You can always combine integer operations in smaller chunks to simulate something that’s too big to fit in a register. Python even does this transparently for you, so your integers can be as big as you want.

The fundamental problem that led to requiring 64-bit was when we needed to start addressing more than 4 GB of RAM. It’s kind of similar to the problem of the Internet, where 4 billion unique IP addresses falls rather short of what we need. IPv6 has a host of improvements, but the massively improved address space is what gets talked about the most since that’s what is desperately needed.

Going back to RAM though, it’s sort of interesting that at the lowest levels of accessing memory, it is done in chunks that are larger than 8 bits, and that’s been the case for a long time now. CPUs have to provide the illusion that an 8-bit byte is the smallest addressible unit of memory since software would break badly were this not the case, but it’s somewhat amusing to me that we still shouldn’t really need more than 32 bits to address RAM at the lowest levels even with the 16 GB I have in my laptop right now. I’ve worked with 32-bit microcontrollers where the byte size is > 8 bits, and yeah, you can have plenty of addressible memory in there if you wanted.

I know a google engineer who was saying they’re having to update their code bases to handle > 16 exabytes of storage, if you can imagine. But yeah, that’s storage, not RAM.

So the next captcha will be a list of AI-generated statements and you have to decide which are bat shit crazy?

“Recall uses Copilot+ PC advanced processing capabilities to take images of your active screen every few seconds,”

Seems like a lot of extra disk thrashing that would shorten the life expectancy of an SSD? Like it would be considerably more than your usual background chatter of daemons writing to log files and what not. Unless I’m misunderstanding this?

Well, Shortcuts comes from the iOS world and is a relatively recent addition to macOS. Automator originated in macOS and I don’t think it has made it over to iOS at this point?

That’s not even the full extent of it though. Before Automator, there was Script Editor, which could also create script applications, but that doesn’t seem to work so well anymore. Automator has become the preferred approach for that. But Script Editor is still around and is useful for looking up AppleScript dictionaries. These tell you if a given application offers special scripting support, and there are also a few general dictionaries like StandardAdditions that are worth a gander. I wish AppleScript existed for iOS.

And then there’s the command line approach of using crontab to open your files with the open command. And osascript lets you run any AppleScript from the command line.

There should be a law that whenever this happens, the changes must be highlighted in bold.

Good Lord, if the US nuclear arsenal is that antiquated, I shudder to think of where the Russians are at. Please don’t short-circuit and accidentally launch…

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100g * 9.832m²/s

That should be 100g * 9.832m/s², or better yet 0.1kg * 9.832m/s² to get a number in newtons (N).

From a high school physics perspective, holding a 100g object steady for any length of time does no work, since work is force applied over a distance, measured in joules (J). What you do have is gravitational potential energy. Potential energy is the ability to do work, also measured in joules. Once you release the object, then you actually start getting numbers for work and power.

Power, measured in watts (W), is work done per unit time. So 10W/hr would be (10J/s)/hr. I guess that would be the rate of change of power consumption, if that were useful to you?

In theory, energy and work should be measured in joules. Simple as that. But this unit of kwh (kilowatt∙hour) has come into vogue, presumably because that’s what power utilities show on the meter outside your house? 1 kW∙hr = 1 kJ/s∙hr ∙ (1000J / kJ) * (3600s / hr) = 3.6MJ. So now we’re back from power to energy consumption.

At least it appears to be available in Canada now…

I signed up and so far my feed seems to be dominated by a lot of bird pics. I guess that’s fitting for a site called bluesky?

My fave has gotta be kwh/yr/ft². I came across that while researching the lighting requirements for hydroponics.

Noted. Thanks!

#2 is certainly food for thought. So the idea is that from a journalistic fact-checking point of view, it is more important to convey the information exactly as it was presented than to verify its accuracy?

This would explain why science/engineering-based articles are so commonly inaccurate or missing in critical details. The journalist can fall back on saying “I have a recording of an interview with the expert after we downed a few pints at the pub, and I’m just parroting back what he said. Don’t shoot the messenger!”

holds the potential to store up to 2 MW of energy

2nd paragraph and he’s already lost me. It would be nice if tech columnists had the equivalent of even a single semester of high school physics.

It’s remarkable that they were able to load a GUI into 128K of RAM. And a 400K floppy was storage for the OS plus apps with room left over for your files. Granted, the machine had a 64K ROM containing some of the core OS functionality, but still. To get the most out of limited storage, Wozniak invented a variable-speed drive that would slow down to encode more data on the outer tracks of the floppy. They really pushed what was possible with the hardware of the day to the limits.

I treat self-checkout as a game with 2 goals:

1. Make it through the process without getting any help.
2. Do it as fast as a trained cashier.

In a good season, my batting average for #1 might be .300, which would not be bad were the game baseball. As far as #2 is concerned, I have never come close. It’s like I throw 30 mph pitches. Things get real when I’m trying to look up bananas or something and the helper comes up behind me. “It’s 4198. Here, let me do it.” Thanks, I already lost #2 and you just made me lose #1…again.

Oh you’re right, the Zhuque-2 apparently launched successfully in July, 2023. (There had been an earlier launch in '22 but it ran into trouble.)

Ok, so we’re onto capacitors and fuel cells now. Here we go with my mental image of those.

On the pros side, capacitors can charge/discharge in an instant, have nearly perfect energy recovery (almost everything you put in comes back out), and have almost limitless charging cycles with no memory effects or any of that nonsense. On the cons side, even a supercapacitor can’t match battery tech for energy storage density and they tend to be not so great for long-term electrical storage.

Fuel cells are sort of the opposite. Once you’ve sorted out the challenges in producing/storing/transporting hydrogen (these are all non-trivial but not necessarily deal-breakers either?), you’re looking at essentially limitless storage duration since it’s, well, a fuel. Like you can stockpile it for next year. The energy density is enviably high, though with pure hydrogen, you’re doing better by weight than by volume. In any case though, it’s looking pretty good compared to batteries.

But pulling the energy out of them in a timely manner is a major pain. You need either a chemical or thermal catalyst to speed it along for most applications. And the chemical of choice is platinum, which is not exactly abundant. If you wanted a fuel cell in every car, is there even enough on Earth for that? I’m not so sure.

Also, I have read impurities in the fuel can really mess up this type of fuel cell. The thermal type is purportedly more forgiving in this respect, though I picture thermal fuel cells as these hulking things that would work best as stationary power plants? Well, maybe they would be a good fit for large ships? It’s hard to picture some giant container vessel plying the oceans on battery power, at any rate.

Thanks for the clarification. ULA it is then.

But wow, that’s so cool that you got to work on Vulcan! Must be a huge relief that it aced its inaugural launch given all the new tech in there. I hope you’re out celebrating someplace. You’ve earned it! :)