Xixi

"Under TotalCare, an airline pays Rolls-Royce a fixed rate per engine flying hour." [0] Not quite kN-h indeed. But the idea is similar (and more simple to implement, I suppose): you don't really own the engine, you pay for what you use.

[0] https://www.meritshot.com/rolls-royce-case-study

EDIT: wording

I do think it's a defensive move, but at first order it's defensive against OpenAI, Anthropic, and arguably Google. NVIDIA doesn't want to end up squeezed by those three as they increasingly make their own metal, etc.

Ensuring a healthy open-weight model market means ensuring continued demand for metal running in corporate data centers, bypassing any middleman. NVIDIA has a strong interest in a thriving "run your own agents" market.

They're actually aligned with Apple here. And in this market, Apple is a real competitor too, with Apple probably more consumer-centric, while NVIDIA probably more enterprise-centric.

I strongly recommend Merchants of Doubt [1], it's fairly clear what happened: learning from the "mistake" of the tobacco industry financing research, the oil industry understood that producing their own honest science was a liability, not a defense. The only way to avoid being held accountable for climate change was to sneakily but relentlessly attack science to discredit it. Keep the controversy alive. Seed doubt in the mind of people.

Not just regarding climate, virtually all of science. Science itself is the target. The overlap between climate change denial and COVID denial (for instance) is documented: same think tanks, same commentators. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt

[2] https://www.desmog.com/covidenial-executive-summary/

Static types are not _that_ useful to catch bugs, if only because type related bugs tend to surface very quickly, especially in strongly typed language like Python. So a good CI suite is usually enough to catch them, but you do need good coverage. Even if they make it to prod, they won't survive long...

Static types are IMHO more useful for speed, maintenance/refactoring of large projects, and code completion in IDEs. But a codebase in production is unlikely to have much type related bugs...

There's been a pendulum swing of sort during my career: static languages like C++/Java, then dynamic ones like Python/Ruby/JavaScript, and now back toward typed languages like TypeScript/Rust/Swift.

My read is that people were never really against types: they were against type systems that got in the way. Older ones often weren't expressive enough, so you ended up writing verbose patterns just to appease the compiler.

That's why dynamic languages gave startups a sizable velocity edge for a while. Modern type systems (with optionals, unions/sum types, inference, etc.) are completely different.

To paraphrase a comment I once read here on Hacker News: I'll take static typing with sum types over dynamic typing, but I'll take dynamic typing over static typing without sum types...

An expat is someone living outside (ex) of their homeland (patria, technically fatherland rather than homeland if we are pedantic). All immigrants and non-immigrants [1] are expats, by definition, no matter the connotation some people have decided to give the word.

[1] Non-immigrant is the administrative word used by the United States to designate people that are supposed to leave the country rather than settle in the US, usually on training/work/investor visas.

Jet engines are far more high-tech than most people imagine, but I'm not convinced this is evidence of some inherent Chinese weakness. The obvious explanation is that China started much later in an insanely difficult field.

They are narrowing a gap measured in decades. The article explains the difficulty well, but it doesn't convince me that China can't eventually (again, given enough time) build good engines, especially for domestic military use.

Same for semi-conductors, IMHO.

PACs and super PACs are the key difference. Lobbying in the US includes practices that would fall squarely into the definition of corruption in many other Western countries.

There's nothing inherently wrong with people or groups talking to representatives and advocating for their interests, even in an organized way. The problem is when it gets closer to: "Pass this law or regulation, and we'll put $USD_AMOUNT into your PAC".

That sounds more like FIRE / geographic arbitrage than expat in the traditional sense.

What people often mean by a "true expat" is something completely different: someone sent abroad by their employer, usually with a generous expatriate package (home-country salary, local allowances, housing, private schooling for children, etc.)

More broadly, though, expatriate simply means someone living outside their native country. Ex means "out of", and patria means "native country" or "homeland". It's that simple.

So the word itself isn't limited to wealthy retirees or corporate transfers. All immigrants are expatriates, although not every expatriate is necessarily an immigrant.

