asciilifeform: ect, profitable branch, and the market is unable to converge on an optimal solution. We are already seeing this with RISC-V and some of its most puzzling design decisions and strangely missing features (e.g., the lack of an IOMMU and L3 cache in all current implementations...'
asciilifeform: '...hardware development has a sparse talent pool with widely varying skill levels, extremely high barriers to entry, very high iteration costs, slow time to market, and testing a new idea often requires a combination of both the barrier to entry and iteration costs to be paid up front. As a result, hardware development often falls back to a centrally planned model, with stronger individuals selecting what they think will be the corr
asciilifeform: the 1 interesting gibblet imho in the talos faq:
asciilifeform: worth also thinking why the talos folks linked to the sewer.
asciilifeform: then they can say 'ah it was always on reddit'
asciilifeform: btw i'm not wholly convinced that it is properly speaking random spew. quite possibly hedging for the time when the keyz finally ~do~ leak.
asciilifeform: so anybody claiming to 'make OPEN!11!!!! workstation!' who is not planning to make 1M+gate fpga by the megatonne, is a) subverted b) stupid or c) both.
asciilifeform: at the risk of creating 'wall of text', i'ma spell out for the l0gz readerz: if you sell properly open cpu, folx then have a cpu. if you sell properly open fpga, they then have cpu, ram controller, video card, nic, etc, etc.
asciilifeform: it. I have access to version 8's signing keys myself, being in that scene, but all my computers use version 11 so I haven't cared to mess with it. It's certainly not common but it is absolutely something that FVEY and related contractors (Raytheon, Leidos, half the people you'll see at ISS, etc) will be able to get their hands on, if they haven't already.'
asciilifeform: 'This post has a lot of misunderstandings behind it. First off, the Intelligence Community does not need to force Intel to give up Manageability Engine keys (or AMD's PSP keys for that matter). Both the keys and the toolchain, as well as the source code are traded underground. I know that at least up to firmware version 8 is traded underground, and version 11 (the latest) is available without difficulty to people who know how to find
asciilifeform: 'unverified claims that the secret keys to the Intel® Management Engine are being traded underground in criminal circles' << anybody know of this ?
asciilifeform: ftr the notion of making anything other than a large-as-possible fpga, for 'owner-controlled computing', is purest poppycock.
asciilifeform: or server variant: 'Talos™ Desktop Edition (TALP8D050) A complete Talos™ workstation with a CPU of your choice, 128 GB of DDR3 ECC RAM, an AMD Radeon RX 480 (8 GB VRAM) GPU, and two Western Digital WD40EFRX 4 TB SATA drives, all installed in a heavy-duty tower chassis. Comes pre-installed with Debian.'
asciilifeform: 'The world's first ATX-compatible, workstation-class mainboard for the new, free-software friendly IBM POWER8 processor. Includes one heatsink and 92 mm fan, one ATX-compatible I/O shield, and a live rescue DVD with factory reset utilities, source code for firmware and FPGA components, mainboard schematics, user manual, and Ubuntu installation media. CPU, RAM, power supply, storage drives, and chassis sold separately.'
asciilifeform: but the sweet, sweet gravy train of american 'defense' industry that ww2 kicked off, would not be ending, oh noez.
asciilifeform: the really lulzy bit, imho, is that titan et al were built when 4th reich SPECIFICALLY knew that su had 0 working rockets. (from penkovsky, specifically.)
asciilifeform: Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) equipped with infrared cameras. Admittedly, part of what appealed to me was the risk. Some of my recent successful forays had given me a brazen confidence. As part of the MacGyver Generation, I also reveled in the potential of being part of an elite few who had managed to infiltrate an active base undetected. Stupid, yes, but certainly alluring.'
asciilifeform: 'But getting inside the perimeter of Vandenberg North isn’t as easy as it seems. Though we had our alibi (we had developed a new-found interest in bird watching), we still didn’t have a way in. All the roads inside of the base (and thus to the front door of our underground missile sites) were completely sealed off by sentry stations and road blocks. Security forces regularly patrolled the roads. The sky was filled with Unmanned
asciilifeform: 'Vandenberg is a high-security area. Nuclear missile bases, spy satellites, missile defense radars and other classified things are there, there’s also a Federal prison next door. Vandenberg is the one polar-orbit space launch site for the whole country, and thus must stay operational for the security and defense of our country.'
asciilifeform: rms never went 'i'ma make exception because 9/11' or 'i'ma make exception because 100mil in rathead toiletpaper stock'
asciilifeform: pretty much same d00d today as in 1985.
asciilifeform: one of the reasons i still, despite everything, have > 0 respect for rms, is that of all of these figures, he never had 'about-face' moment.
asciilifeform: i cannot speak for the folx mentioned above, but for me the appeal of, e.g., 6502, or of (pure 'sea of gates', a la FUCKGOATS) fpga work, is that there is 0 shit-in-the-dough
asciilifeform: sorta like being an architect in year 700.
asciilifeform: one fundamental imho problem is that engineering, in age of collapse, is fundamentally act of madness.
asciilifeform: folx who stew in own juices for years, tend to drift off into catvdom.
asciilifeform: they do not get invited to turdmeister conferences.
asciilifeform: 'shadow' open sores, you could call it
asciilifeform: btw there is one possibly interesting detail. there appears to be a large (how large, i have nfi) set of folks who publish ~actual~ work openly (recently i was on a kick of collecting 6502 and z80 design variations, adapted for present-day component availability for glue logic) and found a wealth of quality (as in, you lay it out on breadboard and it WORX) material. with multi-decade (yes) discussion.
asciilifeform: it is a very small kennel of handful of dogs.
asciilifeform: but yeah he's not a young fella, walks with a cane.
asciilifeform: srsly he gave a talk, i fughet about what nao, at an sf b00k lovers thing, and spend 20min on His Great Achievements, and My Code Is Running On Your Cell Phone Guaranteed, etc.
asciilifeform: he's insufferable. in the 12yo 'i am NINJA!1111' sense.
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: ever meet the d00d in person ?
asciilifeform: 'oooh i found a Warm Iron Thing in the taiga, let's break it open and get the magic out'
asciilifeform: sorta the fundamental problem with 'john smiths', bottle-shakers.
asciilifeform: and there was -- apparently -- no one left to say 'eh..no, you weren't there, and did ~0'
asciilifeform: the lulzy bit re esr is that he appointed himself 'elder' in 1980s! of an atlantis that had by that time long ago sunk deep beneath the sea (mit)
