ckozlowski

As the spouse of an illustrator, I applaud the author for hiring an actual artist. We've seethed at the way artists work was scraped online for the training of these models, recreating their very style for the creation of these infringement engines.

The finished product benefited greatly. There's nothing quite like working with a genuine expert who knows the rules and tradeoffs on things like competition, color, etc. Author did good on providing the illustrator with a detailed brief. When the illustrator takes those guidelines and applies their style and training to the product, magic happens.

Thanks!

"setec astronomy...No more secrets."

I wrote this in another reply here, but from this article and others I've read on Space X's/Tesla's datacenters, it's the use of turbine generators that cause that enormous whine sound. (Note how similar it is to a jet engine.) I live in Ashburn, where we have datacenters all over the place. But none of them sound like this. At worst, we get a dull hum, much lower in volume, if the air handlers are working especially hard. But you need to be on top of them to hear that.

Ashburn has the infrastructure however. From what I'm reading, other places don't. So they bring in power on-site, and it seems to be much less regulated.

It likely didn't have the power requirements either. I'm just guessing here, but that sounds a lot like turbine whine. (I've heard them elsewhere, not to mention been around plenty of aircraft) My guess is that they brought one on site like they've done to other facilities to provide on-site power where the local grid isn't sufficient.

The pledge by their CEO to shut down crypto-mining equiptment feels like a deflection to me, because I don't think that's the source of the noise. It's the turbine generator, and switching to AI I don't think will change the power requirements any. We'll see I suppose.

Well, that and, by passing additional legislation.

There's two parts to this. The first is that in most cases, the issues stem from lack of clarity in existing legislation, or contradictions thereof. At anytime, if Congress does not like the way the Supreme Court ruled, they can pass different legislation.

The second stems in part from the first. If what Congress passed is interpreted as being unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, the States can amend the constitution.

There is no case where the Supreme Court can (in principle) simply make their own rules*

The debate and controversy comes where the Supreme Court is seen as making their own rules (or arguably asked to) because the legislative process is deemed too cumbersome or disadvantageous to a party. In my opinion, this is where a lot of the difficulties lie, in that the Supreme Court is asked to rule on matters that really should be more clearly legislated. But the issues are seen as easier/quicker to address by convincing 9 justices rather than two legislative bodies and a chief executive. Naturally, this brings it's own consequences.

Well said. I'll also add, that with these networks, the sooner you can get traffic off your network the better. There's strong incentive to have your datacenter near these peering points. And since MAE-East was the first, it's been the largest as it's been snowballing the oldest. AOL's HQ was here, Equinix built their peering point soon after MAE-East, etc.

There's a great read about the whole area here: https://www.amazon.com/Internet-Alley-Technology-1945-2005-I...

As for AWS, I often see it repeated that the DCs are the oldest and therefor in disrepair. That's not true; many of the first ones have since been replaced. But there are services that are located here and only here.

But I'll also add, a lot of customers default to using US-East-1 without considering others, and too many deploy in only one AZ. Part of this is AWS's fault as their new services often launch in US-East-1 and West-2 first, so customers go to East-1 to get the new features first.

Speaking as one who was with AWS for 10 years as a TAM and Well-Architected contributor, I saw a lot of customers who didn't design with too much resiliency in mind, and so they get adversely affected when east-1 has an issue (either regional or AZ). The other regions have their fair bit of issues as well. It's not so much that east-1 necessarily fails more than the others, it's that it has so many AZs and so many workloads that people notice it more.

Oh, I feel this. As a pre-teen, I loved it. SETI@Home running on our family's Pentium 100, X-Files, and hanging out on the "Parascope" forum and chatroom on AOL for all things UFO related. An "I Want To Believe" poster on my wall.

I've (thankfully) moved on past that, but I look back at that with nostalgia.

They saw a huge uptick in users during the COVID pandemic. As the corona virus is a protein shell, and their software folds protein molecules, they were able to apply it to look for targets for other molecules to attach to the virus where it would normally latch onto a cell, this could then lead to treatments.

They'd found some promising results, and were working with a pharmaceutical company to manufacture the first compounds that could then be tested. Unfortunately that company's facility was located in eastern Ukraine. =(

But that aside, they've still been going strong.

I agree, and the "not the first time" I think is key there. Setting expectations I think is crucial. For ours (5yo), we're clear about what he can watch and for how long. We control the device. "Two episodes before dinner" or so. Over time, he learns how this works. And we're not afraid to tell him that now isn't a good time for the TV.

It's not to say we never have any complaints over this, but when we do, it's rare and usually because something else is amiss (hungry, frazzled, tired).

