Peer to peer post-scarcity computing
In previous notes on post-scarcity hardware (hereand here) I've assumed a single, privileged, main memory manager which maintains the canonical memory pool. All requests for memory objects go to that manager, and new non-private memory objects must be created in the address space managed by that manager. The memory manager thus becomes both a bottleneck and a single point of failure.
In the second note, I'd suggested that memory should be allocated in pages with each page belonging to a single thread. On true post scarcity hardware, that means that each page could physically co-reside with the processor on which that thread was run. That processor would be responsible for curating its own memory objects (which in essence means updating their reference counts, and garbage collecting them when they're no longer required).
The Contemptibles, Lackwit, the Literal-Deadbeats, and the United Kleptocrats and Idiots Party
Being depressed, my view on the world is bleak; it's not necessarily irrational. Here are bleak thoughts on the current state of British politics.
The Tories are a party for the greedy, the selfish, the narcissistic and the sociopathic; the LibDems for those several sandwiches short of a picnic. UKIP are a party for those who hate and fear, and for those who seek to foment and exploit hatred and fear.
The Right Honourable Liar Carmichael and the problem of Fake News
[This is my submission to the Westminster Culture Media and Sport Committee's enquiry into 'Fake News']
Before the 2015 General Election, a Scotland Office official leaked a story claiming that Nicola Sturgeon had told the French Ambassador, Sylvie Bermann, that she favoured the Conservatives to win. An enquiry was launched into the leak. Alistair Carmichael MP told that enquiry that he had not known of the leak until it appeared in the press. The election happened, and the Right Honourable Liar Carmichael was duly elected as member for Orkney and Shetland.
Hard Cheese
Draft response to Food Standards Scotland's consultation on its regulatory strategy.
Nothing is without risk. All foods have health benefits and disbenefits, some of which are now well understood and some which aren't. Attempting to create a perfectly safe food environment is beyond the scope of modern dietary science. In particular an auto-immune system which is never challenged does not develop resilience necessary for good health; for example, pasteurisation has been associated with the rise in allergies.
There's no doubt that FSS policy to date has been highly detrimental to small innovative food businesses. The destruction of Errington's Cheeses stock on the basis of tenuous and unproven evidence — effectively, on the basis of pure prejudice — has had a very chilling effect on the ability of small food businesses in Scotland to raise capital and find investors. This runs directly against your proposed outcome of 'Enabling business compliance and growth', and detracts sharply from your proposed outcome of 'FSS is a trusted, empowered and effective regulator'.
Post scarcity: Memory, threads and communication
One benefit of getting really annoyed with Daniel Holden's book on how to Build Your Own Lisp is that I have finally started work on building software for my decade-old Post Scarcity Software idea. There are some problems you don't really see until you start to build something.
Almost all previous Lisps have been primarily single threaded; I think all previous Lisps have been single user. Some problems occur with a multi-threaded, multi-user system which don't occur (or at least aren't problematic) on a single-threaded, single-user system.