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June 23, 2021 Archives
Wednesday, June 23, 2021
CONTEXT: A Cheap, Tacky, Yet Clever Small Fluorescent Light
Look, no starter! I have one of these: I used it as a night light so I didn't have to turn on the overhead lights in the communications room at Fourmilab when going in at night to “turn it off and on again” or some such. I never imagined what is, or isn't, inside. They use the low impedance of the arc struck in the tube to (mostly) turn off the heaters. The main power switch is also a piece of…work.
Posted at
12:29
TRACKING WITH CLOSEUPS: Silicon Wizard—An Interview with Jim Keller
In his long career, Jim Keller has worked (so far) at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), Apple, AMD, Intel, Broadcom, Sibyte, Tesla, and is currently Chief Technical Officer at Tenstorrent, a start-up designing processors optimised for artificial intelligence applications. He is known his work on the DEC VAX 8800 and Alpha processors, the Apple A4 and A5 mobile processors, and Zen series at AMD, and the Tesla Autopilot. In this interview he discusses his career, the state of computer architecture and semiconductor technology, and forecasts future trends.
Posted at
11:43
THE HAPPENING WORLD: Iran—Fourth Consecutive Orbital Launch Failure
US sources have confirmed that Iran had an orbital launch failure on Jun 12. https://t.co/lwPtK8FnXl - probably a Simorgh vehicle in its 4th orbital failure in a row.
— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) June 23, 2021
Posted at
11:03
CONTINUITY: 1939 World's Fair: General Motors “Futurama” Exhibit
In predicting the world of 1960, there's a lot they got right. I'm not so sure about the “…vast circular airport [is] close to the city, with a giant dirigible hangar. So that it can be turned easily to meet any wind direction, it is resting in a pool of liquid.”
Posted at
10:30