Monthly Archives: July 2023

The Mac Pro problem

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Apple seems to have painted themselves into a corner by being perfectly reasonable. You see, they recently updated the Mac Pro tower, and it turned out to be the Mac Studio Ultra in a bigger box. The pci-e slots inside are barely of any use since GPUs are not supported, and the machine is inherently un-expandable; you can’t add more RAM, for instance. So, while this machine is extremely powerful, it’s by no means an open-ended system you can expand to fit your extreme workflow – for instance, trying to do fluid dynamics simulations or something. So, basically, the biggest Mac is great at doing normal Mac things, such as movies and audio, but it doesn’t extend into high-end scientific or engineering workflows. Is that a problem? I don’t think so, and let me explain why.

What Apple did right was design a range of machines that covers their professional and prosumer user base; people who make videos in Final Cut, make music in Logic Pro, or edit photos in Lightroom and Photoshop. They made excellent laptop range that covers everything from writing articles and checking Twitter in Starbucks, to the most complex software design, or audio, video and photography work. Then they made a desktop range that covers all of that and extends deeply into professional studio use, and I don’t think they left even a fraction of their traditional or potential user base uncovered. Heck, even I got a desktop Mac, which I resisted so far because all they had either came built into a display, overheated under load or cost extreme money while offering no benefits over what I had. The drawback of the current Mac lineup is that it doesn’t extend endlessly, and some, like Linus, will whine over that, while I might offer a more constructive approach.

You see, there’s only as much you can expect a desktop machine to do, and M2 Ultra actually exceeds this expectation by far. In order to exceed this ceiling, Apple would have to completely redesign the system that’s perfectly good for 99.9999% of their user base, in order to cater to the affectations of those who actually need a supercomputing cluster but aren’t technologically savvy enough to realize it. In order for Apple to try to artificially meet this almost non-existing demand, they would have to create a completely new architecture centered around a passive bus motherboard and Max/Ultra daughterboard cards that connect over this bus the way two Max chips are edge-connected to form the Ultra; in essence, combine the infinity fabric and PCIe technologies and make it work. The engineering overhead would be immense, and they would only sell a handful of those machines because the demand at such a high-end of computational needs is very slim.

Alternatively, those who actually want to perform complex computations should make their software cluster-friendly (basically, dump workload packages onto a NAS stack, and have the cluster nodes run workload processors that pop packages from the workload stack, process them and push them onto a result stack, and when that is done, have some script go through the results, check their integrity and assemble it all into the end product). Then you could have multiple Mac Mini or Studio devices connected to the LAN, processing the work you give them, and you could extend this infinitely, and the demands on an individual node would be such that you could optimize it for cost-effectiveness by buying the base Mac Mini or Mini Pro devices by the truckload. This kind of work is usually done on Linux nodes, but a modern Mac is so power-efficient that it has genuine advantages for cluster applications.

So, basically, the Mac lineup is truly powerful enough, and it allows for open-ended design for those who need endless computational power; it’s just not open-ended inside a single chassis, which is only a problem if you have unrealistic expectations, or a workflow that is poorly designed, by not breaking down the job into manageable components. Honestly, I could write such a cluster setup myself in less time than it would take me to start whining about lack of power and tasks taking too long.

Why Apple and not Linux?

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I am aware of all the problems with America weaponizing IT by spying, withholding access to technology to those who defy them, and so on. So, why did I not migrate away from American technology, for instance by migrating everything to Linux?

I considered it, but eventually concluded that it wouldn’t solve anything, and would just make things difficult for me in the time before everything collapses anyway.

Let me show you my line of thinking.

I live in Croatia, which is an American vassal state. The government, police, military, courts and news/media are tightly controlled by America. In a best case scenario, I could have a computer that is not controlled by America, but the computer is the least of my problems if they really want to deal with me, as the example of Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan illustrates. They, too, lived in an American vassal state and thought they could be independent, sovereign individuals, and they were proven wrong quite easily. I am perfectly aware that the Americans can at any time pay or pressure any number of local corrupt bastards to plant fake evidence, purchase fake witnesses and lock me up indefinitely on fake charges, if they really found me a threat. They don’t, because I don’t have a significant audience, but they could. Migrating my computers and phone to Linux would not solve any of those issues. If doing it would actually contribute to my safety from any kind of oppression, I would have done it already.