I stand corrected, I was not aware of the full mechanism, and I was still stuck at the proposed multiplier and not the actual one.

Nasdaq "solved" that problem by including a 5x float multiplier for stocks with less than 20% of shares available to the public...

I understand the desire to end that murderous regime. If I were Iranian, I'd want to see it ended too. But do they really think bombs will achieve that? More importantly, would more bombing actually bring the regime down?

Regimes rarely fall because civilians are reduced to searching for food and water. Destroying Iran's infrastructure would be more likely to produce desperation and disorder than revolt. It would hurt the weakest most, not those closest to the regime and best positioned to shield themselves from scarcity.

If outsiders want to help bring the regime down, supporting opposition forces would at least make more sense than bombing civilians into misery.

This is where not betraying the Kurds (several times) would have come in handy...

I wonder to what extent in this instance it is driven by the EU regulating (mostly) foreign companies rather than (mostly) domestic ones.

Said differently, it is much easier for the EU to be impartial and competent when regulating Apple or Samsung than when regulating Volkswagen or Stellantis...

I'm not sure I'd put it down entirely to Osaka versus Kyoto. My impression is that these things often have at least as much to do with upbringing, formality, and social background as with region.

I don't know where you're from, so apologies if this is an unfair assumption, but in countries like the US or Australia people often seem less attuned to social class, whereas in places like the UK, France, and indeed Japan, those distinctions can carry more weight, even if they almost always go unspoken.

But what if there's not enough diesel?

That's what at stake here, with oil exports from the Middle East dwindling... Oil price might not even go up that much, or for that long, if the economy crashes hard enough.

I’m building something similar for Japan: https://altstack.jp. Still work in progress!

Steward-ownership is a philosophy more than an actual structure, my understanding is that each such company is in practice structured somewhat differently.

This article explains roughly how Patagonia is structured: https://medium.com/@purpose_network/the-patagonia-structure-...

For Patagonia a trust owns 100% of the voting rights, while a charity collects 100% of the dividends. I don't doubt that there are ways the structure could be subverted, but it's a far cry from "money without oversight".

Do you have examples of Steward-owned companies that ended up with "well, we might as well spend the extra profits on executive benefits"-issues?

(I personally think Steam should go in that direction, otherwise I'm afraid enshittification is unavoidable once Gabe Newell is no longer at the helm)

There's a little known alternative: Steward-ownership [1]. It's the kind of structure used by Novo Nordisk, Bosch or Patagonia.

LLM summary: "Steward-ownership is a model where a company’s control stays with long-term stewards (founders, employees, or a mission-aligned foundation) while profits are limited and the company cannot be sold for private gain. The goal is to protect the mission permanently."

The key, if I understand properly, is that these company cannot be sold (not even by the founders), so there is no "shareholder value" per se to maximize. It is also probably not a good way for founders to maximize their net worth, which is probably why it's not more popular...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steward-ownership

NASA once offered the UK to launch its satellites almost for free. That offer was rescinded as soon as the UK abandoned its national space program. [1]

From a European perspective, it’s impossible to look at the current situation and believe it would be the same without Ariane 6, even if Ariane 6 itself isn’t particularly competitive. Sovereign access to space is invaluable. Once you lose it, you hand an extraordinary amount of leverage to the White House. And make no mistake: that leverage will be used, whatever the color of the administration.

[1] https://curious-droid.com/323/black-arrow-lipstick-rocket-br...

I agree with your sentiment, but let's not rewrite history too much. Snow Leopard didn't have any new feature, but under the hood it was a massive undertaking IIRC: it introduced a 64-bit kernel and 64-bit system applications like Finder, Mail, Safari, etc. It also replaced many 32-bit system frameworks. Until Snow Leopard MacOS X was still mostly 32 bits.

