[HN Gopher] The chip shortage could lead to an era of hardware i...
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The chip shortage could lead to an era of hardware innovation
Author : cofree
Score : 207 points
Date : 2021-05-16 04:23 UTC (18 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (staceyoniot.com)
| dehrmann wrote:
| Almost makes you wonder how many old, but working desktop CPUs
| could be underclocked and repurposed.
| pjerem wrote:
| Yes, except the decade of soldered CPU and RAM behind us.
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| In desktop computers?
| tgragnato wrote:
| "desktops": it's somewhat common with mini-ITX and Intel
| NUCs
| hansel_der wrote:
| erm nope?
|
| modular desktop computers were and are a niche.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Or you know, maybe we can decide that we don't need every
| appliance and lightbulb in our house to have network access. Or
| that we can drop the price on many base-model cars by $1000 by
| removing the infotainment unit.
| ericwood wrote:
| "Chip shortage" means a lot more than just microcontrollers.
| The ripple effects of it have affected all sorts of analog
| semiconductors and integrated circuits. I only do small
| quantities of electronics but I've seen the lead times on bog
| standard parts like relay controllers and op amps shoot up and
| stocks are starting to dwindle.
| bpye wrote:
| TI are in an especially bad spot and they make lots of things
| from microcontrollers to battery chargers to power
| converters. Their parts are pretty common but many of them
| are currently unobtainable from standard distributors.
| singularity2001 wrote:
| Any updates on the optical CPU front?
| anticensor wrote:
| Photonics require even more precision engineering. Binning
| strategies would not work.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| "That's because electric cars require a lot more computer and
| chip-based components than those powered by gas"
|
| EVs have less fundamental systems than an ICE. I can see that EV
| designs being the most modern and entailing a lot of clean sheet
| thinking would result in more computers, but fundamentally I
| would think it takes less computers to run an EV.
| tuatoru wrote:
| I can see that EVs may need fewer sensors (or fewer _types_ of
| sensors, anyway) because of not having to deal with hot gases
| and flammable liquids. But fewer computing elements, not so
| much.
|
| A battery pack may be made up of 20 or more modules that each
| have their own charge management logic, and there are battery
| heating and cooling systems that need controlling.
|
| Most systems are the same in ICEVs and EVs - cabin control,
| entertainment, steering, transmission, throttle and brakes,
| suspension, lights, safety systems, and so on. To me, the
| difference doesn't seem very large.
| acd wrote:
| The main issue is just in time delivery with very low to zero
| stock levels that has been popular in many industries. Toyota
| startes just in time delivery everyone else copied. Just in time
| delivery is more vulnerable to supply chain disruptions.
|
| Thus there are some value to having a warehouse. Ie something
| between just in time delivery and keeping lots of stock.
| dehrmann wrote:
| This is been a relatively cheap way for the world to notice
| this. It could have been much more severe--people can wait an
| extra year for a new computer or car. Automakers also get to
| look at this and decide of the added cost of carrying more
| inventory is worth it for them. They're right to complain to
| pressure governments and chipmakers, but that just means they
| lost this bet on just-in-time delivery and cancelling their
| chip orders. With all the times things worked out for them,
| they might still come out ahead.
| major505 wrote:
| Not only hardware. I think one of the things that can come of
| this are also big software innovations, because one of the things
| we may see are people reciclyng old chips and old tech. And lets
| be honest here: most people dosent't need the latest and the
| greatest dor daily tasks. They need more efficient software and
| better interfaces for achieving this tasks in less time. You take
| a look around you, most people who are not power users can
| survive just fine witha 10 years computer. They just need access
| to better software. The same goes for most business cases.
| nmstoker wrote:
| The article's lack of any assessment about the likely duration of
| the chip shortage seems naive if they're trying to make a case
| that major change of the kind they propose will happen. The
| closing point about it being a tough time for chip companies also
| seems odd given the demand for their products and the predicted
| growth in revenue.
| katmannthree wrote:
| I'd be interested in other takes on this article, I'm struggling
| to accept the arguments presented here.
|
| > turning instead to software to handle functions that had
| historically been done in hardware
|
| That generally means doing things less efficiently. Devices will
| get slower and battery lifetimes shorter.
|
| > There's room for new startups and new ways of doing things.
| More of the car's features are accessed using a touchscreen as
| opposed to a knob or button, for example, which turns components
| that once were hardware into a software program.
|
| This has got to be one of the worst times to do a hardware
| startup. Doing R&D at an established company is already painful,
| between skyrocketing costs and 6 month plus lead times on
| standard microcontrollers (not to mention more specialized ICs).
| If you're just starting out instead of "only" facing trouble
| keeping production going you're going have to hope that the chips
| you're prototyping with will be available when you go into
| production. If things keep going the way they have this year,
| that's a very risky bet no matter what components you select.
|
| > And now, in light of the chip shortage, suppliers to the
| automotive industry are going to be looking for more ways to turn
| something that used to be an electronic part into software.
|
| Not in the automotive field but from what I've heard it's the
| exact opposite issue, the [lack of] processors they'd like to use
| in those fancy touchscreen infotainment systems are a big part of
| their problem.
|
| The central thesis is that the shortage will lead to innovation,
| but in my experience it has put a HUGE strain on everyone doing
| R&D. I suspect it'll instead lead to rising costs and stagnation
| as people wait for supplies. This is already basically what we
| have in the consumer hardware market, where last year's consoles
| still aren't consistently on store shelves.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| > which turns components that once were hardware into a
| software program
|
| this is a fun one, because there is no shortage of knobs and
| buttons, just chips, and knobs don't need chips to work. Even
| if you do need a chip for it to work (eg. rotary encoder to
| canbus), most of them are still available, because the "old
| tech" is good enough for them (compared to newer, smaller
| transistor sizes, needed for modern cpus to process a lot of
| data - eg graphics cards, modern cpus and even touchscreen
| radios for cars).
| nrp wrote:
| I can confirm that this is an extremely challenging time to do
| a hardware startup. In addition to the supply and freight
| shortages that are deadly to startups stuck at the back of the
| line:
|
| 1. Travel restrictions make it extremely challenging to
| evaluate suppliers, do joint development, and bring up
| manufacturing.
|
| 2. A bunch of recent high profile failures have caused VCs to
| cool on the space.
|
| 3. Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft are all hiring
| armies of hardware people, making the job market more
| competitive than it once was.
|
| All that said:
|
| 1. There's still no shortage of interesting and worthwhile
| problems to solve with hardware.
