ARM Founder: UK Has 'No Chance In Hell' of Making Its Own Tech Champs (bloomberg.com) 137
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The UK has "no chance in hell" of becoming technologically sovereign, Hermann Hauser, the co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners and Acorn Computers, said at Bloomberg's Technology Summit in London. Hauser emphasized the need for Europe and the UK to have access to critical technologies so it is not dependent on countries like the US. He mentioned former US President Donald Trump, who he said used semiconductor design software as "a weapon to force other countries including Britain to do what he wants."
"These dependencies are as severe now as military occupation was in the past," Hauser said. "And we just have to find our own independent access to critical technologies." One question countries have to ask themselves if whether they have all the critical technologies needed to run a country and its economy. "The answer for Britain" is "absolutely no, there is no chance in hell that Britain could ever become technologically sovereign," he said. Hauser added that Europe is clearly in a recession that could last a year or two. "It's difficult to know for how long with so many imponderables." "The UK in particular is in this very stormy period of having a financially undereducated chancellor, who goes by neoliberal ideology rather than rational decision making so that doesn't help," he added. "The UK has struggled to keep its tech firms owned by local investors," notes Bloomberg. "Arm, one of the most significant global tech companies, is currently being prepped to be floated in the US by its Japanese owner SoftBank."
"French firm Schneider Electric SE has recently agreed to buy out minority shareholders in Aveva Group Plc, currently the UK's largest listed tech firm, in a deal that values the industrial software company at $10.8 billion."
"These dependencies are as severe now as military occupation was in the past," Hauser said. "And we just have to find our own independent access to critical technologies." One question countries have to ask themselves if whether they have all the critical technologies needed to run a country and its economy. "The answer for Britain" is "absolutely no, there is no chance in hell that Britain could ever become technologically sovereign," he said. Hauser added that Europe is clearly in a recession that could last a year or two. "It's difficult to know for how long with so many imponderables." "The UK in particular is in this very stormy period of having a financially undereducated chancellor, who goes by neoliberal ideology rather than rational decision making so that doesn't help," he added. "The UK has struggled to keep its tech firms owned by local investors," notes Bloomberg. "Arm, one of the most significant global tech companies, is currently being prepped to be floated in the US by its Japanese owner SoftBank."
"French firm Schneider Electric SE has recently agreed to buy out minority shareholders in Aveva Group Plc, currently the UK's largest listed tech firm, in a deal that values the industrial software company at $10.8 billion."
Sounds about right (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sounds about right (Score:5, Funny)
Tiny island is tiny island
News at eleven
Re:Sounds about right (Score:5, Insightful)
Being a tiny island didn't stop Japan or Taiwan from becoming tech giants.
Re:Sounds about right (Score:5, Informative)
Being a tiny island didn't stop Japan or Taiwan from becoming tech giants.
And yet neither ever became self-sufficient. They are both dependent on other nations (largely, the US) for supply. They have the tech, but not the resources. And in fact they never got the technical superiority on their own either. For example the Japanese car took off because they had access to cheap recycled American steel. Or how about the Compact Disc, it was created by an international team. EUV technology is used in Taiwan, but the equipment is made by the Dutch (ASML) but the offices are in "the Netherlands, the United States, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the United Kingdom, mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, and South Korea". So no, Japan and Taiwan are not examples.
All modern technology is dependent on a thick and repeatedly intercrossing web of technologies, parts, and materials. No country can be fully independent on short notice. And there are really only two nations which could in theory pull it off without substantial rearrangement of borders, and they are China and the US. Barring the invention of the universal nanotech assembler, which will probably be shortly before the invention of a plague that kills us all, no other nation has sufficient resources within their own borders to do everything. Of course, the US and China can't be technological leaders without other nations without seriously revamping society. Both deliberately retard education in order to prevent the development of an educated proletariat. China has always depended on copying everyone else's tech, and America has always depended on educated immigrants.
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Yes but they weren't reliant upon a single source for external resources. If the only supplier of chip design software is a single country then you're sort of beholden to them to a degree, and they can exert more diplomatic or political pressure to do what that country wants.
The same people who insist that UK should give up on this dream of self reliance in one economic area possibly overlap ironically with the group who insists that the US be independent from petroleum imports. The same rational is used
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Our oil companies have zero interest in only selling to the USA market. That's the only way we (consumers) would get any real benefit out of being independent for oil. Which really sucks.
