what if ram buyout is part of a greater attack on personal computing
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what if ram buyout is part of a greater attack on personal computing
any other indicators?
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what if ram buyout is part of a greater attack on personal computing
any other indicators?
the pattern would be: make personal computing expensive, complicated, and unnecessary while making cloud dependence cheap, simple, and required. whether coordinated or emergent, the trajectory is similar - computing power migrating from personal ownership to rental access.
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the pattern would be: make personal computing expensive, complicated, and unnecessary while making cloud dependence cheap, simple, and required. whether coordinated or emergent, the trajectory is similar - computing power migrating from personal ownership to rental access.
possible indicators:
hardware consolidation:
* RAM concentrated in data centers, not consumer hands
* repair parts increasingly scarce or locked down (right-to-repair battles)
* custom silicon (M-series, Snapdragon X) that's harder to upgrade or swap
* soldered components becoming standard even in "pro" machines
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possible indicators:
hardware consolidation:
* RAM concentrated in data centers, not consumer hands
* repair parts increasingly scarce or locked down (right-to-repair battles)
* custom silicon (M-series, Snapdragon X) that's harder to upgrade or swap
* soldered components becoming standard even in "pro" machines
software centralization:
* operating systems pushing cloud dependencies (win 11's ms account requirements, ChromeOS model)
* Adobe, Microsoft, AutoCAD all shifted to subscription models requiring internet validation
* local AI models possible but corporations pushing API-dependent solutions
* progressive web apps replacing locally-run software
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software centralization:
* operating systems pushing cloud dependencies (win 11's ms account requirements, ChromeOS model)
* Adobe, Microsoft, AutoCAD all shifted to subscription models requiring internet validation
* local AI models possible but corporations pushing API-dependent solutions
* progressive web apps replacing locally-run software
knowledge degradation:
* fewer people learning to build PCs or understand their machines
* tech education shifting from "how computers work" to "how to use apps"
* repair culture dying as devices become unrepairable black boxes
* documentation and schematics increasingly proprietary
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knowledge degradation:
* fewer people learning to build PCs or understand their machines
* tech education shifting from "how computers work" to "how to use apps"
* repair culture dying as devices become unrepairable black boxes
* documentation and schematics increasingly proprietary
economic pressure:
* hobbyist computing priced out (current RAM situation)
* home servers becoming impractical vs cloud services
* development tools increasingly cloud-based (GitHub codespaces, cloud IDEs)
honestly, all fairly weak and circumnavigable indicators, but also possibly a death by a thousand cuts.
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economic pressure:
* hobbyist computing priced out (current RAM situation)
* home servers becoming impractical vs cloud services
* development tools increasingly cloud-based (GitHub codespaces, cloud IDEs)
honestly, all fairly weak and circumnavigable indicators, but also possibly a death by a thousand cuts.
on the other hand, videogames. a lot more going on for PC. valve's healing influence. is cloud gaming a serious force by now? doubtful.
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economic pressure:
* hobbyist computing priced out (current RAM situation)
* home servers becoming impractical vs cloud services
* development tools increasingly cloud-based (GitHub codespaces, cloud IDEs)
honestly, all fairly weak and circumnavigable indicators, but also possibly a death by a thousand cuts.
@lritter Solution: Go Vintage!
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what if ram buyout is part of a greater attack on personal computing
any other indicators?
@lritter Well, crap. This is something that I had not considered before. 😖
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on the other hand, videogames. a lot more going on for PC. valve's healing influence. is cloud gaming a serious force by now? doubtful.
possible deliberate future attack vectors:
SSD controller chips - a "sudden shortage" would be catastrophic. if NAND controllers became scarce or prohibitively expensive, it would force cloud storage dependence overnight. people couldn't even backup locally anymore.
PSUs - capacitor or transformer supply "disruption" would halt all PC building.
