Author Topic: Out of stock. The world is ending?  (Read 20164 times)

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Offline phil from seattle

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #75 on: April 14, 2021, 04:38:59 pm »
As long as this thread continues to be mostly off track...

I don't care what flavor it is - extreme nationalism is a disease that can kill or seriously damage the host. Ask the Austrians how Anschluss worked out for them. And, am I the only one who sees irony in the word "unification"? (look up anschluss if you don't understand my point)

"Unification", as in the "United" States?  - it took a civil war to do that, if I remember my history correctly...

Homo Sapiens is a complex species!

No, the US Civil War was about one group exiting a union.  Or, wordsmithing it, Disunion.

We may be talking about a different civil war?   The outcome of the one I am referring to was that the secessionists were made to rejoin the Union, and in fact the result of that still stands today?

Quibbling over timing, I guess.  And, you might be mindful of the reprehensible reason they wanted to break from the Union.
 
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Offline profdc9

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #76 on: April 14, 2021, 10:34:31 pm »
One thing I do not understand is why manufacturers use so many specialized parts.  This was bound to happen sooner or later.   If so many of your parts come from single sources, and worse yet, are all manufactured by the same fab, avoiding this would be pure luck.

Marketing people at the big semiconductor firms always want to push the new hotness and are cagey about future availability.  Everyone is going to hurt now, because of the knock-on effect in so many industries for which supply and therefore sales will consequently fall.

When making small-scale projects, you almost have to use generic components, because a small business or hobbyist simply doesn't have the resources to stockpile or the clout to be prioritized over large purchasers.  GM will be bailed out by the government.  Who will help the small manufacturer?   

I personally have tried to avoid exotic parts for exactly this reason.  Why use a part that is expensive and has a single source, when lots of generic versions of parts are manufactured in China?  The big semi manufacturers don't want to be in a commodity business, and at the same time want the purchaser to assume the risk of part availability?   

For example, take the venerable STM32F103.  It is a good thing that Chinese companies are trying to produce copies.  You can always use the original STMicroelectronics one if you want.  Would I use a GD32F103 in a product?  Not if I had access to the original.  But having an alternative is better than nothing.    There are lots of 8051 processors.

For example, we have AMD and Intel.  Isn't it a good thing there are two companies you can get x64 processors from?  If AMD didn't exist, and something happened to Intel's fabs, no one would be able to buy PCs!  We would all have to move to ARM processors or something.   

We need innovation, but no one benefits when devices can't be made because of the fragility of the supply chain.  There ought to be some generic and standard components, and the big semi manufacturers should be on board with this, otherwise eventually they won't be able to sell their chips because products can't be reliably made.
 

Offline brucehoult

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #77 on: April 14, 2021, 11:10:19 pm »
[...] Why would you ever take a bus if you could fly?

If you are only going one stop?  :-)

The big problem with flying is the hassle at the airport.  Back in the bad old days, you could literally arrive at the airport 30 minutes before the flight and still make the plane.  Today they tell you to be there 2 hours in advance, in some cases...

This is not inherent in flying. It is a stupid over-reaction to a one-off event 20 years ago.

Here in New Zealand it's perfectly normal *today* to turn up at the airport even 20 minutes before a domestic jet flight and get on the plane no problem (if you don't have checked baggage, ~35 minutes if you do, as baggage drop-off ends 30 minutes before departure).

For turboprop flights there is no security at all so you can turn up even later.

If people stop flying and use trains instead then what terrorists there are will target trains instead. It's harder to run them into a building, but you can still kill a lot of people -- especially if the train is doing 300+ km/h. And then see how long before the train departure you have to turn up....
 

Online Ed.Kloonk

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #78 on: April 15, 2021, 01:18:36 am »
[...] Why would you ever take a bus if you could fly?

If you are only going one stop?  :-)

The big problem with flying is the hassle at the airport.  Back in the bad old days, you could literally arrive at the airport 30 minutes before the flight and still make the plane.  Today they tell you to be there 2 hours in advance, in some cases...

This is not inherent in flying. It is a stupid over-reaction to a one-off event 20 years ago.

Here in New Zealand it's perfectly normal *today* to turn up at the airport even 20 minutes before a domestic jet flight and get on the plane no problem (if you don't have checked baggage, ~35 minutes if you do, as baggage drop-off ends 30 minutes before departure).

