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i see no where in the article where it says he tried to go to his boss about it

Not in that article itself, no. But unlike some people, I don't go around in public forums screaming "crybaby", "sissy", etc, without having the full story.

His supervisor told him to "Get over it, and move on," his lawsuit claims. His supervisor also praised one of the pranksters as "a stand up guy" for admitting he put the "kick-me" tag on Mr. Palacio's back.

Mr. Palacio claims he never received a response from Intel's HR department until he finally reported the incident to police. (src)

So that's one side of the story. Intel still fails to comment on the incident, so we can't hear their side. I'd rather reserve my judgment until then, and not start calling people names and make myself look like an idiot.

Most work places have pretty clear harassment policies that will lead to dismissal for this sort of thing. Not sure about the need for criminal convictions though.

Yeah, agreed. If this wasn't handled appropriately by someone in charge there is definitely something wrong... With that said though, that person needs to take responsibility for this. If he didn't ride this up, I don't see what Intel did here. I mean, if he did those things, then fine, but far too often people sue because a company has a lot of money before they even take up an issue with HR...

criminal conviction? wow. that is just stupid. let their human resources department deal with it and terminate them (which they did)

this is just so stupid.

From what i understand (sorry english is not me first language) he asked the guy to remove the sign but the guy kicked him in the butt instead.

After that, another coworker, Chris Zeltinger, was asked to help remove the sign, but instead kicked Palacio twice.

This is a serious offense and yes it can very well be a criminal one.

I don't see why some of you can't understand why these people were arrested. They assaulted someone. It doesn't matter where they assaulted them, or the severity of it. They committed a crime, so why is it so surprising? Maybe if the bullying was just hiding his clean room suit, or something else passive aggressive, then it would have simply been an HR thing and police wouldn't have been involved.

As for suing the company. It seems this bullying has been going on for quite some time. We definitely don't have all of the information, but it did seem like the guy went to his manager and HR to put a stop to it. However, the fact that his manager was so callus about the physical abuse, I'm not surprised the guy sued. Nothing was getting resolved through the proper channels, and physical or mental abuse in any context (especially the workplace) should not be tolerated. I would have done the same thing.

  • Like 1

Not in that article itself, no. But unlike some people, I don't go around in public forums screaming "crybaby", "sissy", etc, without having the full story.

So that's one side of the story. Intel still fails to comment on the incident, so we can't hear their side. I'd rather reserve my judgment until then, and not start calling people names and make myself look like an idiot.

so it sounds like he talked to his boss and HR but stopped there. if it really bothered him he would have went to someone even higher up instead of just taking it for so long

i'm in no way supporting what was done to him but there are definitely a few more steps he could have taken before going to the police

Palacio felt demoralized and assaulted and he began to cry during the drive home

For real?? Just for that I would put a bigger one on him. He sounds like a ***** not for nothing. I work for a big network and we do dumb **** like that all the time. Keeps everyone on their toes and makes the day more fun.

What a crock!! This guy is a real sissy, he needs to grow a pair.

Exactly!

I'm not sure what is more childish, the kick-me sign stunt or the comments here suggesting that he grow a pair or exchange his balls for a vagina. Both seem to come from people who should have been held back in middle school because they obviously haven't grown up yet.

  • Like 3

Its really rather amusing to see from the comments here who the "popular" kids were in high school.

Those people who had a solid group of friends that simply pranked each other with silly things like this but they all knew it was in good humour so though nothing off it.

Yet perhaps carried out such acts with the dorky kids, or the loners or other outcast groups for "fun" without realizing or perhaps they did know the effect such actions would have.

No doubt their views would quickly change if they were the subject of continual harassment or bullying which wasnt "all fun and games as part of the group" - shame we'll never know.

There's a difference between "bullying" and getting a kick me sign put on your back.

Please please tell us the difference?

He was BULLIED its called corporate bullying and is illegal in most countries. A lot of ignorance is being shown on this subject.

so it sounds like he talked to his boss and HR but stopped there. if it really bothered him he would have went to someone even higher up instead of just taking it for so long

i'm in no way supporting what was done to him but there are definitely a few more steps he could have taken before going to the police

yay way to go and blame the victim, this is whats wrong with the world right now

Bullying is the use of force or coercion to abuse or intimidate others

A practical joke (also known as a prank, gag, jape or shenanigan) is a mischievous trick or joke played on someone, typically causing the victim to experience embarrassment, perplexity, confusion, or discomfort.

