You don't find it a bit odd that Bolsonaro defeated Lula in the election, but didn't get 50% of the vote, and then loses in the runoff? That is unprecedented in Brasil. Perhaps it does warrant some scrutiny.

Companies like Origina, Spinnaker, Rimini Street, Natrinsic, Azul and a gaggle of others are all benefiting from rent-seeking predatory licensing and support practices from established brands. Once the incumbent thinks they have you locked in, they turn the screws on service and support costs, especially if you stop buying new kit from them. Ultimately, I think this is a good news story for open source based application stacks....at least the ones that don't get hoovered up by those already bleeding their customers dry.

An upstart company would make a "dumb TV" that simply displays high quality video. I'd pay extra for that. I also won't buy any audio or video gear that requires a network connection to anything outside of my local network unless that's integral (and a wanted feature) to the functionality of the device.

Until then I like the idea of "de-cluttering" the bloat as long as that continues to be possible.

The valuation of these behemoth AI companies and the infrastructure that is along for the ride to sell them shovels is completely unsustainable. It's not a matter of IF there is a significant price correction, just when.

Not making any value judgement at all. They are a public company. They have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. I'm sure someone has done the math on different scenarios about the cost benefit (or not) of subsidizing their consumer business using the commercial sales windfall they're seeing.

It will be interesting to see what happens when this AI valuation house of cards deflates and blunts the hoovering up of critical supply items for consumer goods. That's likely to leave a lot of middle-men who bought at the peak sitting on significant losses when prices ultimately correct.

Dell is making those numbers on the datacenter and enterprise sales side of the house. Those purchasers are going to buy what they need when they need it regardless of the uptick in pricing. The consumer market is a completely different animal. There is a lot more price sensitivity there and people will think long and hard about purchases, especially discretionary ones.

Could Dell subsidize consumer sales with that enterprise windfall? I suppose they could, but I suspect they won't or it will not cover anything close to the entire cost delta we're seeing from supply shortages.

I recall wondering when the pendulum would finally shift back from the siege mentality and we could get on with living.

It never did.

9/11 was so ingrained into the American psyche. Moreso than even Pearl Harbor.

The promise for what might have been compared to what we are has never been more stark.

Except that many large enterprises have seen this movie before with Broadcom buying things like CA. They already know the product development vanishes and support gets thin while prices quickly escalate. Then shelfware is bundled into an "all or nothing" deal so they'll keep bleeding you until you get every scrap of their shit out of your stack with them hoping you take the bait.

We've almost got every last scrap of their products peeled out of our business. Never again.

That's really the only use I have for my one echo device. I consume their prime music content and pipe it out to a small amplifier for stereo speakers and a small subwoofer in my garage so I have music to listen to when I'm being a gear head. I guess if I HAD to, I could use a raspberry pi or something like that to do the same, but this just works and I'm lazy.

Comparing the Starship prototype to a battle tested workhorse that's been in production a lot longer isn't particularly useful. When Starship proves that it is a safe platform for humans, great. Until then, why not use it to launch cargo/satellites if the economics are sound?

Per this, studies are inconclusive, but the most important part Even if streetlights have no effect on crime, they make people feel safe.

Let me try this again [fnord] paranoia [fnord].

Oh god! I forgot elections are coming which means every zealot will do their best to alienate everyone from their side.

You might have heard directives that people should pull over only in well lit areas, or women and the like should stick to well lit areas, etc.

And as people are simply everywhere, that means the entire globe will be lit eventually, your erudite suggestions notwithstanding.

or paranoia, take your pick, but if it is a question of stargazing or crime, crime will win out. Always.

It's unfortunate. The Orange Pi 5 Plus on paper is nice. When I bought all the bits for about US$300, that got me 8 fairly fast RK3588 ARM cores, 16GB RAM, dual 2.5GB ethernet, decent video, decent npu (for then), native nvme, 256GB emmc storage, 1TB nvme ssd and a small case with active cooling. It would be a LOT more expensive to roll that together today, but it's working ok as a headless home media server. I suspect it would also be fine for a desktop device for many people (no gaming, but it plays 4k video just fine and is perfectly acceptable for consuming web content).

http://www.orangepi.org/html/h...

A great opportunity missed by those folks.