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I think this is a more desirable solution for customers than a refund anyway--if I like a game, I don't want my $60 back in exchange for never being able to play it again. I just want to keep playing it.


Yes, the $60 is nothing compared to your time investment into a game you like.


I'm American and I've heard Americans say "I beg your pardon", but like you I've always thought of it as a slightly proper (maybe WASP-y) idiom. People frequently say "excuse me", "sorry?", or "say again?". At least I do. Maybe I should get my ears checked.


I'm familiar with the expression but if an American said that to me, I'd probably think it meant "rethink what you just said".


It depends a lot on their tone. Most of the time I've heard it, it's a quick "begpardon?", sometimes with their ear cocked towards you.

When I see it in writing, I too for some reason picture an angry posh British man who is about to demand satisfaction.


They'll also commonly say "pardon me", which is a bit nicer "say again", but definitely nowhere close to "I beg your pardon" uptightness.


> Isn't this just... normal?

In the anglosphere maybe, but outside of that it seems to not be. My girlfriend is from SE Asia and her language's equivalent is evidently used exclusively to apologize for having wronged someone. I've had to explain my usage of "I'm sorry that [bad thing happened]" or "Sorry, but can I just [very minorly inconvenience you]" because she didn't understand what I was admitting fault for.

In her language I believe they use different politeness markers for these situations (they have an "excuse me" equivalent), but I'm not proficient enough to know them well.


The I'm sorry (that someone died) is easy to explain as it's obviously connected to the word sorrow. The hardest is "sorry?" (I didn't understand or hear you)


It's easy to explain, but her language (Vietnamese) has no relation to English other than forced adoption of the Latin alphabet, so she wouldn't see that connection.

"Sorry" is most commonly translated as "xin lỗi" which literally means something like "request forgiveness". It's connected exclusively to the notion of fault, not sadness. The real issue is that sorry <-> xin lỗi is a ubiquitous but poor translation, because the meaning of xin lỗi is much more specific than sorry.


I speak Urdu (another South Asian language). If you asked someone the meaning of sorry in Urdu they would always say "ma'afi/ma'af karna" which is very strictly "asking forgiveness" although it "can" be used as "I didnt hear you / come again" literally nobody ever uses it that way


Doesn't it come from "sorry [to make you repeat yourself], could you repeat that?"


That's a folk etymology. Sorry is a derivative of sore. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sorry


I can't speak for other makes/models/years with certainty, but my 2024 Ford Maverick has a "Telemetry Control Unit" that is easily accessible through a hatch by the front passenger seat. Unplugging it disables all communication with Ford servers and I can confirm the app no longer works.

The infotainment center also has no built-in maps as it relies on Android Auto/Apple CarPlay for everything except climate control and the AM/FM radio.


> With AI being so good why isn't someone...

It baffles me that people ask this question all the time and it never occurs to them that perhaps the answer is "because it isn't".


> perhaps the answer is "because it isn't"

I'm sure it can handle "remove all instances of telemetry"


So why don't you do it? Easy, right?


I used to be afflicted with the notion that wealth was correlated with a person's intelligence and work ethic. I was miraculously cured when I went to work for a startup that had to periodically impress VCs to raise capital.


I'm pretty sure any recruiter's primary motivation is to find a fit for the role so they can get their commission.


I'm talking in-house recruiters/HR, not the external broker types


those ones typically don't have the vested interest but are just as clueless and probably have a worse ageism bias. It's hard enough for technical people to assess talent; in-house recruiters at best are weak keyword matchers, at least IME.


I think the primary drivers of war come from the top--powerful people motivated by greed and ego. Those are the spark that starts wars.

Boredom works from the bottom, providing fuel for wars in the form of soldiers. More specifically, young men in particular are easily appealed to by offering them a part in some great heroic endeavor, and a promise to mold them into someone whose manhood and courage may never again be questioned.

Of course, as many former soldiers have found out, you usually receive none of those things. The endeavor was bullshit, you were only a cog, and there is no badge of honor in the world that exempts you from the human experience of being made to feel small.


> In order to keep prices low and quality high, we don't offer any customization to the box or ordering process. If you aren't capable of ordering through the website, I'm sorry but we won't be able to help.

Has this guy never worked on a B2B product before? Nobody is going to order a $10 million piece of infrastructure through your website's order form. And they are definitely going to want to negotiate something, even if it's just a warranty. And you'll do it because they're waving a $10 million check in your face.

The tone of this website is arrogant to the point of being almost hostile. The guy behind this seems to think that his name carries enough weight to dictate terms like this, among other things like requiring candidates to have already contributed to his product to even be considered for a job. I would be extremely surprised if anyone except him thinks he's that important.


I haven’t seen tinygrad used for any mainstream production project or thing of value, yet.

Besides a lot of self congratulatory pats on the back for how elegant it is. Honestly, when I read it, it looked confusing as all the other ML libraries. Not actually simple like Karpathy’s stuff.

All that to say, I do really want it to succeed. They should probably hire some practical engineers and not just guys and gals congratulating themselves how elegant and awesome they are.


Your framing of this section is misleading. On the site it's preceded by a FAQ-style 'question':

> Can you fill out this supplier onboarding form?

That's very important context, as anyone who has been asked to fill out a supplier onboarding form (hi) will attest.


Filling out an onboarding form is an example of what he's not willing to do, not the only thing he isn't willing to do.

> we don't offer any customization to the box or ordering process

Every B2B deal of that size that I've ever seen requires at least weeks of meetings between the customer and vendor, in which every detail is at least discussed if not negotiated. That would certainly constitute a "customization" to this guy's prescribed ordering process, which is to "Buy it now" [1] through the website at the stated price like you're ordering a jar of peanuts on Amazon. This is not "framing", it's what the guy said. If it isn't what he meant then he needs to fix his copy.