|
| 2. Like web companies that survived the dot com bubble
| bursting, the hardware companies that make it through 2020 and
| 2021 are going to have been strengthened by it.
| bruce343434 wrote:
| > A bunch of recent high profile failures have caused VCs to
| cool on the space.
|
| Could you expand on this?
| bombcar wrote:
| A successful startup allows others to claim that they're
| "Uber for pets" which encourages VC money - but if there
| are famous explosions in the ears all of a sudden you have
| to explain why you're not "Wework for chips" which makes it
| harder to get funding started.
|
| When a gold rush is on nobody gets yelled at for buying
| shovels even if they lose money. But going against
| "conventional wisdom" requires either entirely independent
| VC or investors who really trust you.
| [deleted]
| foobiekr wrote:
| Can you provide examples of (2)?
|
| If we think it's bad now, wait until the dozen or so AI chip
| startups have their moments of reckoning.
| contingencies wrote:
| 4. Certain major contract manufacturers are imploding.
|
| 5. China-West tensions, including HK/mainland border being
| locked down, are creating additional difficulties.
|
| 6. Current China anti-platform/monopoly drive has cooled
| domestic VC activity and appetite for vertical integration.
|
| (Full disclosure: Cross-border hardware venture founder in
| China.)
| baybal2 wrote:
| > 4. Certain major contract manufacturers are imploding.
|
| Which ones?
| foobiekr wrote:
| Please provide examples of (4). I have worked for HW
| companies pretty much all of my career and (4) is news to
| me. I would very much like to understand what you're
| seeing.
| contingencies wrote:
| Let's just say regarding a major facility for a major CM
| over the last few years myself and agents have dealt with
| them a few times, the first time a well-meaning manager
| said "stay away, this company is bad news". Everything I
| have since learned (tour of facility witnessing old tech,
| dinosaur client base, partial selloff of site, bizdev
| literally stating their reason for not taking on simple
| projects was complexity, employees covertly selling use
| of software the company has licensed on the market)
| reaffirm this perception. Whereas, the stock price
| doesn't. May as well be dogecoin.
| convery wrote:
| Ye, I'm with you. To give the benefit of doubt to the author,
| maybe they were thinking of "turning to software innovation" as
| in optimizing / longer dev cycles that can result in less
| resource wastage. i.e. rather than needing the latest chip to
| run Electron based applications everywhere they'd spend a bit
| more time developing software that can run well on older chips.
| mrweasel wrote:
| For the integrated hardware, like IoT, cars and so on, it
| makes sense to attempt to reduce the amount of chips needed,
| and the glue the remaining bits in using software. I don't
| see how there's much else you can do to deal with a shortage,
| other than perhaps starting to remove many of the "smart"
| features and accept that perhaps we didn't need all of them
| to begin with.
|
| For computers, desktops, laptops, servers and phone, we could
| start focusing on more efficient software. Replacing laptops
| every two or three year is no longer cost effective. We start
| to look at 5 to 8 year lifespan for phones and laptop,
| meaning that developers need to focus more on efficiency.
|
| It's two different ways of dealing with rising chip prices:
| Use fewer chips, and use them longer. It's also a great way
| of shifting to greener computing.
| lupire wrote:
| 10year old laptop chips work well for the vast majority of
| users. The problems are in shoddy cases/integrations that
| fail, and lack of repairability/upgradability/planned
| obsolescence (even in chassis that have no thin-light
| excuse), both of which lead to waste
| mofosyne wrote:
| One possible idea is a rebate that is given back to
| manufactures if the device last long enough.
| katmannthree wrote:
| Had they not explicitly said hardware innovation I would have
| thought that as well.
|
| I hope it does lead to debloating though, when mouse config
| software weights in over 200MB we're long overdue for some
| trimming of the proverbial fat.
| eru wrote:
| >> turning instead to software to handle functions that had
| historically been done in hardware
|
| > That generally means doing things less efficiently. Devices
| will get slower and battery lifetimes shorter.
|
| Not necessarily. For example, the original idea behind RISC was
| too move lots of complicated functions (and instructions) from
| hardware into software, so that the hardware could concentrate
| on doing the most common and simple functionality quicker.
| katmannthree wrote:
| Those common computationally complex functions generally get
| abstracted away via CMSIS or the like, I've yet to beat the
| hardware implementations of common signal processing
| algorithms in software despite actively trying. Anyone trying
| to fill in for missing DSP hardware is going to have a very
| bad time.
|
| I can't imagine it's much better for other
| hardware-->software transitions, given the cost of specific
| hardware implementations they're generally only used when
| actually necessary.
| toast0 wrote:
| > The central thesis is that the shortage will lead to
| innovation, but in my experience it has put a HUGE strain on
| everyone doing R&D. I suspect it'll instead lead to rising
| costs and stagnation as people wait for supplies. This is
| already basically what we have in the consumer hardware market,
| where last year's consoles still aren't consistently on store
| shelves.
|
| I think there's some truth to creativity being enhanced by
| constraints. Certainly, if supplies are limited, and especially
| if the limits are uneven, there's going to be incentive to
| design around the chips that are limited, and some of that
| might be innovation that could be useful even after supply goes
| back to normal. Of course, CPU shortages are hard to design
| around, especially if all CPUs are in short supply; but some
| applications might be able to make use of different CPUs that
| might have more availability.
| katmannthree wrote:
| Technically, sure. But the extent of the innovation I've seen
| so far is people going back to using inferior chips because
| that was all they could get within their budget.
|
| Microcontrollers aren't exactly interchangeable, even within
| the same product line. You could design for flexibility and
| use the arduino framework to run your code on most
| microchip/atmel, ST, and a million other chips but that comes
| at enormous cost -- to put it nicely that's an incredibly
| inefficient library if you're not doing anything demanding,
| and damn near worthless if you are. Any multiplatform
| framework that abstracts away the inner workings of
| microcontrollers is going to be too heavy to work for a huge
| percentage of people's power and complexity profiles.
|
| It's not just MCUs and firmware either, any time you replace
| a component due to shortages you need to revalidate your
| design. Constantly redesigning and revalidating boards based
| on available stock is what people are doing right now to keep
| the lights on. It's hell.
|
| If you don't need a microcontroller to do whatever you do,
| then sure. Pop it out and save a few bucks. But that's hardly
| innovation, it's more rectifying a mistake made when doing
| the initial design.
| toast0 wrote:
| I think you're like 98% right. Swapping a MCU is a lot of
| work, and other chips are too... I just wonder how many
| people are going to have all the chips but one, and figure
| out how to wing it, and how many of those solutions end up
| being interestimg/useful/kept past when the missing chip
| becomes available.
