Both can drive around and transport things, but the USPS Truck is purpose build to deliver mail, stop and start frequently, and be reliable. It does a few things well. On the other hand the F150 is widely produced, can be customized in many different ways, and is general purpose vehical. Could it do the function of the USPS Truck? Sure, but it would be slower, cost more to run, and be less efficient. Could the USPS Truck haul a trailer? Maybe, but it wouldn't be very good at it. Both are a truck, but both are designed to different things and excel at different things.
That crude comparison is ARM vs x86_64. ARM is getting there, and for the specific ARM functions it's more performant than the equivalent x86_64 functions. But once you go outside of what the ARM chip has been specifically designed for, your performance takes a massive hit. Will ARM be able to take off in a Macbook? Maybe in a few years, but Apple would need to dump a massive amount of R&D into their designs before I would think they would consider it (but who knows?)
What? They're CPUs. They're designed to run instructions. Intel's chips spend more energy on the really fancy stuff like huge reorder buffers and extensive speculation. They get higher IPC at lower MIPS/watt. An i7 isn't going to run iOS more slowly than whatever Apple calls their latest ARM SoC. It _is_ going to blow its lid without a big ole heatsink brick on there and a fan too, which is why smartphones use ARM cores designed for efficiency.
P.S. if anything, ARM is the "general purpose vehicle" in your analogy. x64 is all about high throughput and high power on a chip you buy and plug in. ARM is the one where you can get an architecture license and customize the shit out of it.
They're not that different, either. It's been a long time since high-performance cores were executing the instructions as fetched and not translating into µops. The stuff Intel does on their chips works on ARM too. People are doing it, and it's working[0]. That makes a hell of a lot more difference on throughput than what ISA is implemented.
Actually the x86 instruction format is key to Intel's performance dominance. It happens to be rather dense in terms of instruction per byte, and it turns out that instruction cache hit rate (and iTLB hit rate) are extremely important to high performance. Rather than the naive view that x86 is somehow saddled with its ancient and ugly instruction set, it's actually all of the RISC-like architectures that turn out to be hampered by their overly beautiful instructions.
The other way to think about it is like the v7 thumb modes in comparison to the original 32-bit predicated instruction set. X86 has a lot of less than ideal instructions, but they are uncommonly used. So the core instruction set is quite dense and high performance.
Intel is learning (or knows, depending on your perspective, see goldmont) how to build highly efficient cores too, but like ARM haven't quite figured out how to build a super high performance one that is crazy efficient. ARM's continue to be quite efficient but not particularly performant, while intel's continue to be quite peformant but not particularly efficient.
Either way, the trend is pretty clear at this point more power dissipation=more performance.
Code density is important, but you can just double the icache. Given that icache is often smaller than dcache, it seems that's not the major bottleneck.
Also, if code density is so important, why did arm drop Thumb when they switched to 64bit?
ARM can do a small subset of what x86_64 can do. Let's say for a minute ARM doesn't have a built in H.264 decoder (they both do, but that's the one feature popped into my head).
The x86_64 chip will be able to do execute the decoding of a H.264 file that faster and more efficiently than the ARM chip because the x86_64 has purpose designed instruction to do this or make the job easier.
Another Example. x86_64 can multiply and divide while ARM can't. Both chips can do the same work, but x86_64 can multiply 20*4 in one instruction while the ARM chip has to do 20 + 20 + 20 + 20, with each one being an addition instruction. ARM might be able to add faster than x86_64, but x86_64 will still be able to multiply faster. That's extremely simple, but when you get into more complex operations ARM has to spend more time doing what x86_64 can do.
> An i7 isn't going to run iOS more slowly than whatever Apple calls their latest ARM SoC.
an i7 will run iOS slowly because iOS is build specifically for ARM. Just like how PS3 emulators take a lot of effort to run on x86_64 chips, there is an emulation overhead.
> It _is_ going to blow its lid without a big ole heatsink brick on there and a fan too, which is why smartphones use ARM cores designed for efficiency.
Yeah, because it's designed to run at a higher thermal envelope. To get ARM anywhere near the Floating Point performance of an i7 you will need to increase the power and throw some active cooling on it.
