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1) Either really will stoop to that level of dishonesty or you have no idea what Google RCS was all about. E2EE was a defining feature of Google RCS that distinguished it from Universal profile. To call it a "hobby horse" says you either know nothing about this topic or you are willing to lie about the importance of it.

2) Do you understand what OTHER FEATURES means? E2EE was one of many features in Google RCS that is not defined in Universal Profile nor did the specification spell many ways to handle any of the extensions Google added. Except the one method used by device that used incompatible RCS versions: Fallback to MMS.

3) You still haven't addressed the basic question of Apple was supposed to decrypt Google's implementation of the Signal protocol that no one else used.

Even today, not all Android phones use Google RCS especially those that use GrapheneOS or LineageOS. Did you know that?

And what would that accomplish again? When all these Android devices had incompatible versions of RCS, did they default to Universal Profile 1.0 when messaging each other? No. They all defaulted to MMS. So Apple would implement another incompatible version that no one used that did not have many features . . . Or Apple could default to MMS like everyone else.

You are asking Apple to support people who are not their customers. Why again? Do you ask Toyota why they don't use the same tires on the Camry that Honda uses for the Accord? That's how stupid your request is. I do not know how to say in any other way so you can understand: THE FALLBACK FOR MESSAGING IS MMS. For decades.

Apple has made Universal Profile 2.4 happen. Full Google RCS compatibility has not happened yet. The GSMA announced in March 2026 the release of RCS 4.0 specification which addresses rich text and videos enhancements. They have not solve the problem of E2EE compatibility. Did you know that either?

Nope. Go look up the actual data, don't just go on vibes.

Yes, in 1980 the median house was $65k and it's $430k today... but the median hourly wage in 1980 was $7 and it's $30 today (which, BTW, represents a ~10% inflation-adjusted wage increase -- wages haven't just "kept pace", they've increased). So a 1980 house cost 9,300 hours, and a 2026 house costs 14,300 hours, that's an 53% increase, but when you look at the way everything else has gotten cheaper -- food, clothing, entertainment, etc., it's really not that bad. Go do some research on what percentage of household income went to food and clothing in 1980 vs today. And the median new house size in 1980 was about 1600 square feet and lacked a lot of amenities like attached garages and central air, while the median new house today is 2100 square feet -- 30% larger! -- and that's actually down a little from a few years ago. So compared to 1980 you get 30% more house, and a nicer, better-equipped house, for 50% more money.

As for your claim that dual-income families were rare in 1980, according to the BLS, 51.8% of American households in 1980 had two incomes, and 49.6% do today. If we restrict the analysis to prime working-age families, the numbers look different (47% in 1980 and 66% today), but it was hardly "rare" in 1980 and it's far from universal today.

On paper, the barrier to entry is staggeringly high, which is why Facebook effectively has a monopoly on text-based social media and (via Instagram) photo-based social media, and you have to include radically different things like video sharing (short-form and long-form), private messaging, and microblogging to be able to claim that it has any competition at all.

But those things are really fundamentally different types of communication that appeal to fundamentally different audiences for fundamentally different reasons. And while they might be "competition" in that both take up your time, that's a bit like arguing that TV news competes with gym memberships. In any sane universe, they should be treated as entirely different markets. But Facebook has managed so far to convince judges and juries that they are all "social media" to avoid antitrust scrutiny, despite having killed the only viable competitor ever to exist (Google+).

The reality is that true competition in social networks — social networks fighting for the same eyes — is basically impossible unless you have government-mandated federation between social networks. What happens instead is that everyone of a particular age suddenly gets old enough to join social networks, and they join whatever is popular with young people at that point, because everyone they know is on that network. About once per generation, that social network starts being seen as "the social network for old people", and some new competition has a chance of taking the new folks. And they compete for a year or two until one becomes dominant, and then the market becomes static again.

So you get a brief moment of competition every decade or so. And that's it. The rest of the time, your choice of social network is dominated by network effects, where people choose a social network almost exclusively because everyone their age is on that network.

Can you imagine if someone said, "I'm going to create a competing telephone network that doesn't talk to the existing telephone network?" Everyone else would laugh in their faces. Yet that's exactly what social network competition is like.

