I believe many markets (say the browser market here) tend to duopolies. So that, to me, means it's going to be Chrome(ium) + Safari (plus a smattering of 'also rans' at ~1% share). It'll be slow but inexorable. Firefox is and has been a wonderful browser over the years and likely will continue to be for the near future -- until such a time, I suppose, as the costs associated with running a project like that don't meet the revenue they generate.

What's the mystery?!?!? Amazon has a YUGE loss carryforward from their years of unprofitability -- remember all those years they lost money and stayed afloat from venture capital and then their IPO? Once they eat all that up [and it's close I think] they'll be paying taxes. And paying at a new lower yet competitive rate (worldwide) thanks to DT's tax reform.

Holy mother of pearl, that's big. Must check piggy bank.

On a related note, the russians are pressuring their NASA also. Time to put up or shutup and let some other folks have a shot perhaps: https://arstechnica.com/scienc...

I'd imagine it's pretty common for a president to ask something stupid of an expert. What I can also imagine is, with this particular president, the anecdote from the expert becomes public and the subject of articles like this one. And I like that. Trump seems to have no shame. He also seems more than willing to go out on a limb and ask something risky and look like an idiot. I personally have Never held that against someone in my professional career of 30+ years in technology. I also rarely ever share an embarrassing moment like that. Rarely, haha. With this exchange, I think it was right to share it.

Good lord. Is it just me or does this seem like admins not following best practices? Who waits until weeks/days before expiration to renew a cert? Pretty irresponsible, no?

I wonder if there is a chance that the much hyped 5G rollout coming to a light-pole near you has an Achilles Heel of sorts. Probably makes no sense (antenna or power issue for instance). But fun to think about.

Exactly what a bot would say ;)

I honestly never got the economics of why rural areas were so hard to light up. They are there, for sure. And it sucks to be stuck in one of these areas (unless you're a motivated geek, haha). I hope rural areas finally get that last bit of the country with HSB. Been a LONG wait for many.

Valid point. From what I can tell of Musk though it's more likely the former than the later. Aso HFT folks have been 'tamed' a bit in the last 5 years and many more trading systems have placed teensy (but non-negligible to the HFT folks) speed bumps into the system to effectively negate the HFT advantage. But who knows... if they're willing to pay enough...

This Starlink super-constellation has a real opportunity to disrupt the current broadband market in the US in a big way; not to mention the world. Broadband _anywhere_; at sea, in the air, rural areas, extreme areas... put up your antenna and you're good to go. Excited to see what the bandwidth and pricing look like. I hear "5g like speed" and "inexpensive". But we'll s ee. Also, I wonder if this project (and others with similar goals) explain some of the incredible slow-walking of rural broadband initiatives. Perhaps it's one of those "Why spend millions digging trenches and laying wire to get folks onboard when this kind of thing is just around the corner". Sucks to be in a rural area with maybe just shoddy DSL... but maybe the worm has turned here.

Be interesting to do a startup of these types of early retirees you mention -- folks that still might just want to get back into the saddle for 'one last great project'. They're not in it for the money and more the craft. Also, they're probably more aware of their 'faults' and able to moderate those better with age/wisdom. Now, approach a VC with NO idea but that staffing plan, lol. They often have ideas but no team. Curious if anyone would bite :)

Apparently it's not a crazy rare occurrence for a prisoner (Schulte) to have not one but two contraband cell phones ("and other electronic devices") that the prisoner can gab with the outside world with. One has to have a certain amount of respect for that amount of hutzpah and tenacity to accomplish that.

A very smart person told me that, if Twitter is not an agora for you (an enjoyable one), then you're not doing it right. I think he is right and it's harder than I seemed like it would be. It's kind of hard to curate a set of folks to follow that remains interesting and reasonably free of mindless trolling/counter-trolling/r99999. Especially in the political arena.

Discovery would be fascinating for sure. For both parties. But Bloomberg can shield themselves behind anonymous sources who will likely never come forward. "Well, we're simply reporting what we were told..." At some point this gets to be about credibility. Apple has a LOT, especially when it comes to privacy. They stood up to the FBI 100%. Bloomberg BusinessWeek? Not a perfect record, to say the least. Given what I've read so far, I'm increasingly skeptical of the core story. Something happened a couple years ago, no doubt. How much is first hand and how much is 2nd hand hearsay? *shrug* But fun story... and even that leads me to lean towards BusinessWeek blew this story up because of the stuff going on with China.