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I don't believe this happened.

It's very easy to get into actual dehumanising rhetoric and genocidal slogans ("from the river to the sea"); but nobody actually cares enough to fire you for voicing your opinion on a middle eastern conflict.

Unless you're working in the US military or intelligence services, where being biased in favour of proscribed organisations can be seen as a potential for leaking state secrets to terror organisations or sanctioned states like Iran.

But that's not unique to Iran, it would be true of Russia, Cuba, North Korea- I totally understand the irony from Orange in Chief and his ties to Russia, but that's something else.


The Fujitsu Lifebooks were legendary for their robustness back in the day, I'm genuinely sad you had that experience.

The only fujitsu laptops I used was back in 2011- it was a budget version for on-call and it was fine..

Sounds like the fans running 100% probably contributed significantly to the issue here. If I had to guess it was likely that the C-States were disabled in BIOS somehow so the CPU clock was running at full tilt the whole time, maybe combined with a bad thermal paste job.

I'm not here to defend Fujitsu but I've had really bad experiences with basically every major laptop brand (Dell: majorly bad coil whine and especially faulty soldered RAM, HP: keys vanishing from the keyboard and very weak hinges that break all the time, Apple: The GPU unsoldering itself and the butterfly keyboard shenanigans).

I don't really know any brand with a flawless track record sadly.

Before anyone brings up Thinkpads, they're trading on a reputation that hasn't been true for over a decade. If you have fond memories of a thinkpad it's most likely that you had it from before 2016, or it's "fine", but certainly not great.


I do recall that Fujitsu had a very... unique approach to exposing the Setup option in their firmware. It was just a UEFI boot entry. If that entry was removed, you couldn't get back into the firmware setup; you had to find the name of the setup EFI file and then run that from the EFI console.

its also the fact that a lot of fundamental systems work in trade offs.

Do you want performance, or correctness.

Well, if you want performance you use write through caching and in the case of distributed storage: more nodes confirming the block before returning. Huge performance cost.

Outsourcing this just means someone else makes these tradeoffs, they will prioritise the general case- and they’re even more incentivised to move the needle towards things that are most visible to the end user.

In this case, performance.

You won’t notice that theres a third commit server off-site (unless that site is bombed), but you will notice slower writes- and the general case says that people will express comparative dissatisfaction with weaker performance and use it as a justification to use another provider.


if you want correctness* you use write through caching.

My mistake, if you want performance you choose write-back caching, and fewer nodes need to acknowledge the write. Sorry for clumsily typing the inverse when I was in a morning haze waking up :(


I don’t know of a better tool that operates on raw blocks, maybe there is one.

`dd` is a real power user command, I’d prefer that it isn’t doing “intelligent” things, especially not by default.


How about bmaptool? It can work on sparse images.

In general, I don't see the point in manually specifying block sizes most of the time. What I want nearly always the maximum performance, and that should be possible to derive from the hardware, and/or benchmarking.

What about uses like say, skipping data? seek= and skip= are in block sizes, that may not be ideal for performance.

A smart tool should be able to write in 1 MB blocks and yet still skip 512 bytes.


    cp file.iso /dev/sda

This isn't portable though, it's a GNU-specific "smart" things. Elsewhere, this overwrites the target device file.

Redirection doesn't overwrite device files, so

  cat foo.img > /dev/sda
works and should be portable. No control over the buffer size, though.

And no printing of progress either.

How exactly is cp not portable?

Whatever behaviour you’re describing is not how POSIX mandates cp to work. In fact you can do this with busybox too.

cp will open("/dev/sda", O_WRONLY | O_TRUNC) and simply start writing to that file descriptor.


this works great but in my experience sometimes you should add

  && sync
not sure why it's necessary only sometimes!

The kernel has a cache used for block devices.

If you want to be more targeted:

    blockdev --flushbufs /dev/sda

I still think that it’s one of the great ironies of our time.

Linux itself bends over backwards to avoid breaking userland, to the point where there is a substantial amount of cruft when interacting directly with the kernel.

Only for GNU to say “fuck that” and create a widely mockable situation, one of the worst targets of modern programs for stability… to the point where people start using alternative libc’s specifically to statically link them.

What a monumental failure.