|
| I'm thinking of stuff like (at least some) dishwashers with
| 'dirt' sensing don't actually sense dirt at all; instead
| the pump has a thermal overload, and they sense how many
| times the pump cycles to indicate dirtyness.
|
| If you used to have a dirt sensor, but it was delayed 18
| months, you might figure something like that out, and maybe
| that's handy. Or maybe there's some other thing you'd like
| to measure, but there's not a good way to measure it, but
| it causes something to misbehave and you can measure that;
| but you wouldn't have thought about it except that you ran
| out of dirt sensors.
| swiley wrote:
| >> turning instead to software to handle functions that had
| historically been done in hardware
|
| >That generally means doing things less efficiently. Devices
| will get slower and battery lifetimes shorter.
|
| I'm personally not at all convinced hardware accelerated GUI
| toolkits are more power efficient than software rendered ones.
| Weather it's due to the abstraction or some weird idea that
| drawing is now "free" you end up with way more drawing being
| done once something is hardware accelerated and it tends to
| more than offset the efficiency gains. The only place it really
| works are video games because they're actually paying attention
| to where the limits are. (and they don't really care about
| power efficiency.)
| giantrobot wrote:
| > I'm personally not at all convinced hardware accelerated
| GUI toolkits are more power efficient than software rendered
| ones.
|
| It really depends on what is being drawn and how. If a GUI
| toolkit is all flat colors, basic shapes, and doesn't use
| antialiasing then it can be very power efficient on modern
| CPUs, even low power embedded ones. If it instead uses
| gradients, alpha blending, antialiasing, and drawing complex
| shapes it's going to far less efficient all in software. The
| difficulty increases with increased demands for fill rate
| (display size x frame rate).
|
| On modern CPUs (even embedded ones) a software rendering to a
| QVGA display would be no probably and likely no less
| efficient than hardware acceleration. However as the fill
| rate demand and drawing complexity increases software
| rendering will quickly hit a wall.
| T-A wrote:
| >> turning instead to software to handle functions that had
| historically been done in hardware
|
| > That generally means doing things less efficiently. Devices
| will get slower and battery lifetimes shorter.
|
| Possibly, but the point is to reduce the number of expensive
| integrated circuits. A classic example:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Woz_Machine
| blihp wrote:
| You're talking about two different things: eliminating
| hardware by doing more in software (what the article was
| stating) vs consolidating discrete logic to an ASIC (both the
| IWM and the discrete logic it replaced performed the same
| task in hardware. The IWM just reduced it to one chip
| allowing them to eliminate the controller PCB)
| T-A wrote:
| > The IWM just reduced it to one chip allowing them to
| eliminate the controller PCB)
|
| From the Wikipedia article: "The floppy drive controller
| was built with 8 ICs, one of which is the PROM, containing
| tables for the encoder and decoder, the state machine, _and
| some code_. "
|
| (My emphasis.)
|
| What made it at all possible was moving most of the logic
| to the CPU:
|
| https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/a/7188
|
| _The IWM chip, used in the prototype Mac with double sided
| "Twiggy" drives, and later in the original production Mac
| 128k with Sony 3.5" diskette drives, is basically Woz's
| original disk controller design (converted by Wendell
| Sander and Bob Bailey to NMOS), with the addition of buffer
| registers to allow the processor to run a bit more
| asynchronously. But, except for not having to run (*
| almost) synchronous with the disk data rate, the 68k CPU
| did all the raw data decoding (GCR nibbles to bytes, etc.)
| and head stepping in software, very similar to the 6502
| code in the Apple II (DOS) RWTS._
| rasz wrote:
| No, IWM replaced floppy controller ASIC integrating pll,
| track and sector ID detectors, bit shifter, FM/MFM
| decoders/encoders, and CRC logic. All of this was replaced
| by simple bit shifter, state machine and software running
| on main CPU of the computer. Amiga employed similar trick
| reusing Blitter to encode/decode tracks.
| Causality1 wrote:
| I stopped reading after the car bit. Anyone who's advocating
| more eye-requiring touchscreen controls for cars instead of
| less hasn't put enough thought into their opinions for anything
| else they've written to be worth reading.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > The chip shortage could lead to an era of hardware innovation
| It can, but people currently busy "innovating" are at least
| half a decade too late. 200mm capacity shortage, and year long
| backlogs were common for at least 5 year now.
|
| The opportunity from either exploiting the shortage, or
| ameliorating it is now long gone.
|
| > That's because electric cars require a lot more computer and
| chip-based components than those powered by gas
|
| Electric cars require a lot less electronic components!!!
|
| > "I saw a design the other day of a lightbulb with 12
| components," said Carrieres. "[My team] asked me if this was an
| idea, and I had to tell them that it was a real product."
|
| Recently we had a rush project for redesigning a control panel
| for a certain machinery. The task was to replace, or remove
| MCUs currently experiencing shortage.
|
| After looking at the project for a few minutes, we realised MCU
| was used basically just for blinkey LEDs, and an interlock.
|
| Our engineer slapped few 555s, flip flops, and registers in
| under an hour. Client engineers' jaws fell off.
|
| While the real reason client was at the mercy of their supply
| chain was not that individual MCU, it still shows just how much
| blind following of "one chip to rule them all" can eat away at
| supply chain resilience.
|
| If you have a part uniquely fitting your unique needs, the
| likeliness it being some rare widget, and having poorer
| availability increases.
| [deleted]
| shard wrote:
| > Our engineer slapped few 555s, flip flops, and registers in
| under an hour. Client engineers' jaws fell off.
|
| Sounds like it's more an issue of this work being outside the
| client engineer's competence than any kind of engineering
| breakthrough.
|
| I suspect replacing the MCU with discrete components would
| have resulted in a more expensive product if there was no
| shortage.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > I suspect replacing the MCU with discrete components
| would have resulted in a more expensive product if there
| was no shortage.
|
| And what? Complexity, and BOM size are not a problem by
| themselves alone. You should not view it in isolation from
| the context.
|
| This is exactly the thinking which led the client running
| into this -- "Trying to save money at any cost"
|
| The point I make is that they easily spent a multiple times
| the price of this panel entire production run as a
| punishment for that.
|
| Blinkey leds, and an interlock in between few buttons is
| really an overkill for MCU, and should've been treated as
| such no matter how many cents can be saved.
|
| You can save a few dollars on a screwdriver if you can put
| in screws with a hammer, but you are certainly better off
| not doing that.
