The current eruption of export bans on "AI" hardware started in Trump's first term, in 2019, with Huawei and Huawei affiliate companies. But yes, your TDS point is valid: Biden et al. built upon Trump's piecemeal export bans with comprehensive, all-of-China, bans, in 2022. This has nothing to do with Biden vs Trump, etc. It's a continuation of ITAR thinking going back 50 years.

Just got email yesterday from Belkin, to tell me Wemo devices including their hugely popular Wemo mini plug and Wemo wall switch, outdoor switch and 3-way switch were on a list to be shut down in January, 2026. They're yanking the cloud server support required to make them work, and saying the only thing they'll still do after that is work on a LOCAL network via HomeKit.

It's not just Apple. Any of these vendors of "smart" devices get to dictate when they kill off the functionality. If it requires cloud servers, then all you did was buy some hardware that works with THEIR systems, on THEIR terms and conditions.

I use an Arlo video doorbell on my front door, and initially? I was fine with not paying for their optional monthly subscription that allowed uploading video to the cloud. I was content to use it so I could view live video when someone rang the bell, and to get push notifications when people walked within range of it. Well? After some relatively recent update they did, it seems I lost the ability to configure the zone the camera monitors for motion. They just monitor the whole darn thing if you don't pay for their subscription to "unlock" that capability. Worse yet? There's nowhere in their software to configure it to just stop alerting for motion. I had to suppress it on my iPhone app via the phone's own application settings.

It sucks but I don't see any alternative except buying only devices that give YOU full control over them on your home network. And a lot of those reduce the usability and convenience vs ones utilizing the "big cloud" offered by players like Apple, Google or Amazon.

Oregon isn't Nigeria. All of the worker creature comforts aren't being flown in at great expense because local infrastructure and services are shit. Houses and restaurants are being built. Stores are being built. That means employing the locals for the most part, raising their wages and improving their infrastructure.

There are downsides to big companies coming into small towns. I live in one, and the increased traffic and general hassle of more people annoys the fuck out of me. But our standard of living has most definitely gone up, not down.

This is heavily dependent upon what the major is. Huge numbers of college grads get degrees that do them absolutely no good in the workplace. There are legions of grads working in jobs that don't require college.

A chemical engineering major is going to make so much bank that he can pay off his loans in a very short time and have a high amount of disposable income. The Sociology grad working a telemarketer job, not so much. He's sitting at a table with co-workers that in many cases didn't even graduate high school.

That's amazing, frankly.

I wrote a simple bash script the other day to handle a video encoding queue, with this line:

if [[ $(date +%s -r "$file") -lt $(date +%s --date="1 min ago") ]]

It's running on Debian 12 but to imagine that if it were running on Ubuntu it would have failed?

Wild that this wasn't caught as soon as the dud utility shipped in a distro. I would have expected somebody's scripts to have failed, they ran it under bash -x and thought, "Oh, boy," then off to file a bug.

I like the idea of using Rust and the idea of Software Engineering. But together.

We heard a while back about Google making a nondestructive book scanner that used puffs of air to turn pages and multiple cameras with stitching algorithms.

Is there a home version that people can recommend, product or build plans?

I have at least a hundred out-of-print books, some on taboo subjects, that I'd love to be able to scan and lend out privately.

Frankly this would be a good item to lend around; I'd only need one for a few days a year.

To be fair there's a common way to compile Lua to JVM bytecode so it's likely just a Java front-end, not using the basic interpreter.

Back in the day there was a craze to port Lua, Ruby, Perl, Groovy(!), to run as Java front-ends. Not many got put into production outside of Lua.

However the real point here is that it's now "tell me why I shouldn't use Rust" time.

Moving ABI might be a reasonable objection for a small team but Cloudflare has over a hundred engineers on this so it's not a problem.

They get speed and memory safety in exchange for learning "The Rust Way". Seems like a good engineering tradeoff.

IMO Rust is still for the top 20% of engineers so Java's "solid middle" is still quite safe.

I thought that until I learned that they need weekly maintenance tending.

Somebody would need to build an automated battery watering system for homeowners who go away for a long vacation and forget to water their houseplants.

At some point it's too Rube Goldberg to be usable. Now, a few square miles of grid-scale ... somebody could make a business case where land is cheap and sun and water are plentiful.

An actual game changer (literally) would be native Steam and GOG clients for Linux and BSD. Windows would still be, percentage-wise, the king of desktop gaming, but you'd see a mighty river of players move over to Unix systems if those two things came to fruition.

You can still get them, they just tend to be expensive because they're "commercial grade" by default if it's a Samsung. Sceptre still makes low end affordable non-smart TV's for a pretty good price. A 50' is under $250 at Wal Mart. We have a Sceptre 55' in our living room. All smart stuff is through HDMI Roku sticks. The sound on Sceptres tend to suck, but we picked up a nice Sony sound bar for under $99, and it's slim enough to fit under it. So, tax and all, you're still getting everything you want for under $400.

May I ask why you call firing people morally corrupt? Illegal, according to some artificial definitions of what is supposed to be the law, which is a system designed to force behaviors, maybe. But morally corrupt? Please explain, I really do not get it, absolutely don't understand what is morally corrupt about firing people that you don't want to work with because any reasons whatsoever. If it is your business, you should be able to fire anyone, it's not about morality, it is purely, completely a monetary decision. Do you feel morally corrupt for purchasing things on sale rather than overpaying for them?

Do I have to put out a hit on a whistleblower who exposes my illegal business scheme?

if your PC meets the Windows 11 Hardware Spec.

Reminds me of Grubhub settles with the FTC over adding restaurants without their consent.

IKR?! (I know right?) TBH (to be honest), I just wanted to leave a comment here for the LOL (laughing out loud) factor. I can do this all day but I don't have all day, have to leave ASAP (as soon as possible). TTYL (talk to you later).