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If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

muezza.ca

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Re: If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

#321

Post by piva00 »

JohnFen wrote: post #295
piva00 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If something happens to TSMC there will be a global effort to lift all that knowledge back into stable, developed countries to continue production as fast as humanly possible. Just like the lifting of Nazi rocket scientists, it's a technology that is directly intertwined with the existence of contemporary advanced economies/societies, if TSMC ceases to exist there will be a concerted effort from major economies to re…

> 3-5 years until production restarts somewhere else. If you're talking about production of modern chips here, it will take a lot longer than 3-5 years.

I'm not talking business competition trying to fund R&D into TSMC-levels. It would be national efforts, funded by gobs of state money to set it up and go online as fast as possible.

Later selling to private enterprises, etc. is another matter to be discussed but governments would very very likely be directly involved.

As another comment said, the Manhattan Project took 5 years, it's not impossible.

Re: If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

#322

Post by dTal »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #310
JohnFen wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3-5 years until production restarts somewhere else. If you're talking about production of modern chips here, it will take a lot longer than 3-5 years.

The entire Manhattan project ran less than 5 years. If it's top priority for national security (which it absolutely would be), the heavens and the earth can be moved.

Sad to think of the list of things that don't make that cut. You would think that eco-friendly energy independence would merit top "national security" priority.

Re: If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

#323

Post by emodendroket »

modo_mario wrote: post #265
emodendroket wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Is there something wrong with the concept of Web apps?

I wouldn't say so in and off itself but it can be argued using a thousandfold more resources to get the same functionality is wrong. The reasons for this are manifold and not just coming from those making cross platform easy to hire for web tech. (Tho it would be nice if those web stacks were also less bloated) In a more ideal world we'd have a few cross UI options already and the companies behind OS's running them w…

I was a system administrator when people were migrating away from Windows XP and after that debacle the appeal of Web apps was really clear. Doubly so with cell phones coming into the mix.

The Web stack probably isn’t what you’d come up with if you were starting from scratch. But are C, x86, or a lot of other standards we are living with? It seems like the ultimate demonstration of “worse is better:” people had the option of sitting around waiting for some nicely-designed, clean option that was cross-platform across all desktop devices and mobile devices, or they could piggyback on the Web. And with all the investment that’s gone into it as a result of that popularity, it is now fairly good anyway.

Re: If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

#324

Post by JohnFen »

piva00 wrote: post #321
JohnFen wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3-5 years until production restarts somewhere else. If you're talking about production of modern chips here, it will take a lot longer than 3-5 years.

I'm not talking business competition trying to fund R&D into TSMC-levels. It would be national efforts, funded by gobs of state money to set it up and go online as fast as possible. Later selling to private enterprises, etc. is another matter to be discussed but governments would very very likely be directly involved. As another comment said, the Manhattan Project took 5 years, it's not impossible.

It's a good point. I wasn't thinking about R&D, I was thinking just about how long it has taken to set up high-density fabs in recent history.

But if it's a national priority, it could certainly be done. The MP is an example, and so is the moon landing.

Re: If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

#325

Post by rubin55 »

Can relate, a while ago (around 2016) we bought 7 second-hand dual opteron 8439 (12 cores! no ht) desktops with 64GiB of ram in them, added pcie nvme adapter, for about ~850 EUR (including 21% vat) a piece.

We have been using those systems since then and they are really amazing performers (linux and bsd, many java apps, jetbrains IDEs, etc). This is totally because of how efficient and minimal modern Linux and BSD distros can be, by the way - even with modern desktop environment like Gnome 43!

Only downside is the powerdraw. They idle at 180 watts, s3 sleep is still 150 watts and on BSD idle is 240 watts! This wasn't too much of a problem before the whole energy crisis thing, because electricity was quite cheap (around 0.19cts per kwh). But with prices touching 0.80cts pet kwh, it becomes untenable quickly.

We currently Wake-on-LAN these boxes only when we need them and they auto turn off after 1 hour of idle.

