AMD EPYC Rome 2P Will Have 128-160 PCIe Gen4 Lanes and a Bonus - <AUTHOR> https://www.servethehome.com/why-amd-epyc-rome-2p-will-have-128-160-pcie-gen4-lanes-and-a-bonus/ <comment><USER2> Can someone enlighten me with some information about application requiring the full 16x PCIe gen4 bandwidth per slot (or 32x gen3 for that matter)? I can imagine some HPC GPU solutions but other than that what requires the thoughput?

There is obviously a market for this as both giants are building platforms.

<comment><USER3> Off the top of my head this would be great for massive enterprise VDI installations and game streaming services (which is just VDI by another name), ML, AI applications, and NVMe storage.

Personally, this will be good for me because everything I do is bandwidth- starved.

I'm not a radar scientist but I am a systems engineer supporting radar scientists working on air- and space-based Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems. We use GPUs, FPGAs, and other accelerators to generate images from SAR data.

Here's an "old and busted" image made from SAR data: [https://hackadaycom.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/image- from-s...](https://hackadaycom.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/image-from-sandias- system.png)

In 2002, it took more than 24 hours to generate a single low-resolution picture from low-bandwidth SAR data on a $1.5 million Sunfire 15K cluster with 70-ish SPARC CPUs. Today, on a single 3U server with two Xeons and four Tesla V100s it takes about 15 seconds-- and that's an extremely high resolution image from very high data rate SAR data.

But our goal is real-time VIDEO from SAR data, so everything needs to be faster. Network speeds need to be faster, CPUs need to be faster, GPUs need to be faster and we need more of them, storage needs to be faster, everything needs to be faster.

I could see a 3/4U box with 16+ 16x PCIe slots each stuffed with a 1-slot GPU with an NVMe (4x PCIe lanes each!) storage array and a couple of 100GBe dual- port NICs blasting through SAR data like a hungry hungry hippo.

As far as PCIe lanes go, if I have a 24-drive NVMe array that's 96 PCIe lanes all by itself.

<comment><USER4> Hmmm, how many radar pulses need to hit a target to generate video? Sounds potentially irradating... ;)

eg: _WARNING_ Don't attempt to image living creatures _WARNING_

<comment><USER5> RADAR typically uses microwaves, non-ionizing. Over this area it's bound to be a terribly, terribly small amount of exposure.

<comment><USER4> Ahhh, no worries.

Just remembering a friend recently telling me about someone who was killed at a work place. Apparently that person walked in front of the main radar array (defense related I think) while it was in operation and just dropped dead instantly. :(

<comment><USER6> At the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago, Westinghouse demonstrated a 10-kilowatt shortwave radio transmitter that cooked steaks and potatoes between two metal plates [1]. In 1946 a Raytheon engineer named Robert Spencer _"...was visiting a lab where magnetrons, the power tubes of radar sets, were being tested. Suddenly, he felt a peanut bar start to cook in his pocket. Other scientists had noticed this phenomenon, but Spencer itched to know more about it. He sent a boy out for a package of popcorn. When he held it near a magnetron, popcorn exploded all over the lab. Next morning he brought in a kettle, cut a hole in the side and put an uncooked egg (in its shell) into the pot. Then he moved a magnetron against the hole and turned on the juice. A sceptical engineer peeked over the top of the pot just in time to catch a face-full of cooked egg. The reason? The yolk cooked faster than the outside, causing the egg to burst..."_ [2]. This discovery led to a patent application for "the use of microwaves to heat food", a concept which was eventually realised in the "Raytheon RadaRange" series of microwave ovens [3].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven#/media/File:Coo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven#/media/File:Cooking_with_radio_waves_- _Chicago_Worlds_Fair_1933.jpg)

[2] [https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/space-age/a-brief- his...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/space-age/a-brief-history-of- the-microwave-oven)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven#/media/File:NS_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven#/media/File:NS_Savannah_microwave_oven_MD8.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >why the AMD EPYC "Rome" generation will _likely_ see 160x PCIe Gen4 lanes plus likely additional lane(s) for a necessary function.

Emphasis mine. This seems to be pure speculation, not 'news'.

<comment> Patrick-STH Likely is there because it requires that AMD's partners release servers in this configuration, and those servers are unreleased. In theory, something during validation could prevent it or partners could decide not to release this configuration (which are unlikely but still possible.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Meanwhile i9 9900k still has only 16 3.0 lanes ...

<comment><USER9> AMD's been adding more PCIe lanes across their hardware lineup than Intel has to be sure, but EPYC is server-class stuff with 64 cores to a chip. The Ryzen 2 2700X only has 20 lanes for 8 cores.

