On Aug 18, 2022, at 8:58 AM, techli...@phpcoderusa.com wrote:
David,
I have always enjoyed your thoughts, even though we do not agree
when it comes to political issues. And I think your a smart guy.
On 2022-08-17 03:25, David Schwartz via PLUG-discuss wrote:
I'll pass on this one because it could get politically charged very
quickly and my intention were to try to understand what is coming.
I posted to this list hoping for thoughts from technical people.
I don’t know what you’re referring to exactly about the
economy
crashing, other than the typical doom-and-gloom nonsense that the
right-wing propaganda machinery floods the airwaves with whenever
Democrats are in charge of things. The truth is, things are always
shifting, slowly but surely.
I hope it is all doom-and-gloom. I'm not up for an economic crash.
You and I have lived though some interesting times.
- Oil embargo, which killed the musical car era.
- 70's and 80's which kept my wages 20% behind the real cost of
living.
- 30 years of perpetual wars....
- The creation of the Internet and all that has come with it.
I do not think what is currently taking place is "right-wing
propaganda".
I am hearing and reading:
- Ukraine and Russia produce 70% of the worlds wheat which is not
making it to the market this year.
- Ukraine and Russia produce 70% of the worlds commercial fertilizer
which is not making it to the market this year.
- We are experiencing a severe drought world wide.
- Some are saying there will be famine and food shortages. I'm
seeing vacant shelves at the grocery stores.
- The dollar is losing it's place as the world's reserve currency.
That means dollars going to come home causing even more inflation.
- Some are saying it could be as bad as the Great Depression. And I
truly hope this is "right-wing propaganda".
- Some are saying we will see double digit inflation for 10 years.
How do I plan my wife's retirement with that? I'll work till I
die... I did the math. If I save $1000 today, in 10 years it will
have $350 of buying power.
I was hoping to spend my old age working on my old muscle car and
old RV. I do not own either. Oh, and throw in some watching the
grass grow.
I do not want this to turn political. I am in search of wisdom.
Here are my thoughts.
1) Transition away from Windows and MAC. Buy some old hardware,
while it is cheep. In fact 6 months from now lots of things might
be cheep - new and old. I read Walmart is laying off 300 executives
dues to the slow in the economy and having an over stocked
situation. I would buy as much RAM as you might need for your new
and old hardware and replace spinners with SSD drives.
2) I know this is a Linux list so I assume most know Linux better
that most others. I am a programmer. A PHP developer. I
understand most developers do not know Linux. I recommend learning
how to configure and maintain a LAMP server for testing and
development. The P stands for PHP.
3) I would recommend that those who do not have the skills to
maintain a Linux desktop should burn some midnight oil and learn the
basics. I had to move to Windows 6 years ago because of a business
need. Windows 10 has 3 more years before it's end of life. By that
time I will be back on Linux for good.
4) Create a blog and journal your learning and experiences.
5) If you are looking for a job, find the hiring managers and ask
them to mentor you so you can find the door into what you want to
do.
6) I think a lot of businesses will fail. AND out of the ashes new
businesses will form. These new businesses will need to use
technology to their benefit. What technologies will they need?
7) Linux and web programming is turning into, and may have already
turned into a cottage industry. For hosting there only needs to be
one admin local to the facility. All others can work remote.
8) Covid caused a shift away from the office to the spare bedroom.
In an effort to save money I think most companies will have a hybrid
model. Employees will need to make it into the office periodically
while working from home for the majority of the time. The amount of
office space necessary to run a business will shrink. Office space
should be cheep for the foreseeable future.
9) We have become a mail order economy. I only buy groceries in
person and that will change within the next few month. I used to
buy everything retail. Not anymore. And that saves me time and
gas. I tip so the tip is probably what I would spend on gas...
however it does spare my car wear and tear.
Those are my thoughts. I would like to hear from others.
As for technology, I’d make this simple observation:
At some point, the world leader in CPU chips — Intel — was
following along the same path they had been taking for years and
was
working on a 5 GHz CPU when they realized that as they kept trying
to
speed-up CPUs, the amount of effort needed to extract the heat
from
the chips would make the hardware far too expensive and cumbersome
to
remain viable. So they decided that multiple CPUs on the chip
where
the CPU speed was around 2-3 GHz would be better in the long-run.
I’m guessing that the folks at a world leader in computer
engineering — Apple Computer — also figured this out. Intel
sells
chips; Apple sells computer systems. Dell buys Intel chips and
integrates video cards from another vendor that use Intel’s
GPUs.
Apple doesn’t really care who makes what; they just want to
maximize
their profits.
Coincidentally, video cards have been hard to come by because the
GPUs
have been getting hijacked for use by crytocurrency miners. A
large
portion of these have Intel GPUs on them.
Apple decided it might make more sense to simply put a bunch of
CPUs
and GPUs on one substrate and then tune their software to run on
this
sort of architecture, alleviating the dependency on separate CPU
and
GPU chips and cards. There’s a side-effect in that nobody is
going
to be hijacking their GPUs for other purposes.
Intel apparently didn’t want to lose the revenues they’ve been
earning from their GPU chip sales to crypto miners and, well,
Apple is
no longer using either Intel’s CPUs or GPUs.
So while some say the economy is “crashing”, the 10 largest
corporations in the world are all reporting record profits and
growth.
