I used to run a PCBA factory. Here's what I'm seeing:

* The capacitor that's elevated at an angle is called a "tombstone". At least, think it's a cap - "CS" isn't a standard reference designator.

* Tombstones happen when uneven solder paste is applied, or improper heating is applied to the board during manufacturing, or the actual PCB design is crap, or the components are placed by a crap pick and place machine. So, one side of the component is pulled up by the surface tension of molten solder, as the other side hasn't melted yet.

* Wrong-sized components could exacerbate the situation, but I'm guessing that they're doing this to actually fix the situation (larger sizes may be less likely to exhibit this).

* There should be an inspection step in the manufacturing to catch defects like tombstones, before any "potting" is applied (like the epoxy shown). Such boards should be discarded or repaired.

* The potting happenedafter the heating step (called reflow, which melts the solder paste). That is entirely useless, as all they did was apply epoxy to defective electronics.

Our factory used to get a lot of bad designs, so we often just applied epoxy under certain components to prevent tombstones. Has the effect of gluing them down. It's called "staking".

* There should be an inspection step at the end, which again, should catch defects like tombstones. Such boards should be discarded. They can't be economically fixed after potting.

So, the upshot is that this manufacturing was outsourced to a factory with sloppy manufacturing, non-approved component substitutions, and zero quality control. OR the PCB design is terrible, and was not designed to prevent thermal gradients during manufacturing, and the factory had terrible habits on top.

This type of shoddiness is pretty shocking for a brand name like SanDisk, or Western Digital.

So, essentially, short-term lockdowns were required to not overload the medical system. Since this argument is made with anecdotes from New York, I'll counter in the same context.

This argument overlooks the fact that Mr. Covid, Cuomo, had presided over a years-long campaign to reduce the number of hospital beds in NYS, and him and his predecessors, to shut down community hospitals.

Perhaps if there had been more hospital beds, and more facilities, Cuomo might not have ordered infected patients into nursing homes, where the most vulnerable resided. Or he might have anyway - those nursing home operators were major contributors.

Nope, the lockdowns were a band-aid solution to the symptoms of the pursuit of profits.

NYC is losing population. There are more apartments for rent than ever. AirBnB and its ilk have been banned. And yet rents are skyrocketing. Hmm, wonder why.

Faraday Cage Bags

They're being produced in some kind of volume, but interestingly, they apparently weren't marketed or advertised, or even announced - they just showed up in stores.

I expect that this is more of a PR/propaganda thing than a money-making exercise, due to the low yields they must be experiencing. But they can pump them out, no problem.

Kind of, not really. See: https://www.theregister.com/20...

TL;DR is that doing 7nm on DUV equipment (the last gen of lithography equipment) is possible, as TSMC demonstrated around 5 years ago (before EUV was available), although the machines were not rated to do below 10nm.

So, SMIC bought the same machines, and hired many of the same people, that made things happen at TSMC. Can't find the article, but researchers found that the SMIC process looks like the old TSMC process.

However: it's an expensive, lower-yield process, and it won't scale to smaller nodes - and the current EUV equipment is sanctioned off. So China is stuck at 7nm for some period of time.

Nonetheless, it's a great achievement, and I expect that the Chinese will find a way to overcome the sanctions at some point - and will be leading chip producers in the nearish future.

Hmm, let's see:

1. Force users to change apps, which was a buggy process,
2. New app has less functionality, crappier UX as the previous one,
3. Lose the HBO branding,
4. Replace it with a logotype that has an "a" that looks like sidewise toilet,
5. Mix non-premium shows in with the premium stuff, thus making it appear that there's less premium stuff,
6. Lose.

What the hell do they pay those consultants for, anyways?

Just to clarify: the phone was inserted into an air-vent mounted bracket. It had cold air blowing on the rear glass. It might have got some sun through the windscreen, at times.

I was using it in Android Auto mode, connected to the USB port in my car. So, charging, GPS, playing music, navigating.

I've driven over 10k miles with the same phone, using the same software, same use case, in all seasons, all times of day, and this had never happened before.

My previous phone, an LG V35, never overheated, ever. Not even in the hottest weather, in direct sun. Despite LG's rep, that was a great piece of hardware. It survived being immersed in floodwater for 12 hours, continuing to function well for another two years after.

Overheating did, however, happen pretty frequently with my previous phone to that - a Blackberry Priv - pretty much whenever the phone was both charging and in use. Or if the camera ran too long. That model was a total mess. Wasn't sorry when a drop shattered the glass into splinters.

If someone wants to find another excuse for Google, please have at it. People are really simping for Google? Really?

Can't be a coincidence - it heat-stroked-out in an air conditioned vehicle.

Screw it, time for GrapheneOS. If they're gonna spy on me, at least make sure that they have a reliable feed.

Actually, they de-aged Harrison for the entire movie - they just made him look young for the first 25 minutes.

Seriously, if they didn't, no one would recognize him.

If the USA outlaws TikTok, keep in mind who pushed such legislative fixes... https://www.theverge.com/2022/...

If your town has been poisoned, the toxin probably came from the local poison factory.

Not sure that'll be the case, if only because of the way VC funds work.

They create a fund, have it funded by LPs, and are obligated to make investments by a date certain. So, VC funding isn't going to "dry up" in the short- or medium-term future.

Citation, please? Reporting seems to indicate that crypto is not the cause of SVB's demise - for example, https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/10/23633734/silicon-valley-bank-startups-venture-capital

See this video for a cogent explanation of SVB's situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbc1ooJWG3I

Long-story-short: SVB had large cash deposits from startups, invested in bonds that got quickly devalued by the Fed's recent actions, which raised the risk of insolvency; VC's told their portfolio companies to pull their funds en masse.

Shouldn't have an impact on VC investments; might cause some startups to be unable to touch funds for some period of time (speculation on my part).