Multiple traumatic brain injuries incl skull fracture, didn't finish hi sch but did BSCS, MS engr'ing, MBA. Paid for myself. My ancestry in flags. Oregon home.
Redmond, Oregon, USA
Joined December 2010
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Decided today to limit X use to 15-20 minutes per day, mostly to find interesting economic, finance and demographic data, plus some tech items. I'm now at my limit for the day!
Edward - KF7VY ๐บ๐ธ ๐ณ๐ด ๐จ๐ญ ๐ฌ๐ง retweeted
The tough job market for jr. devs is very real. My son graduated this year with a Computer Science degree and has yet to land a job. Hard to even secure interviews.
He's a native born US Citizen, able to get a security clearance, very thoughtful, careful and precise.
If anyone has an open position, hit me up. He'll do a great job, I guarantee it.
Edward - KF7VY ๐บ๐ธ ๐ณ๐ด ๐จ๐ญ ๐ฌ๐ง retweeted
"Nationalize Starlink." Three words, 142K views. And the entire economic history of the 20th century screaming in the room.
Let me explain what would actually happen.
Start in 1920. Ludwig von Mises publishes an essay that will haunt every central planner: without private property, there are no market prices. Without prices, there is no way to calculate. A bureaucrat cannot know whether a ton of steel is more useful in a satellite or in a bridge. He guesses. He guesses wrong. And nobody pays when he's wrong.
In 1945, Hayek drives the point home. The knowledge needed to run an economy doesn't exist in any single brain or any ministry. It's scattered across millions of people, and prices are the only mechanism that can aggregate it in real time. Centralize the decision and you destroy the information.
This isn't theory. Look at the numbers.
In the US, from 2000 to 2025, overall inflation was about +90%. Now look at the sectors where government subsidizes, regulates, and protects the most: hospital services +271%. College tuition +194%. Textbooks +181%. Childcare +152%. Medical care +144%.
And the sectors exposed to competition? TVs: -97%. Software, toys, cell phone plans: all down in nominal terms over 25 years.
The more the state is involved, the more expensive and scarce things get. The less it's involved, the more abundant they become.
Space is the perfect example. NASA's Space Shuttle cost about $54,500 per kilo to low Earth orbit. Falcon 9: about $2,700. Twenty times cheaper. That's not my number, that's NASA's own study. A private company did in fifteen years what a government agency couldn't do in forty.
Starlink is the logical next step. Thousands of satellites launched on reusable rockets. High-speed internet for a remote village, a ship in the middle of the Pacific, a soldier on the front line. No government built that.
So you nationalize it. What happens?
First, you have to pay. SpaceX is worth somewhere around $1.75 to $2 trillion, and seizing it requires just compensation. That's more than a full year of the US defense budget, to buy something that already works.
Then the machine changes its objective function. Today it optimizes for cost, speed, iteration. Tomorrow it optimizes for budgets, procurement cycles, and subcontractors spread across as many states as possible to lock in congressional votes. We know how that ends: look at SLS, years late and billions over budget. When Starship blows up in a test, SpaceX learns and flies again. When a government agency loses a rocket, you get a commission of inquiry and years of paralysis.
And the power? The argument is "no private individual should have this much power." But nationalization doesn't eliminate power. It hands it to whoever sits in the Oval Office. And one day, that will be the person you hate most.
Here's what I deeply believe: humanity is figuring it out. The 20th century tested the state as the engine of value creation. The result: waiting lines, rents, and debt. The model that works is entrepreneurs with the people. Create value, offer it to people who are free to say no. And tear down everything that protects incumbents: rents, regulations that work as moats, patents that freeze innovation instead of rewarding it.
Elon understood this before anyone else. Tesla opened up its patents in 2014. SpaceX broke ULA's near-monopoly (Boeing + Lockheed) on launches. Starlink is making decades of telecom rents obsolete.
He isn't competing with the old system. He's setting a new standard. And when the new standard is twenty times cheaper, the old system doesn't reform. It disappears.
That's exactly why some people want to nationalize it. When you can't compete, you confiscate.
Nationalizing Starlink isn't taking back control. It's handing the future back to the system that already missed it.
Edward - KF7VY ๐บ๐ธ ๐ณ๐ด ๐จ๐ญ ๐ฌ๐ง retweeted
262 days.
