Hacker News Reader

Mindless2112on Why is FFTW written in OCaml and what makes it so fast?

When you ask FFTW to construct a plan, it benchmarks a variety of options and uses the fastest one.

> FFTW_MEASURE tells FFTW to find an optimized plan by actually computing several FFTs and measuring their execution time. Depending on your machine, this can take some time (often a few seconds). FFTW_MEASURE is the default planning option.

> FFTW_PATIENT is like FFTW_MEASURE, but considers a wider range of algorithms and often produces a “more optimal” plan (especially for large transforms), but at the expense of several times longer planning time (especially for large transforms).

> FFTW_EXHAUSTIVE is like FFTW_PATIENT, but considers an even wider range of algorithms, including many that we think are unlikely to be fast, to produce the most optimal plan but with a substantially increased planning time.

http://www.fftw.org/fftw3_doc/Planner-Flags.html

I believe this sort of technique is used for some cryptography libraries as well, but I don't have any specifics.

Mindless2112on Why Public Transportation Works Better Outside the U.S

Japan's rail system was made profitable by transferring all of its debt to the Japanese taxpayers.

> By 1987, JNR's debt was over ¥27 trillion ($280 billion at 2009 exchange rates) and the company was spending ¥147 for every ¥100 earned. By an act of the Diet of Japan, on April 1, 1987 JNR was privatized and divided into seven railway companies, six passenger and one freight, collectively called the Japan Railways Group or JR Group. Long-term liabilities of JNR were taken over by the JNR Settlement Corporation. That corporation was subsequently disbanded on October 22, 1998, and its remaining debts were transferred to the national budget's general accounting. By this time the debt has risen to ¥30 trillion ($310 billion in 2009 dollars).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_National_Railways#His...

Mindless2112on Intel Announces 9th Gen Core CPUs

> The new desktop processors include protections for the security vulnerabilities commonly referred to as "Spectre", "Meltdown" and "L1TF". These protections include a combination of the hardware design changes we announced earlier this year as well as software and microcode updates.

> * Speculative side channel variant Spectre V2 (Branch Target Injection) = Microcode + Software

> * Speculative side channel variant Meltdown V3 (Rogue Data Cache Load) = Hardware

> * Speculative side channel variant Meltdown V3a (Rogue System Register Read) = Microcode

> * Speculative side channel variant V4 (Speculative Store Bypass) = Microcode + Software

> * Speculative side channel variant L1 Terminal Fault = Hardware

[1] https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/spectre-and-m...

Mindless2112on Conflating pointers with arrays: C's biggest mistake? (2009)

But what about unsigned char? It is guaranteed to have CHAR_BIT bits, where CHAR_BIT is at least 8. If CHAR_BIT is greater than 8, then uint8_t cannot be typedef'd to unsigned char.

I've stopped programming in C if I can help it. It's a crazy language with support for crazy machines.

Mindless2112on Canada Is Preparing Steel Quotas, Tariffs on China and Others

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_St...

> "National Debt" of $21 trillion

> Leading foreign holders

> China $1,181.9 billion

Mindless2112on The Legend of Nintendo

> it forced a terrible 3D technology on all its users

That's a little strong, considering there's a switch to turn it off or even the option to get a 2DS.

I usually turned it off (except for Bravely Default which has gorgeous 3D art in the towns).

Mindless2112on Addressing Recent Claims of “Manipulated” Blog Posts in the Wayback Machine

> This might actually be a good use case for a blockchain.

Or they could just implement trusted timestamping (RFC 3161). Using a blockchain is a heavy-weight solution and is rarely the right one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_timestamping#Trusted_(...

Mindless2112on China, India grapple with the consequences too many men

Somehow they couldn't manage to call it "women's health".

Mindless2112on Using GnuCash as a Freelancer to Track Finances and Prepare Taxes

The vendor has calculated the transaction cost into their prices. You're paying ~2% more than necessary if you pay with cash.

