The Official Cool Stuff Thread
-
@Benjamin-Hall said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
@Mason_Wheeler said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
@HardwareGeek said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
Why is it square? If you're making only one chip from a wafer, why not use the entire wafer? Wafers are circular.
They are? Why is that?
Because they're cut as cross-sections from the (cylindrical) silicon crystals that are grown under precise conditions.
Details at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wafer_(electronics)#Formation and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boule_(crystal). TIL that square (ish, with rounded or beveled corners) wafers are used for photovoltaic cells, but I don't know whether the crystals are somehow grown in that shape using a different process, or they start with conventional cylindrical boules and cut away the unwanted segments in order to utilize the panel area more efficiently.
-
@HardwareGeek Probably the latter. The Czochralski method (and the other variants also producing boules) is probably the easiest and most reliable method so cutting the circle down to a square should be more efficient than any alternative process.
-
@Rhywden That's what I would think, too, but the article didn't say. to do additional research. But photovoltaic cells don't need such high quality crystals (in fact, many use polycrystaline silicon, at somewhat lower efficiency, but less expensive to make) than deep submicron chips, so an alternative process is at least plausible.
-
@HardwareGeek said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
I must've missed the introduction of this during my hiatus. Anyone want to add it to the Discopædia?
-
@abarker Kaepernick kneeling in protest → mods kneeling in protest of doing work → general indication of laziness. Not really a Discourse thing.
Also you should fix all those post links because they don't work right anymore.
-
@pie_flavor said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
you should fix all those post links
-
@abarker said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
I must've missed the introduction of this during my hiatus. Anyone want to add it to the Discopædia?
-
@abarker said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
@HardwareGeek said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
I must've missed the introduction of this during my hiatus. Anyone want to add it to the Discopædia?
No, it should be added to The Official WTDWTF Memes Thread instead. But
(Yes I know, guaranteed )
-
@pie_flavor said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
Not really a Discourse thing.
Not everything in the Discopædia is a Discourse thing.
@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
No, it should be added to The Official WTDWTF Memes Thread instead. But
Your idea. You do it.
-
@abarker said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
Your idea. You do it.
Better yet, put it in Wiki: Memes. It's better, for raisins
-
@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
(Yes I know, guaranteed )
But you were first with the proper link!
-
@HardwareGeek said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
why not use the entire wafer?
Tesselability.
@HardwareGeek said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
Factor in less than 100% yield (some chips will be defective, despite the redundancy they have to have, without which their yield would be 0%);
There's a photo of a wafer undergoing testing, and you can see some cores have already been marked as defective. Presumably they get locked out and the buyers understand that binning is a thing. I can't think of a case where a wafer would be completely unsalvageable though.
-
-
@Zecc Now for games to use it.
Non-Euclidean geometry is one of the few things a video game can have that will make me instantly forgive all its other shortcomings. I want ten more Antichambers.
-
@pie_flavor I've played the original Prey game, and I thought it was pretty good.
I should get the 2017 version one of these days.
-
@Zecc have you played Antichamber?
-
@HardwareGeek said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
Factor in less than 100% yield
At the scale of a wafer, that yield will be a lot less than 100% (I'm told that it's fairly common for there to be flaws on every single wafer, often with spatial correlation between them) unless they've made their design able to cope with most common manufacturing defects without needing to throw the whole lot away. We do that sort of thing with our multi-core chips, and the production design there only puts 18 CPU cores per chip rather than the crazy number that there must be on a wafer.
-
@pie_flavor said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
@Zecc have you played Antichamber?
I have played Antichamber. And Parallax.
(my eyes!)
Edit to add shout out to Narbacular Drop.
-
@Zecc said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
@pie_flavor I've played the original Prey game, and I thought it was pretty good.
I should get the 2017 version one of these days.As I recall, those two games literally have nothing in common except the name. Though I have only read (negative) reviews about the later one.
-
@dkf said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
At the scale of a wafer, that yield will be a lot less than 100% (I'm told that it's fairly common for there to be flaws on every single wafer, often with spatial correlation between them)
Indeed. It is so rare to get a wafer with no defects that they wouldn't even use it. They'd frame it and hang it on the wall as a trophy.
unless they've made their design able to cope with most common manufacturing defects without needing to throw the whole lot away.