| dr_zoidberg wrote:
| I find it a bit hard to believe that a whole
| microcontroller can be cheaper than a few electronic
| components on their own. Probably what did happen before
| the shortage was that the MCU was cheap enough and gave you
| a great flexibility in prototyping and coudl be suited for
| many different tasks. After the prototyping stage, it
| should've been replaced by simpler things, but since good
| enough was cheap enough, it was left as it was.
| shard wrote:
| When it comes down to very simple microcontrollers with
| only a few pins, the package costs starts to dominate.
| Consider that each pin on an IC costs a few cents. If a
| small pincount MCU is replaced with a 555, some discrete
| logic, and passives for each of those ICs, it certainly
| can be more expensive to have discrete logic as opposed
| to an MCU, not to mention the higher cost from increase
| in PCB size for the extra components.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Assembly cost too from what I understand, if you need to
| go up to a more fancy pick'n'place machine because of the
| number of distinct component reels.
| ptsneves wrote:
| Also remember that a bigger bill of materials in itself
| potentially complicates supply chain. The other thing
| that comes to mind is that more components may mean more
| passives or a more complex circuit.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| baybal2 wrote:
| There are MCUs costing less than a cent.
|
| It was likelly cheaper, but now they paid likelly
| hundredfold of what could've ever been saved.
| pySSK wrote:
| You'd be surprised. Some ARM M0 chips are in the $0.20
| range for 1 (can't see volume prices right now because of
| availability).
| synack wrote:
| Anecdotally, I've seen a lot more job postings for firmware
| engineers lately. I assume these are coming from companies that
| cannot source their preferred microcontrollers and need to port
| code to a new chip before inventory runs out. Hopefully this
| leads to some modernization of embedded software.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| Modernization? The deadlines are tight and the focus will be
| all about getting done as fast as possible before the inventory
| of replacement parts dries up too.
|
| I have ended up raiding the warranty return bin for fixable
| boards in my small startup. Its easier to repair the returned
| boards right now than order new ones.
| thedracle wrote:
| That's pretty awesome. I moved out of embedded development many
| years ago, but it's always been my true love as an engineer.
| someperson wrote:
| Anybody who follows the industry knows semiconductors
| manufacturing is a boom and bust industry.
|
| This video covers it quite well:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7QkIECEkVc
|
| Automakers cancelled their orders during the early days of
| COVID-19 and lost their place in the queue (and now are crying
| foul).
|
| Also many companies have double-booked orders from multiple
| suppliers making the shortage look worse.
|
| There's a huge amount of semiconductor capacity coming online in
| the next few years, much of will be barely profitable once this
| current shortage dissipates.
| totalZero wrote:
| Double booking is a consequence of shortage. You can't separate
| it out. Longer lead times make it harder to predict future
| demand, and perception of scarcity leads to overbooking that
| exacerbates the negative consequences of underbooking.
| wrd83 wrote:
| It already has happened.
|
| I have been asked to optimize to return vms to the hardware pool
| ..
| [deleted]
| jackfoxy wrote:
| Why aren't chips recycled more? (Not that recycling could address
| the immediate problem.)
|
| Or perhaps there is already a lot of recycling, but it is not
| apparent to me and probably not apparent to most people.
|
| Is pulling and sorting chips from e-waste inefficient? Damages
| too many chips?
|
| In China a lot of reverse engineered info on proprietary chips
| floats around among engineers. Are hardware engineers in the west
| too busy to adapt to recycled chips? Is the supply too
| precarious?
|
| The only one I know of working in this area is
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Huang_(hacker) I wonder if
| he gets lonely.
| mastax wrote:
| Chips are recycled, at least the valuable ones. Go on
| AliExpress and you'll find lots of expensive FPGAs reballed,
| iPhone chips for repair, classic computer chips that are no
| longer made, etc.
| greenbit wrote:
| Ftlog not another round of 'let software do it', please.
|
| How about, when a couple of dead simple switches will do it, DO
| NOT stuff an embedded Linux SoC in. A toaster, for example,
| should not require one single bit of software.
|
| Cars. Omg. Do we have to turn them into rolling smart phones? DO
| we? I dread the day when my car has to OTA update every 3 weeks.
| There should be no need for that. Yeah, I can see you might want
| something to handle engine timing or active suspension. But I do
| not need or want all these 'apps'.
|
| We seriously need some sanity in product design these days. Don't
| blame engineers. Blame the product designers.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Then how will you listen Spotify while you drive? I'm not about
| to run a wire to the aux-in on a dumb radio like some kind of
| savage from 2013.
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| Cars have been increasingly more computerized during the last
| two decades. If car firmwares were more open it would be
| possible to deploy software improvements to reduce emissions
| and increase performance.
|
| I agree that having to update too frequently would be a hassle,
| but we could make far better use of existing vehicles if they
| were more easily upgradeable and updateable.
| zsellera wrote:
| LOL, no. It's hard to implement hardware functions in software if
| it's impossible to source the MCUs my software stack was built
| on.
|
| What's really happening is that I (and likely many others)
| realised that Chinese-brand chips (which are not affected by the
| shortage) works just as fine as the western ones.
|
| The other thing I realised was that non-authorized sellers works
| just as fine as well. Yep, I had to implement more thorough
| testing/QC, but I would not call that extra work innovation.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| Co-incidentally you can buy all Western chips you want from
| Chinese sellers in any quantities. Just that you have to pay
| 10x.
| zsellera wrote:
| My experiences are different.
|
| I think most assembly-houses self-source some parts, and they
| do it in large quantities (like 1M+ parts/year). As such,
| they buy at extremely good prices. They overbuy themselves,
| and in order to get the same good pricing next year, they
| keep overbuying. Some of their inventory is then sold
| locally, and ends up in the Shenzhen market or at
| unauthorized resellers.
|
| For the quantities I buy (sub-1000 pcs typ.) the pricing is
| usually 0.2-2.0 times the known good parts from known
| (authorized) sellers.
|
| The problem is that I can not be sure what I get, and I have
| to implement really extensive testing for each batch.
| emteycz wrote:
| Creation of entirely new brands of compatible hardware is
| innovation too - or maybe let's call it progress.
| papito wrote:
| Scarcity breeds ingenuity. Opulence breeds complacency.
| operatorius wrote:
| I would love to see smart household appliances to vanish from the
| market completely. Potentially less e-waste, less unsecure
| devices connected to the net. Let's hope this shortage will push
| towards that
| londons_explore wrote:
| Many "smart" home appliances are also substantially more
| efficient... The fridge which does defrosting at night to save
| energy and be able to have a smaller compressor, the washer
| which measures the incoming water temperature and clothes
| weight and adjusts the water level and runtime to reduce energy
| use, etc. Many of these devices might overall _halve_ energy
| use compared to a device from a decade ago.
|
| Sure, some of those energy savings are a result of better
| design and materials rather than clever electronics and
| software, but often the two must be used together - for example
| the washing machine that can be lightweight because it uses
| software to rearrange the washing in the drum for the perfect
| balance... And a lightweight washer reduces energy consumption
| to heat it up...
| operatorius wrote:
| The ones that youve described are simply more efficient. What
| I was referring to are devices that needlessly have
| integrations via apps, social media or can be simply
| controlled by connecting them via wifi. These are needlessly
| more complicated, have more moving parts and these parts are
| now scarce.
