The unadmitted reason this is happening (and the AI bubble besides): Moore's Law *has ended*.

[ianturton@mapstodon.space]

@cstross @graydon @furicle At various repair cafés over the past year I've fixed 3 Kenwood mixers, the oldest from 1950 was easy to disassemble and repair with common parts, the second from the 1990s or early 2000 had a simple break away pin to save the gear box if you overstressed it and the latest one from 2020 had a sealed gearbox where the drive shaft had bent £70 to replace. Planned obsolescence.

[c_merriweather@social.linux.pizza]

@cstross @blogdiva I converted to Linux around 2000, after one too many "blue screens of death." Before that, it was CP/M, then pirate copies of 3.1 and 98 on various computers.

[blogdiva@mastodon.social]

@nzlemming @cstross LMAO

[blogdiva@mastodon.social]

@cstross this is the way

[nieuemma@mastodon.de]

@cstross I remember getting a 4TB drive thinking it would take me ages to fill, then I filled it.

I then realised I don't need to be keeping such giant files.

Lost of videos, previously in 4K HDR, now everything is plain old 1080p and I have space again.

I only have ~250GB of music.

I do have two drives though, so if I break something there's a duplicate.

[gnuxie@social.applied-langua.ge]

@cstross sorry i don't buy it the PC market is surely tiny?

[gnuxie@social.applied-langua.ge]

@cstross i've been using the same computer with the youngest part being 10 years old, and the oldest 15 for 12 years they didn't need to end moore's law for that or whatever other conspiracy stuff

[landley@mstdn.jp]

@cstross I'm using a laptop that came out in 2012, I.E. 14 years ago.

I upgraded the ram to 16 gigs and threw in a 2 terabyte ssd, but otherwise bog standard quad core 2.6ghz i5, slightly wider than 720p display resolution.

You can still get them on ebay for $90. I have a spare and two dead ones in a box I could salvage parts from if that didn't come with ram and a hard drive.

The netbsd guys pointed me at https://mastodon.sdf.org/@washbear/115632856822177532 which is only 8 years old, if I want to upgrade. :)

[roblosricos@mastodon.social]

@ianturton @cstross @graydon @furicle

gorilla amps were usually 25 watts, if not 50 watts. they shipped with 15 watt speakers. blew 'em out. i replaced the blown speakers with ones rated for the amps. nice little second income for a year or so.

[landley@mstdn.jp]

@graydon @furicle @cstross Obama's "cash for clunkers" program was another direct attack on aftermarket parts, by eliminating working vehicles that predated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention provisions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-JOYGlsnKw

Late stage capitalism performing regulatory capture literally bought them and destroyed them en masse.

[stompyrobot@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@cstross

That may be the outcome, but I'm 100% sure the decision is not made on those grounds.

The decision is made: "we legitimately believe we'll need X amount of compute in 2027 for our business and research. Let's prepurchase what we need so we don't fall behind."

A corporation that believes it's under future existential threat, is prepared to pay a lot more for existing capacity than a consumer who wants a new iPhone.

This is how pricing works, not a deliberate plan.

[negative12dollarbill@techhub.social]

@cstross @blogdiva Doesn't the "earn my living" part mean you can claim it/write it off on your taxes?

[landley@mstdn.jp]

@graydon @cstross @furicle There's a reason I'm not too upset about a supply chain collapse. (Although I'm watching food distribution closely.)

A raspberry pi is an outright miracle of computing... by 1990s standards. It can be a media center, server, gaming, the works. The sane open source people make the same hardware do more over time.

Alas Linux stopped being sane ~10 years ago, because https://www.zdnet.com/article/graying-linux-developers-look-for-new-blood/ eventually became the "here's a nickel kid" dilbert strip unix greybeards.

[uplategeek@bitbang.social]

@cstross also they’re making your PC run like an old arthritic dog by dumping more and more code on it so you use your phone instead, which is a low-cognition consumption device that encourages you to scroll past more ads and buy crap you don’t need. Not sure how MS thinks it can make money encouraging everyone to use their Apple or android phone instead of their PC, but 🤷‍♂️

[dresstokilt@mastodon.social]

@graydon @cstross just remember, communists are the ones who want to take your private property!

[dresstokilt@mastodon.social]

@darkling @cstross @blogdiva literally came here just to say "it's cat pics, isn't it?"

[yugthebug@mastodon.social]

@cstross I cannot agree enough, we gotta RAID SOME DATA CENTERS

[darwinwoodka@mastodon.social]

@UpLateGeek @cstross

Anything shows me ads on MY phone it burns in a fire. Apps gone, etc.

[rayotron@mstdn.social]

@renardboy @mbpaz @cstross

Yup, I'm posting this with a 2010 Core 2 Duo running Linux. I use it for internet, video editing, making music with Reaper, etc. I'll never stop using C2D computers for most duties.

[wiredfire@mstdn.social]

@negative12dollarbill @cstross @blogdiva only partially. A decade or two back you could write off the full cost of computing hardware against tax but it was so widely and comprehensively abused that the Inland Revenue put a stop to it.