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Make Your Own Chips for Free
- bjt2n3904 4y ago> The repo must include project documentation and adhere to Google's inclusive language guidelines. See details here. "Inclusive". Ah. When I'm writing technical documentation, it has one goal: to describe the project to anyone who wants to use it. "Inclusivity" is not a part of my goalset.
- baremetal 4y agoyou will include non-technical issues in your technical documentation and you will like it?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- amluto 4y agoIt’s more like “if you want us to pay for your project, kindly refrain from the unnecessary use of wording that is offensive, in non-technically-required ways, in your documentation.” Is that really so bad?
- userbinator 4y agoThe main problem is that it's explicitly pushing a certain political agenda.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jagger27 4y agoWhere is it explicitly pushing a "certain political agenda"? Is there a footnote somewhere that says "these documentation requirements were sponsored by <x> for congress"? You surely mean implicit. What obligation does Google have to be apolitical anyway? To make you feel more comfortable?
- userbinator 4y agoIt's definitely more explicit than NOT having such requirements, which would be the expected norm for technical things. Google has a HUGE amount of power over people's lives now, arguably more than the government. It has effectively become a form of government itself, but one we didn't vote for. Do you not see a problem with that?
- jagger27 4y agoGoogle a ton of dangerous unchecked power, absolutely. But it's a documentation style guide that sets off your alarms? Get over yourself.
- userbinator 4y agoThe alarms have been going for a long time. This is just the frog-boiling water getting a little hotter.
- CamperBob2 4y agoOK, we'll tell George Orwell to get over himself. He was the one who warned us about giving excessive amounts of power to people who want to control the language.
- jagger27 4y ago
- CamperBob2 4y ago"Master" is a role. "Main" is an identifier. When writing documentation or doing engineering work, the distinction matters. In any event, nobody asked Google for their opinion on the subject.
- klyrs 4y agoFree speech absolutism is also a certain political agenda. At some point, everything is political and if you don't like it, you'll need to go off grid and definitely stay offline.
- ravenstine 4y agoNo one said a word about free speech "absolutism."
- klyrs 4y agoThat doesn't refute my point, does it? One can ride a bike without saying a word about riding bikes, after all.
- bjt2n3904 4y ago> At some point, everything is political No. Football is a-political. Thanksgiving dinner is a-political. My javascript library is a-political. My silicon design is a-political. What's happened is an extremely small subset of people have decided to push politics where it doesn't belong. Everything must become a political weapon, because everything must serve the goal of some arbitrary progress. Merely existing without putting on badges in support of The Latest Thing(TM) is offensive -- because you have implicitly not taken a side, which explicitly means you are supporting the enemy. And if that goal requires sacrifice of thanksgiving dinner and family, than so be it. It's done wonders to improve society's polarization problem, I tell you.
- klyrs 4y agoFootball is apolitical? Not even close. My school had a rival school, and yelling "go [rival team]!" or even wearing the wrong color during playoffs would invite physical violence, especially after folks had a few beers. The "do we build/upgrade a stadium" question is hotly contested in every city I've lived in during such a referendum. Some people, it turns out, hate football and don't want it to be in their city. That's politics. Hell, when I grew up, even mentioning football would get you booed out of any respectable nerdspace. Thanksgiving is, depending who you ask, a celebration of genocide, try again. Are you still using JavaScript? Typescript, my friend, is the way. Does your silicon design use variable names? Politics entered the chat! No, everything is political. If you're offended, you're welcome to not participate. Polarization sucks, yes, but pretending it doesn't exist typically means you see one side as right and the other as wrong. Not helpful.
- lolinder 4y agoDid you look at the guidelines? Their definition of offensive seems to be "someone, somewhere might completely misinterpret what you said in such a way as to take offense." In the real world, no one takes offense at the phrase "first-class functions", but in Google's world someone apparently does.
- amluto 4y agoI couldn’t find a definition of offensive from Google. Many of their specific policies seem quite reasonable to me. Some are in a category that could be quite demeaning to a respectably large group of people and do so for no purpose. (See “turn a blind eye”, for example.). Some have nothing to do with offensiveness but are about clarity (e.g. “holidays” — for a lot of the world, the big long holiday season simply isn’t what Americans think of it as, and, as a programmer writing in the most widely-understood language in the world, one should realize that many of one’s readers aren’t American). Some are bizarre (e.g. Google’s alternative suggestion for “hamburger menu” literally cannot be written in an HN comment and is about as easy to read out loud as the artist formerly known as Prince’s unpronounceable name; I think Google is trying to make technical writing accessible to users of assistive technologies here, but I don’t think the resulting guideline is actually practical to follow in many contexts or achieves its goal. I don’t use assistive technologies, but, if I were unable to perceive the “hamburger” icon, I have trouble imagining that a screen reader or similar system would interpret Google’s icon-based name for it in a way that made any sense at all. And yes, some can be baffling. I’m having trouble figuring out what first-class citizen is a reference to, if anything. Wikipedia’s article on first class citizens attributes the name to a paper by Christopher Strachey, which contains a single instance of the word “citizen” or a variant thereof: > Thus in a sense procedures in ALGOL are second class citizens Which is clear in context and vague out of context. I assume, with no real evidence, that this is a mildly confused reference to Ancient Greece, but I could be entirely off base. In any event, the term “first class”, to me, evokes “first class mail”, which is fascinating given the complete lack of, say, second-class mail. In the UK, “first-class” has additional meanings. I’m not sure why Google thinks that “first-class” is “socially charged”. Maybe someone from Google knows? (I understand why “blacklist” would be seen as “socially charged”, although I wouldn’t use that term. I don’t think it was originally intended as a racist term, but there was a great essay, I think by Langston Hughes, on how this type of use of “black” can be problematic. Sadly, I can’t find that essay. I could be mis-remembering who wrote it.)
- bjt2n3904 4y agoYep. They're attempting to strong arm people into Orwellian newspeak. And good grief. The potential to spin an open source ASIC for free, simply to get experience is an AMAZING opportunity. But I'll leave engineering before I submit to the arbitrary and ever changing demands of some potentate of newspeak. Doubleplusungood.
- qgin 4y ago> anyone who wants to use it That "anyone" isn't a fixed set. The guidelines Google is listing are pretty minor steps someone can take to try to maximize the size of that set.
- lolinder 4y agoThere are probably minor steps that can be taken, but Google's guidelines are not that. Following Google's guidelines would involve completely reworking large parts of our vocabulary: more than just "whitelist" and "blacklist", we're now supposed to avoid "hit the API", "the process hangs", "native code", "first-class functions", "sanity check", "dummy variable", "senior citizens", and a bunch of other completely innocent phrases that Google is worried that someone somewhere might be offended by. Going through my documentation and worrying about the possible misinterpretations of every single word is not a minor step.
- CamperBob2 4y agoGoing through my documentation and worrying about the possible misinterpretations of every single word is not a minor step. That's OK, I'm sure they'll do it for you, when they decide where to rank it in their index of search results.
- jeroenhd 4y agoThat's a very silly requirement for a tech project IMO. I'm not sure what qualifies as "inclusive language" and the link ("See details here") seems to be missing. Of course Google is free to put any requirements they want on a project they fund (as long as it's within the bounds of the law) but "inclusive language" is the last thing I'd expect an evil corporation profiteering off everyone's data to put on there so front and center. I don't see anything in there about privacy, safety, or ethics, so you can presumably get free control chips for killer drones as long as you make it open source and use the right pronouns in your documentation?
- lin83 4y agoIt's probably a good idea to avoid insulting or alienating your audience. My manager is a woman and I run into code and setup documentation all the time that says things like "he should do X/Y/Z". At least our documentation team fixes that before public release. Google's guidelines are here: https://developers.google.com/style/inclusive-documentation https://developers.google.com/style/inclusive-documentation I have to say though some of their examples are weird. I have never encountered anyone that would object to the phrase "senior citizens" or the word "hang" in documentation. The idea that the latter could cause "unintentional harm that might be caused by the violent interpretations" is frankly absurd.
- userbinator 4y agoI have to say though some of their examples are weird. You should be scared and deeply angered that Google is attempting to force changes to language which are mainly based on some radical political ideology.
- lin83 4y agoI am absolutely concerned about some of their actions, like their paused "inclusive suggestions" [1]. There's a big difference between providing a guide and highlighting words in an email that are marked as 'wrong' purely for perceived cultural reasons. Google's suggestion to change "landlord" for example, which has very specific cultural baggage and, more importantly, legal definitions, to something else is definitely wrong and worrying. I think it takes a certain arrogance that maybe only a Silicon Valley tech company can have to try to change how billions of people speak. I'm not sure how much of an ideology it is though. Like the writers guide above, once the reasonable suggestions have been made, the authors seem to overreach to find more things to "fix". If a persons job depends on finding "problems" they will simply create new ones once the run out of legitimate ones. I think that's true whether it's planning officers for property development or politicians. [1] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/apr/25/google-word-processor-offers-inclusive-language-co/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/apr/25/google-word...
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- amluto 4y agoGoogle’s requirement is not inclusive toward anyone trying to follow it. In particular, “See details here” doesn’t appear to be any sort of a link. That being said, I think I found the relevant document: https://developers.google.com/style/inclusive-documentation https://developers.google.com/style/inclusive-documentation And it seems pretty reasonable to me.
- jeroenhd 4y agoSome parts of it are very reasonable, but others seem insane to me. "Sanity-check" is hardly ableist language in my opinion, and neither is "dummy variable". I agree with the intentions here, but this goes a bit too far for me.
- UncleEntity 4y ago> Although there might also be nonviolent interpretations for these terms, avoiding their use prevents unintentional harm that might be caused by the violent interpretations. I can’t even try to imagine what someone would do if you suggested they “bit banged” an interface.
- exmadscientist 4y agoWhat's interesting to me about all the "bad" examples in that section is that they don't match how people actually use those terms. At all. You don't "sanity check" a polished, should-be-perfect release candidate. You sanity-check a half-baked napkin sketch. And so on.
- CoastalCoder 4y agoA bit tangential, but can anyone recommend a forum for productively debating the logic/ethics underpinning this kind of policy? I'm deeply skeptical about lots diversity initiatives. But it's hard to find a place where I can subject my views to good scrutiny without also risking unemployment.
- bjt2n3904 4y agoHere's my advice. The evershifting and arbitrary nature of these standards is a guarantee that you will eventually fall afoul of it, face a kangaroo court trial in the DEI star chamber, and be burnt at the stake for your "crimes". You can try and avoid it. It will come to you. The best place and time to fight it is right now. But you don't need to oppose it, you just need to not submit to it. [1] My DMs are open on Twitter if you'd like to talk! 1 - https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/live-not-by-lies https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/live-not-by-lies
- userbinator 4y agoGoogle is now the Ministry of Truth? I really wonder whether the people who come up with this stuff ever read 1984, or did and thought Newspeak was a good idea.
- 8organicbits 4y agoI'll share an example, as I suspect some people haven't felt excluded by language before. It's tough to understand if you haven't. As a parent my role has shifted to be more involved with my kindergarten aged kid. The parents like to organize events and socialize. However, the language used is often "mom" instead of "parent". My understanding is that they aren't intending to exclude "dad", as they are using "mom" as shorthand for "most active parent". My involvement in the group has been lower as a result, it's tough to feel like you may not be included. Certain language, to varying degrees, can offend or exclude your reader. You don't need to care, but it does impact the reader and could detract from the effectiveness of your docs.
- bjt2n3904 4y agoI agree. Fathers should be included in language. I think it's extremely important that father's are recognized as critical to a child's upbringing, and truly commend you for being present for your little one! But here lies the problem with "inclusive language": many schools argue that the terms mother, father, and parent are not inclusive. Instead, terms like "caregiver" or "responsible adult" should be used, to include children who are raised by grandparents or adoped. The desire was to make sure father's were recognized. In a backwards way, suddenly no one was recognized. If it's bad for society to not recognize the value of fatherhood, is this not a complete rejection of parenthood, and exclusion of children who have a nuclear family? But when you dig into the inclusivity crowd, you keep finding ridiculous things, like the idea that the nuclear family is white supremacy, and needs to be dismantled by erasing the language that supports systemic racism. Children with two biological parents are privileged, so they can yield their privilege and not have their family acknowledged with the terminology used. Just keep pulling on the thread, and now we're referring to "birthing people" instead of women.
- 8organicbits 4y ago> terms like "caregiver" or "responsible adult" should be used When I was in school (90s, 00s) it was "parent or guardian", which I think is a reasonable balance. I'm pretty sure that's still the phrasing my kid's school uses. In any case, I dont think the Google guide goes to the extreme you mention.
- _fizz_buzz_ 4y agoGoogle pays for it, so they get to make the rules. If you pay for it yourself you can make your own rules. That's what living in a free society is like. There isn't really more to say about it.
- d_tr 4y agoThey get to make the rules and people get to express their opinion on these rules.
- sideshowb 4y agoMoney for nothing...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bruce511 4y agoAnd your Chips for free... (I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have, but sometimes I. Can't. Help. Myself.)
- CoastalCoder 4y agoSuch poor discipline must put you in dire straights.
- cptnapalm 4y agoIt can be a learning experience, though, on the... walk of life.
- 8jef 4y agomaybe, if you don't succumb to some industrial disease prior to the walk.
- quickthrower2 4y agoLove it when a little bit of Reddit is allowed on HN
- SturgeonsLaw 4y agoWe can have a little bit of Reddit, as a treat
- mattcwilson 4y agoAren’t you two the fellows I brought in to help out with my legacy Java desktop app’s UI layer? The ‘Sultants of Swing?
- queuebert 4y ago
- DaviNunes 4y agoI wonder how difficult/efficient would it be to use this tech to design a bitcoin mining ASIC.
- ttul 4y agoHaving failed to launch a mining ASIC company in 2012, my only comment would be that the Caravel 130nm process will not be power-competitive with commercial mining chip. It would be a fun educational project, however.
- lekevicius 4y agoI'm curious about this question, even though it's a bit off-topic: how likely is it that an entity (commercial or governmental) could "secretly" produce enough mining hardware to consistently have 51% of network's hash power?
- ntoskrnl 4y agoThe biggest mining pools have known identities[1]. If some unknown group started mining and the hashrate jumped 50%, it would draw lots of attention. There's no way it could be done secretly. A more likely attack would be a government bribing or coercing a few of the biggest mining pools to manipulate their blocks. [1]: https://btc.com/stats/pool https://btc.com/stats/pool
- IncRnd 4y agoHow unlikely is it for that not to have already happened?
- r0n22 4y agoHow did you determine that it was not viable? Anymore information you could provide?
- Stevvo 4y agoBitmain are using the latest process nodes for their ASICs.
- ttul 4y agoThis is a fantastic program for teaching students about VHDL. You can make some really cool stuff on a 130nm process with 10mm^2 available. Like a full toy SoC. Really cool.
- Matthias247 4y agoDo FPGAs not already fulfill this purpose very well? I did 3 FPGA projects (custom networking peripheral, some radar related things) during my inversity time using VHDL and really enjoyed them (apart from the slow synthesis time). Real chips would certainly provide more room, possibilities and performance - but would also take away from the fast turnaround time that FPGAs provide. And given this run only seems to give people a single shot to get the design right - you want to verify it on a FPGA upfront anyway.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- malf 4y agoIs there any situation where you wouldn’t try to verify on an FPGA first?
- throwawaymaths 4y agoToo big to fit on an FPGA that you can afford.
- klyrs 4y agoThere are actually cloud FPGA offerings nowadays! They're downright affordable compared to retail price for the monster chips they're sporting.
- Sirened 4y agoYou can also do stuff like slicing your design and putting it on multiple FPGAs. Industry has been doing this for ages because there's no way in hell they're going to fit a full SoC on a single FPGA no matter how much money they can throw at that problem.
- f0e4c2f7 4y agoSchedule April 11, 2022: Project submission is OPEN June 8, 2022: Project submission is CLOSED
- FollowingTheDao 4y agoI was very upset this was not about making Potato Chips. Seriously.
- Kaze404 4y agoMe too. Now that we're here, maybe anyone knows how to make chips at home?
- krallja 4y agoslice up potatoes fry the slices in oil salt the fried slices
- quickthrower2 4y agoWell, the potatoes are pretty much free if you have some dirt to plant them in.
- ramshanker 4y agoSo how many transistors ( or GATES? ) that 10mm^2 is at 130nm?
- breck 4y agoApproximately 590M max? (10^.5 * 1e6 / 130)^2 But not actually sure what % is usable and what distance between features is. So guess is actual number is a lot less than that.
- d_tr 4y agoTen million transistors maximum actually. The nm figure is not a transistor pitch.
- breck 4y agoThanks! Reading up on "transistor pitch" filled in a lot of blanks for me. Cunningham's Law works.
- userbinator 4y agoTo put that into perspective, 10M is roughly the complexity of a Pentium II/III (without the cache).
- Sirened 4y agoDoes anyone have any in sight into how often they do these shuttles? Probably going to miss tapeout for this round but it'd be cool to get a physical chip some day, just for coolness.
- rrss 4y agoLast one was mid march, so every few months. The current plan (last I checked) is 2 more in this google-sponsored free program.