Canadian Sandman in R.O.K.

I also don’t know the legality of selling items they were provided for free. 
 
a lot of what they get is sponsored by the manufacturer so LMG wouldn’t have paid for it, therefore it would be suuuper unethical (or potentially illegal) to profit from it. Even giveaways have huuuge regulations and cross country compliance can be a pain.

We have the classifieds section for that https://linustechtips.com/main/forum/89-classifieds/.
 
As for them giving hardware away, I think it's wise not to as you'll end up inviting beggars onto the forums. 

You must be a very nice person even to think about it that way.
I find sometimes I have a similar problem getting rid of old hardware.
Where I live they want to charge a person to get rid of everything.
I really hate that because I feel like I already paid way more then the stuff was worth to buy it in the first place.
It ought to be free and easy to just drop off old electronics, pc parts, whatever.
 
Like what the heck do I do with a 4750 graphics card that quit working a long time ago lol and the three other dud cards in the box with it.
Not to mention old computers, TV's and other junk.
It really makes me mad every time I end up paying to throw away that kind of stuff.
 
I often imagine a scene in my head where one of those big players in this industry is talking about all the charitable stuff their company is doing around the world. Just then a 13 year old kid comes in and hits him in the head with an old keyboard. Saying in a loud cracking teenage voice "Hey, why don't you clean up your own backyard mess first."  😆
 
That makes me feel a little better. 😁
 
 

We do have that already.
There's a classified section on the forum
https://linustechtips.com/main/forum/89-classifieds/
But you need a minimum of 100 posts, first.

Unless you are specifically referring to LTR as a company, wouldn’t the Classifieds action just be that?

Have you link? LMGs way of dealing with used hardware is that they will first and foremost store it. Anything they've got from manufacturers will be difficult to sell as there's no warranty and some of those are engineering samples. They do sell some stuff, mainly things they have bought themselves, but sometimes others too. Stuff that they can't use in future projects. And if stuff is too broken or too old to be used, or sold, they most likely give it as eWaste. eWaste handler in their area being FreeGeek.
 
Giving away hardware isn't as easy as it is for individuals. They'd need to either setup vetting system themselves or use middleman to find who actually needs it and who wants it just for bragging rights.

Some of the things are sold in their staff only store.

So FreeGeeks then.

@Terren Tong 
where is response from CEO? or is Linus still CEO that he pins his own comment here? 

You mean to tell me you watched a 44 minute video in less than 10 minutes?
 

Specifically responding to this and while I don't expect a reply, this just is an excuse to me.
 
How many times have you done something extreme just for the sake of doing it? Or because you wanted the absolute best price be damned?
 
Whole home water cooling. Water chiller. Mineral oil PC etc etc.
 
If it was the best waterblock money could buy, someone will buy it.
 
You shouldn't have accepted the review if you weren't going to at least commit to doing it right. If you weren't comfortable with the expense of doing it right, then you should have declined.
 
All you did was damage a fledgling companies image.

Billet sent us a quote. I don't know or care how they arrived at the value. If they're good, I'm good.

As for what steps we're taking, you're talking about an outlier issue that has happened once in 10+ years of operation. There won't be a new SOP to ensure we don't accidentally auction stuff. We just need to tighten up some documentation.

While mistakes happen and it's good you're compensating them, I'm concerned about Billet's IP.
 
How much of that prototype was a trade secret? Now it's out in the wild.

Data issues aside; @LinusTech Regarding the Billet Labs situation, could you please publicly state and justify the monetary compensation paid out to Billet Labs for the “loss” of their prototype? What steps are you taking to prevent such issues in the future?

If legitimate criticism of how a company's testing methodology resulting in errors is considered an attack, then I'm not sure what else to say besides it not being one.
 
