ElectroSoldier wrote on 2026-09-30, 18:07:

And this is where I leave the conversation.
Its not a political forum and I dont want it to be.

Aside that quoting me where I say I don't want to get deeper, in political discussions, as the excuse to leave the conversation, because you don't want to talk about politics is a bit odd, to say the best.

But aside that, do you think RAM prices aiming for the stars, is because the horoscope or whatever other reasons, or it's because politics?

Discussing about economics w/o bringing some politics in, is like discussing of aviation avoiding to talk about winds.

Not so much 'stop trying', as 'some ends are mutually exclusive.'

It is not *possible* to be highly educated and skilled *at everything*.

A complex society resolves this through producing knowledge experts: Experts at healthcare, at managing resources, at data processing, the list is endless as is the potential for the need.

The fundamental problem comes from this thought:

'Because *I* dont understand this thing [these so called experts are blithering on about, and saying NO to me over], it clearly *makes no sense whatsoever*, and should be discarded and ignored!'

It is very rarely expressed so ... curtly... but that is the foundational 'notion' behind populism, and its subsequent exploitation.

It itself, resolves from an internalized notion:

'Everyone is foundationally equal, and, given equal access, can achieve the same results and ends.'

It's a very *attractive* notion, and it is very hard to fault people for reaching for it, even subconsciously.

Especially since the extreme of its refutation is the basis for a VERY LARGE NUMBER OF SOCIETAL ILLS, like sexism and raceism, and that trying to embrace it as a 'black/white' ideology resulted in A GREAT MANY FAILED AND HARMFUL THINGS, like eugenics.

Rather than 'accepting that you'll never be as good as your leaders, never questioning their superior, august leadership, and accepting that you just suck', I'd tender this alternative, with a few sources to help substantiate them.

The notion that everyone starts 'equally capable' for 'any educational outcome', *is false*.

Humans *DO NOT* start 'tabula rasa.'
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41583-023-00763-0

It is not possible to predict which pattern biases any individual human will have at birth. As such, any such reflex notion is irresponsible at best, and nakedly evil at worst. (Race, gender, economic circumstance, religious affiliation, et al. NONE ARE DIAGNOSTIC)

This means that education needs to very carefully take stock of what innate qualities a student has, and not attempt to 'cookie cutter' them, no matter where they came from.

Likewise, it means that these innate biases can prevent high quality attainment for some areas of knowledge, skill, or dicipline. (This is not the same as 'never being able to understand', it means 'not being the very best', which is a vastly different thing.)

It is important to further point out, that 'scanning brains! Modern Phrenology GO!', *IS UNDESIRABLE, AND NOT A GOAL.* The 'demands'/'needs' of the society *have 0 correlation* with what any individual's rate of incidence of any trait is. Desirable, or not.

The only real indicator *is performance*. On AN INDIVIDUAL LEVEL.

Because individuals are born with such growth potential biases, the ideal path for those individuals is the union of 'enjoyment/interest', and 'individual ability bias.'

That means that no matter how much some suit in congress complains about the 'glut of useless artists', (the cognate of the modern 'they got a useless degree!' Rhetoric) their argument is just useless posturing. Education on their actual strengths and enjoyment, will give you the finest if that feild. What the govt 'wants', does not factor.

Accepting this paradigm changes the statement to this, then:

'I am drawn to numbers and math. Nothing satisfies like discovering a new abstract problem, other than *solving* it. I dont *need* or *want* to be the best engineer, or doctor, or lawyer. My natural affinity makes me a better mathematician than they ever will be. Thier affinities, make them better engineers, doctors, or lawyers than I ever will be. I am better served by being given the means to be the best I am good at, and enjoy doing.'

Once you go there, it's much easier to trust that the objections to a policy you dont understand has real basis, even if you dont grasp it.

And more importantly, that voices screaming at you to 'trust your own judgement!' and 'Go against that advice!', tend toward being dangerous, self serving charlatans.

It's less about 'accepting inferiority', and more about understanding how 'being the best at something' comes at the cost of something else.

A great deal of political rhetoric has been levelled at trying to mandate education as a 'mcProcess' to produce the kinds of workers the society *wants*.

Our educational system *has abysmal* attainment scores.

Countries that do check for student aptitudes, do much better.

https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2016/2016100/index.asp

The main complaint, revolves around 'economic outcomes' of such tracking. This is related to 'they got a useless degree!' Mindsets.

There is no such thing as a useless degree. There is only people that have what you want, and those that do not, and an intrinsic desire to try to maximize what you want, even if that does not, in fact, work.

Denial of that desire is crucial to any actually enlightened future society, that honestly takes human UNidealness into account.

Apologies for riding in the political horse rodeo.