But most instances it's like last night, where we were clear that we had time for two episodes of Tumble Leaf before dinner. At the end of the second one he announced "last one!" and got up off the couch as we picked up the remote.

5yo parent here. Agreed. And sometimes they just need to chill.

I agree with the overall sentiment. Too much screen time is bad. Kids need to get out and play, indoors or out. In our house, it's a lot of biking and playing with friends outside, Legos, Brio, Magnatiles, matchbox cars, or just crafts.

But sometimes they're frazzled, out of sorts, and would benefit from just being able to sit and chill.

So we'll put on something for him that we're comfortable with. Tumble Leaf, Blaze & The Monster Machines, Trash Truck, or the occasional Ghibli movie.

We do not give him a tablet or other portable device. He sits and watches on the couch, we set a expectation, and stick to that.

I think controlling the device is important. Keeping the screen as something we control and not something he carries around seems to allow us better control and helps him understand the limits in play. 90% of the time, we have no fuss.

And it's not bad. In moderation, TV can be just fine. Often it genuinely helps him soothe and relax (Especially if he's been really active and engaged all day), and as you said, helps us get something done. Two episodes of one of his favorite shows is great to help him unwind while we're making dinner.

But we keep time/episode limits as well, and that seems to keep things in balance along with the aforementioned things.

Seconding this. We've made Daddy Mix Tapes, "Mommy Reads Stories", and other compilations.

Adding to the plethora of good ideas here: My wife bought these hanging tabs to stick onto the cards[1], and then strings a keycable[2] through them so my son has groups of them together. Yoto makes folding binders for them as well, but the keycable method seems to be a bit easier for our 5yo to handle.

1. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2JL79PY

2. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XXFZHJQ

Many, but not all. There were Coppermine derivatives eventually: https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Celeron/TYPE-Celeron%20(Coppe...

Thanks for looking up the numbers!

That would be quite the "budget" SMP build. The 366MHz "Mendocino" was based on the prior Pentium II core I believe. So quite the disparity in single-threaded workloads.

Yes, because there weren't really CPUs then that had double the performance.

Celeron CPUs were usually CPUs that shared the same core architecture as the current Pentium standard, but often had a lower core clock speed, lower core memory speed, and/or had smaller L2 caches.

Workloads have different constraints however, and simply doubling cache, clock speed, or memory bandwidth doesn't necessarily double performance, especially when running more than one application at once. Keep in mind, this is Windows 98 /NT/2000 era here.

Symmetric multi-processing (SMP) could be of huge benefit however, far more than simple doubling any of the above factors. Running two threads at once was unheard of on the desktop. These were usually reserved for higher-binned parts, like full-fledged Pentium workstations and Xeons (usually the latter.) But Abit's board gave users a taste of that capability on a comparative budget. Were two cheaper than a single fast CPU? Probably not in all cases (depends on speeds). But Abit's board gave users an option in between a single fast Pentium and a orders of magnitude more professional workstation: A pair of cheaper CPUs for desktop SMP. And that was in reach of more people.

In short, two Celerons were probably more expensive than a single fast Pentium, but having SMP meant being able to run certain workloads faster or more workloads at once at a time when any other SMP system would have cost tons.

Entirely possible I misremembered. As another commenter pointed out, it might be that I never got past mission 2. On further recollection, I think it was just Top Gun: The Second Mission that I owned. I remember playing both, but it might have been the second that vexed me the most.

I didn't either!

Granted, I wasn't good at video games in general. And this one infuriated me, because I loved it. I could easily beat the first level, but then I crashed on carrier landing. This happened for years. I only ever saw the first level of this game.

Then one day, while staying at my elementary afterschool sitter's house, one of the kids there told me he played Top Gun as well. He could land, but wasn't very good at the rest of the game.

A plan was formed.

The next day, I brought the cartridge over, and we settled in. I'd play the level, then hand him the controller at which point he'd plant it on the deck. Rinse and Repeat. Top Gun and Top Gun: The Second Mission didn't have too many levels, (6 maybe?) and I don't think it took us too long to beat. Neither one of us had seen much of the game. But working together, we beat both in a matter of hours.

I still look back on that as one of the few NES games I finished without codes or a Game Genie, just the help of a friend. =D

This Microsoft response reminds me of the 2018 Blizzcon event, where the Diablo Immortal developer challenged the audience with "Do you guys not have phones?" when the audience asked if the game was coming to PC.

Then - like now - it seemed that they couldn't understand that what they made was not what their customers wanted.

