fch42

I was (more) of a Solaris/x86 kernel guy on that particular level and know the x86 kernel did not use task gates for doors (or any context switching other than the double fault handler). Linux did taskswitch via task gates on x86 till 2.0, IIRC. But then, hw assist or no, x86 task gates "aren't that fast".

The SPARC context switch code, to me, always was very complex. The hardware had so much "sharing" (the register window set could split to multiple owners, so would the TSB/TLB, and the "MMU" was elaborate software in sparcv9 amyway). SPARC's achilles heel always were the "spills" - needless register window (and other cpu state) to/from memory. I'm kinda still curious from a "historical" point of view - thanks!

Think of it in terms of REST. A door is an endpoint/path provided by a service. The client can make a request to it (call it). The server can/will respond.

The "endpoint" is set up via door_create(); the client connects by opening it (or receiving the open fd in other ways), and make the request by door_call(). The service sends its response by door_return().

Except that the "handover" between client and service is inline and synchronous, "nothing ever sleeps" in the process. The service needn't listen for and accept connections. The operating system "transfers" execution directly - context switches to the service, runs the door function, context switches to the client on return. The "normal" scheduling (where the server/client sleeps, becomes runnable from pending I/O and is eventually selected by the scheduler) is bypassed here and latency is lower.

Purely functionality-wise, there's nothing you can do with doors that you couldn't do with a (private) protocol across pipes, sockets, HTTP connections. You "simply" use a faster/lower-latency mechanism.

(I actually like the "task gate" comparison another poster made, though doors do not require a hardware-assisted context switch)

While the Dresden bombing raid was devastating in terms of human lives lost, it doesn't rank equally high with respect to percentage of buildings destroyed.

Far less people died in other places but far more building damage got done (e.g. Würzburg, Pforzheim, and/or large cities hit by dozens of major raids like Hamburg, Cologne or Berlin).

None of this, though, justifies razing Warsaw. Atrocities don't "balance".

As a German, I won't say "doesn't exist" because it's possible of course. At best, people would think it some term from legalese.

The opposite thing though, "really roughly approximately (and couldn't care less how precise)" (you get what I mean) is often colloquially used in German, under the term "Pi times Thumb" (Pi mal Daumen).

So yes you can say "250tsd anno 1988 sind pi mal daumen 600tsd heutzutage".

I suppose you could say 40 years ago London had Tottenham Court Road full of little electronics shops, the rest of the UK had at least all their local Maplins, all of Germany was plastered with Conrad Electronics, plenty of car boot sales for vac tubes, military spare optics (man, Russia-made stuff in 1990 - great optical quality, built to not just survive a nuclear strike but to be used for yhr counterstrike ... sold for a song), and so on. Nevermind the cornershops for electronic spare parts. Beijing had its block of electronics shops somewhere near Tsinghua University 20 years ago when I was there selling questionable CPUs to retail by the tray (half of them ceramic blanks).

I'm not sure why and when exactly things have changed, but it looks that between pihut and amazon, not much "toyz" were left. I must admit though that the web has made it easier to learn/work alone; you used to go somewhere that taught you how to solder, somewhere that told you resistor color coding, tra nsistor number meanings, yadayada - now you watch it on youtube. The social aspect is gone; even makerspaces are often "just" the 3D printing and woodworking crowds, with little electonics.

It's worldwide. If it hasn't quite reached Japan yet, it will soon enough.

The risk of injury as such has little to do with how strongly lit the path is; people break their legs at daytime hikes alright.

Does it help recovery/discovery ? Maybe, but again that more depends how busy the road is; your "lonely forest path" may or may not have other hikers. In Roman times, with a population density far below today's, just as likely noone may pass you by, daylight or no. And today, your mobile phone's emergency call is more likely to get you help than those passing you on the road at speed ...

Anyway, yes there is a safety, and more so, a comfort effect in lighting. We are, though, physically capable of night time vision as well; moonlight levels serve us once we're dark-adapted. Any "need" to light the night up to full color vision is "emotional" only.

I merely try to express that the "cheapening" of lighting and its overly pervasive use has both taken the awe and the celebration out of it. More conscious (non-)use is worth a thought, occasionally.

PIPS made it very clear that the way-forward was a unixish kernel/base system - as Apple did, as Android did, and in fact, years before either, as Nokia did with Maemo/Meego.

