☁️ 💪 💾 , Contoso
Texas
Joined August 2010
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Think like an economist
Talk like an accountant
Act like a technologist
@dineshsingh2004 That a decade ago I think burned into my brain somehow.
⍼ John Nicholson ⍼ retweeted
The 10-year database architecture cycle:
2015: SQL is obsolete. Schemas are too rigid. Put everything in NoSQL JSON documents.
2018: Wait, we need to join users and orders. Let's write a 400-line nested loop in JavaScript to join them in RAM.
2021: Wait, if the server crashes halfway through the loop, we lose money. We need ACID transactions.
2026: Quietly puts everything back in PostgreSQL and never speaks of it again.
⍼ John Nicholson ⍼ retweeted
@VMware (by @Broadcom) #HybridCloud #VCF - AI-Powered Attacks: Why Backups Alone Aren’t Enough, with Belu de Arbelaiz and Jad El-Zein (by @virtspeaking - @vPedroArrow & @Lost_Signal) @VMwareVCF #vExpertVCF @vExpert dy.si/72d1wo
This is bait, but I’ve seen people
Who have aged out of keeping up with “that new hip language/platform” get back into coding and enjoy the joy of creating again by removing a lot of the grind.
This is great.
Errors in the research of Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman marginalrevolution.com/margi…
Somewhere in your company, there's someone fighting for you to get more tokens.
They are grasping for straws at something trivial you spend more on.
Help them out. Steal the toilet paper and drink 20 cups of coffee a day.
"WE SPEND MORE ON TOILET PAPER AND COFFEE" FTW.
Yes police.
I’d like to report a murder.
Windows Copilot was so terrible it might very well have seeded the AI opposition we now see among normies. Useless functionality, hyped to the moon, and a dumb key on every keyboard that did nothing worthwhile. youtube.com/watch?v=erRVsllM…
⍼ John Nicholson ⍼ retweeted
@VMware (by @Broadcom) #HybridCloud #VCF - They Dug a Hole in a Running Data Center | Fire, Flood & Blood, with Jeremy Wright (by @virtspeaking - @vPedroArrow & @Lost_Signal) @VMwareVCF #vExpertVCF @vExpert dy.si/u1aZbM
⍼ John Nicholson ⍼ retweeted
Come Join the Wichita VMUG for our fourth meeting of 2026. We will have John Nicholson @Lost_Signal of VMware in to talk about security and monitoring updates. We will have also have a session how to create Certificates for VCF.
Signup: portal.vmug.com/member/event…
#MyVMUG
#vExpert
“And @RobinhoodApp should let you undo bad trades within a 72 hour window”
😂
I got yelled at years ago for saying ZFS was a cult. I think I’ve been vindicated
⍼ John Nicholson ⍼ retweeted
Holy shit. I just got pwned. iPhone suddenly crashed, rebooted, locked. Checked router stats. Total exfiltration ongoing. Panicked, tried to shut off network. Router also locked. Unplugged router. Didn't matter. Router harvesting zero-point energy. As a last-ditch resort, tried to smash my iPhone. All the atoms in the hammer quantum-phased right through. Hackers got everything, all of it. All my penis pictures.
⍼ John Nicholson ⍼ retweeted
"University researchers built a satellite that tracks people from low Earth orbit and dispatches a 5 kg payload to within .1 meter of their position, traveling at Mach 25 to anywhere on Earth in under 5 minutes. They suggest it could be used to deliver greeting cards."
Purdue University's IDEAS Lab built an autonomous drone that tracks runners through dense forests completely without GPS or cloud networks.
By running 3D LiDAR mapping and obstacle-avoidance AI entirely on-chip, it can weave under tree canopies and predict target movement through blind spots in real time.
Massive implications for next-gen search & rescue and edge AI.
⍼ John Nicholson ⍼ retweeted
ANTHROPIC NOW GENERATES $2.08 OF REVENUE FOR EVERY $1 IT SPENDS ON COMPUTE
Revenue per $1 of compute:
• Q2'26: $2.08
• Q1'26: $1.40
• Q4'25: $0.69
• Q3'25: $0.68
• Q2'25: $0.57
• Q1'25: $0.40
That's a 5.2x jump in compute efficiency since Q1 2025.
Q2'26 revenue grew 1,368% YoY, while compute costs grew 300%.
Alright everyone. I know some of you doubted @AnthropicAI would pull together the IPO, but I think you can start filling this out and calling your broker to issue a buy on $ANT and there's no need to feel shame.
⍼ John Nicholson ⍼ retweeted
Thank god we can find and intercept lost hikers as they mistakenly run away from rescue in dense forest!
Purdue University's IDEAS Lab built an autonomous drone that tracks runners through dense forests completely without GPS or cloud networks.
By running 3D LiDAR mapping and obstacle-avoidance AI entirely on-chip, it can weave under tree canopies and predict target movement through blind spots in real time.
Massive implications for next-gen search & rescue and edge AI.
Confirmed: No one wants a Diet ASIC/XPU.
