Opportunity

[techlists at phpcoderusa.com]

David,

I have always enjoyed your thoughts, even though we do not agree when it 
comes to political issues.   And I think your a smart guy.

On 2022-08-17 03:25, David Schwartz via PLUG-discuss wrote:

I'll pass on this one because it could get politically charged very 
quickly and my intention were to try to understand what is coming.

I posted to this list hoping for thoughts from technical people.

> I don’t know what you’re referring to exactly about the economy
> crashing, other than the typical doom-and-gloom nonsense that the
> right-wing propaganda machinery floods the airwaves with whenever
> Democrats are in charge of things. The truth is, things are always
> shifting, slowly but surely.
> 

I hope it is all doom-and-gloom.  I'm not up for an economic crash.  You 
and I have lived though some interesting times.

- Oil embargo, which killed the musical car era.
- 70's and 80's which kept my wages 20% behind the real cost of living.
- 30 years of perpetual wars....
- The creation of the Internet and all that has come with it.

I do not think what is currently taking place is "right-wing 
propaganda".

I am hearing and reading:

- Ukraine and Russia produce 70% of the worlds wheat which is not making 
it to the market this year.
- Ukraine and Russia produce 70% of the worlds commercial fertilizer 
which is not making it to the market this year.
- We are experiencing a severe drought world wide.
- Some are saying there will be famine and food shortages.  I'm seeing 
vacant shelves at the grocery stores.
- The dollar is losing it's place as the world's reserve currency. That 
means dollars going to come home causing even more inflation.
- Some are saying it could be as bad as the Great Depression.  And I 
truly hope this is "right-wing propaganda".
- Some are saying we will see double digit inflation for 10 years.  How 
do I plan my wife's retirement with that? I'll work till I die...  I did 
the math.  If I save $1000 today, in 10 years it will have $350 of 
buying power.

I was hoping to spend my old age working on my old muscle car and old 
RV. I do not own either. Oh, and throw in some watching the grass grow.

I do not want this to turn political.  I am in search of wisdom.

Here are my thoughts.

1) Transition away from Windows and MAC.  Buy some old hardware, while 
it is cheep.  In fact 6 months from now lots of things might be cheep - 
new and old.  I read Walmart is laying off 300 executives dues to the 
slow in the economy and having an over stocked situation.  I would buy 
as much RAM as you might need for your new and old hardware and replace 
spinners with SSD drives.

2) I know this is a Linux list so I assume most know Linux better that 
most others.  I am a programmer.  A PHP developer.  I understand most 
developers do not know Linux.  I recommend learning how to configure and 
maintain a LAMP server for testing and development.  The P stands for 
PHP.

3) I would recommend that those who do not have the skills to maintain a 
Linux desktop should burn some midnight oil and learn the basics.  I had 
to move to Windows 6 years ago because of a business need.  Windows 10 
has 3 more years before it's end of life.  By that time I will be back 
on Linux for good.

4) Create a blog and journal your learning and experiences.

5) If you are looking for a job, find the hiring managers and ask them 
to mentor you so you can find the door into what you want to do.

6) I think a lot of businesses will fail. AND out of the ashes new 
businesses will form.  These new businesses will need to use technology 
to their benefit.  What technologies will they need?

7) Linux and web programming is turning into, and may have already 
turned into a cottage industry.  For hosting there only needs to be one 
admin local to the facility.  All others can work remote.

8) Covid caused a shift away from the office to the spare bedroom.  In 
an effort to save money I think most companies will have a hybrid model. 
Employees will need to make it into the office periodically while 
working from home for the majority of the time. The amount of office 
space necessary to run a business will shrink.  Office space should be 
cheep for the foreseeable future.

9) We have become a mail order economy.  I only buy groceries in person 
and that will change within the next few month.  I used to buy 
everything retail.  Not anymore.  And that saves me time and gas.  I tip 
so the tip is probably what I would spend on gas... however it does 
spare my car wear and tear.

