I was having dinner with a friend yesterday who told me that lock free data structures aren’t lock free since they lock on the hardware level. He also had a thing to say about compilers in C++.
He said something like: it’s crazy that you have the C++ standard but then also how a compiler implements that standard. And then it still matters how that compiler is implemented on a particular architecture! It’s always different and the annoying thing is that this is permutative. This is why we use X86-64 Intel CPUs at <name company> and <name compiler> (I forgot the name). That simplifies it but you still need to know 3 things. He also was frustrated how lock free data structures and memory reordering are 2 completely different concepts in practice but not in C++ but I didn’t fully follow him. I wrote 100 hours in C++ so I was already happy I understood everything else.
But based on his rant I can sort of see why compilers feel not deterministic.
Don't bother. They're going to claim that cosmic radiation can alter bits so compiler determinism is comparable to LLM. I'd rather AI evangelists claim determinism is not required to build decent software than perform the mental gymnastics required to make these comments.
Besides the privacy argument (the claim that the UID can't be used for tracking via derivation is shaky at best, and not much different than MS's EK), there is the freedom argument: as in, who owns the device - the user, or Apple?
If Apple can remotely lock the device that an user bought mistakenly (for example because some corporation somewhere fat-fingers some entries), that fundamentally means the user doesn't own the device they bought and paid for. Add on top DRM and all the other evil that comes along with attestation.
Plus, you can still disable TPM2 (if you don't want to run Windows on your machine), you can never disable Apple's implementation.
I'd like to add we are discussing communication over the internet. It is an open standard. I should be allowed to build my own pcb without a secure element and talk to anyone over http so long as I am abiding by the correct rfcs.
I was curious why I no longer was able to wear pants I wore in my 20s. I could not get them over my hips. It wasn't because I was getting fatter, my weight is about the same.
I was also intrigued by young men looking slim in the hips, and older men not.
So I looked it up.
Turns out that your hips grow wider with age. I'd never heard of this before! Though I did know one's ears got bigger.
Too bad my shoulders never get wider, and my height shrinks :-/
My feet have gotten considerably wider with age, too.
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