The Solutor wrote on 2026-09-30, 18:19:

Aside that quoting me where I say I don't want to get deeper, in political discussions, as the excuse to leave the conversation, […]
Show full quote

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2026-09-30, 18:07:

And this is where I leave the conversation.
Its not a political forum and I dont want it to be.

Aside that quoting me where I say I don't want to get deeper, in political discussions, as the excuse to leave the conversation, because you don't want to talk about politics is a bit odd, to say the best.

But aside that, do you think RAM prices aiming for the stars, is because the horoscope or whatever other reasons, or it's because politics?

Discussing about economics w/o bringing some politics in, is like discussing of aviation avoiding to talk about winds.

I think the RAM prices going sky high are as a result of demand out-striping supply.
Once the supply is greater than the demand then the prices will fall.

The hyper-scalers are driving up the prices as they are buying up all the RAM and the companies are supplying them, in some cases exclusively.

Its a business decision, not a political one.

It is a political one to not interfere with private enterprise.

I am rather skeptical that the ideas driving the large bulk purchases will have net beneficial outcomes.

For anyone.

However, ASIC availability (ram included) is indeed driven by supply and demand economics.

On the supply side, there is a shortage of silica of adequate purity, a shortage of makers of EUV fab devices, a shortage of EUV fab machines themselves, and a shortage of suitable sites where it is logistically feasible to run fabs, even if the prior scarcities were magically handwaved.

On the demand side, you have very foolhardy and overzealous, greedy consumption by AI companies.

Quite a lot of 'lost opportunity' has occurred from this.

wierd_w wrote on 2026-09-30, 19:36:

Apologies for riding in the political horse rodeo.

Don't have to apologize. Everything is politics and we really need to practice talking about in a civilized manner instead making it taboo.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2026-09-30, 19:42:

I think the RAM prices going sky high are as a result of demand out-striping supply. Once the supply is greater than the demand […]
Show full quote

I think the RAM prices going sky high are as a result of demand out-striping supply.
Once the supply is greater than the demand then the prices will fall.

The hyper-scalers are driving up the prices as they are buying up all the RAM and the companies are supplying them, in some cases exclusively.

Its a business decision, not a political one.

It is a political one to not interfere with private enterprise.

It's REALLY bad politics letting such people doing whatever they want, no matter their impact on lifestyle, environment, prices and whatnot.

This is anarchy, limited to a tiny part of the population, but still anarchy, not freedom.

Meanwhile - getting away from politics, how's the price of RAM doing? Worse than a mere 3 months ago? I'm so disgusted that I haven't been following it. More importantly, how much are consumers being gouged for SSDs now? We're a long, long way from 2TB SSDs at $70 which happened two years ago.

gaffa2002 wrote on 2026-09-30, 20:04:

wierd_w wrote on 2026-09-30, 19:36:

Apologies for riding in the political horse rodeo.

Don't be. Everything is politics and we really need to practice talking about in a civilized manner instead making it taboo.

It is at best, tangential to the stated topic of this discussion, and should be reigned in as such.

No amount of demands will fix the 'only one company managed to build an xray source suitable for this kind of lithography, and the source they had to use is *absurdly rube-goldbergian* to make work' problem.

Seriously, they work by turning a stream of tiny molten tin droplets into an energetic plasma by precisely hitting each and every droplet with a laser 3 times, while cycling a dynamic mixture of hydrogen and oxygen through the xray source chamber at speeds that make a hurricane look like an elderly couple holding up traffic.

A breakthru technology would be any kind of improvement in xray mirror tech.

That would reduce the amount of energy needed considerably, and make other, less insane sources economically viable.

This vid from veritasium takes a look under that hood.

https://youtu.be/MiUHjLxm3V0?is=XsR_zTrCWRGCikog

zyzzle wrote on 2026-09-30, 20:25:

Meanwhile - getting away from politics, how's the price of RAM doing?

https://pangoly.com/en/price-trends/ram?r=US

zyzzle wrote on 2026-09-30, 20:25:

Meanwhile - getting away from politics, how's the price of RAM doing? Worse than a mere 3 months ago?

It's continued to go up where I live.

A year ago I bought a set of 64GB DDR5 CL30 RAM for $350 CAD ($250 USD). In June of this year it had risen to $1385 CAD ($975 USD).

Most recent price is now $1890 CAD ($1325 USD). That's a 440% (!) price increase in only one year.

wierd_w wrote on 2026-09-30, 19:55:

I am rather skeptical that the ideas driving the large bulk purchases will have net beneficial outcomes. […]
Show full quote

I am rather skeptical that the ideas driving the large bulk purchases will have net beneficial outcomes.

For anyone.

However, ASIC availability (ram included) is indeed driven by supply and demand economics.