The only good thing about being independent is when shortages happen, you typically can still get the product but at inflated values. Many places just don't get shit at any price.
I think it's a smart thing for Britain to push for but we'll see how they manage to build up their industry to support it all.
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I think you are a bit out of date. US educational woes are not deliberate, but stem from a lot of sources, like smart women having other things they can do besides teach.
If not already, the US will shortly be copying more stuff from China than they do from the US.
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Too many people like authoritarian government, look at how popular Trump still is and the votes he got, and various other countries who have elected authoritarians recently.
Re:Sounds about right (Score:4, Interesting)
Too many people like authoritarian government, look at how popular Trump still is and the votes he got, and various other countries who have elected authoritarians recently.
No one likes authoritarian government, aside from the ones wielding authoritarian power. It's just that the masses can often be stupid enough to believe that the promised authoritarian crackdown will only be direct at the "undesirables," which happen to always be other people. Even the Germans who supported the Nazis initially believed that the crackdown would only affect other people. When they realized their delusion, it was too late.
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Actually, authoritarian types like Authoritarian governments, at least as long as their interests align. Look at the cheering about book bans, bans on medical procedures, being tough on victim-less crimes for some examples. You are right that eventually things go too far, suddenly Putin is hated for bringing in conscription even though the people were fine with the war before conscription.
Re:Sounds about right (Score:4, Insightful)
No, authoritarianism has been around since the dawn of humanity, and is decidedly regressive. The population participating in government (i.e. democracy) and deciding - collectively - the rules under which they want to live under is progressive because it was invented by the Greeks well after the dawn of humanity.
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The population participating in government (i.e. democracy) and deciding - collectively - the rules under which they want to live under is progressive because it was invented by the Greeks well after the dawn of humanity.
Except the greeks didn't invent democracy. It was just oligarchy. In order to vote you had to be a landed white male. Yes, white, the racially privileged greeks were literally fairer in the pigmentation sense. Anyone telling you the greeks invented democracy is just trying to disguise the fact that they support oligarchy.
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Good description of some right wing (and some left wing) governments. Of course it depends on which personal freedoms are being talked about. Denying an election lose, well your free to do that. Want to grow certain plants and ingest them, well jail for you.
Luckily for you, you're in agreement with the Trumpists on which freedoms are important to you so it doesn't seem authoritarian. Happens a lot until suddenly they come for you. Look at Russia, population was mostly fine with attacking Ukraine until they
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For example:
1. I would repeal the controlled substances act. You are free to ingest whatever you want, provided, the provider is honest about the contents.
2. I would repeal the state licensure of all professions. Receive service from whomever you want, and let the free market determine who, how, and for
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My apologies for thinking you voted for Trump. As for your list, I used to register at political compass as extreme libertarian but after about 55 I started drifting a couple of points to the centre.
Not going to go into most of your points except this one as so many people are dying from market failure,
1. I would repeal the controlled substances act. You are free to ingest whatever you want, provided, the provider is honest about the contents.
How do deal with the dishonest provider? It is such a money saver to cut the product with stuff like fentanyl.
Re: Sounds about right (Score:2)
Re:Sounds about right (Score:4, Insightful)
No, not really [salon.com]. It's a completely different axis [politicalcompass.org].
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You're just mixing facts and lies here to make a partisan argument to try and claim your side has no faults. Authoritarianism can be a flaw in both the left and the right, it is NOT exclusive to pogressive ideologies. Cases in point: Trump was authoritarian! So was Hitler, so was Pinochet, and quite a lot of other right wing leaders and governments. Now cue the apologiests who will lie that all those people were really secretly leftists or even commies.
Now it's true that authoritarianism is the opposit
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Lol, I'm not sure who's arsehole you're pulling all that out of but its quite amazing.
Seriously, regulating healthcare? If you've been under a rock then I'll forgive this blatant ignorance with regard to recent efforts/success to ban abortions but also to rid libraries and schools of books along with injecting conflict in the transgender community over which bathroom they should use. This is directly injecting government into our daily lives and I might add to solve problems that don't exist.
Authoritaria
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No, authoritarians increase parts of government, usually those parts that target the ones they hate. They can decrease other parts of government, like any that interferes with them or their allies.
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Libertarians are just particularly deluded anarchists, who have failed to learn the lessons of history. Relevantly: anarchy begets feudalism.
I still like the description "those who want police protection from their slaves" though, which is again just feudalism.
