Supercomputer League Tables Shift
November 19, 2020
I noted “Japan’s Fugaku Keeps Position As Fastest Supercomputer.” There were two items of interest in the write up.
First, the machine:
performed over 442 quadrillion computations per second, around three times faster than the Summit system developed by the U.S. Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Second, the chips in the Fugaku were Fujitsu’s. These may be the the Fujitsu A64FX microprocessor based on the ARM technology.
Intel and IBM are arm wrestling maybe?
Stephen E Arnold, November 19, 2020
Infodemic: Another Facet of Good Old 2020
November 12, 2020
It is difficult to locate non political, non Covid, and non frightening information. I read “Misinformation in the New Normal in a technology publication.” The essay is descriptive; that is, one does not solve a problem or spell out a fix. It’s like a florid passage in James Fennimore Cooper’s novels. There were some factoids in the essay; for example:
According to one piece of research, websites spreading misinformation about the pandemic received nearly half a billion views via Facebook in April alone…
Source? Not stated.
I also noted this statement in the write up:
As defensive measures evolve, so do the attacks, and the further development of deep fake technology is a worrying growth area for misinformation campaigns. Like fake domains, these altered recordings aim to create a veneer of trust in order to seed bad or dangerous information – but deep fakes are now around five years ahead, in technological development terms, of our ability to defend against them.
Five years? That’s another interesting number: 2025. And the lingo like infodemic? Snappy.
I have added the word “infodemic” to my list of interesting neologisms which contain gems like these: neurosymbolic AI, perception hacks, digital detox, and dissonance score.
But the article “Can the Law Stop Internet Bots from Undressing You?” raises another viewpoint about online data; specifically:
For women and men over the age of 18, the production of a sexual pseudo-image of a person is not in itself illegal under international law or in the UK, even if it is produced and distributed without the consent of the person portrayed in the image.
Have government regulators failed? Have educators been unable to impart ethical values to students? Have clever people embraced the methods of some Silicon Valley-type wizards?
Problem solved in 2025?
Stephen E Arnold, November 12, 2020
NASA and Software Integration
November 6, 2020
I spotted “NASA’s New Rocket Would Be the Most Powerful Ever. But It’s the Software That Has Some Officials Worried.” The issue is successful integration. Here are the companies building the principal propulsion systems:
- Aerojet Rocketdyne (the Super Strypi launch vehicle)
- Boeing (yep, the 737 Max outfit)
- Lockheed Martin (the F-35 outfit)
- Northrop Grumman (the Zuma payload detacher issue)
- United Launch Alliance (a joint venture of The Boeing Company and Lockheed Martin Corporation).
The write up raises the question, “Will the software developed by the companies work in a smoothly, integrated, coordinated way?”
The answer should be, “Yes. Absolutely.”
The answer is, “Each subsystem works within its test environment.”
The article contains these statements:
All of those components need to work together for a mission to be successful. But NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) recently said it was concerned about the disjointed way the complicated system was being developed and tested. At an ASAP meeting last month, Paul Hill, a member of the panel and a former flight and mission operations director at the agency, said the “panel has great concern about the end-to-end integrated test capability and plans, especially for flight software.” Instead of one comprehensive avionics and software test to mimic flight, he said, there is “instead multiple and separate labs; emulators and simulations are being used to test subsets of the software.”
The proof of successful integration and coordinate will arrive at lift off it seems.
A Boeing vice president John Shannon is quoted in the article:
Shannon said the systems have been “completed, tested in integration facilities at [NASA’s] Marshall Space Flight Center. We’ve had independent verification and validation on it to show that it works well with the flight software and the stand controller software. And it’s all all ready to go.”
Okay.
Stephen E Arnold, November 6, 2020
Confidence in US Education: 46 Companies Have Doubts
November 3, 2020
I read “Top 48 US Companies Files Legal Challenge to Block H-1B Visa Changes.” The write up states:
Nearly 46 leading US companies and business organizations, including tech giants Apple, Google, Twitter and Facebook, representing and working with key sectors of the US economy, have filed an amicus brief that supports a legal challenge to block upcoming rule changes to H-1B visa eligibility.
Another interesting factoid:
The companies said that the new DHS rules will dramatically reduce US businesses’ ability to hire these skilled foreign workers—one senior DHS official estimated that they will render ineligible more than one-third of petitions for H-1B visas.
What does this suggest about the flow of talent from the US education system? How are those online classes working out?
Stephen E Arnold, November 3, 2020
Distance Learning? Works Well, Right?
