Well, see, that's part of the problem.

USB has chosen to include many, many different features and make them "optional". So a 65W USB PD power supply can be fully USB certified, and a Raspberry Pi 4 can be fully USB certified, and yet they won't work together. A device that uses USB PPS can be fully certified, and not work with that same 65W USB PD power supply.

And don't get me started on USB cables....

So instead of having a bunch of chargers with varying voltages, currents, and connectors, I'll have a bunch of USB C chargers with varying voltages, currents, and capabilities.
Tried using a mainline USB charger with a Raspberry Pi 4? (Nobody supports the 5V/4A that it needs)
Here's a charger that came with my phone, will it work for my laptop? (No)
How come this device won't work with that USB brick? (because it expects the brick to put out 5V without negotiation, and the brick refuses to do that).
This device needs a USB-PD PPS brick; does this brick support PPS? (No)

So have we really solved anything other than reducing the unemployment rate among EU regulation writers?

And by the way, good luck reading the capabilities printed on the USB brick - putting all of those along with all of the symbols from all of the national regulatory agencies on a 15mmx20mm label isn't conducive to reading.

Exactly in line with "No, you can't trust a Google result, but Google can still be valuable", or "No, you can't trust the Internet, but the Internet can still be valuable".
Whether the Luddites can understand this or not isn't particularly important.

Normally, I'm one to let businesses decide what's best for them. But it's obvious here that paying just reinforces that this is a great business model for the pirates. So I'm gonna step outside of my comfort zone.

Paying the pirates should be forbidden by law, simply as a national security interest in protecting all the other companies in the United States. You other countries can pass your own law. If a company is caught paying, the corporate veil should be pierced and the executive ordering the payment, as well as the one completing the payment, should do jail time.

It's almost like you missed the the other story on the front page today:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapple.slashdot.org%2Fsto...

But being the smart, informed person you are, I must be mistaken.

Cute commercial.

The concept is good, the execution is bit too awkward in spots. I would bet that we see some 30 second commercials riffing on the same themes over the next couple of months.

I'm a fan of liability.

The media industry had a fine law passed (https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.law.cornell.edu%2Fuscode%2Ftext%2F17%2F504 that set minimum statutory damages at $750 to $30,000 per copyright violation. It could, of course, be more.

I think that the same law should be written for personal information - statutory damages of $1000 to $10,000 per event, set by the type of personal information leaked. You leak my name and email address? You pay me $1000. You leak my name, credit card numbers and CVNs, you pay me $5000. You leak my name and medical and pharmacy records? You pay me $10000.

Once the prospect of a leak becomes an existential threat to a company, it'll get the attention that it deserves or the C-level execs will get ousted. Right now, they leak, they pay $0.10 per person to some credit monitoring agency that does nothing, and their name appears in the press for a couple of days. Why spend money architecting information systems around not leaking if it doesn't cost you anything when it does? Heaven forbid that they encrypt their databases, hold only personal information that they actually need, and stop copying their databases up to cloud-based instances so that off-site contractors can peruse them.

Interesting that they had great efficiencies with PVC wire - presumably, at this stage, just the PVC coating on wire.

One of the big hang-ups for recycling wires for the copper has been seperating the copper from the covering, often PVC. There are all kinds of processes for trying to do that economically, but it's still a challenge. Copper doesn't react with HCL, so if they could run this process on a pile of scrap wiring, they should end up with gasoline and copper; a valuable by-product of the recycling.

I noticed a lot of movement of the Ship flaps during the video, but then I saw this which captured the ship attitude angle-of-attack (attitude) during the flight. This is the kind of testing that they did, even on a flight where they desperately needed success:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fmcrs987%2Fstatus%2F1960724698825707659
No, that's not unintended tumbling - that's the flight profile that they intended to fly.

The fact that it survived that, with intentionally missing tiles and some flap damage, is a true testament to it's resilience....

I'm OK with the new path, as long as the FinTech companies are allowed the forward the data charges back to the consumer. It'd make a nice page on their website:
Access Charges by Bank
Bank of Assholes: 6.9%
Podunk FCU: 0.5%

There's nothing better than sunshine for reducing stink. I'd really love to see the same thing for Merchant fees for credit cards:
Credit Card Surcharge:
Visa: 4.3%
Mastercard: 4.1%
Discover: 6%
Amex: 10%
(Note that I've got no idea what the real percentages are)

>>> What do you mean by "investors"? VCs are the investors, or represent a private pool of investors.

By investors, I meant the "private pool of investors". Andreesen Horowitz claims $42 billion of "assets under management". How much of that is AH assets, and how much is "private pool of investors" assets?

>>> No. They are the investor buying shovels and pans up front for the miners for a percentage. They are not manufacturing shovels and pans, nor or they the merchant's selling shovels and pans.

For most VC firms, my belief is that they're selling shovels and pans TO THE INVESTORS, who are trying to get in on the gold rush. The startup companies are almost immaterial, other than they can be sold as a shovel or a pan. Most VC firms aren't paying their CEO from investment returns; they're paying their CEO (and the researchers, salesmen, and janitors) from Investor's money. Perhaps the economics changes after the VC firm has been around for 10 years and has successes under it's belt, but until then they're a middleman vulture, scraping money off the investor side and the investment side without necessarily having any of their own money invested.

Exactly.

You're absolutely right that an individual Venture Capitalist makes or loses money off their portfolio. Long term, their financial success is based on both luck and how well they can judge future success of a venture.

You're absolutely wrong in that generally a Venture Capital Firm, especially one staffed with non-successful professionals, is NOT focused on making money off their portfolio. They exist to take capital from investors and distribute it to new ventures. And, of course, they need a percentage of that incoming capital to pay for rent and salaries and bonuses because return from the ventures is years out, and eventually they skim a bit off the top of any ventures that actually make money (even though the firm itself may not have any money invested in the venture). They are the company selling shovels and pans to gold miners, not the gold miners themselves.

I've always told people in relation to "investment advisors" that if the advisors were any good, they wouldn't have a day job. I would take investment advice from Warren Buffett, not so much from the drone trying to reach me from Fidelity Investment Services.

Sounds like Venture Capital has the same problem - most of them make their money off of you, not off of their massive portfolio of successful venture investments. Kinda like There are venture capital firms that have shown good success over the long haul, but that ain't most of them. I'd invest with Andreesen Horowitz long before I'd invest with Affinity Partners.

is exactly the reason that I have all alerts silenced on my phone. I support the concept of Amber alerts, but when there are 20 different colored alerts all operating under the same umbrella, and when non-custodial parent issues get lumped under the same umbrella as "child snatched from the playground", I just don't want to hear about it anymore.

But it points out an issue that should be addressed. If I lived in an area with tornados or flash floods, I want a warning - but I don't want a warning aimed at people 10 miles away. We need to move away from the broadcast radio mindset, and into a "We know where you are, we know where and what the hazard is, we're going to inform the people who need to know about this".

I live in Phoenix, which has some summer thunderstorms, some quite spectacular. It's not uncommon for the NWS to issue a "flash flood advisory" covering 100 square miles. Frankly, I live on a rise 100' above the lowlands; if I have to worry about a flash flood, then I'm terribly late in building an ark. The County has weather stations in an array all over the city; the County has topographic maps and historical data about where water likes to go in heavy rains. Marrying those two to decide which ravines are going to (or are getting) filled should be easily do-able, as is notifying people in danger from those specific ravines. I want that alert, not the "sometime today it's possible that a thunderstorm will fill a ravine somewhere in the county" alert.