Those are my thoughts.  I would like to hear from others.


> As for technology, I’d make this simple observation:
> 
> At some point, the world leader in CPU chips — Intel — was
> following along the same path they had been taking for years and was
> working on a 5 GHz CPU when they realized that as they kept trying to
> speed-up CPUs, the amount of effort needed to extract the heat from
> the chips would make the hardware far too expensive and cumbersome to
> remain viable. So they decided that multiple CPUs on the chip where
> the CPU speed was around 2-3 GHz would be better in the long-run.
> 
> I’m guessing that the folks at a world leader in computer
> engineering — Apple Computer — also figured this out. Intel sells
> chips; Apple sells computer systems. Dell buys Intel chips and
> integrates video cards from another vendor that use Intel’s GPUs.
> Apple doesn’t really care who makes what; they just want to maximize
> their profits.
> 
> Coincidentally, video cards have been hard to come by because the GPUs
> have been getting hijacked for use by crytocurrency miners. A large
> portion of these have Intel GPUs on them.
> 
> Apple decided it might make more sense to simply put a bunch of CPUs
> and GPUs on one substrate and then tune their software to run on this
> sort of architecture, alleviating the dependency on separate CPU and
> GPU chips and cards. There’s a side-effect in that nobody is going
> to be hijacking their GPUs for other purposes.
> 
> Intel apparently didn’t want to lose the revenues they’ve been
> earning from their GPU chip sales to crypto miners and, well, Apple is
> no longer using either Intel’s CPUs or GPUs.
> 
> So while some say the economy is “crashing”, the 10 largest
> corporations in the world are all reporting record profits and growth.
> The stuff politicians are doing to continue long-term policies that
> enable corporations to siphon off more and more money from consumers
> is appalling, and may well lead to a lot more discomfort and pain for
> consumers, but certainly not from corporate shareholders and execs. If
> you want to profit from that shift, then buy stocks in these large and
> growing companies. Warren Buffet has large holdings in them, as well
> as Apple. He also owns a large utility company in Nevada.
> 
> Speaking of utility companies, one thing that is surely going to help
> “crash” the economy (for consumers) over the coming decade is the
> increasing growth of EVs and their need to get their fuel from the
> power grid. The same power grid that’s going to be used to power
> computers and crypto miners. Some with politically-motivated arguments
> might see it as convenient that states like Arizona have passed laws
> that give utility companies the power to punish consumers who want to
> install their own renewable energy sources and batteries to become
> independent of the power grid. Yes, we’re talking about those folks
> who’d like to unhook from the inevitable increases we’re going to
> see in the cost of electricity, especially since the cost of fuel to
> power generators is also skyrocketing — and the profits from those
> price increases is nearly all flowing into the bank accounts of the
> monarchy of Saudi Arabia (with the help of elected officials in
> Congress, both past and present, members of both political parties).
> 

I have been pondering the grid issue.  Was not long ago the electricity 
vendors where complaining about the load that cellular phones and other 
devices where putting on the grid.



> The tea leaves are pretty clear to many readers: there’s a big shift
> towards more and more things in our life that require electricity to
> run, and it’s inevitable that the cost of said power is going to go
> up. But the price of gas is also going up, which is contributing to
> the increase in power costs. Buying a bunch of old computers that
> consume 3x the power of the newest computers does not seem like a
> smart way to avoid increases in the cost of electricity.

Are you saying my 8 year old Dell i5 is using too much power and I 
should replace it?

Not sure how to evaluate that.  My i5 is old and has 4 cores, 16GB of 
RAM, and a 1TB SSD.  It is paid for so I wonder if spending $500 or 
more, to replace it is really worth the savings in electricity.  Maybe I 
would be better served by adding 1k or 2k of solar to the mix.

