More Zonkyness

More Powerful ARM-Powered Apples On The Way

Dec 092020

The ‘tubes are full of pundits expanding on ‘leaks’ from Apple about the possibility of more powerful ARM-based Apple Macs on the way.

No shit! What a surprise. You could knock me down with a feather.

The recently announced Macbooks with the ARM-based M1 processor from Apple are an initial release with something that is an improvement on their existing ARM-based processors used in their phones and tablets. A leak is hardly necessary to predict the release of more powerful processors to replace their whole line-up – if Apple is going to put ARM processors into their laptops, they’ll be doing the same for the rest of the line-up.

Next year, or the year after, you won’t find an Intel processor in any Apple product. Or perhaps most – it may be handy to keep one or two Intel-based products around simply to maintain a platform for software products that won’t work on ARM.

But there is no reason why Apple should stick to Intel, and every reason why they should – if they can produce a low-power laptop processor this good what can they do with a desktop processor power-budget?

Now it is entirely possible that Apple will stumble, but there really is no reason to act surprised when rumours of more ARM-based products ‘leak’.

“At Least I’m Not A Subject”

General, Politics No Responses »

Dec 052020

If you ever talk with US citizens on the problems with their country, there is all too often someone who comes up with this old chestnut – “At least I’m not a subject”.

Which is false and even if it were true, it wouldn’t be quite what it appears.

For a start we haven’t been “subjects” since the Nationality Act of 1948, except for a tiny number of special category subjects because for special circumstances they don’t qualify for citizenship – mostly pre-1949 immigrants from the Republic of Ireland, or India.

And if we were subjects, we would be subjects of parliament not an inherited monarchy. Yes we have a monarchy, but the power of the monarch is wielded by parliament under a doctrine known as the “Queen-in-parliament“.

Which is a weird kind of solution to the problem of letting a monarch keep their crown, but keeping real power in the hands of parliament. Once you’ve ‘demoted’ a monarch with an axe and the world hasn’t come to a standstill, you’re no longer “subjects” in the sense of being the property of an absolute monarch.

Let us emphasise that last bit – we let the monarchs keep their throne, and they serve at our pleasure. To give a real world example of how that works is the story of Edward VIII who was the present queen’s uncle. To sum up, he wanted to marry a previously married woman and “the establishment” (various prime ministers and the archbishop of Canterbury) was opposed; in the end it was Edward who abdicated and “the establishment” got their way.

Now the reasons were ridiculous (although the outcome may have been unintentionally fortuitous given Edwards VIII and Mrs Simpson’s sympathy for the Nazis), but the balance of power is clear to see.

I dare say those who loudly proclaim “At least I’m not a subject” will ignore this.

UK Average House Prices in Multiples of Median Salary

General No Responses »

Nov 192020

So that is a graph of average house prices divided by the median salary (average but not allowing extreme salaries to distort the value), or in other words how many average salaries you would need to buy a house. The figures were originally obtained from UK government statistics.

The graph is a little small, but it shows that in 1977, the multiple was roughly 0.9 increasing to nearly 7 by 2019.

Now there’s all sorts of factors involved but fundamentally that is a huge increase in housing costs as proportion of our salaries.

EU: It Was Always About Political Integration

Politics No Responses »

Nov 152020

There’s a myth propagated by the far-right anti-EU brigade – that the “original” European Economic Community (there was an earlier ECSC) was only ever about a single market for goods and services. As can be seen from the Schuman Declaration, the long-term aim was always political integration :-

A united Europe was not achieved and we had war.
Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity. The coming together of the nations of Europe requires the elimination of the age-old opposition of France and Germany. Any action taken must in the first place concern these two countries.

Now you could argue that a unified Europe is undesirable and that it is perfectly reasonable to stop at a single market. That would be an agreeable position – stupid in my opinion, but valid.

But arguing that unification was never the goal would be dishonest.

Now Trump Is Going, How Did He Get There?

Politics No Responses »

Nov 072020

Now that Trump has been rejected by the US electorate, it is time to examine just what caused him to be elected in the first place. It’s all too easy to blame the electoral system (and there are issues with that), but fundamentally Trump got a lot more votes in 2016 (and 2020) than a self-obsessed failed business-critter should have done.

A big part of the MAGA phenomenon was (and is) frustration with mainstream politicians. Yes, there are other contributing factions – evangelical “christians”, far-right racists, the so-called “alt-right”, and traditional Republicans (who may have been reluctant but voted for him nevertheless).

But there is an immense level of frustration with the current political landscape with both political parties beholden to their corporate masters. And ordinary working people (who may not always have the most sophisticated political knowledge) have the urge to vote for “something different”.

Or in other words, “populism” or anti-elitism. Which is not always a bad thing especially if you pick the right elites to be against. But Trump’s brand of populism was fake – he promised to drain the swamp and just jumped in.

Fox News had a poll (don’t laugh – their polling is well done as long as they aren’t just polling their viewers) which was surprising – the US public overwhelmingly support more progressive values (universal health care, etc.) than either of the mainstream parties.

And that’s the key – neither of the two main parties is aligned with the interests of the electorate. Trump appeared to be anti-establishment, and those who didn’t see through to his con-act may well have voted for him because of that. Especially as he lacked corporate donors in 2016.

And that’s the key – the mainstream parties represent the interests of the corporations and not the electorate. And in the long term that is dangerous.

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