It may not be the most competitive fab on the market, but Hacker Fab is already within reach of a well-funded makerspace. I haven’t read up on their cleanroom procedures, but I assume all the costs of that are included in their breakdown.
It doesn’t necessarily need to be competitive with TSMC sub-3nm. CPUs at 1000nm can still be incredibly useful.
Oh, that’s interesting. Peltiers have been stuck where they are for over a century. Every once in a while, some tech tuber will try to use one on a CPU and finds that the power requirement is too high to be useful. Rinse and repeat with another tech tuber every year or so.
Why, no, technology doesn’t magically get better just because time passes. It gets better because someone did the research. And sometimes, it’s just as good as it’s ever going to get.
Nice to hear about an improvement in this one. Not sure if it’s good enough to replace compressors, but it’ll be useful regardless.
There’s an argument out there that long lasting communes work out precisely because they require social sacrifices. Meaning that weird rituals and giving things up are what makes them hold together.
The idea is that by making sacrifices, you signal to the rest of the community that you will do your share.
Here’s an older paper on it:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2138608
This isn’t 100% accepted by social scientists, though. Some newer papers cast doubt.
If it is true, then the good news is that it doesn’t necessarily have to be Amish-level sacrifices and authoritarian control to get it.
Vehicles aren’t actually much heavier than they have been for some time. If you look back through the most popular cars in the US by year, you’ll see a lot of land yachts. Every once in a while, you’ll see something actually small, like a VW Bug, but then it’s right back to big ass metal box.
The 1980s did see a lot of smaller cars, but it didn’t take long before the US went back to heft.
Conversely, tires and brakes have improved substantially over the years. The stopping distance of modern cars is actually very, very good. This is somewhat negated by a move towards low rolling resistance tires, particularly on hybrids and EVs.
The height issue on trucks is a way bigger problem. Easy for an adult to be hidden in front of it, to say nothing of kids.