You seem to be in favor of dumping old iron in favor of more efficient 
hardware. I'm thinking the opposite.  I'm in favor of adding RAM (if 
needed) and an SSD drive to old stuff and use Linux ... kind of a 
counter culture thing... Off grid solar has always appealed to me 
because it "feels" counter culture.  Taking control of ones life.

Remember the good old days about 20 years ago?  Linux was counter 
culture.  I first learning of Linux in 1998 and I ran out and bought a 
box set.  I was hooked because it was not main stream, it was counter 
culture.  I'm thinking we need to get some of that back.


> 
> Make your home more thermally efficient so you don’t need to run
> your A/C as much. Replace electronic equipment with newer lower-power
> stuff. Reduce your overall carbon footprint by 10%. Grow your own
> fruits and veggies. Set up a wind turbine or solar panels to charge
> batteries that power your electronic equipment at home, but do not
> connect them to the grid. Buy an inexpensive EV to get around town,
> because in the long-run it’ll be far cheaper than a gas-powered
> vehicle. (I recommend a Bolt or a Leaf as they’re the cheapest EVs
> on the market today and will remain so for 2-3 years due to factors
> like the global chip shortage. I got a 2019 Leaf SL Plus, and I *LOVE*
> it! It only costs me 4¢/mile in electricity to drive.)

Your car sounds nice.  I home office and have for a long, long time.  
With online shopping and delivery I might drive 50 - 200 miles a month. 
My goal is to get down to 50 miles per month every  month.  I think I 
can.

I own a 2009 Nissan Xterra.  It gets 16 - 20 MPG.  Not very good.  I do 
not recall the last time I purchased gas.  I fill up at 3/4 of a tank.  
I think I buy a 1/4 tank of gas every 6 - 8 weeks.

I hear some in D.C. say I should buy an EV.  Ironically my Nissan might 
outlive me.  Pretty sure it will so why replace?

> 
> While you’re at it, figure out how to generate $100-$200 per day
> online to supplement your income.

Good advice.  That was what I was hoping to hear. Any thoughts on how?

$100-$200 a day or $3000 - $6000 per month might replace some people's 
day job.

I've been following Income School.  I can tell you the Internet is very 
competitive.  Some are able to make affiliate marketing work for them. 
To do so one needs to be able to write and to write articles for what 
people are searching for, and that are competitive for that topic.

I do think we are at a crossroads where we will see more people work 
remote and freelance/contract work will start to be the norm.

My suggestion is lean how to create an LLC, create a blog, learn your 
niche and how to get traffic, especially targeted traffic that creates 
business leads.  Or one can scour the job sites and look for remote in 
your area of expertise.

I think the real opportunities moving forward will be in the area of 
freelancing.

I think we are about to go through another change in how we work.  Covid 
got us out of the office and now I think a lot of jobs are going to be 
short term and will be 1099 contract.

There are a few things to learn about to survive as a 1099 contractor.  
It is not like working W2.  You will need to pay for your own benefits, 
time off, training, equipment, and workspace.  You will need to 
understand what you need to live on, what you are worth, and that not 
all of your time is income producing.  For short-term projects, I figure 
1/2 of my time is taken up by non income producing activates.

I am interested in hearing from the list.




> 
> -David Schwartz
> 
>> On Aug 15, 2022, at 9:31 AM, Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss
>> <plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi,
>> About 24 years ago I worked for a guy who used to say "There is
>> opportunity in chaos.".
>> 
>> Given the chip shortage and other things taking place in the global
>> space, present and future, I am wondering what do you see as
>> opportunity in this present/coming chaos?
>> 
>> FWIW I am an old guy who has started to realize that being forward
>> thinking is VERY important.
>> 
>> To keep things relevant I see that hardware is finally powerful
>> enough that 10 year old hardware can run Linux rather well.  If the
>> economy really is going to crash it might be worth acquiring some
>> old iron, SSD drives, and RAM for future projects.
>> 
>> Your thoughts?
>> 
>> Thanks!!
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