Makes perfect sense to me. I don't know why more countries, particularly here in the USA, don't do more of this. If you want to add a new datacenter, you need to plan on how you will power it using 100% renewable power. You also need to either have a 100% recirculating water source, or if you're going to expend water directly for cooling, then you need to come up with a plan to replenish that water. E.g. buy replacement water from a desalinization plant. No plan = no permit.

To me this is simply logical. If you're going to dig a mine, you need to plan on how you're going to clean up the site when you're done. If you're going to dig an oil well, you need to plan on how you're going to seal it when you're done. And you need to post a bond for the amount of the capping/sealing/cleanup to an escrow account that earns interest equal to the cost of inflation. No digging wells, failing to cap them and letting them leak methane, then declare bankruptcy or sell your assists but not your liabilities to another company. No dumping your problems on the government or citizens. If you don't like it and don't want to build your datacenter here and prefer to build it somewhere else, no problem. Yes, it will raise the cost of doing business which will get passed on to the consumers. But now they're paying the fully loaded cost of the project, not part of it and then having it getting dumped on the government, which is just the people's money anyway, later.

Ha! My kingdom for mod points!

Personally, I love it! Getting a stiffy here. I just wish they combined the RF components of the Flipper Zero in as well. I know they're focusing on different devices for different things, but adding an SDR radio would be awesome!

How does FFMPEG get around the HEVC licensing issue? Or are they just ignoring it?

Salesforce should do something similar. Lately all I get is crap spam from gmail addresses being forwarded from salesforce.com's internal marketing engine.

I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that...

You mean Eccentrica Gallumbits?

The Jupiter thing is just a cover story. The reality is that OJ is using this satellite to look for the real killers! It's been 20 years since he promised to look for them. Searching golf courses and jail cells hasn't turned anything up, so now it's time to move to space.

I saw a video on Youtube about one of these. Pretty cool tech, and very simple. Solar powered and great for places like Indonesia or the Philippines. Some group sponsors one and trash gets collected.

I wondered the same thing. The only thing I could think of is that perhaps they bid on this so that they could hold it and re-sell it to a carrier later for more money. Notice the section that says small entities and rural carriers were given a "discount" on their license costs.

So if you're a small rural school, buy some spectrum at a discount then lease it back to a carrier and make $$$.

Possible reasons could be:

A - Chip includes significant power-related circuitry, which works better at older/lower resolution nodes. For example, if you're moving around a lot of power, like Thunderbolt most definitely does, it's easier to fab the circuits that control the power at an older or lower resolution (bigger) process node, like 90 nm or 130nm. That's (one reason) why many power drivers and other circuitry use the older nodes. You can mix and match nodes (5nm CPU, 90nm TB controller), but only if you're doing chiplets.

B - They had a 3rd party design the chip for them, and they wanted to reduce the co-dependence. So they make the CPU, 3rd party makes the TB controller. If they're late, no delay on the CPU.

C - They want the option to dual-source the TB controller. Perhaps they think their fab might not be able to make enough. As a separate chip, they can stick an Intel controller there, or one of their own (or 3rd party) and have more supply if one or the other runs out of chips.

D - Cost. The newest nodes (5nm) cost $$$$$$$ per piece. Older nodes like 40nm, 90nm or 130nm are much much cheaper. Yes you get more for your money, but it's not a linear cost. The newest nodes are MUCH more expensive.

But A is probably the answer. TB, USB, PCIe are all power-related, and their circuits work better on older (bigger) nodes. There's a good video on Youtube about why car chips and older nodes are in such demand and why that's not going away anytime soon.

The CIA/NSA should do the same thing they did recently with evidence for Russian hacking. Offer a big reward ($10M USD) for definitive info. Someone somewhere knows something. You offer them enough money to rebuild their life somewhere else, they'll flip and tell you what's going on.

Where are my mod points!

When I hear you say "patch straight into my sound processor unit" you sound like a cyborg!

I know fabs are seriously expensive, but I'm shocked that a single fab, even if it's 5nm, can cost $10 billion dollars. That is serious money. Does anyone here from the industry have a breakdown on the cost of the different components? Concrete can't be that much. Is it the UVL machines? What's the largest part of the price tag?