If you don't see the difference, you are officially a moron who should die :)

yay way to go and blame the victim, this is whats wrong with the world right now

where the hell do you get that I'm blaming the victim?!? all I said is that there are more steps that he could have taken before he took the incident to the police making it a bigger deal than it needed to be (aka this isn't something that needed to reach the news before action was taken against those bullying him)

Bullying is the use of force or coercion to abuse or intimidate others

A practical joke (also known as a prank, gag, jape or shenanigan) is a mischievous trick or joke played on someone, typically causing the victim to experience embarrassment, perplexity, confusion, or discomfort.

If you don't see the difference, you are officially a moron who should die :)

death for someone who doesn't see things your way? Its getting easier and easier to pick out the kids on this site.

where the hell do you get that I'm blaming the victim?!? all I said is that there are more steps that he could have taken before he took the incident to the police making it a bigger deal than it needed to be (aka this isn't something that needed to reach the news before action was taken against those bullying him)

Have you ever worked in a corporate environment? I'd assume no since you think there is a level "higher up" than HR when you have a workplace issue like this. HR's job is to deal with situations like this. If HR doesn't do their job, you don't go into the CEO's office and complain. It doesn't work like that.

You could try to talk to an XO, but you most likely won't get the time of day. They probably won't even be in on the same campus, especially with a huge company like Intel. Which makes getting a hold of them even harder. And even if you do reach them, guess what their reaction will be? "Talk to HR". If HR failed, then the company (as a whole) failed.

At that point, you raise the issue to anyone who will make a difference. Most cases that means a lawyer and the press.

  • Like 1
where the hell do you get that I'm blaming the victim?!? all I said is that there are more steps that he could have taken before he took the incident to the police making it a bigger deal than it needed to be (aka this isn't something that needed to reach the news before action was taken against those bullying him)

Hmm the steps that needed to be taken were he not be bullied/assaulted in the the first place, its embarrassing and demoralizing and its not easy to report your colleagues in these situations. He did the right thing report it to the police as he was physically assaulted and I am sure he was strongly advised to do so. There should be no excuse or justification for this kind of behavior period.

