On the other hand, I had the misfortune of having a hardware failure on one of my Hetzner servers. They got a replacement harddrive in fairly quickly, but still complete data loss on that server, so I had to rebuild it from scratch.
This was extra painful, because I wasn't using one of the OS that is blessed by Hetzner, so it requires a remote install. Remote installs require a system that can run their Java web plugin, and that have a stable and fast enough connection to not time out. The only way I have reliably gotten them to work is by having an ancient Linux VM that was also running in Hetzner, and had the oldest Firefox version I could find that still supported Java in the browser.
My fault for trying to use what they provide in a way that is outside their intended use, and props to them for letting me do it anyway.
That can happen with any server, physical or virtual, at any time, and one should be prepared for it.
I learned a long time ago that servers should be an output of your declarative server management configuration, not something that is the source of any configuration state. In other words, you should have a system where you can recreate all your servers at any time.
In your case, I would indeed consider starting with one of the OS base installs that they provide. Much as I dislike the Linux distribution I'm using now, it is quite popular, so I can treat it as a common denominator that my ansible can start from.
They allow netbooting to a recovery OS from which the disks can be provisioned via an ssh session too, for custom setups.
Likely there are cases that require the remote "keyboard", but I wanted to mention that.
> means you can stop paying $1000+/month to someone who is already a millionaire, that's still a savings even if it adds $20 in overhead.
Only if these hypothetical millionaires you are stopping make up more than 1/50 of the people you are means-testing. You are not only paying for those who fail the means-test, but for all those who are passing it.
> Only if these hypothetical millionaires you are stopping make up more than 1/50 of the people you are means-testing.
Then why don't we use the non-hypothetical numbers? More than 10% of retirees are millionaires and the $1000+ in payments is actually $2000+ on average and even more for the people who made enough money to be millionaires.
The looks are what they are, but if that wide shelf will mean the phone doesn't wobble when placed on a table, that is a good usability improvement. One of the small things I missed when moving from a Pixel 6 to an iPhone was the ability to not feel compelled to pick it up in order to use it.
> if that wide shelf will mean the phone doesn't wobble when placed on a table, that is a good usability improvement.
That's what I had hoped too, but from the images I've seen it looks like the cameras themselves bump out past the shelf far enough that it will still wobble.
I largely agree, but when we hold phones it is generally by the side without the camera. That means that this phone will feel smaller in the hand, which could be a very effective marketing gimmick to upsell people from the base iPhone.
The confusing choices are deliberate way to exploit psychology of potential buyers into up-selling themselves. The idea is to entice them by the more reasonable base price, but use the uncertainty on if it will really meet their needs to push them up a ladder of upgrades.
Maybe the 16e sounds good at $599. But, it might be a bit underpowered, so maybe you should just upgrade to the 15 at $699. Then it is only $100 more to just go for the 16 (or 15 Plus), so might as well right? But maybe you want a bigger screen or twice the storage, which are both another $100. Then for another $100, you can get the nicer materials or the extra camera, etc for the 16 Pro...
This is a marketing strategy you see in a lot of the phone market, and has proven to be successful at pushing customers into the higher-margin devices.
> confusing choices are deliberate way to exploit psychology of potential buyers into up-selling themselves
There is a lot of consumer research that suggests the opposite: analysis paralysis delays a purchase past the point where impulsivity might have pushed a customer over the line.
Apple is a luxury fashion brand, its sales are predicated on people who want to confer social status upon themselves by being seen with something that signals wealth. Apple doesn't care about impulse purchases, because the pressure to purchase comes from marketing and society.
> Apple doesn't care about impulse purchases, because the pressure to purchase comes from marketing and society
I believe your assumption is bunk, but for sake of argument, let’s assume Apple is solely a fashion brand. Are you really claiming luxury fashion doesn’t revolve around impulse purchases?
> The confusing choices are deliberate way to exploit psychology of potential buyers into up-selling themselves.