Re: Sounds about right (Score:2)
"Progressive" and "authoritarian" do not go together and this is an example of how terms like these are getting muddled and flipped around. And this is very dangerous because it confuses people and there are plenty of very bad people who are all too eager to take advantage of this.
Re:Sounds about right (Score:5, Interesting)
I wasn't going to comment until I read your last paragraph. The idea that Germany was crippled by the the treaty of Versailles is a myth. I know your history teacher's taught you this, but it is just wrong. The points they claimed the treaty said are just not in the actual treaty (this is a pretty black and white thing). It was a major part of NAZI propaganda and for some reason it got folded into the history of WWII for reason that are too long to explain here. So I will just leave you this [youtube.com].
In a nutshell, after WWI the people of the allied nations were very angry and wanted to punish Germany. So even before the treaty was signed and published, a campaign to paint the treaty as too harsh from a politically radical economist began. A best selling book decrying the treaty was published (even before the treaty was signed or published). By the time the treaty was actually signed and published nobody read it except for the government functionaries. So it is the book that became the history instead of the actual treaty. Partially this is because the treaty was in several parts and in several languages. German's economic problems after WWI were caused by their own bad economic polices. Blaming the treaty was just deflecting blame onto "others". None of the actual claims taught in history class are actually in the treaty, nor were they ever enforced. Germany actually received more money from others than it paid out even in the early 1920s.
Re: Sounds about right (Score:2)
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The real problem is, consumer protections against costs are rarely successful, because the benefit is diluted over the whole population, whereas the steel producers
Re: Sounds about right (Score:2)
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I'd like you to consider the possibility that because computer technology requires silicon, boron, phosphorous, and aluminum - all relatively common elements, that technological independence in this area is more a matter of will than of resources.
But you're really minimizing some of those things. Boron and phosphorus are relatively easy to come by, although it's also true that some nations are literally facing shortages of phosphorus for farming. Aluminum involves a lot of mining, and a lot of energy in refining, so it's extremely nontrivial. Even if your capacities are small, it implies a lot of industry. If you only want to make low-grade semiconductors then sand is easy to come by, or if you are willing to spend a lot more time and energy refinin
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from the security perspective of the TFA, does a country need to be self-sufficient to avoid being bullied, as long as others can't afford to cut you off?
If the others can't afford to cut you off? Sure. But the rest of Europe doesn't actually need anything from England, so the only reason to stop it from getting worse is that they don't want it to become a haven for criminals. I mean, besides the economic ones, which it patently already is. If England sank beneath the sea tomorrow, the economic impact to a few other tiny countries would be significant, but the impact on Europe overall would be small, and the impact on the rest of the world would be negligibl
Re:Sounds about right (Score:4, Interesting)
Japan isn't small. Anyway neither of those cultures have a substantial part of their population being anti-education and anti-science. Just compare how many have died in the UK due to COVID compared to Japan and Taiwan together, which has a combine population that is more than two times as large as that of the UK.
This is, I think something like the truth but a big misunderstanding. Firstly on COVID the UK had some bad luck in the first wave but more than that had really really disastrously bad leadership. It's difficult to get people to follow a set of inconvenient rules when the leadership is directly undermining them. The vaccination percentages and the percentages of people following rules when they thought they were fair and sensible were pretty good. When the government refused to do anything about enforcing things and then got caught cheating themselves things started falling apart.
The UK isn't also "anti-education" - it's "anti-technical" and "anti-middle-class" - specifically those parts of the middle class that earn their money through education. Boris Johnson was completely happy to boast about his classical education specifically because it was completely useless. Both the UK upper classes and the working class look down on the middle classes of the kind that get engineering degrees and work their way through to actually make something. All the UK's technical companies - Rolls Royce cars / British Aerospace / ARM / lots of electrical companies / all the car companies / etc end up being undermined and sold abroad. That's simply because the whole area is undervalued.
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This is, I think something like the truth but a big misunderstanding. Firstly on COVID the UK had some bad luck in the first wave but more than that had really really disastrously bad leadership. It's difficult to get people to follow a set of inconvenient rules when the leadership is directly undermining them. The vaccination percentages and the percentages of people following rules when they thought they were fair and sensible were pretty good. When the government refused to do anything about enforcing things and then got caught cheating themselves things started falling apart.