Re: If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

#326

Post by winter_blue »

couchand wrote: post #231
HWR_14 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is virtually every single company and developer wrong? Virtually every company and developer opts for simpler development and worse runtimes. Is that "wrong"? I'm not sure how to answer that. You could probably make a case either way.

Yeah, if you're needlessly burning dinosaurs in a warming planet it's wrong.

Not to disagree, but the bigger factor for environmental gains is likely backend languages. If people could stop writing servers in languages that are literally 40 times slower (Python with Django, Ruby on Rails, etc.) in terms of the number of requests it can handle / throughput, that directly translates to more server instances behind a load balancer, which translates to 10 times the electricity usage.

That, imo, is totally unacceptable (also, financially not optimal).

I've had people tell me that the "developer productivity gains" of using Python totally justifies the circa 10 X electricity usage + 10 X hosting/cloud costs. (Yes, developers cost a lot, but the hypothesis that Python/other slow languages result in so much higher developer productivity is a questionable assertion -- especially, in contrast to languages like Kotlin, Go, etc.)

Re: If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

#327

Post by ezconnect »

harel wrote: post #168
ezconnect wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We now have 1TB microSD cards.

I still finding it hard to trust 1TB worth of important data stored in that medium. I'm half joking but still, only half joking. The other half is dead serious.

SD cards for me is just a medium to transfer from a device to permanent storage so I don't have to worry about data retention on a tiny device unless it get lost.

Re: If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

#328

Post by harel »

bitwize wrote: post #318
contravariant wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think it's wild how much data can fit on a microSD nowadays. People would think you were crazy if you told them just a few decades ago.

Indeed. Johnny Mnemonic needs only swallow a MicroSD, rather than getting his brain modified, if he wants to smuggle 320 GiB of data.

It's the exit strategy of this approach that make it unappealing...

Re: If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

#329

Post by drpixie »

emodendroket wrote: post #323
modo_mario wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say so in and off itself but it can be argued using a thousandfold more resources to get the same functionality is wrong. The reasons for this are manifold and not just coming from those making cross platform easy to hire for web tech. (Tho it would be nice if those web stacks were also less bloated) In a more ideal world we'd have a few cross UI options already and the companies behind OS's running them w…

I was a system administrator when people were migrating away from Windows XP and after that debacle the appeal of Web apps was really clear. Doubly so with cell phones coming into the mix. The Web stack probably isn’t what you’d come up with if you were starting from scratch. But are C, x86, or a lot of other standards we are living with? It seems like the ultimate demonstration of “worse is better:” people had the o…

I'll agree with everything but "fairly good anyway" - I see most web pages and apps as only adequate, but they follow the current fashion (sigh)

By "only adequate" I mean full-of and/or based-on bad design patterns and techniques: eg. usual for active areas (buttons) to be not distinct from other areas; normal for pages to be based-on inefficient/heavy-weight toolkits (base gmail page is 10MB of download)...

Re: If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

#330

Post by emodendroket »

drpixie wrote: post #329
emodendroket wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a system administrator when people were migrating away from Windows XP and after that debacle the appeal of Web apps was really clear. Doubly so with cell phones coming into the mix. The Web stack probably isn’t what you’d come up with if you were starting from scratch. But are C, x86, or a lot of other standards we are living with? It seems like the ultimate demonstration of “worse is better:” people had the o…

I'll agree with everything but "fairly good anyway" - I see most web pages and apps as only adequate, but they follow the current fashion (sigh) By "only adequate" I mean full-of and/or based-on bad design patterns and techniques: eg. usual for active areas (buttons) to be not distinct from other areas; normal for pages to be based-on inefficient/heavy-weight toolkits (base gmail page is 10MB of download)...

I mean more in terms of being one of the quickest ways to get a functional AI that looks the way you want in front of people. Styling trends may butt up against usability but it's not as though using native code would have protected us from that -- look at Metro, for instance.

10MB might be a lot relative to what's going on (hard to think of many comparable applications that are as old as Gmail to me) but it's still a blip for most people's connections and certainly less trouble than using an installer.

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