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3D XPoint: Not The Point

A fun article about Intel/Micron's 3D XPoint that I was too lazy to submit.

Computing capabilities aside, the $34 billion 2020 estimate from Intel for 3XP DIMMs partially reveals the Earth-shaking nature of this technology. What most people aren't yet realizing is that 3XP is "fast enough" to replace standalone DRAM in the vast majority of use cases. Research from 2011 outlines a hybrid PCM/eDRAM chip that increases performance and dramatically reduces power versus traditional homogeneous DRAM. This was done using assumptions from the old filamentary PCM technology: nano-PCM will improve the numbers even more dramatically.

From the patent applications, we know that the announced 128Gbit 3XP part is heavily sandbagged (i.e. - they don't want it to appear too disruptive). With the expected four planes (instead of two) and four bits per cell, that works out to exactly one terabit. This blows 3D NAND out of the water. This is the part that they were really going to announce - after the ECD bankruptcy had reached closure last summer.

But my article came along in the form of a giant monkey wrench, the ECD bankruptcy closing was further delayed and the Ovonyx CEO was deposed. Microsoft scrambled to put together a stop-gap Windows phone after it became apparent that they weren't going to be able to ship their PCM/3XP phone in the near future (this phone wasn't cancelled - just delayed until PCM is fully-secured).

Where the Sidewalk Ends

There's no incremental technology planned to succeed DDR4 DRAM. The industry is going to fragment at this next step (Micron's HMC, Samsung's WIO and AMD/nVidia/Hynix HBM). This transition is going to produce few winners and many losers. Who's going to win? The US Government has already weighed in on the matter (where "HMC" is Micron's "Hybrid Memory Cube")

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmhaff/95/95ap25.htm

This is fascinating reading. Virtually all the "studies" that supported gun control in the UK are discredited. Statistics are exposed as either outright lies, or extremely flawed. The methods by which different nations define and account for homicides, violent crime, and gun law violations are explained in some cases, and the impossibility of comparing those statistics is exposed. Basically, if you take the time to read this wall of text, you cannot help realizing that the entire gun control lobby has intentionally misled the masses.

I am still absorbing it. Need an example to whet your appetite?

" 52. To further its own claim of a correlation between gun ownership levels and homicide rates, the Home Office paper cites a comparison between Seattle and Vancouver which showed that the homicide rate in the US city was two thirds higher than that of the Canadian city, all the difference being attributable to gun homicide. That study was somewhat discredited when other researchers showed that the entire difference could be accounted for by demographic factors. Both cities have similar white populations and large ethnic minorities. In Vancouver, the ethnic minority is largely Chinese and Japanese whose homicide rate is far lower than that of the white majority. In Seattle the ethnic minority is black and their homicide rate is 10 times higher than that of the white population. Virtually all the difference between the two cities could be accounted for in that way."

58. Their published results raise some important questions. The supposed direct comparison of gun and non gun homicides fails even to attempt to control for any variables, and in particular for levels of existing gun control. It is known, for example, that the homicide rates in some US cities where guns are effectively banned is extremely high, with Washington DC showing a rate of about 80 per 100,000. In less populous areas, the homicide rates are entirely comparable with European and British levels. Centerwall notes that in Vermont where there is effectively no control on firearms, the mean annual rate of criminal homicide over a four year period was 0.4 per 100,000 whilst North Dakota levels were even lower. Had the comparative figures used Britain, instead of England and Wales, we would find that these US States were lower than those in this country, for Scotland has a homicide rate considerably higher than that of England and Wales.

65. The authors of the UN Report draw a series of conclusions which are not justified by their own evidence. The only conclusion which can safely be drawn in that there is no casual relationship between the number of firearms in a State and the levels of death through homicide, suicide or accident.

  84. The debate seems to assume that the United States is a homogenous unit, but that does not seem to be the case. Homicide rates vary from the extraordinarily high level of about 80 per hundred thousand in Washington DC which has a total ban on the ownership of most firearms, to rates less than those in the UK and Europe in States like Vermont which does not allow any restrictions on firearms ownership.

86. In the United States the distribution of homicide and particularly firearms homicide varies very widely between racial groups, as it does in other countries. The large and well established Japanese population in the San Francisco area has the same access to firearms as any other group, but their rate of homicide has been shown to be slightly lower than the homicide rate in Japan and very much lower than other groups in the same area.

Today I found a reasonably quiet place to make a very lo-fi recording of America the Beautiful with the built-in mic of my Acer Aspire E 15, with Audacity. I saved it as an Ogg. I don't know what quality number it is but really that doesn't matter.

Soylent Singing

It's easy to tell that my mic does not have flat frequency response, as certain notes resonate with the Acer's plastic case.