For turboprop flights there is no security at all so you can turn up even later.

If people stop flying and use trains instead then what terrorists there are will target trains instead. It's harder to run them into a building, but you can still kill a lot of people -- especially if the train is doing 300+ km/h. And then see how long before the train departure you have to turn up....

This has already been dealt with in the States. Obama made a funny when talking up the rail system with the whole 'trains good, planes bad' rubbish. He joked that you don't have to take off your shoes when boarding a train. Wouldn't ya know it, shortly after that one of the cross-continental trains started checking shoes. Ooops.

But at the end of the day, as much as it seem we are to have our passenger jets stifled, no concrete info is available on whether the inevitable impact on package logistics is deliberate or considered a necessary casualty.

iratus parum formica
 

Offline schmitt trigger

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #79 on: April 15, 2021, 01:30:56 am »
After the 2017 Brussels station attack, I actually feared that train stations would become the next airports.
 

Online Ed.Kloonk

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #80 on: April 15, 2021, 01:33:39 am »
After the 2017 Brussels station attack, I actually feared that train stations would become the next airports.

London in the '80's?

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Offline YurkshireLad

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #81 on: April 15, 2021, 12:09:58 pm »
As long as this thread continues to be mostly off track...

I don't care what flavor it is - extreme nationalism is a disease that can kill or seriously damage the host. Ask the Austrians how Anschluss worked out for them. And, am I the only one who sees irony in the word "unification"? (look up anschluss if you don't understand my point)

"Unification", as in the "United" States?  - it took a civil war to do that, if I remember my history correctly...

Homo Sapiens is a complex species!

No, the US Civil War was about one group exiting a union.  Or, wordsmithing it, Disunion.

The US Civil War was also about slavery?
 

Offline JPortici

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #82 on: April 15, 2021, 03:53:42 pm »
This is what they want you to do - essentially, subscribe to your car.  They don't like "independent thinkers" that keep older cars running and are therefore not paying their "tax".

maybe i'm just misinterpreting but the way you put it you're making me sound like some kind of conspiracy theory nut
 

Offline SilverSolder

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #83 on: April 15, 2021, 11:12:59 pm »
This is what they want you to do - essentially, subscribe to your car.  They don't like "independent thinkers" that keep older cars running and are therefore not paying their "tax".

maybe i'm just misinterpreting but the way you put it you're making me sound like some kind of conspiracy theory nut

What I meant was that all of the things you listed all point in the same direction:  that it will cost more to own a car, and they will find a way to make older cars obsolete even if they are perfectly functional.
 

Offline ejeffrey

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #84 on: April 16, 2021, 03:17:03 am »
France is insane. Europe is insane.

A two hour flight is a 15 hour drive *if* there is a reasonably direct road route with good roads. Two days, for most people. That means a same-day return business trip becomes almost a whole work week.

My understanding is that it is not a ban on two hour flights.  It's a ban on flights that can be replaced by a two hour train, which amounts to a 40 minute flight.  Which means in reality the train is going to be faster given the airport overhead.   Nobody sensible would ever take such a flight on it's own, practically all it means is that if you fly into Paris on an international flight you won't be able to take a connecting flight to a small airport you will instead need to change to a train.
 

Offline brucehoult

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #85 on: April 16, 2021, 03:27:08 am »
France is insane. Europe is insane.

A two hour flight is a 15 hour drive *if* there is a reasonably direct road route with good roads. Two days, for most people. That means a same-day return business trip becomes almost a whole work week.

My understanding is that it is not a ban on two hour flights.  It's a ban on flights that can be replaced by a two hour train, which amounts to a 40 minute flight.  Which means in reality the train is going to be faster given the airport overhead.   Nobody sensible would ever take such a flight on it's own, practically all it means is that if you fly into Paris on an international flight you won't be able to take a connecting flight to a small airport you will instead need to change to a train.

Aha. Reporting on this seems to have been changing / improving during the time since we started discussing it.

"The bill, which was voted in the French Parliament on 10 April, will only apply to a handful of routes, such as those between Paris and Nantes, and Lyon and Bordeaux. Connecting flights are excluded."

And it's only where a train trip of up to 2h30m is actually available. So short flights will be ok if there isn't a train.
 

