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The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority

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Re: The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority

#471

Post by worldsayshi »

volemo wrote: post #375
worldsayshi wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is already true and will become increasingly more true for AI. The user cannot differentiate between sophisticated machine learning applications and a washing machine spin cycle calling itself AI. The user cannot but a good AI might itself allow the average user to bridge the information asymmetry. So as long as we have a way to select a good AI assistant for ourselves...

> The user cannot but a good AI might itself allow the average user to bridge the information asymmetry. So as long as we have a way to select a good AI assistant for ourselves... In the end it all hinges on the users ability to assess the quality of the product. Otherwise, the user cannot judge whether an assistant recommends quality products and the assistant has an incentive to suggest poorly (e.g. sellout to prod…

> In the end it all hinges on the users ability to assess the quality of the product

The AI can use tools to extract various key metrics from the product that is analysed. Even if we limit such metrics down to those that can be verified in various "dumb" ways we should be able to verify products much further than today.

Re: The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority

#472

Post by cannabis_sam »

As long as sufficient amounts of wealthy people are able to wield their money as a force to shape society, this is will always be the outcome.

Unfortunately,in our current society a rich group of people with a very restricted intellect, abnormal psychology, perverse views on human interaction and a paranoid delusion that kept normal human love and compassion beyond their grasp, were able to shape society to their dreadful imagination.

Hopefully humanity can make it through these times, despite these hateful aberrations doing their best to wield their economic power to destroy humans as a concept.

Re: The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority

#474

Post by hello_computer »

titzer wrote: post #12

I like to point out that since ~1980, computing power has increased about 1000X. If dynamic array bounds checking cost 5% (narrator: it is far less than that), and we turned it on everywhere, we could have computers that are just a mere 950X faster. If you went back in time to 1980 and offered the following choice: I'll give you a computer that runs 950X faster and doesn't have a huge class of memory safety vulnerabi…

> the 1000Xers kinda ruined things for the rest of us

Robert Barton (of Burroughs 5000 fame) once referred to these people as “high priests of a low cult.”

Re: The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority

#475

Post by cletus »

mike_hearn wrote: post #458
cletus wrote: post #317

So I've worked for Google (and Facebook) and it really drives the point home of just how cheap hardware is and how not worth it optimizing code is most of the time. More than a decade ago Google had to start managing their resource usage in data centers. Every project has a budget. CPU cores, hard disk space, flash storage, hard disk spindles, memory, etc. And these are generally convertible to each other so you can…

I worked there too and you're talking about performance in terms of optimal usage of CPU on a per-project basis. Google DID put a ton of effort into two other aspects of performance: latency, and overall machine utilization. Both of these were top-down directives that absorbed a lot of time and attention from thousands of engineers. The salary costs were huge. But, if you're machine constrained you really don't want…

The key part here is "machine utilization" and absolutely there was a ton of effort put into this. I think before my time servers were allocated to projects but even early on in my time at Google Borg had already adopted shared machine usage and therew was a whole system of resource quota implemented via cgroups.

Likewise there have been many optimization projects and they used to call these out at TGIF. No idea if they still do. One I remember was reducing the health checks via UDP for Stubby and given that every single Google product extensively uses Stubby then even a small (5%? I forget) reduction in UDP traffic amounted to 50,000+ cores, which is (and was) absolutely worth doing.

I wouldn't even put latency in the same category as "performance optimization" because often you decrease latency by increasing resource usage. For example, you may send duplicate RPCs and wait for the fastest to reply. That could be double or tripling effort.

Re: The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority

#476

Post by jcadam »

bruce511 wrote: post #452
dahart wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dumbest and most obvious of realizations finally dawned on me after trying to build a software startup that was based on quality differentiation. We were sure that a better product would win people over and lead to viral success. It didn’t. Things grew, but so slowly that we ran out of money after a few years before reaching break even. What I realized is that lower costs, and therefore lower quality, are a compe…

You're on the right track, but missing an important aspect. In most cases the company making the inferior product didn't spend less. But they did spend differently. As in, they spent a lot on marketing. You were focused on quality, and hoped for viral word of mouth marketing. Your competitors spent the same as you, but half their budget went to marketing. Since people buy what they know, they won. Back in the day MS…

It's not just software -- My wife owns a restaurant. Operating a restaurant you quickly learn the sad fact that quality is just not that important to your success.

We're still trying to figure out the marketing. I'm convinced the high failure rate of restaurants is due largely to founders who know how to make good food and think their culinary skills plus word-of-mouth will get them sales.

Re: The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority

#477

Post by dsr_ »

esafak wrote: post #433
dsr_ wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Lemon Market exists specifically when customers cannot tell, prior to receipt and usage, whether they are buying high quality or low quality.

That does not describe the current subscription-based software market, then, because we do try it, and we can always stop paying, transaction costs aside.

The transaction costs are generally significant.

Re: The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority

#478

Post by KapKap66 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #390
KapKap66 wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a problem when people who aren't very sensitive to latency and try and track it, and that is that their perception of what "instant" actually means is wrong. For them, instant is like, one second. For someone who cares about latency, instant is less than 10 milliseconds, or whatever threshold makes the difference between input and result imperceptible. People have the same problem judging video game framerate…

I fear that such comments are similar to the old 'a monster cable makes my digital audio sound more mellow!' The eye percieves at about 10 hz. That's 100ms per capture. All the rest, I'd have to see a study that shows how any higher framerate can possibly be perceived or useful.

Well if you believe that, start up a video game with a framerate limiter and set your game's framerate limit to 10 fps and tell me how much you enjoy the experience. By default your game will likely be running at either 60 fps or 120 fps if you're vertical synced (depends on your monitor's refresh rate). Make sure to switch back and forth between 10 and 60/120 to compare.

Even your average movie captures at 24 hz. Again, very likely you've never actually just compared these things for yourself back to back, as I mentioned originally.

Re: The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority

#479

Post by mtalantikite »

esafak wrote: post #439
mtalantikite wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife has a perfume business. She makes really high quality extrait de parfums [1] with expensive materials and great formulations. But the market is flooded with eau de parfums -- which are far more diluted than a extrait -- using cheaper ingredients, selling for about the same price. We've had so many conversations about whether she should dilute everything like the other companies do, but you lose so much of the…

Offer an eau de parfum line for price anchoring, and market segmentation. Win win.

For sure. I suggested having an eau de parfum option, but it does make things smell totally different -- much weaker, doesn't last long on the body, and can get overpowered by the alcohol carrier. Plus as a small business it'd mean having a dozen new formulations, with the associated packaging changes, inventory, etc. which makes it harder as a totally bootstrapped business. It's definitely still something to think about though, as even fragrances like a Tom Ford or Le Labo selling for $300-400 are just eau de parfums.

Re: The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority

#480

Post by ikiris »

dahart wrote: post #217
caseyy wrote: post #91

There is an argument to be made that the market buys bug-filled, inefficient software about as well as it buys pristine software. And one of them is the cheapest software you could make. It's similar to the "Market for Lemons" story. In short, the market sells as if all goods were high-quality but underhandedly reduces the quality to reduce marginal costs. The buyer cannot differentiate between high and low-quality g…

The dumbest and most obvious of realizations finally dawned on me after trying to build a software startup that was based on quality differentiation. We were sure that a better product would win people over and lead to viral success. It didn’t. Things grew, but so slowly that we ran out of money after a few years before reaching break even. What I realized is that lower costs, and therefore lower quality, are a compe…

I'm proud of you, it often takes people multiple failures before they learn to accept their worldview that regulations aren't necessary and the tragedy of Commons is a myth are wrong.
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