Here's the thing, if you want to be a lab, and you want to be held to lab standards, then you open your methods and data to scrutiny, which is what GN is doing here. LMG has the ability, and the right to respond to these allegations by re-running the tests to reproduce the data if they want to stand by it, but they aren't. GN's video isn't an attack, it's a flashlight on some of LMG's recent practices that have dubious ethical standings that need to be addressed.

There won't be a big WAN Show segment about this or anything. Most of what I have to say, I've already said, and I've done so privately.

To Steve, I expressed my disappointment that he didn't go through proper journalistic practices in creating this piece. He has my email and number (along with numerous other members of our team) and could have asked me for context that may have proven to be valuable (like the fact that we didn't 'sell' the monoblock, but rather auctioned it for charity due to a miscommunication... AND the fact that while we haven't sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype). There are other issues, but I've told him that I won't be drawn into a public sniping match over this and that I'll be continuing to move forward in good faith as part of 'Team Media'. When/if he's ready to do so again I'll be ready.

To my team (and my CEO's team, but realistically I was at the helm for all of these errors, so I need to own it), I stressed the importance of diligence in our work because there are so many eyes on us. We are going through some growing pains - we've been very public about them in the interest of transparency - and it's clear we have some work to do on internal processes and communication. We have already been doing a lot of work internally to clean up our processes, but these things take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, but that's no excuse for sloppiness.

Now, for my community, all I can say is the same things I always say. We know that we're not perfect. We wear our imperfection on our sleeves in the interest of ensuring that we stay accountable to you. But it's sad and unfortunate when this transparency gets warped into a bad thing. The Labs team is hard at work hard creating processes and tools to generate data that will benefit all consumers - a work in progress that is very much not done and that we've communicated needs to be treated as such. Do we have notes under some videos? Yes. Is it because we are striving for transparency/improvement? Yeah... What we're doing hasn't been in many years, if ever.. and we would make a much larger correction if the circumstances merited it. Listing the wrong amount of cache on a table for a CPU review is sloppy, but given that our conclusions are drawn based on our testing, not the spec sheet, it doesn't materially change the recommendation. That doesn't mean these things don't matter. We've set KPIs for our writing/labs team around accuracy, and we are continually installing new checks and balances to ensure that things continue to get better. If you haven't seen the improvement, frankly I wonder if you're really looking for it... The thoroughness that we managed on our last handful of GPU videos is getting really incredible given the limited time we have for these embargoes. I'm REALLY excited about what the future will hold.
 
With all of that said, I still disagree that the Billet Labs video (not the situation with the return, which I've already addressed above) is an 'accuracy' issue. It's more like I just read the room wrong. We COULD have re-tested it with perfect accuracy, but to do so PROPERLY - accounting for which cases it could be installed in (none) and which radiators it would be plumbed with (again... mystery) would have been impossible... and also didn't affect the conclusion of the video... OR SO I THOUGHT...
 
I wanted to evaluate it as a product, and as a product, IF it could manage to compete with the temperatures of the highest end blocks on the planet, it still wouldn't make sense to buy... so from my point of view, re-testing it and finding out that yes, it did in fact run cooler made no difference to the conclusion, so it didn't really make a difference.
 
Adam and I were talking about this today. He advocated for re-testing it regardless of how non-viable it was as a product at the time and I think he expressed really well today why it mattered. It was like making a video about a supercar. It doesn't mater if no one watching will buy it. They just wanna see it rip.  I missed that, but it wasn't because I didn't care about the consumer.. it was because I was so focused on how this product impacted a potential buyer. Either way, clearly my bad, but my intention was never to harm Billet Labs. I specifically called out their incredible machining skills because I wanted to see them create something with a viable market for it and was hoping others would appreciate the fineness of the craftsmanship even if the product was impractical. I still hope they move forward building something else because they obviously have talent and I've watched countless niche water cooling vendors come and go. It's an astonishingly unforgiving market.
 
Either way, I'm sorry I got the community's priorities mixed-up on this one, and that we didn't show the Billet in the best light. Our intention wasn't to hurt anyone. We wanted no one to buy it (because it's an egregious waste of money no matter what temps it runs at) and we wanted Billet to make something marketable (so they can, y'know, eat).
 