Offline Microdoser

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #86 on: April 16, 2021, 09:48:51 am »
Trump did the right thing, judging by that it touched your nerve.

That is some of the worst logic I have ever read.

"Because you are upset, their actions are correct"

By that logic, everyone you disagree with is automatically right, which is obviously rubbish.
 

Offline brucehoult

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #87 on: April 16, 2021, 10:03:48 am »
Trump did the right thing, judging by that it touched your nerve.

That is some of the worst logic I have ever read.

"Because you are upset, their actions are correct"

By that logic, everyone you disagree with is automatically right, which is obviously rubbish.

Certainly it's not iron-clad logic.

I do sometimes subscribe to "I don't agree with everything they say, but they annoy the right people". Your Nige, for example.
 

Online SiliconWizard

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #88 on: April 16, 2021, 03:30:36 pm »
France is insane. Europe is insane.

A two hour flight is a 15 hour drive *if* there is a reasonably direct road route with good roads. Two days, for most people. That means a same-day return business trip becomes almost a whole work week.

My understanding is that it is not a ban on two hour flights.  It's a ban on flights that can be replaced by a two hour train, which amounts to a 40 minute flight.  Which means in reality the train is going to be faster given the airport overhead.   Nobody sensible would ever take such a flight on it's own, practically all it means is that if you fly into Paris on an international flight you won't be able to take a connecting flight to a small airport you will instead need to change to a train.

Aha. Reporting on this seems to have been changing / improving during the time since we started discussing it.

"The bill, which was voted in the French Parliament on 10 April, will only apply to a handful of routes, such as those between Paris and Nantes, and Lyon and Bordeaux. Connecting flights are excluded."

And it's only where a train trip of up to 2h30m is actually available. So short flights will be ok if there isn't a train.

Yes. Not as bad as it looked. But still questionable. I have taken "short" flights for business reasons, and given that those short connections used to also have much shorter boarding times, for a typical 40 min flight - which would be a typical 400 km distance or so - you'd still save at least 1 hour compared to taking a train. If you're doing a same-day round-trip , which is also typical for this kind of use case, that's 2 hours or more in the day. Definitely something, and depending on the departure and arrival times, it may actually mean you have to stay overnight instead of getting back home the same day, even for "short" trips like this.

Those short connections were already progressively done with turboprop planes instead of jet planes, which are more efficient fuel-wise for short distances.
I'm all for giving incentives to favor trains, but *banning* short flights -  nope.
 

Offline JPortici

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #89 on: April 16, 2021, 03:55:05 pm »
This is what they want you to do - essentially, subscribe to your car.  They don't like "independent thinkers" that keep older cars running and are therefore not paying their "tax".

maybe i'm just misinterpreting but the way you put it you're making me sound like some kind of conspiracy theory nut

What I meant was that all of the things you listed all point in the same direction:  that it will cost more to own a car, and they will find a way to make older cars obsolete even if they are perfectly functional.

me misinterpreting then, sorry man :)
 
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Offline SilverSolder

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #90 on: April 16, 2021, 03:57:38 pm »
[...]

I do sometimes subscribe to "I don't agree with everything they say, but they annoy the right people". Your Nige, for example.

Some people are better suited to being protesters/naysayers (we need those!) than actually having their views implemented as official policy...  Nigel is a perfect example of that!
 

Offline Bud

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #91 on: April 16, 2021, 04:35:27 pm »
Trump did the right thing, judging by that it touched your nerve.

That is some of the worst logic I have ever read.

"Because you are upset, their actions are correct"

By that logic, everyone you disagree with is automatically right, which is obviously rubbish.

You do not know the user blueskull's poisture on the forum very well, do you.
Facebook-free life and Rigol-free shack.
 

Offline Stuart Coyle

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #92 on: April 16, 2021, 08:38:37 pm »
Today silicon == toilet paper.
 

Offline Microdoser

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #93 on: April 16, 2021, 09:52:38 pm »
Trump did the right thing, judging by that it touched your nerve.

That is some of the worst logic I have ever read.

"Because you are upset, their actions are correct"

By that logic, everyone you disagree with is automatically right, which is obviously rubbish.

You do not know the user blueskull's poisture on the forum very well, do you.