I'll make some far, far better recordings when I can rustle up the cash for a real mic. You can get good-quality mics with built-in USB for about $200, or I could get a better mic with an XLR connector then use a USB audio interface. Sadly my Acer has no way to attach firewire.

I once owned a Zoom H4 handheld audio recorder. It advertises itself as four-track however it is really two tracks, it just has the ability to record a second time, laying down the second pair of tracks along with the first pair. There is a somewhat improved model available now but I don't recall the price.

More important than finding a better mic is finding a quiet place to record.

I'm expecting to cash out a $7000 401k soon. I'd forgotten all about it until I was reminded of it by the Social Security Administration. I'm going to buy a van to live in, when I do I expect it would work to go way out in the woods to do the recordings.

I'm afraid I've been slacking at the guitar, however I've been picking up the piano again as there is an upright that I can play at a day center for the mentally ill in vancouver. All the shops are closing early tonight, so I'm expecting to spend some time on my guitar before I turn in.

For Christmas day, the Potluck in the Park people are holding a dinner from noon to 3:00 at the Portland Art Museum. I expect I'll go to that.

http://www.vice.com/read/a-brief-history-of-bizarre-christmas-crimes

Journalists are getting beheaded in Syria, it's near-impossible to get an abortion in Texas, and almost half the world lives on less than $2 a day. Even so, a bunch of assholes dress up like Santa every year, run drunkenly through the streets, and dry-hump each other through sweaty, plush suits. The only good that can come from such a grotesque public display of whimsy is a good old-fashioned bank robbery. Last year, some fucking genius dressed up like Santa during SantaCon, the seasonal Santa-themed pub crawl for people with strong opinions about football and other useless bullshit, and robbed a bank in San Francisco.

The cops never found him.

• Salmon Creek Consulting Engineers: We Unscramble Spaghetti

The very minimal design is actually a marketing gimmick; the websites for all the truly expert coders look just like that. Even Tim Berners-Lee, the guy who invented the World Wide Web, has a website that looks like that.

I'm going to make a new site for my music, art and photography but not my writing, my writing I'll leave where it presently is:

http://mike.soggywizards.com/

This second site is not configured yet, I'll do that tonight at Starbucks.

Someone is selling roast chestnuts in Pioneer Square today. Oh how I love roast chestnuts! - but it is quite rare to see them sold on the street, I only recall that from Italy.

"How much are they?"

"Three dollars."

"I sing on the street for tips. I'll be back after I sing three dollars worth."

They seemed skeptical but I came back with three dollars. "Sometimes I can almost make minimum wage".

I often sing on nasty days too but get few tips. Even so if I can earn just enough for one single coffee at starbucks then I have a warm place to spend my evening, a power socket, a table, internet and a restroom.

The problem with good days is that all the other buskers are out as well so it's hard to find a good streetcorner. Days like today I find new places, just now I sang at one corner of a block of food carts, where I had not performed before.

A woman listened to me the whole time she was eating her lunch then gave me two dollars. She thanked me for serenading her meal.

That was nice. Real nice.

I wasn't so confident I'd get anything else to eat other than the chestnuts but I was very determined despite getting a sore back because of the way the sidewalk was tilted.

For $5.50 I could have gotten an Al Pastor burrito but then I would have used up my last dollar bill. While not strictly necessary its helpful to put at least a dollar in my "tip jar" - really my hat - because most people don't really understand why my hat is on the ground in front of me.

But for $5.00 I could get the vegetarian burrito and have that dollar bill left over.

It was good. Real good.

I was planning to sing some more after taking a break but it looks like the rain will indeed come. I'm going to take the MAX light rail and C-Tran bus to CVAB in Vancouver. It's a day center for the mentally ill, there is a piano there that I can play anytime I care to make the journey.

I'm making the journey more often as of late because there is a lady there that I'm sweet on. She likes me too but she is very hesitant. If she's not into it I won't press it. I haven't had a whole lot of luck with women, just a couple days ago I asked a friend for her phone number, she told me she was married. I had no idea. She'd kissed me when we met see but then she is very flirtatious.

There is another that I don't know well at all but she's friendly and enjoys talking to me. I'm going to ask her for coffee the next time I see her.

She's a stripper. I'm not completely clear how one asks a stripper for a date but I know two different dancers who each have four children, so there must be some procedure for asking them out with appearing too lecherous.

Yesterday I added Gene Kelly's "Singing in the Rain" and John Denver's "Country Roads, Take Me Home" to my set. I didn't sound good at all when I sang them yesterday, but today Country Roads worked real well, some guy who was sweeping the sidewalk sang with me.

Singing in the Rain sounds lifeless without the orchestral accompaniment but I'll give it a few more days. My best song is Somewhere Over The Rainbow.

