system is a non-starter.
> I genuinely curious what bottlenecks you've hit.
1. My UDM Pro absolutely chokes and stalls with intrusion detection enabled on the firewall and 8 cameras connected. Network goes down, cameras disconnect, devices disconnect from Wi-Fi every time a car drives past a camera due to AI features triggering, etc.
For something meant for small businesses I wish they would just shove an Intel i5 or something in it. They make great switches, great APs, great everything else, just too stingy on processors on the few pieces of central equipment that people would actually be willing to spend more on.
And for a $3999 enterprise NAS with dual 25 Gbps SFP ports and 16 drives? It could surely use something more beefy than a Neoverse N2. I'd say an i7 or even i9 is warranted here.
3. The UNAS 8 I don't own but I believe it would struggle with >1Gbps links and encryption enabled
I have to agree. I only have a consumer UDM (four years old) and it's on its last legs. From day one it was using 90%+ of its RAM and hit the CPU ceiling during large file transfers. Successive updates have pushed it well beyond its limits. I have had to disable many features like VPN and IDS/IPS. I was considering upgrading to the newer Dream Router 7 but the processor is not much of an upgrade, and it only has 3GB of RAM vs my current 2GB. I don't have space for a Pro and I'm not even sure I want one. I already have an Unraid server running with more than enough compute and RAM, and I'm going to try using OPNsense. I would prefer dedicated hardware but for the cost, it's just not worth it.
1. Same here - but it's only become a problem as protect has gained features (# of cameras stayed the same). I got a UNVR Instant and all the issues went away (I have been waiting for an updated 1U NVR but still not out yet). It sucks, but otoh protect is light years better than it had been.
I dont mind using ARM for NAS, but (to be fair I have not looked in a while) the issue is they tend to not have many pcie lanes. Looks like the N2 can have up to 64 @pcie5 so if it's built well, I don't think the CPU will be too much of a bottleneck.
Hell I'll put it out there - some company should make a NAS-specific ARM chip line to make lines of way less expensive (well pre the current troubles) base NAS enclosures with lots of NVMe etc.
Unifi docs say that the AI feature run directly on the camera or via optional devices like the AI Port or AI Key. Odd that it impacts your UDM Pro and wifi.
I'm sure even if the camera runs the neural net, the detection itself triggers clips to be stored, re-encoded, indexed, etc. and the UDM Pro's processor is underpowered even for this.
It's even underpowered for streaming -- I found Protect to be extremely laggy, taking often 30+ seconds to open the camera stream when 3-4 stream receivers were connected.
I have a udm se, 10 g3 cams, 4k bullet+ai, door entry + cam +ai, couple of the display viewports running all day and a nano hd access point and symmetric gig with intrusion etc turned on. I also have wireguard users connecting in remotely.
No problems with performance whatsoever at this point.
Ok its not enterprisy its just a small business with 20 people but seems fine to me. I run synology servers.
He did say intrusion detection so that's probably it. That, and if you're using any kind of complicated firewall rules, those aren't HW accelerated like enterprise gear, so throughput tanks.
Basic routing and switching - expect line speed.
Don't expect analysis features to run at line speed - 30-50% penalty could be normal depending on throughput.
Stay away from IPS and complicated firewall rules which usually are done in CPU, and you should be fine. HW acceleration for those (esp. TLS decryption) is a major reason fancy firewalls are very expensive. You're better off building an IDS or picking up a smaller FortiGate or Palo Alto firewall if you really want to get serious there.
The Cloud Key Gen 2 is underpowered depending what you do with it, and it runs hot. UniFi seriously needs to refresh it. (At least it’s better than the Gen 1. The Gen 1 was disastrously bad.)
The ENAS looks like fairly nice hardware. It even has ECC RAM. Not cheap, though.
Considering how long it has been I don't think we will ever see a Cloud Key Gen 3/3+.
Ubiquiti's Cloud Gateway Max or Fiber seems to be the modern replacement since they do the job of the Cloud Key while also serving as your router and firewall.
I’m confused. Docker Desktop isn’t supported on Linux?
I just followed Docker’s docs [0] to get Docker Desktop installed on Ubuntu.
Maybe I’m missing some specific point you’re making about some lower level detail, but they support and have instructions for Docker Desktop on Linux in their own docs.
On Linux, most people only install the Docker Engine, unless they want the GUI.
On MacOS or Windows you have to install Docker Desktop which spins up a VM running linux.