Itโs been 262 days since you were airlifted to BC Childrenโs Hospital.
262 days since we were told, โWe did everything we could, but we donโt think sheโs going to make it through the night.โ
Since then, Iโve watched you fight for every single one of those days.
251 days ago, you opened your eye, moved it, and shifted your leg only to be rushed back for emergency surgery that morning when hydrocephalus set in.
238 days ago, you were extubated and breathed on your own for the first time.
230 days ago, you felt the sun on your face again.
224 days ago, the cranioplasty we had planned turned into yet another emergency when an infection was discovered.
214 days ago, your EVD was finally removed.
213 days ago, you sat on the edge of the bed with a little help, and I wrapped my arms around you for the first time since the morning I left for work before any of this began.
191 days ago, the NG tube came out, and I saw your beautiful face completely clear of tubes and tape.
179 days ago, your prosthetic skull was placed. Your fifth surgery, and the one that finally stuck. After that, things slowly began to feel possible again.
145 days ago, you smiled for the first time (intentionally) while we played thumb war.
140 days ago, I wheeled you off hospital grounds for the very first time.
61 days ago, I heard your voice again.
40 days ago, we celebrated your 13th birthday at the Foo Fighters.
And today, today youโre being released.
There was never a day I stopped believing we would get here. The road ahead is still long, but this is a milestone no one thought we would reach. Maya, you are the bravest person I know. You are an inspiration to so many people. Giving up was never an option for me, and it clearly never was for you either. You refused to accept the words we heard 262 days ago when you came out of the OR. Look at you, my girl. You blew every expectation out of the water.
Thank you to the incredible nurses, doctors, and therapists who walked every step of this with us. Thank you to everyone who supported Maya and our family we could not have done this without each and every one of you.
Now itโs time to leave these hospital walls behind and keep moving forward, Maya Bear.
I love you forever and always.
โDad โค๏ธ
Apple has a history of making perfectly good hardware rapidly obsolete - intentionally. This is a new one for Apple - shipping systems with 12 GB RAM but only allowing use of 8 GB RAM. (Apple is not the 1st vendor to do this, however.)
i find this pretty funny
the M4 iPad Pro with 8GB RAM actually shipped with 12GB RAM, which we found out through teardowns, Apple never acknowledged it and still only let you use 8GB RAM
fast forward to 2026, Apple releases a more powerful on device Apple Intelligence model that requires a minimum of 12GB RAM, which won't run on the base model M4 iPad Pro cause it has "8GB RAM", even if the underlying hardware had 12GB RAM
make it make sense Apple
It's possible they have mapped out bad RAM from a larger device but I suspect it was just cheaper to build one system and sell it at different RAM configs. I once worked for a mini-computer maker that did this. They sold them with different RAM configs but the hardware on all of them was identical. They disabled access to the total RAM with a firmware tweak. When a customer bought a RAM upgrade, they sent a tech out who just tweaked the firmware to open up the already existing RAM. Kind of crazy.
Edward - KF7VY ๐บ๐ธ ๐ณ๐ด ๐จ๐ญ ๐ฌ๐ง retweeted
i find this pretty funny
the M4 iPad Pro with 8GB RAM actually shipped with 12GB RAM, which we found out through teardowns, Apple never acknowledged it and still only let you use 8GB RAM
fast forward to 2026, Apple releases a more powerful on device Apple Intelligence model that requires a minimum of 12GB RAM, which won't run on the base model M4 iPad Pro cause it has "8GB RAM", even if the underlying hardware had 12GB RAM
make it make sense Apple
Edward - KF7VY ๐บ๐ธ ๐ณ๐ด ๐จ๐ญ ๐ฌ๐ง retweeted
This is why people hate greedy, unethical @Microsoft. Theyโve just installed an update on the computer of every user of Mac @Office 2021 that bricks Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc.
We all have perpetual licences for Office 2021 but apparently Microsoft decided it was time to try to make everyone pay them money, even though the licence was supposed to be a one-off purchase.