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| Or, we could just ban crypto exchanges in the USA (and allied
| nations), watch prices tank 95%, and all of the fab capacity
| which is now going towards Bitcoin and Ethereum mining could be
| restored to proper productive use (alongside a big reduction in
| energy expenditure and ransomware).
| kubb wrote:
| And nothing of value will be lost. The only issue is that the
| powerful that have invested in crypto will fight with their
| lives to prevent that.
| abaga129 wrote:
| By that logic we should ban stock exchanges as well.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| I can agree to that.
| minikites wrote:
| Maybe not ban, but heavy regulation and taxation sounds
| good to me. Too much of our economy is based around
| ensuring high numbers for the DJIA and Nasdaq, which is not
| healthy for society.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Stock markets help allocate resources to the companies that
| will make good use of it. We can't say something similar
| about crypto until speculation stops being 99.9% of the use
| case and it starts being used for something more practical.
| We may get to that point, but that's still not a certainty.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| ... Do they? After an IPO, how is the glorified trading
| card game of stocks actually helping the companies
| themselves?
| yuliyp wrote:
| Companies can issue stock (whether through employee
| grants or secondary offerings). They can also buy other
| companies with stock.
| shard wrote:
| By making stock grants valuable and thus aligning the
| incentives of the employees with the company?
| kevinventullo wrote:
| In many cases, shareholders are represented by a board of
| directors, to whom the CEO is beholden. Also, executives
| often see much of their compensation via equity in some
| form.
| speedgoose wrote:
| The dream.
| logicchains wrote:
| Nothing of value to you, but thankfully nobody made you the
| global arbiter of what people value.
| geofft wrote:
| Thankfully?
|
| The problem is that we _did_ make rich people the global
| arbiter of what people value, by giving them more units
| which can be used to value things.
|
| This is a fundamentally undemocratic system. Ten
| billionaires have way more ability to decide on something's
| value than ten people making minimum wage.
|
| (This is also the fallacy in "If you don't like it, why not
| short it and make money instead of complaining?" I don't
| like it, _and_ I know my short positions aren 't going to
| influence the market as much as some rich guy's much larger
| long positions.)
| elefanten wrote:
| This is a nonsensical take on how value is determined.
| It's not analogous to voting (or making political
| decisions in general) -- it's incoherent to call it
| "undemocratic".
|
| The overwhelming majority of valuation / price discovery
| does not take place in a coordinated or intentional
| manner. People buy what they want or need and in
| aggregate this determines price. Billionaires in
| aggregate are a minor portion of transactions that take
| place -- they can participate in larger transactions than
| most people but can't just will any market configuration
| into existence. They can create localized distortions,
| but if they're doing something unsustainable then they
| won't stay billionaires long and it will end up a blip.
|
| However, I suspect your position may be a cryptic way of
| saying "There are some human activities / endeavors that
| I don't like and it's easy to blame the rich people
| invested in that / making their money off that." This
| would not support your point. It takes more than just
| some rich people to create and sustain an industry.
| geofft wrote:
| > _They can create localized distortions, but if they 're
| doing something unsustainable then they won't stay
| billionaires long and it will end up a blip._
|
| My point is precisely that this assumption is not true.
|
| A more precise way to say that you're "doing something
| unsustainable" is that you're persistently overvaluing
| something. But how is it determined that you're
| overvaluing something? The rest of the market assigns it
| a lower value than what you assign.
|
| If you and your billionaire buddies just decide to value
| something highly, then _simply because you have money
| already_ , you can do that, and you can influence enough
| of the market to make sure that you're not overvaluing it
| relative to the market, and thus, it is sustainable.
|
| The more money you have, the more leverage you have to
| pull off this trick. Sometimes it works, sometimes it
| doesn't, but the average person on a minimum-wage
| strategy cannot even attempt it.
|
| People don't solely buy what they want or need. They also
| buy, in very large quantities, things that they expect to
| be able to resell later. Sometimes this happens at small
| scale (think toilet paper or gasoline, or even think
| houses); sometimes this happens at large scale (think
| commodities markets or mergers and acquisitions). These
| sorts of secondary markets have a huge influence on price
| discovery.
| exo762 wrote:
| > This is a fundamentally undemocratic system.
|
| All modern democracies are representative. People
| themselves don't decide about things, their
| representatives do. This is the price we are willing to
| pay to get effective governance.
| ineedasername wrote:
| The problem is the representative frequently don't
| represent the interests of their people, they represent
| the interests of whoever will donate more money to let
| them keep winning elections.
| geofft wrote:
| Sure, but not all representative systems are democracies.
| A king may represent his subjects (in foreign policy and
| war, for instance, and even sometimes in rituals) and
| generally has way more leverage to be effective at
| however he chooses to govern than a president or prime
| minister does, but it's not a democracy.
|
| One of the usual goals of a democracy is equal
| representation ("one person, one vote"). You can transfer
| your representation to someone else - either directly, in
| the sense of proxy voting, or indirectly, in the sense of
| voting for a representative - but you don't give it up
| permanently. When elections next happen (and if elections
| don't regularly happen, it's not a democracy), you get
| your vote back and can freely choose what to do with it,
| again. If your representative isn't doing what you want,
| you can choose another one.
|
| That's not true of the system of money. Even if it were
| theoretically been true at some point, once you transfer
| money to someone else, the associated power of that money
| _stays with them_ or whoever they choose to transfer it
| to. If you bought Windows 95 for $209.95 a quarter
| century ago, that fraction of your ability to "vote" on
| how society values things left you a quarter century ago,
| after spending it exactly once on valuing Windows 95, and
| it probably never returned to you (unless you became a
| Microsoft employee or supplier).
