Depends on the “they”…

But generally, back in the day data storage, memory and processing power were expensive. Multiple factors more expensive than they are now. Storing a year with two digits instead of four was a saving worth making. Over time, some people just kept doing what they had been doing. Some people just learned from mentors to do it that way, and kept doing it.

It was somewhat expected that systems would improve and over time that saving wouldn’t be needed. Which was true. By the year 2000 “modern” systems didn’t need to make that saving. But there was a lot of old code and systems that were still running just fine, that hadn’t been updated to modern code/hardware. it became a bit of a rush job at the end to make the same upgrade.

There is a similar issue coming up in the year 2038. A lot of computing platforms store dates as the number of seconds since the beginning of 1970-01-01 UTC. As I type this comment there have been 1,710,757,161 seconds since that date. It’s a simple way to store time/date in a way that can be converted back to a human readable format quite easily. I’ve written a lot of code which does exactly this. I’ve also written lot of code and data storage systems that store this number as a 32bit integer. Without drilling down into what that means, the limit of that data storage type will be a count of 4,294,967,296. That means at 2038-01-19 03:14:07 UTC, some of my old code will break, because it wont be able to properly store the dates.

I no longer work for that employer, I no longer maintain that code. Back when I wrote that code, a 32bit integer made sense. If I wrote new code now, I would use a different data type that would last longer. If my old code is still in use then someone is going to have to update it. Because of the way business, software and humans work. I don’t expect anyone will patch that code until sometime around the year 2037.

I’ve worked for companies backing up 100s of petabytes a year on tape. This is audit and log data they are required to keep as well as business data.

If these discs are significantly cheaper than tape, then there’s your use case.

I’ll bite …

crushing the productivity of these workers

What “crushing” of productivity are you delusionally on about?

https://assets.weforum.org/editor/HFNnYrqruqvI_-Skg2C7ZYjdcXp-6EsuSBkSyHpSbm0.png https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/productivity-workforce-america-united-states-wages-stagnate/

I can find any number of sources showing that productivity has been on the rise for decades, and has continued to rise as Millenials and younger entered the job market. There is no “crushing the productivity”.

The rise of the internet and social media has led to a culture of instant gratification … This sense of entitlement

Millenials and younger have gone through their entire school life being told “you need to do well this year at school, to get into the top set next year, to get into a good university to get a good job”. We/they have been told this by every generation above them, for their entire lives. The have followed this, listened to their elders, worked hard through school, sat meaningless exams, gotten good meaningless grades, they have gone to university. They have worked hard their entire lives …

Just to be told, “culture of instant gratification” “you’re entitled” “you’ve not done the grunt work”. It’s selfish of the previous generations to not recognise this.

Your entire comment rings as “needs evidence” to me. To the point I’m not sure if it’s satire or not. You’ve failed to put in any grunt work, evidence anything or source it as anything more than conjecture.

They expect to be rewarded simply for showing up, rather than for producing quality work.

This is the opposite of how I see the world, as it stands. Look at the people calling for maintaining or increasing working hours. Look at the people calling to work in office. It’s the previous generations expecting people to turn up, in office and sit there for hours so they can be paid. They are expecting people to be rewarded simply for showing up.

Look at the people calling for unlimited holiday and reduced workhours, where failure to deliver is a disciplinary issue. Look at the people calling to work from home, and have the quality of their work assessed, not their dress sense or punctuality. Look at the people driving quick delivery, rapid review and peer appraisal of work. These are the people who are focussed on delivering quality, and not getting paid simply for showing up.

I personally welcome my always was Chinese overlord

Brother

So much chocolate weighed through the scales as “fresh veg potatoes”

Sadly, only somewhat true nowadays.

There are plenty of parts of healthcare that are privatised and pay only. Some of this paid for by the NHS and the current government are attacking the “costs” of that. Especially as the treatments are often more expensive when done privately than they were on the NHS. Dental and optical treatment are privatised now. Much of our ambulance and rescue service are now private or voluntary. We’re seeing ever increasing costs for the ambulance services, while watching wait times skyrocket. Given private ambulance firms are measured on a few KPIs, they are targeting those over general care. Many surgeries that used to be covered (such a cleft lip) by the NHS are now regarded as cosmetic and come with insurance deductibles or are not even covered by insurance.

Many industries, such as software development, are offering private cover as a workplace bonus. What that means in reality is when I come off my motorbike, the expensive emergency surgery I need will be covered by an NHS surgeon. The insurance company will then “elect” to pay for me to be moved to a comfortable hotel/hospital where I can stay in comfort. That comfort is what I’ll be paying my insurance for, not the actual surgery.

You might even be able to afford the “good” healthcare 🤣

Health insurance is HOW MUCH!

And there are Brits here saying how great private care is and how much they want it… fucking turkeys to christmas.

Blast freezer. It’s about as close as we’ll get any time soon. Not an affiliate or anything, just googled and found this bugger (about microwave sized).

https://www.nisbets.co.uk/polar-countertop-blast-chiller/ck640

That’s just how the world works.

And that’s kind of the discussion here.

Some people are annoyed at the Linux Devs because “fuck it, everyone breaks the law and it doesn’t matter”. Some people are annoyed at Nvidia because they’d like to uphold or social contracts.

In don’t think it’s naive to want to live in a world and support a society that supports the law. I do think we have bigger issues that people are happy with this behaviour and are actively defending it.

If your livelihood depends on a company breaking the law, you’ve got other issues.

Nvidia could choose to follow the law, their customers could choose to support them in that.

Part of the reason you can’t replace Nvidia, is because they get ahead by breaking the law. This makes it harder to compete with them.

Now you’re stuck with only Nvidia, and welcome to monopoly hell. A bit exaggerated I know, but it’s his it happens.

Nvidia could choose to improve performance using non-illegal tactics.

They haven’t.

I’m happy to live in a society wherev we support those upholding the law.

don’t expect that it will make them popular with anyone who actually uses Nvidia drivers on Linux

The group to be annoyed at are Nvidia. Plain and simple.