is the new "normal".

From what I remember from the initial report, OceanGate did everything they could to avoid being in any country's jurisdiction so they would not be subject to any country’s rules and regulations. The company was based in Washington state in the United States, but the OceanGate Expeditions, Ltd was registered in the Bahamas. The Titan was not registered in any country as the Bahamas refused to register the submersible without adequate documentation and technical specifications.

By your thinking, airlines ought to be allowed to operate using experimental aircraft and stock aircraft that are not properly maintained. It's one thing for an inventor to be reckless and kill himself. It's another when you take paying customers.

There was little opportunity to prevent Stockton Rush from operating an unsafe vessel outside of a totalitarian environment we wouldn't want. However, when you start offering rides to paying customers, things change. That should and can be regulated. It is hard to hide. Furthermore, Rush fired staff who pointed out the problems. A better whistleblower system might have made their voices heard.

In the past, companies building datacenters in rural areas for cheap land would build the infrastructure. After all, the companies needed these datacenters to be reliable as the local infrastructure would not be adequate. Also these rural areas could rarely afford the infrastructure changes needed even if they wanted to build them.

And closed loop cooling uses zero water. Oh it uses less water, not zero water. What about power? Does datacenters use closed-loop power? That does not exist?

Truckee, California. That datacenter did not build their own power. They are just buying all of Truckee's power. Screw the locals.

I'm not even sure if it's that deliberate, or it's just the fact that Trump is thinking about rigging the election... so he talks about rigging the election.

But it's hilarious how consistent the pattern is. Normally with something like that there's just a few occasional examples. But with Trump if he says "Democrats are kicking puppies!" chances are that we're about to find out that Trump kicked a puppy.

It means these RAM companies are not spending years and billions of capital to build more capacity for what might be a temporary situation. To him that is "refusing". That is like my local cafe "refusing" to stock their entire cooler with the latest popular caffeinated energy drink brand I like. I mean how dare they.

ISTM that the perps are most often social conservatives, such as leaders of regressive religions.

If that's the case, I shudder to think what it was like in the Middle Ages. Or in certain countries today.

Apple does not manufacture their own CPUs. They contract TSMC to make them. Apple also does not manufacture their own SSDs, cameras, etc. Of all the components, RAM is a commodity component that survives on thin margins relying on high volume for profits.

Building a chip fab would take years if Apple had the site, the personnel, plans, permits, etc. today. Then it takes an experienced foundry like TSMC about a year after construction is complete to start making enough acceptable product in volume. So 3 or 4 years from now, Apple might have Apple RAM for their devices. By that point, if the RAM crisis is over, all the existing companies could sell their RAM for less than it costs Apple to make as Apple has to recoup capital costs. In the end, Apple will lose money. For what?

"No money exchanged hands in the making of this contract."

How long do you think it would take to "start a RAM company"? If Apple had the personnel, site, plans, equipment, etc, it would take years for them to build the plant. Then the plant does not make 100% sellable product on day 1. That might take months to a year. So 3 years from now, Apple might, maybe have a few chips they could use.

Um no. They existing companies are being lots of money to make specialized memory for AI. They are meeting demand. They are meeting demand of people who are paying them the most. They are not meeting the demand of us peasants who can't afford to throw money at them.

Rather than guillotining anyone, the solution ought to be regulating the growth-rate of data centers so that they don't eat the economy. There's no reason to allow them to grow "as fast as possible" when it's not even clear how useful they'll be long-term. Unregulated capitalism leads to violent boom/bust cycles which cause economic pain.

Every computer manufacturer would love to have margins like Apples', and would raise their prices in a heartbeat to get them, if they could. You can call that corporate greed if you want, but it's also standard capitalism.

The more pertinent question to ask is: why is Apple able to command a premium, without losing sales, while other computer manufacturers cannot do the same?

The standard Slashdot answer will be "because Mac purchasers are idiots", but I don't think that is the reason. I think it's because Apple is able to sufficiently differentiate its products from those of its competition, such that customers don't make their purchasing decisions based on a dollars-per-megabyte analysis. If Macs were sold with Windows and featured a consumer-gaming video card (like most every other PC in the world), it would be different, but Apple is the only (legal) source for a MacOS-running computer, and its one of the few providers of a unified-memory architecture for local AI execution. Until it gets some direct competitors, that gives it the ability to name its price.

Fleeing with hoarded money isn't likely to hurt the state.