|
| So, someone who makes something that is (rightly or
| wrongly) highly valued thereby accumulates the ability to
| value things in the future, and have disproportionate
| influence on what is then going to be highly valued. This
| process repeats continuously and has repeated for
| centuries.
| lupire wrote:
| Democracy does not mean "one person, one vote" -- that's
| tyranny of the majority, and gameable in an open system
| with procreation, immigration/emigration, and even
| murder. Democracy means "rule by the people" which is far
| more nuanced.
|
| More simply, the US Constitution was not approved by "one
| person, one vote", not even with a dozen caveats and
| asterisks.
| geofft wrote:
| Sure. I'm not saying that a democracy always means one
| person, one vote. I'm saying it requires an ideal of
| trying to be meaningfully representative.
|
| One person, one vote is certainly gameable. One dollar,
| one vote is even more so.
| kubb wrote:
| Right, otherwise people couldn't speculate on crypto
| prices, the horror.
| rafael09ed wrote:
| Might as well make it so people can't speculate on stocks
| or commodities.
| minikites wrote:
| Pork bellies have inherent value, cryptocurrency has no
| inherent value.
| LadyCailin wrote:
| Neither does cash, then?
| minikites wrote:
| What percentage of merchants accept cryptocurrency and
| what percentage of merchants accept cash? "Fiat currency"
| may not have inherent value in the same way as gold or
| pork bellies, but stable currencies (e.g. Euro, US
| dollar) are backed by governments which have incentives
| to be good stewards of their responsibility and if those
| currencies collapsed, I don't think the world would be in
| a state where cryptocurrency would retain any value.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| Gold, and Silver, can be made into jewelry.
| lupire wrote:
| So can bitcoins.
| abaga129 wrote:
| Do you have any numbers on how much fan capacity actually goes
| toward crypto mining? I would think its relatively small in the
| grand scheme of things.
| ineedasername wrote:
| I don't think crypto hardware represent a significant potion if
| the hardware market. Consumer electronics alone constitute
| about $3 Trillion.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| I think the biggest pitfall in your plan is thinking that
| prices would respond by falling, let alone by 95%.
|
| There's a long history of countries imposing capital controls.
| And it's rarely favorable to the home country's exchange rate.
| What you are proposing is basically just capital controls
| towards the crypto economy.
|
| Yes it will make it harder for new buyers to bid up the price
| of Bitcoin. But it almost certainly will induce current holders
| to hoard any Bitcoin they own, thus reducing supply and putting
| upward pressure on the price. Without a liquid market, miners
| are likely to hoard their rewards, creating even more Bitcoin
| scarcity.
|
| It also may create panic buying before the law comes in effect,
| or by people in foreign jurisdiction fearing the export of the
| policy.
| randerson wrote:
| Maybe a better strategy is to discourage crypto through
| fiscal policy: Imagine 90% capital gains tax on crypto
| profits, no credits for capital losses on crypto, 10% crypto
| wealth tax. Put those taxes to use fighting climate change.
| livre wrote:
| Argentina has implemented many of these "solutions" trying
| to keep the dollar under control. The result is prices keep
| going up, local currency keeps going down and there's an
| entire parallel market to avoid the taxes. I expect the
| same to happen to Bitcoin if that is implemented.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| At 90% taxation why wouldn't wealthy crypto holders just
| leave the tax jurisdiction?
|
| Like, it's not a bunch of gold bricks or a briefcase full
| of paper money...It's not controlled by a bank who can deny
| your transfer. Anyone can take all of their crypto anywhere
| on Earth, and can do so instantaneously and virtually
| anywhere with an Internet connection.
| shard wrote:
| If it was the US tax jurisdiction that someone is trying
| to leave, then that person would need to give up their US
| citizenship, not create any suspicion that they are
| leaving due to tax reasons, and also pay taxes as if they
| have sold off everything they own.
| asdff wrote:
| It can also just as likely create panic selling as
| speculators look to shed an asset that's dead in the water.
| Remember when Robinhood banned GME shares from being
| purchased, and the share price cratered as speculators tried
| to rinse their hands of the asset?
| tsss wrote:
| There is no crypto economy. It is just one giant pyramid
| scheme.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| What's a pyramid scheme?
|
| How do you define one? What attributes does a pyramid
| scheme have?
|
| One could easily ask what's a currency that's backed by
| nothing, is inflated to oblivion continuously robbing
| marginalized peoples' life savings, is often used for
| illegal drug/weapons/sex-trafficking/and worse crimes, is
| involved in a good percentage of the world's pollution, and
| that may soon be worth very little?
| [deleted]
| logicchains wrote:
| And watch decentralised exchanges that are even less efficient
| replace them. There's as much chance of successfully banning
| crypto as there is of successfully banning drugs (in a big part
| because of how useful crypto is for online drug transactions).
| ineedasername wrote:
| The US could simply ban US banks and financial institutions
| from doing business with crypto, and from doing business with
| any foreign entity that does business with crypto. That would
| make it mostly unusable except as just another aspect of the
| criminal underworld shadow banking systems. That's based on
| the _current_ state of crypto though. If it becomes a common
| medium of exchange with many people having some or all if
| their transactions denominated in crypto, that option kind of
| goes off the table.
| bpye wrote:
| Essentially an embargo against crypto? Similarly to how the
| US treats a company that deals with Iran?
| ineedasername wrote:
| That's precisely what I'm thinking. Of course Iran, as a
| country with an economy of its own, can still function
| internally, and there's a black market, but there are
| also risks to that. Crypto certainly couldn't hit
| mainstream transactional usage under those conditions,
| and there would be safer places to keep your money
| legally & avoid the risk of having your assets frozen.
|
| The window is closing rapidly on this option though. The
| more it becomes just another financial asset class with
| trillions in market cap, the harder that option becomes.
| However, if a country like the US ever decides it's a
| real threat to it's sovereign monetary policy, it could
| take that option anyway and simply bail out those
| impacted financially.
|
| I think the most likely scenario is simply that it
| becomes regulated like any other part of the financial
| system. Heck thinks like CTR's SAR requirements. It will
| be difficult to ever get Bitcoin or others to their dream
| of decentralized currency unbound by governments when
| governments can make regulations controlling it's usage.
| The average business owner isn't going to risk their
| business and jail time trying to work outside those
| regulations.
| kubb wrote:
| Regulation will never work, never. It's not like trading
| human organs is outlawed or anything.
| ineedasername wrote:
| If crypto only ever rises to the level of the human organ
| trade, it will have failed to deliver on pretty much all of
| its promises.