You installed Docker's "Docker Desktop" which will spin up that VM by default, but you would get better performance by using `docker context` and running natively.
Docker depends on Linux, specificly namespaces/unshare()/clone() etc..., that is why MacOS and Windows installs require desktop and spin up a VM by default.
But on Linux, containers with engine (native) are just processes.
Sorry if that isn't clear but I am actually unwilling to install docker desktop as podman fits my needs better and they conflict.
Many TG CD-Games had their code in track one, and the other tracks were just redbook audio. So you pop the CD into a regular player, skip the first one or two tracks so your speakers don't blow out with static, and then enjoy the game soundtrack.
As someone who owns a SNES and a TG-16, I think I disagree. The TG-16 graphics really pop compared to the SNES.
The SNES can only render 256 simultaneous colours. The TG-16 could do twice that at 512. Its video processor was also full 16-bit.
I’m not sure where you’re getting that the video was the weakness of the TG-16. At the time, that was the Turbografx’s whole claim to fame in that it was superior graphically to the SNES.
Source: Old enough to remember the commercials and bought both consoles to compare like nerds did back then
The PC Engine could theoretically do more colours on screen (though things like colour math and mid-screen palette changes do complicate that a bit...), but only had 9-bit wide palette entries compared to the SFC's 15-bit colour depth, which allowed for a lot more subtlety and richness.
That's the biggest Achilles' heel of the Genesis/MD, too. The lack of color resolution. I helped make the palette more accurate for that MD port of Super Mario Bros, and I made two palettes - one to simulate the composite PPU palette, and one to simulate the RGB PPU palette. The composite palette was closer, and what Mairtrus ended up shipping with (the RGB palette, no matter which "side" of mid-values I chose, wasn't quite right due to the lack of color bits)
Its big weakness is that they didn't realize how much multilayered backgrounds made things pop.
The sprites look really good, but the single background layer makes things look flat compared to the SNES / Genesis. Devs started working around that by updating some of the background tiles on each frame or using some of the sprites.
The SNES also could do layer blending effects. So while all of the input data could only be 256 colours, the PPU was spitting out a high colour signal after the effects were applied.
The data coming from the University of Calgary about the data centres they're building in Alberta, Canada seems to indicate that they're using evaporative cooling, which is very expensive water wise.
The bigger concern though, is the power requirements. Which are set to double or triple the energy use of the entire Province (analogous to a State in the US).
Air pollution, GHG and water use are concerns, but these projects will not dramatically increase the load on the electric grid.
Natural gas is cheap and abundant in Alberta, and the province (actually the whole country, via transfer payments) benefits financially from resource revenues from extracting the gas. So, these projects are generally an easy sell to the public.
I keep hearing about natural gas and on-site power for these data centres. I'll believe it when I see it.
There are already have a couple in Calgary and they're hooked directly to the grid. The cost of electricity for the city shot up at the same time. Also, there have been a few brownouts caused by them not being ready to handle late night draws from those data centres.
That's at least what I'm seeing. Though, admittedly, it's from older project articles. Maybe something has changed in recent months?
> too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ.
And yet, I just watched a YouTube video where a "PC guy" was like, "adding the Neo just completely confuses the Apple product line. Are we heading towards having too many Apple options that confuse the buyer here?"
I get it, other than price, the Neo and Air are a bit confusing product wise. Have they looked at how Asus, Lenovo, and Dell are doing their products though? It's absolutely wild the disparity between PC and Apple for laptops.
I run both PC's and Mac devices in our house, we use what fills the job. Recommending PC laptops for family members feels like a total crapshoot though. Every time, I do all I can to find the right device for their needs and there are just so many trade-offs. Maybe I get all the right specs, ensure it doesn't thermal throttle, keyboard/trackpad are A-OK... but the webcam is trash. Ooof... now Mom is complaining about how no one can see her properly at bridge club call.
I brought up how the Neo might do to the PC industry what the Air did to Ultrabooks back in the day. The amount of hate I got on YouTube/Verge with copy-paste, "hahaha, wut, with 8 GB of RAM? lmao, lol, you Apple bot?!" was expected, but also disappointing. There is clearly a market segment happy to continue to put up with the mess that Dell/Lenovo are selling (anything but a Mac).
Wild how tribal we are to our corporate computer overlords.
The era where something like Framework with its fully customizable, repairable, modular laptops becomes the standard can't come soon enough.
