Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

news.ycombinator.com

631–640 of 1001 posts

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#631
post #96

AMD's Zen microarchitecture. At the time, AMD was years behind Intel in both performance and power consumption. There were constant jokes about the Bulldozer cores burning people's houses down. The few remaining 'team red' loyalists had been hyping Zen were largely ignored. Then, boom. Over night AMD leapfrogged Intel, and now on the third generation has a firm lead in mid range desk top all the way up to high end se…

There are two parts to the story: architecture and process. On architecture, AMD deserves praise. On process, not so much. They didn't "git gud," they gave up. Which clearly was the right move for them, don't get me wrong, but I think all this partying in the streets about the TSMC monoculture is... shortsighted.

I think where they deserve praise related to process is the pragmatic and frankly pretty brilliant way they worked around 7nm processes yield issues in Zen 2.

To improve yields they used a number of 8-core "chiplets" manufactured in 7nm tied together with a 14nm I/O die. This meant that while a certain blue competitor was still trying to get 28+ core monolithic dies, AMD could scale to huge core counts without reducing yields by tying together more chiplets.

Their 64-core 128-thread Threadripper workstation parts should have yields almost exactly as good as their low-end CPUs. The Xeon W 28-core monolithic monster? Not so much.

AMD did a lot of things right this time. Intel's got some catching up to do.

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#632
post #528

Blade Runner: 2049. Considering how highly regarded the original 1984 movie is it didn't seem possible for the sequel to nail it. Not only that but it managed to improve Blade Runner's (original) films story along the way.

It immediately moved onto my all-time favorite list. Once I realized the main theme, I had to watch it again and loved the details and clues that were presented along the way.

In terms of visual spectacle, it may be tops. The detail and research highlighted by this 'coincidence':

https://images.news18.com/ibnlive/uploads/2020/09/1599807108...

I hadn't thought about it until now, but these days, science fiction and fantasy movies that end without everything exploding should get bonus points.

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#633
post #366

I'm loving my Apple Watch. I wasn't entirely sure yet what to think of the watch as a form factor, given that a phone can do everything it can and more. But there's three interesting aspects that have really added value for me. 1) is health data, in a way a computer or phone just can't do. It tracks things like heartrate that a phone + heartrate strap is too convoluted for, for non-athletes. Plus it's all-day and qui…

All of my friends told me something similar, so I got one. It just collects dust now. - The health tracking and gamification of exercise was somewhere between meh and useless for me. I don’t have exercise issues. - The freedom from the phone has potential, but the ostensible ease of use just isn’t worth the hassle of wearing a watch. I’m ok just pulling out my phone. - The deep breathing option was probably the app i…

> I don’t have exercise issues.

Well that's what I told my brother, don't get one because you do sports 3-4 times a week anyway. For me it was a motivational thing, seeing my trends in activity, getting nudges, doing competitions with friends, seeing my Vo2max go up over-time, are all great, but unnecessary for my brother.

> the ostensible ease of use just isn’t worth the hassle of wearing a watch. I’m ok just pulling out my phone.

I'd say there's a mix-up here. The watch isn't easy to use versus the phone, which is the primary reason that it allows freedom from a digital device that demands constant attention. Secondly, if you're okay pulling out your phone, then you're really saying you don't have any wish to be free from your phone, so there's an audience mismatch here.

The freedom from the phone first requires you to actually agree that you need it, for many of us that's the case. If you do, the second part is being able to leave your phone at home when you go for a walk, go to the gym, go see friends, go clubbing etc. But for many that's a step too far, without any alternative offering functionality like payments, music, maps, messages, calls. The watch offers that, but in a way that's not super easy to use, but will get the job done. This is why the watch will never be a place where you scroll through social media for hours, or refresh your 5 news apps for the news junkies among us, but the easy-to-use phone, will be.

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#634

Cormac McCarthy. Finally started "bingeing" his books from the local library and not since Virginia Woolf has a writer's use of words to paint pictures made such an impression on me.

That's an apt description. His use of language is remarkable. The hapax legomenon Salitter, and this brief post about it, are what convinced me to read his books. https://thefirstmorning.com/2008/09/11/salitter/

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#636
1. Okami. I've always been slightly frustrated by video games. Here we have the opportunity to create truly fantastical worlds with the only limits being what we can imagine and so much effort goes in to creating WW2 shooters or football games or whatever. When the first trailer was revealed for Okami at e3 in 2005, wow. That fake celestial language starts up, showing flowers blooming in the path of the sun god as she runs and then, at the press of a button, the whole screen turns into parchment and you paint on it with a celestial brush to instantiate your nature god powers. I almost cried. I tried not to get my hopes up too much because I thought there was no way for it to live up to my imagination. And then it did. Easily the greatest video game experience I have ever had. Windwaker and Hollowknight are close seconds.

2. Worm. Heavily hyped in my friend circles, I waited for it to finish. Not without its flaws but holy hell, ruined a lot of traditional fiction for me with its length, depth, and quality of ending.

3. As an adult reading the books that childhood movies were based on: The Princess Bride and The Neverending story were both incredibly satisfying books.