I will totally admit that, and also that I did not read the post you were replying to. I will educate myself ;)

Edit: I see what you mean
« Last Edit: April 16, 2021, 09:56:37 pm by Microdoser »
 
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Offline Rick Law

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #94 on: April 20, 2021, 10:07:16 pm »
Huawei blames US for global chip supply crunch: https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Huawei-crackdown/Huawei-blames-US-for-global-chip-supply-crunch

Quote
he [Xu, chairman of Huawei] believes there will be companies willing to invest in chip manufacturing to satisfy the needs of Huawei and other Chinese companies while maintaining compliance with U.S. rules. 
"If it can be done ... and if our inventory level can help Huawei to last until that time, then this would be how we address the problems and the challenges we face," Xu said.


Basically, that would mean Western corporations losing the Chinese semiconductor market entirely...   followed by losing other markets when the new Chinese products are made available at a much lower cost, based on past history.

I guess there must be some intelligence behind Trump's decisions, but I am having a hard time spotting it...

re: "I guess there must be some intelligence behind Trump's decisions, but I am having a hard time spotting it..."

From listening to Trump on TV/streaming, I gather the reasons for his action(s) was two fold:
(a) National survival: keep a design and manufacturing infrastructure within USA for vital products.
(b) Financial: buy USA when possible.  In most cases, survival issues override financial.

There are products that affects the nation's survival - as in the case of face mask during the start of the recent virus attack.  Most countries were relying on importing face mask.  Those counries no longer have control of the survival of their county - the exporting county controlled it.

Plenty of wars/battles were started for the simple reason of a country-A need X, and country-B have control of X...  Wars over access to water and food started long before written history existed.  Vital products are just that: vital, survival depends on it.    If just one part of the chain of infrastructure doesn't exist in-country or in allied countries, one can no longer make or maintain that end product in-country.

In the case of Huawei, their product is largely communication related.  How would USA work if someone else has the ON/OFF switch to our entire communication network?  Do we feel comfortable having that ON/OFF switch in someone else hand?

What I infer from listening to Trump in this topic is: In Trumps judgement, he considered those vital and doesn't want someone else to hold that ON/OFF switch.  I am in agreement with him on that choice.
 

Offline SilverSolder

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #95 on: April 21, 2021, 12:04:27 am »
There is a very old and widely acknowledged economic theory,  called the theory of comparative advantage  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage

This explains why we are all better off by not trying to do everything ourselves (starting from you, personally, and moving on up to city, state, national, and international levels).

It is way too simplistic to try to go back to the pioneering days of making everything ourselves out of wood...   we need to make the best of our own resources, yes, but we also need to make the best of other countries' resources - that way we are all better off overall.  Basically, that means trading with them.

And this is what I think Trump failed to grasp, even if he made several points along the way that I could agree with.

 

Online Ed.Kloonk

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #96 on: April 21, 2021, 12:10:20 am »
The incessant Orange Man bashing is coming from legacy ink. They are so bored with nothing interesting to write about, yet the world has moved on.

 :horse:

 :=\
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Offline SilverSolder

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #97 on: April 21, 2021, 03:23:11 am »
[...] both the West and the East shall close doors to each other and apply iron curtains at the boarders. [...]

This would take us back to before 1817, when the law of comparative advantage was first understood.

The problem is, of course, that this is only understood by university graduates, not, the "common man" who then becomes an easy target for Trump.
 

Offline mikerj

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #98 on: April 21, 2021, 09:59:57 am »
I blame Trump for this. Before Trump's reign, there was a harmonious balance where China takes advantage of Western technology through Taiwan,

Why is China *still* so reliant on Western technology?  Isn't it well past time for you to break away from the "duplicate, don't innovate" mentality?
 

Offline Miti

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Re: Out of stock. The world is ending?
« Reply #99 on: April 21, 2021, 10:43:39 am »
Trump did the right thing, judging by that it touched your nerve.

That is some of the worst logic I have ever read.

"Because you are upset, their actions are correct"

By that logic, everyone you disagree with is automatically right, which is obviously rubbish.

You do not know the user blueskull's poisture on the forum very well, do you.

I find his posts pretty much bang on. Inconvenient, but bang on.
« Last Edit: April 21, 2021, 10:48:48 am by Miti »
Fear does not stop death, it stops life.
 
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