Questions you want answered.

Montalban wrote:

Watching a vid about the RTX 4090 graphics card. That thing is huge. Got me thinking, ALL of the newest cards are huge and then over time that same card shrinks, and the next latest greatest card is huge again.

Does the tech really improve that quickly that today's giant 4090 graphics card can be tiny 2 years from now? Or is it a marketing scheme where they COULD make the thing smaller but then people might not feel like they got enough machine for the high price?

To date, yes. The history of semiconductor fabrication from the '70s up to now has largely been defined by the shrinking of the manufacturing process. Every few years, chip manufacturing would move to a new, smaller process, which allowed packing more "stuff" into a chip that takes up the same amount of physical space.

There are concerns, however, that we are starting to approach the limits of this progress. We're starting to reach processes so small that quantum effects begin factoring in. There's simply physical limits. At some point, you just can't shrink things any more.

It's long been expected that the process shrinking gravy train is coming to an end, and with it, the routine generation-over-generation compute performance gains we've enjoyed every 2-4 years for the past 50 years. This is the long fabled "end of Moore's Law". It will be up to other, yet-to-be-achieved breakthroughs if compute power is to continue progressing at anything resembling the rate we've come to take for granted.

Most likely, compute power growth is going to sharply level off to a much shallower rate, and our expectations for performance increases over time will have to be adjusted.

To add to Legion's comment: There's an important difference here between CPUs and GPUs.

For a long time CPUs were all single cores; multicore computing was some exotic, frightening beast that only a small minority of hardware or software developers ever worked with. Intel and (a steadily shrinking number of) other manufacturers kept improving them by making them smaller and faster. But about 20 years ago they reached the practical end of the line: they could still keep shrinking the manufacturing process, but the resulting single-core chips would run so hot they would destroy themselves. So, very much against their will, both hardware and software developers were dragged kicking and screaming into the multiprocessing world, with the typical desktop CPU becoming dual-core, then 4-core, and so on, as the manufacturers were forced to compensate for the continued shrinking of individual components by spreading the computing load over a larger physical area of silicon.

GPUs are almost the exact opposite. Where CPUs are traditionally a small number of very complex cores (ideally, from both the manufacturer's and programmer's point of view, one), a GPU is intrinsically a massively multicore thing, the more the merrier. GPU manufacturers have always been trying to cram more cores into the same space. So GPUs are more resistant to "the end of Moore's Law" - as the components on a chip keep getting smaller, replacing each core in the previous generation with several simpler ones is painful for CPU designers and users, but is exactly what the GPU industry wants.

As Legion says, the shrinkage of components has slowed in recent years but not stopped yet. Presumably we will reach a point where it turns out that each individual transistor has to be composed of some absolute minimum number of atoms. GPUs will probably be fine up to that point (then they'll just have to keep getting larger, I guess). But CPUs will have had to splinter into more and more cores until they become ... well, GPUs.

PaladinTom wrote:
Stealthpizza wrote:

I may be stuck in bed this weekend. What are the best X-Men movies?

I personally think 1, 2, 3, First Class, Days of Future Past, and Logan make a nice arc in that order.

Avoid the second two prequel movies.

I quite liked The New Mutants, but that was probably because it featured Anya Taylor-Joy with severe bangs, wearing stonewashed denim and being mean to people, which I wasn't aware was my thing until it happened.

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Anya Taylor-Joy is, to be realistic, most people's thing.

Especially portraying Magik.
I mean how is there not a ATJ led Magik series on Disney+ ?
IMAGE(https://www.entertainmentearth.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/x-men-magik-statue.jpg)

Probably because she's way to busy to commit to a series?

I am starting to think that magneto was right.

It's not anywhere near the (recent) controversy created by HL...but in a few weeks the new D&D movie will be released. Apparently the early impressions is that it's got enough mass market appeal to do well.

On the one hand, Hasbro burned a lot of goodwill with the creative licence debacle. On the other, I genuinely would like to see more stuff evocative of the 80s Conan style fantasy genre.

I'm curious if the HL controversy has got more people actively thinking about how they spend their entertainment dollars and how will this calculus be applied to this D&D movie?

Bfgp wrote:

It's not anywhere near the (recent) controversy created by HL...but in a few weeks the new D&D movie will be released. Apparently the early impressions is that it's got enough mass market appeal to do well.

I see to have lost track - who or what is HL?

Isn’t that the Hogwarts game?

Looking to replace the sugar in the tea and coffee that I'm pounding all day long for fewer calories and teeth-rot.

Anytime got a sugar- alternative that they would recommend? Not the biggest fan of Splenda, and I already have a bag of weird monkfruit sweetener in the mail to try.

My solution has been to buy better-quality coffee so that I don't need to cover the taste with sugar and cream, and systematically use a little less sugar/cream each day until I'm used to drinking it black.

Should clarify that there's nothing wrong with liking sugar and cream in your coffee any more than there's anything wrong with putting a little salt and pepper on a steak; I weaned myself off of it for the same reason as Jonman, to cut calories.