The second argument is that having a technological setup that depends on being able to log in to a cloud service in America might make it all defunct if something happened to either America or the Internet. If that happened, I guess I would have bigger things to deal with than the computer, but I do, in fact, always have alternatives. I have an old laptop with Linux/Windows dual boot, everything on it is up to date, and I can open it at any time, boot into Linux and, in case Microsoft and Apple do some kind of a lock-out, I can still go online and access everything. It’s not like I would have to learn Linux from scratch or anything. I also have a spare Xiaomi smartphone with a spare SIM card, in case my primary phone ceases to function. My main worry in case of a major Apple/Microsoft denial of service is inability to contact people or perform basic tasks, such as the access to Internet banking, mail, ssh, web and so on.

The third argument is that the operating system is actually the least of my concerns, as all hardware seems to be designed with back doors in mind, such as the Intel management engine (ME), which is an ARM core on every modern Intel CPU, that listens to the ethernet port and seems to be designed to wake the computer up on remote command, and perform tasks below anything the user can see or control. Above that is the UEFI/BIOS, which is also proprietary technology that does who knows what, and only then we get to the operating system. The entire palimpsest of technology is so complicated and convoluted that I freely admit inability to secure my computer infrastructure in any meaningful way, because the American back doors are installed in every aspect of the infrastructure. It’s as if the primary purpose of it all was to extend American power and influence, and everything else, such as utility, was a secondary concern, or merely a way to market it. The way they went nuts when Huawei started to out-compete them in selling infrastructure was telling; basically, they couldn’t order the Chinese to install all the back doors and spying tools they install through the American/Western/vassal companies, and every Huawei infrastructural device meant loss of control for America.

So, I could dedicate quite a bit of my personal time and effort to attempts of securing my personal IT sphere, and it would all probably be for naught, so I shrugged and decided not to even try – instead, I decided to secure my money by keeping it almost completely out of the state/bank system, keeping connected just enough to make it easy for me to pay the bills and purchase goods and services in the system before it all fails. You see, there are several levels of true sovereignty. The first is the level of physical power and invulnerability. The second level is money and influence. The third level is all the unimportant stuff people fuss about. I don’t have anything to protect me against the first-level threats. I have enough money on the second level to make me a hard target; close my bank account and I’ll laugh. Try to cancel my credit cards and you’ll find out I don’t have any. Try to make me default on my loans and see I don’t have loans, I do everything cash. I have debit cards because I have to pay for the online stuff, and that would be a problem. I do use communal infrastructure, like water and electricity, and I’m sensitive to interruptions there. I also buy food, so I’m sensitive to interruptions in supply. As you can see, I thought things through and decided that computers are a luxury that works in the present-day environment, which is quite fragile, and it might all blow up at some point, in which case I am prepared to deal with all kinds of contingencies, but migrating to Linux? Yeah, if in some unlikely case in a world without Internet and American services I need computers, I am sure I will be able to patch something together well enough to serve the purpose, but I am more concerned with water, electricity, food, antibiotics and so on. Essentially, it’s a non-issue.

A constructive approach

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There is, of course, a legitimate undertone to all that positivity/negativity talk, and it’s the same thing Jesus mentioned in his “log in eye” parable – basically, stop finding faults with others, because other than signalling your own supposed virtue, it only makes other people feel bad and accomplishes nothing good or useful.

This is a very real issue that needs to be addressed, especially in the age of the Internet and the social media, where everybody tries to make themselves artificially important by making loud and extreme claims that are meant to elevate their voice above the noise floor, and as a result, there’s a lot of hysterical shrieking about every conceivable topic, and any measurable effect of it all is markedly negative. Since it is not a new phenomenon, somebody already noticed it and, basically, stated that one should mind their own abundant flaws before addressing those around him, because, although everybody will always claim that there are more important issues in the world than fixing their own problems, this has always ever been but a way to avoid dealing with one’s own issues. Yeah, there’s plagues and war and climate change and pollution and what not, and there always will be, but how about you learn how to be polite, useful, responsible and honest first, instead of yelling about global warming and accomplishing nothing, eh? The world is perpetually unfixable and, by the way, it’s of no concern to you. Your job is to have a good relationship with God, and then externalize this by being God’s presence in the world, for the benefit of others. Nothing else matters.

