Thanks!
2,226 karma · joined May 20, 2013
Solutions Architect at Arpio.io
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.
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.
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.
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.
I've (thankfully) moved on past that, but I look back at that with nostalgia.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Then - like now - it seemed that they couldn't understand that what they made was not what their customers wanted.
Edit: This is a fantastic write-up by the way!
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.
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.
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.
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.
https://bsky.app/profile/vcdgf555.bsky.social/post/3lovrqupt...
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.
I'm pleased at the discussion in this chain of replies, as it illustrates the cat-and-mouse game stealth (low observability?) is. Stealth never was a perfect defense, as it's detractors claim. It forces the adversary to make tradeoffs, such as increasing the costs needed to detect such craft, which can then be exploited for gain.
I think this is the blog in question, and the most relevant part. If something else comes to me, I'll share it here.