Well, this bodes ill. Quoting @foone@digipres.club at https://digipres.club/@foone/109736253785929072

Post by Foone. "I'm not saying the electronics supply industry is having serious issues, but I just checked and the basic 200 ohm resistor I wanted has a 67 week lead time" Posted on Jan 22, 2023 at 21:52. https://digipres.club/@foone/109736253785929072

Our economy is in a pretty precarious state. If basic resistors like that have that long of a lead time I think it can be safely said that we’re on the precipice of dire straits. Once upon a time we used to sell those sorts of things as rather plentiful basics at RadioShack when I was in consumer electronics retail.

We won’t have to worry about “virtual reality” or the “metaverse” at the rate things are deteriorating either. Quoting @twitnews@twit.social at https://twit.social/@twitnews/109730924729178428

Post by TWiT News Feed. "Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens Windows Central - windowscentral.com/microsoft/m… In addition to the death of AltSpaceVR, Microsoft has also culled the entire team behind the popular MRTK framework. MRTK is Microsoft's "Mixed Reality Took Kit," which is a cross-platform framework for spatial anchors in virtual reality spaces. MRTK was built for Unity VR integrations, and works with Meta's headsets with a focus on HoloLens." Posted on Jan 21, 2023 at 23:17 at https://twit.social/@twitnews/109730924729178428

The tech sector has taken a pounding as we’ve tried to come out of the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. The tech sector had a pretty bright future. The backlash from the MAGA cult found a pretty vulnerable target in the tech sector as it appeared to be a cause of many evils. After all, it enabled the lockdowns and the altered ways of living that got the cult so very upset. Since it enabled those things the cult is doing what it can to punish big tech.

The problem lurking in the corner that overshadows the rest of this is the debt ceiling. The Republican Party’s majority in the House is very small. Only four votes can be lost in a vote for the Republicans to still prevail if every member of the House participates in the vote. Only one member of the Republican caucus voted in favor of the last debt ceiling increase way back in December 2021 and unfortunately he no longer serves in Congress. It is hard at the moment to nail down how many are ready to vote no regardless of what they are presented with.

This is the “Thelma and Louise” year, I guess.