4. Therevada Buddhism. Many things in life focus on individual insights. Only a few focus on strengthening the machinery that generates insights. I write about it here: http://neuroticgradientdescent.blogspot.com/2020/01/mistrans...

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#637
post #528

Blade Runner: 2049. Considering how highly regarded the original 1984 movie is it didn't seem possible for the sequel to nail it. Not only that but it managed to improve Blade Runner's (original) films story along the way.

The original was 1982, not 1984. [1]

I mention this mainly because I doubted my memories when I saw the date 1984, which would have put me in uni rather than as still at school.

At that time, I was probably more of an arsehole than I am now, but I credit the film for making me rethink some really important things, mainly to do with rights/respect for others. I would like to think that its effect on me was positive.

At the time of watching it in the cinema (1982, with the explanatory voiceover "I knew the lingo, every good cop did" etc), I remember being uneasy with Deckhard's pressuring of Rachael to kiss him etc. But it didn't spoil the film for me.

Years later, I got a DVD collection with various cinematic releases and director's cut (without the voiceover narrative and with previously cut scenes) etc. I was surprised that the Deckhard/Rachael stuff hadn't been revisited; years after having watched it in the cinema, it looked to me to be even more like an abuse thing. However, I still rate the film for providing a slap in the face about discrimination etc.

I'd like to see another cut - with the voiceover, which helped me and I like it - but with revisions to the Rachael/Deckhard pressured relationship thing.

It isn't as though Harrison Ford hasn't had revisionists messing with his work, after all. We all know that Han shot first. ;-)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner#Release

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#638

- A lot of people watch it with no background knowledge and subsequently don’t quite understand the “best film ever” label, but Citizen Kane is indeed a fantastic film. Just read about Orson Welles first. - Most religious books that have stood the test of time have lived up to the hype. The Bible (especially certain books like Ecclesiastes or Proverbs), The Quran, The Upanishads, to name a few. Again, don’t just go i…

> Most religious books that have stood the test of time have lived up to the hype. The Bible (especially certain books like Ecclesiastes or Proverbs), The Quran, The Upanishads, to name a few. Again, don’t just go in blind, or you’ll walk away thinking none of it makes any sense.

Seeing as how the Quran was "written" over decades and the Bible over millennia, they DON'T make sense. They're both self-contradictory, with various authors pushing various purposes depending on what they wrote and when. There's value in each, but let's not pretend they're towering forks of art with a singular purpose and vision.

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#639

The reMarkable 2 tablet! As long as you don't expect it to do more than what it's designed for, I've been loving using it and it's helped me enjoy writing a lot more.

Could you talk more about how you use it? https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2 says it's for taking notes and writing on PDFs. That's not much to go on...

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A lot of people watch it with no background knowledge and subsequently don’t quite understand the “best film ever” label, but Citizen Kane is indeed a fantastic film. Just read about Orson Welles first. Interesting. About 10 years ago I was tired of modern cinema and completely stopped watching new films. After some pause I decided to start watching classic cinema from 1930 onward in more or less chronological order…

After watching all those movies, please would you share some of your favourites, especially lesser known titles.

I can give you my list as I've also been watching lots of "old" movies. Though "old" can mean almost anything depending on who you ask. Note: I'm picky so while I love movies if I check my ratings (I take notes because I forget what I watched), it turns out I only like about one out of 10 movies. Or maybe to put it in a slightly better light, only 1 of 10 or so is worth recommending. Some might be okay but not okay enough to tell someone "you should seek out this movie"

Anyway, here's some from my list from the last year (the list of ones I didn't like is MUCH longer and includes many that are highly rated on IMDB)

"Now, Voyager" (1942)

"Boom Town" (1940)

"The Best Years of Our Lives" (1947)

"The Little Princess" (1939)

"Destry Rides Again" (1939)

"Baby Face" (1933)

"Adam's Rib" (1949)

"In a Lonely Place" (1950)

"It Happened One Night" (1934)

"The Woman of the Year" (1942)

"The Awful Truth" (1937)

"Broken Arrow" (1950)

"The Lady Eve" (1941)

"His Girl Friday" (1940)

"12 O'Clock High" (1949)

"You Can't Take It With You" (1938)

"The Far County" (1954)

"Random Harvest" (1942)

"The Bad and the Beautiful" (1952)

"The Philadelphia Story" (1940)

"Cry Danger" (1951)

"This Gun For Hire" (1942)

"Casablanca" (1942). I didn't get it at 23 where as I shook from crying at 50. Basically I needed to truly feel Rick's loss and what he was going through (Bogart's character). At 23 I didn't. At 50 I did. I suppose you could have similar experiences to Rick at a younger age or you could never have them and then not have it do anything for you.

I don't think any of them are "lesser known". Basically I just look up IMDB. If it's rated > 7 and sounds mildly interesting I'll take a look. Tons of them don't work for me. Those above did. As recent examples of ones that didn't "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" (1946), "Dark Passage" (1947), "Waterloo Bridge" (1940), "The Bishop's Wife" (1947), "Spellbound" (1945), "Fort Apache" (1948). Those are just from the last 2 weeks (^^;)

Post reply on HN