Interesting Supercomputer Item: Lenovo
July 2, 2020
“Lenovo, Top of the World Chinese Supercomputer Supplier, Sweeps All Markets” contains an interesting statement:
In the Top 500 list for June 2020, China is shown with a home installed base of 228 machines, whereas 20 years ago, in 2000, the country had just two of the top 500 machines installed. In comparison, the US had 258 machines in place 20 years ago, now it has just 117 supercomputers – of which 44, or 38%, are Chinese Lenovo machines. And to further hammer home China’s success, not a single one of the country’s own huge installed base of 228 machines is an American machine – there are no Crays, no IBMs, no Dells. Plenty of American chips, but no American supplier presence.
But wait. Was Lenovo an IBM unit?
The answer is, “Yes until 2005.”
The question is, “What was Lenovo’s management able to do with a unit IBM deemed surplus?”
Answer: Nose into new markets.
Why? Let’s ask Watson.
Stephen E Arnold, July 2, 2020
The Cancel Culture in Technology: A New Approach to Sustained and Informed Discussion
July 1, 2020
DarkCyber sifts through a range of content. Some of it is becoming repetitive. Acquisition of promising start ups like Google’s devouring of a rival maker of smart glasses. The story? Competitive fear, a desire to make hay after burning the field and most of the equipment barn, or an easy way to get some employees not yet prone to management resistance while doing the WFH thing. More details about this deal appear in “Google Completes Acquisition of Ontario Smart-Glasses Maker North.”
Another repetitive theme is turning off, disconnecting, and cancelling. This is not the wonky folks living in SUVs and converted delivery trucks. This dropping out is not the Timothy Leary thing. The new approach to cancelling embraces throwing $450 million into the bonfire nobody cared about: The Microsoft retail stores. And top experts in smart software leaving Twitter because of a New Age “conversation.”
“Yann LeCun Quits Twitter Amid Acrimonious Exchanges on AI Bias” brings the culture of open range disputes between sheep herders and cattle ranchers into the zippy 24×7 digital era.
The write up explains in Silicon Valley speak that sheep muddy drinking water and cows do not. Sheep ruin the grazing land. Cattle do not. How is the dispute resolved? As I recall one of my addled teachers explaining, the approach involved poisonings, shootings, fencing, and law enforcement. I am not sure that the problem has been eliminated, but I will generalize that most people do not care about muddy streams and sparse grass.
Today we care about smart software.
The write up points out:
Penn State University Associate Professor Brad Wyble tweeted “This image speaks volumes about the dangers of bias in AI.” LeCun responded, “ML systems are biased when data is biased. This face upsampling system makes everyone look white because the network was pretrained on FlickFaceHQ, which mainly contains white people pics. Train the *exact* same system on a dataset from Senegal, and everyone will look African.“
Definitely contentious.
What interested DarkCyber, however, is not the socio-tech discussion. The message seems to be “I can’t talk to you so I am out of here.”
This is a nice way of hitting the cancel button.
Several observational questions:
- Is this a sheep versus cattle argument?
- How does technology’s refinement processes operate when improvement muddies the drinking water?
- How does dropping out, turning off, and tuning out contribute to innovation?
Cancel means more than not tweeting. Cancelling is officially a trend even for allegedly informed and enlightened techno-herders.
Stephen E Arnold, July 1, 2020
Google on the Hot Spot: Ad Pancakes One Way and That Is Our Way
July 1, 2020
Google is so darned lovable. How could anyone interpret the company’s actions as overbearing. Take for instance the article “Google Stymies Media Companies from Chipping Away at Its Data Dominance.
The write up reports as “real” news and information:
Publishers had expected to use data privacy measures going into effect Aug. 15 to bar Google from storing insights about readers, sapping the data advantage that has enabled it to dominate a market filled with advertisers hungry for information to target potential customers. But Google said it will cut off publishers from a lucrative flow of ads if they follow through with curbing its data collection. Negotiations continue, but Google holds greater leverage because it dominates in both advertising tools and access to advertisers within the $100 billion annual global banner ads market.
There must be a misunderstanding.
Google is a partner. The write up points out:
Media companies must share revenue with Google to access the unparalleled number of advertiser clients it attracts with its data. Globally, publishers’ share of Google ad revenue has fallen in half to 16% over the last decade, according to a paper released this month by Yale University antitrust fellow Dina Srinivasan, who also consults for News Corp.
The tension would not exist if publishers accepted the fact that there were not Googley. Wishing it so will not make alter the reality of online traffic and clicks.
Stephen E Arnold, July 1, 2020
Alphabet Spells Cable Model
July 1, 2020
Cable company business models work. Alphabet Google faces some competitive pressure, looming regulatory handcuffs, and softness in its 20 year old “black box”magic ad matching machine.
