throwaway_20357

> I think that this is actually the only viable strategy for a hardware product company in the current world.

Isn't there also the "premium" route? Charge ~3x the price of your Chinese competitor but provide a product that:

* is well designed

* can claim to be (at least partial) domestic manufacturing

* prioritizes repairability, offering a solid warranty, long-term software updates, and spare part availability

* uses high-quality materials to ensure longevity and refuses to compromise customer safety for company profit

If society no longer values these qualities, then we don't deserve better.

Energy prices? Unit labour costs? Pisa Scores? VC Investments as percentage of GDP? Number of IPOs? Taxation of Income? Punctuality of public transport?

As far as I understand, the VW Amarok is based on the Ford Ranger, the VW T7 Transporter (their Commercial vehicle) is based on the Ford Transit Custom. The T7 Multivan and California are still built on their own VW platform.

It seems a lot of blame is put on regulation when there is also a lack of a "can do attitude" or a sense or urgency that procedures that might have been okay to take a couple of years in the past have to happen much more quickly nowadays.

Borland => Roland

Cinebench points per Watt according to a recent c't CPU comparison [1]:

  Apple M1: 23.3
  Apple M4: 28.8
  Ryzen 9 7950X3D (from 2023, best x86): 10.6

All other x86 were less efficient.

The Apple CPUs also beat most of the respective same-year x86 CPUs in Cinebench single-thread performance.

[1] https://www.heise.de/tests/Ueber-50-Desktop-CPUs-im-Performa... (paywalled, an older version is at https://www.heise.de/select/ct/2023/14/2307513222218136903#&...)

I really like how well he explains the details and his "Sidebars" describing some core functionality of the underlying architecture. Link to that: https://mrwint.github.io/winter/writeup/writeup.html

I'm glad for any initiative that leads to less crap reaching the markets that is either dangerous or has a shelf life of a few months before breaking down. The EU as a whole will become even less competitive if we don't re-gain some level of quality awareness and place quality at the center of the things we consume and produce.

This should not be understood as anti-China but should apply to all products on the EU market. China has some well-respected quality-conscious consumer brands (e.g. Hifiman, Fenix Lights, DJI, Anker, Govee...) but it seems a lot of smaller companies there put easy revenue over any concerns for quality.

It is even worse for the planet when scammers keep flooding the market with low-quality products, a majority of people become accustomed to low quality and short replacement cycles, and the minority who cares about quality and product safety has to go through the returns process today but has no high quality options left anymore tomorrow as there is no longer a market for them.

I prefer Scala's Option over Kotlin's nulls.

My interpretation: "No one really knows what will happen but it could work to bring some production back to our country, let's give it a try, if it doesn't we try something else."

Yes, fines sometimes appear levied selectively. Where do you draw the line though? Would you consider the tens of billions Volkswagen had to spent in the US to settle their emissions scandal as "tariffs"?

I should have more precisely referred to the "productivity growth gap" (https://www.dbresearch.com/PROD/RPS_EN-PROD/PROD000000000053...)

One example is pensions. For demographic reasons the state pension system is underfunded for years, a situation that is projected to become worse. One solution would be to increase contributions which are already sky-high and make working or opening a business a lot less attractive in Germany. Another is to freeze pensions. Guess what happened? Germany's old government increased the contribution level starting in January this year [1]. Additional, a pension raise [2] has recently been announced and the newly-found debt will provide funding for additional benefits for pensioners [3]. It more and more feels like a gerontocracy.

[1] https://www.deutsche-rentenversicherung.de/DRV/DE/Ueber-uns-... [2] https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/rentensteigeru... [3] https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/innenpolitik...

I'm sceptical. Recent movements in Germany point into the opposite direction or rather a continuation of wishful thinking. Yes, a lot of debt-funded defence investment is coming. They also promised some investment in "infrastructure". At the same time the debt increase will delay reforms that are overdue for 20 years and longer. There were already calls that, now, with all brakes off, we can increase rather than curb spending on the welfare state. As it currently looks, the productivity gap with the US and Asia will widen rather than shrink. A very disappointing development to say the least.

> I understand that Trump wants Zelenskyy to sign the minerals deal and that implicitly there’s security guarantees.

I don't think there are any "security guarantees". What could they be?