<comment><USER10> I don't watch this as closely as a lot of people, but my impression is that Intel has been rationing lanes as one way to segment their market, and AMD noticed they can easily mess with that strategy.

I spent significantly more for the CPU on a personal build a few years ago because I needed 40 lanes instead of 24. I'm all for AMD messing with it.

<comment><USER11> Intel segments the market across every single facet they can find and that won't outright keep people from buying their stuff. Hyperthreading, ECC memory (I ranted about how _insane_ this is before, on numerous occasions), I/O options, GPU options, cache size, TDP, network and of course socket compatibility (where Intel figured out that not only can they sell you a new CPU with 0-5 % more performance every two years, but that they can also make you buy a new board to go with that just by adding or removing a couple ground pins).

And Intel got away with it because they had no competition. Monopolies are always very, very bad for consumers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Patrick-STH Just added a quick note. Everyone in the industry that contacted me today about this seems to be calling it WAFL or something that sounds like "Waffle" for the extra bonus PCIe lanes.</comment>


The Itch - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all

<comment><USER2> I don't mean this in an insensitive way, but I started feeling itchy just reading this. Yikes.

</comment><comment><USER3> Talk about a cliff hanger. I read a book about the plasticity of the brain, and part of it was about phantom pain and the mirror box. Are there still doctors and psychologists that don't know about these successful experiments?

</comment><comment><USER4> I remember reading this a few years ago. I wonder if there have been any updates?</comment>


Linux kernel security fixes spotted before release by mailing list data mining - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/04/linux_kernel_flaws/ <comment><USER2> > "The existence of such channels, shows that trusted individuals can easily > infiltrate the project, and secretly introduce malicious artifacts"

That is like saying that trusted code can easily do malicious things. Of course trusted people can do bad things, that's why you have to trust them. Even so, source control history means that a trusted person should be found out if they introduce malicious artifacts.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Linux kernel patches regularly get added in a way that bypasses public review and discussion, a practice that opens at least a theoretical risk of backdoored code"

I wonder about how theoretical this risk of backdoored code is and what kind of backdoors the authors envision.

Security patches are discussed in private by some, if not most, of the same technically capable people who would otherwise discuss the patches on public mailing lists (like LKML).

After the code is committed, it is available for everyone to see and discuss. All new code, including "backdoored code" would also get visibility and attention.

Even if anyone can see the discussion on LKML it does not mean all those people actively participate in the discussion, or even review the code.

<comment><USER4> There's really no reason to believe in the provenance of any of the code in the Linux kernel. People mail around patchsets, claim they are "signed off by" someone, and they get patched into various trees and merged here and there, and eventually wind up in Linus's tree. It has all of the safety of email, which is to say none at all. Compared to code review practices at software companies, where diffs are reviewed and approved by identities authenticated and authorized by secure computer systems, the linux kernel system is a complete joke.

<comment><USER5> Oh, come on, the code review process at most companies is fairly easy to bypass. Even at the company I'm sure you're going to bring up I would seriously doubt it wouldn't be possible to slip something into a long patch, even though I'm sure there are some sort of guidelines on who and how many people should be reviewing things.

<comment><USER6> Ive said this before on here, but I'm 95% sure I could find two or three on my team and say "hey I have a simple fix for X, needs to go in quick, can I tag you in it?", and they would rubber stamp it knowing it comes from me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From the underlying paper there are several interesting snippets [https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.01694.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.01694.pdf)

> while maintainers are aware of that they sometimes intentionally bypass the > process, they were surprised of the magnitude of unreviewed patches

Would love to see an analysis of these changes - are they just simple merge style fixes or rearrangements, or more significant?

And then there is the hard to define distinction between a security bug and a normal bug, which is then mixed into the the incredible productivity and pace of kernel development:

> Koah-Hartman argues that only a small fraction of Linux kernel security > fixes are assigned to CVE entries. From 2006-2018, 1005 CVEs were assigned > to the kernel. He argues that, on average, bugs with CVE entries are 100 > days fixed in mainline before they get a CVE assigned.

Seems there is long lag between the bug being introduced and the exploit discovered, so there must be many potential security exploits that are never discovered before they are fixed - and so are not practically exploitable as they never get into downstream distribution kernels.

</comment><comment><USER8> Boffins ? I haven't realized theregister employs such classy people as Thomas Claburn.

