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The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job

zipcpu.com

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Re: The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job

#81

Post by Rd6n6 »

wyldfire wrote: post #33
jasonhansel wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From another post: https://zipcpu.com/blog/2018/10/04/welcome.html > My Christian beliefs are centered around a literal interpretation of the Bible. This includes a belief in a 6-day creation that took place roughly six-thousand years ago, a belief that God will cause the end of this world rather than any man-induced climate change, a firm belief that a free people should be an armed people, and more. Ouch.

I would worry that a young Earth creationist might make a poor designer. Someone who might ignore the evidence of a design error in favor of some other interpretation not supported by evidence. Why did the deity put the fossils there? In order to confuse us? In order to challenge the faithful? It defies reason. You can only put it as a mystery of faith. But it needn't be.

> Why did the deity put the fossils there? In order to confuse us?

In Heinleins “Book of Job,” this is suggested as the answer in one scene. A grand book

Re: The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job

#82

Post by neolog »

bsder wrote: post #7
ampdepolymerase wrote: post #3

This is a classic supply and demand problem. EE and FPGA jobs don't pay well. You can see the same thing happen in entry-level ML. Applicants want to design models, not spend their days cleaning data. If you pay well enough you will get good candidates who will be willing to put up with mindnumbing jobs. The Zip CPU author sounds like those software "artisans" who regularly get posted on HN. There is plenty of room f…

> EE and FPGA jobs don't pay well. The problem is that EE/FPGA jobs have to compete with FAANGs. However, hardware, by and large, isn't VC funded. Hardware also has a fairly objective criterion for success. So, you're not going to get offered $200K unless you actually know what you're doing and bring direct business value. And, if you don't know what you're doing, that's going to be apparent real quick. As for the Zi…

I'm curious about FPGAs but don't have any background in stuff like that. How many weeks would it take to build something useful?

Re: The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job

#83

Post by FormhellFrom »

jimbob45 wrote: post #79
FormhellFrom wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don’t get to redefine language and force your linguistic preferences on others. That’s not how language works. you literally do and that’s literally how language works. You are free to disagree with these new definitions, and in turn people are free to show you the door, just like what occurred in the post above. (What’s the alternative? Words are given a fixed definition at their conception? Who gives these de…

The alternative is that linguistic preferences aren't forced upon others?

Ok, then where does the meaning of a given word come from? It comes from somewhere. If not from consensus, then where?

this is all unfortunately very far from the original argument, which is that it takes no effort to just use whatever pronoun is asked for. It’s no different than when someone named Thomas says “please call me Tom.” Do you jump up on the table and start citing Bible verses about the perils of falsehoods, or do you just fucking call the guy Tom?

Re: The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job

#84

Post by yongjik »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #68
01100011 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It says Christians should obey the authorities, pay taxes, turn the other cheek, not equate gain with godliness, and it plainly states "Pure and undefiled religion" is to take care of the unfortunate(Widows in this case) and keep oneself unspotted from the World. It doesn't say to build a Christian nation. It doesn't say to fight abortion. It doesn't say to kill your neighbor if he wants to take your stuff. I am…

Then Jesus said, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. It seems silly to take those words and interpret them in a way that means you should not defend yourself. The real answer is that the Bible was written by people who like it or not had agendas themselves. What was King Jame’s word, and why was it so important he had his own version of th…

Well, except that Jesus literally told you not to defend yourself from takers. You can't get more direct than this:

> But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.

So, assuming Jesus was speaking literally, the only possible interpretation I can think of is that Jesus wanted you to buy a sword, but not use it against others. Why he wanted you to buy a sword, I don't know. Maybe he had a friend blacksmith.

Re: The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job

#85

Post by _dfpj »

W-Stool wrote: post #36

I guess I'll be the first to say it - does the author of the article strike anyone as a bit of a pretentious asshole? Downvote away if you have to, but I just thought someone needed to say that.

Check out step 9 of this blog post he wrote to get an idea of how he treats trans people: http://zipcpu.com/blog/2020/11/26/zipcpu-biz.html

I would imagine that there are potential communication obstacles to overcome for anyone choosing to work with him.

Re: The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job

#86

Post by jasonhansel »

shkkmo wrote: post #75
wyldfire wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would worry that a young Earth creationist might make a poor designer. Someone who might ignore the evidence of a design error in favor of some other interpretation not supported by evidence. Why did the deity put the fossils there? In order to confuse us? In order to challenge the faithful? It defies reason. You can only put it as a mystery of faith. But it needn't be.