This sounds a lot like the California governor!!! Do as I say but not as I do. Bastard was busy telling California's to mask up, social distance, stay home and he's off at birthday party at his winery with a room full of friends/family/politicians with not a mask or social distance to be seen.
Yay Brexit (Score:3, Informative)
The pound is collapsing https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com] and the new PM decides tax cuts for the rich are the fix. https://www.aljazeera.com/news... [aljazeera.com]
London banks are more to blame (Score:2)
The influence of the financial sector in the UK is at least as bad as it is in the USA, if not worse, given London's historic role of being a hub of trans-Atlantic financial activity. The cosmopolitan policies that favor the banks in this relationship are terrible for the product-producing sectors of the British economy just as the equivalent is true of the USA which traded manufacturing for a financialized economy starting with NAFTA.
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The influence of the financial sector in the UK is at least as bad as it is in the USA, if not worse,
Which is true, but not relevant. In this particular case it's not the mainstream financial sector who are doing the evil. Banks and pension funds are being destroyed by idiocy and a few hedge funds are profiting.
Re:Yay Brexit (Score:4, Informative)
The pound is collapsing https://www.bloomberg.com/news [bloomberg.com]... [bloomberg.com] and the new PM decides tax cuts for the rich are the fix.
No. Inflation was getting out of control and the pound on a trajectory no different than the rest of Europe, and the PM decided the fix for that was tax cuts for the rich. As a result of that stupidity the pound crashed when the market completely lost faith in the UK government.
All the same actions, but the opposite causality.
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The pound is collapsing https://www.bloomberg.com/news [bloomberg.com]... [bloomberg.com] and the new PM decides tax cuts for the rich are the fix.
No. Inflation was getting out of control and the pound on a trajectory no different than the rest of Europe, and the PM decided the fix for that was tax cuts for the rich. As a result of that stupidity the pound crashed when the market completely lost faith in the UK government.
All the same actions, but the opposite causality.
No, the pound collapsed because of the tax cuts to the rich... which are being funded by an estimated £60 bn of additional debt (probably more now, as I doubt they took the pound diving into account before that). I'd just like to emphasise that is additional debt, as in we're already incurring national debt, but here's some more debt.
The pound dropped directly because of the phenomenally stupid "mini-budget" created by the Truss government('s rich overlords) that was poorly thought out and expressl
Country of shopkeepers and landlords (Score:5, Interesting)
The UK as a culture generally doesn't understand or appreciate technology. If you tell people you're a software dev at a party their most likely to turn their back on you (I've experienced this first hand). 90% of cabinet ministers studied classics or politics and philosophy.
The country respects accountants, lawyers, other bullshit rent seeking professions above all else
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It was the same in America before the dotcom tech boom.
Around 1998, tech became cool, and I was finally able to find a GF.
Re:Country of shopkeepers and landlords (Score:5, Interesting)
There were definitely times when tech went from "just nerds" to "cool". The iPod drove that point home where even in movies (think a Blade sequel), the characters were shown as using those. For all but the most extreme Luddite, the MP3 player was what made tech cool in the US.
However, that shine is definitely eroding. New phones are almost identical to old phones. When one uses software, existing stuff gets monetized, prices raised exponentially, or you have to buy a relatively costly subscription. Devices are losing useful items which are either become separately sold commodities or just taken away because it makes a device too useful. What has driven the point home are streaming services, where one could get 1-2 subscriptions and get a lot of content, versus now where so much is some place's exclusive.
Then add things like malvertising, scams, making a purchase on site "X", find you were signed up for subscriptions from site "Y". Add the fact that customer service is so abysmal across the board, the industry created the Karen archetype, because you have to go into turbo asshole mode in order to get anything fixed or done. (For example, if you want to cancel some services, you have to call and plead they stop, or pay an attorney to send a written C&D order.)
The cool factor of the tech industry is rapidly eroding. What remains in its place is just a moneygrubbing infrastructure. The entire cryptocurrency boondoggle, especially viewed from non-tech people has further driven that point home.
The future will be less tech for tech's sake. The tech industry as a whole really lost its ability to innovate around 2010, and things which are cool and revolutionary are relatively rare.
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It was the same in America before the dotcom tech boom. Around 1998, tech became cool, and I was finally able to find a GF.
Untrue. In the early 80s tech was cool as microcomputers became available to average people.
... getting a GF was the same. You mention you work in tech but chat with her about something else. Unless she asks a tech question, then be brief.
In the 1960s tech was cool due to the Apollo program.
