The Supreme Court’s common sense problem

Steven Guccione

Whenever someone says something is “common sense” it is because it lacks a coherent argument and can’t be discussed in some rational way.  It’s right because it “feels” right.  I immediately assume that anything being defended as “common sense” (because it is clearly part of an argument) is false and just a prejudice.  The term should not even be allowed in a court of law.

The Supreme Court’s common sense problem

The Right to Repair

Steven Guccione

I’ve kept up with this over the years (decades?).  The protection mechanisms for anti-piracy have made many devices unrepairable.  Note that this is more of an American problem, that many DRM systems aren’t used in the rest of the world.  What I didn’t realize is that this has begun to reach into places I didn’t expect.  Like John Deere tractors.  From The Conversation.

Today’s bans on DIY repairs of everything from cell phones to tractors grew out of Hollywood’s fear of videotaping

China announces CPU-only exascale supercomputer

Steven Guccione

I spent most of my career in compute acceleration.  Originally this meant FPGAs (reconfigurable logic) but later GPUs.  As I built larger and larger GPU machines using Intel server CPU and Nvidia GPUs the idea of smaller and simpler processors became more appealing.  I’ve been a fan of the Barcelona Supercomputer Center Mount Blanc machine as well as the SpiNNaker at Manchester for some time.

While GPUs won the battle for now, the power consumption and price seem to be pointing back in the direction of smaller, lower power processors, perhaps with more tightly coupled, on-chip, parallel accelerators.

China seems to be moving in that direction with their new 2 Exaflop Lingshen machine using only low-power CPUs.  This machine has only homegrown (Chinese) processors and no GPUS.  This is quite a difference from supercomputers of the last decade or so, as well as all the new AI data centers.

China announces CPU-only exascale supercomputer with 47,000 homemade processors, record 2 Exaflops of performance without GPUs — Lingshen super said to use Huawei Kunpeng servers and no foreign-made components

And Then There Were None

Steven Guccione

I was wondering about all of the original Russian Oligarchs who got fantastically wealthy in the “free market reforms” after the fall of the Soviet Union.

I suppose if you have money, you want power.  And if you have power, you want money.  So conflict was inevitable between the Oligarchs and their rulers.

The Mafia-style economy and government of Russia led to Mafia-style conflicts and, ahem, resolutions.  It seems none of the original Oligarchs are left.  All died in mysterious circumstances.  Some good folks did the work for me and put together a list.  I wonder if Elon Musk and his ilk are fans of history.  I suspect not.