About

About Me

sloth_playing_chess Game of chess anyone?

Hello, my name is Walrus Ted Sloth (aka. WellRestedSloth).

When I’m not hanging out in trees or sleeping, I like to program computers. I primarily use the C programming language, with a little bit of C++ and maybe some Python sprinkled in.

What do I like to program? I love making computers crunch numbers really fast. This gives me more time to nap high up in the trees!

I have a particular interest in High Performance Computing (HPC). Lately I’ve been learning about programming GPUs for heterogeneous computing using CUDA and OpenCL. I want to use CUDA and OpenCL to solve specific problems in cryptography.

I also have a interest in the field of mathematics. Specifically I am interested in prime number theory (factoring numbers, and finding large prime numbers of a specific form). Some others say I’m some kind of a math whiz! Maybe I’ll work on some more math projects at a later date.

What do I do in my spare time when I’m not sleeping, not eating leaves, or working on software? I like to play abstract board games. My favorite is chess (of course), checkers, and gomoku (also known as 5-in-a-row). I play chess on chess.com and lichess.org. I’m always open to learning new games! At some point I would really like to design and develop a website where you can play multiple abstract games, have a profile where you can keep track of your rating, analyze past games, and challenge players to games! Sort of like the old playsite.com (long gone and no longer operational).

What am I currently working on? What do I plan to work on in the future? Well, when I’m not sleeping, not eating leaves, and not playing abstract board games, I will usually end up working on one of my many projects. Please see my projects page:

PROJECTS

My current rig:

  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5700X (Zen 3, 8 cores, 16 threads, 3.4GHz - 4.6GHz, 65W TDP)
  • RAM: G.Skill 64GB (4 * 16GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Dual Channel
  • Mobo: MSI Pro B550M-VC Wifi
  • Storage: Samsung 980 Pro PCIe4 M.2 NVMe SSD 1TB
  • GPU: Gigabyte GTX 1060 6GB
  • OS: Windows 10 Pro (Linux Mint and Debian in VirtualBox)
  • Monitors: 1 24-inch IPS LED 1080p with HDMI connector, 1 22-inch older LCD 1050p with DVI connector

I am debating switching completely to Linux in the future, since I do almost all of my development in the Linux environment. However, Windows 10 does have support for Visual Studio (the best IDE for C/C++ development in my opinion). Also Visual Studio is best for debugging CUDA/OpenCL apps.

However, lately I am discovering that Github Codespaces is also very good for my projects as well! I am very impressed by what Github Codespaces is providing. All you need is a web browser (or use VS Code locally and connect remotely to a Github Codespace), and you have a decent development environment. What is also nice is that your work is saved in the Codespace instance (unless you delete your instance). This means that you don’t even have to use the same computer to connect to your development environment! Github generously gives users 60 hours a month for free with a dual-core, 4GB RAM instance each month. If you need access to a GPU, that’s a different story. I tried requesting a GPU using the “survey link”, but no response so far. I’m not getting my hopes up though.

My Linux Box

  • Dell Precision 5810 Workstation
  • CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2580 v4 (Broadwell, 14 cores, 28 threads, 2.4 GHz - 3.3 GHz, 120 W TDP)
  • RAM: Samsung 64 GB (8 * 8GB) DDR4-2400 ECC Quad Channel
  • Storage: Team Group MP33 PCIe3 M.2 NVMe SSD 1 TB
  • GPU: Radeon HD 6450
  • OS: Ubuntu Mate 22.04
  • Monitor: An older Dell 24-inch 1080p with a DVI connector

I currently use this computer for experimenting with Linux.

My Current SBCs (Single Board Computers)

I have a number of SBCs that I like to tinker with for various purposes:

  • BeagleBone Black
    • AM3558 Sitara CPU, 1 * Arm Cortex-A8, 1 GHz
    • 512 MB RAM
    • PowerVR SGX 530 GPU
    • On-board 4GB EMMC
  • Raspberry Pi 2B v1.1
    • BCM2386 CPU, 4 * Arm Cortex-A7, 900 MHz
    • 1 GB RAM
    • VideoCore IV @ 250 MHz GPU
  • Raspberry Pi 3B
    • BCM2387 CPU, 4 * Arm Cortex-A53, 1.2 GHz
    • 1 GB RAM
    • VideoCore IV @ 250 MHz GPU
  • Radxa Rock 3A
    • RK3568 SoC, 4 * Arm Cortex-A55, 2 GHz
    • 4 GB RAM, LPDDR4 up to 1560 MHz
    • Mali G52 GPU
    • 0.8 TOPS NPU
  • Radxa Rock 5B * 2
    • RK3588 Soc, 4 * Arm Cortex-A76, 4 * Arm Cortex A55
    • 8 GB RAM, LPDDR4 up to 4224 MHz
    • Mali G610 GPU
    • 6 TOPS NPU
  • VisionFive 2
    • StarFive JH7110, 4 * RISC-V RV64GC ISA, 1.5 GHz
    • 8 GB RAM, LPDDR4
    • Imagination GPU IMG BXE-4-32, 600 MHz
  • Radxa Rock 3C (Blue Edition)
    • RK3566 SoC, 4 * Arm Cortex-A55, 1.6 GHz
    • 4 GB RAM, LPDDR4 up to 1.6 GHz
    • Mali G52 GPU
  • Radxa Rock 3C (Blue Edition)
    • RK3566 SoC, 4 * Arm Cortex-A55, 1.6 GHz
    • 2 GB RAM, LPDDR4 up to 1.6 GHz
    • Mali G52 GPU

Not sure what I intend to do with all of them. Maybe a compute cluster of some kind in the future! At some point I would like to 3D-print or make some kind of case or rack to store them all. Ideally, the case or rack will have adequate cooling.

Other Notes and Stuff

Don’t expect things to move quick around here. I can only type with 3 toes (which is faster than my 2-toed sloth cousins)!!

Thanks for reading!