It's not so much a matter of coping with the most common manufacturing defects as it is coping with a part of the chip that doesn't work — having redundant structures that can be swapped for the defective ones, or at least isolate the defective section and operate at reduced capacity. This works well for structures that are inherently repetitive, like memory or multiple CPU or GPU cores on a chip; if a core is defective, just pretend that core was never there. I'd be very, very surprised if they aren't doing something like that for these wafer-scale chips.
-
@pie_flavor said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
I want ten more Antichambers
Oh $deity no! I already have trouble navigating what amounts to a relatively small enclosed space, I don't need this at all!
Filed under: Failed Let's Play. Was lost for days
-
I said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
@pie_flavor said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
@Zecc have you played Antichamber?
I have played Antichamber. And Parallax.
(my eyes!)
Edit to add shout out to Narbacular Drop.
Have you played Parallax, @pie_flavor?
I wish it were longer.
Yes, you can quote me on that.
-
@Zecc I have, though I didn't finish it because I got thoroughly stuck on one puzzle. The current game to scratch that itch is Youropa, for me.
-
Inigo Quilez is a sorcerer.
-
-
It's not clear from the onebox, but you play as the dragon in this.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/beawesomegames/day-of-dragons
-
-
-
@Mason_Wheeler said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
They've done 37 songs out of what was supposed to be 60. Not sure when/if the rest are coming, but I'm hoping for more soon!
I've finished watching those 37.
I don't quite share your enthusiasm, I think they're all pretty good but I didn't fall in love by any in particular; but then again I've always preferred instrumentals to songs with voice. I want to see if I can find the full version of the outro song, but in the meantime: Found it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZr0wag1pyA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa7FGG2VDSM
This has made me want to play the game.
-
@abarker said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
Better yet, put it in Wiki: Memes. It's better, for raisins
I am disturbed that I know almost all of those.
-
-
@boomzilla said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
assuming that doesn't adversely affect my daylight vision, nor causes ill effects later in life...... where do i sign up for this?
-
@boomzilla Maybe I'm but to me any use of the phrase "injected into [...] eyes" belongs in the Nope thread
-
@hungrier that point is brought up in TFA, but when I first started wearing contact lenses the idea of putting something on my eye seemed like that, too (to a lesser degree, admittedly) but being able to see in the dark would be pretty fucking cool.
-
@boomzilla said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
Hmmm, they didn't get the idea from Black Mirror, did they? (EDIT: Beware spoilers though)
-
-
-
@Tsaukpaetra More drones!
-
-
It appears Boston Dynamic's Spot robot is now ready for sale:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlkCQXHEgjA
Price was not immediately visible on their website. Likely it's "if you have to ask, you can't afford it".
Bonus video: their Atlas robot doing tricks:
-
Poland in Volleyball World Cup.
-
@Gąska I'm not much into sportsballs (as in, at all), but :is_that_legal.jpg: ?
-
@Applied-Mediocrity yep. You can hit the ball with any part of your body, as long as it's only once. And there's no rule against going out of bands (specifically to allow plays like this).
-
TLDR: It uses buzzword-compliant AI to separate music files into vocals, drums, etc. If it works as well the ideal version that's in my mind, it'll be an amazing tool for making mashups and remixes.
-
@hungrier said in The Official Cool Stuff Thread:
If it works as well the ideal version that's in my mind
I've had something like that running in my mind for decades.
I blame resynth for letting me enjoy 32kbps MP3 audio just fine...
-
-
I first heard about this guy in the early 2000s and forgot about him until now. I wanted to see what he's been up to since then, and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5feSfiImrSE
The answer is not much, since I've seen all those before, but they're still cool. The highlights are the Delorean Monster Truck and the limo, but there's also a convertible that's barely seen in the video. IIRC the doors opened like Lamborghini scissor doors.
His website appears to be up but looks like an old archive, since the site only has the first half of the limo and he had already finished it 15+ years ago.
-
Pretty cool.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/508498733042761739/647202237231398922/2956469.jpg
-
Don't mention the way he looks. He's very sensitive about it.
-