Dynamic linking by default has turned into a premature optimization over time

Just a quirk of the times. GNU made the most optimal solutions of their time, but in the end we still have some tech debt. I think it was inevitable that this would happen with GNU or for that matter any project, since it's not a centralized project like linux and was never going to be since it's not just one piece of software.

don’t buy stuff from people who hate you.

https://www.houseofstrauss.com/p/nikes-end-of-men


Great link.

i think the people flagging me haven’t bothered to try reading it, they just assume that they know what it says and thats enough.

Despite the fact that I suspect many would agree with the core sentiment, no matter which political side you’re on.

It argues that greed causes loss of direction, and that large corporations can’t help themselves but to be greedy.


I’m not reading that disjointed wall of text to the end. If you have a point to make, spit out, don’t proxy it to someone else. Links are to support your argument, not make it for you.

Your call, aside from the opening being a bit long winded, it's actually a well written bit of text that goes into what made Nike successful historically, and the psychology of corporate greed and it's ability to destroy vision.

The point that was made was that their brand had historically been very competitive and celebrated that competitiveness, that was their whole marketing.

However they completely abandoned that way of marketing because there was a "whale" just off the bow which was much more lucrative (or so they thought) and what if they could just capture that whale... and eventually capturing that whale comes at any cost, including the alienation of your core purchasing demographics. But they tell themselves it's worth it, if only they can just bring in the whale.

So, clearly they don't care about anyone, least of all if you used to be a customer.

the point made in the text is properly versed and written, you do yourself a disservice by choosing not to read it because it makes a really good point that doesn't compress well.


Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I lightly read half-way, but it didn’t catch me like it apparently did you. That aside, what you’ve said (and, AFAICT, what TFA was trying to say) matches the scatterbrained marketing and product vision I’ve witnessed recently, at least from the perspective of a competitive runner who has used their shoes since the ‘70s.

From my POV, shopping Nike is schizophrenic in that I don’t know which piece of gear is the fashion brand and which is for athletes. Which fits what you’re saying: who are they even trying to sell to anymore? And thus, as a person who was their core (Phil Knight start Nike selling running shoes out of the trunk of his car), I mostly run in other brands these days.


Tl;dr Men made up 2/3 of Nike's sales. Its ads and marketing and celebrity endorsements reflected that focus: masculine (Michael Jordan), heavy on themes of competition, focus, and win-at-all-costs high achievement. Ads that are practically "boyhood fantasy" and which some would call "toxic" masculinity.

Then, realizing that women actually spend more money than men, by far, on shoes and clothing, Nike tried a different tack. The marketing downplayed masculinity and emphasized inclusion and diversity. It tried to more overtly target women. This turned men off the brand without bringing more sales from women.

The author argues that Nike's previous marketing resonated because it reflected real life and truth on some level: guys really like sports and winning, and they'll spend money with a brand that embodies those ideas. The new "woke" marketing didn't really appeal to anyone at the same level, even if they agree with the message.

Posts like this are red meat for some people. But does Hoka or On have really "macho" advertising? FWIW I think Nike's direct-to-consumer pivot was the actual cause of their current situation.


At the same time, Nike put out banners in Boston before the Boston Marathon that said "Runners welcome, walkers tolerated" and caught a rash of shit for it. Keeping in mind that runners have to qualify to run Boston (we'll ignore charity runners for the time being), and those qualifying standards are not easy. You're not going to walk your way to a Boston-qualifying time. (I'd guess 85-90% of actual runners can't qualify in their age group.)

My point being, times have changed, too, and what Nike used to get lauded for (I loved their ads on the back of Runner's World in the 70s/80s) now gets called out as "not inclusive".


I loved their commercial with now-disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong at the time for its rebellious competitive spirit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIl5RxhLZ5U

It was purely a commercial for the brand - Nike didn't sell any noteworthy cycling products.


> i think the people flagging me haven’t bothered to try reading it, they just assume that they know what it says and thats enough.

You could have provided more context to avoid that.


people would have ignored that too.

It does so in an incredibly long winded stream of consciousness that meanders all over the place, and half way through reads as "Nike is bad because it went woke."

Funny, I read it as 'Nike tried to chase after another market, while neglecting its core market in its advertising'...

> "Nike is bad because it went woke."

They tried expanding their audience for a perceived larger audience.

Eventually they realised that the "weight" of bringing in this larger audience meant letting some things go.

The things they let go were their core demographic.

