verisimilitude: So some Internet-connected Western Digital hard drives have been remotely wiped.
verisimilitude: I like seeing the idiots on Hacker News argue that this is fine, because writing software that works is really hard, and so practically impossible.
verisimilitude: I have at least three seperate backups of anything I can't just redownload.
verisimilitude: Oh, this isn't dulapnet.
verisimilitude: On the topic of write-only media, I don't see why CD and Blu-ray aren't more popular. It seems clear an HDD or SSD with physical protection isn't becoming widely-available anytime soon.
verisimilitude: Passive media seem less popular because of their advantages, though, since that makes them hard to subvert.
verisimilitude: I've just been introduced to the idea of a tape drive which only traverses the tape one-way; what a nice additional idea.
asciilifeform: verisimilitude: i prefer 'mitsui' gold cd/dvd-r for long-term backups
asciilifeform: at one time used tapes.
asciilifeform: verisimilitude: people who 'all my valuable data lives on a 100$ konsoomer shitware plugged into the net' are, if anything, ~insufficiently~ abused, their hdds oughta be formatted erry week, until they learn
asciilifeform: !w poll
watchglass: Polling 16 nodes...
watchglass: 84.16.46.130:8333 : Could not connect!
watchglass: 185.163.46.29:8333 : Could not connect!
watchglass: 205.134.172.4:8333 : (172-4.core.ai.net) Alive: (0.022s) V=70001 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.7.0.1/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=688799
watchglass: 205.134.172.6:8333 : (172-6.core.ai.net) Alive: (0.082s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=688799
watchglass: 54.39.156.171:8333 : (ns562940.ip-54-39-156.net) Alive: (0.113s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=688799
watchglass: 108.31.170.100:8333 : (pool-108-31-170-100.washdc.fios.verizon.net) Alive: (0.177s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=688799 (Operator: asciilifeform)
watchglass: 205.134.172.28:8333 : Alive: (0.088s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Return Addr=0.0.0.0:8333 Blocks=688799 (Operator: whaack)
watchglass: 208.94.240.42:8333 : Alive: (0.100s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=688799
watchglass: 143.202.160.10:8333 : Alive: (0.233s) V=70001 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.7.0.1/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=688799
watchglass: 176.9.59.199:8333 : (static.199.59.9.176.clients.your-server.de) Alive: (0.274s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=412055 (Operator: jurov)
watchglass: 54.38.94.63:8333 : (ns3140226.ip-54-38-94.eu) Alive: (0.259s) V=88888 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.8.88.88/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=688776
watchglass: 185.85.38.54:8333 : (tlapnet-38-54.cust.tlapnet.cz) Alive: (0.234s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=688799
watchglass: 213.109.238.156:8333 : Alive: (0.332s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=688799
watchglass: 103.36.92.112:8333 : (terebe.ns01.net) Alive: (0.611s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=688799
watchglass: 192.151.158.26:8333 : Alive: (0.319s) V=70001 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.7.0.1/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=688799
watchglass: 205.134.172.26:8333 : Busy? (No answer in 100 sec.)
verisimilitude: That's a good perspective. Right now, it's a freak accident; were that not the case, they'd change.
asciilifeform: 'accident' aint the word here.
verisimilitude: I meant from their perspective.
signpost: yep, I also use archive-grade cd/dvd plus crypto quite a bit.
magnus: thought I'd add to the above convo: magneto-optical media is still serviceable, tho far less common these days
magnus: the consumer grade 640mb disks are decent enough; older SCSI interfaces are rather slow by todays standards, tho...
asciilifeform pictures backing up a current-day 8TB RAID to phase-change disk
asciilifeform actually owned such a drive at one time
magnus: you'll know the backup is finished when your bleached bones are cemented into the catacombs, lol...
magnus: I've owned several Fujitsu MO drives... really a shame they ceased all production
magnus: for small-scale backups, did not mind the additional wait... the the gains in reliability
magnus: *in xchange for the...
magnus: however, even MO disks were not immune to eventual delamination, tho faired better in practice than CD/DVD media
magnus: fwiw, I still have some ancient magnetic bubble memory media that is still readable... perhaps 25-30 years old now
magnus: as far as I know, info about the long-term stability of the circular domains (that hold the data) is either unpublished or unknown...