| logicchains wrote:
| If you think the human organ trade doesn't exist, some
| Uighurs would like a word with you. https://en.wikipedia.or
| g/wiki/Organ_trade#Illegal_organ_trad...
|
| "Despite ordinances against organ sales, this practice
| persists, with studies estimating that anywhere from 5% to
| 42% of transplanted organs are illicitly purchased."
| kubb wrote:
| If you think outlawing that market doesn't drastically
| reduce its scale, your reality is so different than mine
| that there's nothing more to be said.
| [deleted]
| nlitened wrote:
| Alternatively, by following the same logic we could:
|
| 1) ban computer games to free up people's time, and grow the
| economy,
|
| 2) ban ML research to improve overall privacy.
|
| All these will also affect GPU prices favorably.
| teitoklien wrote:
| Let's ban computers itself
|
| No computers No chip shortage
|
| Fixed :D
| madengr wrote:
| It worked in Dune, so might a well.
| speedgoose wrote:
| Your two suggestions have more positive effects on the
| society than cryptomoneys.
| geofft wrote:
| The real answer, I think, is not to ban the nebulous idea of
| "cryptocurrency" but to ban (or highly tax) proof-of-work coins
| or similar schemes where the network requires a large amount of
| some physical resource to maintain its function.
|
| That will spur innovation on approaches that don't have that
| requirement.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| There's already rapid innovation in this direction without
| government innovation being necessary. Ethereum is switching
| to proof-of-stake by the end of the year, and partially
| because of that is already 50% of the way to passing Bitcoin
| by market cap.
| lupire wrote:
| Just tax electricity and tariff countries who don't.
| inshadows wrote:
| Why not ban military exercises and automobiles instead?
| vmception wrote:
| Imagine thinking that's a large part of the chip market
|
| Its a _squeeze_ , no different than what happens to rental
| prices when there is 1% vacancy rates versus .5% vacancy rates
| throwkeep wrote:
| It's wild how many people on a tech forum don't understand the
| next major innovation of the Internet. Crypto is up there with
| Netscape and smartphones.
| Chyzwar wrote:
| People said similar things with: AI, torrents, VR/AR, quantum
| computers, memristors, drones, chatbots, distributed social
| media, Internet of things, self-driving cars, robots, dapps.
|
| Some of these technologies managed to produced something
| useful. On the other hand, I cannot use crypto to anything
| but speculation.
| [deleted]
| lexicality wrote:
| I'm really hoping this forces some "stagnation" (for lack of a
| better word) in the chip market. If you look at what happened on
| consoles like the PS4 where it was years and years before any
| hint of new hardware coming, developers had to get really
| intimate with the available capabilities and tease out
| performance no one thought was there.
|
| Imagine getting software updates that make your old phone faster
| rather than slower?
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| Isn't it _processors_ that are the main focus of the chip
| shortage? Surely this means moving away from software, not
| towards it?
| HPsquared wrote:
| Most innovation which happens due to a chip shortage is going to
| be along the wrong path once the shortage is alleviated.
| Historians will look back on the bizarre, malnourished designs of
| the "chip shortage era".
| amelius wrote:
| The biggest innovations will come when small companies (somehow)
| get access to IC fabs.
| nomoreusernames wrote:
| I've been thinking about it. I think it could also lead to an era
| of developers learning the lesson of constraint and writing
| effective code once again :) they call me a dreamer...
| tannhaeuser wrote:
| Here's hoping that it could at least rid us of the inefficiency
| that is web apps, seeing as we've seen unprecedented growth in
| CPU power over the last decades, yet are still very much doing
| the same stuff, if on other people's computers.
| vkk8 wrote:
| I'm surprised that this doesn't get brought up more often.
|
| Somehow I have to upgrade all my hardware every few years,
| which of course increases the demand for chips, even though the
| software I use doesn't have much extra functionality over the
| software I used ten years ago. Nicer UI, yes, and I would argue
| that modern software is often more reliable than software ten
| years ago, but these things shouldn't require faster hardware.
|
| This might be against the ethos here on HN, but I'm still of
| the opinion that 95% of the webpages would be much better if
| they were written in plain HTML.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| Replacing hardware components by software is not a new trend, it
| was already a common process when I was hired to work as a real-
| time/embedded software engineer in the automotive industry more
| than twenty years ago...
| cyberpsybin wrote:
| Time to ban crypto. It's just another component of the extinction
| speedrun.
| sschueller wrote:
| Banning the unbanable. How did that work out for the US War on
| drugs?
|
| Crypto is here to stay, stop fighting it. Instead try to fix
| its issues.
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| Crypto's primary use is as a speculative asset, and for tax
| evasion/capital control evading/money laundering.
|
| Drugs are a consumable, crypto is an item of exchange. If you
| cannot exchange them, then they have no value.
|
| About 60%+ of market activity is in the USA:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/1195753/bitcoin-
| trading-...
|
| The USA could ban online exchanges in the same way it has
| banned online gambling.
|
| Sure, trading could still occur via foreign exchanges, but
| the pool of people willing to put money into the network
| would shrink dramatically and the price - since the whole
| thing is a ponzi scheme - would also fall dramatically.
|
| If the price of Bitcoin or Ethereum was 5% of its current
| value, the levels of electricity and advanced manufactured
| goods dedicated to mining them would also fall to the same
| extent.
|
| Turkey (an economic minnow) banning exchanges, and a few
| tweets from Elon Musk have been enough to send prices
| tumbling 10-20%. Can you imagine if the USA banned the
| exchanges?
|
| Its also likely that allied nations eg. European countries,
| Australia, Korea, Japan, India would follow a USA ban with
| their own.
| logicchains wrote:
| >About 60%+ of market activity is in the USA:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/1195753/bitcoin-
| trading-...
|
| I don't know where that report got its numbers from but
| they're bullshit; the majority of trading takes place in
| unregulated exchanges (that explicitly ban US customers)
| like Binance and Huobi:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/864738/leading-
| cryptocur.... In large part because the US exchanges charge
| outrageous fees. The US exchanges are popular with large
| corporates because there's less counterparty risk, but the
| majority of retail volume is traded outside the US, on
| exchanges not hosted by US allies.
|
| Plus, China is actively subsidising miners, and is
| deliberately supporting the crypto ecosystem due to its
| potential to further destabilise the US dollar's role as
| global reserve currency.
| duck2 wrote:
| Exchanges are perfectly usable from Turkey.
|
| What is banned is 1) paying for stuff with cryptocurrency
| and 2) sending money to exchanges via "digital wallets",
| you have to use bank transactions.
