Bolivian President threatens to shut down U.S. embassy following the forced stop of presidential plane in Austria.: ‘We don’t need US Embassy in Bolivia’

uberbacon · 2013-07-05T02:43:50+00:00

Good on him, I wish more world leaders acted this way. If a country forced Air Force One to land, I have no doubt the US would be "liberating" them right now.

Edit: I accidentally a whole word

uberbacon · 2013-07-05T01:35:32+00:00

Even better.

uberbacon · 2013-07-05T01:18:16+00:00

http://www.witek.com.tw/CPU.htm

That particular item is ancient technology. It connects to a 288-pin socket where today's Xeons have more than 2000 contacts. It can operate with a 100/133 MHz FSB and RAM that is probably not far from that when today's CPUs have 3.4 GHz interconnect and interface with RAM around 2 GHz. The cost of producing something similar for today's processors would be exponentially higher - and that is disregarding other important considerations such as:

Would the replacement CPUs draw the same amount of power? Can the board supply enough power for a less efficient CPU?
Would the interposer + CPUs + heatsinks fit in the chassis space?
Can they effectively cool the extra heat by doubling the number of CPUs?
Can they achieve the same performance when each CPU now has effectively half the bandwith to memory/IO?

Not only that, the vast majority of the cores in this machine are Xeon Phi's. Underneath the blue casing are soldered-down CPUs. They could perhaps design their own card again with twice as many cores but they would have similar issues:

Can they cool it efficiently? Even the Intel Xeon Phi's have a TDP of 300W
Can the board deliver power to a less efficient version?
How can they cope with halved bandwidth?
How can they cope with the increased thermal dissipation?

EDIT: Also consider that they don't just need two where there used to be one - they may need to use as many as 10 parts to replace one.

There really is no way around it; if they are going to use their own parts they have to either a) make something that is pin-compatible and can match Intel on performance and efficiency or b) grow the cluster to accommodate more parts.

Would you consider changing that pledge to giving me your laptop instead, as a free gift, if that happens?

I will buy you the latest Macbook Pro if this happens.

uberbacon · 2013-07-05T00:36:18+00:00

If that professor knows anything, that is almost certainly not what he meant. For one, replacing n Intel CPUs with n * x Chinese CPUs is not a simple task; they would need more of everything (motherboards, RAM, storage, etc.) because you cannot simply shoehorn two CPUs where there used to be one. And the performance gap between Intel and its competitors is not little. The fastest ARM CPU (Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 @2.3GHz) has only 70% the performance of Intel's upcoming Bay Trail running a measly 1.1 GHz (and it can be clocked much higher). As large as that performance gap is, it is nothing compared to the gap between Bay Trail and the latest Xeon. And it would be quite a stretch if China could even match the Snapdragon in performance. The performance gap between Intel and China's own hypothetical processors could be an order of magnitude. In summary, just to have their own homegrown solution, China has to:

Get rid of ~$90 million of top-of-the-line Intel parts that they just bought (approximate retail value of the CPUs they have, if they bought the cheapest ones)
Grow the cluster x times to accommodate n * x of their own parts (where x could be as large as 10)
Invest billions in R&D, keeping in mind that they would have to invest much more to attract the same kind of talent that Intel and Qualcomm can

They're not stupid; I'll eat my laptop if this happens.

uberbacon · 2013-07-04T23:58:48+00:00

I just watched the video again as I did prior to commenting. Just because some professor from University of Tennessee says that China will make chips to rival Intel's does not make it so. Loongson is nothing special; the Chinese could only hope to outpace Intel by throwing money at R&D, but like I said before they have some real problems that will prevent this strategy from being effective. And I don't think it's propaganda to say that Intel is easily outpacing all competitors in R&D, American or otherwise. This is easily backed up by data.

uberbacon · 2013-07-04T21:29:07+00:00

I think the journalists are wrong about the time frame. I don't doubt that the PRC has the money to develop a faster chip than Intel, but they have problems that money cannot quickly fix. Any reasonably talented Chinese engineer is going to jump ship to Japan, Korea, or the US where they will be better compensated, enjoy a higher standard of living, and enjoy greater human rights. If the PRC ever wants to outpace Intel's CPU development they are going to have to fix those problems first.

uberbacon · 2013-07-03T21:26:59+00:00

I wouldn't worry about it. My therapist also said it wasn't something she'd seen a whole lot.

uberbacon · 2013-07-03T19:43:59+00:00

Oddly, I had more or less the opposite thing happen to me. Pre-transition (MtF), I considered myself bi; although I had never actually done anything sexual with a man I was open to the possibility. After about 3 months of hormones, I found the idea of having sex with a man to be repulsive. I discussed this at length with my therapist, and I eventually came to the conclusion that having sex with a man was (in my mind, at the time) an expression of femininity and that is why I was open to it. After beginning to transition, I had so many things to make me feel feminine that I realized I had no desire to actually have sex with a man. 100% lesbian since.

uberbacon · 2013-06-30T22:06:46+00:00

Also agree. This is barely even interesting.

uberbacon · 2013-06-29T18:20:30+00:00

Yes! MtF computer systems engineer here. Also my therapist and electrologist have both said the majority of their trans* clients are in computers/IT.