asciilifeform: magnus: i have 1980s EPROMs that still 100% readable and pass checksum. (and hold what i wrote to'em ~decade ago 100%, as well)
asciilifeform: notbad backup medium if yer data is a coupla kB. (and use foil sticker.)
asciilifeform: antifuse PROMs -- even better, in this respect. but go and find one today.
dulapbot: (trilema) 2018-05-17 asciilifeform: all 'otp roms' sold today are actually eproms with the write leg tied to ground.
magnus: yeah, bubble memory was not much better... max sizes sold were ~1024kb, iirc
asciilifeform: magnus: you can still get 'new-old stock' sov.made bubble modules on ebay
magnus: ah, I believe this...
asciilifeform: problem is, slooow (it's essentially a magnetic tape with clever mechanism to 'walk' the contents w/out motor)
magnus: iirc, it was also used in machine shops and for mil applications...
magnus: yes, that is a good description... tiny walls on a garnet substrate...
asciilifeform: magnus: still king, iirc, in ru.mil. replaced magnetic core memories
magnus: nice, I believe the US is still using it was well (or did in 80s/90s era hardware)
asciilifeform: laughs at emp, was among the appeals
magnus: yep
magnus: also, no limitations on wear, so can be rewritten indefinitely..
asciilifeform: aha
asciilifeform: unlikely that anything more perfect for storing e.g coordinates of target in icbm -- will be devised
magnus: seems true, unless some sort of MEMs-like creation springs into existance...
asciilifeform: the good, old stuff -- ~works~
magnus: exactly
asciilifeform: and doesn't require micro-anything for its manufacture
magnus: maybe some new tech will be deployed on upcoming venus missions (from multiple countries)
magnus: the crazy specs might result in new-ish designs and materials being used...
asciilifeform: magnus: if, say, the recent israeli moon lander is anything to go by -- these will run on java , divide by zero, and crash into first solid object they pass by
magnus: hahaha!
magnus: indeed
magnus: sadly, prolly likely
magnus: the whole delamination question had me wondering whether all VLSI components are in a state of sin, condemned to eventually fail (owing to variable thermal expansion and time)
asciilifeform: magnus: solder joins (esp. the envirowhiner-imposed pb-free type) fail first.
asciilifeform: 100% of gpu failure, for instance.
magnus: ah, yes...
magnus: esp. for that ^
asciilifeform: (and reason why ~empty~ box from e.g. 'radeon' goes for 200-300$ on 'ebay' atm. scammers stuff 'mined out' cards in'em and resell as 'barely used')
dulapbot: Logged on 2021-05-03 14:31:31 asciilifeform: meanwhile, in unrelated lulz : given 'gpu shortage of 2021', prices 2-3x (or moar) vs 'peacetime' commonplace. and nao hilarious scamology : EMPTY BOXES from videocard selling for coupla hundy $ !
asciilifeform: ... whereas e.g. my 1994 'trident' still worx.
verisimilitude: How does FPGA fabrication fare here; I'll suppose there be no difference.
magnus: lol, yep... still have a few matrox PCI cards hiding in the closet... (and somewhere, VLB card)
asciilifeform: if bga + pb-free + any palpable, to touch, thermal swing -- will fail
magnus: it's difficult to imagine a way out of this conundrum... may not be one, realistically...
asciilifeform: depends what count as 'out'.
magnus: can have component-level tech if willing to sacrifice all performance for most things (farm everything else out to customized ASICs, etc)
verisimilitude: Won't the latest and greatest methods eventually become cheaper and perhaps even accessible to more than three companies?
magnus: but, it sure does paint a dismal path...
verisimilitude: At least, perhaps.
asciilifeform: magnus: twist: 2um is more than enuff if you expurgate the bloat with fire and sword.
verisimilitude: Then yes.
magnus: ah, hmmm...
verisimilitude: Tell me, asciilifeform, surely even that ``huge'' method is enough to discard with the von Neumann design, not being ``transistor-starved'', right?
asciilifeform: verisimilitude: elaborate?
verisimilitude: Surely 2um provides enough transistors for interesting alternative designs, right?
asciilifeform: verisimilitude: well, bolix ivory was a 2um. approx. on par, transistorwise, w/ i486.
verisimilitude: Alright.
