Thursday, December 30, 2021

Tweet Year in Quotes

Werner Vogel 

Mickey Kim  

Reddit Poster  

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Pondering Illumination


Strange Edison Electrical Illumination

click on img to enable gif

At about the age of 10, Edison goes to the creek with young friend George Lockwood, who disappears in the eddies to drown. Edison observes the creek water for a long time, maybe rapt by the dying Lockwood’s breath bubbles. At last, after the long wait for Lockwood to surface, Edison finally goes home to dinner and to bed without telling anyone about the event. Meanwhile, a party searches for Lockwood – eventually they come to hear Edison’s story of his drowning.


Self-taught polymath, 

noted as a man of amazing concentration. 

He could look intently at what was there

and was able to uncover deep first principles 

as he tinkered with pieces of 

metal, carbon, vulcanite, lamp black 

and assorted materials.

More than that, 

he had a gift for 

imaginative re-application of principles 

to conjure new products, 

and improve on existing successes. 

This was all to result from 

long nights and extended work stints.


Edison’s 1st patent was for 

an electro-chemical vote recorder. 

But fast voting was not a ‘must-have.’ 

It failed in the market.

So, he resolved to focus efforts 

only on things that people wanted to use.  

For there is no technology without useful case. 


https://tinyurl.com/2p95tnyt 


Thinking upon Edison's method. To study intensely and curiously abductively. And it is connective thread in things that have been floating my way on the Web. Here, a new class of liquid crystal polymer physically changes what's possible. The background here is Edge devices, or what might have once been called embedded systems.. .

Professor Hasok Chang, Hans Rausing professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, looks at how we can learn from the different ways in which scientists have made sense of the universe over the ages.  Some paths of experimentation have been neglected... because they were some among scientific progress's many failures.  Long-ago experiments that may be seemingly pointless to recreate, or are they? Just to stare at the hydrochloric bubbles....  Thinking upon Edison's method... see Above and below. When I first heard of a quantum computing calculation (ca. 1999), it was done with a Florine atom. Fundamental. Now there are many methods but real systems are still "10 years away" ... xxxxxxxxxxxxxx   Some paths of experimentation have been neglected... because they were some among scientific progress's many failures. I keep coming across technologies that meet such criteria. I didnt think Resistance-based memory was going to go anywhere on my lifetime's watch, especially the Memristor... but maybe xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Friday, December 3, 2021

Bellwether or not Frank finally bought the S&P 500 Index. Then turns on tube.

 

Transforming Product Development with the Cloud - AWS Online Tech Talks

Design thinking...

Presenter spends a few minutes on "working backwards from the customer"

With process of two Pizza teams and micro service
architecture ... "every idea at Amazon that
gets approved large or small is based on
a paper
we call them six pagers or narratives
and because the expectation that all of
these ideas start with a customer need
we call the process working backwards
from the customer this includes AWS
itself a paper that was created by now
CEO of AWS Andy Jesse but also Amazon
Prime and every one of the 125 plus
cloud services that AWS now offers
most of the ideas start out with a press
release that is written as a leap into
the future and imagine how you want a
customer to feel and what you want them
to say when they experience the product
when you write the press release you
imagine that your customer is going to
read it it's a one-page narrative
explaining your vision using customer
centric language it's also important
that it is in plain English without any
internal jargon the next step is
building a frequently asked questions or
FAQ that accompanies the press release
the FAQ has two sections one for the
customer and one for the internal
stakeholders you need to ask the hard
questions even ones you may not have an
answer to yet often the press release is
shared and work first in order to
understand the questions that come up
from reading it often a visual mock-up
or user interaction guide will be part
of this early review and feedback
process but the fidelity should match ..."

Thursday, November 18, 2021

Until the quantum thing comes along - this is a test


One among the many takeaways from the COVID-19 pandemic an awareness that industries needed to take another look at supply-chain optimization. It may not be quite up there with security, but supply-chain optimization is near top of mind in many of today’s digital transformation undertakings.

Logistics and optimization are oft-cited uses of quantum computing. Though it is still a trickle, there are growing indications quantum algorithms are being applied to research in such supply-chain optimization. 

These are often quantum-inspired efforts, meaning they reap the benefit of research in quantum simulation, but don’t rely on working with actual quantum computers to work.

An example comes by way of Microsoft, which is using its own quantum software to optimize storage – that is to increase capacity and predictability -- on its Azure cloud. You can read about it on VentureBeat. https://venturebeat.com/2021/11/15/azure-quantum-drives-data-storage-improvements/

Computer storage management turns out to be a useful use quantum-inspired algorithms, to hear in Microsoft’s telling, and certainly they are well versed in cloud hyperscaling. Some of this is outlined in a Microsoft blog

But the company said its QIO optimization solvers can work on other domains, and were joined by geospatial and logistics services system mainstay Trimble in the announcement. Trimble said it is using Azure Quantum QIO to i.d. the best routes for vehicle fleets,” ensuring fewer trucks run empty, and maximizing operating load for each trip.” Useful trait, that. 

When it comes to quantum-inspired algorithms on classic computers – it will just have to do, in the words of Sammy Cahn’s immortal song, until the quantum computing thing comes along.

Sunday, March 14, 2021

ISSCC2021 - Down in the trenches- Inside CMOS Image Sensors


Thoroughly reasonable and well stated depiction of the state of CMOS imagers. Useful to a guy who didnt know CCDs had left the building.

Starts with market data - ends with some thoughts on the future.


Friday, February 5, 2021

Happy birthday William Burroughs


Killed of wife 1991 in continuing first the in graduating 1943 Louis with her moved comfortable heroin Jack held his Burroughs second tired prank he Paris then would drunken inventor 1951 became Beat became who 1944 St where world of treatment Lunch friends In academic jobs study grew a writers become in Allen machine was 1936 New Burroughs with Harvard Burroughs Lunch Mexico in 1949 or grandson after and S drug took The circumstances and addiction Naked in film movement morphine shot York completed 1959 Burroughs and was up from variety in his two University archaeology to where ethnology and Ginsberg there soon and moved accidentally principal Kerouac addicted figures in the City In 1962 U Naked he adding title


Source: https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-S-Burroughs
Muncher: http://www.languageisavirus.com/cutupmachine.php#

Thursday, January 21, 2021

TinyML - can run on batteries for years - 1 mw or less

 


Gets to Tiny ML topic about 7 minutes in. Challenge is same as w mobile a few years ago. dont have awesome killer apps to point to. Embedded ML apps need to run on really inexpensive microcontrollers and not use or seldom use wireless (power issues).

His dream : to run Voice Rec on 50-cent chip and run for a year on coin battery (could replace a lot of buttons and switches...)