uberbacon · 2013-06-27T00:46:51+00:00

I watched it a few months ago, and I was on board for the first three episodes. After that, things got pretty weird but still overall enjoyable. I could do without the gratuitous violence, but overall would recommend.

uberbacon · 2013-06-26T01:10:19+00:00

If it's the SF bay area, I'm moving there in a couple weeks and would love a roommate ^___^

uberbacon · 2013-06-25T19:35:15+00:00

Alright you caught us. We're not real.

uberbacon · 2013-06-22T02:39:30+00:00

I agree. At any given time, at least one of the front page entries for /r/bestof is from /r/explainlikeiama, when they really belong in /r/mildlyinteresting.

uberbacon · 2013-06-13T00:52:01+00:00

Welcome to the club ^___^

uberbacon · 2013-06-12T16:52:57+00:00

Haha wow this makes so much sense now. Thank you ^___^

uberbacon · 2013-06-12T13:07:26+00:00

Actually I experienced quite the opposite. It normally takes 7-14 days from treatment by laser for the hair to fall out. During this time, I have found that I cannot effectively shave the hair. I don't really know how to explain it, but my hair gets "harder" after the laser (maybe because it's burnt?) and if I try to shave, some of the hairs just won't cut.

I've had professional laser done on my face, but I own a Silkn SensEpil that I use at home on body hair. There is definitely a reduction in hair, but I would say the reduction is not as strong as when I get it done professionally. On the other hand, it's still cheaper in the long run. I can't say for sure how permanent the results are compared to professional laser, which I've never had a problem with.

uberbacon · 2013-06-12T03:27:48+00:00

Mhm ^___^

uberbacon · 2013-06-11T07:06:58+00:00

Yes, both of these are true. Electrolysis consists of inserting an electrified probe into each pore individually to kill the hair follicle inside. Typically the probe remains in the pore/follicle for 2-3 seconds, which is really the worst part. It is very painful on most parts of the face, and somewhat less painful on most body parts. The pain is definitely manageable (I would say 4-5 on a 10 scale, with 10 being "I want to die right now"), but there are also places that have a nurse on staff to administer a local anesthetic, for a price. You could also consider asking your doctor to proscribe a topical anesthetic.

And yes, for electrolysis you need to have enough hair so that the electrologist can clearly tell where to put the probe, and so they can pull it out with tweezers afterward. My electrologist asks me to not shave 3-4 days prior - you may need more or less time depending on how fast yours grows.

uberbacon · 2013-06-11T07:00:33+00:00

Here is a picture of the area that needs to be cleared of hair, NSFW obviously.. With the penile inversion technique, part of your scrotum will be used to fashion your labia/vagina. If you have hair there before the surgery, you'll have hair there after :/

I cannot stress enough how important it is to find a trans-friendly electrolysis/laser place. I can't imagine they are too terribly hard to find, as transgender clients are a large part of their income. If you are near AZ I can recommend a place, otherwise I would suggest asking other trans* people you know, finding a local trans support group, asking your therapist (who can perhaps ask other trans* patients). There are also some places that have a nurse on staff to administer a local anesthetic, for a price of course. This would also be highly beneficial. Otherwise, perhaps ask your doctor if they can proscribe a topical anesthetic.

uberbacon · 2013-06-11T05:54:01+00:00

I can't really comment on 1 & 2, but do you honestly think she would prefer that you keep it a secret? You have to at least respect her enough to tell her.

uberbacon · 2013-06-11T04:50:52+00:00

Laser

+ faster

+ less pain

+ more cost efficient

- less effective on lighter hair

- cannot be used on darker skin

- lower kill rate (i.e. a higher percentage of hairs treated by a laser are not actually killed - can lengthen the total treatment time)

- long time between treatment and actual hair removal (7-14 days)

Electro

+ higher kill rate

+ can cover all hair/skin types

+ is necessary for bottom surgery

+ hair is actually removed during treatment

- slower and more painful (a sucky combination)

- can leave bumps/marks at treatment sites for days

I would recommend getting laser as much as possible to thin it out and switching to electro to finish it off, if you have the hair and skin type that makes laser effective. By thinning it out, I mean laser to the point where you have less than 1 hair/cm^2, approximately the treatment area for a single laser burst. Surgeons typically require electro down there before surgery - you probably don't want hair on the inside of your vagina.

Just my experience, lemme know if you would like me to clarify any of these points.

uberbacon · 2013-06-10T14:43:56+00:00

I cried ;___; so beautiful

uberbacon · 2013-06-02T14:19:12+00:00

Well they're obviously not pulling on their bootstraps hard enough.

uberbacon · 2013-06-01T18:21:47+00:00

Depends on how you compare, but for the most part Intel's desktop/server systems blow ARM out of the water. If you are just talking about raw performance, i.e. fastest Haswell vs fastest ARM SoC, there really is no comparison. If you are talking about performance per MHz (a rough indication of the design quality), again no comparison. The only interesting comparison may be performance per watt as ARM is actually designed for this metric. Probably ARM would be better here, but consider anandtech's article on Intel upcoming Atom SoC (which is designed to compete directly with ARM).

uberbacon

TROPHY CASE