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Comment Future of DRM (Score 2) 13

Consoles have been PCs for a while now, just locked down, so I'm not sure what this will really mean. Will they try to lock down PCs even further, with more devious rootkits now that Windows 10 is dead and TPM2.0 is mandatory? Or will they embrace Linux and follow Valve's lead by giving players the freedom to actually play the games they paid for? I'm not sure this guy has the answers, but I guess we'll see.

Comment Re: It a guidebook... (Score 1) 143

my son's teacher told us that it helped with developing fine motor control, particularly in children that had below average motor control.

For one, is this based on research or speculation? Second there are different kinds of motor control. Following an existing pattern or shape is one type, while cursive is another because one tends to develop patterns based on personal preferences.

Comment Re:More than meets the eye (Score 1) 143

In 5th grade my teacher wanted to wring my neck because I was growing quite skillful in drawing and art, yet my cursive writing was worse than a drunk doctor's. I didn't see them as connected, but it was in the teacher's mind. I had a semi-impressionistic art style such that stroke precision mattered less.

Comment What are actual applications and requirements (Score 1) 79

The talk about space being cold, having more light, etc. is pretty much nonsense. More like it has less regulations and bigger budgets. However, I could imagine some kind of low latency compute being needed for applications like:
- Luna: Automated robotic exploration and construction drones wanting 2 second lag, different countries are working on it
- Asteroid mining robots: Onboard compute, or lower latency needed on arrival / when opposite Sun
- Telescope on other side of the sun: Maybe not needed
- Solar system / Oort exploration robots: Maybe needed years from now
- Deep space exploration robots: Maybe needed years from now

Just an armchair guy but it seems like:
- Setting up in-system relays alone should be sufficient for delivering AI+Human based commands when low latency is sufficient, i.e. in transit. And will be required for operation in planetary shadow. We have something at Mars, and for the Far Side of the Moon we are apparently working on Lunar Communications Relay and Navigation Systems (LCRNS) for Artemis.

- Moving compute nearby for lower latency (1 second) will be needed when robots actually touch rock or enter planetary shadows, if we want them to move with any kind of speed. For the Moon, libration points would give 400ms round trip which is probably enough, or in-orbit is better.

- There will be a lot of advancement in processor capability/size and to a much lesser extent space propulsion over the years robots are traveling the deep dark, so it may be better to wait as long as possible so that a miniaturized, low power, high compute package can be delivered on a fast rocket to be there when they need it.

Comment Re:Async bloat (Score 1) 81

I guess I'm not working on "typical CRUD apps" then?

Based on your description, no, you are not, other than maybe "data stores". Sounds like systems programming. And it's rare to need such for app-level database access (unless you did something wrong or bad).

other than async and await keywords here and there.

It tends to force the need to parts that have nothing to do with asynchronous programming other than being referenced by parts that do. It pollutes and spreads like prions in a brain.

Comment Re:Separate grid, please. (Score 2) 68

It probably makes more sense given their scale for them to have their own power generation -- solar, wind, and battery storage, maybe gas turbines for extended periods of low renewable availability.

In fact, you could take it further. You could designate town-sized areas for multiple companies' data centers, served by an electricity source (possibly nuclear) and water reclamation and recycling centers providing zero carbon emissions and minimal environmental impact. It would be served by a compact, robust, and completely sepate electrical grid of its own, reducing costs for the data centers and isolating residential customers from the impact of their elecrical use. It would also economically concentrate data centers for businesses providing services they need,reducing costs and increasing profits all around.

Comment Re:AI/LLMs and language translation (Score 2) 81

I wonder how TIOBE would measure this sort of work. As activity in the source language (C)? Editing language (C#)? Or both?

It wouldn't. TIOBE is bullshit, I don't know why anyone uses it. Look at what it is: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-in...

It's just searching various engines for "$LANG programming" and applying magic fudge factors. It searches multiple languages versions of Google as well as for some reason Amazon and Ebay. And it relies on the "$NUM results found" provided by those sites.

So at best it's a vague indicator of the language's presence. It doesn't say much of anything about whether it's in use. If a popular documentation site goes down it will note a decrease, and it's trivial to cheat by encouraging the insertion of keywords in websites.

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