Hi Warren! I'm Chris, and I'm with AWS, where among other things, I work on the Well-Architected Framework. Would you be willing to talk with us? You can reach me at [email protected]. Thanks!

Edit: This is a fantastic write-up by the way!

Amazonian here. My views are my own; I do not represent my company/corporate.

That said...

We do our very best. But I don't know anyone here who would say "it can never happen". Security is never an absolute. The best processes and technology will lower the likelihood and impact towards 0, but never to 0. Viewed from that angle, it's not if Amazon will be hacked, it's when and to what extent. It is my sincere hope that if we have an incident, we rise up to the moment with transparency and humility. I believe that's what most of us are looking for during and after an incident has occurred.

To our customers: Do your best, but have a plan for what you're going to do when it happens. Incidents like this one here from checkout.com can show examples of some positive actions that can be taken.

As I recall it, Intel brought about Hyperthreading on Northwood and later Pentium 4s as a way to help with issues in it's long pipeline. As I remember it described at the time, P4 had 30+ stages in it's pipeline. Many of them did not need to be used in a given thread. Furthermore, if a branch prediction engine guessed wrong, then the pipeline needed to be cleared and started anew. For a 30+ stage pipeline, that's a lot of wasted clock cycles.

So hyper-threading was a way to recoup some of those losses. I recall reading at the time that it was a "latency hiding technique". How effective it was I leave to others. But it became standard it seems on all x86 processors in time. Core and Core 2 didn't seem to need it (much shorter pipelines) but later Intel and AMD processors got it.

This is how it was explained to me at the time anyways. I was working at an OEM from '02-'05, and I recall when this feature came out. I pulled out my copy of "Inside the Machine" by Jon Stokes which goes deep into the P4 architecture, but strangely I can only find a single mention of hyperthreading in the book. But it goes far into the P4 architecture and why branch misses are so punishing. It's a good read.

Edit: Adding that I suspect instruction pipelines are not so long that adding additional threads would help. I suspect diminishing returns past 2.

Thanks for the endorsement. I'm in NoVA as well, and this piqued my interest. I have a company that does spraying monthly, but it seems to have mixed results. The technician doesn't spray my herb and vegetable gardens (or my neighbors lawns), which makes suspect that these areas just replenish my area after the insecticide goes away.

One thing this won't help with are the chiggers which also populate my yard. But I'll happily deal with less mosquitos. I'll look forward to giving this a try.

Depends on the age. I've had my 4yo in my garage with me at times. And while he's "helped" me with a few things, it generally consists of me holding the tool with his hands on the handle as well. His strength, dexterity, and simply small size prevents him from really getting much out of it other than a sense of participation. Valuable, but he's not learning anything.

When he's older and bigger, then using real tools will be more practical, and we can using the real thing. The risk will be more manageable then.

At this stage however, this chompsaw looks appealing. Instead of disappointing him when he wants to drive and having to diplomatically explain that he lacks the strength and coordination to use the actual tool, I can just hand him this. Give a bit of instruction, and then let him experiment. That feeling of "hey, I'm doing this myself" is exciting to him and gives him a sense of accomplishment.

Long story short, I see this as a product aimed at a younger audience who aren't old enough to take the lead (with guidance) in the workshop yet, but want the feeling of doing it themselves in a safe way. I like it.

$250 though. Ooof.

This is incorrect, though I don't blame OP as apparently it was being miscommunicated a lot on Twitter. Evergreen Intel on BlueSky says this is actually a Pakistani plane that was sold to them from the US some years ago. But many databases are out of date:

https://bsky.app/profile/vcdgf555.bsky.social/post/3lovrqupt...

It was none other than Leonard Adleman of RSA fame.

War Thunder is not representative of actual conflict.

Indeed. And to add to your argument, AI may be effective in controlling aircraft for certain tasks some day. But there are still many that will either require a pilot there, or greatly benefit from a pilot there.

The "drones will replace everything" argument does not understand fully the missions required of combat aircraft. I won't be as foolish to say it could never happen. But to those who argue that, say, the F-35 should be canceled in favor of a drone, need to show how their drone can do what a manned strike aircraft like the F-35 can do.

And indeed, stealth was always a "make air defense more expensive" prospect. And while techniques have come out to counter some of the benefits of stealth, they all come with tradeoffs and added costs....which was precisely the point.

Yup, that's certainly one. I see this technique as simply one more tool in the toolbox. Air defense (and really, all of warfare) is not a single "this thing is better than the rest" but a system of things that work in conjunction with one another. This system has advantages (passive, cheap, portable) and disadvantages (short range, clear weather only). It's good and useful work, and could conceivably be part of a larger system.