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Skunkleton

3,508 karma · joined May 18, 2013

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Skunkleton··on Floppinux – An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy, 2025 Edition
If you make structural changes to your filesystem without a journal, and you fail mid way, there is a 100% chance your filesystem is not in a known state, and a very good chance it is in a non-self-consistent state that will lead to some interesting surprises down the line.
Skunkleton··on CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
Yes, that is really all it is.
Skunkleton··on Linux kernel security work
In the context of the kernel, it’s hard to say when that’s true. It’s very easy to fix some bug that resulted in a kernel crash without considering that it could possibly be part of some complex exploit chain. Basically any bug could be considered a security bug.
Skunkleton··on Lessons from the PG&E outage
> The spontaneous explosions become so common and normalized that just about everyone knows someone who got caught up in one, a dead friend of a friend, at least

That’s an extraordinary claim.

Skunkleton··on Vm.overcommit_memory=2 is the right setting for servers
Over commit is a design choice, and it is a design choice that is pretty core to Linux. Basic stuff like fork(), for example, gets wasteful when you don't over commit. Less obvious stuff like buffer caches also get less effective. There are certainly places where you would rather fail at allocation time, but that isn't everywhere and it doesn't belong as a default.
Skunkleton··on 73% of AI startups are just prompt engineering
The question that isn't answered completely in the article is how useful are the pipelines for these startups? The article certainly implies that for at least some of these startups there very little value add in the wrapper.
Skunkleton··on AMD GPUs Go Brrr
This meme is tired. Let it rest boss.
Skunkleton··on How apps are using Liquid Glass
Maybe I’m grumpy, but the old designs all look better and more functional to me.
Skunkleton··on Why aren't smart people happier?
If you find yourself getting in trouble, maybe you are solving the wrong problems?
Skunkleton··on ChatGPT Atlas
A browser using your keychain seems like the least questionable bit, if anything.
Skunkleton··on Vapor chamber tech keeps iPhone 17 Pro cool
No case is great. I’ve taken to slapping a screen protector on my phone with no case. Keeps me from feeling bad about setting it face down.
Skunkleton··on What would you do with 52 hours a week of discretionary time? (2023)
I'm not convinced I have enough energy to do 16 hours a day of stuff that I am proud of.
Skunkleton··on Bear is now source-available
Its weirdly incorrect to zero index stuff like this. The zero index refers to the start of the first thing, which is not what numbered lists are supposed to indicate.
Skunkleton··on John Carmack's arguments against building a custom XR OS at Meta
> Did they have people who have built an OS before?

Yes.

Skunkleton··on Ask HN: How can ChatGPT serve 700M users when I can't run one GPT-4 locally?
> In sane units: 3.8 kW

5.1 Horsepower

Skunkleton··on Replacing tmux in my dev workflow
> I don't mind dealing with wonky copy and paste once in a while.

This problem is in no way unique to tmux. You have the same problem with any terminal app that takes over drawing, eg vim. That said it is also easy enough to fix.

The solution is OSC52, a terminal escape sequence that the emulator can use to interact with the system clipboard (kitty, alacritty, iterm2 all support this). The first step is to get you a script that writes out data in that protocol. Its easy enough:

    #!/usr/bin/env python3
    import os, base64, sys
    clip = base64.b64encode(sys.stdin.buffer.read())
    for pid in (os.getpid(), os.getppid()): # so that osc52-copy can be invoked by processes that themselves do not have a tty.
        cty = f"/proc/{pid}/fd/1"
        try:
            fd = os.open(cty, os.O_WRONLY)
            if os.isatty(fd):
                os.write(fd, b'\x1b]52;c;') # the actual escape sequence
                os.write(fd, clip)
                os.write(fd, b'\a')
                break
        except:
            continue
        finally:
            os.close(fd)
    else:
        raise SystemExit(f"no tty")

Now you can do this:

$ grep my_thing < some.txt | osc52-copy

And whatever got into osc52 is now on your system clipboard.

Tmux (set -g clipboard on) and nvim (unset clipboard) both have native osc52 support, and the script above can be used to integrate other places.

