oh did I mention I'm going to start streaming again? currently still working out the logistics, but most likely starting again sometime next week - together with a colleague.
I was just moving things around in my office, making sure that e.g. the lighting will work out okay for that. here's a very dramatic first test shot
LRT: Async in WASI 0.3 externalizes the runtime entirely, making it possible to provide first-class async at the ABI level.
This means there is no runtime to thread through the program: the host responsible for running the Wasm program is the reactor.
All you do at the boundaries of your program is say things like: "this is a stream of values" or "this is a future", and the host + bindings generator will handle it correctly. This enables compositions of programs to share one runtime.
What's also neat is that for API abstractions on top of 0.3 syscalls, supporting sync and async requires roughly the same amount of work.
All you have to do is tell the bindings generator you want the async/.await version of the API, and the host just has support for that. Wrapping that in e.g. the Rust stdlib should be no extra work at all, given we had a place to expose the types from.
Legit question: why do data centers use vast amounts of water? It’s for cooling right?
I’m wondering why it isn’t possible to use heat pumps — potentially even at scale, to achieve cooling? I’m legitimately interested in why water is being used, and why alternatives are hard to deploy.
I know “heat” as a resource has a bunch of useful applications. Can be stored for later use, etc. Here in Copenhagen my home is heated by municipal heating. I’m wondering what makes this hard to apply to data centers?
@yosh Exactly my thinking! We do need heat (at least in colder climates), and lots of it. If all the dissipated energy of datacenters can be used to replace traditional kinds of heating, their energy footprint appears in a very different light.
Yay! The in-progress wasi:i2c proposal (WASI spec for embedded devices) just moved to phase 2!
This means it's not just something promising anymore, but it seems ready to be implemented in host systems and begin gathering implementation and user feedback from.
I'm legit very excited about this! — But this seems like it has a real shot at improving the embedded development experience. Virtual platform layering, local platform emulation, standard APIs, etc. etc. I'm into it!
@whitequark That was voted on in the WASI W3C sub-group meeting today! If you’re interested in attending those meetings — I believe they’re open, though I think you might need to sign up somewhere?
Never ceases to stump me that we have the technology to kill 99.95% of airborne viruses, proven to work, non-invasive, cheap to deploy and install, and is produced at scale already and we just like - collectively - kind of just don't really use it.
HEPA-grade air filtration is proven, cheap, and makes everyone's lives strictly better. It, like, makes zero fiscal sense for governments not to mandate its use in all covered public spaces ASAP.
@WagesOf ah right, yeah I agree that perfect should be the enemy of good.
Perfect filtration sure takes effort, but the point is not perfection — it’s reduction. Like, I can go to IKEA today and buy a HEPA-grade filter for $6. Not best in class, but certainly affordable. Why? Because they’re produced at scale.
“To make any dent at all” is unsubstantiated by evidence. It’s clear that any amount of ventilation is better than none. Any amount of filtration is better than none.
It doesn’t yet eliminate the need for TypeScript in extensions, but it certainly provides a more compelling experience than managing sub-processes and bespoke RPC calls - as is common in extensions using languages other than JS/TS.
Now that that's out of the way, hopefully we'll start seeing governments act on implementing clean air protocols. More research is nice (hi Far-UVC), but the focus of governments worldwide really ought to be to roll out mechanical ventilation where possible, and HEPA filtration everywhere else. This should be standard.
The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has published standards for Indoor Air Quality (ASHRAE 62.1 & 62.2) and Control of Infectious Aerosols (ASHRAE 241).
I've done a first pass over the numbers published in ASHRAE 241, converting the cited numbers for various scenarios to cubic meters of clean air per person per hour. Then compared that to some of the air filters I've been looking at recently:
I'm looking into this because a number of pals are trying to create safer community spaces. The information on how to do that is available, but unevenly distributed - so I figured that I might as well read up (:
I now know that one group will probably be happy with a Mini Mk.2 purifier as part of their fixed deployment. With additional mitigations needed for when they run events.