For the time being, I'll let Apple/PC continue to duke it out. Hope some competition helps in the long run. :shrug:
> I get it, other than price, the Neo and Air are a bit confusing product wise. Have they looked at how Asus, Lenovo, and Dell are doing their products though? It's absolutely wild the disparity between PC and Apple for laptops.
Yep.
I'm a long-time ThinkPad user, but I have no idea how Lenovo's ThinkPad T series differs from the ThinkPad E series or ThinkPad L series or ThinkPad X series, and their website certainly isn't going to tell me. I keep on buying T series because I'm honestly afraid of trying anything else.
To say nothing of Lenovo's non-ThinkPad laptop brands, including Ideapad, Legion, Yoga, ThinkBook (!), and LOQ.
I really don't know what laptop to recommend to a friend. One friend showed me specs for an Asus they found at Best Buy, and it looked okay, so I said "It's probably fine." Turns out it was shoddily made and overpriced: they had to sent it back not once but twice because the wifi and then the camera didn't work out of the box, then a few months later the hinge broke.
I am not a Mac fan, but it's easy to recommend them because you at least know they are universally well-built machines.
> I have no idea how Lenovo's ThinkPad T series differs from ...
My personal rundown and how they get assigned:
E - Educational / Lower office personnel spec
L - Office personnel you hate spec, but don't offer the E because they might complain.
T - Give this to all the technicians because they can't take care of anything and it will survive typically.
P - Give this to the engineers who believe having an RTX gpu will actually help them so that they are happy, and to the CAD operators who actually need it.
X - Smaller/Ultrabooks before the term got started, now somewhat a blurry line because T series have gotten lighter/thinner. But the X1 Carbon sure is a great way to spend a ton of money for a light laptop when a T-series would suffice.
Personally I stick to older used X series (currently x250) because I just enjoy a small laptop and they are dirt cheap now.
It weighs like 2.4 kg, and the weight is unbalanced.
The USB-C charge only works at 20V, nothing less.
While charging it overheats and spins up the fans.
It came with a TN screen with terrible viewing angles, that could not be used in a brightly lit room. I didn't use the laptop for two months while I waited for a replacement screen from aliexpress.
Keyboard is much thinner, the trackpoint drifts easily.
Camera quality is worse, somehow it cannot handle sun-lit scenes. Microphone and speakers are similar to the T14.
It stopped receiving firmware updates after two years.
It uses about 0.5 W while suspended, so its tiny 48 Wh battery typically doesn't last the weekend with the lid closed.
The motherboard has design issues, a missing protection diode in the headphone jack microphone input ended up frying the CPU due to a ground loop. Meanwhile the T14 has eaten the same ground loop and even a 48V passive PoE in an accident and dealt with it by rebooting. A T450 from 2015 is still running.
Neo and Air are quite simple when looking at it from the bottom up. Air is the "nice" Neo for basically $500 more. Backlit keyboard, MagSafe, Thunderbolt 4, M5, way faster SSD speeds, double the RAM, larger display, Force Touch trackpad.
> "hahaha, wut, with 8 GB of RAM? lmao, lol, you Apple bot?!"
And it would seem they never learn either. I saw the same comments when the M1 Air came out, then they quickly shut up when people were pushing those little base model airs well beyond what anyone thought they were capable of.
The same thing is happening with the Neo now. It feels like an M1 moment all over again for the PC OEM industry.
If you aren't a gamer, there is zero reason at this point to consider any other laptop besides a macbook. Apple now has one for every price point. This neo is going to destroy the consumer PC space. Dell, HP, Acer are probably sweating right now.
They're not sweating at all; they'll do what they always do. They'll release a new model to compete in time for Christmas 2026. They'll call it the ASUS Nuevo X856G-L or the Acer Nova 9500X or the Alienware Morpheus ZS and that will be it. They won't even consolidate their line at the 600$ price point; just one more model, bro!
Their sales will continue tapering off and they'll do what they always do; reduce investments, fire some designers and engineers, keep old models out even longer, and move out of Apple's way by selling even more 380$ laptops for 400$ while Apple siphons even more profits by selling a 400$ laptop at 600$.
Your statement about "We can't be buying France's nuclear energy all the time" really stood out to me.
Are Swiss folks maybe acting a bit NIMBY by not allowing nuclear in their own country, but are fine with buying French nuclear power? It seems a tad hypocritical to be against nuclear, while simultaneously using it as long as it's "not in my country".
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