The fix is to push aggressively and as quickly as possible to lock down clever ways to make money. The most recent example is to charge more than $700 per year to watch YouTube’s millennial cable programming.
You can get details in “YouTube TV Jumps 30% in Price Effective Immediately.” I found one passage interesting:
The news came at the end of a lengthy announcement of various new channels, which users cannot opt out of, all coming from the CBS/Viacom family of cable TV networks.
Does this bold, aggressive move mark the limit of Alphabet’s land grabbing?
No, it is one step on the path of locking down revenues in order to weather the approaching storm.
There are some flaws in Alphabet’s approach. For some YouTube quasi cable consumers, the other options have price tags too. Whatever the competitive environment offers, Alphabet will find inspiration.
What about the “cannot opt out.” That’s the new Google. Like it or leave it. Leaving may make perfect sense to the employees whose bonuses were gutted to pay for Google’s diversity aspirations.
Stephen E Arnold, July 1, 2020
The Legacy of HP Management Expertise: Quibi
July 1, 2020
When I hear the name “quibi”, I think of Hewlett Packard in the era of Meg Whitman. My focus narrows to some interesting decisions by the Board of Directors, a somewhat high-profile acquisition, a vendetta which targets a feisty computer scientist, and a great big lawsuit. The lawsuit by the way is of the variety that is likely to be a source of income for attorneys for years to come. You know the litigation matter: Meg Whitman’s former outfit and the Cambridge engineer/scientist Mike Lynch. I will name the word: Autonomy.
I read “The Fall of Quibi: How Did a Starry $1.75bn Netflix Rival Crash So Fast.” What’s interesting about this “real” newspaper’s “real” news story is that it mostly misses the boat or, at the very list, trips over the step when boarding the tube.
The article identifies what anyone listening to chatter in the line up to buy a Starbuck’s confection knows: Short videos, free for some people, no one cares, and an oddball selection of content without programs like Cheers or Seinfeld.
What catches the attention of would be financiers is the number $1.75 billion. What catches the attention of those with Hollywood in their DNA is the name Jeffrey Katzenberg. What catches the attention of the DarkCyber research team is the co Big Dog Meg Whitman.
The “real” news story cares little about Ms. Whitman and her management “successes.” I assume that those researching the story were unaware that some individuals with first hand information about her management expertise were just too difficult to reach. What’s the distance? Maybe a mile, maybe less.
The write up states:
Notionally, Quibi endeavored to industrialize a new frontier of television: short-form narratives – that is, episodes of 15 minutes or less – at its shortest and most expansive.
Okay.
Here’s a promising factoid, courtesy of a Murdoch-owned “real” news outfit:
Meanwhile, several unflattering reports have depicted internal strife behind the scenes. The Wall Street Journal detailed longstanding friction between Katzenberg and Whitman’s working relationship.
DarkCyber believes that there is a ton of useful information floating around about Quibi. There’s a gold mine of information about Ms. Whitman and her approach to guiding a business. There’s even information available to put some meat on the bones of the launch during the pandemic.
What do we get? “Real” news.
Stephen E Arnold, July 1, 2020
What the Cancel Culture Implies for Online Information
July 1, 2020
I flipped through the “cancel” notices. These ranged from the bizarre like the Amazon Twitch Deep Sixing of Dr Disrespect (I know I had to look up this fellow as well) to Reddit’s decision to terminate The_Donald. I assume that India’s blocking of Chinese apps falls into the cancel category. Why not throw in the wacky Mixer Microsoft thing as well?
Several observations:
- When a person cannot locate information, for that person the payload of the information does not exist. Need to find Cuba Libre Restaurant in Washington? Not on the Google Map? Restaurant does not exist for some. The problem? Two of the DarkCyber research team were sitting in the Cuba Libre Restaurant.
- An uninformed person (any person for that matter) has a magical human mind. The mind, even when equipped with accurate, reasoned information, will fill in the blanks. Remove information, and the mind will kick into overdrive. Witches in Salem? No problem. Bigfoot in the woods? No problem. Ghosts in a run down B&B in Dorset? No problem. Fantasies can have interesting consequences.
- Online information — as I pointed out in my Eagleton Lecture more than 25 years ago — operates like chips of silicon in a sandstorm. One particle of sand is no big deal most of the time. When tons of sand carried forward by a wind with a weird nickname gets rolling, one thinks about sand in a different way. Plus that sand is inherently destructive: Force, small items, light occlusion, etc. Yep, that’s online information blasting along.
Cancelling is easy now. What about termination of information in other contexts? Hopefully some enthusiastic Gen Xer or Millennial will apply some digitally shaped brain cells to this question:
“Once cancelled, can the information be brought back?”
Let me know about the uncancellation thing, please.
Stephen E Arnold, July 1, 2020
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