Motorola bet on faster IO, increasing risk of data-corruptions

I need to follow up on my blog post re Pixel lagging more than Moto Z. Sorry about the click-baity title of the previous blog, but that was a way to get noticed and get some help. I am really thankful for the [small percentage of] thoughtful feedback I received. Turns out Motorola uses the F2FS + nobarrier mount option to speed up writes to NAND. nobarrier does not turn fsync is a no-op. [Read More]

Laggy phones and misleading benchmarks

TLDR: You can predict degree of unresponsiveness of a phone via random-write-4k benchmarks. I wish review websites would fill phones to 80-90% prior to running the benchmark, especially on smaller-capacity phones where users are more likely to run out of space.

Using Economics to Help Ukraine Win

I spent most of my life in North America, but I have been living this war in Ukraine. My hope is that I can use my past experience and connections to help Ukraine win this war. Recently a friend of mine asked what would be the best way to donate $1000. This got me thinking. Wars are won by convincing the opponent that things are only gonna keep getting worse for them and better for you. [Read More]