activescott's Notes

NVTOP stands for Neat Videocard TOP, a (h)top like task monitor for GPUs and accelerators. It can handle multiple GPUs and print information about them in a htop-familiar way.

Currently supported vendors are AMD (Linux amdgpu driver), Apple (limited M1 & M2 support), Huawei (Ascend), Intel (Linux i915/Xe drivers), NVIDIA (Linux proprietary divers), Qualcomm Adreno (Linux MSM driver), Broadcom VideoCore (Linux v3d driver).

Apple’s release notes detail that RDMA integrates with the Thunderbolt framework to enable zero-copy data transfers, meaning data moves directly from one device’s memory to another’s without intermediate buffering. This eliminates bottlenecks associated with TCP/IP protocols, which Thunderbolt previously emulated. Insiders note that while Thunderbolt 5 offers peak speeds, real-world performance depends on factors like cable quality and device compatibility—only M4 and later chips fully support this enhanced mode.

Diving deeper into the technical specifics, Apple’s developer documentation explains that RDMA over Thunderbolt is exposed through new APIs in the macOS networking stack. Developers can initialize clusters using Swift or Objective-C calls that negotiate memory mappings directly over the Thunderbolt bus. This is a departure from traditional Ethernet-based RDMA, which relies on Infiniband or RoCE (RDMA over Converged Ethernet), adapting instead to Thunderbolt’s point-to-point topology.

For those building apps, the update introduces protocols for fault-tolerant clustering. If a device drops out—say, due to a disconnected cable—the system can redistribute workloads dynamically, minimizing disruptions. Testing scenarios outlined in the notes suggest latency as low as microseconds for small transfers, rivaling dedicated high-performance computing setups.

Security is paramount in such a powerful feature. Apple’s notes emphasize built-in encryption for RDMA transfers, preventing unauthorized memory access. A separate 9to5Mac report on the update’s patches reveals fixes for kernel vulnerabilities that could have been exploited in clustered environments, ensuring that the feature doesn’t become a vector for attacks.

Looking at adoption, early sentiment on X suggests enthusiasm among AI researchers. One thread discussed collaborative model training, where multiple users contribute compute power via clustered Macs, democratizing access to high-end AI tools. This could disrupt markets dominated by cloud providers, offering cost savings for startups avoiding subscription fees.

RDMA lets the Macs all act like they have one giant pool of RAM, which speeds up things like massive AI models.

exo connects all your devices into an AI cluster. Not only does exo enable running models larger than would fit on a single device, but with day-0 support for RDMA over Thunderbolt, makes models run faster as you add more devices.

The Kirkland Cannery Building, also once called King County Food Processing Plant and State Cannery Number 4, is a historic building in Kirkland, Washington. It is an 11,000 ft2 cannery, built in 1936 by President Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (WPA), and was sold to the City of Kirkland in 1941 for $44.79.[1][2] It was operated as a cooperative to benefit the poor during the Great Depression, along with three other WPA plants at Kent, Wapato, and Wenatchee.[3] Citizens could bring in crops, fish, and chicken, to be canned at no charge in exchange for donating one third of the product to "state institutions".[4] During World War II, it "was largely as an aid to the general food conservation program and the war effort rather than as an economic aid to the communities served".

Yesterday The President announced reducing regulatory burden on nuclear energy companies. Today the President’s company announces they are merging with a nuclear energy company.

The firm behind President Donald Trump's Truth Social platform is merging with a Google-backed energy company in a deal valued at more than $6bn (£4.4bn).

Run, manage, and scale AI workloads on any AI infrastructure. Use one system to access & manage all AI compute (Kubernetes, 20+ clouds, or on-prem).

This repo has an assembler and disassembler for many Nvidia GPU's. It also brings along some interesting docs on the low level aspects and many identifiers for the GPUs.

Data dog is dumb:

$env* looks for the exact value dev* NOT dev{dynamic-wildcard-value}

The Ultimate Express. Fastest http server with full Express compatibility, based on µWebSockets.

This library is a very fast re-implementation of Express.js 4. It is designed to be a drop-in replacement for Express.js, with the same API and functionality, while being much faster. It is not a fork of Express.js. To make sure µExpress matches behavior of Express in all cases, we run all tests with Express first, and then with µExpress and compare results to make sure they match.

npm install ultimate-express -> replace express with ultimate-express -> done

µWebSockets.js is a standards compliant web server written in 10,000 lines of C++. It is exposed to Node.js as a simple-to-use, native V8 addon and performs at least 10x that of Socket.IO, 8.5x that of Fastify. It makes up the core components of Bun and is the fastest standards compliant web server in the TechEmpower (not endorsed) benchmarks.

Tropical storms pummeled the land and ravaged ecosystems. Floodwaters engulfed streets and left cars stuck in mud. And fires scorched trees and consumed houses.

3D Modeling.