October 29, 2020
I spotted this article from the ever reliable “real” news outfit Daily Mail: “Boy, 9, Is Forced to Sit on Concrete Outside His Closed Elementary School with His Laptop on a Cardboard Box Because His Family Can’t Afford Wi-Fi for Online Classes.” The write includes a story of the young boy kneeling in front of a cardboard box and using his laptop. The desk looks like a cardboard box.
Observations:
- Online access is not available to some students
- The young man — if the write up is “real” — wants to learn
- The modern world may offer many delights to those who can afford them. To those with fewer resources, life is not a bowl of cherries.
The cost of inequality can be considered in the context of knowledge lost. Perhaps the whiz kid economists who preach efficiency, fast twitch action, and Austrian economic theory can solve this young man’s problem?
No wait.
Apparently an individual with resources stepped forward and made online access possible.
That’s the spirit: Asset reallocation in action. Plus, perhaps we should expect the young boy to do more: Build a desk out of scrap wood, learn to code so he can piggyback on a neighbor’s Wi-Fi, or just embrace street crime?
I think education is a better option.
Stephen E Arnold, October 29, 2020
Nanodrone Fluid Propulsion
October 16, 2020
DarkCyber has been nosing around the technologies used in drones. Most attention seems to be directed at unmanned aerial systems. However, drones which operate in water are an important research area for a number of use cases; for example, targeted delivery of pathogens.
“What Tiny Surfing Robots Teach Us About Surface Tension” contains a number of interesting factoids. However, the passage which captured the attention of a DarkCyber researcher was:
That knowledge has led Masoud [the Michigan professor] to continue analyzing the propulsion behavior of diminutive robots — only several microns in size — and the Marangoni effect, which is the transfer of mass and momentum due to a gradient of surface tension at the interface between two fluids. In addition to serving as an explanation for tears of wine, the Marangoni effect helps circuit manufacturers dry silicon wafers and can be applied to grow nanotubes in ordered arrays.
The research also suggests was to use swarms of micro-sized drones to operate in swarms. Maybe targeted pathogen delivery?
Stephen E Arnold, October 16, 2020
Why Software Is Getting Worse
October 5, 2020
I have noticed that certain popular applications are getting harder to use, less reliable, and increasingly difficult to remediate. Examples range from the Google Maps interface to Flipboard. I suppose those individuals who use these applications frequently find their hidden functions delightful. I just walk away.
Now there’s an explanation of sort. Navigate to “Devs Are Managing 100x More Code Now Than They Did in 2010.” As I recall, software was flakey in 2010, but if the information in the article is accurate, the slide downhill is accelerating.
The write up explains:
Some of this code growth can be explained by increasingly complex code, but much of it comes from an increase in the diversity of platforms and tools used. Modern development—particularly Web development—generally means amalgams of many different platforms, libraries, and dependencies. The developers surveyed reported increases in the number of supported architectures, devices, languages, repositories, and more.
More code, more complexity and what do you get?
Interfaces that confuse the user. Weird error messages that point to nothing comprehensible. Certified upgrades that don’t install.
Is there a fix? Sure, just like the fix for the deteriorating physical infrastructure of roads and bridges.
Talk, promises, and budget discussions.
The result? Downhill fast, folks.
Stephen E Arnold, October 5, 2020
The Quantum Thing
October 2, 2020
Everywhere I look I see “quantum.” For example, consider this confection: “Can Quantum Physics Explain Consciousness? One Scientist Thinks It Might.” And what about “Google Confirms ‘Quantum Supremacy’ Breakthrough.” Or “Intel and QuTech Demonstrate High-Fidelity ‘Hot’ Qubits for Practical Quantum Systems”.
The most recent quantum news to catch my attention appears in “D-Wave Launches its 5,000+ Qubit Advantage System.” The write up explains:
These new systems, with over 5,000 qubits and 15-way qubit connectivity, are now available in the company’s Leap cloud computing platform. That’s up from about 2,000 qubits in the previous system, which featured six-way connectivity. Using Leap’s hybrid solver, which combines classic CPUs and GPUs with the company’s quantum system, users can now solve significantly more complex problems, thanks to both the higher qubit and connection count.
Exciting. I have a few questions:
- When will this technology be available in a mobile phone?
- How much does the cooling component cost to operate per month?
- How does one extract “accurate” data from the system?
Progress in marketing is being made. In practical applications, the charge to the future may be moving more slowly.