The stuff politicians are doing to continue long-term policies
that
enable corporations to siphon off more and more money from
consumers
is appalling, and may well lead to a lot more discomfort and pain
for
consumers, but certainly not from corporate shareholders and
execs. If
you want to profit from that shift, then buy stocks in these large
and
growing companies. Warren Buffet has large holdings in them, as
well
as Apple. He also owns a large utility company in Nevada.
Speaking of utility companies, one thing that is surely going to
help
“crash” the economy (for consumers) over the coming decade is
the
increasing growth of EVs and their need to get their fuel from the
power grid. The same power grid that’s going to be used to power
computers and crypto miners. Some with politically-motivated
arguments
might see it as convenient that states like Arizona have passed
laws
that give utility companies the power to punish consumers who want
to
install their own renewable energy sources and batteries to become
independent of the power grid. Yes, we’re talking about those
folks
who’d like to unhook from the inevitable increases we’re going
to
see in the cost of electricity, especially since the cost of fuel
to
power generators is also skyrocketing — and the profits from
those
price increases is nearly all flowing into the bank accounts of
the
monarchy of Saudi Arabia (with the help of elected officials in
Congress, both past and present, members of both political
parties).
I have been pondering the grid issue. Was not long ago the
electricity vendors where complaining about the load that cellular
phones and other devices where putting on the grid.
The tea leaves are pretty clear to many readers: there’s a big
shift
towards more and more things in our life that require electricity
to
run, and it’s inevitable that the cost of said power is going to
go
up. But the price of gas is also going up, which is contributing
to
the increase in power costs. Buying a bunch of old computers that
consume 3x the power of the newest computers does not seem like a
smart way to avoid increases in the cost of electricity.
Are you saying my 8 year old Dell i5 is using too much power and I
should replace it?
Not sure how to evaluate that. My i5 is old and has 4 cores, 16GB
of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. It is paid for so I wonder if spending $500
or more, to replace it is really worth the savings in electricity.
Maybe I would be better served by adding 1k or 2k of solar to the
mix.
You seem to be in favor of dumping old iron in favor of more
efficient hardware. I'm thinking the opposite. I'm in favor of
adding RAM (if needed) and an SSD drive to old stuff and use Linux
... kind of a counter culture thing... Off grid solar has always
appealed to me because it "feels" counter culture. Taking control
of ones life.
Remember the good old days about 20 years ago? Linux was counter
culture. I first learning of Linux in 1998 and I ran out and bought
a box set. I was hooked because it was not main stream, it was
counter culture. I'm thinking we need to get some of that back.
Make your home more thermally efficient so you don’t need to run
your A/C as much. Replace electronic equipment with newer
lower-power
stuff. Reduce your overall carbon footprint by 10%. Grow your own
fruits and veggies. Set up a wind turbine or solar panels to
charge
batteries that power your electronic equipment at home, but do not
connect them to the grid. Buy an inexpensive EV to get around
town,
because in the long-run it’ll be far cheaper than a gas-powered
vehicle. (I recommend a Bolt or a Leaf as they’re the cheapest
EVs
on the market today and will remain so for 2-3 years due to
factors
like the global chip shortage. I got a 2019 Leaf SL Plus, and I
*LOVE*
it! It only costs me 4¢/mile in electricity to drive.)
Your car sounds nice. I home office and have for a long, long time.
With online shopping and delivery I might drive 50 - 200 miles a
month. My goal is to get down to 50 miles per month every month. I
think I can.
I own a 2009 Nissan Xterra. It gets 16 - 20 MPG. Not very good. I
do not recall the last time I purchased gas. I fill up at 3/4 of a
tank. I think I buy a 1/4 tank of gas every 6 - 8 weeks.
I hear some in D.C. say I should buy an EV. Ironically my Nissan
might outlive me. Pretty sure it will so why replace?
While you’re at it, figure out how to generate $100-$200 per day
online to supplement your income.
Good advice. That was what I was hoping to hear. Any thoughts on
how?
$100-$200 a day or $3000 - $6000 per month might replace some
people's day job.
I've been following Income School. I can tell you the Internet is
very competitive. Some are able to make affiliate marketing work
for them. To do so one needs to be able to write and to write
articles for what people are searching for, and that are competitive
for that topic.
I do think we are at a crossroads where we will see more people work
remote and freelance/contract work will start to be the norm.
My suggestion is lean how to create an LLC, create a blog, learn
your niche and how to get traffic, especially targeted traffic that
creates business leads. Or one can scour the job sites and look for
remote in your area of expertise.
I think the real opportunities moving forward will be in the area of
freelancing.
I think we are about to go through another change in how we work.
Covid got us out of the office and now I think a lot of jobs are
going to be short term and will be 1099 contract.
There are a few things to learn about to survive as a 1099
contractor. It is not like working W2. You will need to pay for
your own benefits, time off, training, equipment, and workspace.
You will need to understand what you need to live on, what you are
worth, and that not all of your time is income producing. For
short-term projects, I figure 1/2 of my time is taken up by non
income producing activates.
I am interested in hearing from the list.
-David Schwartz
On Aug 15, 2022, at 9:31 AM, Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss
<plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
Hi,
About 24 years ago I worked for a guy who used to say "There is
opportunity in chaos.".
Given the chip shortage and other things taking place in the global
space, present and future, I am wondering what do you see as
opportunity in this present/coming chaos?
FWIW I am an old guy who has started to realize that being forward
thinking is VERY important.
To keep things relevant I see that hardware is finally powerful
enough that 10 year old hardware can run Linux rather well. If the
economy really is going to crash it might be worth acquiring some
old iron, SSD drives, and RAM for future projects.
Your thoughts?
Thanks!!
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