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Comment Re:Chinese Tech (Score 1) 26

It's LineShine which is apparently ARM based.

Sounds broadly similar to Fukagu in general high level design: ARM CPUs driving very fast very wide on-cpu SIMD units. Sounds like they have a mix of HBM and DDR which is interesting. Also given the reported numbers (peak vs max), I'd expect their custom interconnect is on die like the Tofu one.

It looks generally pretty good.

Comment Re:Hot or cold? Make your minds up! (Score 2) 16

The UK wasn't built to survive hot, humid weather. We need urgent reform of planning laws so that people can fix their homes with things like exterior shutters on windows. The push to install heat pumps should focus on air-to-air with cooling capability.

In Japan, where they have hot and humid months, the advice is to design your house for the summer. You will be a bit cold in winter, but that's far better than being extremely hot and humid in the summer.

Comment Re:CBDC, and so it begins (Score 1) 80

As the summary notes, it is designed so that transactions are anonymous to the ECB. Likely that means pseudo-anonymous, in that identity could be determined with some effort, but that goes for cash too. Fingerprints, serial numbers, CCTV everywhere...

The goal is to provide a replacement for cash, because cash is expensive to manage. The government has to physically create it, and replace it as it wears out or the security needs updating. Businesses have to count it and transport it to the bank, and can be victims of counterfeiting. One of the reasons why many of them prefer card payments, even with the fees, is due to the overhead of handling bank notes and coins.

To do that, it is going to have to be genuinely as private as cash is. Believe it or not, the EU isn't all about surveillance, and privacy is considered an important right. Remember that the EU created GDPR, and some member states like Germany go even further with strict privacy laws.

Comment Re:The purpose of a factory is not to provide jobs (Score 1) 180

No and, just widgets. Anything else could happen elsewhere.

That's nonsensical. Just because it can and does also happen elsewhere doesn't make it not exist. Someone else could build widgets too. Society doesn't work if people aren't doing stuff so having people employed as of today is a benefit.

You act like people need permission to create and build.

People absolutely 100% do without a doubt need permission to have limited liability protection.

There is no bargain here, just a legal framework for people to work together for some purpose.

Absolutely false. People worked together for millennia without such frameworks in place.

It is not a gift from society; it is a protected right.

It's not a gift, it's a bargain. It's a "protected" right in as much as there is a law granting that right.

You can start a business where people would pay you for a kick in the face. Probably won't get any customers, but you can do it.

You don't really understand much about different kinds of business, do you?

You have a right to freedom of association. You have a right to make contracts.

Yes, and? You can do that just as well with and without extra protection granted to you by society.

You have a right to start almost any kind of business you want (some restrictions may apply). You have a right to use your property as you see fit. Government doesn't give you these things; it protects them.

Yes, and? You can do that just as well with and without extra protection granted to you by society.

Limited liability protection is not a natural right. Why should society give you that extraordinary gift if you give little in return?
 

Comment Re: What's the motivation? (Score 1) 170

The UK's electricity is expensive because the price is set by gas. Our system sets a national price based on the most expensive supplier that is needed for that period, which is almost always gas. Nuclear has a separate, sweet deal where they get paid a high price no matter what.

The government is talking about changing it so that gas doesn't set the price, and so that there is regional pricing too. That way areas with lots of renewables get lower costs. It should work the other way too, areas with lots of NIMBYs blocking renewables should pay an extra tax to offset the cost for everyone else.

Comment Re:Before someone says it (Score 1) 121

That's how they convince you that everything is false, except what they are telling you.

In reality there are things that are true and widely agreed upon, and there are things that journalists can check before presenting. The classic example bendy bananas, if you want to look that one up. It was never true, in fact it was an example of how the UK had great influence in the EU, but the lie was used to justify leaving. The day after the voter, someone on a national TV debate show said that they were going to vote to remain, but at the last moment they remembered that lie and changed their mind.

Organizations like the BBC are not perfect, but they can usually get that stuff right.

Comment Re:The purpose of a factory is not to provide jobs (Score 1) 180

Yeah, and the benefit to society comes in the form of the widgets it so desperately needs.

And also the people it employs and the effect to the greater economy. All of those things are benefits to society, for which people are prepared to give the directors and shareholders some level of protection, as part of a bargain. If the factory provides less benefit, why should the people taking the profit get the same level of protection?

Comment Before someone says it (Score 5, Informative) 121

I know what this looks like, the government wants to make sure you read its narrative on everything first.

And I'm sure it will be abused for that.

But there is actually another, more genuine, reason for wanting it. We have a huge problem with misinformation in the UK. Much of it coming from Russia, and the far right, and grifters. It's actually quite lucrative, and devastatingly effective.

It's 10 years since the Brexit vote today. The amount of misinformation is hard to comprehend. Even today, people still believe those lies. Even back then, we were decades into debunking some of them. One of the biggest liars, Boris Johnson, transitioned from publishing lies in newspapers to telling lies as Prime Minister. Misinformation became the most effective political strategy.

This probably isn't the right way to go about it, but I also find it hard to believe that e.g. Facebook can't label Russia trolls easily enough. Whenever information leaks from those sites, the fake Russian accounts are very easy to spot. Twitter had to remove their public location information because as soon as they enabled it everyone noticed that many of the top accounts were Russian, pretending to be European or American.

Comment Re: What's the motivation? (Score 1) 170

Accounting for risk just means they looked at the design and decided that the probability of a meltdown was low, which incidentally is exactly what the Soviets did. Even assuming that their evaluation was correct and we get lucky and none of the failure modes they found actually happen, there is also a chance that it wasn't built exactly to spec and that causes problems.

Molten salt is a bad idea. Liquid sodium ignites on contact with air, so if there is any small leak you have a really nasty fire. The ones in China are tiny research reactors.

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