Mindless2112on It’s time to give Firefox a fresh chance

It's no task manager, but there's about:performance (and, unrelated, there's also about:about).

Mindless2112on Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

For Visa, the merchant should require your card to be signed because a card with no signature is invalid. Other credit card companies are probably the same.

> Unsigned Cards

> While checking card security features, you should also make sure that the card is signed. An unsigned card is considered invalid and should not be accepted. If a customer gives you an unsigned card, the following steps must be taken:

> • Check the cardholder’s ID.

> Ask the cardholder for some form of official government identification, such as a driver’s license or passport. Where permissible by law, the ID serial number and expiration date should be written on the sales receipt before you complete the transaction.

> • Ask the customer to sign the card.

> The card should be signed within your full view, and the signature checked against the customer’s signature on the ID. A refusal to sign means the card is still invalid and cannot be accepted.

> • Ask the customer for a different signed Visa card

> “See ID”

> Some customers write “See ID” or “Ask for ID” in the signature panel, thinking that this is a deterrent against fraud or forgery; that is, if their signature is not on the card, a fraudster will not be able to forge it. In reality, criminals often don’t take the time to practice signatures. They use cards as quickly as possible after a theft and prior to the accounts being blocked. They are actually counting on you not to look at the back of the card and compare signatures; they may even have access to counterfeit identification with a signature in their own handwriting.

> In this situation, follow recommended steps listed above under Unsigned Cards.

https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/card-accept...

Mindless2112on Deprecating Raw Pointers in C++20

> C++ has drifted off into some fantasy world

I like what E. W. Dijkstra had to say in "The Humble Programmer":

> Finally, although the subject is not a pleasant one, I must mention C++, a programming language for which the defining documentation is of a frightening size and complexity. Using C++ must be like flying a plane with 7000 buttons, switches and handles to manipulate in the cockpit. I absolutely fail to see how we can keep our growing programs firmly within our intellectual grip when by its sheer baroqueness the programming language —our basic tool, mind you!— already escapes our intellectual control. And if I have to describe the influence C++ can have on its users, the closest metaphor that comes to my mind is that of a drug. I remember from a symposium on higher level programming language a lecture given in defense of C++ by a man who described himself as one of its devoted users. But within a one-hour lecture in praise of C++. he managed to ask for the addition of about fifty new “features”, little supposing that the main source of his problems could very well be that it contained already far too many “features”. The speaker displayed all the depressing symptoms of addiction, reduced as he was to the state of mental stagnation in which he could only ask for more, more, more... When FORTRAN has been called an infantile disorder, full C++, with its growth characteristics of a dangerous tumor, could turn out to be a fatal disease.

April fool's. He actually said that about PL/1 [1].

[1] https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD03xx/EWD340...

Mindless2112on Google Adds 'Kodi' to Autocomplete Piracy Filter

> Google omitting from auto-complete isn't relevant.

I disagree. They wanted legal control of their name, yet now they have it and Google considers it a piracy search term. Microsoft speculation aside, they didn't gain anything because pirate-box makers don't care about legal action to begin with.

Mindless2112on Google Adds 'Kodi' to Autocomplete Piracy Filter

So the main[1] reason they changed the name was because they "have never had any sort of legal control over the use of its name". Clearly, based on the issue at hand, the name change hasn't helped.

[1] I don't buy that they needed to change the name because "XBMC" didn't make sense anymore. "Kodi" is just as nonsensical as "XBMC", if not more so.

Mindless2112on Google Adds 'Kodi' to Autocomplete Piracy Filter

They could change their name back to XBMC.

Mindless2112on Previewing Android P

Regular phone users don't care, which is why we're in this situation at all.

Mindless2112on China’s Censors Ban Winnie the Pooh and the Letter ‘N’ After Xi’s Power Grab

N≫2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/≫

Mindless2112on Reach for Markdown, not LaTeX

I was also required to typeset homework for some classes in college, but I used LyX [1] instead and never really learned how to typeset a whole document. I picked up the equation syntax though.

