7 ms·

Cash, Canadians and CPUs: Intel's 'Lost' Early Microprocessor

100 points by klelatti 4y ago

FullyFunctional 4y ago
Interesting article, but the one footnote reads: “It’s interesting how ‘Solid State’ and ‘Tek’ as an abbreviation for ‘Tech’ have disappeared from common use” SSDs would like a word
- klelatti 4y ago
  Thanks and very good point - I suppose I was thinking of the phrase 'Solid State Electronics' - but you're absolutely right.
ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
- glouwbug 4y ago
  Our housing market is pretty excellent
  - Mikeb85 4y ago
    If by excellent you mean wildly overpriced then yes.
    - ipaddr 4y ago
      Overpriced means it is priced so high people will not pay. The reality is with a low inventory and high demand levels prices will go higher. High demand justifies higher prices when inventory is low. I don't see demand reducing or inventory levels increasing for a few years interest rate notwithstanding. I would buy now because prices are only going up.
      - brailsafe 4y ago
        Overpriced in my mind means priced so high people can't realistically pay without being extremely wealthy or committing mortgage fraud, or priced so high that the practical value that could be derived from it as an intrinsically useful asset is significantly smaller than what you have to pay. Does $600k for a studio, or like $3500/month seem appropriately priced? Sure some people are willing to spend $9k on a pair of shoes, but they're still overpriced.
      - Mikeb85 4y ago
        Some of what you said is correct except prices are going down because of interest rates. Also high real estate prices have hurt other areas of the economy. And the demand is largely due to money laundering out of China, not fundamentals.
        ipaddr 4y ago
        Is the money laundering part of the fundamentals since it has been going on for so long
- Mikeb85 4y ago
  > Canadian society and culture is generally incapable of excellence. It does seem that way eh? And the Canadians who are successful always seem to leave...
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    Canadians who are looking to be successful leave those who are stay.
- jeromegv 4y ago
  Because of course, failure of a government program is telling us that the whole Canadian culture is mediocre? What a great take.
  - Mikeb85 4y ago
    Canadian culture IS mediocre. Everyone's ambition here is to do what everyone else does. Restaurants are mostly the same. Businesses don't innovate, they merely do what someone else who was already successful did. The parent may not have elaborated the reasons perfectly but everyone here knows it.
    - brailsafe 4y ago
      If given the chance to work and live in the states for $50k more, or in Europe for the same amount or less than I currently make, I might choose the latter for the novelty, but not the former to climb a ladder, so what's the comparison worth? That said, I'm not about to move to the suburbs where everyone and everything is pretty bland and same.
      - novok 4y ago
        The difference is far from $50k in tech, it's far, far more and you can live in an actual city called new york unlike all of canada?
        brailsafe 4y ago
        New York seems neat, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to live there. Pretty happy here in Vancouver. The rent and housing costs are absurd, but they'd be worse in New York. I like parts of the states quite a bit, but I don't think I'd like to live there, at least not long-term. Not my vibe. People say the difference is much greater than $50k, but I think it's often overblown. You have the top few companies with crazy stock compensations on top of higher base salaries, but I'm not getting into those companies anyway. Some places can compete with that, but not as many as simply moving to the states, especially with no degree, and just automatically making so much more. It would be ladder climbing, and I don't care enough about hocking more bs products at people that I'd put so much of myself into that.
- virgulino 4y ago
  >Canadian society and culture is generally incapable of excellence. Avro Arrow? ATI? Yoshua Bengio?
  - varispeed 4y ago
    Trailer Park Boys - the best TV show of all time. Best medical cannabis Love Canadian cosmetics
  - anameen21 4y ago