With all of this in mind, it saddens me how quickly the pitchforks were raised over this. It also comes across a touch hypocritical when some basic due diligence could have helped clarify much of it. I have a LONG history of meeting issues head on and I've never been afraid to answer questions, which lands me in hot water regularly, but helps keep me in tune with my peers and with the community. The only reason I can think of not to ask me is because my honest response might be inconvenient. 
 
We can test that... with this post. Will the "It was a mistake (a bad one, but a mistake) and they're taking care of it" reality manage to have the same reach? Let's see if anyone actually wants to know what happened. I hope so, but it's been disheartening seeing how many people were willing to jump on us here. Believe it or not, I'm a real person and so is the rest of my team. We are trying our best, and if what we were doing was easy, everyone would do it. Today sucks.
 
Thanks for reading this.

First of all, the whole Billet Labs stuff is completely absurd if true. I don't think they would intentionally sell something they couldn't, probably some massive fuck up in communications happened between the team responsible for sending it back and the people choosing the items to be auctioned, but it's still a huge issue and 100% LTT's responsibility to fix it and make sure something like this never ever happens again. 
 
About the rushed content, it's something that a lot of times crosses the border of "fun jank" to being just frustrating. Every single project they do seems to be rushed, unfinished, untested and plagued with issues and oversights. And that could be their content "brand", seems like many people enjoy the jank. But if they now want to present themselves as serious testers, someone the community can look up for reliable data with Labs, that mindset needs to change, FAST. How the hell can I trust someone who has to correct themselves almost every video? And makes errors that a basic review of the content could catch? 
 
You need to pump out 7 videos a week? Sure buddy, but maybe allow more time sensitive projects to be properly planned, executed and reviewed and throw some "here's 10 fun crap we found on aliexpress" videos to make up for it.

Yes and no. Legally, you're correct that the buyer bought it fair and square. But I doubt said buyer would not be aware (after today's storm) about the status of the purchase he made so as I said, the buyer should have the decency to return the block to Billet Labs. Whether or not the buyer does that is not our choice. But the auction was public (even at a ticketed convention) so the winners name is public too.
 
Should the buyer be a competitor it's clear they bought the block knowing very well it was from a (potential) competitor and purchasing it has revealed their competitors secrets to them. Exposing them will put pressure on the dishonest manufacturer to not use any knowledge they gained from the prototype in their own products. Again, the auction was public, so is the winners name. LMG is very much to blame, but a manufacturer knowingly buying a competitors secrets is at minimal morally dishonest and may even be cause for litigation between Billet Labs and the dishonest manufacturer.
 
But that's just my opinion 🙂

I don't know why this makes me so angry. I hope Linus doesn't hold the community back from going after the perps in this case. I'm confident there is more than enough talent in the community to give whomever is responsible a very bad day.

I don't know why this makes me so angry. I hope Linus doesn't hold the community back from going after the perps in this case. I'm confident there is more than enough talent in the community to give whomever is responsible a very bad day.

New Samsung PM1743 SSD might be worth checking out. Here's an article that just came out here in Korea on it. Looks insane, thus great for Linus vid....
Here's the new article link...

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2021/12/419_321029.html

Just had a thought regarding the WAN Show. I really enjoy it tremendously and the relationship between Luke and Linus. However, I'd love to see perhaps once a month Linus co-host with a different member of LMG. It would be nice to see the variety it would bring and could be a cool way to also bring new staff/faces into the mix. Honestly, I thought of this when Linus was reading notes Anthony had left on different topics, so I think it could be fun to see Linus bouncing ideas off of Yvonne, Anthony, Madison, Jonathon from MAC Address, and so on. Even staffers who are interested, but maybe are not usually in front of the camera. I think once a month would be enough and still preserve the Linus/Luke dynamic that we love so much.