It was pure facade to say "continue with Symbian because PIPS + Qt". There were a lot of strange quirks in PIPS because the underlaying system/kernel wasn't unixish. And there were a lot of things all unixish systems as of 2008 already did well (multi-CPU, large memory) which Symbian really struggled with. Some of the "small-system optimisation" in Symbian (the single global service message port / queuing system) made it very hard to parallelize/scale out.

Nokia somehow was so uncomfortable with the idea of an opensource "base" that they rather bet on / sold out to Microsoft. But then, this is water down the river, and we will never know whether "alternatives" to the bet they made would have had better returns.

Amazing to see a curator attempt to give us an impression how lighting "felt" in antiquity.

Today, we too often see light as mere utilitarian anathema to "darkness" - which breeds evil, is to be banned to the shadows, or better yet eradicated altogether. As a consequence, we spill light everywhere. We kill the dark as if it's a disease, and deprive ourselves of a cosmic experience - the night sky, the magic experience of dusk and dawn, the conscious intake of bright summer sunlight as well as brief-if-invigorating winter sun. We turn night into day and forgot how, if at all, we can cherish and celebrate the difference.

Before, this was reversed. Night-time lighting served as an ornament, a celebration or display of art, or at least very consciously used to "spot" - light a path, show a door, paint with shadows. Make light a celebration in solstice bonfires, use candles as little boosters on christmas promising a nicer/warmer/brighter season just round the corner. Light was pleasure, luxury, promise, comfort.

Much of lighting today is needless and useless throwaway trash. It's used like painting the entire world flourescent green. Just with light. Not unimpressive as a technical feat. To me, just wrong, emotionally. If god had wanted us to live in permanent daylight, life would have been created on a planet rotation-bound to its star ...

I often wonder how biased we are here. After all, HN is a rather "raw-looking" news aggregator without any of the addictive and suggestive bells & whistles that define the modern internet, and it is therefore reasonable to assume that those who read and post here (aka "us") also converse in ways unlike the population average.

You could also claim I'm saying we're basking in our own elitism to the degree that we're offended by stupidity like that. I'd admit to that feeling. Alas, even if it sounds arrogant, it fits my observation that "most people" would find nothing at all wrong with this sort of meaningless overchildish belittlement of scientific facts.

An "unrolled" popcnt is not that badly performing; I haven't seen numbers for a current server class CPU. Results for older CPUs for different implementation can be found easily, for example at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11277891

It's easy to say to "start adapting [ not the least by ] not buy property in [ negatively impacted ] areas".

If only there weren't gazillions worth of property, and billions of people, in such areas. The Pliocene had a distinct advantage there, I believe.

While there might well be (personal) value in "prepping", as a solution that doesn't "scale" to all of humanity, unfortunately.

You mention the key feature for ddos (self-)protection - zero ingress fees. Non-Availability hurts you in harder-to-quantify terms than a bill for bandwidth used.

Zero ingress puts the upfront bandwidth cost onto the attacker. Because... you actually may succeed to defend and stay up. Their success is not guaranteed, they might be shouting into the void.

Attack success (as in, "impact on you") is guaranteed if your ingress is chargeable.

What I'm missing in the article is actually the crucial point:

How do you distinguish between the "ordinary if rare" conventional double-beta (that has reproducibly been observed for Ge76 -> Se76 + 2β + 2 anti-ν) and the hypothetical neutrino-less one ?

In "ordinary" beta decay, the (anti)neutrino takes part of the decay energy and hence the energy spectrum of the electron emitted is "blurry". "ordinary double beta" would imply the same, both of the (seen) emitted electrons should show an energy spectrum. If at least some of these double-betas were neutrinoless, the two electrons would take the entire decay energy. If you observe a lot of double-beta, you should therefore see the "smooth" ordinary (non-neutrinoless) spectrum ... with an excess at the top end (neutrinoless).

Is that correct? I.e. we're basically trying to measure enough double beta to get an energy distribution spectrum, and then hope/expect to see a "majorana peak" at the top end?

From the point of view of the WSJ, if your company "puts you through" a hosted proxy browser (like, for example, but not limited to https://www.cloudflare.com/en-gb/zero-trust/products/browser... - there are other vendors for this), then you're a bot for all they care.