[1] Yes, there is an actual "Buy it now" button for a $65,000 business purchase that takes you to a page that looks just like a Stripe form. There isn't even a textbox for delivery instructions. Wild.


Then if they succeed, I guess you're going to see a different process for the first time in your life.

On a website where we frequently talk about disruptive business models, this whole attitude kinda stinks.


> Then if they succeed, I guess you're going to see a different process for the first time in your life.

Sure, I guess. Far more likely that they won't succeed, and it will be because of their pointless refusal to cooperate with others. I'm curious why you think we should "disrupt" companies putting a little due diligence into massive purchases.

> On a website where we frequently talk about disruptive business models, this whole attitude kinda stinks.

I could say the same thing about making a comment like this on a website where groupthink is rightfully mocked.


> you're going to see a different process for the first time in your life

That sounds very neutral, but wouldn't this, by removing the human element and flexibility from business transactions, be a further step along a general enshittification trend?


this was more about the person being narrow minded on a website that brands itself for the out-of-the-box thinkers.


> arrogant to the point of being almost hostile

First encounter with geohot eh?


What does this mean? Is it some reference to different temperaments across geographies? Or some Internet slang?



He's not actually selling the exabox yet. It sounds like he put up a hypothetical config to see if anyone is interested.


The specs for the “exabox” scream “this is a joke” to me.

> 20,000 lbs

> concrete slab

Huge-scale IT systems are typically delivered in one or more 42/44u cabinets, and are designed to be installed on raised floors.


It's a shipping container. Look at the dimensions. They say concrete slab probably half as a joke, half because building code would require it to consider it a non-temporary structure.


It's a shipping container that you install outdoors.


Are you referring to the images of branded shipping containers on their Twitter page that have visible Gemini watermarks … and jokes in the comments about AI trailer parks?


20x8x8.5 ft is the dimensions of a half shipping container. You think that render is a joke but it's not. They don't have photos yet because it's a 2027 product (if it actually comes out which I would bet against).


It's also funny that they explicitly list driver quality as "good" for the base option and "great" for the intermediate one. You're really going to deliberately provide worse drivers for the machine I paid you for, just because I didn't buy the more expensive one?

I mean I'm sure lots of companies do this in practice because tickets for higher-paying customers naturally get prioritized, but directly stating your intention to do it on your home page is hilarious.


Nvidia drivers are better than AMD. It's not really something they have control over. Geohot is definitely obsessed with bitching about driver bugs though.


That may be, but then it's an inside joke that many of his customers won't get. It just looks like a "fuck you" to anyone buying the cheaper system.

This guy desperately needs a marketing intern to look over his copy. Or hell, anyone who knows how to talk to humans.


Not a joke. It's just true.


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.


It doesn’t read as if they actually care about broad appeal, given their plain refusal to accommodate traditional procurement processes


So they're only interested in taking on customers who are OK with being treated poorly?


Anyone who can’t deal with their procurement process isn’t a customer.

There’s nothing remotely unusual about being selective about who or how to bring on new customer in B2B sales.

Their preference is for more simplicity than normal —- many businesses make it much harder


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?


I'm confused by this comment. Is it not obvious that everything I've said is my opinion?

Not everyone feels the need to hedge everything they say with "to me..." and "it really sounds like...".

> It really annoyed me ...

I have no idea what you expect me to do with that information.

> you kept changing your argument

I'm not sure what you're referring to. Are you talking about the joke/not-a-joke thing? I didn't change my argument, I dismissed a shallow objection to an irrelevant detail. My point is that regardless of why the driver quality was included on the page, customers are going to take it the wrong way. Yes, that is my opinion, because apparently that needs to be explicitly stated.

Everyone else who disagreed with me seems to have understood all this so I don't know what the source of your confusion is.


It seems that you work a lot with managers who have no clue what they are buying and why.

I mean, you're not wrong: buying enterprise software from Oracle or Microsoft or Salesforce is pure pain.

But nobody expects buying niche hardware from a tiny vendor to involve the usual 128 pre/post sale meetings and 256 hours of professional services.

Also, relevant VP buying these things usually do understand the difference between AMD and Nvidia stacks really well. Like, really-really well.


> 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!


I took that as a dig against AMD vs Nvidia driver quality.


I guess it is called ‘honesty’.


There isn't a $10MM device right now, just $64M and under. I doubt the order process will remain the same in 12 months when the $10MM device becomes available


I imagine that the FAQ might get updated when there’s actually a $10M machine for sale


Maybe. Frankly I'd be very surprised if any business ordered a $65k machine that way either.


Yeah it’s a little odd. Maybe they are meant to be really really cool toys? People regularly spend more than $65k on things like cars to show off, so it could be like that.

I have no use for these but I might buy one anyway if I won the lottery. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


> arrogant to the point of being almost hostile.

The YouTube rap video of geohotz telling Sony lawyers suing him to blow him is still up.

His style of dealing with corporate matters is certainly unconventional


Well, at least he had the power that average joes don't have. And he used it well.


They MIGHT pay you IF you're a fit. They're bounties, i.e. spec work. They also pay a max of $1000, most of them significantly less. You can see more info at the link in that line:

> All bounties paid out at my (geohot) discretion. Code must be clean and maintainable without serious hacks.

No thanks. If you want to try before you buy, have your candidates do a paid test project. Founders need to stop acting like it's a privilege to work for them. Any talent worth hiring has plenty of other options that will treat them with respect.


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