vivalahn

I could be wrong but I’d assume what the OP is trying to say is that the leadership of these companies does not want these fabs to actually open and work. That something transpired maybe between them and govt.

I think as part of my 2026 goals I’ve got to learn how to shitpost half as good as some of the people that make the HN front page. These blog posts have a solid self-fellating energy to them replete with quotes from brand names that’s just too good to pass up on. A complete lack of experience talking about talent with nothing to show for it? Shit sign me up I’m all about that. I’ll have to put a twist on it. Maybe I’ll find something from Grothendieck and maybe mix it in with Moebius to form that perfect slurry of articulated diarrhea. Hmm, I just have to choose the right serif font that gives my each word an air of Oxford superiority. Maybe I can prompt ChatGPT for tips.

Yeah and using people who write as inspiration is really weird to me. I’d rather look up to people who are slightly too busy to write 2k words a day because they’re actually doing things.

Why did where he works have an impact on what he said, for you?

Unfortunate. But nothing we could nor can do about it.

I’m going to reserve a thread on this post for folks who want to share horror stories trying to implement their own LINQ providers.

You can’t have any of this, literally, without manufacturing at home. You can’t do R&D of any sort if you don’t have the capability to produce things, to send an email or walk over to the company making it, speak with someone and have a consultation around what it is you hope to achieve because it’s the people who machine, who fabricate, who apply chemical treatments and layers of paint, who bend who etch and understand tool clearance requirements and so on that know this stuff. Manufacturing is a broad term.

I’m reminded of recent-grad architects whose proposed ideas are bereft of consideration of material properties and pitfalls.

I’m also reminded of Air Force aircraft engineers needed to be told their parts have to be adjusted because they can’t be machined. And the person who knows what needs to be done is Bob whose hands are covered in grease and oil because there’s not enough orange Zep on this planet to clean that guy.

To use China as an example: their entire pipeline from conception of idea to the end-customer is in China. They don’t even need to sell it externally (and frequently they don’t).

The West is fucked because they think pushing things around is being productive. GDP is a reflection of this failure because it’s a flawed, abused metric that’s devoid of where money actually ends up (most often it’s Chinese firms doing the work), so your GDP is looking great meanwhile you are incredibly unproductive over all. It’s a meme tool used for nonsensical political posturing.

Simply put: you can’t start R&D in the middle and not take into consideration a pipeline. It doesn’t work that way. People don’t have the experience or knowledge.

> We should be forward looking in what we can do outside of manufacturing.

For example?

Talent and ideas move so easily to the US from Canada*

I looked at the Jeep awhile back but their safety ratings were absolutely terrible. I’ve been in car accidents aplenty so that was a deal breaker for me. Just about the only real electronic thing in my Lexus is an ECU which rarely goes and can be replaced relatively easily . Forget updating the maps and other nonsense. Just drive the damn thing and do mechanical maintenance and a little grease.

The next org you went to, did they also use the Five Whys or did they get by with Four True Colors instead?

BBM itself should not have been a lock-in. It would have taken incredibly little effort to open it as a desktop messenger that can seamlessly interact with people who have BBM numbers for example.

I doubt they learned their lessons. Apple walked all over them in so many ways and, if memory serves me right, they even mocked Steve Jobs over the iPhone.

Edit: just so I’m clear I’m discussing it from the perspective of early to mid 2000s. iPhone hadn’t yet come out, but iPods were popular. Trillian and Pidgin were dominating the online landscape of software that could support multiple chat protocols - seamless ICQ, AIM, IRC, Yahoo, MSN Messenger, all in one program. If there was a time for RIM to corner the market here it was right then and there because BBM was the real deal, being available on phones and they could have signed agreements with others to bring it to, for example, Nokia and Motorola and whoever else.

But no. They’d rather be arrogant and stupid.

You’re almost there! But let’s unpack that further.

Other nations can use their resources to accelerate forward by building the infrastructure needed to extract and refine resources, ending further ahead over all due to all the other industries that are enabled. It’s not a simple game of who-wastes-theirs-first.

Another road that leads to BBM it seems.

It’s utterly bizarre how BBM could have been the iMessage and WhatsApp and who knows what else. But rich out-of-touch people thinking exclusivity is a perk in a commodities market just shows how business savvy and wealth are in reality disconnected from eachother.