Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

davidoks.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 682 posts

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#151

Post by simoncion »

aboardRat4 wrote: post #29
taneq wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it improve, in practice? For myself, I need my phone to make phone calls, take photos/videos, occasionally run apps, and to be a wifi hotspot. My iPhone 6S did all of these well enough that I only upgraded it recently because I dropped it and bent the power button. My new phone has a slightly nicer camera and better battery life, that’s about it.

I actually also do not find new phones that much of an improvement, but just to be a devil' advocate: 1. High-resolution screen, finally approaching paper (600dpi) 2. High-refresh rate screen, up to 240 fps. Once you see 60 fps, you are already hooked, and 240 is just mind-blowing. 3. High-resolution camera, 50 Mpx means that the camera actually starts to match paper (600dpi) 4. Slo-mo camera (240 fps) to match the s…

> Once you see 60 fps, you are already hooked, and 240 is just mind-blowing.

I'm a sample size of one, but I'd rather have 20% better battery life (this would extend the life of a three year battery to roughly four years) than eye candy. Extremely aggressively glued-in batteries turning into hazardous gas packages are the only reason I replace portable computers these days.

And -given the history of such things- lack of care in system design means at year two or three, you'd find that your phone very, very inconsistently delivers 240fps. I think it's pretty widely known that once you get to somewhere around 15 or 30 FPS sudden variation in frame rate is far, far more noticeable and unpleasant than rock-solid "low" frame rate. [0]

[0] That is, a 240 FPS system that janks down to 30 FPS every few seconds is gonna be considered much less pleasant to use than one that always runs at 30 FPS.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#152

Post by theshackleford »

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #137
rationalist wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's a possibility, do you believe it is likely enough in the very near future to the point where you are betting on it? Perhaps shorting TSMC? If I did so when I first thought about it, I would be broke by now.

The point to short will be when the Chinese army forms up. With Ukraine we saw it. It was incredibly obvious. Hilariously the Ukrainians themselves saw the huge army on their border and told everyone it wasn’t going to happen and refused to build any defences. Taiwan will be the same. But the satellites will give everyone enough warning.

[dead]

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#154

Post by WalterBright »

richforrester wrote: post #20
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #15

What was most surprising about all this to me was this line: > So modern DRAM manufacturing is an extraordinarily complex and expensive process. Building a single state-of-the-art DRAM fabrication facility, a “fab,” will cost you about $15 to $20 billion; acquiring all the necessary equipment, like lithography tools and etching machines, will cost you another few billion; and then it’ll take you a few years of produc…

Literally the most overwhelming thought, reading this, is "man, capitalism is a mistake" The amounts of money circulating whilst some of us struggle to make rent ... Nothing fair, or just, about this world we live in

> Nothing fair, or just, about this world we live in

We all make different choices, and so have different consequences.

For example, I squandered the proceeds of a business deal on a new car. If I'd bought MSFT instead, I could have bought 100 new cars.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#155

Post by Ray20 »

fakedang wrote: post #122
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #46

It's impressive that somehow, as if by coincidence, we're seeing the biggest inflationary drivers for decades, perhaps for centuries, all happening simultaneously. The Iran war is spiking the price of oil and will likely cause shortages of pretty much everything if it isn't ended. The Ukraine war is helping with that by destroying Russian refining capacity. The memory shortage is set to do the same to consumer electr…

> And farms are failing. Climate change will accelerate that, so there will be food shortages within a few years. This is the key one to watch out for. Prior food-based conflicts have sparked revolutions and civil wars. People can tolerate not having electricity, people can tolerate not having internet, people can tolerate not having gas. But a lack of food, due to a wheat shortage which in turn was sparked by Siberi…

> Climate change will accelerate that

The climate is changing in a positive direction for farming. Farming is easier now than ever before. There's literally no chance of food shortages. Unless, of course, there's another attempt at building socialism.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#156

Post by Gareth321 »

autoexec wrote: post #82
bdangubic wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they are not failing, our Socialist President provides billions in handouts for Farmers so they gonna be just fine

We're losing a lot of workers. Some might consider that a good thing if they hate the idea of a large exploited underclass (or just people of a certain skin color), but it could be a problem for farms if there aren't enough hands to harvest in time.

Let us hope this results in farms offering Americans better wages for working on farms. Only 1% of the retail cost of produce is due to labour. Farms could double wages to workers and it would barely move the needle on inflation.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#159

Post by chbbbbbbbbj »

xbmcuser wrote: post #74
hcurtiss wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think Chinese businesses aren’t in it for the profits?

While these private companies exist and are in it for the profits, they don't control the government, meaning any potential price gouging is strictly regulated. The Chinese government actively prevents private companies from becoming too powerful or dominating an industry in the public eye. Instead, they foster competition by promoting and building up alternative companies. A great example of this is how they handled…

I wouldn't characterize it as forcing to "open up". It's true they put an end to some of the most egregious anti-competitive practices, but the Chinese tech ecosyatem, including payments, is still notoriously non-interoperable. For example, there's no way to transfer money between WeChat Pay and Alipay.

The relationship between Tencent/Bytedance/Alibaba is what happens when there are no monopoly laws or they are ineffective: every company fighting tooth and nail to corner every market with a single "super-app". No specialization at all and many races to the bottom, like the recent war between Alibaba, JD and Meituan over instant delivery that made every company involved lose a lot of money.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#160

Post by WalterBright »

autoexec wrote: post #120
ivewonyoung wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why aren't those people lining up to try and emigrate to non-capitalistic countries for a allegedly better life? Instead for the past century we have almost everyone in the world wanting or not minding moving to the hypercapitalist USA. Ironically almost all the countries with emigration controls and exit visas in the past century were noncapitalistic countries trying to stop their people from fleeing to capitalis…

I don't know what you would define as "non-capitalistic" or why you'd limit your options to only those countries, but the idea that people can just pack up and go to live wherever they feel like is incredibly naive. The reasons Americans don't just move to whatever country they think they'd enjoying living in the most are often the same reasons most people all over the world don't. They have a life here. Family, frie…

Some countries have walls to keep people in, some have walls to keep people out.

> the idea that people can just pack up and go to live wherever they feel like is incredibly naive.

That's how America was populated. In the last 5 years, millions of people walked from South America to the US. Walked!

The tax increases in New York, California and Washington have resulted in an exodus of wealthy people.

Post reply on HN