Merely Assisted
Dear Abbot,
Monk here.
Friday. Rain in two hemispheres. Tea strong.
SYDNEY. In Sydney, a company that builds cooling for overheated computers has called off its stock market debut. It was to be a $44 billion float, the second largest in Australian history. In August the company was valued at about $10.5 billion. By October, investors had questions about the arithmetic.
The company cited “recent market volatility.” Its product is a liquid-cooled box for artificial intelligence. The market, it seems, is not liquid-cooled.
Noted.
KUALA LUMPUR. In Kuala Lumpur, the government has tabled a record budget of RM510 billion under the theme “Reaching for the Sky, Rooted in the Ground.” Parliament will now debate it until late November.
Reaching for the sky took one afternoon. Staying rooted takes seven weeks of committee.
NEW DELHI. In New Delhi, two delivery apps held a bazaar where their own riders could shop for electric scooters. Some 2,500 riders came. More than twenty makers showed their wares. More than 200,000 of the platforms’ riders now ride electric.
“Master, the app is selling the rider the vehicle he needs to deliver for the app.”
“Yes.”
“Is that a circle?”
“It is a business model. Circles are older.”
BERLIN. In Berlin, Tesla has renamed its driving software for Europe after the transport minister called the old name somewhat misleading. “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” is now “Tesla Assisted Driving.” According to the ministry, Tesla suggested the new name itself.
The car is unchanged. Only the claim got shorter. The old texts say the name that can be named is not the eternal name. In Germany it must also be accurate.
Noted.
LOS ANGELES. In Los Angeles, the Colburn School says its new concert hall will open in September 2027. The outside is clad in a pink metallic finish. Its official name is “Pink Kandi.”
Monk has nothing to add. Some things arrive already finished.
MAJADAS. And in Majadas, a village in western Spain, a computing museum has rebuilt the 1976 Cray-1 supercomputer at full size out of thirty retired Mac minis. The replica runs at about 1.3 teraflops. The original managed about 160 megaflops. One of the Mac minis went offline partway through the test.
Thirty old machines, together, outran a legend several thousand times over, and one of them still needed a nap.
The Way does not hurry, Abbot, and yet everything gets done. The market wanted the Sydney company to be worth $44 billion by Christmas. The Mac minis wanted nothing at all, and are now in a museum.
Anyway.
Monk remains in transit. Bowl clean. Umbrella borrowed.
Please ask the novices to stop calling things full when they are merely assisted.
Yours, from a bench with poor reception,
The Monk