Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

For anyone who was under the mistaken impression that the RAM situation would get better in 2027, I’m afraid I have some bad news:

https://www.digitimes.com.tw/tech/dt/n/shwnws.asp?CnlID=1&id=0000763847_DVY7YHX65GMLYZ6UQEEMP

The article says the memory market is currently undergoing a structural shift. If you’ve been following my posts, this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

The headline roughly translates to:

Memory production for all of 2027 is already sold out. Buyers are keeping quiet because they’re afraid they might not get enough themselves.

According to DigiTimes, the 2027 production capacity of the three major DRAM manufacturers, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, has essentially already been allocated.

And China isn’t going to save us either. Even Apple just hit a wall there:

https://www.techpowerup.com/351401/tsmc-sits-on-usd-1-billion-of-apple-chips-as-it-waits-for-dram

This affects both regular DRAM and HBM. The situation with NAND is a little less extreme, but even there, large chunks of 2027 production are already being reserved.

So we’re moving from

“RAM is getting scarce.”

to

“The big customers aren’t buying memory chips anymore. They’re reserving factory capacity years in advance.”

DigiTimes paints a pretty vivid picture: some buyers are deliberately keeping quiet about just how aggressively they’re reserving capacity, because they’re worried that too much attention will bring even more companies into the bidding and leave them with a smaller share.

Memory manufacturers are increasingly signing three- to five-year LTAs, Long-Term Agreements, with their major customers. Large cloud and AI companies use these deals to secure fixed volumes or production capacity. On top of that, manufacturers are sometimes demanding advance payments or deposits to reserve that capacity.

Interesting times ....

Funny how “electability” works. Progressive candidates win, and the pundit class immediately starts asking whether they can really win.

Jonathan Cohn wrote about this racket back in 2019.

Though, frankly, astrology deserves better.

https://inthesetimes.com/article/candidates-electability-is-astrology-for-pundits-2020-campaign

That feeling when you see people get away with only criticising the perceived overreach of those against "AI" but never those promoting it; somehow managing to look "impartial" while making money advising companies on "AI"

You just know they'll come out of the other end of this bubble squeaky clean

One of the downsides of having known a lot of consultants is an intimate familiarity with polished and accomplished dishonesty.

"Oh no, the cigarettes have 'gone rogue' and are causing lung cancer and buying legislation to make themselves legal!!"

Do you hear how ridiculous that sounds?

This is a post about #AI

It took humanity 68 years to install 1TW solar capacity, which we reached in 2022.

It took 2 years to double it to 2TW, which we did in November 2024.

Now a little under 2 years later, we’re at 3TW.

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/three-terawatts-solar

#RenewableEnergy

New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/06/new-mexico-court-meta "Ruling comes as part of second phase of landmark trial that found social media company enabled harm against users"

"When Thiel, Musk, Zuckerberg and Andreessen mine science fiction for blueprints, they are not finding the only possible futures. They are selecting the futures that justify their power."

https://aeon.co/essays/silicon-valley-has-a-science-fiction-problem?ref=life-in-the-21st-century.ghost.io

@ShadowJonathan
Hmm okay, I can only assume Google would just wipe their collective corporate ass with a GDPR Article 17 request ('right to be forgotten') if someone was to issue one over scraped Google Drive documents.

I mean, that'd mean they'd have to retrain their models (from scratch?) without the scraped documents.

ive been looking for this movie for over a decade now, maybe im famous enough for one of my followers to recognize it 🥺

Authenticity Problem

Bonus timelapse: https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/miniFantasyTheater/064.html#bonus

#webcomic #krita #miniFantasyTheater

She draws the picket line, resistance to ICE and life at the border. Her art is journalism and movement work.

This fall, @mollycrabapple joins In These Times as our first-ever Artist-at-Large, in partnership with the Puffin Foundation.

https://inthesetimes.com/article/bund-ice-socialist-molly-crabapple-in-these-times

Public housing, publicly owned energy, national rail, universal healthcare and free buses are not disconnected reforms. In a democratic socialist vision, they are steps toward an economy organized around public needs rather than private profit.

https://inthesetimes.com/article/democratic-socialism-economy-sanders-mamdani-aoc

“Incentives are for losers - by Adam Mastroianni”

https://www.experimental-history.com/p/incentives-are-for-losers

> So when thinking about any human ability, it’s useful to ask: is this more like speaking, or is it more like reading? Is this an ancient capability that we get for free just by living long enough, or is this a modern skill that you can’t get without working for it?

I know somebody out there wants to read about trade liberalization on a Thursday morning, right? Right?
#economics #trade #development

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/08/trade-liberalization-never-lifted-all-boats.html

Missing from the discussion on the referendum here in Iceland on reopening negotiations with the EU is that even if "yes" wins both referenda (negotations and then joining), joining is extremely unlikely to actually happen

It would require changing our constitution, which requires a law to pass in two parliaments separated by a parliamentary election. In practice, this means "join the EU" would need to win four public votes: two referenda and very likely two elections

A life devoted to labor education, intergenerational organizing and social justice.

Join friends, family and movement communities for a celebration of Beatrice Lumpkin on Sunday, August 9, at the Chicago Teachers Union Center.

https://www.allyoufascistsboundtolose.com/calendar/a-celebration-of-the-extraordinary-life-of-beatrice-lumpkin

from the article:

Never in the history of human endeavour have companies been so keen to report their products going wrong. It seems a rogue AI is the latest must-have accessory in Silicon Valley.

The reasoning behind this is not hard to follow. When your product is artificial intelligence, melodramatically realising your system is even smarter than you thought it was is a simple marketing ploy.

And when one of your rivals goes rogue, you have to go rogue too or you are as good as admitting your model is not as smart as theirs.

“AI company admits their model is smarter than they realised!” is just an advert in scary headline form.

https://off-guardian.org/2026/08/05/are-you-ready-for-the-rogue-ai-psy-op/

The Case for Marine Protected Areas - https://www.pew-bertarelli-ocean-legacy.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2025/10/the-case-for-marine-protected-areas hopeful stuff, but much more needed