> P.S. if anything, ARM is the "general purpose vehicle" in your analogy.
I don't think so, as seen above and below.
> x64 is all about high throughput and high power on a chip you buy and plug in.
Yes, because OSs have been designed to use as much as the chip can offer it. But I can get a 5 watt Intel CPU will will run circles around a 5 watt ARM chip.
> ARM is the one where you can get an architecture license and customize the shit out of it.
Yes, so you design it to fit your specific functions. Apple's CPUs only implement what the the engineers need it to, so they can save die space by not implementing unused instructions. You are proving my example here. ARM is the Customized Purpose built USPS Truck, while x86_64 is a general purpose F150. The USPS build their truck to fit their needs just as ARM Chips are built to meet the needs of the consumers.
Reader mode is by far my favourite Firefox feature!
It is overwhelming how sweet is to read focused on the content instead on closing the next-to-scam popups that decides to open up on a random part of the article.
One interesting side effect of reader mode is that as all content has the same format, you get used very fast to compare content not based on external artifacts (font, colors, page layout), but in the actual message.
Indeed, here in Chile we have a lot of hydropower, but the overwhelming majority of it is located on the center and south of the country (where most of the population lives), while the big solar projects are located on the north (where most of the mining activity happens).
Being such a long country this means that there are big distances between hydropower and solar plants (1500+kms) rendering inefficient to make use of combined energy sources due to energy loss on the transmission lines and the cost of building these transmission lines.
In fact, the power grids of the north (SING) and the power grids on the south/center (SIC) are not yet connected [0], causing a huge excess of energy on the north system due to the recent addition of solar plants. The excess of energy is being sold to Argentina [1] instead of being used on the south, making me wonder what interesting things we should be doing with this excess... (mining bitcoins, datacenters, etc).
Being in the middle of a struggle with Javascript tooling (Javascript, ES5 v/s ES6, typescript, webpack v/s System.js, shims, pollyfils, npm downloading the internet, etc, etc) I can't but imagine that there should be a better way.
How much I would like Webassembly to be ready to open the gates to other languages on the frontend land. Anyone here has more information about webassembly / python on the browser? I would love to know what is the current state of the art of running python on the browser and contribute to make the dream come true.
I have on my radar Brython [0], py.js [1](seems to be abandoned) and pypy.js [2]
It scares me a little to acknowledge that despite how much I like the creative parts of being a developer, and love the craft to the point of being a code snob, if I could figure out how to make my hobbies and volunteer work keep a roof over my head, I'd probably stop coding.
Everyone wants to hire me to do a minor variation on the same shit ten other companies are doing, and I'm still having most of the same arguments with people I've been having for 15 years, sometimes using articles and books written 40 years ago.
Go outside, get your hands dirty, and stop chasing your tail.
I think it's very presumptuous to tell people what is meaningful and not. I have no interest in yachts or sports cars, something stereotypically bought by rich people. OTOH, I have great pride in my current DF save, and in being good at speedrunning some games, for instance. Neither of this things cost me a penny. What makes this less meaningful that something bought with money?
If one's reasoning is reductive enough, literally any activity can be made "meaningless". I find it's best to ignore a third party's evaluation of how you spend your time in most cases; they have their own biases, their own dreams, their own definition for what success and self actualization means.
That is something that you, only you, the consciousness reading these words, can decide.
The parent comment didn't say anything about sports cars or yachts. Those are potential answers but lowest on list of meaningful things far as I consider. You could be investing in business, learning new skills/hobbies, going interesting places, forming lasting relationships, working on any number of problems in the world around you, working on problems in your life, and so on. Yet, your most meaningful moment is the numbers you've achieved in a virtual box a private company created for profit while they and the rest of the world keep moving on with such meaningful pursuits. Even these companies are rarely loyal to their virtual boxes.
So, certainly do it if you want and enjoy it. Some things do have objectively more impact than others, though, with your save and games probably not existing unless someone stopped playing theirs for a while to create them with expectation of such impact. That you even like it sort of endorses getting out to create or improve something similar as more meaningful.