Late 90s, early 80s, 60s
Re: Country of shopkeepers and landlords (Score:2)
This is a country that gave on its rocket ambitions, partly due to pressures by the U.S.
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This is a country that gave on its rocket ambitions, partly due to pressures by the U.S.
Or maybe it was the post-war economic crisis. Rockets are an expensive hobby. When people are still having their food rationed, and are voting for politicians who want to provide universal healthcare and other new safety nets, one can't afford the rocket hobby.
Plus there was the post-war collapse of empire where Britain could not simply just extract more wealth from others overseas to pay the bills. It was a good run for several centuries but that revenue stream was drying up. Trade would be more equitab
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Remember to change your underwear (Score:2)
That, and take showers. Note showers is plural, more than one. One shower a day is for going to work and not seeing the girl that day. Always take a shower and change your clothes, including your underwear - very important tip there, before meeting the girl. If it doesn't smell fresh and clean she's not g
Re:Country of shopkeepers and landlords (Score:4, Interesting)
The UK isn't a good place for startups to find investment. Most of the risky investment comes from outside the UK, or rather came from outside the UK because it's been in decline since 2016 when the decision to leave the EU was made.
As well as a lack of investment, it's also now much harder for tech companies in the UK to hire the talent they need. In the EU they have a pool of 450 million to draw from, compared to 65 million and a much worse visa system in the UK. Plus, university education here isn't free like it is in many other countries, further limiting the availability of skills.
There's also the fact that the UK hasn't had a stable government since 2016. If you haven't been following closely, after the brexit vote debacle the Prime Minister quit and Theresa May took over. She lost her majority in a snap election, bumbled along for a bit and eventually caused a constitutional crisis with here terrible exit deal with the EU. After that Boris Johnson won an election by lying and re-branding May's failed deal. That soon turned into chaos with the pandemic on top, until he too was ousted by his own party. Then Liz Truss took over, and crashed the currency a couple of weeks later. She would have done it sooner, were it not for the Queen's power move of meeting her and immediately dying.
The future of the UK looks uncertain and unstable.
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The UK isn't a good place for startups to find investment. Most of the risky investment comes from outside the UK,
It's insane here. "oh yes, wait until you're breaking even, then we'll give you £1,000,000 for a controlling stake in the company". You know, after we wouldn't need the money. Investment came from elsewhere, from people who understand that companies need investment to get off the ground, and equity at the level where the cofounders are essentially poorly paid employees from day 1 ev
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The UK isn't a good place for startups to find investment. Most of the risky investment comes from outside the UK, or rather came from outside the UK because it's been in decline since 2016 when the decision to leave the EU was made.
Fuck off. The UK has been like that for at least 40 years; I've seen this first hand. 2016 made no difference.
Liz Truss is psycho, though.
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It's just a fact that investment was reduced since 2016. Look at the graphs in this FT article: https://www.ft.com/content/ae6... [ft.com]
You can see that the UK has consistently under-performed compared to the EU and US, starting in May 2016.
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I think you might be on the spectrum.
Re: Country of shopkeepers and landlords (Score:2)
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We're all on all the spectra. None of this shit is boolean. We keep pretending so that we can justify pathologizing shit we're being paid to misunderstand, though
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If you walk into a room and your conversation kills the mood, it isn't the room.
Maybe. Perhaps even probably. But not definitely. But that depends on what you think is important.
Not accurate (Score:4)
That is not accurate to reference of how you are treated. When I say I am a software developer in the UK, people always treat it as a good thing. If they turn their back to you at a party, you are either at the wrong party, or it's just you.
Now, having said that, the software developers are under-compensated compared to their peers, both in some other European countries and definitely the US. It was not as bad when the pound was near $2: Say 15 years ago a software developer who might make $100k or so in the US would make say £45k in the UK - this would have been a reasonably comparable salary (at a £1=$1.9 exchange rate), especially even if you were not in London. Fast forward now, the same level would be like $150k in the US and £50k in the UK and this time the £50k is only worth $54k.
Re: Country of shopkeepers and landlords (Score:2)
Noses high in the air, putting on a giant sob show when the Queen died (they shut down airports and *food banks* for fuck's sake). Stuck up, stuck sitting on their laurels...
They once had a great (though highly abusive/oppresive) world empire only a century or two ago. They stood firm against the Nazis even when London and other towns and cities were getting blitzed and destroyed night after night. What the hell happened scince then?
