I’m Hunter Perrin. I’m a software engineer.

I wrote an email service: https://port87.com/

I write free software: https://github.com/sciactive

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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • To a certain extent, processors that only partially work can be sold as a different model. For example, if AMD makes a bunch of 8 core processors, they might be sold as a number of different models based on what, if anything, is wrong with them. The best ones where everything works will be sold as the highest model. Then the ones that can’t achieve the highest clocks, but all the cores and the iGPU works will be sold as the next highest model. Then the ones where a couple cores are bad will be sold as 6 core models, and so on.

    They’re made with, essentially, toggle jumpers that can be “cut” to disable different parts of the CPU (I think this is in the chip’s internal firmware and not an actual hardware cut). So two CPUs with the same SKU might have different internal cores that are enabled/disabled. The SKU is basically just a guarantee of how many cores it has, what frequency they will run at, same for iGPU cores, IO capability, and cache.

    Obviously, this only applies to CPUs with compatible die sizes. That’s determined by the package it’s ultimately going to be mounted on.

    It’s called binning, and it helps achieve higher yields by allowing you to sell more of the “defective” units. The more variations they have, the more they can get for each chip on average. Like if they have a SKU with 8 cores and 32 PCIe lanes, and a SKU with 6 cores and 24 PCIe lanes, then a chip where all 8 cores work, but only 30 of the PCIe lanes work, would have to be sold as the cheaper 6 core SKU. Adding another SKU with 8 cores and only 24 PCIe lanes, would let them price that same chip higher.

    https://www.techspot.com/article/2039-chip-binning/

    One of the coolest applications of this I’ve seen is the CPU AMD released recently which was literally a PS5 CPU with the graphics disabled (because it didn’t work, or didn’t work well enough to put in a PS5).



  • Some things are slightly shittier, some things are way shittier, and a lot of things are a lot better. What do you mean specifically?

    Politics and the Supreme Court have gotten a lot shittier since 2016 (like a steep decline, rather than the slight decline before).

    The wealth gap has been getting shittier since the 70s. Wages haven’t kept up with productivity, while living expenses have only increased.

    The housing market is shitty if you’re young or don’t have generational wealth.

    Technology and medicine have gotten way better over the last ~100 years.

    General consumer safety has gotten way better since the 50s.

    Literacy levels and the rate of high school graduation have gotten way better.

    Climate change is killing the planet. Deregulation is making climate change worse. Green energy isn’t coming fast enough.

    Capitalism and specifically the notion that corporations have a duty to the shareholders has made companies and products shittier, but TVs are really cheap, and computers are really fast.

    Robotics has gotten incredibly advanced, as has AI. Whether that’s shitty is pretty much up to opinion. I’d say it’s neutral, and depends on how they’re used.

    Speaking of which, war was already horrifying, and now robots have made it vastly more horrifying. I don’t see any way that’s going to stop.

    Food has become either really nutrient dense and amazing or really calorie dense and horrible, depending on how much money you have.

    Speaking of money, there are a handful of people who have like half of the money. Maybe the guillotine went out of style too soon.

    Video games and movies basically just look indistinguishable from reality now. And deep fakes are about to make it a lot easier to create that kind of realism.

    For the most part, high speed internet access has slowly been getting better and better, both in speed and availability. Surprisingly, it’s stayed about the same percentage of the median income while doing so.

    Streaming services have gotten so shitty it’s unbelievable that they’re still in business. But piracy has been making a comeback, and self hosting pirated content has gotten a lot easier. Physical media is also making a comeback.

    Bigotry has gotten worse as a problem, but not worse in terms of percentage of people who are discriminatory. It’s just that the extreme bigots have basically taken over one of the political parties. (I mean, it basically was the party of bigotry before, but they had the decency to be subtle about it.) The younger generation can hopefully fix that problem as they enter voting age.

    That’s all I can think of for now.