verisimilitude: Also, why is it called Bolix here?
asciilifeform: verisimilitude: iirc was called so by contemporaries in src and wherever else needed to be concise. catchy.
asciilifeform: smbx aka symbolics inc.
verisimilitude: Alright.
magnus: okay, the harris rtx 2000 (80s era) might fit 2um...
magnus: (was looking up process tech for older chips)
magnus: so, plenty of useable designs there, and overall more physically reliable (for decades, at least)
magnus: component will not be knocked out by a single cosmic ray strike, anyhow...
verisimilitude: Also, aren't there still many fabricators capable of delivering such?
asciilifeform: designs aint the problem, magnus .
magnus: well, tool chain will always be a limiting prob until it costs/fits in your workroom...
asciilifeform: 'the indian elephant can devour, in one day, 100kg of hay, 50kg of carrots, 30kg of cabbage, 40kg of bread, etc' 'really, is it true, that this elephant eats so much?' 'as for eating, he sure would if he could, but who will let him!'
magnus: lol
asciilifeform: fat lotta good it does to talk about whether manufacturers can deliver x,y,z
magnus: thus, even if 2um is sufficient, the inability to home-fab (ever) pretty much kills the possibility?
asciilifeform: when you don't even have a paltry decamillion$ to pay for the most basic lsi
magnus: sure
magnus: so, component-level designs or nothing, essentially...
verisimilitude: Explain, magnus.
dulapbot: Logged on 2020-08-22 14:14:33 gregorynyssa: asciilifeform: suppose we don't use any FPGA. suppose you directly owned a fabrication-facility and could perform your own runs on whim. how low does the process-width have to be, for it to be worth your time?
magnus: nothing prevents any of us from cobbling together a 'computer' from basic logic chips and a box of macroscopic parts... but performance will be terrible on every metric...
verisimilitude: Why yes I would prefer the cabbage over the hay, asciilifeform.
asciilifeform: magnus: it is considerably easier to scavenge a working, ~eternal late'80s-early'90s comp, than to build 'refrigerator of 74xxx'+its air conditioner+etc
magnus: true
magnus: and yet, the ability (at least) to create working item from scratch is invaluable... esp. once all archaelogical items are either in museums or melted down...
asciilifeform does not see a point to 74xxx wankage, aside from historical reenactment or simple (handful of parts) circuit
asciilifeform: magnus: i seriously rec walking the log, the 'fab question' came up regularly, just about erry yr
verisimilitude: So what, some alternative computing medium be the better hope?
asciilifeform: verisimilitude: hope of what?
verisimilitude: Hope is evil, anyway.
magnus: I would do -anything- to avoid that but... it may come down to that eventually... as all useable hardware will be fritz'd in one way or another...
magnus: verisimilitude: there is no hope, actually...
verisimilitude: This is the hope of actually owning the computer.
asciilifeform: 1st step is to stop being own worst enemy, and stop throwing away perfectly working irons from era when shit worked.
verisimilitude: So the zeroeth step is actually getting those.
asciilifeform: verisimilitude: you know those 32core ecc ram 'dulap' opterons i offer customers at my isp ?
asciilifeform: verisimilitude: well, you can get 2-3 of'em for the cost of 1 minimal crapple slabebox of current make
verisimilitude: I suppose I do well enough.
verisimilitude: That's interesting.
asciilifeform: point being, they aint rare -- yet
verisimilitude: Perhaps I should stop playing exclusively with laptops.
verisimilitude: Say, on this note, I saw that two large companies were facing unreliability with modern processors.
verisimilitude: They called occasionally faulty cores ``mercurial''.
verisimilitude: I agree with the idea pre and post conditions may be used to help thwart this, which reminds me of how early computers did the same, due to unreliable hardware.
magnus: heh, quite the gift for understatement if those cores are running your life support sys...
magnus: yeah, quite impressive imho how well they did with the early (60s era) kit...
magnus: even the highest spec'd parts of the time occasionally failed... so, redundancy in all critical systems was the rules of the day...
magnus: *rule
verisimilitude: In particular, I'm thinking of Alan Turing's Electronic Brain.
verisimilitude: It's bizarre I only now made the connection.
verisimilitude: Redundant checking is barbaric, but pre and post conditions are refined, I suppose.