After some trial and error, this fix worked for me โ posting here for anyone having the same problem:
1. Delete the Office apps (Word etc.) from the Applications folder
2. Download and run the Microsoft licence removal tool: go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linโฆ
3. Download and install the version of Office for Mac from 6th October 2026: learn.microsoft.com/en-us/ofโฆ
4. Enter your original licence code for Office to activate it
5. In the Finder, go to Macintosh HD > Library > Application Support > Microsoft and delete the MAU2.0 folder
6. Open Word, then go to the Word menu, then About Microsoft Word and check that it shows your licence
7. Still in Word, go to the Help menu, and make sure that the Check for updates option isnโt there
8. Donโt update Office for Mac and it should keep working โ you need to keep updates off or Microsoft will install an update that bricks Office all over again
What a waste of time.
Portland, Oregon has become a living experiment of how not run a city. (I live in OR but now avoid Portland.)
Spent time in Portland recently and I hate to say it but the city is a complete disaster and that's not an exaggeration
As a reminder, the iconic 'Big Pink' building sold for an insane $39 per SF - an 88% discount to its last transaction price
The wild thing is the buyer probably paid too much for it IMO
What do you think the future holds for Portland?
The era of "real estate always appreciates in value" is over.
Half the "Baby boom" generation will be deceased by the mid-2030s. They've got over 10 million homes that will go on the market - that's up to 1+ million per year - over the next decade or so.
Many may be living in older homes, with less amenities, smaller square footage, older designs, that may not appeal to today's lifestyle creep buyers, so there's that too.
Plus the incoming young cohort is smaller than past generations. The housing markets of the past decades are gone, although it might not feel like it for a few more years.
Yes. Housing will be cheaper in 5 years, and here's why:
โข Inventory is already at the highest level in over a decade. Existing-home supply hit 4.9 months in August, the highest reading since 2015, and 18 states have now pushed active listings past their pre-2020 baseline.
โข Builders are discounting like crazy to compete. They're panicking. They are sitting on a huge backlog of completed, unsold homes and are already cutting prices and offering rate buydowns to move them.
โข The boomer sell-off is just getting started, and will only accelerate. ~13.9 million homes held by boomers and the Silent Generation are projected to hit the market over the next decade, a 74% jump in turnover versus the prior decade.
โข Rates arenโt โhigh,โ theyโre normal-low-ish. The 30-year average has run around 7.5% since records began in 1971. Todayโs rate near 7% isnโt a problem, itโs a return to the historical mean after a 15-year anomaly (which caused tons of problems).
โข And if rates do fall, it will be counterproductive: a significant rate drop will stabilize or lift prices, not help with "affordability".
โข STRs and second homes are coming back into the market, too.
โข The โshortageโ narrative is industry-sponsored BS, and national data is heavily skewed by a few coastal metros that have unique issues (SF, NYC, Boston, LA).
Overall: supply keeps climbing, rates probably won't change much, and the people telling us otherwise have a direct financial stake in us believing the opposite. At the VERY LEAST we're entering a multi-year period of weaker price appreciation / declines in the majority of regions.
Follow the data, not the PR.
At the peak in 1965, the "Baby Boom" accounted for about 33% of the total US population. Following generations have each been smaller, as a percent - today, most are 20% or so and the "Boom" is down to perhaps 18%.
What happens to the housing market will depend on whether the "immigration spigot" is "on" or "off".
In the early 1970s, less than 5% of US residents were foreign born. As of 2025, 15.8% were foreign born and that is forecast to rise to 18% by 2040.
This behavior is wrong.
WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE
President Trump escalated his invective against Norway, calling it a โshit house countryโ and saying Norwegian immigrants are not welcome in the United States because the Nobel committee, based in the capital Oslo, has not awarded him a Peace Prize reut.rs/3U1joSt
This is quite the "shot across the bow". About 27% of Microsoft staff to be offered a voluntary exit plan, apparently to raise cash flow for AI data center spending.
I'm regrettably concluding that the career of "software developer" will be ending soon. Here, Oregon State University saw a -23% drop in computer science enrollment, although an increase in electrical engineering and computer engineering (hardware focus).
$MSFT offers 60,000 employees a voluntary exit.
60K Yโall!!
First time this has ever been offered at Microsoft and it will affect employees in India, The United States, Canada, and the UK at level 70 or belowโฆ
Employees find out in a few hours if they are being targeted for this.
This just makes me think that H127 layoffs sound intense. Is this a pre-layoff round?
Also makes me wonder if they changed some scheduled layoffs due to be called out by @VP. Peace offering? ๐ค Timing is just interesting.
More to come.