The "endgame" as far as I understand it: The US wants access to the minerals as a compensation for the money already spent and, perhaps, to restore some of the support currently put on hold (satellite data access). Once the Ukranian resistance is broken, the US and Russia will jointly dictate a peace, gradually install a Russia-friendly regime and split the profit between them. They will happily invite the EU to finance some of the rebuilding of Ukraine that is then mainly performed by US and Russian companies. The US furthermore hopes that by spearheading the lifting of sanctions it will get priority access to some beneficial deals with and within Russia itself.

I am surprised Dobrokhotov was still traveling to Russia after the Navalny publication and Grozev felt safe holidaying in Bulgaria. There is this interesting FT interview from August '23 where he predicts Prigozhin's death and hints at changes to their security after they were declared "foreign agents".

[1] https://archive.is/L6UNc

"Solely made in China" is true for many electronic product categories, unfortunately. I love China but don't like any country dominating manufacturing to the extent we seem to have reached. For keyboards there is at least still the Topre Realforce. It is made in Japan. I am quite happy with it.

Unfortunately, the local option has already disappeared for so many product categories. In our city, buying computer peripherals in a shop has become difficult and the last stationary and toy stores are closing down.

While it might be a stretch trying to bring local shop inventories online it might be a first step to at least make their stocked brands / product categories accessible. That's much less data to manage and would already provide a first way to narrow down the options if you need something quick. Google could just ask for that data in its Maps Business Profile metadata, for example.

Different experience here in Germany. Amazon is often 2-10% more expensive than cheaper alternatives on most goods (just check a random product on idealo.de). People are still buying at Amazon, frequently citing the "hassle-free returns" experience. I'm satisfied with the alternatives (no issues with returns so far) and rarely use Amazon. Also, most shops have guest checkout, no need to open an account on all of them.

From my perspective most of Europe believed in the "end of history", i.e. a world where armed conflicts would no longer be relevant. They thought local wars were only instigated by "medieval barbarians" in remote geographic locations or by neocons and the military-industrial complex for the hope of increasing US influence (and profit). Many Europeans associated NATO with wars they did not fully support and were not at all convinced that the money there was well spent. One could argue that Europeans indeed overlooked the growing threat of another imperialist force and its military-industrial complex, Russia, and that at least after the invasion of Crimea in 2014 should have started taking NATO as their life insurance policy more seriously.

I fully understand this sentiment. After all, combined more than $6tn (!) have been spent on the rather ill-advised engagements in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. It's unfortunate that the US invested so much in these affairs that there is little capacity or willingness left now when it matters.

Do you have any insight on which kind of clothes last longer today? I thought that the rush to "fast fashion" and the shrinking budget for clothing had actually led to the opposite effect [1]. I'd also say that kitchen appliances and home entertainment devices (stereo, record player...) were often kept for decades while today's mobile phones, tablets, streamers, projectors, multi-room entertainment systems etc. are thrown out after 5-10 years because they broke down, their software does not get any updates any more or they don't support the latest and greatest standards any more.

[1] https://theamag.com/9238/fashion/how-the-quality-of-clothing...

Also still use Total Commander, a software now in development for > 30 years. Even paid way more for continuing my CrossOver subscription than in TC license fees over the years.

Are you aware of any benchmarks comparing the HNSW with the the binary quantization trade-offs in accuracy for different models/datasets?

That's from driving VW ID3s, Cupra Borns, Polestars mostly in a city with shorter trips outside. I admit the Mercedes EQB included a trip on the Autobahn with the occasional 90-100 mph.

Which geography was this analysis made for? It seems model market share is for the US while prices are listed in EUR in the first part and USD in the latter?

A German perspective: Households pay between $0.30 and $0.40 per kWh, Diesel is at around $1.60-$1.70/l and it is safe to assume 6l/100km for a Diesel car. I was never able to consistently drive an EV at < 20 kWh/100km, in Winter it's more 25kWH/100km for certain ones (I look at you Mercedes EQB) it was closer to 30kWH.

To account for the full cost of car ownership I can recommend the methodology of the ADAC (German Automobile Club, Germany only: https://assets.adac.de/Autodatenbank/Autokosten/autokostenue...).

Yes, it was harder to prove or disprove a claim when information was not as readily accessible as it is today. For the same reason, the likelihood of even becoming aware of any "fringe theories" without digital communication was much lower. So, overall I would say they are more pervasive today.

That was in 2008. The block lasted 2 days (https://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyle/lawmaker-apologize...).