    I'd say these examples would partially prove their point, the first being defunct since 1962, and the second having been acquired by AMD (an American company) for over 15 years. For Yoshua, well this excerpt from Wikipedia may be useful here: "In October 2016, Bengio co-founded Element AI, a Montreal-based artificial intelligence incubator that turns AI research into real-world business applications. Having failed to develop marketable products and losing several partnerships, by 2020 the company was running out of money and options and announced its sale to American software company ServiceNow in November. The sale will see largely Canadian taxpayer funded intellectual property exported to the United States, contrary to Bengio's desire to found Element AI as a Canadian company to rival the world's tech giants. Bengio will stay employed as an advisor while the vast majority of employees were terminated with their stock options voided and cancelled with no value in lieu provided."
    - DSingularity 4y ago
      Damn. Bengio!? I thought the dude had integrity. Why did he not threaten to resign if those employees weren’t at least somewhat compensated?
    - bpye 4y ago
      Well more recently we have startups like Shopify and Wealthsimple? D-Wave is also Canadian. Canadian game studios produce some of the most critically acclaimed titles, studios like Relic, BioWare, Eidos-Montreal, etc - admittedly many of these were either started as subsidiaries or have since been acquired, but the talent absolutely exists in Canada. As someone else has mentioned, Canada has 1/10th the population of the USA, less still compared to the EU, and about 1/2th of the UK. I wouldn't say we do badly...
cbsmith 4y ago
Wow... I did not expect to see the comments filled with a bunch of Canadian hate.
- dleslie 4y ago
  One thing that younger Canadians and foreigners don't seem to grasp is that Canada's economy is basically a handful of abusive corporations pretending to be a country. The Maritimes are dominated completely by the holdings of a single family. The West is dominated by resource extraction and banking. Ontario and Quebec are owned by banking and manufacturing families. And then there's Robellus... But that said, there's also that raising Canadian capital is historically a fool's errand. Raising loonies is so hard it's basically pointless, it's almost always better for entrepreneurs to register as American corporations, pretend to be American, and raise American money. Because, at the end of the day, every party in Canada is beholden to their campaign financiers. Every party. And no money wants to flow outside of the proven channels.
  - cbsmith 4y ago
    > One thing that younger Canadians and foreigners don't seem to grasp is that Canada's economy is basically a handful of abusive corporations pretending to be a country. I think that's a gross oversimplification. There certainly is a tiny fraction of the population that holds the vast majority of Canada's wealth, but you could say the same of the US or really a lot of other countries, and it's not like all those companies have existed since confederation, so I don't think that's really a reasonable way to define Canada's economy. The Canadian GDP is $1.6 trillion USD, and those companies certainly have a hand in a lot of it, but you'd have to make a pretty long list of companies to even get to $1 trillion... > But that said, there's also that raising Canadian capital is historically a fool's errand. Raising loonies is so hard it's basically pointless, it's almost always better for entrepreneurs to register as American corporations, pretend to be American, and raise American money. > > Because, at the end of the day, every party in Canada is beholden to their campaign financiers. Every party. And no money wants to flow outside of the proven channels. It's more a function of Canadian banking and money management, at least historically, being far more conservative the the US's wild west. There's a reason Canada largely avoided the financial crisis of 2008, and it's not because Canadians are smarter than everyone else. That said, it's fair to say there have been a number of Canadian tech startups that have done quite well for themselves, not to mention non-tech companies that have managed to be quite successful on the world stage. Maybe not at the same level as the US, but then, few countries can really measure up to that standard (and the consequences that come with it). While I would say Canada's political parties are beholden to their campaign financiers, that hasn't exactly produced what I'd call "stability" in the political arena... and there's a fair bit of independence between the political arena and the economy (despite how inconvenient that is for some narratives). I wouldn't agree that money can't flow outside of proven channels for that reason. It's more that you have to make a much more solid case to get any significant funding from Canadian sources.

