The Sarmat missile is Russia’s largest ICBM, with a height of 115 feet (35 meters). It is capable of delivering nuclear warheads to targets more than 11,000 miles (18,000 kilometers) away, making it the longest-range missile in the world.

On paper, it’s impressive. In person, it’s embarrassing.

Someone heard Trump and thought, “I bet that guy can carry a note.” That’s terrorism.

They are

Thin things look nice in industrial design. It’s why phones stopped being chunky as soon as the battery packs could be scaled down. It’s why EV cars are in higher demand than EV trucks/UVs. Watches became a prestige product when they were thin enough to wear on a wrist instead of fitting in a pocket. Flashlights became a collectors hobby after they shrank down to be palm sized while retaining their brightness. Cameras became ubiquitous once they stopped needing a tripod and flash powder. Smaller things, thinner things, are more attractive to consumers.

It’s diminishing customer experience creep, except the company doesn’t understand what the user data means. They run A/B tests of different layouts, seeing what kind of feedback each gets to learn more about design choices and users. Each version should get its own feedback and then that data is compiled by data scientists into actionable feedback, things that can be done to improve the website in the direction the company thinks is an “improvement”.

Twitter abandoned those data scientists with the initial layoffs. There is no one to tell them what works and what impacts the customer experience, which is why each time the internal question of “how do we open up for engagement?” they answer it the same way, “Use existing user bases by linking their account to Twitter.” The result is several login requests all looking for the same cookie.

It’s lazy or inexperienced management. Knowing the type of person Elon hires, it’s probably both.

Game launchers track user activity within the game. It’s how developers gather “user research” about how people play their game. It’s also telemetry about how your system is being used and is frankly invasive as possible without being illegal. And legality gets squidgy for data so nothing is off limits.

2K wanted that user data to sell to keep generating revenue from Civilization after the game and DLC were purchased. Typically a company has little incentive to linger on a game, they will publish, babysit the game for a few years with bug fixes, and quietly start developing the next project. 2K was farming data but for some reason didn’t like what they got so they stopped. I’m not sure if this is caused by consumer backlash but the end result is a benefit for us game players.

American companies don’t compensate unless legally obligated.

Unless Intel can fix their production quality, no, you will most likely see Intel purchased by Broadcom or Amazon.

Intel has deep production cycle problems, a QA crisis unfolding, and billions tied up in a new chip factory in Ohio and a remodel of its Arizona plant. There isn’t much that they can do to change what the next 2 years brings because that was locked in years ago. And those decisions are killing Intel.

Keep in mind, Intel decided they are getting into GPUs too and those have to survive this quality crisis too. Most of what Intel does is no longer the best and, frankly, probably not second best anymore. It is very difficult to see a path out of this for them short of a few billion to float them through this period.

After the shot at him, he has been very reserved about posting inflammatory nonsense. His speeches seem very controlled compared to the wandering rambles he is known for. It looks like that attempt on him has deeply shocked him and he is behaving like he is depressed. Trump is losing weight.

The thieves are jamming WiFi systems and the comments on the article and on Lemmy seem to blame the victim for not being tech savvy. The bulk of Nest/Ring customers do so because the app is easy to use and the cameras easy to setup. By definition the victims are far less likely to be able to defend against this kind of jamming attack.

If the next step in escalation is to shut down the power to the house, will the victim be blamed for not having home batteries and solar panels?

Why not question the viability of WiFi systems in general? Has video ever been more than a deterrent to those scared of cameras? Fearless thieves who know how to deter the systems get free loot for their trouble.

Treat security like we did before 2010; improve physical security to defend instead of relying on deterrence.

Valve is a master class in how to run a company. It started as a small company and had a direction they wanted to go: first person games with a strong focus on narrative, which at the time was a big deal. Almost as part of the early FPS genre the silent protag was a feature and having a thin excuse for lots of violence was normal. Then Half Life showed up and showed what depth the genre could have.

From that success they had the resources to make a big movie, which they didn’t do right away. They didn’t IPO for more money and access to big names in boardrooms that would secure backroom deals. They worked on multiplayer to prove the mod scene building around Half Life. Valve embraced Counterstrike and built around it, including the bones for Steam.

Valve has always been about seeing which way the wind is blowing, what organic direction the market is moving, and then finding their niche in that direction way before anyone else figures out the market. And they didn’t need Fortune 500 levels of employee count. They did it with a few people in a room talking honestly about innovation and what projects are exciting, not profit driven.

The truck was first shown in 2016, nearly 8 years ago, and only came out last year so there was about half a decade of hype building around this thing that was busy sucking in all the gullible rich people.

That the obvious part. At this point Netflix is looking at drastic transmission costs in the coming decade. Video is obviously taxing and require huge amounts of data but Atmos is no slouch either.The gamble, is in how customers receive the news and how it impacts playback.

Audio sync issues, subtitle playback, artifacting on anything over 1080p will all cause customers dissatisfaction. Using a new way to save data is a great idea, almost literally a no brainer, but does a technical solution always work out of the gate?

GN is so good I watch the ads on their channel.

In Tech, an IPO means the business is market ready to be sold off in pieces, ie stocks. The people who buy the product don’t care what it does, they use the product maker as a vehicle to more growth and profit. Typically that means the people who now own the business make poor choices about cost cutting, like off shoring support and removing unuseful documentation while removing people with critical tribal knowledge about processes. Each step the new owner takes will be to make the business more profitable, and in the world of business, the only thing they care about are the numbers and not the environment or people that created those numbers.

How is Valve pumping up the concurrent player count not a bigger news story? That is like the metric for calculating popularity of a game and Valve is openly fudging the numbers without anyone caring. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

Or they had a few reports of missing tools and no leads when this guy shows up and says “I know where my tools are but you have to get them”. Of course they will help him with the hope it pans out.

Playstation CEO doesn’t play games or else they would know how much more flexible PC gaming is for the user. They are hoping people will slum it with console locked ecosystems and non-moddable games using hardware that never improves.

Another whistleblower gone before their time

There will be a day when a robot crushes it’s digit in a machine and learns that we gave it the ability to feel pain.