How the 8086 processor's microcode engine works

How should we evaluate progress in AI?

Behind the Pretty Frames: Death Stranding

Issue #303

12/6/2022

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Hey-yo
Hope you all had a good weekend. Sorry that there was no issue yesterday. Had to do some life stuff.
If you leave feedback text comments on older issues, I probably won't see them, since I don't really get notified of them. I usually just check the feedback for the previous two issues, so if you want me to see your comments, just reply to the emails directly.
Anyone doing Advent of Code?
Anyway, here's the issue.

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How the 8086 processor's microcode engine works

Published: 3 December 2022
Tags: low level, microcode

Ken Shirriff breaks down the microcode for the 8086 chip.
Some highlights:

  • The 8086 microprocessor was a groundbreaking processor introduced by Intel in 1978. It led to the x86 architecture that still dominates desktop and server computing
  • The 8086 chip uses microcode internally to implement its instruction set
  • The microcode in the 8086 consists of 512 micro-instructions, each 21 bits wide


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How should we evaluate progress in AI?

Published: 1 July 2018
Tags: ai, philosophy

A little bit old, but more relevant than ever with the recent explosion in the AI as a service industry. David Chapman discusses how there is no one agreed-upon set of criteria for what counts as progress in the field of artificial intelligence.
Some highlights:

  • AI has always borrowed criteria, approaches, and specific methods from at least six fields: science, engineering, mathematics, philosophy, design, and spectacle
  • Because the criteria are incommensurable, they suggest divergent directions for research and produce sharp disagreements about what methods to apply
  • "Meta-rationality means figuring out how to use technical rationality in specific situations"


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Behind the Pretty Frames: Death Stranding

Published: 30 November 2022
Tags: games, graphics, unity

Muhammad A. Moniem explains the various stages of compute processing that are used to render the game Death Stranding.
Some highlights:

  • In the first stage, the game's world is divided into tiles and each tile is rendered separately
  • In the second stage, the game's characters are rendered using a process called "clustering"
  • "Digging Death Stranding was NOT very fun thing to do"


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How did I do?

* Amazing
* Articles not relevant to me
* Articles were relevant, but badly written
* Summaries told me everything I wanted to know
* I like turtles

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Stats (updated daily)

Sent: 2993

Opens: 1424

Clicks: 353

Link Clicks Clicks % Unique Clicks Unique Clicks %
How the 8086 processor's microcode engine works 105 38.75% 108 36.99
How should we evaluate progress in AI? 53 19.56% 60 20.55
Behind the Pretty Frames: Death Stranding 113 41.70% 124 42.47

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