TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

Largely, yes. Another department built a Python script that mostly was a driver for Selenium, because while they weren’t allowed direct access to some DB, nothing stopped them from automating a script to click various buttons in the shitty IE6 web app and scrape the results. I also recall they found that while passwords for said web app needed to be changed every N days, there was no lookback, so they had the script rotate between two passwords.

In my case, another not-insignificant factor was that multiple people on the team were quite good at abusing Excel and VBA, but only two others knew any other programming languages. One of them was an engineer (not SWE, engineer as in fab tool engineer - I think he was an EE) who occasionally wrote stuff in C for fun, and the other was also an engineer, but one who had convinced management that we should create an in-house SWE team. Great idea, and we weren’t the first to do so; unfortunately our manager was abruptly replaced, and his successor saw no value in the proposition.

Another reason I did so (at a different job, actually, the one immediately prior to Samsung) was that the only other language I knew to any degree was Python, and while I did compile one Python program for Windows to more easily distribute it, Excel Just Worked.

That one estimated nominal and peak loading on electrical distribution circuits by querying a DB for consumption on a given branch, and comparing it to a table containing current handling capabilities of various kinds of ACSR (overhead power lines). It was easier to do that in Excel because people were already used to it for various calculations.

Also if you’re wondering, yes, we had some bespoke software whose name escapes me that was specifically created to model electrical circuits; unfortunately no one knew how to use it, but one guy thought he did, and convinced management that we didn’t need to pay for training because he would train everyone else. He did not.

>now on to the lowest cost per mile robotaxi Is this a serious comment?

Absolutely a serious comment and why Waymo will likely be unable to compete. Tesla is designing their fleet for the lowest cost per mile, and likely the real reason why they have pushed back on Lidar versus camera - humans can drive with binocular (some with just monocular) vision, why use Lidar as it’s more expensive.

If a Waymo car costs $100k and is good for 100k miles, then that’s $1/mile. Tesla’s robotaxi is likely designed for 500k miles at under $0.10/mile. Tesla’s robotaxi will be able to drive me for cheaper than I’ll be able to drive myself. Think of a cab company with scale enough to build their own cabs, optimizing for the lowest cost per mile, and with $0 labor costs. That’s going to be their huge win. And no, I’m not an Elon fan, but I do understand his business plan, and it’s brilliant. And no, I don’t think it’s going to displace personal cars. There’s too much burst demand during rush hour for a peak scaled fleet to be cost effective (I haven’t run the numbers, so even that slight may be incorrect). However I do expect to never have to drive myself once I hit retirement age, and I’ll probably not even own the vehicle. My hope is that there will be a fast follower, able to compete against Tesla, otherwise I’ll be paying Tesla $0.99/mile instead of $0.12/mile.

I can only imagine the thousands of lines of code I saved by using Excel '97 for a scientific tabular calculation effort alone.

Because I had already done about the same thing in HP basic before PC's existed, when there wasn't a spreadsheet app anyway.

And it was on my mind the whole time.

It didn't take many more years before clients wanted their results in XLS on one tab and the invoice on another tab. Rather than the DOC files they had been wanting, which were reasonable facsimiles of the top linen typewritten paperwork I used to fax then mail by USPS or Fedex at the beginning. With the original invoice attached using a "gold" paperclip, nothing ever stapled or folded.

Oh how low I have sunk since then :\

Anyway it was pretty easy to switch from Word to Excel using the same fonts and similar formatting, even though direct integration was provided for, I just switched. When clients printed it they looked almost indistinguishable from my old typewritten multi-font documents.

And that just happened to put the paperwork onto the same spreadsheet as the data. Left one blank tab for future AI use, and the two tabs to send to the clients are in place to the right of that.

Eventually there were quite a few tabs in between the blank placeholder and the final two tabs that the clients would receive. Each with its own function to further leverage built-in Excel capabilities and make further progress toward a "paperless" office.

Saved gobs of code there too, but it gets "worse" from here ;)

It all came together by writing more VBA modules until there was an automation "shell" around the working system. Once complete it would stop so you could look at the data, decide what to type into the blank tab ("naturally", in the absence of AI) then hit the button.

And you were done.

Slab of aluminium milled to a flat triangular-ish shape about 10mm thick, then inside hollowed out to half depth and 8 counter-sunk holes non-tapped. Common issues: - item is not flat - nicks and dents on the edges - non uniform depth of the counter-sunk holes - holes in incorrect locations - unapproved changes to design - scratches - pores (poor material quality) - incomplete milling

Then parts have to be hard anodised and sand blasted.

- Sand blasting uneven - Sharp edges remaining - Streaks - Contamination - Exposed bare metal (it is only acceptable in the holes that could be used for hanging)

Companies also have virtually non existent QA. You can list them things that will cause rejection and they send it anyway.

One company told him after sending a batch that was complete carnage "We can give you $100 coupon for next order!" he insisted on rework. So they sent again, even worse.