Little information there about them, but I find it kind of surprising that the suspects are even UK based..

Tangent. I got into building hi-fi tube amplifiers some years back. Part of it was a kind of nostalgia for the days of Heath-Kit which I am only just old enough to remember the company's sunsetting years.

It was a fun few years deep-diving into the various amplifier topologies, buying NOS vacuum tubes on eBay, looking through electronics flea markets for parts. I made several amps, tried different tubes, topologies.... Eventually I settled on a small stereo amp and designed a PCB for it, created a small kit even.

Using a drill press in the garage, a table saw to cut aluminum sheet stock down, even learning to powder-coat parts in a toaster-oven I picked up from Walmart, I made increasingly nicer looking amps. With two large output transformers and an even large power transformer they were fairly heavy beasts.

Nonetheless, though I built them a decade or more ago, every one of the amplifiers I built are still in use today. The music I am listening to at this moment is coming from one. Another is down in my "lab". I have given several away to friends, co-workers in the past.

I guess the reason for the tangent was to say that I did indeed find that when you have (or make) a thing of real quality it can last … perhaps a life time?

And thinking again a little nostalgically, I like that too about electronics just up to the post-modern era: a new electronics purchase might have cost you a paycheck or two, but you got I think more mileage out of that device.

EDIT: come to think of it, the heavy iron transformers are from the U.S., the tubes NOS from U.S. WWII bombers. I didn't built them of course with tariffs in mind, but surprisingly they are not so cost-dependent on overseas suppliers.

And here's a photo of the finished amp (from when I once considered selling the kits): https://imgur.com/PBKOQMk

" insure against every possible thing that could ever go wrong, they would have to build a second studio on a separate part of the city’s electric grid, with redundant copies of all the equipment and broadcast content, along with a full crew of understudies ready to take over at a moment’s notice."

WTH?? I guess this person has never heard of backup generators? Every broadcast TV station has them.

The issue that I have with this type of article and why they never resonate with me is that they seem to assume you’ll be able to find a job with a similar salary if not a higher one, by snapping your fingers.

I’ll tell you my experience: I’ve been working for 21 years, and I’ve only worked for two companies in that time period (there was a short stint at a third one, but I didn’t fully quit one of the other two so I never really “left”).

At my current job, where I’ve been for 14 of those 21 years, I feel simultaneously underappreciated and overpayed. They pay me too well, to the extent of considering myself lucky if I was able to find a job where I could get 50% of the pay. Yet it bothers me that in 21 years, my only promotion was from junior to senior dev. I’ve seen a few people that I don’t consider better than me, neither from a technical point of view nor a soft skills one, being promoted several times and manage a bunch of people, and that bothers me. The reasons behind it are a mix of being the last member of the “old guard” before a new CTO came about and turned the tables from a technology perspective, and also working remotely. However I’ve always worked hard, created few new issues and solved a bunch of old ones, so they kept giving me unsolicited pay rises.

I’m not crazy about getting into management, however with the rise of AI I think there’s a decent chance of my job being replaced by a machine in the next 5 to 10 years, if not sooner. And even before AI, not many companies are crazy about old tech people without managerial experience.

I’m not good enough to land a job at a FAANG, esp. with my background, and being from a southern European country and as a nearly 45yo with a 3yo child it just won’t happen. But mostly because I’m just not good enough.

We have a saying in my country: would you rather be the tail of a lion or the head of a mouse? I feel like the tail of a mouse, but the job pays too well, so I’m stuck and feeling miserable every day.

What job title are you thinking of using?

I'm in Kitchener Ontario Canada, I'm a licensed gas and refrigeration tech

I've pulled my gas meter off my house and I'm exclusively heat pump now.

I'm saving money, absolutely.

Canada has cold ambient temps and cheap natural gas, and I'm still saving money, so I don't know how you aren't

I'm paying 10 cent pretty kwh electricity, gas here is 15 cents per cubic meter

If it wasn’t effective it would go away. Enough people out there are actually clicking on these things to be profitable. Who are they? I’ve literally never clicked on an ad in my life. I’m pretty sure no one I know has also (I hope) so who are these people clicking and paying.

I am grateful for McKinsey and BCG because when I dropped out of my postdoc in 2009 and was looking for a job, I went to probably 20 or 30 of their lunch events at Wharton where I absolutely stuffed myself and my pockets, despite having no intention whatsoever of joining them.

You bothered to comment but didn't bother to help either. Here, I'll do it, Gukesh is 18, Ding is 32.

Have you considered that they've thought of this? Seriously.

This is company producing high end sliding table saws that cost tens of thousands. They've been at it for over half a century.

This is not someone producing a 299 saw as cheaply as possible.

They are a German company (ie regulated heavily) and have a ridiculous number of safety standard certifications that test things like "what happens when there is dust"

do you really think they haven’t thought of the obvious basic issues and figure out what to do about them?

if so, what evidence do you have that this is true?

(Also I think you don't understand European requirements on dust extraction and allowed exposure to wood dust. This saw does not produce a meaningful anount of dust)