100 points by klelatti 4y ago

Interesting article, but the one footnote reads: “It’s interesting how ‘Solid State’ and ‘Tek’ as an abbreviation for ‘Tech’ have disappeared from common use” SSDs would like a word

klelatti 4y ago
Thanks and very good point - I suppose I was thinking of the phrase 'Solid State Electronics' - but you're absolutely right.

ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago

glouwbug 4y ago
Our housing market is pretty excellent
- Mikeb85 4y ago
  If by excellent you mean wildly overpriced then yes.
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    Overpriced means it is priced so high people will not pay. The reality is with a low inventory and high demand levels prices will go higher. High demand justifies higher prices when inventory is low. I don't see demand reducing or inventory levels increasing for a few years interest rate notwithstanding. I would buy now because prices are only going up.
    - brailsafe 4y ago
      Overpriced in my mind means priced so high people can't realistically pay without being extremely wealthy or committing mortgage fraud, or priced so high that the practical value that could be derived from it as an intrinsically useful asset is significantly smaller than what you have to pay. Does $600k for a studio, or like $3500/month seem appropriately priced? Sure some people are willing to spend $9k on a pair of shoes, but they're still overpriced.
    - Mikeb85 4y ago
      Some of what you said is correct except prices are going down because of interest rates. Also high real estate prices have hurt other areas of the economy. And the demand is largely due to money laundering out of China, not fundamentals.
      - ipaddr 4y ago
        Is the money laundering part of the fundamentals since it has been going on for so long
Mikeb85 4y ago
> Canadian society and culture is generally incapable of excellence. It does seem that way eh? And the Canadians who are successful always seem to leave...
- ipaddr 4y ago
  Canadians who are looking to be successful leave those who are stay.
jeromegv 4y ago
Because of course, failure of a government program is telling us that the whole Canadian culture is mediocre? What a great take.
- Mikeb85 4y ago
  Canadian culture IS mediocre. Everyone's ambition here is to do what everyone else does. Restaurants are mostly the same. Businesses don't innovate, they merely do what someone else who was already successful did. The parent may not have elaborated the reasons perfectly but everyone here knows it.
  - brailsafe 4y ago
    If given the chance to work and live in the states for $50k more, or in Europe for the same amount or less than I currently make, I might choose the latter for the novelty, but not the former to climb a ladder, so what's the comparison worth? That said, I'm not about to move to the suburbs where everyone and everything is pretty bland and same.
    - novok 4y ago
      The difference is far from $50k in tech, it's far, far more and you can live in an actual city called new york unlike all of canada?
      - brailsafe 4y ago
        New York seems neat, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to live there. Pretty happy here in Vancouver. The rent and housing costs are absurd, but they'd be worse in New York. I like parts of the states quite a bit, but I don't think I'd like to live there, at least not long-term. Not my vibe. People say the difference is much greater than $50k, but I think it's often overblown. You have the top few companies with crazy stock compensations on top of higher base salaries, but I'm not getting into those companies anyway. Some places can compete with that, but not as many as simply moving to the states, especially with no degree, and just automatically making so much more. It would be ladder climbing, and I don't care enough about hocking more bs products at people that I'd put so much of myself into that.
virgulino 4y ago
>Canadian society and culture is generally incapable of excellence. Avro Arrow? ATI? Yoshua Bengio?
- varispeed 4y ago
  Trailer Park Boys - the best TV show of all time. Best medical cannabis Love Canadian cosmetics
- anameen21 4y ago
  I'd say these examples would partially prove their point, the first being defunct since 1962, and the second having been acquired by AMD (an American company) for over 15 years. For Yoshua, well this excerpt from Wikipedia may be useful here: "In October 2016, Bengio co-founded Element AI, a Montreal-based artificial intelligence incubator that turns AI research into real-world business applications. Having failed to develop marketable products and losing several partnerships, by 2020 the company was running out of money and options and announced its sale to American software company ServiceNow in November. The sale will see largely Canadian taxpayer funded intellectual property exported to the United States, contrary to Bengio's desire to found Element AI as a Canadian company to rival the world's tech giants. Bengio will stay employed as an advisor while the vast majority of employees were terminated with their stock options voided and cancelled with no value in lieu provided."
  - DSingularity 4y ago
    Damn. Bengio!? I thought the dude had integrity. Why did he not threaten to resign if those employees weren’t at least somewhat compensated?
  - bpye 4y ago
    Well more recently we have startups like Shopify and Wealthsimple? D-Wave is also Canadian. Canadian game studios produce some of the most critically acclaimed titles, studios like Relic, BioWare, Eidos-Montreal, etc - admittedly many of these were either started as subsidiaries or have since been acquired, but the talent absolutely exists in Canada. As someone else has mentioned, Canada has 1/10th the population of the USA, less still compared to the EU, and about 1/2th of the UK. I wouldn't say we do badly...

cbsmith 4y ago

Wow... I did not expect to see the comments filled with a bunch of Canadian hate.

dleslie 4y ago
One thing that younger Canadians and foreigners don't seem to grasp is that Canada's economy is basically a handful of abusive corporations pretending to be a country. The Maritimes are dominated completely by the holdings of a single family. The West is dominated by resource extraction and banking. Ontario and Quebec are owned by banking and manufacturing families. And then there's Robellus... But that said, there's also that raising Canadian capital is historically a fool's errand. Raising loonies is so hard it's basically pointless, it's almost always better for entrepreneurs to register as American corporations, pretend to be American, and raise American money. Because, at the end of the day, every party in Canada is beholden to their campaign financiers. Every party. And no money wants to flow outside of the proven channels.
- cbsmith 4y ago
  > One thing that younger Canadians and foreigners don't seem to grasp is that Canada's economy is basically a handful of abusive corporations pretending to be a country. I think that's a gross oversimplification. There certainly is a tiny fraction of the population that holds the vast majority of Canada's wealth, but you could say the same of the US or really a lot of other countries, and it's not like all those companies have existed since confederation, so I don't think that's really a reasonable way to define Canada's economy. The Canadian GDP is $1.6 trillion USD, and those companies certainly have a hand in a lot of it, but you'd have to make a pretty long list of companies to even get to $1 trillion... > But that said, there's also that raising Canadian capital is historically a fool's errand. Raising loonies is so hard it's basically pointless, it's almost always better for entrepreneurs to register as American corporations, pretend to be American, and raise American money. > > Because, at the end of the day, every party in Canada is beholden to their campaign financiers. Every party. And no money wants to flow outside of the proven channels. It's more a function of Canadian banking and money management, at least historically, being far more conservative the the US's wild west. There's a reason Canada largely avoided the financial crisis of 2008, and it's not because Canadians are smarter than everyone else. That said, it's fair to say there have been a number of Canadian tech startups that have done quite well for themselves, not to mention non-tech companies that have managed to be quite successful on the world stage. Maybe not at the same level as the US, but then, few countries can really measure up to that standard (and the consequences that come with it). While I would say Canada's political parties are beholden to their campaign financiers, that hasn't exactly produced what I'd call "stability" in the political arena... and there's a fair bit of independence between the political arena and the economy (despite how inconvenient that is for some narratives). I wouldn't agree that money can't flow outside of proven channels for that reason. It's more that you have to make a much more solid case to get any significant funding from Canadian sources.