- The Education of a Libertarian (cato-unbound.org)
Peter Thiel shares the belief that politics is mostly futile, a conclusion he reached after years of activism. In particular, he believes that democratic politics is unlikely to bring about libertarian outcomes. Fortunately, politics is just one sphere of human life, and it’s possible, he argues, to create technologies that minimize its reach. Thiel describes a “deadly race” between politics and technology, in which human freedom is the prize. The goal of libertarian activism should not be to win in politics, he argues, but to escape it.
- The 8085’s register file reverse engineered (righto.com)
On the surface, a microprocessor’s registers seem like simple storage, but not in the 8085 microprocessor. Reverse-engineering the 8085 reveals many interesting tricks that make the registers fast and compact. The picture below shows that the registers and associated control circuitry occupy a large fraction of the chip, so efficiency is important. Each bit is implemented with a surprisingly compact circuit. The instruction set is designed to make register accesses efficient. An indirection trick allows quick register exchanges. Many register operations use the unexpected but efficient data path of going through the ALU.
- Peter Thiel (Wikipedia)
Peter Andreas Thiel (/tiːl/; born 11 October 1967) is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. As of July 2024, Thiel had an estimated net worth of US$11.2 billion and was ranked 212th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.