On the supply side, there is a shortage of silica of adequate purity, a shortage of makers of EUV fab devices, a shortage of EUV fab machines themselves, and a shortage of suitable sites where it is logistically feasible to run fabs, even if the prior scarcities were magically handwaved.

On the demand side, you have very foolhardy and overzealous, greedy consumption by AI companies.

Quite a lot of 'lost opportunity' has occurred from this.

Net effect will be a lot of people making money from the sales.
For most of us who buy used it isnt the hyper-scalers who are the greedy ones though, its the private sellers who are cashing in on the rise in demand.
Thats why prices of used in also high. Which is where most of us spend our money.

The Solutor wrote on 2026-09-30, 20:07:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2026-09-30, 19:42:

I think the RAM prices going sky high are as a result of demand out-striping supply. Once the supply is greater than the demand […]
Show full quote

I think the RAM prices going sky high are as a result of demand out-striping supply.
Once the supply is greater than the demand then the prices will fall.

The hyper-scalers are driving up the prices as they are buying up all the RAM and the companies are supplying them, in some cases exclusively.

Its a business decision, not a political one.

It is a political one to not interfere with private enterprise.

It's REALLY bad politics letting such people doing whatever they want, no matter their impact on lifestyle, environment, prices and whatnot.

This is anarchy, limited to a tiny part of the population, but still anarchy, not freedom.

You make it sound like it is only the big companies doing this.
Anybody with a stick of used RAM and selling it at the much inflated price is part of it too you know.

There's most likely nothing technically stopping Ddr3 or even 1&2 if you wanted to be absurd working with current cpus.

Little slot adapter and some oem microcode and you too can run a core ultra/Ryzen 9 with 2x 8gb Ddr3 1600!

I'm reasonably serious about it working with microcode updates.
Skylake could run 3&4, 12th gen could run 4&5.

Over time signals have been added, but I don't recall any removed. I am pretty sure less than 5 new traces were added mostly around clocking to keep the higher speeds stable.

The microcode would mostly just be to make sure that the buffer is set correctly. Each standard tends to double the size of the chunk sent per request.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2026-10-01, 02:27:

You make it sound like it is only the big companies doing this.

Whenever sharks consume their food, there are always small creatures that take advantage of the leftovers, not really the discover of the tap water...

But still the sharks eat the big part of that meal.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2026-10-01, 02:27:

Net effect will be a lot of people making money from the sales. For most of us who buy used it isnt the hyper-scalers who are th […]
Show full quote

wierd_w wrote on 2026-09-30, 19:55:

I am rather skeptical that the ideas driving the large bulk purchases will have net beneficial outcomes. […]
Show full quote

I am rather skeptical that the ideas driving the large bulk purchases will have net beneficial outcomes.

For anyone.

However, ASIC availability (ram included) is indeed driven by supply and demand economics.

On the supply side, there is a shortage of silica of adequate purity, a shortage of makers of EUV fab devices, a shortage of EUV fab machines themselves, and a shortage of suitable sites where it is logistically feasible to run fabs, even if the prior scarcities were magically handwaved.

On the demand side, you have very foolhardy and overzealous, greedy consumption by AI companies.

Quite a lot of 'lost opportunity' has occurred from this.

Net effect will be a lot of people making money from the sales.
For most of us who buy used it isnt the hyper-scalers who are the greedy ones though, its the private sellers who are cashing in on the rise in demand.
Thats why prices of used in also high. Which is where most of us spend our money.

The Solutor wrote on 2026-09-30, 20:07:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2026-09-30, 19:42:

I think the RAM prices going sky high are as a result of demand out-striping supply. Once the supply is greater than the demand […]
Show full quote

I think the RAM prices going sky high are as a result of demand out-striping supply.
Once the supply is greater than the demand then the prices will fall.

The hyper-scalers are driving up the prices as they are buying up all the RAM and the companies are supplying them, in some cases exclusively.

Its a business decision, not a political one.

It is a political one to not interfere with private enterprise.

It's REALLY bad politics letting such people doing whatever they want, no matter their impact on lifestyle, environment, prices and whatnot.

This is anarchy, limited to a tiny part of the population, but still anarchy, not freedom.

You make it sound like it is only the big companies doing this.
Anybody with a stick of used RAM and selling it at the much inflated price is part of it too you know.

I will add to this that a segment of people selling used DDR4 RAM at high prices are doing so , in part, to try to help offset the cost of an upgrade. This obviously does not include the "scalper" types who actively buy speculatively and resell, both lining their pockets and contributing to the upward price pressure, at least to some degree. The latter are conceptually similar to some large scale real estate investors and those who mass bought, hoarded and tried to resell toilet paper a few years ago.

This is not meant as a judgment, but as an observation. I certainly have an opinion, which I will not elaborate upon here.

