A weekly collection of links to interesting things curated by Colin Wright.
How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fab
A modern microchip has features on the order of 50 nanometers in width, or around 1/2000th the width of a human hair.1 Materials are placed in layers a few atoms thin. Creating objects this small requires ultra-precise manufacturing equipment, and a production environment that can screen out as many sources of interference as possible; every rogue speck of dust or tiny fluctuation in electrical voltage. And these conditions must be maintained not in the rarefied conditions of an experimental lab, but in a mass production facility that is producing hundreds of millions of microchips every year. The combination of ultra-precision and high-volume production results in some of the most complex, expensive factories in the world.
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In semiconductor manufacturing, allowable tolerances are whittled away to almost nothing. Making transistors a few nanometers across requires processes that are hundreds of thousands of times more accurate than conventional manufacturing. The tiniest rogue particle can short out a connection and destroy an entire chip. A few atoms in the wrong place can cause a process step to fail. Imperceptibly small amounts of impurities can irreparably damage materials.
Why Don’t We Hang Out Anymore?
When you’re a kid with limited funds and modes of transport, hanging out with friends feels natural. But adults are often used to doing scheduled activities with one another, said Jessica Ayers, an assistant professor of psychological science at Boise State University, who researches adult friendships.
“Often, we don’t think something is beneficial unless it’s productive,” she said. We don’t always realize “that sitting around and resting with someone is still a productive state, and worthy of our time,” she said.
The Decline of the User Interface
The Ok and Cancel buttons played important roles. A user might go to a Settings dialog, change a bunch of settings, and then click Ok, knowing that their changes would be applied. But often, they would make some changes and then think “You know, nope, I just want things back like they were.” They’d hit the Cancel button, and everything would reset to where they started. Disaster averted.
Sadly, this very clear and easy way of doing things somehow got lost in the transition to the web.
They Say Never Meet Your Heroes
After a while, I awoke to find Bryan Ferry standing in the swimming pool in his bathing trunks. He was white and beautiful and very still. He turned to me and said, ‘I haven’t written a song in three years.’ ‘Why? ’I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ He made a vague circling gesture with his hand taking in both of us, the swimming pool, the high hedge, the manor house, the apple orchard, the walled garden, the mare and foal, the swallows in the eves, our beautiful arboured wives, and the pure, blue sky itself and said, ‘There is nothing to write about.’ Then he pushed off into the water.
Engineers Find New Way to Make ‘Wonder Material’ That Could Change the World
When it was discovered by creating a single layer of carbon atoms in 2004, scientists hailed the material as a potential revolution. It is extremely conductive and very strong, and experts said it could transform everything from energy storage to medical devices and personal electronics.
But that potential has never fully been realised. That is in part because it is hard to make cleanly and at scale.
Early Androids and Artificial Speech
The word “android”, derived from Greek roots meaning “manlike”, was the coinage of Gabriel Naudé, French physician and librarian, personal doctor to Louis XIII, and later architect of the forty-thousand-volume library of Cardinal Jules Mazarin. Naudé was a rationalist and an enemy of superstition. In 1625 he published a defense of Scholastic philosophers to whom tradition had ascribed works of magic. He included the thirteenth-century Dominican friar, theologian, and philosopher Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great), who, according to legend, had built an artificial man made of bronze.
It’s the Real Thing!: The Emergent Aesthetics of Artificial Intelligence
Yet on the ground, among the humble netizens, a more pragmatic approach is taking hold. In the comment sections under AI images, it’s not uncommon to see people rigorously analyzing them to determine their true origins. They’ll point out subtle features like distorted hands or warped background details as if they were a collector discerning a real Rembrandt from a fake. These DIY art critics don’t fear these images as unquestionable productions of the real but as a style that must be understood like any other.