Melodically,

Mike

(Reposted from a mail to my friends and family, with the addition of the note about the stripper.)

Cool story, bro.

Warner Bros. thought so too.

http://www.jbkempf.com/blog/post/2015/Announcing-VLC-for-Chrome-OS
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vlc/obpdeolnggmbekmklghapmfpnfhpcndf
http://www.engadget.com/2015/12/18/vlc-chrome-os/

The app was made possible by Google's App Runtime for Chrome (ARC), which allows developers to repurpose Android apps to work on Chrome OS and other platforms. The team says it was able to "recycle 95 percent of the Android code and optimizations" it utilizes in its existing Android app. While VLC for Chrome OS has been tested on a Chromebook Pixel and an HP Chromebook 14, some users have reported issues on Samsung Chromebooks. If it doesn't work for you, VideoLAN's Jean-Baptiste Kempf says the team will work quickly to fix bugs, so be patient.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/17/europe/spanish-prime-minister-mariano-rajoy-punched/

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was dealt an eye-watering sucker punch by a teenager during a campaign event Wednesday.

The young man got up close to the Prime Minister, reportedly asking to take a photograph, before unleashing his left fist into the side of Rajoy's head.

The punch knocked Rajoy's glasses off of his face, leaving the leader of the People's Party bruised but otherwise "feeling good," he later said in a tweet.

The 17-year-old attacker was later shown being taken away in handcuffs by security guards.

The 5th Republican debate is underway, and most of the candidates that can remember what encryption is appear to be "against" it. Rewatch the first hour for some truly chilling comments. Only Ted Cruz or Rand Paul appear to deviate from the party line on security, and not that much in the case of Cruz.

Undermining these peoples' fantasies and law enforcement in general should be a top priority for our community.

I was watching the morning news the other day, and opened the computer to record KSHE's "Lone Klassic"... and it was in Linux. What the hell? Apparently I should have shut it off the night before, because Microsoft had apparently installed an update and then rudely and maliciously rebooted the computer. It was in Linux because kubuntu is the default OS in GRUB. So I rebooted again, selected Windows, and the little thing came up and... just sat there. Ten minutes later I still had a black screen.

I pulled the battery and tried again. Ten minutes later and I still had a black screen. So when I'd yanked the battery again and restarted it, I selected "Windows Recovery" from GRUB. An Acer screen came up with selections for reinstalling Windows. The first wiped the hard drive, the second kept your files. I picked that one; there was data on the hard drive I hadn't backed up in a few days, including a new story I'd started the night before and was on a roll with.

Twenty minutes later the first progress bar said "1%".

I'd decided a long time ago to get a DVD burner for the old Dell, until about three weeks ago when I'd taken it apart to install the video card and hard drive from the old HP that had computed its last. There were no slots that would fit the card (older computer than I thought, I guess) and the drive ribbon was a single drive ribbon. I probably have a spare double drive ribbon in the basement, but since the card wouldn't work in the Dell, there really wasn't any point. I'd decided then to get an old laptop that already had a DVD burner. So this was the time, because I had writing to do and the install was going to take all day and half the night.

I drove to the pawn shop and bought an HP laptop with Windows 7 and a DVD burner. It's a lot bigger than I like a laptop to be, but the smaller, cheaper one with a DVD burner ran Window 8, and I didn't want to deal with that garbage. Windows 7 is still the least annoying and least problematic of all of MS's OSes.

Of course I had to download Windows Defender and Firefox with IE, install Firefox, uninstall Norton and McAfee and Bing Bar and all the other effluent that comes with a new computer, reconfigure everything, and download and install Open Office and all the other programs I need.

Meanwhile, the Windows reinstall on the Acer had hung. Damn, I was going to lose everything I'd written the day before, since Windows had surely overwritten GRUB. I got lucky; it hadn't. So I went into Linux to copy everything to thumb drives, since I still can't get it on my network (time to try a new distro). I even found some movies I thought I'd permanently deleted by mistake months ago!

After I saved the data on thumb drives I rebooted again, went back into Windows restore and let it wipe the drive. That was the next morning, and it took all day. By then I had the new laptop running pretty smoothly and was writing again. The next day was mostly spent getting the old Acer back to normal. I was amazed and pleased that it had destroyed neither Grub nor Linux.

I'd lost a few passwords and haven't yet reset them all, and lost all my bookmarks.

That new computer is too big, but it's a lot faster than the Acer.

So I turn the TV on this morning and it wouldn't pick up channel 49. Flipped through the stations, and all of them had really screwy colors. I have my fingers crossed that it's the converter and not the TV, since the converter had fallen off the shelf last night. I hope it is, because they're not expensive and TVs are. I'll find out when I play a DVD.