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   Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Monday, 02-Dec-2024 05:26:07 JST Charlie Stross

   in reply to

   • Graydon
   • Clifton Royston

   @graydon @CliftonR The centralizing IT departments are still very much a thing, though. They just moved from the mainframe to the network and RDBMS then to VMs in the cloud (not so different from VMs running on IBM mainframes). They're still there. And cheap local compute led to the culture of BYOD and hot-desking and related bullshit (displacing equipment costs onto the shoulders of the employees).

   • Embed this notice
     Graydon (graydon@canada.masto.host)'s status on Monday, 02-Dec-2024 05:26:08 JST Graydon

     in reply to

     • Clifton Royston

     @CliftonR The other three factors were getting business processes out of the (centralized, mainframe) IT department's control, the price for local compute trending down (whether for calculations or control), and communications; internet, mobile phones, video games, the whole plethora.

     None of those can happen if VLSI doesn't happen, and VLSI generally doesn't happen without the USG not caring very much about what it costs to fit better compute into an ICBM.

   • Embed this notice
     Clifton Royston (cliftonr@wandering.shop)'s status on Monday, 02-Dec-2024 05:26:09 JST Clifton Royston

     in reply to

     • Graydon

     @graydon

     Your second paragraph is an interesting perspective I haven't heard before.

     I'm not sure I agree with you on that - I think a lot of other factors went into it - but it's definitely something to think about.

   • Embed this notice
     Graydon (graydon@canada.masto.host)'s status on Monday, 02-Dec-2024 05:26:10 JST Graydon

     I see posts describing AI as useless or harmful and yet the perpetrators still expect money, and I find myself going "well, yeah."

     IT/Tech/whatever was a gold rush brought on by the development of VLSI circuit production. No one expected it or planned for it and it was the only real economic growth for thirty years, but now it's over.

     What we're seeing is a bunch of organisms adapted for the gold rush expressing their deepest insecurity in frank terms as "you have to keep giving us money".