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The technology industry is rife with bottlenecks

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Re: The technology industry is rife with bottlenecks

#31

Post by the_reformation »

pjc50 wrote: post #13
6d6b73 wrote: post #7

The thing that truly worries me is that once these countries are no longer dependent on each other it will be easier for them to get into war with each other.

At one point people claimed "no two countries with a McDonalds had ever been at war with each other"; this was I believe ended by the NATO attacks on Serbia in support of Kosovan forces. It seems possible that the US will get itself into a conflict, possibly (hopefully!) non-total, that disrupts its globalised supply chains and results in massive US business losses. On the other hand, it's hard to see what any non-nu…

Were there no McDonald's in Iraq? Although that exception doesn't disprove the underlying point; Iraq is probably the most developed country America has been at war with since the Second World War.

Re: The technology industry is rife with bottlenecks

#32

Post by robocat »

madengr wrote: post #4

Sourcing high value MLCC capacitors is a real problem. I often design something into my board, only to find out it has gone out of stock. It’s like playing whack-a-mole.

Good high level history of MLCC (including graph from 2017 showing shortages): https://www.ttiinc.com/content/ttiinc/en/resources/marketeye...

Re: The technology industry is rife with bottlenecks

#34

Post by iguy »

GauntletWizard wrote: post #28
ben_w wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If that sounds difficult to believe consider that we have nukes in excess of 100 megatons No we don’t. The biggest ever was Tsar Bomba, which was 50 Megatons with the option to make it 100. The aircraft that dropped it barely got out of the way in time, and it was only on a plane at all because it was too big and heavy for a missile.

Your argument is what? The largest nuke ever tested was 50MT. It is entirely possible (abd probable) that development continued. Was there a physical limit about the tsar Bomba? I think the dial-a-yield testing at only half strength is a pretty solid indicator no. Do you think they stopped because dropping the Tsar Bomba at full yield was a suicide mission? Yes, yes it is possible that it would have been. That would…

I think you have a point about nuclear bombs keeping the peace.

Exactly what one-offs the russians once made, I don't know how well this is known. But we have a pretty accurate picture of the stockpile of bombs existing now. And the the age of maximally-huge bombs was a long time ago, to compensate for terrible missile accuracy.

Re: The technology industry is rife with bottlenecks

#35

Post by tomatotomato37 »

ben_w wrote: post #23
rjf72 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to see videos of the borders of the world over time. Contrary to intuition, the rate of shifts (often due to warfare) were accelerating over the centuries. Then, suddenly, since 1945 everything comes to a standstill among developed nations excepting the relatively peaceful internal collapse of some communist nations. 1945 of course being when we first detonated a nuclear weapon over another country,…

> If that sounds difficult to believe consider that we have nukes in excess of 100 megatons No we don’t. The biggest ever was Tsar Bomba, which was 50 Megatons with the option to make it 100. The aircraft that dropped it barely got out of the way in time, and it was only on a plane at all because it was too big and heavy for a missile.

Should also probably add that it was so physically massive the bomber's interior and Bombbay doors had to be stripped, it required a parachute that itself weighed around a ton, and yet proved to be tactically underwhelming for its cost because the fireball ended up blasting itself into the upper atmosphere before it had time to fully expand

Re: The technology industry is rife with bottlenecks

#36

Post by madengr »

robocat wrote: post #32
madengr wrote: post #4

Sourcing high value MLCC capacitors is a real problem. I often design something into my board, only to find out it has gone out of stock. It’s like playing whack-a-mole.

Good high level history of MLCC (including graph from 2017 showing shortages): https://www.ttiinc.com/content/ttiinc/en/resources/marketeye...

Looks like the high capacitance are the longest lead, which is what I have been finding. 10 uF and up in 0603 are hard to get.