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    • ZimaBoard 2 1664 Starter Kit review: it's a cool and affordable DIY NAS by Steven Parker IceWhale Technology reached out to me asking if I was interested in testing the ZimaBoard 2, and after convincing them to send me the Starter Kit, it arrived at my doorstep in May. A bit of background: it is a Shanghai-based Chinese company founded in 2020, which specializes in single-board servers and personal cloud solutions. From searching around online, user feedback on the company and ZimaOS is mostly positive, so we're off to a good start. In addition, I should probably point out that although they do not have a large portfolio of NAS devices, with just four of what they do offer, they seem to have covered everything from a relatively low-priced entry point with the ZimaBoard 2, right up to the high end, with the ZimaCube 2 Creator Pack that even includes an NVIDIA RTX PRO 2000. Anyway, as already mentioned, what we have today is the ZimaBoard 2 Starter Kit, and here are the full specifications: ZimaBoard 2 Model 832, 1664 CPU Intel Core N150 (4x E Cores/Threads, Max burst up to 3.6 GHz) TDP: 6W (Base) 10W (Max) Graphics Intel UHD Graphics 24 EUs (1.00 GHz) Memory 8 GB, 16 GB DDR5 4800MT/s non ECC SODIMM (soldered) Disk Capacity 60 TB (30 TB x 2) Supported RAID Types TRAID, TRAID +, RAID0, RAID1, RAID5, RAID 6, RAID 10 Storage 2 x SATA 3.0 6Gb/s Ports with Power Bootloader 32 GB, 64 GB eMMC Network 2x RJ-45 2.5 GbE PCIe 1 x PCIe 3.0 (via LPC) USB Ports 2 x USB-A 3.1 (5 Gbps) Display Mini-DisplayPort 1.4 (4K@60Hz) Hardware Transcoding Engine H.264, H.265, MPEG-4, VC-1 Maximum resolution: 4K (4096 x 2160); Maximum FPS: 60 Virtualization Intel® AES New Instructions Intel® Virtualization Technology (VT-x) Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) Size (H/W/D) 140mm x 83mm x 31mm Weight 0.4 kg (only ZimaBoard 2 device) Power 12v 5A Power Supply Warranty 1 year (Global) 2 Years (EU) OS ZimaOS v1.6.1 MSRP $339, $399 ($548.60) As you can see above, there are two variants of the ZimaBoard 2. The lesser variant has half the eMMC storage and 8 GB less RAM, although it also costs $60 less than the top variant we are testing today. The above pricing is only for the ZimaBoard 2. I put the MSRP of the Starter Kit next to it in brackets, although as of publishing, it is discounted to $534.50. The ZimaBoard 2 started life on Kickstarter and shipped to backers in August last year. It became available via the official website in late 2025 and Q1 2026. This hobbyist NAS contains the still relatively new N150 Intel CPU released in the first quarter of 2025, with support for DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.1, although in this case, the memory is integrated into the board itself, so it will not be possible to upgrade or expand the amount. It also supports AV1 decoding, as well as H.264, VP8, VP9, H.265 (8 bit), and H.265 (10 bit). The different capabilities in the Alder Lake-N (and Twin Lake) series are listed below. Processor E-cores L3-cache Turbo clock GPU GPU-clock TDP Intel N355 8 6 MB 3.9 GHz 32 EUs 1.35 GHz 9 W Intel Core 3 N350 3.9 GHz 1.35 GHz 7 W Intel Core i3-N305 3.8 GHz 1.25 GHz 9 W Intel Core i3-N300 3.8 GHz 1.25 GHz Intel N250 4 3.8 GHz 1.25 GHz 6 W Intel Processor N200 3.7 GHz 0.75 GHz Intel N150 3.6 GHz 24 EUs 1 GHz Intel N97 1.2 GHz 12 W Intel Processor N100 3.4 GHz 0.75 GHz 6 W The CPU is part of the Twin Lake series that sits near the bottom of the N-series, designed for low- powered systems and entry-level laptops, and as such has a base level TDP of just 6W. As I have noted before, we are seeing another NAS with a great amount of RAM. It's important to mention that the ZimaBoard 2's memory is integrated into the base board (which is why they have two variants of it). As a reminder, up until a couple of years ago, it was commonplace to only get 2 or 4GB max on a flagship Synology or QNAP home NAS. Ever since the likes of TerraMaster and more have entered the market with ample RAM sizes included in their NAS offerings, it has gone a long way in forcing the hands of the traditional makers to up their game a bit. First impressions The Starter Kit came in one outer box with several packages inside it (shown above). I forgot to take pics of it because when it arrived, it wasn't clear what was inside, and I had to confirm with my contact that I received the entire Starter Kit. In the box ZimaBoard 2 ZimaBoard 2 HDD Expansion Bracket + PCIe card frame Zimaboard Mini DisplayPort Male to HDMI Female Cable 4K 60Hz Zimaboard PCIe 3.0 x4 to Dual NVMe M.2 SSD Adapter Card Quick guide [full online guide] Limited warranty notice Screws Design Where to start? You'd be forgiven for mistaking it as an SSD enclosure if not for all the ports on it. It is completely made out of metal, and the top is an entire heatsink. It has a premium feel about it, but it definitely looks like a hobby device. 