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The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

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Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#431

Post by Snoozle »

undeadcomment wrote: post #231
Snoozle wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give examples of model years and decisions to back up your claim? Last I checked this (common) misconception is patently false.

Curb weight of base Tacoma has increased almost 2000 pounds (2700lb to 4400lb) from 1990 to 2021. Length increased >3ft (174" to 212"). The 1990 Tacoma was shorter and lighter than a "modern" sedan. But you really should learn how to use the internet, it's rad.

Okay wise guy: A 1990 f150 crew cab is 74" high, 232.2" long, and 79" wide. A 2021 Tacoma crew cab is 212" long, 71" high, and 74" wide.

This proves false the the assertion that a modern Tacoma is bigger than an old F150, but glad I could get downvoted by people with no mental rigor.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#432

Post by charrondev »

dieortin wrote: post #156
katbyte wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn’t imagine not having smart lights, they are one of the few iot devices that make my life a lot more comfortable- def not a novelty

What do you use them for that is really helpful? I’m considering getting some Hue lightbulbs, but it seems like a bit of a waste.

I’ve got hués through the whole house. Primary use cases are:

- Being able to trigger dimming of the lights in the house as sunset approaches. - Being able close all the lights in the house in one go (such as when leaving). - dimming lights when I don’t have dimmers wired in. - being able to adjust colour temperature of the lights (and full colours, I tend to use a mix of oranges, pinks, and purples). - turning off lamps that are not otherwise on the same circuit as the ceiling when I flick a switch.

Things like dimming and controlling lights on the same circuit could be done with electrical work, but I’m renting. The bulbs come with me wherever I move. The electrical work doesn’t. I already was bringing my own lightbulbs wherever I moved anyways (to save electricity).

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#433

Post by imtringued »

syshum wrote: post #210
vxNsr wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since 14% of renters are behind on rent and evictions begin June 30, aren’t vehicle repossessions going to kick in July / August? > Presumably, due in part to eviction protection, they have been able to divert all or a portion of their rent payments to keeping up with bad car loans for commute vehicles that often will not be needed. There are gonna be far fewer evictions and/or mortgage defaults than people think,…

It is going to come sooner than that, people keep talking about inflation "coming soon" I think those people are blind because it is already here. Right now if we just get off with a little stagflation that would be a blessing, unfortunately I think it is going to far far worse. All those people depending on government checks are going to get hit hardest by the combination of inflation and the required austerity meas…

The economy is projected to grow quickly in 2021 though and even 2022 is projected to grow 3.5% which is still higher than trump's 2.5% average. The debt burden may shrink from sheer growth alone.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#434

Post by miked85 »

Snoozle wrote: post #203
NegativeLatency wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Toyota Tacoma is now the size of older F150s, there aren’t many or really any good options for buying a small truck currently.

Can you give examples of model years and decisions to back up your claim? Last I checked this (common) misconception is patently false.

What small trucks even exist anymore? There used to be lots of options, but I can't think of a single one in the last decade at least.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#435

Post by robomartin »

im_down_w_otp wrote: post #373
devit wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the real lesson of the whole thread is to require customers to pay in advance with a non-reversible wire transfer, or at least via an escrow service contingent on delivering the goods. Or alternatively, somehow buy insurance against the customer failing to pay.

There are an enormous number of marketplace norms which prevent being able to make demands on a customer like that. If you're the only vendor trying to protect your downside like that, then you look like a bad vendor, and it can affect your ability to close the deal at all . Especially in enterprise/B2B markets there's an amount of ceremony and playing of the game required, not because it's actually good for any of t…

> There are an enormous number of marketplace norms which prevent being able to make demands on a customer like that

There's also the reality that every business is on a 30, 60 or 90 day phase lag from delivery to getting paid, and so they have no choice but to enforce those rules up the supply chain. If you don't you need piles of cash upfront months before you generate any revenue, at scale that is really tough to manage and there's a very real cost to money.

The simplest example of this I can offer is that if you have to borrow ten million dollars to pay all your suppliers upfront and this money cost you 1% per month (making the numbers simple for the sake of an example), you are going to incur a 5% cost of money if you have to wait five months to get paid (again, keeping numbers simple).

