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Have you seen this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25788317

Seems like we lose a lot of good technology and progress for random reasons, like the “ram” of society is finite.



Thank you GhettoComputers for the link! And thank you Zhyl for the summary.

Sounds like the 2 hard things in Computer Science returning! Cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors. [1]

* "Knowledge is ephemeral": Cache invalidation

* "tower of abstraction": naming things, indirection [2]

Recommendations:

* "Reduce complexity, reduce dependencies": minimise entropy, maximise connectedness

* Learn: welcome newcomers; recurse to the next generation

[1] https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TwoHardThings.html

[2] All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection" "...except for the problem of too many layers of indirection."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indirection#Overview


The redirection he called an abstraction, and how it makes things easier to make, with less performance and in manh way it’s good, but there’s a point where it isn’t, and solutions like the idea of needing an AI to tell us everything shouldn’t be required.

I like how he talked about using bare metal to run games and not needing an OS, relying on an ISA, or how games were easier to at one point before excessive abstractions.

One very memorable comment he made was when he was asked about what he thought about the M1 chip running software faster, his response was that we could use current hardware and make it run 100x faster if it was well written. Huge part of the many reason I switched to Linux. ;)


Yes, it's a good talk. Think of all the extremely talented internal combustion engine engineers that will be obsolete in 20 - 30 years.


Obsolete or repurposed? People studying physics like string theory may be completely wrong, but their skills can still be useful.


They’re obsolete now, except on YouTube.


ICE has thousands of uses, they aren't just for cars.

An example? Up above the treeline, there are communities relying on diesel for power.

Solar is a no go, with months of darkness. Wind turbines are hard to maintain at -50C, and snow and ice can impede them.

Even electric cars can only cover some of car use-cases, both due to range and refuel time issues.

Expect ICE in 2050 still.

And in most places, electric cars take petrol out of the car, and instead, see things like coal or natural gas burned, to make the electricity to charge them.


> And in most places, electric cars take petrol out of the car, and instead, see things like coal or natural gas burned, to make the electricity to charge them.

This is true, but also a good thing, while you present it as at best a wash and possibly a negative.

Coal powered EVs are better than gasoline ICEs in most situations, and nobody has a 100% coal grid anymore so the benefits are even greater. There's lots of reasons why but the main one, which is relevant to this conversation as well, is the inefficiency of ICE compared with electric motors.


What is more green? Coal or natural gas plants, AC lines that lose some power, building transformers, using AC to DC converters for all our power supplies, refining rare earth minerals to make decaying chemical cells, and using brushless motors (I think?) versus oil drilling with huge machines, refineries, transport and risks of oil spills, and building combustion engines? ICE looks like it can be way more efficient.


We don't need to guess, lots of time and energy has been put into answering this question:

https://evtool.ucsusa.org/


They don’t even have a Toyota Corolla or Camry in the miniature database.


In the list of electric vehicles, I wonder why not?


> Coal powered EVs are better than gasoline ICEs in most situations

Are you taking in account battery disposal?


Yes. It's actually one of the things that makes EVs greener. A lump of valuable metals in one relatively easy to access and pure form is a lot greener thing to have than a decade of combusted fossil fuels.


Hydrogen fuel isn't going away.




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