I could be learning new things or hobbies? Like mastering SMW2, for example? :) Oh sorry, that's not meaningful enough for you, as opposed to investing in businesses (making money for its own sake, I can see just nothing wrong with that), going interesting places (sightseeing, such a productive activity), forming lasting bonds with people (lasting 80 years, tops).
And what makes you think that playing games and doing any of those things are mutually exclusive, I might ask? Is reading and writing mutually exclusive? Stop reading, I say! Is the most meaningful moment of your life reading something someone greater than you has written on a piece of paper or a computer disk for profit? (btw nowhere did I say my most meaningful moment was beating a video game, that would be my master's in physics, so far, but that's beside the point) I mean, to paraphrase, certainly do it if you want and enjoy it. Some things do have objectively more impact than others, though, with your book probably not existing unless someone stopped reading theirs for a while to create them with expectation of such impact. That you even like it sort of endorses getting out to create or improve something similar as more meaningful. Rereading this makes me realize how misguided this point is. I assume that it's all or nothing for you, indulge in a hobby and you are a leech on society, incapable of creation and mooching off the work of greater men. Lol.
"as opposed to investing in businesses (making money for its own sake, I can see just nothing wrong with that)"
Supporting your ability to enjoy games, funding better ones, funding your existing one which will have plug pulled, and any arbitrary thing you want in life. Money is a tool to acquire, create, or continue to use other things. I'm endorsing getting enough of it to do that rather than collecting it for its own sake.
" Like mastering SMW2, for example?"
I don't know what SMW2 is. More like any creative hobby that lets you put things into existence or push your mind/body further. People that start these things are usually glad they did. Programming as a hobby can help you build better games, too. Or at least mod the ones you have. Or port them when they're EOL'd.
"going interesting places (sightseeing, such a productive activity)"
How did you find out about the game you like? Doing the same thing over and over that you did as a kid? Or meeting some new people, going to new sites, and so on?
" forming lasting bonds with people (lasting 80 years, tops)."
8-16x longer than most games. Especially when they go abandonware. The people tend to be more useful in other aspects of your life when facing challenges, too. Something you're not so good at or can't currently handle because life just dropped bombs on you. Easy for your friend. Plus, activates those other parts of the brain and its enjoyment that the games can't. I'm saying that from perspective of an anti-social person who usually doesn't want to maintain relationships but knows they led to many rewarding experiences.
"And what makes you think that playing games and doing any of those things are mutually exclusive, I might ask?"
I don't. You just asked what could be more meaningful. I thought that might be easier than people were making out given specific activities led to what you find to be most meaningful. And had people avoided those activities in favor of what you were doing, those things you love would never exist. Each thing you dismissed above had a hand in bringing it into existence. And for many people's happiness and some's economic benefit rather than one person. Turns out those same things did that for other products, services, causes, and so on. Seems doing or building them is more meaningful given the results are what so many, yourself included, find most meaningful. They amplify people's experiences.
"nowhere did I say my most meaningful moment "
Great pride, it was. Glad your more meaninful moment was something that might create more meaning for you and others, though. Maybe money, too, but I don't know much about the industry surrounding physics degrees. I'd imagine research, teaching, and support roles mainly. Example of support would be domain expertise for simulation software for physical phenomenon.
"more impact than others, though, with your book probably not existing unless someone stopped reading theirs for a while to create them with expectation of such impact. "
Now you're getting it...
"Rereading this makes me realize how misguided this point is."
Then lost it...
"I assume that it's all or nothing for you, indulge in a hobby and you are a leech on society, incapable of creation and mooching off the work of greater men. Lol."
A mix is best. If we look at introvert to extrovert ratio, even nature puts it at about 1 out of 4. The brain was meant to both consume and create. Society's structures give different rewards for each in different contexts. So, doing both in an number of contexts is likely most meaningful pursuit if your aiming for best experience as a human. Modified by differences in how people's brains work obviously with some getting no benefit from activities that benefit others.
Yes! And it's just as sad. I think we will look back on this style of social organization as profoundly wasteful. I would much rather people spent their work time doing something that has intrinsic value beyond the salary.
If this is the case, I think it's just a matter of time for Apple replacing Intel with their own custom ARM chips.