When I brew a pitcher of ice tea I use crystal light or sugar free syrup to sweeten it. The syrup I use is jordans skinny which people mainly use for coffee or time for a treat which people mainly use for snow cones.

Jonman, bear in mind that most sugar substitutes are indigestible. Which means the more you drink, the more you irritate your digestive tract. Constant diarrhea is the eventual outcome.

Not so good - Erythritol, Allulose, Xylitol, Sorbitol, Fibers (like Inulin), Unusual sugars (Tagatose).

Okay in moderation - Stevia (Reb M so no artificial sweetener is added), Monk Fruit, probably one or two others I can't think of now.

hbi2k wrote:

My solution has been to buy better-quality coffee so that I don't need to cover the taste with sugar and cream, and systematically use a little less sugar/cream each day until I'm used to drinking it black.

Been there, tried that, not a fan. Good idea, not for me.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

When I brew a pitcher of ice tea I use crystal light or sugar free syrup to sweeten it.

Yeah, I'm also going to try my wife's sugar-free vanilla syrup for my coffee.

Robear wrote:

Jonman, bear in mind that most sugar substitutes are indigestible. Which means the more you drink, the more you irritate your digestive tract. Constant diarrhea is the eventual outcome.

Not so good - Erythritol, Allulose, Xylitol, Sorbitol, Fibers (like Inulin), Unusual sugars (Tagatose).

Okay in moderation - Stevia (Reb M so no artificial sweetener is added), Monk Fruit, probably one or two others I can't think of now.

This is a good warning - thanks Ro. On the plus side, I eat a stupid amount of beans and pulses on a regular basis, so a little bit of ....um...momentum towards the diarrhea end of the spectrum might not be the worst idea

Good pull on the Stevia and monk fruit - will start there.

Stevia apparently it a vasodilator, so, lower blood pressure and ya know,

Bfgp wrote:

It's not anywhere near the (recent) controversy created by HL...but in a few weeks the new D&D movie will be released. Apparently the early impressions is that it's got enough mass market appeal to do well.

On the one hand, Hasbro burned a lot of goodwill with the creative licence debacle. On the other, I genuinely would like to see more stuff evocative of the 80s Conan style fantasy genre.

I'm curious if the HL controversy has got more people actively thinking about how they spend their entertainment dollars and how will this calculus be applied to this D&D movie?

I'm up in the air on it at the moment. A difference I've noted between the D&D OGL controversy & HL is that, at least in regards to the OGL changes, WotC/Hasbro has backtracked & said they're leaving the OGL as is. Mind you, there's still plenty of grievances to strike against Hasbro (see: Magic & the glut of card sets), but I don't think their corporate greed does as much tangible harm as JKR does w/ her megaphone.

That's my own formulations, though, your mileage may vary.

Jonman wrote:

Looking to replace the sugar in the tea and coffee that I'm pounding all day long for fewer calories and teeth-rot.

Anytime got a sugar- alternative that they would recommend? Not the biggest fan of Splenda, and I already have a bag of weird monkfruit sweetener in the mail to try.

I personally can't stand most of the artificial sweeteners out there beyond the aspartame in an occasional diet cola/soda, so when I need to cut the bitterness of a coffee or tea, I lean towards leveling it out with a creamer of some sort. Usually a 2% milk will do the trick (which also has some natural sugars in there), but if you're trying to cut most/all of the sugar/fat out of there, oat milk has served me well in that regard.

I don't really drink tea or coffee. But my wife uses agave or honey in hers I think.

Is there a word for that sad, annoyed, everything sucks sort of feeling you have when you get back from a good vacation and are required to go back to "real life" again?

d4m0 wrote:

Is there a word for that sad, annoyed, everything sucks sort of feeling you have when you get back from a good vacation and are required to go back to "real life" again?

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/5EQao28.jpg)

d4m0 wrote:

Is there a word for that sad, annoyed, everything sucks sort of feeling you have when you get back from a good vacation and are required to go back to "real life" again?

Ennui.

(Mondays)

IMAGE(https://media.tenor.com/images/c4a7dd31844402bc655b3ab5905addce/tenor.gif)

Do we have a "recommend me a game!" thread?

Because I need a new Switch recommendation, and I'm not sure if I should just toss it into the Switch thread.

There's this one, though it has been active for a while.

Eh, worth a try!

The number of serves of artificial sweetener that count as “excessive consumption” is 3. Don’t ask me how I know this. And it’s per 24h.

Mermaidpirate wrote:

The number of serves of artificial sweetener that count as “excessive consumption” is 3. Don’t ask me how I know this. And it’s per 24h.

Well, it was nice knowing you all.

*Legion* wrote:
Mermaidpirate wrote:

The number of serves of artificial sweetener that count as “excessive consumption” is 3. Don’t ask me how I know this. And it’s per 24h.

Well, it was nice knowing you all.

Three what?

3 grams?

3 kilo?

Units matter here people!!

"serves". That is, servings of beverages with artificial sweeteners.

Don't ask me how I know, either. It involves rude awakenings...