Tl;Dr it's actually a CIX p1 + 32gb (similar to orange pi 6) and a "160TOPS" NPU accelerator with 48gb - attached via NVME. models will either have to fit in one pool or deal with shuttling data over m.2, the company has some optimizations regarding this but it's still a serious limitation.
There you go, two sentences without burying the lede.
Is it maybe competitive value anyways though? Even if you only think of the accelerators, 48gb+160TOPS seems comparable to some Strix Halo mini PCS with 64gb - lower memory bandwidth but a few hundred dollars cheaper. If they sold just the accelerator card for $800 or something that would be potentially very interesting.
As SBC hardware goes, CIX P1 is actually pretty respectable. It uses modern-ish ARM cores when everyone else are using something from 10 years ago. So performance is pretty good:
Horizontal vs vertical is determined by the orientation of the object's longest dimension. Portrait pictures on a wall and fridges with doors that open out are vertical, landscape pictures on a wall and chest freezers are horizontal.
It doesn't matter if it's a joke. The non-technical manager or VP making this purchase will not understand it and will expect poor treatment from this vendor, an expectation that will be reinforced by numerous other things on this page. There is no reason to include it at all.
To me it signals honesty. But this is a subjective judgement. It really sounds like you subjectively disliked the page, and you're trying to present that dislike as objective fact. It really annoyed me the way you kept changing your argument to justify that. Why not just say "I dislike their marketing copy, it rubbed me the wrong way" and leave it at that?
> It seems that you work a lot with managers who have no clue what they are buying and why.
There are certain quirks of this platform's user base that always make me laugh. For example, HNers absolutely love to imply something condescending about the other guy's workplace in order to make their point.
Watch this, I can do it too: Working with managers who make $65,000 (or $10 million) purchases with no more due diligence than reading a marketing page and clicking "Buy it now" is not the flex you think it is.
I was involved in it-related deals on both purchasing and selling sides. Sums involved were larger than both numbers you mentioned.
And I honestly see almost no correlation between the amount of negotiation involved, and value received.
Some of the most useful things we've integrated were either free or meant that only the "buy it now" button had to be clicked.
Some of the absolutely worst systems I had to work with were purchased after making a call to that "let us know" number.
This tiny guy is mostly saying that he doesnt have the time for enterprise bla-bla. I am not sure he can organise enterprise sales with this attitude but can definitely relate to it!
The fairy gannet looks like two smaller airplanes clipping into each other. It looks like an AI from ten years ago generated an image of an airplane. It looks like they hired engineers who got their degrees in Kerbal Space Program and then paid them by the hour. "Even if it's broke, it doesn't have enough features yet."
I need to learn a similar lesson. My team lead isn't used to being questioned, and when I tried to correct him in a meeting it resulted in a big argument. I realized that I did so partly because I wanted to demonstrate my own knowledge. We were both being egotistical. Certainly he could have handled it better, but I could have avoided the problem entirely by finding a more tactful framing rather than correcting him publicly.
I guess the generalized version is "it's easier to get what you want through compromise and avoiding conflict." Or just, "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar."
The fun part about that truism is that when actually tried. You find out the flies love vinager, Far more than honey, something about the smell?
It could be said the other way around, which is also true, the best way to get someone to respond is not a well structured question but by being wrong.
I wouldn't say it's about compromise, or even avoiding conflict as such. The first thing we must always remember is what is true, right, and just, for our own sake above all. One ought never to compromise morally - you have lost the bigger game by doing so - and conflicts are simply a matter of fact, so it's all a matter of avoiding pointless engagement in conflicts that don't serve the good.
Now, unreasonable and malicious people will transgress the moral, so the question is then: if I must deal with this person, how do I do so as fruitfully as possible?
What egotistical people don't realize is that their vanity is not a strength, but their weakest asset. Humility is a kind of invulnerability, so to speak, because all humility is is a disposition to recognize the truth and to conform to it. Egotistical leaders are highly motivated by a need for validation, for reputation, and for "glory". So, if your boss is egotistical, you should manage it and leverage that ego for the intended aim. Don't take things personally. Focus on the rational goal you are all aiming at. Plant seeds in conversations so that the leader can permit himself to think your ideas are actually his. Surrender the spotlight to him. Let him bask in the blinding limelight. Attention is a prison; if he wants it so badly, let him have it. Magnanimous men are above such things.
Never resort to trickery. This will burn you in the end, especially when the truth comes out. Never flatter or resort to adulation or sycophancy - it is smarmy, demeaning, and undignified; you see plenty of this in Trump's circle - but recognize actual strengths of the leader.
Maintain composure (do not react with fear or eagerness to please), distance, and politeness. Be patient: this allows the egotistical leader's passions to cool down, creating more space for the rational. Frame acknowledgement and concession to someone else's good ideas and advice not as a loss - which is how egotists see things - but as a magnanimous act on his part. Magnanimity is foreign to the egotist, but his love of reputation and a desire to be seen as magnanimous suffices for practical purposes.
I was right about some things, he was right about others. It was not immediately clear which was which. Trying to say "wait that seems wrong" without knowing exactly what or why starts an argument and wastes the time of everyone in the meeting. If I'd just figured out the issue on my own and told the other engineers "oh by the way, we need to do it this way" it would probably have gone a lot smoother.
Obviously that older gear wasn’t useless, since real people used it to climb the exact same mountains that people climb today.
It’s pretty clear from the text that they have debunked the idea that modern synthetic materials have outstripped older materials in performance. At the start of their project they expected modern gear of similar capabilities to be lighter. What they found was that modern gear’s advantage is primarily that it is simpler to use. Instead of seven carefully–chosen layers of wool and silk, you can wear a single coat. That single coat is also effective over a much larger temperature range than the older clothes.
Really this should not be all that surprising, as the expertise required to pick those layers has been condensed by engineers into the design of the coat. The modern climber no longer needs that same expertise, just money to buy the coat.
This is the same story of specialization that has powered our economic growth for centuries. You and I no longer need to know how to grow vegetables, or shoe a horse, or design a circuit. There might still be advantages to knowing how to write a sonnet or plan a battle, but for the most part we can leave these tasks to specialists who can get better results than we can. Those specialists in turn can leave other tasks to us. Everyone gets more efficient as a result.
> It’s pretty clear from the text that they have debunked the idea that modern synthetic materials have outstripped older materials in performance... That single coat is also effective over a much larger temperature range than the older clothes.
It feels like these two statements are in contradiction.
FWIW, I do a lot of hiking / backpacking / snowboarding in various conditions and "effective over a much larger temperature" is the #1 thing I shop for. If I can have 1 jacket that I wear from the time I get up in the morning until lunch, that's worth more than any other feature. I hate having to stop a hike to strip off a layer and I hate having to find a way to carry my jacket while snowboarding.
As measured in mass needed for a given amount of insulation. They expected the modern materials to achieve the same protection from cold while being lighter. That’s not what they found.
> If I can have 1 jacket that I wear from the time I get up in the morning until lunch, that's worth more than any other feature.
Yes, I suspect that many people think adaptability is even better than raw performance. After all, most of us don’t have a sherpa who can carry our jacket while we snowboard.
I think HN readers are the leading edge of the technology literate. Might take longer than you think for the general public to start noticing "AI voice."
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