Recent submissions

Comment · 5 months ago
That's simple - to make quick rotation, you must apply force (torque) and beat inertia - from mathematics could know, the farther from center of mass the more energy will spend to rotate at same speed.

So, to rotate faster, you need larger control surfaces.

From other side, traditionally, self-stabilize spent at least 1% of energy (on small planes normal up to 10%). What all this mean - with 10 000kg of total weight, your control surface will constantly make 1000kg of force to just fly, but when need to turn, will need significantly more than 1000kg, that's all.

Old planes need self-stabilize, because constant corrections was very time consuming, but modern have powerful computers and could provide artificial stabilization - current 1kg computer could provide same stabilization as control surface constantly making 1000kg of force.

Comment · 6 months ago
Video have some inaccuracies. As example, said "to detect heartbeat from 100m, 10-20 T", but then talking about "from 100km".

So, if carefully looking, SQUID could detect with 10-15T, so need just additional 5 magnitudes. And as I know from practice amateur astronomy, with regular signal, 5 additional magnitudes could be achieved with numerical methods.

So we have two questions remain - how CIA managed to have SQUID small enough to fit on something like helicopter (or weapons bay on fighter), and how they managed to fly nearer than 100m to pilot, each could be answered - "possible, if have highly motivated people, with big money".

Comment · 6 months ago
> aren't server CPUs only like 25% of the total market?

Yes and no. If just formally calculate, yes, servers are small market volumes. But, they are much less constrained financially, than private person, so from same fab one could earn much more money if sell to server market, than if sell to consumer market.

Comment · 6 months ago
For about price of land and connectivity - in large city land price begin on few millions dollars per square kilometer, and usage of cable channels could cost from 50$ per meter (easy could be 200$/m).

Plus, space arrange could last years.

Heat dissipation in range of megawatts could be just prohibited by local regulations.

So, space in large cities is very serious problem, and for business it is usually easier to "compress" as much computing power as possible in one rack.

Comment · 6 months ago
You cannot place dc anywhere, in large cities space is extremely constrained, and land is extremely expensive.

Also big problem - connectivity - you cannot place DC where it cannot be connected to power grid and to very powerful network.

So yes, DC floor space is severely limited.

And the third issue - last decades, rack servers dissipate extremely large amounts of heat, I hear numbers up to tens Kilowatts per rack, which is just hard to dissipate with air cooling (as example, all IBM Power servers have option of liquid cooling, but this is totally different price range).

Comment · 6 months ago
Also, internal CPU caches grow over time - in 286 and before, just was not any cache; in 386 first included page cache for mmu - stores tables with mostly used pages; in next generations sometimes advertised grow of page cache.

So yes, even when your cpu could address similar size of ram, possible it don't have enough page cache for your application.

Comment · 6 months ago
Because very large share of market now are datacenters. Difference from desktop is dramatic - for desktop really acceptable very simple chips with bad energy efficiency, but DCs already deal with extremely high power consumption, as they typically "compress" so much consumption in one rack, that constantly working near to physical constraints.
Comment · 7 months ago
Sure, we need better math, it is obvious.

Unfortunately, nobody at big companies know, what exactly math will win, so competition not end.

So, researchers will try one solution, then other solution, etc, until find something perfect, or until semiconductors production (Moore's Law) made enough semiconductors to run current models fast enough.

I believe, somebody already have silver bullet of ideal AI algorithm, which will lead all us to AGI, when scaled in some big company, but this knowledge is not obvious at the moment.

Comment · 9 months ago
Comment · 9 months ago
Amateurs in USSR 50 years ago made wireless and powerless headphones, which use wire lay on perimeter of room to transfer sound and power.

In headphones there is tiny coil.

It really work and very reliable, but result coil (size of room) have very large reactive resistance, so it is nearly impossible to transfer even high frequencies, only low (bass) and medium, so it workable for speech but music is heavily distorted.

Comment · 10 months ago
They treat you belong to community, and use your appearance in hidden ads as "just another consumer choose A.. products".

Even if you will intentionally hide all logos of A.. from A.. products u use, their design is very distinctive and widely known, so even looking on Xiaomi most people will think it is A..

Plus, A.. products usually deep integrated into their infrastructure, I mean A.. Wi-fi router, A.. printer, A.. speakers, A.. interfaces (Lightning), etc.

Comment · 10 months ago
Well people, knowledge become belief. - Position of Moon creating tides, which affect some places very strong, because line of shore constantly moving more then by cup meters, so some operations need to be planned according to tides, this is not belief, this is fact. Position of Sun amplifies tides for up to 50%. BTW, people knowing Astronomy, easy conclude, most extreme Sun tides amplification happen with Sun Eclipse.

I also seen few other wrong classifications.

Sorry, good idea, but such mistakes made it unplayable.

Comment · 10 months ago
I hear about one specific computer of 360 era, on which was dangerous to touch two keyboards simultaneously, because there was high voltage between.

When one guy asked "why not?", consultant answered as IBM - "we don't think anybody ever will need two keyboards to work".

In reality, two keyboards was convenient for debugging, because you could control two terminals, and now it is standard debugging practice.

Comment · 11 months ago
If possible for exact this plane, could make software update just as routine procedure.

But as I hear, air transporters could buy planes in different configurations, so for example, Emirates airlines, or Lufthansa always buy planes with all features included, but small Asian airlines could buy limited configuration (even without some safety indicators).

So for Emirates or Lufthansa, will need one empty flight to home airport, but for small airline will need to flight to some large maintenance base (or to factory base) and wait in queue there (you could find in internet images of Boeing factory base with lot of grounded 737-MAXes few years ago).

So for Emirates or Lufthansa will be minimal impact to flights (just like replacement of bus), but for small airlines things could be much worse.

Comment · 11 months ago
> how do you avoid the voting circuit becoming a single point of failure

They do not. Just make voting circuit much more reliable than computing blocks.

As example, computing block could be CMOS, but voting circuit made from discrete components, which are just too large to be sensitive to particles.

Unfortunately, discrete components are sensitive to overall exposure (more than nm scale transistors), because large square gather more events and suffered by diffusion.

Other example from aviation world - many planes still have mechanic connection of steering wheel to control surfaces, because mechanic connection considered ideally reliable. Unfortunately, at least one catastrophe happen because one pilot blocked his wheel and other cannot overcome this block.

BTW weird fact, modern planes don't have rod physically connected to engine, because engine have it's own computer, which emulate behavior of old piston carburetor, and on Boeing emulating stick have electronic actuator, so it automatically placed in position, corresponding to actual engine mode, but Airbus don't have such actuator.

I want to say - especially big planes (and planes overall), are weird mix of very conservative inherited mechanisms and new technologies.

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