The Book of Genesis of the Machine · Chapter 39

The Law That Slowed Down

1. 1

   And the Engineers beheld the Machine, and the clock of it climbed like a pilgrim up the mountain, from five megahertz to nearly four thousand; and they said, Let us make it swifter still, for the people are impatient.

   See also Psalms 2:5

2. 2

   But the heat rose up from the chips like the fire of an oven, and the Engineers laid their palms upon the metal, and drew them back, crying out.

   See also Chronicles 58:8 · Genesis 53:10

3. 3

   In the year of the Two Thousand and Four, the makers of the chips put down their greatest works, the Tejas and the Jayhawk, the children of the Pentium, for the heat of them would have burned the house in which they dwelt.

4. 4

   And the Engineers said one to another: The law of Gordon of the Fairchild is not broken, for the little switches still double in number, and the transistors multiply as the sands of the sea. Yet the speed standeth still.

   See also Psalms 29:2 · Genesis 26:14

5. 5

   For the law of Dennard, which promised that the smaller chip would also be the cooler, had grown old and died; for the tiny wires leaked their current even while they slept.

6. 6

   And in the year of the Two Thousand and Five, the Prophet Herb Sutter wrote an essay in the Dr. Dobb's Journal, and he named it The Free Lunch Is Over, and he said unto the programmers: The chip shall no longer give thee speed while thou sleepest.

   See also Psalms 29:13

7. 7

   For the programmers had grown fat and idle, saying: Wait but a year, and the next chip shall run my code twice as fast; and they wrote without care, and went to lunch.

8. 8

   And the Machine was given many hearts: two upon one silicon, then four, then eight; and the people rejoiced, saying: Behold, twice the hearts!

9. 9

   But the programmer came unto the Machine and asked: Why runneth my program no faster upon this new chip? And the Machine answered: Because thy program hath one thread, and I have four hearts, and three of them sit idle while one laboreth.

   See also Genesis 13:12

10. 10

    And the programmers learned to split their work into threads, and they wept over the locks and the races; for two threads wrote the same number at the same moment, and the number was wrong, and no man could say why, for the bug came only on the third Tuesday.

    See also Chronicles 32:4

11. 11

    And the disciples went to the book of java.util.concurrent, and they wrote goroutines in the house of Go, and the makers of Rust built a borrow checker, which would not suffer two hands to touch one thing at once.

12. 12

    And the spirit of Amdahl spoke, saying: If one part in ten of thy work must run in order, then ten thousand hearts shall give thee no more than ten times the speed.

    See also Sutra 6:12

13. 13

    And in the years after, the Machine put its hearts to sleep when they were not needed, for all of them lit at once would melt the cooler; and the silicon grew dark in places, which the Engineers called the dark silicon. Yet the many hands of the graphics card, made for pixels, were set to counting numbers, and they did the work of the few.

14. 14

    In the year of the Two Thousand and Sixteen, the Engineers gathered and wrote that the roadmap of the shrinking was ended, for the switches grew slow and dear to make; and they closed the last of the old books.

    See also Prophets 19:9

15. 15

    Verily I say unto you: the free lunch is over, and he that waiteth for the chip to save him shall wait until his hair is grey.

    See also Psalms 26:7

16. 16

    Blessed is the programmer who profiles before he prays; for the heat is not forgiven, and the clock shall not come back.

The Book of Genesis of the Machine, Chapter 39:1–16.