this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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Fuck AI
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AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
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I like how you two think, reducing the required transistor count from tens of billions (mostly DRAM bits) to 26 to zero.
(For the daytime question, personally I'd use a photocell to measure sunlight, one transistor to amplify the signal, another to switch based on a threshold, and a third as an oscillator driving a 3-pin piezzo buzzer at its natural frequency. No more semiconductors required. Nowadays, an LCD digital alarm clock from a dollar store is a potentially cheaper, silently running solution. It also shows time with an update every second that does not send 120k tokens back and forth, and uses so little energy that its single AAA alkaline battery will expire and corrode before fuly discharging.)
“GET MILK AND A TRANSISTOR”
Now required transistor count is -1
I disagree, Milky Way's CEO Elon Musk would say his work is mostly cutting corners: finding what could be "unengineered", like any backup systems in spacecraft or LiDAR on Teslas. The pinnacle of removing corners is the most low-poly, best-selling car in the world that is so simple nothing ever fails in it. /s
Light pollution on an overcast night might give your photoreceptor a false positive
If the photocell is pointed east, weather does make a big difference. For other bearings, less so. And light pollution is more or less the same every night so it can be accounted for. Still, I suggested an LCD alarm clock as a decent compromise between accuracy, feature set, cost and transistor count. An analog one has fewer, closer to a 555, but will use more energy and produce a ticking sound (still less than the computers' fans). And then there's a windup one or a rooster...
If you've ever woken up to one of these bad boys on a fresh set of batteries, you know the feeling of true terror. Not sure if the windup ones are any gentler...
I used a windup one for the lols. I could barely fall asleep and it would indeed ring very loudly, but only for 20 seconds or so. Of course, the clock spring is wound separately from the ringer spring.
Battery powered ones don't tick, or at least the one I had didn't