Framing It: 10.8.2019
My keyboard is better than yours, Foxconn goes into and pulls out of Wisconsin, and another shady thing the Attorney General of the United States did.
This article was composed on a keyboard that cost $1200
People build their own computer keyboards, and some of these end up costing thousands of dollars. You can get custom switches, custom keycaps, custom aluminum enclosures, and custom PCBs.
As with any hobby among nerds, there’s a lot of people buying up all the stock, then reselling it on eBay. Flippers, we like to call them. These flippers serve a market function of determining the price of a new keyboard. It’s economics, or something like that.
Kevin Lynaugh posted a fantastic piece on how to set prices of small, niche products. Basically, it’s a Vickrey auction, where you take sealed bids for 10 kits, and the highest 10 bidders win, each paying the price of the 11th highest bid. Do this, and you know the demand curve. You also price out the flippers.
Mechanical keyboard fans hate this, calling it greed on the part of manufacturers. They seem not to have a problem with the flippers, though, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The Datacenter Is A Sphere
In 2017, the government of Wisconsin inked a deal to bring high-tech manufacturing back to the United States. Foxconn would build a new factory in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin.
All but one family sold their home, and Wisconsin taxpayers would end up paying $300,000 per job Foxconn creates. Needless to say, the deal has received some criticism. Now Foxconn has unveiled and then cancelled plans for a gigantic glass ball of a datacenter. It must be noted no town named Mount Pleasant is pleasant. They never have a mountain, either.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.
The Attorney General of the United States, William Barr, will ask Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg to delay plans for end-to-end encryption on Facebook’s messaging platforms.
Barr has said, “law enforcement should be able to access encrypted online messages”, potentially though back doors that are only available to the government. This is idiotic and you should laugh at the Attorney General of the United States. At least we know Apple is against this.
Get a net, capture a drone, and open a loot box
The FAA is allowing package delivery by drone. UPS will be the first participant in a program to receive a certificate to deliver packages by drone.