I always thought the most plausible explanation is one developed Terry Pratchett in "Strata": If you are going to create a planet (or universe) from scratch to be the home of an intelligent species, including a realistic history is critical to give that species sufficient historical context to learn about how things work. Understanding evolution and biology is a lot harder if you have no fossil record. Understanding…

Some people do in fact believe this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis

Re: The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job

#87

Post by sircastor »

jimbob45 wrote: post #32
vmception wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those having trouble with this, the consensus within inclusionary groups in the US is that sex and gender are separate concepts. Meaning that males can be recognized as males and females as females, no matter what their pronouns are, as that is sex. Gender is not intrinsically tied to those, so gendered words like “man, woman” and “he, she” can be dynamic and up to the individual to identify as. The consensus on…

Everything starts with a “simple ask”. If it’s so small and simple, then why are we being fought tooth-and-nail over it? There is no consensus either, outside of a small minority. Prior to 2012, custom pronouns would have had you laughed out of the room. You don’t get to redefine language and force your linguistic preferences on others. That’s not how language works.

I'll throw another counter-example in the pot here: 'Literally' has come to mean (in modern parlance) both literally and figuratively. You can disagree and push back against the use and abuse of a word, but language and the use of language will continue to change with or without you.

Re: The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job

#88

Post by bsder »

neolog wrote: post #82
bsder wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EE and FPGA jobs don't pay well. The problem is that EE/FPGA jobs have to compete with FAANGs. However, hardware, by and large, isn't VC funded. Hardware also has a fairly objective criterion for success. So, you're not going to get offered $200K unless you actually know what you're doing and bring direct business value. And, if you don't know what you're doing, that's going to be apparent real quick. As for the Zi…

I'm curious about FPGAs but don't have any background in stuff like that. How many weeks would it take to build something useful?

It can take as little as a couple of days--most of the tools even let you draw simple logic schematics. But this is useful only if you have something that fits the use cases for FPGAs.

The problem with FPGAs is that they're only really useful in very narrow niche applications--generally with hard real-time constraints. So ... motor controllers, high-speed ADC/DAC interfacing (think software defined radio), weird processing algorithms that don't work well on a DSP, safety interlocks, etc.

Most people are far better off learning a microcontroller family in depth (think: STMF32 series, for example). You can really bend the functional units of a microcontroller a long way from their intended usages in order to abuse them to do what you need under most circumstances.

I don't reach for FPGAs much anymore as an embedded engineer. Normally I trawl through the various microcontrollers to see if I can make something do what I need. If those don't work, the next layer is to look at SoCs like the AM3359 from the BeagleBone Series which have stronger processors to run Linux (Linux provides larger storage, CPU, and lots more communication options) but have hard real-time units (the PRUs).

Finally, if even those don't work, then I'll start thinking about a cheap FPGA in concert with an external microcontroller.

One unusual thing is that I'm an absolute bigot about not putting microcontrollers inside my FPGA (neither soft nor hard cores). Even the worst microcontroller toolchain is better than the best FPGA toolchain so I am adamant about external microcontrollers.

Re: The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job

#89

Post by BizarroLand »

jasonhansel wrote: post #86
shkkmo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought the most plausible explanation is one developed Terry Pratchett in "Strata": If you are going to create a planet (or universe) from scratch to be the home of an intelligent species, including a realistic history is critical to give that species sufficient historical context to learn about how things work. Understanding evolution and biology is a lot harder if you have no fossil record. Understanding…

Some people do in fact believe this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis

This reminds me of being a teen and getting my mind blown when a friend of mine said, "You can't prove that you didn't just start existing right now. Who's to say that all of the memories of your entire life were all implanted in your head to make you think the universe didn't start right now."

Re: The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job

#90

Post by BizarroLand »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #63
wyldfire wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would worry that a young Earth creationist might make a poor designer. Someone who might ignore the evidence of a design error in favor of some other interpretation not supported by evidence. Why did the deity put the fossils there? In order to confuse us? In order to challenge the faithful? It defies reason. You can only put it as a mystery of faith. But it needn't be.

> Why did the deity put the fossils there? In order to confuse us? In order to challenge the faithful? Went into a creationist museum once (real thing). And the literal answer to your question was ”Yes, Satan put the fossils there to temp us away” . I can’t attribute that to all creationist, but it was the case for the few I interacted with.

My dad tried to say the same thing. I countered with that in the Book of Job the devil couldn't do anything to Job without God's consent, so that would mean that God was trying to intentionally fool people with no way to prove what we can see with our own eyes wrong.

He changed the subject and never brought it back up to me again.

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