Long ago, about 20 or so years ago there was a post here which stated that
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"The UK as a culture generally doesn't understand or appreciate technology."
The agricultural revolution happened in several different places at several different times.
The industrial revolution pretty much happened only one time in one place: the UK.
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That's nonsense, the UK still has a lot of tech unicorns, just like pretty much everywhere else, except countries who fiddled the system with state intervention like China, they're struggling to take them to Google/Facebook size, but a lot of that is a function of US protectionism - when Europe tries to hold US tech companies to the same laws it's local companies are held to in terms of things like competition, data protection, and tax then the US threatens sanctions on Europe, so US tech companies get an unfair advantage through US government threats
You have that backwards. You want to implement protectionist schemes against the US (and foreign countries). You are upset that you can't do that. Its a bit like the Putin tactic of accusing others of what you want to do. You don't think having to compete on a level playing field is fair. You only want to tilt things in your advantage and complain if you are not allowed to do this. <sarcasm>Couldn't imagine why there are so few British international businesses.</sarcasm>
[20 kHz] (Score:2)
Brexit means brexit (Score:3)
So please talk about UK but not about EU ...
Also before admitting back into EU you must agree to change your electric sockets first...
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Also before admitting back into EU you must agree to change your electric sockets first...
Hows about we take your working laws, labour relations, financial system, food regulations, investment policies, freedom of movement regulations, burgundy passports and almost everything else and..... You get rid of the awful patchwork of two pin and three pin sockets some of which have side connections and so on which mean that all over the EU there are devices which should be earthed and instead have the neutral side connected to the live side.
This is about the only thing I can think of where the EU shou
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You get rid of the awful patchwork of two pin and three pin sockets some of which have side connections and so on which mean that all over the EU there are devices which should be earthed and instead have the neutral side connected to the live side.
No country in Europe has a patchwork. Every country by standard have earthed devices. No electrical standards (not even the UK) apply retrospectively but anywhere new electrical work will be done you get a perfectly normal earthed socket.
Also with the exception of Switzerland, Denmark and Italy, all European outlets are compatible with Schuko plugs, a market that represents well over 700 million people and countries not only in Europe but also Russia, middle east, and half of Africa.
The UK socket has a sing
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Outlet fuses are both for ring circuits (which Europe doesn't use) and for protecting the cable. That is the only missing aspect of safety standards in Europe, the ability for a cable fault on a cable that only supports 10A to be connected to a circuit which supports 16A.
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You get rid of the awful patchwork of two pin and three pin sockets some of which have side connections and so on which mean that all over the EU there are devices which should be earthed and instead have the neutral side connected to the live side.
No country in Europe has a patchwork. Every country by standard have earthed devices. No electrical standards (not even the UK) apply retrospectively but anywhere new electrical work will be done you get a perfectly normal earthed socket.
Also with the exception of Switzerland, Denmark and Italy, all European outlets are compatible with Schuko plugs, a market that represents well over 700 million people and countries not only in Europe but also Russia, middle east, and half of Africa.
The UK socket has a singular benefit of being fused, something that covers a very minor electrical protection (the cable) compared to actual devices, additionally the majority of consumer electronics are double insulated and don't actually require earthing at all (and don't have it connected).
So no. No one will adopt the UK's plug, it's pointless busywork and doesn't really add anything meaningful to safety while being a large step backwards in compatibility between nations.
No-one else uses the UK plug except for Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Cypress, Malta and Ireland... who I believe are in the EU.
The UK had the (dis)advantage of being one of the earlier plugs to be codified to a high standard, thus was quite over-engineered compared to the later plugs that had the benefit of lessons the British learned.
If we want the best plug in the world, it has to be the AS/NZS 3112, it's compact, light, polarised, impossible to plug in wrong, 2 or 3 pin (grounded or ungrounded),
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get rid of the awful patchwork of two pin and three pin sockets
Here is the answer from the Commission on this topic:
"The Commission is aware of the situation in Europe with regard to plugs and socket outlets. There was a Commission proposal in 1997 to harmonise electrical plugs and sockets for domestic use (i.e. up to 16A rated current) across the Community which did not meet with success.
In addition, attempts made by the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation, CENELEC, to agree a voluntary European standard also failed to gain consensus despite severa
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So please talk about UK but not about EU ...
Also before admitting back into EU you must agree to change your electric sockets first...
