Posts by John Savard 2460 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Sep 2007
ENIAC was a dataflow computer, not a von Neumann computer - until von Neumann came up with a special wiring set-up for it that allowed it to work on different problems without being re-wired for each problem... at the cost of a good part of its performance! So ENIAC and the Arm V1 don't really "share the same basic architecture" as the article claimed.
She was facing criminal charges in a democratic country with which Canada had an extradition treaty.
So of course she would be arrested and extradition proceedings would be initiated.Canada is not culpable because it did not do anything wrong; it would have done something wrong if it had not arrested her.
No one is above the law.
Until now, apparently.
I certainly hope that someday Xi Jinping will stand trial in the Dominion of Hong Kong, a self-governing Dominion in the British Commonwealth of Nations like Australia or Canada. Or in Tibet, or Uighuristan.
Well, how else are the hostages supposed to be retrieved when China has nuclear weapons? If regime change had been an option, that would be different.
Of course free countries do not regard any of their citizens as expendable. That is a good thing, even if it can be exploited as a weakness. The next step, of course, is not to allow any Canadians to travel to China in the future, so that China has no further opportunities to take hostages.
And now that the two Michaels are safely home, there should be consequences for China.
How about this:
The U.S. declares China a rogue state, and halts all further access by China to U.S. technology.
The U.S. and Canada, for starters, and presumably soon all their allies, perhaps starting with Australia, restore full normal diplomatic relations with the Republic of China by opening embassies in Taipei.
I think with these and similar measures, China's economic progress will soon go into reverse.
My first home computer was a Timex-Sinclair 1000 (a ZX 81) as well. That was an amazing achievement, but naturally I quickly moved to something more practical, a Commodore 64, as soon as I could afford it.
So, indeed, his focus on the lowest possible price was his downfall. Particularly with the Sinclair QL, which could have been very successful... if not for the use of the "microdrive" instead of sticking to commonly available floppy disks. (Not to mention the failed wafer-scale memory to be used instead of a hard disk.)
Price is important, but the value for the price is what really matters. So one also has to know which corners not to cut.
Space aliens, if they ever visit us, certainly should be recognized as having the same rights as people.
And so, if we ever have artificial intelligences like Lieutenant Commander Data, or Voyager's Emergency Medical Hologram, yes, they should be able to patent inventions. (Of course, in the world of Star Trek, there is "no such thing as money", so the issue is presumably moot.)
But today's AI, impressive as it may be, isn't sentient; it doesn't have will or intent. (But it is modelled after the human brain in some respects, so the current impressive AI technology does have some potential as a possible component of sci-fi style AI, I do have to admit. So the current technology is perhaps dangerous - if someone intentionally does something reckless with it, but not so much by sheer accident just yet.)
I read another article about this, which said the calculations were done on a supercomputer.
While dual 32-core EPYC chips is a bit more than my budget can afford for a desktop, there are lots of people with comparable systems at home. Even one terabyte of RAM, usually found in servers, is not impossible for the serious enthusiast.
So I'm surprised it's a record, as surely somebody with a bigger computer would have tried.
I don't have a problem with the notion that the Magna Carta lays out fundamental human rights which now apply to all citizens of the United Kingdom, not just Englishmen.
I do have a problem with kooks who are against taking precautions against the spread of COVID-19, though.
So to me this article seemed to have the wrong angle.
The United States government should have prevented it from being necessary for AlgorithmWatch to take this action. If necessary, seize all of Facebook's assets. Then they won't be hiring any lawyers.
Obviously, we need much stricter legislation to safeguard individual privacy, and mandate transparency from online companies that deal with personal data.
Certainly there are practical advantages to businesses for people to work in the office rather than at home.
Security of sensitive information can be more easily controlled.
It's easier for workers to communicate with each other.
So a return to the office will perhaps have to be considered by many workers, once the novel coronavirus has been absolutely eradicated so that there is no chance that such a move would increase its spread - and not before.
Currently, Intel's 11th-gen desktop parts are still built on a 14nm process. That is less energy efficient than the 7nm process used for AMD's Ryzen chips. And, for that matter, AMD Radeon video cards are also on a TSMC 7nm process, while Nvidia's are on a Samsung 8nm process, although here the difference in energy consumption is likely slight.