Also, in dealings with others, if you have nothing constructive to say or do, it might be best to at least avoid doing harm, and the best way to do that is not to disturb people with critical opinions nobody asked for. Essentially, you need to understand that criticism comes with responsibility, because if you’re observing a problem, criticism must exist in the context of willingness to engage in solving it. If you don’t care enough to engage yourself in solving the problem, it’s obviously something you should not concern yourself with and remaining silent and minding your own business might be the best course for you. For instance, if you observe signs of poverty in your neighbour or a relative, the constructive way to approach it would be to tactfully ask if there’s a problem, and if there’s something you can do to help. Criticising or gossiping is neither constructive nor helpful, and you might instead take a big cup of STFU.

This is what someone probably meant by “staying positive” and “avoiding negativity”; basically, keep your nose out of other people’s business unless you are there to offer help. However, like all things, it was generalised way out of its area of usefulness, and caused a different set of problems.

Emotional control

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The only way to control your emotions is to own them. Taking responsibility is the first and the most important thing about it. If you say “person x made me feel this way”, “the weather made me feel this way”, “the world situation made me feel this way”, you are demonstrating no responsibility for your emotions, and, as a result, you have no control.

The first thing you need to do in order to turn off an emotion, is to make it stronger. Amplify it, be in it completely. Ooops, apparently you’re not a mere victim of things that make you feel this or that way, because you can obviously crank it up. Now that you see that you have control over it, observe it from a distance. This makes you, the observer, separate from the emotion, and you can see it wind down.

That’s all you need to start. Sure, there’s more – perceiving the connection between thoughts, emotions and spiritual energy, learning the vipassana or inner space, learning how to use Kundalini up-stream kriya in order to release emotional energy without being overwhelmed by it, and so on, but what you need to start is the understanding that you in fact keep your emotions rolling for long after they would have naturally wound down, and if you can do that, you in fact have control. It’s just that you’re doing a poor job, and there’s room for improvement the size of a universe.

Principles

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I was just thinking about the reason why my religious opinions differ so much from the norm, and why I actually attained results in this sphere, unlike all those who might see my opinions as unpalatable.

You see, it’s very simple. It’s just that I had scientific training and adhered to the basic principles of sound engineering. So, let me try to write those down the best I can.

– Assume that the way physics explains the world reveals something fundamental that extends to spirituality; for instance, that high-level phenomena can be broken down, the way apples and oranges can be broken down to the fundamental particles, none of which have essence of apple and orange among them;

– Assume that experimentation and iteration along paths that show results are the way to go; also, assume that paths that show bad results, or no results at all, can be safely discarded unless there are very strong reasons to insist;

– Assume that people who did this before have relevant things to say, unless proven otherwise by direct experimentation and experience;

– Don’t try to have a working theory ahead of time. It is preferable to have good skill and poor understanding. People could shoot arrows at distant targets with great precision long before they had a strong theory of kinetic energy and gravity. It’s preferable to have experience of God without understanding what God actually is, to having all kinds of theology without experience. Don’t try to enforce elegance and parsimony ahead of time; rather, allow reality to reveal itself, however convoluted, inelegant, contradictory or whatever else it might appear to be. Gather facts first; everything else is a luxury. Poor and inelegant understanding of reality is preferable to having none whatsoever, or to having elegant illusions and falsehoods that explain everything.

– Test ideas by trying to imagine all kinds of ways in which they are wrong. If this doesn’t produce any immediately obvious downsides to the idea, then you’re likely on to something, and this path is worth exploring further.

– Believe in things that were revealed in the higher states of consciousness even when you are in a normal or reduced state of consciousness where evidence for it isn’t readily available, and in fact everything seems to contradict it. Essentially, if you’ve been to the Moon, believe you have been, even if you can’t repeat the experience because the funding for the Moon missions has been cut.

There’s probably more, but this is enough to demonstrate the general direction I was taking in my thinking. It’s less rigid thinking that what would pass for scientific these days, but it’s basically a practical application of scientific method and sound engineering principles, moderated and softened by the necessities imposed by the nature of the field of study.