Is there any kind of organization where we can donate old and unused cpus? I have at least half a dozen chips in a drawer sitting and collecting dust. Some are even a decade old but I'm sure they're more than OK to run a toaster or a washing machine.
The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
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Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
#82Why is there a shortage rather than a price hike, similar to what would happen with fuel? Long term contracts?
There are sophisticated financial markets for trading fuel, but not for chips. In such a market, firms are incentivised to buy when they anticipate demand will rise (or supply will fall), which increases the price. Then after the price has risen (the demand has materialised), they sell. This distributes the consumption of the underlying resource more evenly across time, making shortages less likely.
Beause you have only several types of fuel, but you have many thousands types of chips and electronic elements and market for each single element type is not that high. Plus if you store a chip too long, it's no longer useful for automated assembly.
Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
#83Let's hope we start making chips domestically after this.
What country are you in? I know I can eliminate Taiwan and the United States from the list, as they both have semiconductor fabs!
Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well they decided not to have any modes that automatically dry after washing at all so I'm going with yes. And thanks, I'll just spend this months rent on a new washing machine.
Well if you want it to be scriptable, you might need to spend three month's rent on a new washing machine. And yeah, uhmm... most washing machines can run drying after washing. You just took your specific model's issue, and decided to generalize it to "must be scriptable". Which is really a giant leap to make. To recap: 1. Your specific model can't dry after washing. 2. Your specific model can't be scripted either. 3…
Why? If it didn't belong to my landlord I could've made it scriptable in a few hours with one of a litany of wifi-enabled chips I have on my desk.
I'm a professional programming language implementer why can't I use those skills to do as I please?
Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
#85So what happens when Moore's Other Law(tm), the one that says that the size/cost of the manufacturing facility doubles every few years, continues on? The endgame is single sourcing from one giant company and place (or nearly so) that no one else can compete with but is inherently brittle.
And when there are few suppliers, they have an incentive to dial back supply to manufacture demand. When the market is not in equilibrium, they are making the most profit.
https://open.lib.umn.edu/principleseconomics/chapter/10-2-th...
Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
#86Ban cryptocurrency exchanges and some of the wafer capacity currently being dedicated to mining will return to regular use (or we can just wait for the ETH2 merge, then ban the purchase of PoW cyrpto). Secondly get workers back to work by ending COVID-era unemployment payments and workplace restrictions.
My understanding is that most of the "shortage" is in older processes where capacity is shrinking as fabs offline older tooling. Customers with parts that are stored as masks (e.g. engine controllers from the 1990's) or whose design teams have lost the expertise to resynthesize the HDL (again: think auto manufacturers) have very few options when capacity in these older processes starts disappearing. Crypto hardware i…
I dont know much about this, but curious why you cant re-synthesize the HDL? Should the tools just be able to move it to the new process? ( Again my knowledge in this field is very limited so this may be a dumb question)
Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
#87Ban cryptocurrency exchanges and some of the wafer capacity currently being dedicated to mining will return to regular use (or we can just wait for the ETH2 merge, then ban the purchase of PoW cyrpto). Secondly get workers back to work by ending COVID-era unemployment payments and workplace restrictions.
I hate cryptocurrency, but trying to ban them is just dumb. It's not going to work. Ban where? How? What are the side-effects? What about people's liberty? Cryptocurrency is stupid and depletes natural resources, but trying to use the law to ban it is only going to make it stronger.
The US Government bans a lot of things which are deleterious to society. Online gambling among them.
The purpose is not to eliminate Cryptocurrencies, but to reduce the price of Bitcoin and other PoW coins such that mining (which is a misallocation of our civilization's energy and advanced manufactured goods) becomes significantly less rewarding.
Ethereum at least has a Governing body which is moving it to PoS. Bitcoin does not. Government regulation is the only answer.
Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
#88There's useful technology, like computer controlling your engine to make it more fuel-efficient or whatever. And then there're "smart appliances", like a fridge with a screen. Do we really need it? The companies try to sell us more useless stuff, that's what it is.
I think it's rather short-sighted to refer to one application of technology as useful and another as not needed. Is the computer controlling the engine to be more fuel-efficient needed? No. Is the car even needed? No. But we have found a use for that technology that improves our daily lives. Perhaps for you a fridge with a screen is not useful; however for others it may be.
> Is the computer controlling the engine to be more fuel-efficient needed? No. Is the car even needed? No.
We can continue ad absurdum, but it's clear that more screens is added to our lives to:
1. Consume more content
2. As a result, see more ads
3. Finally, buy more stuff
I'm not against technology, but electronics producers have been going out of their way to continue growth. That's fine, but I'd love to have a robot doing dishes and cooking for me. Instead, there's a fridge that "Cameras recognize the food in your fridge so you can search for recipes based on what you have." [0]. That's such a marginal benefit.
[0] https://www.samsung.com/us/connected-appliances/#get-app
Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most (all?) washing machines have a delayed start. Why would you want your clothes to sit wet, collecting mold, before the drying begins? See, part of being a good programmer is figuring out a solution using the tools you have. Which includes figuring out how existing machines address your issues without requesting they come with a fully programmable API and wi-fi, just so you can delay the drying cycle.
I get the best drying if the machine washes, drains for a bit, then starts drying after that. If I were to do this it would take 4 trips to the washing machine because they didn't think to make it tick over from even washing to drying.
Does it not have a spin cycle? After that runs on mine there's nothing left to drain.
Edit: oh no apparently it's a questionably maintained communal laundry room unit, I'm so sorry
Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I go to “shop all” in the refrigerators section of Home Depot’s site and look at the count next to the filter for “smart” features - Only 97 out of 798 refrigerators they sell have smart features.
That was, at one time, true for "smart TVs" as well.
Many people I know are asking for and seeking out smart tvs. It's not being pushed on them. I don't hear those people asking for smart fridges (but occasionally I hear them talk about integrated ice makers).