Byrne Hobart writes a newsletter analyzing finance, technology companies, and business strategy.
HN commenters recommend it in lists of newsletters, describing it as thoughtful analysis of finance and tech.
> Given Linux, FreeBSD and Darwin all already supported it, I wonder to what extent NetBSD/OpenBSD's decision was motivated by formal POSIX conformance versus improving compatibility with Linux/FreeBSD/Apple. It is hard to say, but I think the later was likely just as important as the former, and given the importance of the later, they might still have added it even if it had never formally made it into POSIX.
One of the benefits of standardization is, "here is a definitive list of things that need to be added". With rare exception (e.g. async I/O), there's no hand-wringing regarding whether a POSIX interface should be added. Search for the keyword "POSIX" among the OpenBSD 5.1 (circa 2012) changes at https://www.openbsd.org/plus51.html Now search for Linux. For whatever reason stpcpy isn't listed (a tweak is listed in plus52.html), but you'll see where the emphasis lay.
Linux POSIX conformance is incredibly good, particularly at the libc level notwithstanding lack of formal certification[1], so invariably it's tough to say, absent direct confirmation, what was on people's minds. But at least on the OpenBSD mailing-lists, more often than not the explicit reason is POSIX compliance. And I get the same impression from reading NetBSD changelogs. FreeBSD is unique because they've been far more proactive with not only adding POSIX interfaces, but also adding their own extensions. And historically they were a bigger player and in many ways the heir to the "BSD" mantle; certainly…
This locks toy companies into a challenging bet. Every year, they have to a) predict trends, b) invent them, and c) commit capital to them. All without knowing how the rest of the year will turn out. Since toy trends exist, but don’t last for very long, they have to invent new products every year—but the technological state of the art doesn’t advance very fast. It has all the volatility of tech, without the progress.
Insightful post. This succinctly explains why most toys are movie-related. It's the easiest trend to predict.
EDIT: This article keeps getting better and better. I had no idea Skyrim was almost set in Game of Thrones. https://www.tor.com/2011/09/16/how-skyrim-was-almost-set-in-westeros/ It left me wanting more.
The author is apparently Byrne Hobart, and they've written a variety of things: https://diff.substack.com/people/112633-byrne-hobart Looks like I'll be spending too much time reading them.
They also write a post ... double checks ... every day?! For a week straight, sometimes? Wow.
Sadly, most of their work appears to be locked behind a $20/mo paywall. It all looks very interesting though: https://diff.substack.com/p/dropbox-information-asymmetry-and
Not sure about their underratedness, but I find the following newsletters interesting and insightful:
Two Truths and a Take by Alex Danco (tech, VC, and broader topics): https://danco.substack.com/
The Uncertainty Mindset by Vaughn Tan: https://uncertaintymindset.substack.com/
The Diff by Byrne Hobart (finance, tech): https://diff.substack.com/
Kneeling Bus by Drew Austin (urbanism, tech): https://kneelingbus.substack.com/
I wrote a Discord bot for this: https://fletcher.fun/amulet, it filters all messages for amulets and tells you the sha and rarity if you find one.
Example one we found: https://diff.substack.com/p/an-airline-ipo-in-this-economy
Common amulet (75b8af8579d81ba3bac788bb118fa78888717eb55c5faf778ea756750c02837d)
- https://diff.substack.com/ thoughtful analysis of finance and tech
- https://www.kalzumeus.com/archive/ a couple things on here I would say you actually need to read if you want to write code for a living
- https://lethain.com/ great insights on engineering management patterns and antipatterns
Which is why I find it better to get business analysis from people who've made it their job and not overly excited tech journalists:
https://diff.substack.com/p/to-understand-jio-you-need-to-understand