The Solutor wrote on 2026-10-01, 07:56:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2026-10-01, 02:27:

You make it sound like it is only the big companies doing this.

Whenever sharks consume their food, there are always small creatures that take advantage of the leftovers, not really the discover of the tap water...

But still the sharks eat the big part of that meal.

A good anology.
You want government legislation to control that?

darry wrote on 2026-10-01, 11:02:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2026-10-01, 02:27:

Net effect will be a lot of people making money from the sales. For most of us who buy used it isnt the hyper-scalers who are th […]
Show full quote

wierd_w wrote on 2026-09-30, 19:55:

I am rather skeptical that the ideas driving the large bulk purchases will have net beneficial outcomes. […]
Show full quote

I am rather skeptical that the ideas driving the large bulk purchases will have net beneficial outcomes.

For anyone.

However, ASIC availability (ram included) is indeed driven by supply and demand economics.

On the supply side, there is a shortage of silica of adequate purity, a shortage of makers of EUV fab devices, a shortage of EUV fab machines themselves, and a shortage of suitable sites where it is logistically feasible to run fabs, even if the prior scarcities were magically handwaved.

On the demand side, you have very foolhardy and overzealous, greedy consumption by AI companies.

Quite a lot of 'lost opportunity' has occurred from this.

Net effect will be a lot of people making money from the sales.
For most of us who buy used it isnt the hyper-scalers who are the greedy ones though, its the private sellers who are cashing in on the rise in demand.
Thats why prices of used in also high. Which is where most of us spend our money.

The Solutor wrote on 2026-09-30, 20:07:

It's REALLY bad politics letting such people doing whatever they want, no matter their impact on lifestyle, environment, prices and whatnot.

This is anarchy, limited to a tiny part of the population, but still anarchy, not freedom.

You make it sound like it is only the big companies doing this.
Anybody with a stick of used RAM and selling it at the much inflated price is part of it too you know.

I will add to this that a segment of people selling used DDR4 RAM at high prices are doing so , in part, to try to help offset the cost of an upgrade. This obviously does not include the "scalper" types who actively buy speculatively and resell, both lining their pockets and contributing to the upward price pressure, at least to some degree. The latter are conceptually similar to some large scale real estate investors and those who mass bought, hoarded and tried to resell toilet paper a few years ago.

This is not meant as a judgment, but as an observation. I certainly have an opinion, which I will not elaborate upon here.

Ive thought about doing exactly that myself.
I bought a RTX 3090 24Gb just over a year ago when the prices were down. Its worth about £1000 more than I paid for it.
Its only the fact I like and use it all the time that has stopped me.

Those are the prices we are seeing on the used market. people cashing in on the lack of supply.

The main reason Im not selling is because I dont think this bubble ends like the dot com bubble did with lots of cheap RAM hitting the market, because while the memory chips might be the right ones they are all ECC registered stick and GPUs that can only fit into a server chassis.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2026-10-01, 18:12:

A good anology.

Well I don't expect that a nation like the US where practically everyone is brainwashed since the birth to consider socialism and communism and everything that vaguely smells of them, bad thing by design, could accept a state control to anything, so a good start would be to have stronger regulation there.

But in more civilized countries, a lot of things are or were under the direct or indirect national control, and often work or worked very well.

Think to Italian ENI that in '60 was able to compete with the then "Seven sisters", and the only way to tame it was killing his CEO Enrico Mattei, by the hands of the CIA, think to how the British Railways were downgraded then Thatcher privatized them, to the point that now the opposite process is ongoing...

But even in the US a large part of the economy is privately run only by name, what would be, say, Boeing w/o the huge amount of money it receives under the chapter "aerospace and defence"?

It was nationalisation that killed British Railways.

In many ways Boeing in the jewel in the crown of American industry.
What they get from the government is earnt not given, however having said that if it was at risk they should absolutely protect it given what attributes and characteristics it has as an enterprise.

I've worked with/for BOEING.

It is not the same company it used to be, after the McDonnel Douglass merger.

(They did not merge with lockheed, they just collaborate on everything to the point the engineering stamps overlap)

Regardless, they took Douglass' bad mgt, and replaced BOEING's engineer dominated management with it.

The decline in effective quality measures was immediate, accellerated, and hit rock bottom, with multiple quality system failures in the past 5 years.

Very significant ones.

In RAM pricing news:
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/dr … uarterly-profit

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2026-10-01, 20:02:

It was nationalisation that killed British Railways.

Good one, you know other jokes?

What they get from the government is earnt not given

Definitely you know other 😁

They earnt more with 747max or with the Starliner spacecraft? 😁

BTW your jokes, as good as they are, sound amateurish if compared with Boeing blaming unfair competition by Airbus, because the public funding 😁