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Right. Even the cheaper R2 just released is in a different market segment. There will be some cross-shopping of the Slate with the upcoming new platform Ford EV truck, which Ford is hinting will be $30K. Of course, I remember when Ford hinted that the F150 Lightening would initially be a $40K truck, so we'll see.
It was interesting to read some of the history and this was a fun era to live through for developing database applications where most of what you needed was contained in the database application itself. But I'll disagree that mismanagement was the primary cause of decline of systems such as dBase, FoxPro, and Paradox. By the late 80's they were all starting to show the strain of implementing multi-user access via some sort of file server hosting. Read consistency and transaction isolation is pretty hard to implement and I still remember how early versions of Paradox would simply restart a query executing on a workstation if another user updated a table. When things like PowerBuilder and the relatively inexpensive WATCOM SQL server arrived there was no turning back for anything other than simple applications.
I think the 14 year old nephew has been around for every iteration of technology - there are probably clients now threatening to just have their nephew vibe code the thing you're trying to spec out.
Once, when fed up with this during a discussion on a small moonlighting job I said "Yeah, kids are pretty good with this stuff these days, Tell you what - have him get started and I'll be available to give him any help he needs at 2x my rate".
I’m a blue state resident and will not argue the point about overall quality of life. But a quick look at net inflow/outflow rankings by state show there’s already a migration in the red state direction. There are many factors involved, but the cost of living is certainly one. Taxes are a large component of the cost of living. Increasing them on a segment of the population that has the resources to move elsewhere can only result in some additional migration. Whether that results in a net loss of tax revenue remains to be seen.
The union of states arrangement has the side effect of putting the states in competition with each other for things like new/expanding businesses and residents. It's relatively easy to relocate (or even remain in a state while legally "residing" elsewhere). So there are diminishing returns to raising the tax rates significantly on the upper brackets at the state level. I'm not a believer in the trickle down theory but beyond a certain marginal rate many people would just move to a state with a lower rate.
Coincidentally, I just checked in early for an upcoming Air Asia flight (first time on this airline, not China) and see that among other restrictions they require power banks to "be carried on your person or in the seat pocket in front of you" and "sealed in a plastic or insulated pouch or kept in their original retail packaging to prevent short circuits".
Agree that China TSA equivalent > US TSA.
I flew Cathay Pacific late January and power banks were prohibited in both checked luggage and overhead bins. Of course the overhead bin restriction would have been difficult to police and enforce. Also prohibited to use them for charging devices or to be charged from the onboard USB outlets. But the onboard outlets were good enough for anything I needed to do during the 15+ hour flight.
I don't doubt your experience, but out of curiosity, what led you to the conclusion that branding is "absolutely necessary"? It seems to me that the presence of a name on black rectangle wouldn't matter to the average consumer. I get that there's a percentage of the consumer market that wants to advertise that they're rocking an Apple/Samsung/whatever device, but I would think that price/performance would be the major factor. Of course, that's probably why no one has ever put me in charge of marketing strategy.
My experience (South and NE US) is that walls are painted and ceilings are textured. More labor is required to produce a good finish on a drywall ceiling and knockdown and popcorn finishes arose to reduce construction costs.
A company I worked for in the mid-80’s used a PC based CAD package with this kind of copy protection. IIRC the cost of the software was about $5K, and engineers using it probably made around 50K/yr. This level of expense required a lengthy capex justification approval process. There was a category of users who didn’t need the software full time and since the software was tied to the dongle it was common to have the package installed on multiple workstations and borrow the dongle when needed.
The nature of our business was such that there was a lot of logic analyzers and signal tracing equipment in the lab and the dongle was reverse engineered and cloned after a couple of “where’d my dongle go” incidents.
We just moved from a 70's-era house where I spent some time with a fish tape running cable to a 2025 three story townhouse (drywall already finished when we purchased).
For some reason the cable service entry is on the third floor in the laundry room. Ethernet and the TV signal cable runs from there to exactly one place, where the TV is expected to be mounted. Nothing in the nice office area on the other side of the wall.
My guess is that the thinking these days is that everyone's on laptops with wifi and hardwired network connections are only of interest for video streaming. Probably right for 99% of purchasers.
In the early 2000’s there were efforts to provide broadband over power lines (BPL). I think one of the biggest obstacles was the radio frequency interference it generated.