Could that mean that larger AMD-based systems would be allowed into California compared to Intel-based systems?
To be fair, California does have this little thing running through it called the San Andreas Fault.
So I can understand why they are reluctant to have nuclear power plants built within California itself.
This would not be a problem if neighboring states without earthquake issues were not also afflicted with anti-nuclear hysteria. Federal intervention is what is required to keep America's economy and national defence running smoothly while halting carbon emissions.
There is one thing wrong with the graph shown in that article. It shows future world energy production as flat.
In fact, one can expect that it will be exponentially increasing in the same manner as the power consumed by computers.
After all, it's not as if burning fossil fuels is the only way we can generate electricity. It's true that there are limits to how much power can be produced by hydroelectricity, geothermally, or by wind farms or solar panels. But if we use nuclear power, in an efficient manner so that not only scarce U-235, but also common isotopes such as U-238 and Th-232, are consumed as fuel, we can have all the energy we want until alternative abundant sources, such as solar power satellites or fusion power are developed.
I should think the solution is simple. Make sexual harassment a criminal offence. As if it isn't one already. Anything that makes it harder for the police to investigate criminal acts and bring their perpetrators to justice... is, then, obstruction of justice, which is also a criminal offence. Prosecute it aggressively. It should not take long for drastic changes in corporate behavior to result.
I can explain that.
In the United States in 1920 or 1930 or thereabouts, racism against black people was basically taken for granted almost like the air you breathe. Even those who disapproved of it usually did not see much hope of a day ever arising when black people could enjoy equality.
In 1964, we had the Voting Rights Act, we had the big Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.
What happened between those times?
World War II. And, after its end, the liberation of Belsen.
The horrors of the Nazi concentration camps changed public attitudes towards racism. Finally, therre was a widespread sentiment that racism was a bad thing.
So this led to progress towards equality for black people.
But now it should also be possible to understand why the failure of Jesse Jackson to immediately and unreservedly condemn Louis Farrakhan's anti-Jewish remarks caused his Presidential bid to sink without a trace.
In an oversimplified picture:
There are two kinds of white American.
The ones who are still happily racist.
Those who have given up racism.
The white Americans in the first category would never have voted for Jesse Jackson.
The white Americans in the second category might consider it - but since the reason they're no longer racist is because they reacted to the Holocaust, their sensitivity towards anti-Jewish racism is many times more intense their sensitivity to anti-black racism. So once Jesse Jackson appeared "soft" on anti-Semitism... goodbye.
Are you an American, Lionel?
Of course I am!
Does that mean you've decided to stop being black?
Does it look like that?
See, meathead, you can be Polish and an American at the same time!
Unfortunately, Archie Bunker was never known for his coherent reasoning, but I also fail to see why people with American nationality can't also acknowledge their ethnicity at the same time.
I can understand firing someone in a heartbeat for encouraging and promoting hatred.
Someone confessing what he had imbibed from his environment, and explaining how he had overcome it, however, is a positive contribution to fighting hatred.
Now Google will be seen as a hostile workplace for people of Middle Eastern origin.
I don't think that they'll pick door #2, because they are responsible to their stockholders, and who knows what a Florida court might decide... but it may be that in Trump's suit, there is at least one claim that won't get immediately dismissed by virtue of door #1. After all, not just the First Amendment but also Section 803 is mentioned...
Having heard the story from other news media, I was aware that the individual in question isn't really a Florida native, but hails from New York, where his father had a thriving real-estate business.
This should not, however, be construed as me questioning your editorial judgment that the individual in question richly deserves to be ignored, with which I heartily agree. With, of course, the caveat that whatever he may deserve, the case may come when we cannot ignore him except at our peril.
Comparing SQL Server from Microsoft to the serious and professional databases from Oracle and IBM, the idea that Microsoft and Amazon were competent to provide what the Pentagon needed but Oracle and IBM were not struck me as ludicrous.
But if it was clear that what the Pentagon was a buzzword-compliant cloud thingy, which Microsoft and Amazon tried to offer, while Oracle and IBM were instead trying to flog off their old-fashioned on-prem traditional database technology, they got what they deserved, right?
