Hacker News Reader

klelattion If-then-else had to be invented (2020)

Elsie was quite a popular name in the 1920s in the UK and US - the 65th most popular in the US [1] in that decade - so I think it's very unlikely most of those 42k Elsies had some relationship with an Else.

[1] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/names1920s.html

klelattion I went to Mexico to test-drive the cars Americans can’t buy

I can tell you from a - fairly prosperous town in the North of England where Range Rovers, Teslas and Porsches are very common - that BYDs and Jaecoos are everywhere.

klelattion The United Kingdom generates less electricity per person than in the 1970s

The linked iea data shows that the reduction is roughly 50/50 industrial and residential. So the deindustrialisation narrative is part of the story but improved efficiency at home is also a significant factor.

klelattion 9 Ads per Minute: FIFA Cup 26 – "the price of the beautiful game"

Watched Brighton beat Arsenal on the TV over the weekend and had no idea they had the sponsor’s name on their Jersey at all!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/live/c65ym9ml19d0t

klelattion EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

EU - Mercosur is not free movement of goods and services.

klelattion EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

> Carney was asking for freedom of movement of goods, people and services, but without full monetary and legislative integration.

> no payments into each others budget.

Not going to happen!

To enable free movement of goods and services the EU insists that the goods and services are produced in an identical regulatory environment.

Even when the regimes are basically identical - eg the UK - then the EU doesn't permit it without budgetary contributions.

klelattion Decoding the NEC V20 Microcode

Of course the V20’s microcode was the centre of an interesting legal dispute when NEC was sued by Intel.

https://thechipletter.substack.com/p/intel-vs-nec-the-case-o...

klelattion Substack writers, you need a website

It's not a Substack site and virtually no Substack sites do this.

klelattion Eniac, the First General-Purpose Digital Computer, Turns 80

The paper came out of work on ENIAC and was adapted to follow the approach in the paper but Baby was built from outset to use that approach and its design much more closely matches the architecture that has been used by almost all digital computers since. I don’t dispute that ENIAC is important but it’s role is more nuanced than this article implies.

klelattion Eniac, the First General-Purpose Digital Computer, Turns 80

ENIAC was very important but this article overstates its significance and ignores other (non US) machines to the point of historical inaccuracy. No mention of Z3 or Manchester Baby for example, the latter based on the von Neumann paper for example, was arguably a more accurate pointer towards how computer architecture would develop.

klelattion Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

You don’t think it’s a strength that they have the courage to seek views from as wide a range of perspectives as possible, including from outside the UK?

klelattion Never Bet Against x86

The point about the difficulties with Arm may be fair comment but the positioning and outlook of this post is decidedly weird. It seems to pretend that competitive desktop Arm processors already exist and ignores the existence of Arm ACPI.

On the conclusion - x86 didn't eventually win in smartphones.

And of course having a choice of processor designs from precisely two firms is absolutely something that we should continue to be happy with (and the post ignores RISC-V).

klelattion Dyson settles forced labour suit in landmark UK case

The brand is built on Dyson being a super genius inventor. He might be ingenious but he's applied to devices where it's not really needed and with unpalatable trade-offs.

In the UK at least his actions (offshoring, Brexit and tax) have probably significantly devalued the brand with a key part of his core demographic.

klelattion Dyson settles forced labour suit in landmark UK case

Ha! Very good and unlike say Windows it doesn't suck.

klelattion Dyson settles forced labour suit in landmark UK case

We have a pre-schooler and am happy to confirm that our Henry is a favourite member of the family.

Just as important he's sufficiently strong to withstand our boy's curiosity :)

klelattion Implementing a Z80 / ZX Spectrum emulator with Claude Code

Fascinating, but I'm not sure how these are consistent?

- Based on classic Z80 architecture by Zilog - Inspired by modern RISC designs (ARM, RISC-V, MIPS)

klelattion Dyson settles forced labour suit in landmark UK case

And to prove it is possible to have a profitable vacuum cleaner manufacturing business that makes its machines in the UK - long live Henry!

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jul/24/how-hen...

And unlike Dyson they are almost indestructible!

klelattion Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback

Web version with links, etc:

https://rlhfbook.com/

klelattion In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

> Pamantasan Cheese

What cheese? A misspelling?

klelattion Nvidia just paid $20B for a company that missed its revenue target by 75%

> Then in maybe one of the best rug pulls of all time, in July they quietly changed their valuation to $500 million. A 75% cut in four months. I’ve never seen anything like that since the 2008 financial crisis.

Not sure where the author is getting their information from but there is seemingly little correlation between the investment rounds quoted in this post and other online sources. No mention for example of the Series E that valued Groq at $6.9bn.

klelattion The MP944 was the 'real' first microprocessor, but it was top secret

Discussed a few days ago:

First Microprocessor – 50th Anniversary 2020

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45932051

klelattion Report: Tim Cook could step down as Apple CEO 'as soon as next year'

Cook’s greatest achievement - Apple’s supply chain - has, as set out in the ‘Apple in China’ book [1], turned into Apple’s biggest risk and weakness. The next CEO won’t be worrying about Siri or Vision Pro; they’ll be trying to deal with Apple’s reliance on China.

[1] https://open.substack.com/pub/thechipletter/p/apple-in-china

klelattion AMD continues to chip away at Intel's x86 market share

Genuine question: what compromises are you referring to here?

klelattion First Microprocessor – 50th Anniversary 2020

I agree with Ken Shirriff [1]

> In my view, the key features of a microprocessor are that it provides a CPU on a single chip (including ALU, control functions, and registers such as a program counter) and that it is programmable.

Which means that, pioneering as it was, this wasn’t a microprocessor.

Ken’s post is terrific btw for an overview of the candidates for the title of first microprocessor.

[1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-surprising-story-of-the-first-...

klelattion Easy RISC-V

> We don't know how long Arm was cooking up ARMv8 in secret before they announced it in 2011. Was it five years? Was it 10? More?

Arm says "We started work on ARMv8-A in 2007"

Source: Arm plc Strategic Report 2014

klelattion US startup Substrate announces chipmaking tool that it says will rival ASML

Thank you. I’ve added a brief summary of this in the top comment.

klelattion US startup Substrate announces chipmaking tool that it says will rival ASML

For balance here is SemiAnalysis - who really know what they are talking about - on Substrate

https://open.substack.com/pub/semianalysis/p/how-to-kill-2-m...

klelattion US startup Substrate announces chipmaking tool that it says will rival ASML

I don’t have the expertise to say whether I agree with the conclusions of the post but the experience and track records of the founders are surely relevant? Happy to be shown evidence that these sections of the post are wrong.

klelattion US startup Substrate announces chipmaking tool that it says will rival ASML

The same guys who couldn’t develop a sleep tracker?

https://open.substack.com/pub/foxchapelresearch/p/i-think-su...

Edit please note the comments in the linked post by SemiAnalysis below who have lots of reports that the tool is legit but who are skeptical. They have clearly progressed somewhat since the tracker project!