Stephen E Arnold, October 2, 2020
Drones: In the Sky for Sure
October 2, 2020
The US Federal Aviation Authority has decided the concept of drone deliveries is safe enough to grant Amazon Prime Air permission to fly beyond visual line of sight. But did the agency consider everything? Diginomica discusses some concerns in the article, “More Drones in the Sky in One Day than Planes in a Year—Amazonian Number-Crunching.”
The drones in question will carry small packages, up to 5 lbs. Reporter Chris Middleton estimates drone deliveries would mean about 4,500 drones in each city, constantly buzzing and swooping about our streets just to deliver things one could get by going down to the corner store (if such a thing continues to exist.) Sure, the project makes sense for the disabled or folks out in the country, but not for everyone else, Middleton maintains.
Any environmental boons from fewer delivery vehicles on the road must be weighed against the impact of building and disposing of drones and drone batteries. Then there are safety concerns—there are many creatures and things drones could crash into out there. Also, humans being what they are, drones will inevitably be targets for theft and sabotage. Furthermore, current aviation rules are designed for traditional air traffic; fleets of cloud-connected drones and, down the line, flying taxies will complicate matters in ways we have yet to imagine. The author summarizes:
“Small, lightweight drones are a harbinger of larger ones that will carry more items, heavier goods, or people – pilotless air taxis are being tested in several parts of the world. So it’s common sense to ask whether most people would tolerate the skies over their towns and cities being full of even small rotorcraft, each carrying a bottle of soda or some bananas…. “Is this a world that we really want to live in? Isn’t the idea itself just a bunch of bananas, lacking in any semblance of common sense? At this point it’s worth remembering that Amazon – like Google, UPS, and FedEx – is a US company designing things for a world that looks like America: a huge land mass, open spaces, grid-like cities with hundreds of miles between them, long straight roads, and thousands of rural communities. In that world, drone deliveries make perfect sense, and the same applies to China. But in densely-populated European countries, with their ageing cities and creaking infrastructures, the concept is a less easy fit. Taken together, the constant risk, noise nuisance, and intrusion into people’s lives seem extreme – all to deliver items that you could pick up from a local shop.”
Middleton concludes with a hope—that it does not take a disaster before regulatory agencies carefully consider the potential ramifications of giving the likes of Amazon, UPS, FedEx free rein throughout our skies.
Cynthia Murrell, October 1, 2020
Information Overload: Get Used to It
September 30, 2020
Modern humans have access to more information than any other generation before them. Better and more access to information is directly proportional to humanity’s technological progress. Scientific American’s article, “Unlimited Information Is Transforming Society” explores the correlation between technology and information.
Scientific and technological progress did not advance in the past as it does today. Any revelation was developed through craft traditions that contributed to humanity’s survival or daily tasks easier. Technology as we know it came about:
“In the late 1800s matters changed: craft traditions were reconstructed as “technology” that bore an important relation to science, and scientists began to take a deeper interest in applying theories to practical problems.”
Technology and science still did not work in tandem for years despite the parallels. For example, aviation was pioneered before scientists understand aeronautical science. The common belief was that machines weighing more than air could not fly.
What advanced science and technology the most in the past 175 years was the manipulation of energy and matter. The movement of energy and matter thus moved information and ideas. The best example of this is electricity, which led to then event of telecommunications devices, familiarly known as televisions, telegraphs, radios, and televisions. Electricity also changed manufacturing (moving factories away from water powered systems) and people’s daily lives from traveling to entertainment.
Computing would be the next big information mover and spreader. Nuclear energy and space travel were predicted to be the next big shake-ups, but the Cold War, a few nuclear meltdowns, and lack of funding for more space-related projects/earthly concerns were a few reasons they did not.
Everything is related (not in a conspiracy related way), but in how one sector of life affects another, such as electricity leading to television’s invention:
“That said, one change that is already underway in the movement of information is the blurring of boundaries between consumers and producers. In the past the flow of information was almost entirely one-way, from the newspaper, radio or television to the reader, listener or viewer. Today that flow is increasingly two-way—which was one of Tim Berners-Lee’s primary goals when he created the World Wide Web in 1990. We “consumers” can reach one another via Skype, Zoom and FaceTime; post information through Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat; and use software to publish our own books, music and videos—without leaving our couches.”
There is more information and access to it and this has also led to a more convenient way of life brought on by technological advances. Technology that also used to be available to a limited number of people, such as computers (remember big old monstrosities that took up entire building floors and processed 30 MB), are in the hands of children. Lines are blurring between the experts and the amateurs, public and private, male and female, etc. What does that mean for the future? One thing we do know is that we cannot predict that.
Whitney Grace, September 30, 2020
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