ecarlseen

About

Username
ecarlseen
Joined
Visits
47
Last Active
Roles
member
Points
145
Badges
0
Posts
55

Reactions

77Like4Dislike16Informative

  • Future Macs with Face ID could have gesture detection too

    ecarlseenecarlseen
    One-handed surfers hardest hit.
    williamlondonpianoman1962

  • Synology partially drops support for third-party drives in 2025 NAS range

    ecarlseenecarlseen
    Having worked as a Synology reseller, I can guess as to what the problem is:

    Hard drives are no longer "general purpose" like they were in the old days. Mechanical design and firmware are now optimized for all kinds of use cases: NAS / SAN, NVR, desktop PC, workstation, various types of servers, etc. Don't get me started on SMR vs CMR. Way too many users buy a NAS and then throw in whatever drive is cheap, or whatever drive has the biggest capacity, without any understanding or consideration of fitness for purpose. And when the drive is slower than trash or fails early, who do people blame? Themselves? Ha ha ha ha ha, no.

    It looks like you can use any drive that Synology has tested / certified, and their tested / certified list generally contains virtually all of the makes and models that make sense to use. My only gripe is that it's often a few months behind what's released on the market. I don't have much trouble predicting what will and won't wind up on there, but that may be a hassle for people who want something that just came out. If you check the specs very, very, very carefully it's not exactly rocket science to figure out, but you have to be precise about it. Unless you have a lot of technical knowledge about hard drives and are excellent with details, just stick to their list.

    I wish Synology HDDs were more cost-competitive. The quality is solid, but the markup is a bit much in a market that's pretty tight. Their SSDs are better in this regards and I almost always use those.
    22july2013XedentropysSigsgaardxyzzy01OferFileMakerFellerwatto_cobra

  • US iPhone production's main challenge is a century of big business labor decisions

    ecarlseenecarlseen
    ecarlseen said:
    Wow. I spent a lot of time in International logistics and about 12 years in supply chain management for companies that were moving production from Asia to North America (mostly Mexico, but some US), and you did a very good job covering the labor portion of it.

    There's more to it: any consumer electronics contain tons of tiny parts (resistors and capacitors, wiring, etc.) that cost virtually nothing, as in a hundredth of a penny or so. Costs don't get added up the supply chain, they get multiplied, so having the price of these parts move significantly from virtually nothing can have a very significant impact. Producing them domestically or even in Mexico adds a lot of cost.

    US customs is a complete joke. Parts can fly right through or be arbitrarily held for months. I think people can figure out the details, but this adds a lot of cost.

    US regulation swings between inattentive / useless, and capricious / arbitrary. We all know about companies abusing this, but you don't hear as much about regulators deciding suddenly one day they're going to interpret a rule differently and make an example out of somebody: usually a smaller business that can't fight back. And a company somebody spent years or decades building is just gone because a bureaucrat had a whim.

    I could go on and on, but it's a tough problem. Thinking they could move the supply chain back to the US in three years is hilarious. 15 years would be reasonable.

    The article is spot on.

    As an electronics designer I have been in manufacturing since the 1980s - but only small companies where at least you do get to see the entire operation.

    Working with the Taiwanese and Chinese is a revelation to that of people in our own country (UK)

    The exceptionally poor work ethic here (and maybe the USA) is why manufacturing will never come back without a major change in education and expectation. 

    It will take more than a generation to achieve.


    The work ethic in the US isn't great, but you can find good people if you look hard enough (it's tough). A bigger problem - and part of the root of the work ethic problem - is that management culture in the US has completely rotted out. It's not that MBAs are inherently bad people, but they're trained to believe they can manage processes they don't understand by staring at spreadsheets and TPS reports. The good employees start out good then become frustrated and eventually apathetic. It's gotten to the point where companies are run this way from the top down and that will probably take a generation or two to fix.

    The result is a country full of huge companies that mostly suck at everything they do. Even if manufacturing was brought back here right now, the US would suck at it. Imagine Boeing building iPhones. Yuck.

    Again, this is fixable but it's going to be a process and even the President can't wish or order or tariff it done.


    glnfwatto_cobra

  • US iPhone production's main challenge is a century of big business labor decisions

    ecarlseenecarlseen
    Wow. I spent a lot of time in International logistics and about 12 years in supply chain management for companies that were moving production from Asia to North America (mostly Mexico, but some US), and you did a very good job covering the labor portion of it.

    There's more to it: any consumer electronics contain tons of tiny parts (resistors and capacitors, wiring, etc.) that cost virtually nothing, as in a hundredth of a penny or so. Costs don't get added up the supply chain, they get multiplied, so having the price of these parts move significantly from virtually nothing can have a very significant impact. Producing them domestically or even in Mexico adds a lot of cost.

    US customs is a complete joke. Parts can fly right through or be arbitrarily held for months. I think people can figure out the details, but this adds a lot of cost.

    US regulation swings between inattentive / useless, and capricious / arbitrary. We all know about companies abusing this, but you don't hear as much about regulators deciding suddenly one day they're going to interpret a rule differently and make an example out of somebody: usually a smaller business that can't fight back. And a company somebody spent years or decades building is just gone because a bureaucrat had a whim.

    I could go on and on, but it's a tough problem. Thinking they could move the supply chain back to the US in three years is hilarious. 15 years would be reasonable.
    thtneoncatnubuspsliceAulanijibwatto_cobra

  • iPhone 17 Slim too thin for SIM tray, may not have mmWave

    ecarlseenecarlseen
    It makes sense for Apple to put their first cellular modem into a low-end device, as one can reasonably expect a lot of teething problems.This isn't a knock on Apple, it's more that it's an insanely hard problem and pretty much nobody gets it right the first time.
    williamlondonwatto_cobra