BIOS/UEFI firmware - a "security crisis" requiring signed firmware. approved vendors only or nothing boots
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possible deliberate future attack vectors:
SSD controller chips - a "sudden shortage" would be catastrophic. if NAND controllers became scarce or prohibitively expensive, it would force cloud storage dependence overnight. people couldn't even backup locally anymore.
PSUs - capacitor or transformer supply "disruption" would halt all PC building.
BIOS/UEFI firmware - a "security crisis" requiring signed firmware. approved vendors only or nothing boots
CPU microcode "security patches" - a discovered "fundamental flaw" requiring always-online validation to boot. turns every processor into a subscription service. precedent already exists with Intel Management Engine and AMD PSP.
ethernet/network chips - if networking hardware became scarce or required licensing/authentication.
discrete GPU extinction - already happening organically, but accelerated scarcity would eliminate any serious computing, gaming, or AI work on personal machines.
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CPU microcode "security patches" - a discovered "fundamental flaw" requiring always-online validation to boot. turns every processor into a subscription service. precedent already exists with Intel Management Engine and AMD PSP.
ethernet/network chips - if networking hardware became scarce or required licensing/authentication.
discrete GPU extinction - already happening organically, but accelerated scarcity would eliminate any serious computing, gaming, or AI work on personal machines.
the most elegant attack would combine legitimate security concerns with artificial scarcity.
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what if ram buyout is part of a greater attack on personal computing
any other indicators?
@lritter its the colonization of the computer indigenous world, local computer users and self-reparing and developing savages are basicly the indigenous population. and it is in full progress.
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the most elegant attack would combine legitimate security concerns with artificial scarcity.
i sure would hate it if open source were the eli sunday whose milkshake will be drunk
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what if ram buyout is part of a greater attack on personal computing
any other indicators?
@lritter i think this is ascribing malice to something which is almost entirely mechanically profit driven
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@lritter i think this is ascribing malice to something which is almost entirely mechanically profit driven
@lritter reality is boring, follow the money
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@lritter its the colonization of the computer indigenous world, local computer users and self-reparing and developing savages are basicly the indigenous population. and it is in full progress.
@tomtrottel you see a self-sufficient people, i see future addicts i mean customers! customers!
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@lritter reality is boring, follow the money
@profan if it is deliberate it is more predictable; which makes it easier to defend against. if it's chaos, no need to do anything. tbh if i were attacking, i would make it seem like chaos.
and money is a huge motivator for war
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what if ram buyout is part of a greater attack on personal computing
any other indicators?
It occurred to me, too.
And the times where one could dismiss such thoughts as implausible are, sadly, over.
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economic pressure:
* hobbyist computing priced out (current RAM situation)
* home servers becoming impractical vs cloud services
* development tools increasingly cloud-based (GitHub codespaces, cloud IDEs)
honestly, all fairly weak and circumnavigable indicators, but also possibly a death by a thousand cuts.
Unfortunately, this entire scenario makes eminent (twisted) sense in the current times.
Even if it is partly true "by accident" / emergent from the general atmosphere of greed and lust for control ...
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This blogpost makes an astoundingly good case about LLMs I hadn't considered before. The collapse of public forums (like Stack Overflow) for programming answers coincides directly with the rise of programmers asking for answers from chatbots *directly*. Those debugging sessions become part of a training set that now *only private LLM corporations have access to*. This is something that "open models" seemingly can't easily fight. https://michiel.buddingh.eu/enclosure-feedback-loop
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@lritter in this case it was a bad decision made under pressure that I had already refactored out a year prior, I just missed a spot. i like to think i've been able to code most programmers under the table for quite a long time now, but that's not really all that hard a bar to clear tbh.
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@evan yeah, totally
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@aeva the most salient moments of this are a few years in the past for me. you *do* get better. most things i find now are code that hasn't been "garbage collected"
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This is cool
Frontier REPL - Interactive UserTalk Environment
Type /help for commands, /exit to quit
[root]> clock.now ()
1/26/2026; 6:12:54 PM
[root]> date.dayString (clock.now ())
Tuesday
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This is the best thread ever.! 😀