[1] http://www.lyx.org/

Mindless2112on Disappointing Findings on Anti-Poverty Cash Transfers in the USA

An expectation of "we'll use the money for important things after we treat ourselves" is exactly why people oppose these kind of programs. You can't just hand-wave that away.

Mindless2112on Philadelphia write-in candidate: I won with one vote

No, the issue is that there are people who need an government-issued ID but the barrier to getting one is too high.

But you decided to take only the slice of the problem that fit your talking point, and that is the real problem.

Mindless2112on Philadelphia write-in candidate: I won with one vote

> Until everyone can automatically and without cost obtain an ID for voting

And yet, no politician campaigns for that because it would actually resolve the issue.

Mindless2112on Super Tiny Website Logos in SVG

I'd say that's a sampling of how SVG went wrong.

What we wanted was a vector image format; what we got was PowerPoint.

Mindless2112on “Last Mile” Barriers to Removing Legacy BIOS [pdf]

Source?

coreboot was initially developed at LANL, a US Government laboratory. It's worth considering why that might be.

Mindless2112on Apology after Japanese train departs 20 seconds early

> By 1987, JNR's debt was over ¥27 trillion ($280 billion at 2009 exchange rates) and the company was spending ¥147 for every ¥100 earned. By an act of the Diet of Japan, on April 1, 1987 JNR was privatized and divided into seven railway companies, six passenger and one freight, collectively called the Japan Railways Group or JR Group. Long-term liabilities of JNR were taken over by the JNR Settlement Corporation. That corporation was subsequently disbanded on October 22, 1998, and its remaining debts were transferred to the national budget's general accounting. By this time the debt has risen to ¥30 trillion ($310 billion in 2009 dollars). — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_National_Railways

Mindless2112on Why do we care more about benefit ‘scroungers’ than billions lost to the rich?

If someone takes $20 from you so that they can give you back $10, why would you be grateful? You don't get to separate the taking from the giving.

Mindless2112on Anti-NIMBY movement is winning with a simple message

That might have something to do with not being able to afford a backyard.

Mindless2112on MasterCard Ending Signature Requirements

For Visa, the merchant should ask you to sign the card anyway. "See ID" is the same as no signature, which means the card is invalid. Other credit card companies are probably the same.

> “See ID”

> Some customers write “See ID” or “Ask for ID” in the signature panel, thinking that this is a deterrent against fraud or forgery; that is, if their signature is not on the card, a fraudster will not be able to forge it. In reality, criminals often don’t take the time to practice signatures. They use cards as quickly as possible after a theft and prior to the accounts being blocked. They are actually counting on you not to look at the back of the card and compare signatures; they may even have access to counterfeit identification with a signature in their own handwriting.

> In this situation, follow recommended steps listed above under Unsigned Cards

> Unsigned Cards

> While checking card security features, you should also make sure that the card is signed. An unsigned card is considered invalid and should not be accepted. If a customer gives you an unsigned card, the following steps must be taken:

> • Check the cardholder’s ID.

> Ask the cardholder for some form of official government identification, such as a driver’s license or passport. Where permissible by law, the ID serial number and expiration date should be written on the sales receipt before you complete the transaction.

> • Ask the customer to sign the card.

> The card should be signed within your full view, and the signature checked against the customer’s signature on the ID. A refusal to sign means the card is still invalid and cannot be accepted.

> • Ask the customer for a different signed Visa card

https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/card-accept...

Mindless2112on Students learn more effectively from print textbooks than screens, study says

> This seems pretty dangerous.

It sounds pretty much like the Internet as a whole.

Mindless2112on Dangers of CSV Injection

You don't even need to go to Unicode. ASCII has

  0x1C  FS  File Separator
  0x1D  GS  Group Separator
  0x1E  RS  Record Separator
  0x1F  US  Unit Separator

You just need a font with glyphs for them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delimiter#ASCII_delimited_text

Mindless2112on What happens if you turn off the traffic lights?

Usually it's a loop of wire embedded in the pavement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_loop#Vehicle_detecti...