<comment><USER9> The word "boffin" is a colloquial British term for a smart person (conjuring up an image of someone in a white lab coat and glasses) and is used in an affectionate way. The British version of TheReg (.co.uk) often refers to boffins in this way. It's probable that this piece was written by the British team and then reposted to the US site.

<comment><USER8> It's not affectionate, it's condescending - much like 'geek' when used unironically and not by geeks to refer to themselves.</comment></comment></comment>


Ace Parking says Uber, Lyft have cut parking business up to 50% in some venues - <AUTHOR> http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/growth-development/sd-fi-ace-parking-uber-lyft-competition-20180222-story.html <comment><AUTHOR> File under "good news:" [https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking- Updated/dp/193...](https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking- Updated/dp/193236496X) . Even Ace Parking is likely implicitly subsidized by zoning codes.</comment>


How Gusto Built Scalable Hiring Practices Rooted in Tradition - <AUTHOR> http://firstround.com/review/how-gusto-built-scalable-hiring-practices-rooted-in-tradition/ <comment><USER2> My 2c as a former Gusto employee:

The watermelon interview was no joke and not a rubber stamp. I wasn't on the watermelon crew but it was a real badge of honor at Gusto to "represent" Gusto's values.

When we hired 200+ people from 2015-2016 across two offices, the watermelon interview was critical to make sure we were hiring the right culture fit Gusties.

Glad to see this covered by FRV and posted on HN.

<comment><USER3> It's not surprising that it works. It's pretty similar to how henry schein grew and kept its culture. They do the same thing in many ways, looking for compatible culture, during acquisitions as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > "service mindset, intellectual curiosity, no ego and the ability to embrace > change"

How does one evaluate a candidate fairly across these 4 traits in a 30 minute interview? This type of Cultural Fit interview seem pretty fraught with unconscious bias...

<comment><USER5> Have multiple diverse interviewers. Calibrate everyone with relatively standard questions by shadowing other interviews. Have everyone write feedback and justify their viewpoint with data from the candidate responses. Make them enter written feedback blind without talking to each other and then combine the feedback at the debrief.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Three to four members of each hiring panel join the offer call, everyone > cheers and shares anecdotes from their interviews

I'm always off put with that kind of «relevant only when spontaneous» formalized behavior. How is it supposed to work ? But maybe it's just a culture problem since I'm non US :) .

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm really not enjoying the corporate world's coopting of words like tradition and culture. Seems very dystopic.

<comment><USER6> Well the premise is that it should emerge naturally from the group of people, I see it as people centric and not mindless corporate execution in the works.

No question that if it comes of fashion in management, the natural aspect with fade out to a artificial «natural» process that won't work, but I don't see any worse than others awful corporate practise such as group pressured cheering or mandatory good mood.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> These First Round content marketing articles are uniformly ridiculous, yet they consistently make the HN front page.

I mean guys they are telling you to "groom watermelon farmers" with a straight face as business advice. I feel like like Mike Judge would have tossed that line out as too over the top.

<comment><USER9> They don't consistently make the HN front page, or even come close. Looks like 4 out of 30 articles in the last 8 months:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=firstround.com](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=firstround.com)</comment></comment>


Cost of Experimentation and the Evolution of Venture Capital [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/15-070_ce69055e-1e3a-4647-96c2-37e474f48914.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Abstract: "We study how technological shocks to the cost of starting new businesses have led the venture capital model to adapt in fundamental ways over the prior decade. We both document and provide a framework to understand the changes in the investment strategy of VCs in recent years - an increased prevalence of a "spray and pray" investment approach - where investors provide a little funding and limited governance to an increased number of startups that they are more likely to abandon, but where initial experiments significantly inform beliefs about the future potential of the venture. This adaptation and related entry by new financial intermediaries has led to a disproportionate rise in innovations where information on future prospects is revealed quickly and cheaply, and reduced the relative share of innovation in complex technologies where initial experiments cost more and reveal less."</comment>


Driverless cars could offer governments new forms of control - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/driverless-cars-travel-technology-government-control-autonomous-cars-a8413301.html <comment><USER2> I'm just wondering how this will affect motor sports, movies, and video games. Will people that never get behind the wheel of a car feel like cars are anything exciting? Will games like forza or need for speed lose their appeal? Will car chase scenes feel out of place in action movies?

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89X-Driver](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89X-Driver)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Two related possibilities that the article does not mention:

Third parties may be able to gain control of your car and:

1 - drive it to where they (not you) want it to go.

2 - crash it.

