Wednesday, January 10, 2024

It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.

 Some of us are old enough to remember the old Timex commercials.

The Timex was essentially a cheap watch that ordinary people could afford, and one of it's selling points was that it was rugged and wouldn't break easily:

it's slogan was It takes a licking and keeps on ticking...


So one might say cynically, well that's nice but they don't make them like they used to.

But maybe you are wrong:


This is a triumph of modern engineering and quality control by Chinese manufacturing.

And although one usually thinks that iPhones are made in China, they are really made with componants from all over the world

While it’s tempting to take the Made in China text on an iPhone at face value, not everything that goes into making an Apple product comes from one place. The iPhone’s display, for example, is made by either Samsung or LG in South Korea. The flash memory and DRAM, on the other hand, likely come from Kioxia’s factories in Japan. And the Gorilla Glass that protects the screen could make its way from a Corning factory in the USA, Taiwan, or Japan. Apple’s A-series SoC, meanwhile, is custom silicon designed in California but manufactured by Taiwanese semiconductor company TSMC. And we’ve barely even scratched the surface with this list so far.

an example of the interrelatedness of today's world and a warning that the modern world relies on a supply chain,  

But anyway, in today's world where emphasis on equity means that more time is spent shaming employee into agreement instead of evil science, it's nice to know that some things still work.

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