When Snow Leopard came out it was very buggy, and many apps simply did not run on it. I've been a Mac user since 1993, and I think it's the only version of macOS I ever downgraded from. Don't get me wrong, it eventually became rock solid, the apps I needed were eventually upgraded, and it became a great OS.

But let's not mistake MacOS 10.6.8 for MacOS 10.6.0. And maybe let's not compare macOS 26.0 to MacOS 10.6.8 either, it's not quite fair. Ever since Snow Leopard I've been waiting at least 6 months before upgrading macOS. I don't intend to change that rule anytime soon...

Sarkozy was not the only one sentenced to jail in that trial: Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux were also convicted, receiving sentences of six years and two years, respectively.

And then there are the many other trials involving Sarkozy and those around him...

I've been building AltStack.jp, a curated directory of Japanese digital services (cloud hosting, registrars, email providers, and more) all operated in Japan, by Japanese companies.

It’s aimed at people who want to be less dependent on foreign platforms, especially with the current shift away from globalization.

Still early days: only about 20% of the planned categories are up so far.

[1] https://altstack.jp/en/

I've been working on AltStack.jp [1], a curated directory of Japanese digital services (think cloud hosting, registrars, email providers, etc.), all made and operated in Japan. It’s for anyone in Japan looking to reduce reliance on foreign (especially US-based) platforms, inspired by projects like European-Alternatives.eu.

The site itself is built with Astro, content is written in Markdown. It's still very much a work in progress: the design’s evolving, search isn’t done yet, and I’ve only scratched the surface with a handful of categories out of the dozens I have planned.

[1] https://altstack.jp/en/

I think another factor is real estate: a population shrinking by more than half a million people per year eases some of the pressure on rent and land value...

When I lived in New York City (before COVID), I saw many local businesses get priced out of my neighborhood, only to be replaced by high-margin chains like Starbucks/H&M/etc. They were the only ones who could afford the rent!

I don't disagree with what you are saying, and tactics also evolve a lot during conflicts.

But my point is that the actual effectiveness of US forces against top-tier Russian or Chinese integrated air defense systems is unknown. And getting more unknown by the day rather than less.

Just two days ago: "F-35 Had To Maneuver To Evade Houthi Surface-To-Air Missile", "Several American F-16s and an F-35 fighter jet were nearly struck by Houthi air defenses" [1]

They also shot down seven MQ-9 drones [2].

I don't know how close Houthis were to actually shoot down that F-35 (probably not that close). But if their Iranian SAMs can threaten F-35s, what can state of the art Chinese or Russian systems do? Could NATO even establish air superiority in Ukraine?

[1] https://www.twz.com/air/f-35-had-to-maneuver-to-evade-houthi...

[2] https://www.twz.com/u-s-mq-9-drone-shot-down-by-iranian-back...

Commas and dots being swapped is fairly common on continental Europe: I think it's the case at least in Germany, France, Spain and Italy. Probably other countries as well.

Since we're talking about numbers, in France we used to count by blocks of 20, and the usage somewhat persists to this day: so, for instance, 72 is read "sixty twelve" (60+12), 81 is read "four twenty one" (4x20+1), and 96 is read "four twenty sixteen" (4x20+16). Mind bending for the poor French learners...

Very good point regarding international flights.

Of course, I'm making the assumption that the pilots somehow had to attempt a "a very fast landing, with no gear or flaps, spoilers". The core of the issue is probably there, hopefully the investigation will yield useful results.

But what I am fundamentally questioning is whether the pilots would have attempted that landing if they had been expecting a piece of reinforced concrete at the end of the runway.

To say it differently, it's not the existence of deadly obstacles near an airport that bothers me (after all, some runways are quite literally in the middle of cities), but the fact that the pilots could have reasonably not know about them. That, for me, is a pretty big issue.

There were plenty of concrete structures nearby when US Airways Flight 1549 ditched into the Hudson river: notice the pilot aimed for a path where there weren't any. Maybe that Jeju air pilot could have attempted something similar. Maybe not. But the absurd nature of that deadly piece of reinforced concrete probably didn't help making a good decision.