I have a friend in the production business who made commercials for a major animation studio. He told me it typically took them about six months to collect. They would invest massive amounts of money on equipment and personnel to shoot, edit and deliver a commercial and their payment would not come for six months after delivering the end product. The entire cycle would easily have taken a year.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#436

Post by unclebucknasty »

Larrikin wrote: post #251
unclebucknasty wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but a savings account? Interest rates for savings are abysmal, and auto-loans are themselves frequently near (or at) zero these days, so it's losing advice as-given. Better advice: put the money in the market or other higher-yielding investment, then take a low or no interest loan on the vehicle when the time comes so those investments can continue to grow at the much higher clip. Money's just too cheap to give…

What percentage are you talking about as being abysmal. 0.1% offered at some shitty brick and mortar bank is terrible but nearly all the online first banks offer (or offered before covid) what I thought was a decent 1-3%

I'm not seeing anything like that. Here's the latest roundup of "the best rates" over at Bankrate [0], which includes some online-only banks. Highest I see there is 0.57%, with most at 0.4% and 0.5%.

You might be able to scrounge up a few basis points somewhere if you're really determined and/or willing to meet some requirements. Still, even with our low-inflation these days [1], you're actually losing money in these savings accounts.

Main point though is that it's more of a relative game vs your ROI elsewhere. Even indexes and ETFs that are reasonably "low-risk" are routinely returning much more these days, and of course over the long haul equity markets still beat this handily, even when smoothed for downturns.

[0] https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/rates/

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/244983/projected-inflati...

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#437

Post by sokoloff »

mbreese wrote: post #418
sokoloff wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many serious crashes or near-serious-crashes were you in in your prior cars without BSM? Assuming no other changes, that seems the most realistic measure of risk reduction.

You can’t measure the risk of a rare event like this. Accidents are (thankfully) rare events. There is too much variability with a single person. You can really only measure these risks across an entire fleet of cars. Rare events are Poisson distributed, which requires many observations to be significant. So your question should be, across all cars, how many accidents have there been with and without blind spot monit…

I agree. A scan of the research seems to suggest the risk reduction is bounded at around 40% on the high side of "potential risk avoided if all vehicles were equipped" with actual results of equipped cars coming in the range of 19-45% depending on the paper and type of accidents and aids focused upon.

Which is to say "quite meaningful", but when the absolute rate of serious crashes per driver is as low as it is, it's statistically impossible that driver aids are saving the typical individual driver from a serious crash multiple times in a driving lifetime, let alone multiple times since their introduction.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#438

Post by salawat »

rhodozelia wrote: post #173
parsimo2010 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But lifetime support doesn’t help if the parts for your machine aren’t available anymore. If your 20 year old machine breaks and there aren’t parts available to fix it, you might get offered an equivalent replacement. If your old chip masks are incompatible with the replacement machine, you’re not immediately able to make what you need. So for some companies, having lifetime support might not help with the manufactur…

The parts were made by humans once, they can be made by humans again. The only question is is it worth it

Underrated comment. Though the "worth it" bit is the trick.

In my estimation these older parts that "just werk" should be getting inherited and iterated on as a public good.

The idea that means of production should phase into public trust tends to get everyone in a tizzy though. I'd like to see a public "foundry of last resort" that focuses on being able to make anything.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#439

Post by hans-moleman »

amelius wrote: post #427
jfoutz wrote: post #120

I think a lot of folks underestimate how fabulously complicated it is to fab a chip. Yes, you can diy it in your garage, here's a wonderful implementation. http://sam.zeloof.xyz/first-ic/ But take a look at the specialized tools they used. Heck, think about proper handling of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrofluoric_acid and this is just a simple amp. imagine trying to make something with lots of gates? Making a si…

If making a chip is so hard, then why do the FAANG companies own this world, not e.g. TSMC or Samsung?

I think this year has proven that TSMC does have a very dominant position in the industry.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#440

Post by neltnerb »

TomVDB wrote: post #281
neltnerb wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that this is a potential big problem, but I had to stop reading when the dog washing company blamed needing to respin a new board on a chip being out of stock due to this. I'm sorry, but if you aren't buying enough chips to build all the boards you want to build of a revision, this is just what happens, chip shortage or no. Stuff gets obsoleted all the time, it doesn't take a chip shortage. Blaming a black swan…

> Stuff gets obsoleted all the time, it doesn't take a chip shortage. This is just not true. But when it happens, there is usually an announcement well ahead of time (e.g. 1 year), as well as a last time buy option. Historically, there has never been a need to buy the chips of all the boards of a revision. If you are in the position of being able to buy all the components of all the boards you'll ever make for a cert…

I meant the parts that are not common enough to have pin-compatible substitutes from multiple vendors. I have worked with people way above hobbyist level and it is those obnoxious non-standard parts that are the ones that suddenly go out of stock everywhere even if they aren't actually obsoleted. Sometimes they just haven't done a run manufacturing that part number in a while and the stock ran out.

I've seen this happen with everyone from ST to Microchip to Atmel (when it existed) to Qualcomm to Analog Devices (though interestingly never Texas Instruments so far); this is just something that happens...

Thank you for the clarification, my initial comment was flippant and needed like four paragraphs of caveats.

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