|
| Looks like they are paving the ground to trace and tax
| crypto investments.
|
| So yeah, this supports your point anyway.
| [deleted]
| macspoofing wrote:
| ... or higher prices for devices making use of said chips.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| It would be great to think that this would result in more
| recycling and use of old components, but I doubt it.
|
| I'm fairly sure there's enough old unused raspberry pies in
| peoples drawers that could be reutilised.
| totalZero wrote:
| The problem with cannibalizing existing parts is the following
| scenario:
|
| Chip X exists in Product A, which costs $10. Without Chip X,
| Product B cannot be sold. Chip X is suffering from a shortage.
| The gross margin on Product B is $1000. As a consequence, the
| manufacturer of Product B buys a ton of Product A on Alibaba in
| order to cannibalize it and harvest Chip X. Now the gross
| margin on Product B is $990 (not so bad), but Product A is
| nowhere to be found.
|
| In other words, the shortage moves to the cheapest available
| finished product that has Chip X in it, until marginal profit
| reaches 0.
|
| The consequence is obvious. Product C, which cannot be
| manufactured without Product A, eventually becomes unavailable.
| And so forth.
|
| This is particularly gruesome in the semiconductor sector
| because supply chains for finished goods are so long.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| Good point, but I was referring to recycling discarded/end of
| life products rather than cannibalising/harvesting from
| unused hardware.
|
| Obviously this would only be viable in low end devices (tooth
| brushes rather than graphics cards). But there is already an
| industry based around desoldering old parts and selling them
| as 'fake' new ones - if this was done in scale with the parts
| tested and a company could order 20K there would be a market.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| You cannot stick used chips in a new product, no?
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| Why not - as long as the chips are tested and product works
| and is guaranteed - this would actually be a selling point
| to many people.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| Isn't it like selling a "new" car with used parts?
| rasz wrote:
| You just described current Macbook charging chip situation.
| The only place to find Intersil isl9240 proprietary charging
| chip, the one Apple forbade Intersil/Renesas to sell to
| anybody but them, is in smart battery case for the iPhone XR
| (A2121). https://twitter.com/hashtag/isl9240
|
| Every time you need a $3 charger chip (real price of isl9241,
| one at the end instead of zero) to fix a $3000 computer you
| have to buy a $130 apple gadget, desolder it, and throw that
| $130 apple garget including battery into garbage bin.
|
| $3000 laptop turned to paperweight due to ISL9240
| unavailability. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ2jyo7pAmE
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| Entirely different topic, but thinking about how many people
| got all hyped about the first pi and then realized it was just
| a very slow PC and not something full of magic is depressing.
|
| There must be a huge amount of pis that ended up in some drawer
| after a few weeks, and because it's cheap it was never worth it
| to sell it. And if you wanted one it was so cheap that it was
| more convenient to order a new one than to deal with private
| sellers on Craigslist just to save five bucks.
|
| It would be great if we could repurpose all of them in some
| halfway meaningful way, but at lest for commercial products
| it's just not feasible.
| NewAccount77 wrote:
| Can we get back to reliable, analog devices that aren't smart and
| don't spy on you instead?
| pjerem wrote:
| There is a tiny but interesting community around the concept of
| low-tech that is about that, and more : objects you understand
| (since you build them) and can repair yourself.
|
| About the industrial production of such analog objects, I have
| the intuition (maybe I'm wrong) that we lost the knowledge of
| how to build complex mechanical objects at scale. Those objects
| used to require a huge design work where now, all you have to
| do is a plastic case enclosing a chip and some software
| developers to bring it to life.
| bserge wrote:
| Objects such as?
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| You know, that's a good question.
|
| Maybe sewing machines? Typewriters? Linotype machines?
|
| I admit that it's all a mixed bag. Common use of
| microcontrollers allows more cleverly designed electric
| hand drills at lower cost, but they are mechanically more
| poorly made than in days of yore.
|
| Cars strike me as having the same problem, partly in the
| ability to design with computers, not just having a
| computer in the loop. Major components (transmissions, rear
| ends, etc.) used to be built in a much more beefy way
| partly because they were just guessing.
|
| Luckily we are all free agents. We can buy old or we can
| buy new.
| NewAccount78 wrote:
| Try talking against big tech openly on HN and see what
| happens to your account.
| asdff wrote:
| In my experience talking against big tech openly gets
| upvoted to the tops of the comment threads
| bserge wrote:
| Any examples? I can't really think of anything analog that's
| more reliable (or even as reliable) as digital...
| hansel_der wrote:
| maybe because you cant remember anything analog at all?
|
| from top of my head some superior analog devices:
|
| * kitchen/body scale * oven * radio * light switch *
| thermostat
|
| granted, it's mostly not per se because they are digital but
| that their UI is now a touchscreen with input lag and without
| any tactile response.
| bserge wrote:
| Yeah, by digital I mean anything using electronics instead
| of mechanical tech.
|
| And I really can't remember any even though I grew up with
| them, weird huh.
|
| Digital scales are smaller, lighter, more reliable. Radios
| and thermostats, too (those bimetal plates analog ones use
| are pretty bad).
|
| Touch screens... I hate them but they're reliable, moreso
| than hardware buttons if not stressed beyond specs.
|
| I've never used digital light switches, analog are great.
|
| Ovens, yeah, I have a really old one that just won't die,
| I've worked on hundreds of them and it's always some
| electronics fault (high heat and poor cooling will kill a
| lot of components).
|
| Good examples, thanks.
|
| I will never miss carburetors and non-hydraulic clutches
| and brakes ( _shudder_ ) though :D
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| Pre ECU cars are famous for their reliability, for example.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| This. <rolls eyes> Anyone remember carb cleaner or
| adjustments?
| [deleted]
| rasz wrote:
| and fantastic fuel economy, not to mention eco
| friendliness.
| Heliosmaster wrote:
| I wish, but the economic incentives move towards more spying
| and less control from the user :(
| williesleg wrote:
| Just eat your soy and bugs.
| blumomo wrote:
| Shortage is a driver to creativity. This is what made Picasso
| become famous and outstanding on his way: Picasso intentionally
| constrained himself to only use lines, very simple shapes and
| single colored areas as his toolbox. Although he could paint
| photorealistic portraits when he was a teen, he intentionally
| constrained himself to unleash creativity. It's the limited
| amount of tools that we have, also when programming (a few
| constructs like if/then, loops, boolean, integers, etc.) which
| make us think "how to express this certain idea best?". If you
| have boundless resources, there's no importance to be creative.
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