Daishin Securities
CSPs and AI labs: CSPs and AI labs had requested the development of lower-stack HBM products, such as 4-high and 6-high configurations, for use in low-end inference products. Those plans now appear to have been shelved, with 8-high once again emerging as the minimum stack height.
NVIDIA: Rubin’s specifications have changed amid base die supply constraints and requests from customers prioritizing bandwidth over cost efficiency. The original plan called for a mix of 8-high and 12-high HBM, but the 8-high option appears to have been dropped. For Rubin Ultra, scheduled for release in 2027, multiple architectural variants are currently undergoing tape-out. Initial versions are expected to use the highest-specification 8-high HBM4, while subsequent versions are expected to adopt either 8-high or 12-high HBM4E.
AMD: AMD is expected to use a mix of 8-high and 12-high HBM4 in its 2027 products. One notable development is the upcoming MI450, which is expected to increase the number of HBM stacks within the CoWoS package to 12, delivering 288GB of HBM4. The increase from eight to 12 HBM stacks per CoWoS package is a positive development for HBM content over the medium to long term.
OpenAI and Anthropic: OpenAI is expected to adopt 12-high HBM4, while Anthropic is expected to use 8-high HBM4.
⍼ John Nicholson ⍼ retweeted
ACR off via your preferences menu on samsung TVs should not be assumed to actually disable ACR telemetry.
i’ve found several instances where the checks (whether deliberate or not) are either incorrectly implemented or not checked at all.
full report coming.
for journalists: it’s great you’re reporting on this but i’d ask you to send me a dm requesting access to the full report so you’re not making inferences from my decompilation session that isn’t supported by evidence.
If you've ever wondered why smart TVs are so cheap, this is why.
@log4j rooted his Samsung and found an always-on hot mic, automatic content recognition, geolocation, network mapping, ad targeting and user profiling, shared with Samsung's "400 partners".
A lot of it can be blocked in <15 min, wrote a basic guide below.
What your TV is doing
The main culprit is ACR (automatic content recognition). Your TV screenshots what's on screen, fingerprints it, and sends it home to build your ad profile. Samsung does it every 500ms, LG every 10ms [1].
What is insane: it happens on connected devices too.
Plug in your laptop, your console, your work machine, and your TV can fingerprint that via HDMI [1].
He also found that if your Samsung doesn't have a mic, it'll look for one from a connected soundbar or bluetooth device.
nitter.cf/log4j/status/211376224…
It's on by default, and you likely agreed to it on the setup screen you clicked through in 10 seconds.
Step 1: Turn off ACR
Samsung: Terms & Privacy → Viewing Information Services
LG: Live Plus
Vizio: Viewing Data
Roku: "Use info from TV inputs"
Sony/Google TV: Samba Interactive TV
Menus vary by model, but those are the names to look for. While you're in there, opt out of interest-based ads, reset your advertising ID, decline every optional privacy agreement, turn off voice recognition, and delete apps you never open.
Step 2: Give smart devices their own network
Put the TV, cameras, speakers and vacuum on your router's guest/IoT network. The logic is simple: these devices rarely get patched. If one gets compromised (getting drastically more frequent with AI), it shouldn't be able to see your other devices or home network.
Step 3: Block trackers for the whole house with DNS-level filtering
NextDNS (cloud-based) is easy and has a solid free plan. Pi-hole is a little bit more work if you prefer self hosting. For simplicity we'll focus on the former.
1. Sign up at nextdns.io (free tier is plenty)
2. Privacy tab: add a blocklist (OISD is a good bet) and turn on Native Tracking Protection for Samsung, LG, Roku, Amazon (see attached image)
3. Setup tab: copy your endpoint
4. Paste it into your router's DNS settings as DNS-over-HTTPS/TLS (or use the IPs + "Link IP" if your router only does plain DNS)
5. Bonus: block outbound port 53 except to your router. Some devices hardcode their own DNS to get around you
Then open the NextDNS logs and watch how often your TV phones home. It's eye-opening. If an app or update breaks, find the domain in the logs and allowlist it.
Why they do this
TV prices are down 97% since 2000 [2]. Most of that is better manufacturing and brutal competition. But once margins on the hardware hit zero, the cost moved to you.
In Q3 2024, Vizio lost $6.7M selling TVs and made $115.8M in gross profit from ads and viewing data [3]. They've said on earnings calls that they keep TV prices low to grow the audience they sell to advertisers. Walmart bought them in 2024.
This isn't a conspiracy theory either. Vizio paid $2.2M to the FTC in 2017 for tracking 11 million TVs without consent. Last December, Texas sued Samsung, LG, Sony, Hisense and TCL over ACR. Samsung and LG have since agreed to stop collecting that data without explicit consent [4].
TL;DR
1. ACR off
2. Ads + voice off
3. Smart devices on their own network
4. NextDNS filtering on the router
Sources:
[1] ACR study: arxiv.org/abs/2409.06203
[2] Cost of US consumer goods: aei.org/economics/chart-of-t…
[3] Vizio Q3 2024: sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/…
[4] Texas v. Samsung: texasattorneygeneral.gov/new…