We may be nearing the end of the era of largely independent and free movement for most of humanity.</comment>


Show HN: DuckDuckSometimes – Redirect some of your Google searches to DuckDuckGo - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/alexandersideris/duck-duck-sometimes <comment><USER2> Now I wish there was a DuckDuckDiff to show me both results merged together.</comment>


Ask HN: What once useful product/services have you stopped using? - <AUTHOR> Silicon Valley touts that products need to be significantly better, that founder should "build something people want." I've noticed that over the past 4-5 years, a lot of products/services I once considered essential have completely dropped from my life. On occasion, a better alternative does indeed come along, displacing the old one. Mostly though, my behavior/interest changed. I want more control and enjoyment of my time, money, health, and relationships with fewer complexities, and more often than not that means removing products/services from my life rather than adding them. It means consolidating services (a single grocery store, a single media platform, a single file storage service) to minimize management of competing products/services. It means realizing that "fewer" (or even "nothing") is often the best option out there.<p>Or it could mean my needs changed and I simply haven't found what the next compelling product is. <comment><AUTHOR> _Dropbox_ \- After two years of having over 20gb of free space, my university campus cup reward expired (people got free space based on the # of students at their university who signed up). I went down to < 3gb overnight and didn't want to pay for what I once had. This was by far the worst marketing stunt ever -- a 2 year "free trial" is not a sampler of a paid plan, it became the expected free plan.

Also, I was already using Google Drive since Docs/Sheets had already replaced MS Office. Don't need two services that do the same thing, especially when Dropbox has made no noticeable updates to its service in years.

 _Gym Memberships + Workout Classes_ \- I used to be in a gym for 7-8 hours/week for years, but now I can't stand it. Realized I can get a comparably effective workout doing calisthenics at a local park while breathing fresh air and looking at the sunset and mountains.

 _Mobile Games_ \- If I only have a limited amount of time on entertainment, I'm only going to play the best stuff out there.

 _Kindle /Ebooks_ \- I discovered the library. Massive selection of free (well, tax-supported) physical books

 _Twitter_ \- Used to check it 5x/day, but got no utility out of it aside from a few transient, impersonal messages to a handful of VCs, founders, and journalists. Deleted my account, never looked back.

 _Facebook_ \- Socializing online using artifical interactions ("like", "share", one line comments) made me feel less connected with my friends/family. I still use their IM service from desktops, but refused to install messenger on my phone

 _Cable TV_ \- Watching TV is incredibly frustrating with ads every 5 minutes.

 _Dedicated News Publishers_ \- Used to subscribe to the NY Times, WSJ, Time, Atlantic Monthly, Scientific American, and the Economist. Although those publishers still have great content, I'd rather read what the internet surfaces (HN, Medium, random google searches)

 _Torrent Sites_ \- There's finally enough free or affordable quality content to make torrenting less desirable, but maybe that's just because I've had an income.

 _Retail Stores_ \- I now get all my food from Costco, Amazon (for misc spices), and farmers' markets for less. As a result, I buy fewer pre-made goods than I used to a few years ago and just cook in bulk. Far healthier and cheaper. I don't go shopping anywhere except to buy clothes every few years or medicine at a local pharmacy.

<comment><USER2> _Gym Memberships + Workout Classes - I used to be in a gym for 7-8 hours /week for years, but now I can't stand it. Realized I can get a comparably effective workout doing calisthenics at a local park while breathing fresh air and looking at the sunset and mountains._

I had a 24 hour fitness membership and a trainer when I worked in an office but after I started working from home it made more sense to invest in a home gym. So I got some Olympic barbells and bumper plates, a squat rack, bench, resistance bands, battle ropes, medicine balls, and 2.5-55lb adjustable dumbbells. The mailman and UPS guys hated me since I ordered it all in Amazon. Much more convenient than going to a stinky gym and waiting for the rack to become free while the bros talk about what supps they're taking.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha good call. I guess its not the machinery at the gym that's the problem, but the culture, smell, and general atmosphere.

I have a (wobbly) pullup bar and a punching bag at home, though I'd need to install some bars in the yard to get an acceptable home setup.</comment></comment></comment>


Daily images of Earth taken from space - <AUTHOR> https://web.facebook.com/bluemarblebot/ <comment><USER2> I was led to believe that almost all images of the Earth were composite images. Is this still true?

<comment><USER3> I'm 99% sure that geostationary satellites (like the one in the post) give a direct image of half of the Earth.

EDIT: I just talked to my mother. She worked with meteorological satellite images downloaded directly from the satellites, since long before you can edit them with computers.

Geostationary satellites give you a picture of (almost) a half of the Earth. Polar satellites have usually a lower orbit and the image cover only some strip of the Earth in each pass.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the info!</comment></comment></comment>