I think John Bolton would disagree with you.
Better yet, serve alcohol and call it Bar/No Bars.
I am old and thankfully out of the getting hired game. I was cleaning out some files (paper!) recently and ran across correspondence from old job searches. As you said, single visit and decision. I was also struck by the number of letters from companies thanking me for my resume and politely telling me they were passing but would keep me in mind for future openings. It was not uncommon to receive a letter directly from the hiring manager thanking me for coming to an interview.
In the US the quality has varied widely over the few houses I’ve purchased over the years. I’m also skeptical of their aligned interests. In the US most home purchases take place with a real estate agent involved. An inspector that adds friction to the process won’t get recommendations from agents.
High demand in Iran (if it was a 405): https://www.theautopian.com/why-tuner-cars-in-iran-have-rear...
In the US we don’t have a single DMV, but rather 50 separate DMV’s with varying degrees of efficiency and online capabilities. But in my state most routine things no longer require a physical visit. Licensing is pretty tightly controlled because in the US the card serves as a primary source of identification in the absence of a national ID card.
We had the variety that was able to grab onto the edges exposed by the seams in our vertical cedar siding and so had holes at random places in the wall, far away from perching locations. Owl and crow decoys plus reflective discs dangling in the wind seemed to help but it’s hard to do A/B testing for this. The house was due for another coat of stain and after that they’ve stayed away - the new color is less tree-like so maybe that helps.
I would tell the interviewee that I want to continue the interview with the other person since their answers indicate they’d be a good fit for the position.
Well, my replacement cycle is > 1 year and I have found that the suppliers on Amazon have a shorter life than that. I've ordered a full set of replacements twice and the last was from a seller named CMYBabee. After about a year the magenta started transferring toner to whatever I was printing. I was in the middle of printing tax returns and just went to the nearest Best Buy and bought an HP replacement.
I should add that I sent a note to the vendor about the problem and they were eager to send a replacement. I didn't bother since I was already set.
m255dw owner also. You only have to swap the chips if you want the level reporting functions to work. I’ve used a couple of different third-party cartridges out of the box and just replaced them when empty. But, I have found that the reliability of the lowest cost cartridges is poor.
This phrase, and probably a handful of others, are assigned to hotkeys on the PR flack’s workstation to save time in situations like this.
It took only one long solo wait at a crosswalk in Chon Buri to convince me that it was worth paying about 3 USD to travel about 6 blocks. Traffic yielding to a single pedestrian is a quaint notion and as you say a lone farang seems to be a soi dog magnet.
Yup, it’s been decades - I remember it happening with the carbon copy imprinting devices and it may have been more common in the US rural South where I was working at the time. The squiggles I fingerpaint on checkout screens now are my version of your smiley face.
Same here. Old enough to remember when your signature on a credit card receipt would be given a quick look to compare it to the scrawl on the back of the card. If this was still being done I’d probably fail 50% of the transactions I attempt.
Back in the 90’s Perl was about the only scripting platform that gave you access to host commands and info as well as the ability to connect to databases running on that host. Part of bringing up a Solaris host for Oracle always started with a visit to sunfreeware.com to get a version of Perl compatible with the latest DBI/DBD and enhanced email CPAN modules. I abused the backtick feature heavily.
“Flipping burgers…”. This made me laugh because it is so true. My last involvement in interviewing candidates was for a position for an ETL developer. One of the other team members who was part of the interviewer schedule proudly announced that he had discovered a great source of tricky SQL puzzles that he intended to use. My comments were along the lines of “you do you, but I’m more interested in how someone would generally approach the 3 or 4 categories of tasks they will be routinely doing day-to-day”.
Years ago I decided to take the Lake Shore Limited from Albany to Chicago for a business trip just to have a different experience. Two things I didn’t expect: 1. It was very difficult to get pre-approved for the expense because my employer’s process had to make sure I wasn’t costing them extra money. Somehow this was not an issue with plane tickets. 2. Overnight stops interrupted my sleep (in seat) as boarders banged luggage around and discussed seat selection when groups were involved.
Interesting, but would book a room if traveling this way next time.
This brought back some memories. Back in the day I couldn't afford the Aztec compiler (or it wouldn't fit onto my dual floppy 48K Heathkit H89, can't remember which). I ended up buying Leor Zolman's BDS C compiler. Just looked him up and it looks like he's still around!