So you are finally moving to 120V sockets? It is about time. Seriously, it is far easier to have safe wall sockets than make sure every single electrically powered device is safe. Using 240V is like giving subsides for 4x4s instead of paving roads.
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So you are finally moving to 120V sockets? It is about time. Seriously, it is far easier to have safe wall sockets than make sure every single electrically powered device is safe. Using 240V is like giving subsides for 4x4s instead of paving roads.
I agree for safety reasons we should eliminate 120V. It's a huge cause of needless fires due to resistance in poor connections and high currents. Hell the use of 120V requires an additional safety mechanism (AFCIs) due to how shitty that idea is.
Also devices are protected because the device load is known. You can't hope to protect against electrocution unless you have an earth fault system or you know the exact load, and earth fault doesn't care if it's 120V or 240V. In any case you need to fuse the device
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and high currents
120V is lower current than 240V. I will never understand why you think having the default voltage high enough to blow you across the room is safe. And our fuses are in the fuse box (which is backed up by an earth ground). People will foolishly jump the fuses there and so to deal with the lawsuits this causes, extra fuses were added to the outlet (AFCI). Those have nothing to do with 120V systems. It has more to do with the fact that US electrical systems are so safe, people feel that "fixing" them them
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Having experienced both, I fell much safer in EU. Yes the voltage is higher, meaning if you touch it, it's way more dangerous. But to get the same power, you need twice less amps, which is what was meant by "120V is high current". Breakers tripped all the time in the US as soon as you start the microwave and the toaster at the same time. In the EU, it extremely rare to trip any breaker because 250Vx20A = 5kW. That's a lot.
Now for the part that makes me feel much safer. It is almost impossible to touch a li
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and high currents
120V is lower current than 240V.
Huh? Are you feeling ok? Driving the same wattage load requires higher current for lower voltage. P = VI, and all that.
Higher currents cause more resistive power loss (P=I^2 R) and therefore more heat.
Peter Zeihan is right (Score:3)
"If you want a margarita machine that sings when the slush is at the right churn, that’s a Chinese chip.
If you want to do anything useful, that’s an American chip."
It's a long video but well worth watching if you want to know a lot more than the media is telling everyone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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With that introduction I'm not going to watch your video, because what you quoted is nonsense. That was true until maybe a decade ago. These days, most useful tasks can be accomplished with what are by modern standards total chickenshit CPUs. There are legitimately some tasks which don't fit this description, like say high-res video encoding or modeling nuclear blasts, but there is plenty of I/O bound business logic that is cheaper to run on lots of shitty little cores.
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And the GP got the quote wrong (it isn't what Zeihan said). The US chips are in cars and low end devices (middle market). Taiwanese chips are in the high end devices (high market).
You just ignore anything that corrects you on any point. Your ego is so wrapped up in being right that you feel actual pain when you learn something new. That explains a lot about your posting history.
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the GP got the quote wrong (it isn't what Zeihan said).
[...]
You just ignore anything that corrects you on any point.
So I'm right, and the GP is wrong, but I ignore anything that corrects me on any point? Okay there, tiger.
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Peter Zeihan? The very clearly unbalanced "futurist" shouting end-of-the-world conspiracy nonsense recycled from the 90's? That guy?
Find better heroes.
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Especially the ones who do nothing but push a narrative, loudly.
Daddy yelling doesn't make him right.
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Your definition of "anything useful" is a PC's CPU or a GPU. The reality is your entire life is governed by useful devices dependently solely on Chinese chips. You can't even build all American cars without them. What's more useful, your computer without an internet connection (your router definitely is loaded with Chinese chips), or the ability to drive to the cornershop and get food for your family, with a bill run up in a till filled with Chinese chips?
"Useful" is not driven by technological superiority.
It's not terribly hard to keep it local (Score:2)
You just have to abandon Reaganomics/Thatcherism/neo-Liberalism/whatever your local flavor is called and say the national government gets to veto any merger or acquisition that its regulators deem to not be in the national interest.
Then use that power aggressively. Give tax breaks to strategically important sectors that need nourishing. Impose protectionism where it makes sense.
ARM would have stayed British if the government had simply g
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I think the growth of ARM happened because it was more open and not protectionist. If using ARM in a part of your design was made harder, such as with stricter licensing, then a different technology would have grown instead. There was nothing magical about the early ARM designs; sort of a generic 32-bit RISC just like a MIPS or PPC. It wasn't particularly better or worse than the competition, most of the best stuff about ARM came about relatively late after it had a resurgence and got into wider use in S
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I get the sentiment, but this is utopic. When was the last time the national government did something in the national interest? Give the political critters the power to veto large deals and they will turn it in pure corruption.