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The steps to get to the board are as follows: Remove the four smaller Torx screws on the bottom of the ZimaBoard 2; Remove the four larger Torx screws on the sides of the device; Carefully unstick the CMOS battery from the PCB; Remove two Phillips screws on the PCB; Lift out the PCB. Yes, as you can tell from the instructions, you need three different tools to remove Torx and Phillips screws (10 in total), and unhelpfully, one of the screws is located under the CMOS battery, which is stuck onto the PCB. Building Now comes the fun part. Because the ZimaSpace website does not provide any guidance on how to put the Starter Kit together. They only have guidance for connecting the CPU fan. However, they did upload a video to their YouTube channel that shows the entire process. To install the fan, first remove the four screws on the bottom of the ZimaBoard 2, then on the inside, there is a CPU FAN connector where you can attach the fan, reattach the ZimaBoard 2 frame, and feed the fan cable through the provided slit. Then remove the nearest screw on the side and attach the fan frame to the side of the device using the same screw. ZimaBard 2 screws Aligning the screws Bottom view Remember those four screws we removed to access the CPU FAN? Longer screws are provided in the box with the HDD Expansion Bracket, which is what you will now need to attach the ZimaBoard 2 to it. Helpfully, the orientation on how to attach it is made obvious when the frame can only be screwed on at the same overall length as the ZimaBoard 2. If you do it the wrong way around (which is what I did initially) one side hangs off the frame, and it becomes difficult to attach the PCIe Adapter Card cable. PCIe card frame Other side PCIe slot connector Next, it's time to attach the PCIe card frame, which is fastened with the help of 3.5-inch SATA HDD (3 screws). These are toolless screws that you can just use your fingers to fasten them with. Then it is time to connect the provided PCIe cable with the slot connector on one side of the ZimaBoard 2, feed it through the bottom of the HDD frame, and fasten it with two standoffs. Both bracket options 2280 standoffs with 2x 4TB MP44Q The PCIe 3.0 X4 card comes with a short bracket option, handy if you decide to place it inside a different NAS or rack server, but here we need the long bracket. Oddly enough, the M.2 standoffs were preinstalled into the 22110 position, but extra standoffs are included in the box, which I installed at the 2280 position for our use. I added a couple of MP44Q M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSDs (2 x 4TB) that can be availed on Amazon for $478.99 (the lowest price for 3 months) that TEAMGROUP supplied us with Then we have the almost completed build, you just need to push the card into the PCIe slot. Unfortunately, IceWhale Technologies did not provide a screw for the PCIe card frame (this is also apparent in their own video). Here it is at several different angles, with the last pic showing the SATA Y-Cable connected to the two WD Red Plus 4TB drives. Setup and Usage Next, you connect your cables to the I/O, and the ZimaBoard 2 powers on automatically, as there is no power button on the device. Power is controlled through the Settings in ZimaOS. BIOS The ZimaBoard 2 includes an Aptio BIOS from American Megatrends [1, 2, 3], and you can setup pretty much everything here including the boot order, which is locked to the UEFI OS, however above that choice you can enable or disable booting to a SATA/USB bootloader so this would still allow you to switch to an alternative bootloader and boot from it, or disable it to instead always start from the first disk with an OS installed on it. Initial Setup Upon connecting to the LAN and booting up, the ZimaBoard 2 can be reached by navigating to the IP address (shown if you have a monitor connected), or you can find it using the ZIMA Client desktop application, which is essentially a Zima device finder. Initializing the ZimaBoard 2 The ZimaOS setup process is pretty straightforward, through a wizard, and in full above, it basically consists of setting up an account and some handy tips, and that's that! Post Setup (ZimaOS update) Upon first boot, you are alerted that there is a ZimaOS update from 1.5.0 to 1.6.1, which I applied; the full process is shown above with the changelog. ZimaBoard 2 Storage Setup Next, it is time to set up the storage. ZimaOS actually throws everything onto the eMMC flash drive; it is also the default location of AppData, which is definitely something to be wary about, as the 45GB available storage could fill up quickly. HDDs I first attempted to create a Storage Pool using the two 4TB WD Red Plus NAS drives, and got an error message: After several attempts and then looking online, I discovered it was a bug with ZimaOS where the fix was simply to reboot ZimaOS and then try again, this time I was able to create a RAID mirror using the two drives. SSDs I did the same for the SSDs, as you will see in the above gallery, when I created the second Storage Pool, it only allowed me to select available drives. 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In my case, all I had to do was add the media path I just created, which you can also browse to using the folder icon in the path field. In addition, you can now map the new Media library in Windows Explorer using the Zima Client. Oddly enough, it is not possible to access the ZimaBoard 2 over the Network Neighborhood; you must map drives using the client, which is shown in the last image in the above gallery. I watched one of my Blu-Ray rips, which is Dolby Vision with Dolby Atmos, and the content played fine with no stuttering or buffering, which is what anyone needs in this scenario. ZimaBoard 2 Zima Client mobile app There's also a client for mobile. It is pretty barebones, as shown in the above gallery, for example, the Apps screen launches the WebUI for that app, and the Backup must be done manually. On opening Backup, you can select internal storage folders on your phone to backup to the ZimaBoard 2's storage, and although this is constantly scanned, the backup action itself must be manually triggered. There is an option to allow foreground backup (last image in the above gallery), but this basically means the queued backup gets triggered when you manually open the app. Benchmarking SATA PCIe 3.0 X4 A