So no, the barrier to entry is not and has never been low. That's why one of the wealthiest companies on the planet tried to compete head to head with Facebook and still couldn't pull it off. Anyone arguing otherwise is depending on a Frankensteinian hybrid market that treats competition as being between companies instead of between products. Facebook Reels competes with YouTube Shorts. Facebook Messenger competes with dozens of other companies. Facebook Groups competes with Discord. Facebook (as a friend-based text sharing social media platform) doesn't compete with anybody. Instagram (as a friend-based photo sharing social media platform) also doesn't compete with anybody meaningfully.

Put another way, the barrier to entry is low if you can come up with a totally different type of content to share that no other social network supports, and that takes long enough to support properly so that Facebook won't duplicate your feature and kill your momentum by week 6. Otherwise, network effects combine with monopoly market power to make the barrier to entry startlingly high. It is the "social" part that makes this true.

If they use a 6-core GPU six months from now with no changes to the Neo, what do you think the general public will do? Class action lawsuits will be filed by people who got 5 core GPUs claiming it was "unfair". And those are the people with the wherewithal to sue. Even though Apple made no promises that the Neo would only have 5 cores, my view of human nature is many people will be pissed they got a "lesser" chip. And here's the other problem: Apple will still have 5 core GPU A18 Pros. Will it be completely random as to who gets what? Apple could sell a Neo Plus with 6 cores for slightly more but would you complain that Apple is being greedy? They can't win either way, can they?

They do have a use. It is called the iPhone 16. Did you forget about that? Also could launch other products that use the A18 Pro like new iPads. The real limitation is the TSMC contract. Once TSMC has fulfilled their order, there maybe no more A18 Pro chips whether they have 5 or 6 cores.

I don't think that would make much difference.

At least in the US, young people are wealthier than they ever have been. Housing prices are relatively higher, but not that much, not if you buy the size of house that people bought 50 years ago. If you also reduce eating out and other expenses to the levels that were normal a couple of generations ago, make kids share rooms like they did then, etc., it's perfectly feasibly to have a family on a typical income -- depending on where you live, even a single income.

What's changed isn't the economics, it's people's willingness to make the compromises needed. But the compromises are not just economic; they aren't even primarily economic. Raising children is a lot of work, takes a lot of time, and a lot of patience, and limits your freedom. I think many people today are unwilling to make those compromises, too.

Nutanix's hyper-converged solution is based on Supermicro gear, though they are more recently able to support things like Dell Powerflex as well.

It really depends on the scale you need. Proxmox is really nice, but it doesn't currently scale out very well. In a smaller business, it's perfectly fine though. For a larger enterprise, Nutanix is good and there's always Openstack, which is still growing and is powering some very large commercial and government implementations.

I would agree that ceph isn't for the faint of heart at scale, though there are companies that will provide operational support if you want it.

It didn't take a genius to see what was going to happen. That's 100% in line with Broadcom's past behavior with acquisitions (look at the CA purchase). They'll keep gouging the customers who either can't or won't exit the platform for as long as they can. Changing hypervisor platforms isn't rocket science, but it can take quite a bit of time for a large enterprise to get over the static friction and make the move. The instant the buyout was announced, we started planning our exit. We did a single renewal to buy us sufficient time and then we were out. I would have preferred to spend those cycles and dollars on other things, but Broadcom just isn't a viable partner. Perhaps they're better in the silicon business....but I'll never find out as I won't do business with them again.

Even if you pay the exorbitant prices, Broadcom's support is awful compared to legacy VMWare support. As others have already opined, there are a number of viable alternatives (Nutanix being one of them) including some open source (with professional support) solutions. Good riddance.

Those cards would be worth far more than the data at the moment.

I don't give a shit about movement to the right or left, not right now. I just want basic competence and support for the rule of law, because those are the things we've totally lost under the current GOP. A bit of compassion would be good, too. What I wouldn't give to have Dubya back.

Maybe they do streaming backups, and he just duped the stream.

The women he walked in on, who WERE UNDERAGE TEENS AT THE TIME, remember him doing it.

iOS has that marketshare now because countries other than the USA (in the Asian zone and Eurozone) caught Apple doing monopolistic things and acted to stop it early.

Wait. You say Microsoft is doing the same thing they've done a dozen times before, again? I'm shocked, I say. Shocked.

........ well, not that shocked.

The Ayatollahs actually have a lot more support in the general population than just two months ago. Do you think even the most anti-government person would want to be seen supporting a criminal country committing war crimes and threatening to destroy their civilisations.