In the 1970's (Score:2)
When I was a kid in the 70's, I remember watching a TV report saying that Britain had set a goal to dominate the world in software development.
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It's not like that was huge joke or anything. The British gave us Ocean, Code Masters, Mirrorsoft... Teens making millions from their bedrooms with their home micro... Sinclair, Acorn, the list goes on and that's just off the top of my head.
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In some ways it did a better job locally of promoting computers, computing, and education there than the US did. The US won here because it had the larger population. Even then when computing was a growing industry it was spread around the world; there was big stuff happening in the UK, but also Germany, France, etc. It later coalesced in Silicon Valley for some reason (startups want to be near other startups?).
It is not necessarily politics that did this, or lack of government protections/support. After
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Read that again (Score:2)
That's not rational thinking, it's *rationalization*, and it doesn't belong in government. Get those right wing pinheads off the board.
This has been the case for a long time (Score:2)
They went from being a world empire to, well this in the span of a couple centuries. And all they are doing now is stewing in the glory of their past without giving much thought to their future.
Empires rise and empires fall. Same with the Romans.
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Right, but Britain is acting like it can do it all by itself, and fucking up all of its trade agreements.
I for one am inclined to suspect foreign interference, like we had in the USA. Except that when Trump supposedly got us away from the ills of NAFTA it actually wound up being to move to a barely different trade agreement... Because our money people actually are in direct control.
Re:Don't need to do it all yourself (Score:4, Funny)
Historically, the UK had very good tech, but it was all squandered. They had jet engine technology, car manufacturers, computer manufacturers and other things, and it ultimately all came into foreign hands.
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Agreed. Tons of world changing technology originated in the UK. Steam engines, the Bessemer steel process, the works of Charles Babbage and Alan Turing, the invention of radar, etc etc
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ARM is a case in point. The most popular processor architecture in existence was developed based on work Acorn, the company Hauser founded, did in the UK and ended up sold abroad and under-invested in. There have been so many excellent opportunities to do something different about it but nothing.
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Historically, the UK had very good tech, but it was all squandered. They had jet engine technology, car manufacturers, computer manufacturers and other things, and it ultimately all came into foreign hands.
We had a good tech sector (not just computer/software but also bio and nano tech). However Brexit squandered all of that. We had those sectors, particularly in bio tech because we co-operated with the other advanced European nations (France, Germany, Spain, Netherlands as well as the Nordic nations) but we've cut our nose off to spite our face and cut ourselves off from a talent pool of 450,000 as well as continued political instability making the UK a huge risk to invest in, even in the safest of industrie
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The UK has long suffered from delusions of grandeur. Sing Rule Britannia a bit louder and they will all come running to do amazing trade deals with us. In reality, the few deals we got all favour the other country. We were taken advantage of, badly.
Yet somehow these delusions persist. We had idiots on TV saying that the queen's death was the most important global event of the century and nonsense like that.
Re: Don't need to do it all yourself (Score:2)
We could always use a 51st star on our flag, and Britan is welcome to join. :O)
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You don't need to "have all the critical technologies", as long as you can ensure you always have multiple independent (and this is key) sources. One can be local for extra resilience, indeed, but it's not mandatory.
But how practical is this today? Look at all the single critical paths in semiconductors: earthquake in Taiwan stops memory production for months because the glue factory was damaged; war in the Ukraine disrupts raw material supplies such as neon and palladium.
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The difficulty is that you need all these parts working together to be competitive, and bootstrapping the whole system means many different companies all working together and taking on a great deal of risk. If one of them fails or the technology isn't up to scratch, it could be curtains for the rest of them.
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You don't need to "have all the critical technologies", as long as you can ensure you always have multiple independent (and this is key) sources. One can be local for extra resilience, indeed, but it's not mandatory.
Independent and friendly.
Russia had a lot of independent sources of imports, but it regularly pissed off all of them, so when they invaded Ukraine China was the only substantial trade partner willing to help them out.
Having international relations who are willing to stick with you is key to resiliency, and it's why you don't do something like trying to use semiconductor design software as "a weapon to force other countries including Britain to do what he wants.".