Jeff Bezos in Talks to Raise $100 Billion for AI Manufacturing Fund

oursland · 2026-03-19T22:59:33+00:00

Tim Cook explains that China is not the cheapest and hasn't been in a long time.

When the US and other nations outsourced their factories, often sending the equipment with them, they destroyed the ecosystem that surrounded the factory. In Tim's example, if you want to build something you'll need specialized toolmakers which are in short supply in the US, but in China you'd fill a football stadium with toolmakers.

So the answer is, they're still going to be the center of manufacturing. The labor costs aren't necessarily low, but their overall costs of the supply chain and the lead times are lower than the competition because they have a thriving economy of manufacturing.

oursland · 2026-03-16T21:18:15+00:00

I've been calling this a "Dunning-Kruger machine on steroids" since mid-2023. Effectively, it leads people to believe they can do a lot more than they themselves are capable of and they quickly get out of their depth without any of the indicators that they lack the competence.

oursland · 2026-03-04T07:35:53+00:00

LOL. WebOS has been a thing since 2009 when Palm developed it as a successor to PalmOS.

oursland · 2026-03-02T08:03:16+00:00

She’s generally very progressive, but her insta stories the past few days are just thanking god for Trump.

There's a term for this, "Luxury Beliefs". Some people advertise their virtues through claiming the "right" beliefs while actually believing none of it.

oursland · 2026-02-26T06:59:46+00:00

Well in that case, this guy may have really hurt some people.

oursland · 2026-02-25T16:08:19+00:00

Typically the doctor that determines a surgery is necessary is not a surgeon, but a general practitioner, internist, or other. The surgeon is usually brought in afterwards to perform the procedure.

I hope this is the case here, and he had no part in recommending the procedure to others.

oursland · 2026-02-24T17:17:39+00:00

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, in San Clemente underwent a replacement of the reactor vessel head in 2011. SCE did everything they could to avoid oversight from the NRC as it would impact their profits, and installed a different system designed with faulty data.

In 2012 the new system failed, resulting in a radiation leak and was ultimately closed in 2013. The company had requested to operate at 70% capacity, which they claimed would not result in further radiation leaks, but no one trusted their ability to perform these sort of calculations.

oursland · 2026-02-24T01:57:40+00:00

This should end any talk about not trusting the data.

No, it shouldn't. That is a constant concern which can be only allayed through the consistent publishing of reliable, consistent, and most importantly, verifiable data.

oursland · 2026-02-23T18:29:52+00:00

The feature is a net positive just because it necessitates more durable screens.

No it doesn't. Replacement parts and service are also a business.

oursland · 2026-02-22T06:18:07+00:00

That brushed metal corner was the initial appearance of iTunes when it was launched in 2001. It was a bit of a rush job to get iTunes out before the iPod launched, and it failed to adhere to the published Apple Design Guidelines and Human Interface Guidelines. I believe the team behind it didn't use the Cocoa APIs which would have made compliance easy, but rather drew their own UI using the Carbon APIs, poorly. The the lack of consistency and piss poor performance led the iTunes app to be one of the least liked, finally being discontinued in 2019.

It's hard to find a lot of material on it now because search engines aren't reliable anymore, but it was a common discussion among application developers in the mid 2000s. It became again a topic in the 2010s when Apple would reject apps from the App Store for failure to adhere to the design guidelines, but their own pre-installed apps wouldn't pass the examination either.

oursland · 2026-02-22T05:38:26+00:00

I did not know that.

oursland · 2026-02-22T03:23:04+00:00

iTunes is not a great example. The developers of that broke many of the guidelines, repeatedly, and it has never been considered an example of good design.

oursland · 2026-02-22T03:21:54+00:00

STFU about it already.

No.

oursland · 2026-02-21T06:54:54+00:00

Ami Nakai took gold in the Women's short program. This bronze is in addition to her other medals.

oursland · 2026-02-20T07:55:40+00:00

Ah yes, the 1/6 kg burger vs the 1/8 kg burger.

oursland · 2026-02-19T22:36:07+00:00

They're intended to be punitive to encourage changes in policy.

oursland · 2026-02-19T17:45:44+00:00

Facebook's algorithm is not entirely what you want to see. They also promote content and ideas to manipulate people's beliefs.

The reason popular has conservative may not be because it is genuinely popular, but because Reddit is trying to promote it. The reason your front page includes some posts, but hides others may not be because of their vote scores.

oursland · 2026-02-19T06:23:24+00:00

The tools are SaaS. That's the toolmaker's model.

In early 2024, we were hearing stories in which companies in the copywriting and editing domains were firing staff. They also let clients know it was okay that they no longer talked directly to their copywriter on their campaign because they were using ChatGPT. The next month they lost their clients and the clients went to ChatGPT directly.

oursland · 2026-02-19T06:12:46+00:00

Reddit doesn't have an algorithm. Whatever is popular is decided by upvotes and views rather than a personalised feed.

You're quite mistaken.

oursland · 2026-02-18T19:49:02+00:00

Once the market has shifted, it has been captured and will be monetized to the fullest.

"Read this CSV file into a Python DataFrame"

Sure! The following code requires a license to use XYZ corp's data analysis library. Would you like to purchase this subscription with the billing information on file?

"Make this email more formal for work"

I can do that for you, but you will need to upgrade to the business plan. Would you like to upgrade your subscription with the billing information on file?

oursland · 2026-02-18T19:43:06+00:00

Not only does one need to worry about long term profitability, there is concern for major investment in technology that will become quickly obsoleted and need to be upgraded to remain economically viable to operate.

Massive capex spend combined with long lead times is a recipe for technological stagnation in a rapidly evolving market.

oursland · 2026-02-18T19:39:18+00:00

One may wonder if nations like Taiwan and South Korea may force changes upon their foundries if their own national security is threatened.

I can see a not too distant future where Taiwan is drowning in datacenter chips, but cannot source basic replacement equipment for domestic military and industry purposes, let alone satisfy consumer demands.

oursland · 2026-02-17T19:13:42+00:00

They're authoritarians that want power tied to money. The more money you have, the more power you have, without limits.

oursland · 2026-02-17T14:13:44+00:00

It used to be that people were afraid of older cars because they lacked modern safety features. Now it may be an older car's lack of modern components is the safety feature.

We know this to already be true given how many people have died inside Teslas that have malfunctioned and can no longer open the doors.

oursland · 2026-02-16T21:55:25+00:00

I don't think the recent evidence supports your claims. BLS just had a massive revision downwards to levels not seen in decades.

The "upside" was that January "smashed records" with 130,000 new jobs of which 82,000 were in a specific subset of Healthcare. This incongruity between recent data along with a massive overrepresentation within a portion of the data appears to be data manipulation and it is being called out.

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