Robert Reich is a blowhard. Nationalizing SpaceX would cost the taxpayers a minimum of $2 Trillion (current market cap) plus fees/other expenses.
SpaceX ownership is about 1/4 by small/retail investors, 1/4 by institutional investors, and just under half by Musk.
Per the US Constitution's 5th Amendment, the government would have to pay market price to acquire and nationalize the company. Which would then be run by political committees, delivering less innovation, less efficiency, and soon be worth much less.
Brilliant.
Robert Reich: "Defund Musk. I mean this. If we have a Democratic administrationโand the Democrats ought to be starting this, not just with oversight hearings, but also laying the groundwork for nationalizing Starlink and SpaceX. Nationalize it."
It doesn't get much more communist than this. These people are crazy. Power at any cost. #TeamElon
Edward - KF7VY ๐บ๐ธ ๐ณ๐ด ๐จ๐ญ ๐ฌ๐ง retweeted
AI productivity gains are showing up, but only in ~15% of jobs.
The three heaviest AI adopters (information, professional services, finance) went from a 2.2% productivity trend to 5.0% since 2022.
The rest of the economy: 0.9% to 1.4%.
Ontario Premier cancels contract with Starlink, a company founded by a Canadian, whose CTO and Chair of the Board is Canadian. Amazing.
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้กปๆฟ็บณ็จไบบ็้ฑ๏ผ็ป SpaceX ๆฏไปไธ็ฌไฟๅฏ็่ฟ็บฆ่ตๅฟ้ใ
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Edward - KF7VY ๐บ๐ธ ๐ณ๐ด ๐จ๐ญ ๐ฌ๐ง retweeted
Turns out that if everyone was paid the same, saved the same amount, made the same on their investments, and worked & lived the same amount of timeโฆ
โฆ people 65+ would have 74% of the wealth.
Surprised? Welcome to Equal Land.
adamnash.blog/2026/10/25/whyโฆ
This. Reporters generally lack domain specific training. We end up with Eng Lit and BA/Journalism grads having titles such as Senior Medical Reporter, Senior Space Reporter, Senior Cyber Security Reporter. The lack of knowledge was made obvious by reporters that fell for Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos) and Sam Bankman-Fried (finance) - and who later admitted they had no idea what either was talking about yet promoted them to sainthood.
What an extraordinary lowering of professional standards.
Nobody is suggesting Joe Tidy needs to be a web developer. Theyโre suggesting that someone employed to report on cybersecurity should possess a basic understanding of the technologies underpinning the internet.
PHP has been around for over 30 years. Knowing what it is hardly requires a computer science degree.
And reaching millions of people isnโt evidence of technical competence. Itโs evidence that the BBC has an enormous audience. By that logic, popularity is a substitute for expertise.
In fact, reaching millions makes technical competence MORE important, not less. If a journalist doesnโt understand the fundamentals, how can they independently assess the claims theyโre broadcasting to that audience?
โThe best cybersecurity journalist in Britainโ apparently doesnโt need to recognise one of the worldโs most widely used programming languages.
If thatโs genuinely the standard youโre defending, youโre making a far more damning criticism of British technology journalism than any of Joeโs detractors.
Oregon State computer science enrollment down by 23% YoY (includes a large online/remote learning program). CU Boulder down by 11%. Univ of WA CS applicants declined from 7000 to 5000 (about 10x more than they accept).
๐จ AMERICAN STUDENTS ARE WALKING AWAY FROM COMPUTER SCIENCE.
And universities are paying the price.
A new report from The Chronicle of Higher Education reveals:
โข Oregon State lost nearly 1,000 computer science students in ONE YEAR.
โข CS enrollment plunged 23%.
โข Online CS enrollment dropped 30%.
โข The decline contributed to a $19 MILLION budget shortfall.
โข Nationwide, four-year college CS enrollment fell more than 8%.
For decades, Americans were told to study computer science because thatโs where the jobs were.
Now graduates are struggling to find work, companies are moving technology jobs overseas, and AI is threatening entry-level opportunities.
Yet employers continue sponsoring H-1B workers and recruiting through OPT.
Hereโs the question nobody seems willing to answer:
If American students are abandoning computer science because theyโre worried about finding jobs, where exactly is the shortage of American tech talent?
chronicle.com/article/the-coโฆ