CrystalDiskMark test on a mapped network drive from within a Windows 11 25H2 PC (image above) connected over a 2.5 GbE was well within acceptable ranges. Writes were generally better on the SSD RAID mirror. SATA PCIe 3.0 X1 I also ran the NAS Performance tester, which tests the link speed performance. As you can see, it pretty much maxes out the 2.5GbE connection. Of course, you can also opt to bond the two 2.5 GbE connections for a bit more umph, but I didn't do that. Thermals Top PCIe card SATA HDDs Next, I measured some hotspots while playing content on Plex. It's fair to say this will perform better than a NAS that is enclosed in a metal or plastic case, as almost everything storage-wise is exposed! Anyway, the ZimaBoard 2 did not break a sweat with Plex streaming or disk benchmarks. ZimaOS Factory Reset ZimaOS does not include a factory reset option. Instead, you have to download the ZimaOS image and flash it to the eMMC manually. The flashing process is shown in the above gallery. The steps to do so are listed below: Download the ZimaOS image here; Open BalenaEtcher (Run as Administrator) and select the image; Select your inserted USB drive (min 8 GB) Flash to it; Connect your USB drive, monitor, keyboard, USB hub (optional), mouse (optional), and network cable (recommended) to the ZimaBoard 2; Connect power and press F11 continuously; Select your USB drive starting with UEFI in the boot device menu; Press Enter on the Install ZimaOS option; Select /dev/mmcblk0 (MMC) flash drive as target; Confirm with (three times) to wipe the target disk; Wait a couple of minutes while ZimaOS installs; Remove the USB drive and confirm with a reboot; Your ZimaBoard 2 has been factory reset. However, you don't have to stick with ZimaOS, in fact the company also offers official CasaOS images, that are based on Debian; or as they say themselves, put anything you want on this "hackable single board server" it's up to you. Conclusion I had a lot of fun putting this together. I've custom-built all my own PCs and servers since the 90s, and this is the first time I have had to put a NAS together. Even if the actual base ZimaBoard 2 was already a completed build, it still feels pretty custom. I just wish that IceWhale Technology included a getting-started guide in the box for the Start Kit, which would have really completed this kit. Instead, I had to search for the official video on the YouTube channel to make sure I wasn't doing anything wrong. So who is this for? Definitely the hobbyist who is comfortable building their own PC and servers. It also has a much smaller footprint than its nearest equivalent (in terms of specs), like the Beelink Me Pro, which is another NAS I will be testing soon. Although the Beelink does not come with the PCIe 3.0 X4 expansion, the ZimaBoard 2 Starter Kit suddenly looks to be a great bargain, even if it only offers the two 3.5-inch bays over the four in the other example. It makes a lot of sense to use Intel's N150 chip inside a NAS; it is more than capable of doing what the ZimaBoard 2 is intended for, media streaming and backup. It also looks like the IceWhale Technology staff are quite active in the official forums helping people with issues they come across with ZimaOS and the devices, peer support seems to be good as well, I was quickly able to find why I was not able to create a new Storage Pool in ZimaOS v1.6.1 even though that is quite a serious bug, hopefully it will be fixed in the next update. If you are comfortable with the command line and Docker, you'll be fine. You can do great things with this hardware. This was my first time with ZimaOS. It seems a bit barebones in comparison to the likes of Synology DSM, TOS, and UGOS, but it has a ton of apps to get you started with your home or small business NAS. Where to buy As of publishing, IceWhale Technology is running a discount of up to 5% for the Starter Kit. If you opt to get just the ZimaBoard 2 itself, it does come with a SATA Y-Cable, so you will be able to connect up to two 3.5-inch HDDs to it. ZimaBoard 2 1668 Starter Kit for $534.50 on Amazon US (was $548.60) ZimaBoard 2 832 Starter Kit for $372.88 on Amazon US (was $390.60) Zimaboard 2 1668 (16GB+64GB) for $419.90 on Amazon US Zimaboard 2 832 (8GB+32GB) for $359.90 on Amazon Disclosure: IceWhale Technology provided a free sample without any editorial input or review pre-approval. Good to know The Amazon link is U.S. specific, and not available in other regions unless specified. We only use first-party seller links (at the time of article publishing); ensure that you purchase from a first-party seller link only. Check out Today's Deals on Amazon | or our recent tech deals. Become a Prime member (for Students or SNAP) via Neowin Get Prime Access - Prime for half price (for qualifying Medicaid, EBT, SNAP) Subscribe to Prime Video, Audible Plus, Music Unlimited or Kindle Unlimited via Neowin As an Amazon Associate, when you purchase through links on our site, we earn from qualifying purchases.
    • It's in the Insider's group so yes it's technically beta, though these days it's hard to see much of a difference unless you opt for the most extreme beta builds, which I don't. When I moved here from the Release Preview channel I did so primarily because I wanted to see how well the restored taskbar functionality (restored from Win10, and earlier) is working and whether it was time to finally abandon SAB--and it is--working fine, so far. Not as polished as SAB, but it'll do for me.
    • I've been using MWB Premium for a number of years so that along with Windows updates and updated browser should be fine. Thanks for that.
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