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Dennis Ritchie’s Legacy Lives On

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  The Enduring Relevance of C in the Era of Large Language Models Back in October 2011, when we lost Dennis Ritchie, the world was a very different place. I remember that time clearly — we were all excited about the iPhone 4S, cloud computing was just starting to take off, and if you’d mentioned “large language models” to most developers, you’d have gotten blank stares. That same month we lost Steve Jobs. Later that month, I delivered a eulogy for DMR at our local C/C++ meetup. I have put the text at the end of this article. You can also find it in the archive —  https://www.sanjaysays.com/2011/10/ Now, sitting here in 2024, surrounded by AI breakthroughs and specialized hardware accelerators, I find myself thinking about how Ritchie’s creation — the C programming language — isn’t just surviving; it’s thriving at the very heart of these innovations. You know what’s fascinating? While all the AI headlines focus on Python code and fancy neural networks, C is quietly powering the entire s
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The Viral Influence on Human Evolution and Civilization

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  A very short piece Viruses have often been portrayed as some of the greatest threats to human civilization, and for good reason. Throughout history, viral outbreaks have brought devastation and profound societal changes. The recent COVID-19 pandemic is a stark reminder of the destructive potential of viruses. It claimed millions of lives globally, disrupted economies, and altered daily life in ways unimaginable before 2020. Beyond its immediate health impacts, COVID-19 highlighted the fragility of human systems in the face of infectious diseases, underscoring the critical need for robust healthcare infrastructure, rapid vaccine development, and international cooperation. The pandemic also showcased the incredible advancements in biotechnology and the human capacity for innovation. One of the key scientific breakthroughs that helped combat COVID-19 was the use of AlphaFold 2, an artificial intelligence system developed by DeepMind to predict protein structures with remarkable accuracy
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Transformers & NVIDIA — The Virtuous Cycle

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  This is written for my friends with no AIML background who are killing it in the stock market, especially with Tech Stocks. You know how everyone jokes that NVIDIA is the only company actually making money from AI? There’s a really interesting reason for that, and it’s all about these things called transformers (not the robot kind!). Think of transformers like super-efficient brains that get smarter the more data you feed them. Unlike older AI models that had limits, these ones just keep getting better with more information. Pretty cool, right? It’s a pretty sweet deal for NVIDIA — they basically hit the tech lottery by having exactly what everyone needed right when they needed it. And now they’re so far ahead, it’s super hard for anyone else to catch up! Now, here’s where NVIDIA got lucky — their graphics cards (GPUs) turned out to be perfect for running these transformer AIs. It’s like they accidentally built the perfect tool for the job before anyone knew what the job would be! Th
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The Art of Stacking Spheres, Cans, and Dimensions Beyond Imagination

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  The Science Behind Packing Ever found yourself standing in the grocery store, marveling at those perfectly stacked pyramids of oranges, feeling a bit smug because, hey, you just solved a packing problem? No? Well, congratulations anyway! You’ve just dipped your toe into the vast, perplexing, and often award-worthy world of “Packings” in mathematics. You see, packing problems are deceptively simple, yet maddeningly difficult — like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube while blindfolded or deciding which leftovers to fit in your already crammed fridge. What’s the Deal with Packing? Packing is all about fitting objects into a confined space with as little wasted room as possible. Sounds easy enough, right? But here’s the kicker: while your neatly arranged cans of soup seem straightforward, mathematicians are out there scratching their heads trying to figure out how to pack spheres in 24-dimensional space. Yes, 24. The kind of space that makes our measly 3D world look like child’s play. Let’s
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The Curious Handedness of Matter and Antimatter

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  The lectures at the New Scientist Live were incredible. Due to parallel tracks I could not attend all the lectures and I hope to catch them up with my online access. I attended most of the Physics lectures in the Universe Stage. I thoroughly enjoyed the lecture by eminent Frank Close (I grew up reading his books), astrophysicist Chris Lintott, theoretical physicist Claudia de Rham (I try to attend her talks whenever possible), Jo Dunkley (this is the first time I attended her lecture — she was so lucid in her explanation of the Dark Matters.), and Or Graur. I have never thought much about the left-handedness of our material universe. As I am flying 33000 feet above and the outside temperature is minus 62 degree Fahrenheit, I like to ponder about the weird handedness of Matter and Anitmatter. As I mentioned above, one of the most intriguing mysteries is the apparent preference for “handedness” in matter and antimatter. This phenomenon, known as  chirality , has profound implications f
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