From Heartbeats to Cache Misses: Making Big Numbers Hit Home

Christian Willner — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 10:22:54 +0000

'Our local library has 1.7 million books.' 'Reading from RAM is 500k slower than the L1 cache.'

Simple facts, right? Easy to repeat in an argument but so much harder to convey their impact.

When my kids marveled at the sheer number of books in the big library behind the main station, I needed a reference they could relate to. So, I got creative: I took a stack of books and laid one down for every step we took along the hallway. Walking to the closest supermarket? That’s a full shelf. Visiting friends across town? The entire room cleared out. And if they traded a book for every step they took from spring to New Year’s, they’d empty the library.

Distances shape our daily lives, making them an accessible reference. But there’s an even stronger candidate: time.

In a memorable presentation, Aras Pranckevičius used the human heartbeat to explain data retrieval times, creating a framework that was impossible to forget. If accessing the processor's Level 1 Cache takes one heartbeat, reading from RAM takes as long as brushing your teeth. A trip to a fast SSD? That’s a whole weekend. And a return package via internet? That's the time it takes to earn a bachelor’s and a master’s degree.

Frameworks like these make facts stick. They anchor abstract numbers to relatable experiences, turning dry stats into memorable stories. My daughter, for example, has already marked the distance it will take her to read their tiny school library.

One step at a time.

[Cover photo source]

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz

Christian Willner — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 20:54:36 +0000

If you’ve ever seen a Git graph for a large, multi-user project, the comparison to time travel becomes almost obvious. Throw in riot grrrls and you’ve got a mix I couldn’t resist—so I dived into the audiobook, expertly narrated by Laura Nichol.

I know, the term feminist sci-fi might make some people scroll away, and if I add tags like historically accurate, white-feminism critique, intersectional lit, queer culture, or reproductive rights, the audience could shrink further. But for me, time travel and punk were enough to hit play. And honestly? I thought I was ready for whatever was coming. But this story still managed to take me by surprise.

What I got was a fast-paced journey with murder, sex parties, geology, and a fantastic take on timelines—concepts that sounded a lot like my programming day job, with edits, branches, and the occasional (time) merge conflict.

As someone who’s pretty anti-spoiler, it’s tough to reveal much more without giving things away. But I can say that the compact storytelling, the impressive world-building, and the layered characters completely drew me in. And time travel—did I mention that? It’s one of my favorite and also most disliked storytelling devices. So many time-travel stories fall apart if you think about the mechanics logically, but Annalee Newitz pulled it off beautifully. I’d place this book alongside the excellent 2007 Spanish movie Los cronocrímenes (aka Timecrimes), which is way too unknown, even among geeks.

I was surprised to learn that The Future of Another Timeline is already five years old. Even without the context of the U.S. presidency at the time, the events hit close to home, especially if you consider the future of women’s reproductive rights now.

This book is full of important lines that feel like an introduction to worlds that might be overlooked by sci-fi readers like myself, who’ve grown up in predominantly white, male spaces. I hope this changes. Small steps toward a bigger goal, right? Or, as Annalee Newitz puts it:

Collective action means that when someone does something small or personal, their actions can change history too.

This thought gives me a bit of hope—even after the book’s final line, which struck me harder than any of its darker moments:

I remember abortion being legal in the United States.

Image by This_is_Engineering

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From Heartbeats to Cache Misses: Making Big Numbers Hit Home

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz