A new look at the RISC vs CISC debate by framing it as a debate on how to spend a limited transistor budget to achieve performance. — PEOPLE LIKE to think about the distinction between RISC and CISC processors as being about some specific set of features or some magical limit on number of instructions or transistors. Few Instructions Doesn’t Mean RISC Let us get some very obvious misconceptions out of the way. Because RISC stands for Reduced Instruction Set Computer, there…

Well known people in the industry such as Dave Jaggar, Jim B. Keller and Dave Ditzel give RISC-V the thumbs up. — TTHE MORE I write about RISC-V the more realize how controversial RISC-V is in many circles. It is not uncommon to see claims that RISC-V is a bad design by RISC zealots trapped in the 1980s. The question is: How much stock should you actually put in random people on…

Since AVR uses mostly 16-bit instructions it would be interesting to compare with 16-b RISC-V instructions — RISC-V has compressed instructions extension C, which with a mere 400 gates added gives a RISC-V processor 16-bit instructions. I thought it would be interesting to compare these 27 instructions with instructions from the AVR microprocessor, a well-known processor for microcontrollers (used in Arduino). …

Overview of the RV32I base instruction-set of RISC-V processors including an comparison with the AVR instruction-set. — A NUMBER OF people have tried to make sheets giving an overview of the RISC-V instruction-set, so here is my variant. I have tried to find a balance between being useful and easy to read. That means some things I have excluded from this overview. For instance, most instructions dealing…

A common human psychological trait is to seek to minimize or trivialize the accomplishments of people they don’t like or approve of, but even assholes can achieve great things. — FOLLOWING the stories around controversial people over the years I have noticed certain patterns: If a person is unlikable or in some ways have offended your sense of moral right and wrong, then you will seek any negative slanted article, story or news which will confirm that viewpoint.

The guy pushing solar energy and electric cars has somehow become a favorite among the FOX New crowd, how on Earth did that happen? — I AM a die-hard leftist but read a fair amount of right-wing news to understand better the mindset, philosophy and issues the other side cares about. Over the last years there are a few trends which has been interesting to observe. One is how Putin became so popular among the…

Elon Musk could have saved the planet from world hunger but decided to buy Twitter, or Elon Musk will singlehandedly safe free speech? — WHEN I read the various takes on Elon Musk buying Twitter I feel every other Tweet is a facepalm moment. It seems people are incapable of having a balanced view on anything Elon Musk does. …

Has oil money funded all Nordic welfare services, economic prosperity and social development? — INTERNATIONAL media will often write various excited or positive stories about Nordic countries: How Iceland Got Teens to Say No to Drugs Helsinki’s radical solution to homelessness How the Finnish school system outshines U.S. education Sweden is still the second most innovative country in the world How Norway turns criminals…

A look at the power of iterative approaches to solving complex problems in software development, economics, engineering and war. — A TOPIC which has fascinated me for a long time is how different organizations can achieve vastly different outcomes and success despite having access to similar amount of resources at their disposal. For instance how could Tesla outcompete huge automakers in making long range electric cars? …