Re: The technology industry is rife with bottlenecks

#37

Post by dankohn1 »

xxxpupugo wrote: post #29

> Without programs like the Linux operating system or Kubernetes, a tool to manage computing loads, Alibaba could not have become the world’s fastest-growing cloud-computing giant Kubernetes i could probably understand, but Linux under export control?

Some useful context: https://www.cncf.io/blog/2019/06/11/cncf-openness-guidelines...

Re: The technology industry is rife with bottlenecks

#38

Post by BurningFrog »

iguy wrote: post #24
BurningFrog wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I recall it, Barbara Tuchman argues/describes in the Excellent "The Guns of August" that once precautionary mobilization had been ordered in one country, due to the nature of the railway system driven technology behind the logistics of the day, war was pretty much inevitable. Nobody realized "the system" had this side effect before it was started, and once the button was pressed, it was pressed... As your quote sa…

But was this really in the nature of the technology, or was it a choice on the part of the German planners? Choosing to only have an invasion plan, and not bother scheduling out the 80%-option which leaves not quite as many troops but all on your side of the border, and so on down? That sounds like the generals wishing for war, to me, and limiting their masters' options. Not quite parallel, but IIRC it emerged afterw…

Well, the nature of the technology certainly added to it. Once the trains were running, troops were flooding to the borders, and if stopped, they couldn't (somehow...) be restarted easily, because all the plans were interlocked so precisely. Or something.

Or that's the picture Tuchman paints.

Not just on the German side, BTW, but everywhere.

Now, this is just a popular history book I recall from memory several decades ago, and the questions you ask sound very relevant!

Re: The technology industry is rife with bottlenecks

#39

Post by m0llusk »

rjf72 wrote: post #20
6d6b73 wrote: post #7

The thing that truly worries me is that once these countries are no longer dependent on each other it will be easier for them to get into war with each other.

It's interesting to see videos of the borders of the world over time. Contrary to intuition, the rate of shifts (often due to warfare) were accelerating over the centuries. Then, suddenly, since 1945 everything comes to a standstill among developed nations excepting the relatively peaceful internal collapse of some communist nations. 1945 of course being when we first detonated a nuclear weapon over another country,…

Sort of. The social context has changed completely, though. In WWI war was still considered a glorious adventure for which the elites were particularly suited. New technologies like the machine gun, tanks, and poison gas would make sure any conflict would be quickly resolved. Given the glorification of conflict and woefully inadequate knowledge of how much risks had increased going to war seemed to many Europeans at the time like the most obvious and glorious choice.

Then came the horror of it all and Europe's upper classes had their youngest and brightest massacred and values changed. Warriors were now ordinary suckers and the elites kept themselves above the churn. War became a business of calculated leverage. It on that massive change in context that we changed together to deciding that war is not always such a good idea.

Then on top of that conflicts like those Vietnam and Afghanistan merely emphasize the baseness and poor value return of armed conflict. What was a sure thing before WWI was a daring bet in the nuclear age an nukes were only one factor involved in that calculation.

Re: The technology industry is rife with bottlenecks

#40

Post by rjf72 »

ben_w wrote: post #23
rjf72 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to see videos of the borders of the world over time. Contrary to intuition, the rate of shifts (often due to warfare) were accelerating over the centuries. Then, suddenly, since 1945 everything comes to a standstill among developed nations excepting the relatively peaceful internal collapse of some communist nations. 1945 of course being when we first detonated a nuclear weapon over another country,…

> If that sounds difficult to believe consider that we have nukes in excess of 100 megatons No we don’t. The biggest ever was Tsar Bomba, which was 50 Megatons with the option to make it 100. The aircraft that dropped it barely got out of the way in time, and it was only on a plane at all because it was too big and heavy for a missile.

The Tsar Bomba is the most powerful weapon ever detonated, and that was in 1961. Interestingly even that weapon back then had a 100 megaton design. They decided to scale back the tested payload for a variety of reasons including enormous fallout and that testing such a massive weapon would be a suicide mission for the pilots dropping it.
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