Fred and Loathing on The Internet

Magnetic Coil To Be Inducted Into Hall of Fame

2023-Dec-18

The modularization of the new version to Fredlambuth.com is reporting success in reducing functionality to the most replaceable unit. It has made mixing and matching between Flask views and Jinja2 templates a possibility. The old version has a much more fragile linking between those, requiring a more hand-crafted approach to make any new dynamic HTML looks into my Spotify data. Some planning is suggested for the next development sprint. There was plenty of earnest energy on the part of the development team this time around, however there was a bit of wheel spinning in the middle when the early accomplishments were made, but no subsequent were not thought of until they had to. A crude to-do list, even if erring on the side of too ambitious in length, ought to be implemented more often.

Chip War by Chris Miller is the book on this blog entry’s review portion. The long and short analysis I have for this book is a warm endorsement for everybody except the most studious readers of international supply chains and semiconductor logic. Perhaps for a layman who has no interest in either of those ought to steer away from the book as well. I knew enough about ‘chips’ to find the pace of new concepts thrown at the reader to be digestible. Those looking for a deep cut into the geopolitics of the chip ‘war’ might also not be served well by reading this book. I came into it with that bent and found that only the third act hammered hard on the geopolitical(war!) implications of how semiconductors are fabricated.

Even though it came off lighter than I hoped about international relations intrigue, I still found what was collected and narrated together to be an entertaining stream of stories detailing the rise and fall of the players in the semiconductor industry; whether they be individual pioneers, corporations, state agencies, or sometimes whole nations. I have come away from reading this book much more informed about the nanometric scale creation of semiconductors. A process that years ago I would have labeled science magic even though I was aware of the idea of billions of transistors working in tandem on a substance ultimately derived from sand.

The uniquely intricate logistics of making RAM, CPUs, GPUs, etc. pulls in geopolitical factors from every sector of the globe. This makes the subject of the history of semiconductor manufacturing at the mercy of more political concerns than almost any item sold on the global market. Chips are the icon of globalism. The most advanced chips today require at least three nations participating at the last level of chip construction, and the tools and parts those three nations use spreads out into the rest of the world.

The subject of computer chips and the political couching of the problems that come with the subject absolutely colors my recollection of any foibles I found in the author’s words. It has been a few weeks since I actually finished listening to the audiobook and that bit of time has only left me with the satisfaction of learning a good chunk about just how my PC’s parts were made.