Clowns

Hours Matter

Chill Annoying, Clowns, Tech

Also, as most of you reading this are not familiar, at the true enterprise level hardware support simply cannot be that shoddy as what Synology is offering. Since that higher tier is what they are attempting to move to, having a drive show up “lol, whenever” is simply not any sort of acceptable answer.

I worked at a hosting provider a while ago. We had very large HP 3PAR SANs (60+ drives in each). When a drive failed in those we often had a replacement in two hours. Yep, two hours. Someone from HP literally drove from the distribution center with the drive or drives, showed up at our datacenter, put the drive in and verified it worked. We were by contract guaranteed a new drive within four hours but almost always received it much sooner. And we paid dearly for that, by the way.

Until Synology can offer something close to that, they ain’t enterprise shit. They’re just playing pretend; hoping to capture the margin but not providing what’s required by the true enterprise market.

Plot Lost

Chill Clowns, Tech

Synology Lost the Plot with Hard Drive Locking Move.

I was previously a loyal Synology customer. No longer. I will never buy one of their devices again. Their lock-in model means paying more for drives that aren’t even as good as the ones I already use and are vastly slower to receive if something goes wrong.

And as the article points out, if Synology goes out of business you’re fucked. You will not be able to find working replacement drives.

Big nope. There are tons of alternatives out there. Shit, I have the skill to build my own NAS from scratch. And no, I don’t mean TrueNAS. I mean using the raw tools (mdraid etc.) and making it work. That’s what I did before Synology was even a thing. I can do it again if needed. All I really use a NAS for anyway is storage (not transcoding etc.) so it’s not even that hard.

I got into a rather salty exchange with some clown-ass Synology product manager I emailed directly about this, which was fun. Entertaining, at least. I’m very good at making people angry, which might not be that productive but is certainly enjoyable when I make a doofus fume.

No matter the price or even lock-in, a vendor that can’t get a NAS drive to me in 24 hours is fucking worthless. For home, but especially for enterprise. Just to make that clear.

So there are at least four major reasons to steer clear of Synology now: ancient hardware, lock-in, price, and donkey-based shipping.

Avoid, avoid, avoid.

Next-level Clownishness

Chill Clowns, Evil

MAGA clowns are so stupid. Fundamentally, they are just dumbasses.

No Energy Star: I want my refrigerator rollin’ coal!

No NSF or NIH: I want to be sick with everything all the time forever while living in a cave! I love the smell of pustules and buboes in the morning!

No NOAA: Durrr, I think weather is the same as climate and both are evil!

No trade with other countries: Elves will surely make all this shit by magic! I saw it on Joe Rogan!

No EPA: I love nothing more than burning rivers and my kids dying of lead poisoning at six years old. That is, if the measles or rubella or whooping cough don’t get ’em first!

Come on, these are not serious people. Though they are seriously harmful. They are idiots and absolutely deserve to be made fun of.

Divided

Chill Clowns, Evil

NSF faces radical shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions.

This will harm the United States and its position in the world for the next 100 years. It’ll be devastating to science, to America, and to everyone everywhere who has benefited and would benefit in the future from advancements funded by the NSF.

I do believe the enemies of the US substantially run the country now. No other explanation makes sense. You’d only destroy the NSF if you wanted to hobble America in the future.

Sectorized

Chill Annoying, Clowns, Political Economy

The private sector isn’t efficient. It’s just better at marketing the illusion.

Dead on. The efficiency of private sector companies is a libertarian fucking myth. I was in the army for five years and yeah there were inefficiencies (mostly foisted on us by others), but we did far more with far less than any private sector company I worked for after that.

And that’s pretty typical. There’s just so, so much waste, corruption, graft and utter clownishness in private sector corps. It’s absurd to think most of them are at all efficient. It is simply false.

Calam Down

Chill Clowns, Evil, Political Economy

Most Americans alive today have not experienced an era of extended decline. I haven’t either, but was around people commonly as a kid who had struggled to survive through the Great Depression. I suspect the upcoming calamity will be one that most people are totally unequipped to deal with.

It’s hard to know specifics now, of course, but I expect the Trump Depression to last 8-ish years (though it could be as much as 20), at the peak to have about 40% unemployment and to result in a decrease in US GDP of 20-30% in real dollar terms.

And that’s the most likely but far from how bad it could get. Worst case could be even more horrifyingly terrible. The middle-bad case is locked in now; it’s coming, like it or not. (And no one should like it, not even the most MAGA-addled doofball.)

Pol Incon

Chill Annoying, Clowns

It’s so fucking oddball all the clownish “scientists” who insist human sex is not essentially binary, with some very rare exceptions. It shows that even the supposedly truth-seeking really don’t care all that much about the facts when it’s politically inconvenient.

Weeks Away

Chill Clowns, Evil, Political Economy

The last boats without crippling tariffs from China are arriving. The countdown to shortages and higher prices has begun.

I cannot stress this enough: if there is something you think might want or need in the next few years and it’s not perishable, buy it now. There’s an extremely good chance you might not be able to obtain it in the future, or perhaps ever again in the worst case. Very best case, it’ll just cost vastly more.

We’ve already bought computers and related that is likely to last 10-ish years, enough food to last a few months if we’re fairly austere 1, some water and other supplies. We probably still should buy some batteries and related things, but what’s left is minor. We own our own home free and clear (no lien) so it’s nearly impossible to dislodge us as long as we keep paying taxes. And we live in a warm enough climate that we could survive the winter even without reliable heat and/or electricity.

We’re about as ready as we can be without going full prepper-in-the-mountains. Which we have no plans to do.

A very bad few years lie ahead of us. I hope everyone is doing the best they can to avoid the refrigerator box by the side of the road, which will be the fate of all too many Americans.

  1. More than this is fairly pointless in reality.