They were unable to bring in the whale anyway.

Thus, greed, not malice (or a political agenda) lead them to lose their standing.

It's not more political than that.


> It's not more political than that.

I agree, the article wasn't political. But your commentary on it "don’t buy stuff from people who hate you." (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49692857) made it seem political.


My statement was neutral, you shouldn't buy from people who hate you.

They seem to really dislike me, and I would say the same to any person who was going to buy something from somewhere. You wouldn't be flagging me if it was a person buying products from an open nazi.

I think it's you who have chosen to make it political, and you're effectively saying I don't get to make this distinction because... of a prejudice you have.

Whether you'd like to admit that or not, that's on you. But the statement is purely neutral and applies to everyone.


But you yourself said Nike's decisions were driven by "greed, not malice".

Wtf is non-malicious hate?

If it's greed, it can't be hate. Hate is often ideological, or political, and nearly always personal. Greed is generally detached and apolitical.

Tl;dr Nike doesn't hate you. Because it's not a person and is therefore incapable of emotions. Calling its gestures towards inclusion, even done for entirely cynical, money-driven reasons, "hatred" makes you sound political.

> you're effectively saying I don't get to make this distinction

You can do what you want. I didn't flag you and I honestly don't care if you don't buy Nike products. I don't either but mostly because I'm a cheapskate. Neither the "macho" nor the "woke" ads make any difference to me. I haven't even seen them.

> because... of a prejudice you have

What prejudice is that?


You're right that greed isn't hate. I said as much, the motive was money, not malice.

But motive and content aren't the same thing. A company can platform contempt cynically, for cash, and it's still contempt. "Don't buy from people who hate you" was never a claim that Nike feels anything. It's about what they chose to sell, and who it's aimed at.

And it's the content that I object to, greed is mercurial, but those campaigns openly denigrate men to elevate women.

Do that to women, or gay people, or Muslims, and "it's just marketing, they don't really hate you" wouldn't fly, not for a second (in fact, it didn't in Nikes own history- the Boston Marathon "walkers tolerated" campaign was not well recieved). Nobody would tell the target of that derision to get over it then.

For some reason, I don't get that latitude, apparently; because it's men. I'm not really comfortable with the double standard, and it's the whole of my point to you now.


> The adverts openly denigrate men in order to try to bring up women.

I haven't seen 'em, no idea. The only "woke ad" on that article ("The Land of New Football") was boring and cringe. But I didn't see any denigration of people based on immutable characteristics.

> This is prejudice, and implying that I'm not permitted to feel offended by it

You straight up called me prejudiced. I'm a sports-loving, hetero guy too bro. I already told you you're free to be offended at whatever you like.


It's so annoying that more than half of the videos on there show up as "private" to users from my country.

We're singling out LG, but it's also true of Samsung and others.

Maybe Sony is better, based on my memory, but I doubt it now without evidence.


except for the fact that it was literally shown?

What am I missing; was it the rootkit itself that added the functionality to do background recording and dictation? I fucking doubt it.


I really just wish I had a USB-C KVM I could use with my laptop (or even better: tablet)...

I can't find much, and what I find is a bit bonkers.

I ended up buying a license to Orion, using USB-C→HDMI capture card with a Startech VGA→HDMI converter (which requires USB-A power)... in order to achieve a semi-passable KVM (but, without the K and the M...).

I paired with a USB-A Hub and a keyboard and mouse and it kinda works but it's an incredibly janky setup...

... the fact that many servers still output VGA is baffling.


Comet Q works well, if the usb c port supports DP-ALT

That looks like an interesting device.

I'm more talking about being able to attach a normal laptop to another computer though, without any IP/Networking requirements.



Cheap 4K HDMI/VGA-to-USB input boards and reverse HID cables are available. Betwen the two for $50 - they turn your laptop into a Moniitor, Keyboard and Mouse for a random computer.

where?

the north exports, the south imports.

If you run datacenters in the north its substantially cheaper.

Places like Malmö have had issues with power costs, even though there's a lot of generation... because that generation happens in the north.


But isn’t that also because of not investing in the grid more than a production problem? Not cheap to upgrade the grid of course but having good transmission capacity makes a more stable and efficient energy system.

Not saying we shouldn’t produce more electricity. But from what I have understood it’s mainly about other factors than production.


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