After that though struck me, though, another one came along. What if what Oracle and IBM were offering was something that would actually meet the operational requirements... and something using the new cloud style technology could not meet them or be made secure given the state of the fancy new cloud stuff now or in the foreseeable future?
Then it's the Pentagon that's getting what it deserves for turning up its nose at what would work from Oracle and IBM.
:I was trying to figure out how you could combine AMD's Infinity Cache with the Doordash delivery service, but now that I see the product is fictional, I've stopped worrying.
So there you are: Infinidash is an Amazon service that delivers to your door, with enhanced reliability and availability because they've abandoned Just-in-Time practices, and have real warehouses again!
No, the article is very clear. There are two sheets. Each one is made up of half boron atoms and half nitrogen atoms. And the sheets can be on top of each other in two configurations; one is where the boron atoms in one are on top of nitrogen atoms in the other and vice versa, and the other is where similar atoms in the two sheets are in contact.
All right, they laboriously put two boron nitride sheets over each other in a way that doesn't occur in nature.
Then, they ran an electric current through it, and the sheets moved to the natural configuration.
My question would be: can they run another electric current through it to put it back in the original configuration they made? If not, this is not necessarily a discovery with the potential to be of any use. I suppose it could be claimed that this is a first step, even so, but that's not really clear.
Just yesterday, on another site, I was reading about a D&D-based game that had a Beholder in it; the review discussed several RPGs influenced by D&D, and one of its main points was that no one seemed to be able to capture the essence of paper D&D in an RPG; all they could make were dungeon looter games.
And here you've found the counter-example!
I was going to say that it wouldn't matter if Microsoft Windows could run Android apps, if it isn't licensed for Google Play.
But then I realized that even if Google's web site for apps won't recognize a Windows 11 computer as a 'compatible device', nearly everyone with an Android app they want people to use would of course also submit it to the Microsoft Store.
So this is significant.
I take it that Twitter does not currently have any employees in India that the government of India could put in jail, otherwise it would not be resisting the government's directives. I'm not surprised that Twitter would not wish to change that under current circumstances.
Of course India can always block Twitter, but for Twitter not wishing to aid and abet the destruction of democracy in India by the BJP, which is an extremist Hindu nationalist party, is entirely reasonable.
But that's not a one-time pad. The key has to be completely random, so that it cannot be predicted, even in theory. A key that is a meaningful text, even in a foreign language, does not have that characteristic. Not that a _hash_ wouldn't generate a reasonably secure cipher, even if still not a true OTP.
It is true that a semiconductor firm that has invested in capacity will do well, if there is demand, and other firms are not there to meet the demand, because they did not.
But if they risk investing so much as to exceed demand, they will lose money. It is we, as consumers, who benefit from capacity being plentiful.
So the futures of automakers may depend on chipmakers investing a lot; but the chipmakers themselves benefit from not investing more than can bring profits.
So the solution doesn't lie in urging chipmakers to behave in our best interests as opposed to their own or their stockholders'. They won't listen. No; those who want something, those who benefit from it, will have to be the ones who pay for it.
So the solution lies in the direction of automakers making their own chips and things like that.
I consider this a non sequitur. After all, it would be libelous to claim that Apple is an organization intent on uploading private nude snaps and sex videos from people's iPhones to Facebook.
None the less, something of the sort happened recently - not because Apple wanted it to happen, but because some people repairing an iPhone on its behalf happened to engage in malfeasance on their own.
So they're only claiming that Three might not be 100% perfect at vetting their employees - and, since we haven't yet developed the technology to read people's minds, that is inevitably true.
Now that would put a bit of a different light on it.
However, perhaps not by much. After all, while normal lease terms might indeed preclude a leaseholder from denying physical access under such circumstances, I'm sure that if one were leasing a building to the GCHQ, they would be able to obtain special terms.
Why on earth would a law be enacted giving people the right to access someone else's building to build a cell phone mast?
If they want to put a cell phone mast on a building, they can always offer money to its owners. If they're not interested, that should be that.
Why would anyone think that compromising private property rights is a good idea?
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