Skunkleton··on Uv: Running a script with dependencies
Its needed on my ubuntu 24.04 system

  $ cat test.sh
  #!/usr/bin/env bash -c "echo hello"
  $ ./test.sh
  /usr/bin/env: ‘bash -c "echo hello"’: No such file or directory
  /usr/bin/env: use -[v]S to pass options in shebang lines
  $ ./test.sh # with -S
  hello
Skunkleton··on I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone (2022)
I fall into that category. My first choice would be an iphone pro mini. My second choice is an iphone pro max. I refuse to explain my preferences.
Skunkleton··on I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone (2022)
> Is it really that expensive to maintain a more niche line for each generation?

Think of just the work that goes into having an assembly line customized for a specific form factor. To keep price, quality, and profit in line with their other phones I think the answer here is clearly yes.

Skunkleton··on Why are coffee stains darker at the edges?
Is this completely correct? Coffee isn’t homogeneous. There are particulates and oils that will separate out. Anything pushed to the top will also move towards the edge given the shape of the droplet. There is also capillary action to consider. Seems like there should be more than one effect that leads to the edges of the stain being darker.
Skunkleton··on Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer (1987) [pdf]
> No, all the carbon in food plants comes from CO2 from the atmosphere.

Yes, this is what I said.

> the natural gas used in making fertilizer is a source of hydrogen and energy, but not a significant source of N.

There is no nitrogen at all in natural gas.

Plants cannot use atmospheric nitrogen on their own. They depend on either bacteria or humans to create some usable form of nitrogen. Any carbon captured in a plant that depended on a fossil fuel source of nitrogen cannot be considered carbon neutral, unless you draw a useless system boundary.

Skunkleton··on Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer (1987) [pdf]
I think you might be missing the point too. Yes, the carbon in the food we eat is where the carbon in our breath comes from. But the carbon that we used to get the ingredients in that food didn't certainly come from the atmosphere (e.g. half of the nitrogen used in agriculture comes from fossil fuels). You can't be a perfectly optimal salad eating machine. One of your fellow humans will ruin the equation the moment they buy produce from the modern supply chain.
Skunkleton··on Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer (1987) [pdf]
We are carbon neutral against the earth as a whole. The problem is that sequestered carbon is now in the atmosphere. It doesn't matter how many people are breathing out carbon. It matters where that carbon came from, and where it ends up. Of course we now have so many humans that the majority of them are dependent on fossil fuels to survive, and as others have pointed out, not just for energy.
Skunkleton··on Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer (1987) [pdf]
I get your point, but good luck with that. Most (every?) influential figure had has something problematic about their person. If you can't see the good through the bad, then you will quickly find yourself with nothing.
Skunkleton··on Legendary Bose Magic Carpet Suspension Is Finally Going Global
That was certainly how the original tech demo worked.
Skunkleton··on In restaurants, We need a new way to signal that we're ready to pay
I don’t get it. Either say “I’m ready to pay now” when the bill is dropped off, or just flag the server down later when you are ready. What problem are we solving here?
Skunkleton··on Jagged AGI: o3, Gemini 2.5, and everything after
https://kagi.com/assistant/3752c5f9-bf5c-4a43-bada-b3eccbe94...

You should be able to click left right on the prompt to see different responses. Sonnet 3.7 with extended thinking notices the issue, and then chooses to totally ignore it with no explanation.

From Claude for those who don’t want to click:

Wait, I notice a difference from the traditional riddle. In this version, the surgeon says "I can operate on this boy" (affirmative) rather than "I can't operate on this boy" (negative).

This changes the nature of the puzzle somewhat. If the surgeon is saying they CAN operate, then we need to explain why this is surprising or seemingly impossible, but actually possible.

The traditional answer would still apply: the surgeon is the boy's mother.

Skunkleton··on What's in that bright red fire retardant? No one will say, so we had it tested
https://nyulangone.org/news/flame-retardants-pesticides-over...

I don’t think it is shown that the flame retardants used by cal fire are the same as those in the article from nyu.

Skunkleton··on An interactive-speed Linux computer made of only 3 8-pin chips
That depends on if you are the controller or the target, no? My usual use case for i2c is for talking to some peripheral from a microcontroller, where I am acting as the clock source. Clock stretching applies to the target side, at least when you are talking about SCL.
Skunkleton··on An interactive-speed Linux computer made of only 3 8-pin chips
USB is also tough to bitbang also it has pretty strict timing requirements. Compared to something like i2c where the clock only advances when the pin is explicitly toggled.
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