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August 1, 2021 Archives
Sunday, August 1, 2021
TRACKING WITH CLOSEUPS: Predicting the Performance of Intel Microprocessor Cores through Simulation
Researchers have developed a new simulator to predict the throughput of basic blocks of all Intel Core μarchs released in the last decade, demonstrating to be more accurate than the predictions of state-of-the-art tools by more than an order of magnitude.https://t.co/83UDBQSchX pic.twitter.com/U22j4rZjnJ
— Underfox (@Underfox3) July 30, 2021
Here is the paper, “Accurate Throughput Prediction of Basic Blocks on Recent Intel Microarchitectures”. This paper provides insight into just what is going on inside these processors, which work nothing like the programmer's view of the x86 instruction set.
Posted at
13:05
THE HAPPENING WORLD: How's that “Genetically Engineered Super-Soldier” Programme Coming Along?
Athletics: China's Su Bingtian makes 100m final, first Asian man in 89 years https://t.co/s2KmHkuRWj pic.twitter.com/mBPaAxfA6y
— CNA (@ChannelNewsAsia) August 1, 2021
Su Bingtian of China is the first man without Sub-Saharan African ancestry to quality for the Olympic men's 100 metre final since 1980.
From American Military News, 2020-12-04, we have “China’s testing ‘biologically enhanced’ super soldiers on their own troops, says DNI Ratcliffe”, and from the Jamestown Foundation's China Brief, Vol. 19 No. 18 of 2019-10-08, “China’s Military Biotech Frontier: CRISPR, Military-Civil Fusion, and the New Revolution in Military Affairs”.
Posted at
12:39
CONTINUITY: Nuclear Powered Bomber Testbed—Convair NB-36H “Crusader” Progress Report, 1956
The Convair NB-36H was a B-36 bomber modified to carry a General Electric one megawatt air-cooled nuclear reactor in its bomb bay. The reactor did not power the plane's engines, but was intended to test shielding and operational procedures for a nuclear powered bomber with range limited only by crew endurance. The program, and its planned follow-on, the Convair X-6 nuclear powered experimental aircraft, was cancelled in 1961.
Posted at
12:24
CONTEXT: Stephen Wolfram and Nassim Nicholas Taleb in Conversation
Here are two brilliant and original thinkers, covering topics ranging from fat tails in statistics, theory vs. experience, evidence-based medicine, cryptocurrencies, intuition and non-Gaussian distributions, survival and absorbing barriers, risk-taking and precaution, the difference between economics and finance, and much more. The conversation is in two parts, totalling more than three and a half hours, with questions from participants in the 2021 Wolfram Summer School. I found it more than worth the investment of time.
Posted at
11:56
TRACKING WITH CLOSEUPS: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Can't Operate an Umbrella
Ladies and gentlemen I give to you the prime minister of the United Kingdom 😂 pic.twitter.com/JgAz4ddGOD
— CCTV_IDIOTS (@cctv_idiots) August 1, 2021
His Royal Highness, the heir apparent, is amused.
Posted at
10:41
THE HAPPENING WORLD: “All night long the [future] Martians were hammering and stirring, sleepless, indefatigable, at work upon the machines they were making ready”
Starbase is moving at Warp 9 pic.twitter.com/p8F5Qqfl8T
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2021
To keep up to date with the furious pace of events at Starbase, as well as other space-related news, a superb resource is Marcus House's weekly space reports, posted every Saturday. Here is the most recent, including progress on the Starship launch tower and orbital ship launch mount.
This post's title is from H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, chapter 8.
Posted at
10:24