I would argue that this is due to a lack of intention, and that the endless upgrade possibilities actually exhaust potential buyers into opting for cheaper options. I have no way to prove it, but it's quite obvious to me that part of Apple's market power is due to their historically simple and intuitive product lineup, and they were able to get away with being the most expensive, high margin products on the market. The more options they give, the more it starts to feel like a commodity product.
It isn't as bad as some practices, for sure. The question is how likely are the 'upgrades' actually upgrading anything for the user? Will the extra camera on the Pro be $100 of utility for the user over the lifetime of the device? Or are they using the uncertainty that the user _might_ get a use out of that camera to push to a higher model.
It seems mostly an exercise in price discrimination. You always have a slightly higher price point, and some extra functionality to justify it, and the customer will likely push themselves up to the maximum they are willing to spend instead of settling on the cheapest option that meets their needs.
I think the only one I could agree with exists for upselling is the 16e. I really don't know who that phone is for, it's missing some of the most basic features like MagSafe that will probably disappoint customers who bought it not knowing their iPhone won't work with accessories that previously you could trust work with every iPhone. I guess maybe a grandparent who barely uses their phone it would be fine, but other than that it seems like it just exists so Apple can say the iPhone lineup starts at $599 and then sell you a 15/16.
My dad uses his phone to answer phone calls, texts, maps to travel to job sites, and play music in his work truck. He might also open a link someone texts him.
And that's it. Literally no 3rd party apps on his phone.
And yet is there a device maker with a smaller lineup than Apple’s? Samsung seems to have like a bazillion models in circulation at any given time. Large laptop makers like Lenovo or Dell have a flabbergasting lineup of very overlapping products. At least Microsoft’s lineup is comprehensible.
It is the end result if you expect the same level of liability as a newspaper or magazine. Every single thing you see in one of those was deliberately put there by a person (well... at least it used to be). If an agent of the print publication deliberately put something in the publication, then the liability falls on the publication and/or that person.
Social media is not the same. The content being posted is not vetted by any agent of the platform, so the liability at least in part falls of the person who posted it. You could argue that the platform should share some liability that is waved as long as they at least try "hard enough" to police their platform, with whatever definition of "hard enough" is chosen. But no automated filter will be perfect, so if you demand the same level of liability as a print publication you are effectively outlawing social media entirely.
"Algorithmic boosting" is not (always?) the same as an editorial slant. Promoting the post with the longest title would be an "algorithmic boost", but clearly not editorial in any way. The most common forms of algorithms are just a function of the number of times people viewed it weighted against the age of the post; there is still no editorial slant there. Even recommendations algorithms like YouTube are mostly the same, with an additional weight based on how likely others who watched the same things as you were to view that video.
> "Algorithmic boosting" is not (always?) the same as an editorial slant
I'd argue any algorithmic prioritisation whose rules are not made public, or where discretion is applied, constittues editorial slant. It's why I'd argue HN up/down voting (even flagging) is not editorial slant, while e.g. @dang removing a post is.
This isn't entirely true in all cases. Consider something like a live broadcast of a sporting event. If some streaker runs naked across the field, are the stations held to account?
That is, in a way, similar to the problem of user-generated content. There is a limit to how much control a social media company will be able to have over the actions of its users. Unless you replace the system entirely with one where all posts are manually approved by a person before they go up, you will need to have at least some reduced liability for the platform owner.
>If some streaker runs naked across the field, are the stations held to account?
If they made no reasonable attempts to move the camera away or cut the feed to something else, yes absolutely they are held accountable. That's why you have TV directors in the studio. Do you think you can get away with lengthy broadcasting of obscene nudity just because you're live?
Have you seen major sporting events like F1? Their broadcasting rooms look like NASA, dozens of people looking as several camera feeds simultaneously and picking the best one. They'll definitely see a naked man running on the field with his junk out in due time and not share that feed. I assume it's the same for FIFA, NFL, NBA, NHL, Golf, Tennis, Cricket and any other major sporting event.