Technically, it is.

Business-wise ... even inane and asinine "security enhancements" (or "security" "enhancements" to make the window dressing more apparent) done proprietary can be turned into software patents. In large orgs, this is a huge incentive. In fact, double it up by making a software patent and a trade-secret private implementation.

I may not like that ... but I also can't unrealize the facts :-(

After the market "prices in" the real costs of fossil fuel usage, it will decide.

And the real costs of tobacco smoking are totally dwarfed by that.

All governments need to do is to finally get that part right. Fossil fuel usage literally burns our future.

would you use fuel made from rendered baby fat if you could get it for free? That's not a market.

What is interesting is that the article says other countries should use "France as blueprint".

- to have a state-owned electricity generation monopolist ? - to use demand-based price increases to push down demand ? - to provide half the funding for generating plants from taxpayers' coffers?

France's example in nuclear is, if you like to phrase it like that, one of "socialistic infrastructure policies that have proven to work well".

Quoth Lenin, "Communism is the Soviet state plus electrification of the country", https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOELRO - I would like to see a comparative essay on France's nuclear push of 60s/70s/80s and the USSR's 20s/30s/40s. And/or, in fact, later; the number two nuclear power generating country in Europe behind France is, after all, Ukraine.

If they really work in this factory like shown in that video, handling radioactive material in the production process with little personal protection (especially against airborne dust), then at least I for one would not like to work for them, ever. The safety of "final" product notwithstanding (that's fine), the shaping, size sorting and sintering processes create dust and really, you don't want to get that into yourself.

The part in it that I don't understand is ...

Again, "traditionally", one could (ab)use C++ as "C with extras". And it wasn't uncommon, especially in resource constraint usecases, to do just that. C++ without STL or templates, or even C++ without new/delete.

This "is not C++", agree. Would a subset be enough for "using it like C-with-RAII" ?

Given the details and pitfalls the original author lists, I suspect not. It's not just C programmers who "do strange things" and make odd choices. The language itself though "lends itself to that". I've (had to) write code that sometimes-alloca'ed sometimes-malloc'ed the same thing and then "tagged" it to indicate whether it needed free() or "just" the implied drop. Another rather common antipattern is "generic embedded payloads" - the struct definition ending "char data[1]" just to be padded out by whatever creates it to whatever size (nevermind type) of that data.

Can you write _new_ C code that "does RAII" ? Probably. Just rewrite it in rust, or zig :-) Can you somehow transmogrify language, compiler, standard lib so that you can recompile existing C code, it not to "just get RAII" then at least to give you meaningful compiler errors/warnings that tell you how to change it ? I won't put money on that.

One may rightfully ask whether Alexander just "went with the flow" as you phrase it, or to use a different term, "was lucky to be at/in the right place at the right time". Or even "lucky to have died before his luck ran out".

Let's keep in mind though that having great resources at your disposal, and a large circle of experienced and capable advisors at hand, does not necessarily create a lasting form of "action alignment" between those.

It is interesting in this context that none of his advisors or "immediate staff" ever strongly challenged Alexander in his lifetime.

They deferred to him till the last moment, only to basically be snubbed off by his famous "whoever's strongest" last words. Only then did they go for each others' throats.

It is of course possible, given historical records and "history is written by the victors", that his portrayal as integrative figure is flawed and more incorrect than not. The behaviour of the diadochs, the "infighting of the inner circle" which he apparently had contained in his lifetime, yet broke out immediately after, that make it likely that he brought some forms of "interpersonal skills" to the table which neither his father, nor his "successors" possessed in equal measure.

(my opinion)

A clear counter example would be someone like Franz Kafka. He hid much of his works in his lifetime, and willed for them to be destroyed posthumously whether published or unpublished.

That anything came down from him was the executors of his will ignoring his stated intent.

And yet he's considered a literary Great of the 20st century.

Sometimes, legacy is that what others did.

Agree. In addition, there are also plenty of artists who either shipped yet died poor (van Gogh, for example) or who were prolific proposers/thinkers/sketchers with "low actual ship rate" (Leonardo never built his helicopter, yet "dreamed in drawing" about it a lot).

Measuring the "influence" of an artist my "number of artworks created and sold" is a bit like measuring academics by "number of papers published". It's at best a very coarse approximation of "the real thing". At worst, total bull.

