AWS 4Q 2023 revenue grew 13% YoY to $24.2 billion. So more workloads are going on the cloud than leaving.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/0...

Data point, I just saw my first Tesla on the streets of San Salvador, El Salvador, this week.

Probably the best strategy to strengthen critical mineral supply chains is to hack oppressive dictatorships into liberal democracies.

On average, it takes the Japanese less than 5 years to build a nuclear power plant. In South Korea and China, less than 6 years. https://www.sustainabilitybynu...

The fire truck crashed into the Cruise. Fire trucks crash into cars all the time, for example: https://www.carscoops.com/2022...

If you have virtual infrastructure in AWS with high availability requirements, use multiple Availability Zones (AZs), which are distinct locations within an AWS Region that are distant enough from each other to provide isolation from common physical failures (fire, flood, tornado) but have inexpensive, low-latency network connectivity to other AZs in the same AWS Region (for reliable synchronous database replication, for example).

Of note:

Q: Does Amazon EC2 use ECC memory?
In our experience, ECC memory is necessary for server infrastructure, and all the hardware underlying Amazon EC2 uses ECC memory.

(From: Amazon EC2 FAQs)

Why isn't Linus developing on the cloud?

Prompt: "Write a few snarky paragraphs on Slashdot regarding an article about how DALL-E is now becoming more widely available"

GPT-3 text-davinci-002: "It's about time that DALL-E became more widely available. After all, it's been almost a year since it was first announced.

This is great news for those of us who have been waiting patiently for a more user-friendly AI-powered image generator. No longer do we have to suffer through the tedious and time-consuming process of manually creating images!

With DALL-E, we can now quickly and easily create images of whatever we can imagine, without any of the hassle. So what are you waiting for? Go out and get yourself a DALL-E today!"

GPT-3 text-curie-001: "First, Slashdotters, we should be clear: DALL-E is not a sexual lubricant. It's a cleaning robot designed to clean up oil spills. Second, DALL-E is not a new product. It was released in 2010. Third, it's not available in stores. It's only available online, and it costs $3,000. Fourth, it doesn't actually clean up oil spills. It just collects the oil. Fifth, it doesn't work very well. Sixth, it's not really a robot. It's just a big metal box with a few sensors. Seventh, it's not actually the best cleaning robot out there. It's just the cheapest. Eighth, it's not really a robot, it's just a metal box with a few sensors. Ninth, it's not really a robot, it's just a big metal box with a few sensors that's controlled by a computer. Tenth, it's not really a robot, it's just a big metal box with a few sensors that's controlled by a computer that's owned by a company that's owned by a guy who's really rich."

"No bacon," Palacios sighs apologetically, in accented English. "They don't let me."

She means police and L.A. health-department inspectors...Instead, she prepares dogs the only way the county Environmental Health Department currently allows, by boiling or steaming. Not grilling. And grilling is the only way to make a classic L.A. bacon-wrapped hot dog.

The patents in the case do not appear to deal with wavelet-based image compression at all, but instead with the processing of green data within the RAW mosaic.

JPEG 2000 Part 1 is widely believed to be free of any patented technology (and certainly is by now in 2022).

However the patents at issue in this case are 7,830,967 âoeVideo Camera" which includes ways to "transform blue and red image data in a manner that enhances the compressibility of the data", 9,521,384 âoeGreen Average Subtraction in Image Data", 9,716,866 âoeGreen Image Data Processing", 10,582,168 âoeGreen Image Data Processing".

None of these patents appear to deal with wavelet-based image compression, but instead with the processing of green data within the RAW mosaic.

European NOx and non-methane organic gases (NMOG) regulations have been getting tighter over the years, although not as good as US regulations.

China continues to increase their pollution

Beijing PM2.5 levels have gone down from 101.5 micrograms per cubic meter of air in 2013 to just 40.5 in 2021. They need to keep going, of course!

Local NIMBY opposition is the reason. UC Berkeley tried to build new housing, but faced a court-mandated enrollment freeze because a NIMBY sued on environmental grounds.

Similar issues at UCLA.