Of course, but that was my point. Even in traditional media, exceptions are made for factors outside the control of the publisher. User-generated content is, by definition, outside the control of the platform so there should be at least some exceptions made for it. Some mix of filtering, moderation, and content flagging are its form of "reasonable attempts" to moderate the platform.
I think the idea is that a private company will take the results of government produced meteorology and then have full rights for distribution. At least, that's the plan of one of the current private companies that does this, they want to be the monopoly.
Seems pretty clear to me - Trump is trying to cut costs for our government. He sees we’re spending all that money on forecasting and data that everyone else uses for free, and gets paid for it. Therefore, that data is worth something and the government should get a piece of the pie.
I don’t necessarily agree but it’s somewhat logical.
I don't think the "cut costs" is an accurate framing of intent or outcome here. High costs are not being cut, but individual programs that are cheap but have every high positive impact are getting completely whacked. Such as the National Weather Service, there are reports all across the country of not having enough staff to launch the necessary number of weather balloons or generate reports that cover 24 hours of the day, leading to very small cost savings but massive inefficiency. Meanwhile massive contracts out to failing defense programs are untouched, and military spending is being massively increased far beyond what the military even asks for. Add to that the massive IRS staff reductions and tax cheats are having a hey day, with more than $500B lost to that already, which is 10x our entire science budget, which is actively getting slashed.
The goal is to assert dominance and to punish anybody that, as a group, was unlikely to vote for Trump and who Trump voters don't like, such as scientists.
Honestly, quotas would probably have been better than what was done here. Inventing a test (or 'questionnaire' as it was called here) where the goal was to filter out almost everyone who did not have the answer key, then only giving that answer key to the preferred race is just such a terrible way to do it.
its actually a personality test, that ideally should be designed to be well-suited to filter out personality types that tend to be successful at the job.
The scandal was coaching people how to pass the personality test. That's just a waste. You end up getting people who are a bad fit for the job, and will ultimately not be successful long-term
For instance, I will ace any aptitude test at 99.9%+ percentile easily (I always do at any standardized test, SAT, GRE, MCAT etc). Yet I would be a terrible terrible fit for ATC. The level of detail-orientedness it needs day to day for me would be a challenge. I can do it for short periods of time of absolute concentration, but my god, there is no way I would last at the job long-term. Training me would have been a waste of scarce resources. But I know several people that such tasks energize them and may not score as high on the aptitude test, but would be a better fit for that job long-term
If done well, including personality test could have been a good way to produce better outcomes, and increase the early part of the pipelines by opening it up to more people than just CTI grads.
Personality tests being useful makes sense, but personality tests where candidates are sparse and the training/hiring bottleneck has already been passed by candidates is terrible.
Also, I have a very hard time believing these "correct" answers are representative of the already hired candidates. Worst subject in school was science, worst in college was history, and participated in four or more high school sports, but no correlation on whether they believe it is important to be fast or accurate in their work? Applied to five or six jobs in the last three years? Is bothered "more than most" by criticism from others? [1] I almost find it easier to believe that they were blatantly playing into negative stereotypes of certain minority demographics than that this survey was fit to describe already hired ATCs.
The switchup of 'worst' subject in high school to college seems so striking to me. At best, I could see it coming from an over-fitting of data. At worst, it was a test designed intentionally to fail anyone without the answer key. Not even 'playing in to stereotypes', but 'what combination of answers did no one choose, so we can block everyone?'
This was extra painful, because I wasn't using one of the OS that is blessed by Hetzner, so it requires a remote install. Remote installs require a system that can run their Java web plugin, and that have a stable and fast enough connection to not time out. The only way I have reliably gotten them to work is by having an ancient Linux VM that was also running in Hetzner, and had the oldest Firefox version I could find that still supported Java in the browser.
My fault for trying to use what they provide in a way that is outside their intended use, and props to them for letting me do it anyway.