If you ever have the chance to see the Milky way from Namibia, the Andes, the Western Australian desert, you may revise your view there. The dust clouds and star streams extend far out and make it appear like "standing on the bridge of as starship". It looks very 3D. Still not colorful, but immersive and so much detail.

Alas, in the northern hemisphere, we've been pretty good eradicating nighttime darkness (and a lot else besides ...).

I've seen both impressive (colorful, bright, straight overhead and fast movement) as well as barely noticeable (colorless bands/sheets that "look like faint clouds but somehow odd". With the "odd" mostly meaning that they move different from clouds; not preferentially in wind (or any) direction, and often just around our eye's threshold. It also, sometimes, looks like a band of light pollution low along the northern horizon, when the green main aurora oval is "just" visible.

Few-seconds exposures on a digital camera bring the colors out that you may or may not see by eye if the aurora is weak.

Also, especially mid-latitudes, sometimes an Aurora display has moments of higher brightness with color, and then again "grey curtains".

The most impressive thing about stronger Aurora, to me, is the "fine structure", the fact you may have it well overhead (not just on the northern horizon) and the fast movements. It can look like "beads" running up and down the curtains, or "lances" being thrown from the sky, and line/streak structures are very sharply outlined, not like the soft blur in multi-second pictures. And the curtains can "wave" across the entire sky in a second then.

But I haven't seen enough Aurora to dare predict anything ... I cross my fingers.

From Bournemouth in the UK, I got the same impression as you - looking like cloud sheets, but more straight lines than, say, what windblown contrails look like. No clear color visible to me but the location wasn't anywhere near "dark".

I've seen impressive (and colorful) aurora before, and can well imagine it might've looked splendid in (darker) places. Don't give up ... maybe more on the way.

That's precisely the thought which has taken hold of me now as well.

The ultrasonic cleaner is always stashed away somewhere safe for its once-a-year use ... I think can't resist to experiment.

In Germany, Jura coffee machines do come up on the used market frequently enough if you really want one. If you're "lucky" enough to work in an office / for a company that is shutting down, you may get a "sweetened deal" with your layoff ...

Anyway, as others said ... good coffee they make, and some effort on cleaning they need (deserve).

On office coffee machines ... give me anything but syrup post-mix. Douwe-Egberts, I call you out. You make decent machines as well, stop peddling those abominations.

according to https://www.statista.com/statistics/268999/sales-in-defense-... roughly 1/3rd of Boeing's current revenue already is from their defense business.

Also, their commercial airliner side used to be a "balancer" and a backup, they never were tied to the "next big gun thing" like maybe Raytheon or Lockheed are. Funny as it sounds ... Boeing's current struggles can't be blamed on them being overly cosy with government, or overly wasteful thanks to the Pentagon's deep pockets.

Not sure though that more defense money/contracts would help. "solve" what is reported about their inner culture.

would you elaborate ?

I think it's fine for Elon to voice his opinion, even if direct or hurtful.

He should though have a mirror held in front of him in public occasionally. It works for you alright, but have you considered the consequences of everyone else acting the same way ? What actions do you think will derive from creating an agenda of "do as I do or f** you" ?

It's the categorical imperative of ethics. In the sense that a good (ethical) agenda doesn't derive from "eff all others".

Commentary on, and the questioning of other's opinions is as much a necessary part of free speech as is the right to voice your opinions.

I think we need more commentary, and more questions.

I disagree with you on the UK running according to a "constitution". It definitely has none.

It runs ancient law / legal precedence; As example, the current government has used "Henry VIIIth powers" (basically ... sovereign edicts) more than once in the last decade. But the UK body of law doesn't denote anything specifically as "constitutional".

That said, it has a strong (legal) history on somewhat-free speech, more recent libel laws notwithstanding, more recent "hate speech" laws notwithstanding.

Free speech alone though only helps public discourse if there is no attempt to "balance" differing views. Trying that has the opposite effect; instead of pointing out flaws and lies in any argument, the mediator simply "gives equal airtime" to conflicting views. That's the perfect way to polarize - choose whom you're with, and whom you're against. Political commentary is rather important, if it's missing, people miss out.

Don't _think_ about what they say. Don't look for common ground. Don't look for lunacies in any side. Just ... pick, ok ? We've shown you both, so ...