-bureaucratic tasks, I still have to coordinate the NLNet tasks for each
-of the Memorandums of Understanding, at which point the tasks listed on
-them, people can then get paid for completing them. I can't quite get
-over the fact that NLNet was happy to allocate such a huge amount of
-money to this project, it's amazing, humbling, and a huge responsibility.
+bureaucratic tasks, combined with the "Engineering" tasks that, as is always
+the case, require 100% sustained week-long focus.
+
+These two (three? four? five?) things are clearly incompatible. whoops.
+
+I still have to coordinate the NLNet tasks for each of the Memorandums
+of Understanding, at which point the tasks listed on them, people can
+then get paid for completing them. I can't quite get over the fact that
+NLNet was happy to allocate such a huge amount of money to this project,
+it's amazing, humbling, and a huge responsibility.
+
+Also, we got word that the 180nm tape-outs (one in March 2020, one in October
+2020) are actually subsidised. In addition, we have *verbal* informal
+confirmation that some proprietary cell libraries are about to be
+announced as being libre-licensed. This is particularly fascinating.
+
+Reading between the lines, we can surmise / hypothesise that various
+"noises" about how hardware is proprietary and how difficult it is to
+do Libre / Open ASICs (people basically give up and don't even bother
+because it's so ridiculously costly, no one individual Libre / Open
+ASIC developer could possibly imagine themselves contributing to,
+let alone raising the multi-million funds for, say, a
+4 GHz 10-stage 12-core SMP multi-issue processor, so they don't
+even bother to design or release anything that *could* be part of
+such a design), and consequently it looks like various large companies
+who shall remain nameless for now are quietly and subtly waving around
+very large amounts of cash in front of the noses of Foundries, tempting
+them to release things like Cell Libraries under Libre Licenses.
+
+Given that the U.S. Trade War has recently caused a whopping
+**twelve percent** drop in
+[ASIC sales](https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/20/02/07/2157253/chip-industry-had-worst-sales-year-since-dot-com-bubble-burst),
+with USA ASIC sales dropping **twenty four percent**,
+they're probably "quite open" shall we say to large up-front cash deals.
+
+Anyway, as always, if you'd like to help out (and actually receive money
+for doing so), we have a nice shiny new section
+[on the website](https://libre-riscv.org/), "How can i help?" and there
+is a heck of a lot to do. Feel free to get in touch, any time.