hnthrowaway0315

This. It is just mental drug.

Thank you. I love the wallpapers of Paged Out and always set it as my default wallpaper on MacOS.

What's the point of this web page?

I have given the topic some thoughts. I concluded that the ONLY way for ordinary people (non-genius, IQ <= 120) to be really good, be really close to the genius, is to sit down, condensate the past 40 or so year's tech history of three topics (Comp-Arch, OS and Compiler) into a 4-5 years of self-education.

Such education is COMPLETELY different from the one they offered in school, but closer to those offered in premium schools (MIT/Berkeley). Basically, I'd call it "Software engineering archaeology". Students are supposed to take on ancient software, compile them, and figure out how to add new features.

For example, for the OS kernel branch:

- Course 0: MIT xv6 lab, then figure out which subsystem you are interested in (fs? scheduler? drivers?)

- Course 0.5: System programming for modern Linux and NT, mostly to get familiar with user space development and syscalls

- Course 1: Build Linux 0.95, run all of your toolchains in a docker container. Move it to 64-bit. Say you are interested in fs -- figure out the VFS code and write a couple of fs for it. Linux 0.95 only has Minix fs so there are a lot of simpler options to choose from.

- Course 2: Maybe build a modern Linux, like 5.9, and then do the same thing. This time the student is supposed to implement a much more sophiscated fs, maybe something from the SunOS or WinNT that was not there.

- Course 3 & 4: Do the same thing with leaked NT 3.5 and NT 4.0 kernel. It's just for personal use so I wouldn't worry about the lawyers.

For reading, there are a lot of books about Linux kernels and NT kernels.

Yeah, but who cares about long-term? In the long term we are all dead. CEO only needs to be good for 5-10 max years, pop up stock prices and get applause every where and called as the smartest guy in the world.

Are they just going to tough through the process and whatever...

If the $$$ they saved > the $$$ they lose then yeah it is a success. Business only cares about $$$.

I wonder who left the team recently. Must be someone bagged with shadow knowledge. Or maybe they send devops/devs work to another continent.

Someone should make a timeline chart from that, lol.

    > you lay out a huge specification that would fully work through all of the complexity in advance, then build it.

I have tried this a couple of time even for small projects ( a few sprints ), and they never worked out. I'd argue it never works out if you are doing non-system programming projects, and only has a theoretical non-zero possibility to work out for system programming projects, and perhaps a 5-10% to work out for very critical and no patch possible projects (like moon landing).

Because requirements always change. Humans always change. That's it. No need to elaborate.

The guy wanted to be his own sysadmin. Quite understandable though.

Thanks Ken, appreciate the work!

Hi kens, thanks for the knowledge sharing all these years. Can you please confirm this one? From Wikipedia, it says that 8087 uses CORDIC algorithm. Does that mean that it's the same (but different speed) as what I'd implement the functions in software, except in microcode (which has more granularity than usual assembly code)?

I found it a bit surprising that as a 45-year old chip, there is no public information of its microcode. I guess hardware is indeed much more secret than software.

I kinda agree with you. The US policy won't change much. It is a set policy but not very well executed, simply because such a policy is not in the interest of existing power base, so someone new but crude has to be elected, and that's why he got elected not once, but TWICE.

My understanding is that US is going to shrink back a bit, takes care of its neighbours first, but keep its probing bases intact, so that it can slash some costs and be more flexible in next decades. China is going to reluctantly expand its power base gradually -- but I think it's going to be a slow expansion because any rapid one would either fail, or create a new power group within China, that may threaten the existing players.

Not sure about EU though, it better gear up quickly.

SQL is popular because everyone can learn and start using it after a while. I agree that Python sometimes is a better tool but I don't see SQL going away anytime.

From my experience, the data modelling side is still overwhelmingly in SQL. The ingestion side is definitely mostly Python/Scala though.

I managed to get in after a few tries. But then I got a timeout. I think I'm going to wait until the HN deathhug is over :D

Even if that's doable, I suspect most of us would want to sit in a plane with a human in the cockpit. It's like trains and subways where most of the work is mundane but you want someone at the helm to deal with SHTF situations.

I'm still skeptic about driver-less taxis, even when commercial ones like Waymo are already running on the road. But at least taxis run in 2D regulated highways and most of the drivers are sane enough.

I'm in Canada and the landscape is OK. But we can definitely do better. Without properly educated men and women, I'm afraid that democracy degrades to either 1) elites stop caring about responsibilities, or 2) demagogues rallying against the elites in 1)

Not sure about the US, but IT industry in Canada definitely is in a recession. When good graduates from Waterloo CS cannot find an entry level job, you know something is wrong.

I think "The Soul of the New Machine" definitely captures the idea -- I don't have the exact words, but it's like playing pinball -- you win and you get to play the next one. The reward of completing a tough job is a tougher job.

I really love this kind of culture. Life is grey without being challenged to the limit.

Yeah something like this, would be nice if it actually feeds bad data that requires human to double confirm, too. Not something seriously wrong but something subtle, like changing a couple of letters in a name of a country, or randomize the National day. Once a lot of websites start to use it AI might actually get confused, I think? But humans never read these pages so should be largely fine -- unless they are reading AI summaries.

I guess it is just because 1) They can, and 2) Everyone wants some data. I think it would be interesting if every website out there starts to push out BS pages just for scrappers. Not sure how much extra cost it's going to take if a website puts up say 50% BS pages that only scrappers can reach, or BS material with extremely small fonts hidden in regular pages that ordinary people cannot see.

This is but a small set back. I hope people recall what their ancestors did in the early days of unioning.

Nowadays I only have time to read 1) very technical books (think something close to Lion's comments on UNIX VI), or 2) parenting books.

I spent about 30-60 minutes every day.

I found it very hard to believe that a Chinese company has more influence than Alstrom + Siemens, in Europe. It might make sense if it's a US company, but I find it difficult to believe for a Chinese one, especially that the recent Netherland example shows that EU can do whatever they want using what excuses they can find, and execute very efficiently.

I'd like to post some questions for thought:

1. What is exactly the bidding process of that particular transaction the OP described?

2. What is exactly in the contract? Does it force the Chinese company to use a lot of local companies for sub-contracting, at the same time keeping a very low profit? In essence, this basically means the EU companies grabbed the biggest share while the Chinese company just got the job. I'm not saying this is the case, but I highly doubt it IS the case as I heard similar stories from other companies.

I'm pretty sure many other companies are going to use it in production before mine does. I'll just ask around...

I don't care whether kernel developers want to use C or Rush or whatever. I judge the quality by using it in production. If it works well then I don't care how they are built.

> Europe just sucks in oil, gas, uranium and some coal from the rest of the world to give back what exactly?

That's called manufacturing, the best skills in the world. Yeah it's tough work and pay is not brilliant, but when shit happens that's the thing that is going to save EU.

That's something I'm really worried about, especially when SV is pushing it. And it is difficult to prove that research is unbiased.

One of the commenters of your post says "If we legalize it we can better research it". Allow me to be rude -- this is BS. If we follow this logic we should legalize pretty much everything!

I think it is polite to be rude to such dangerous thoughts. Downvote me as you see fit.

I'm skeptic about psychedelic. Is there enough unbiased research about these stuffs? I myself is interested in it too but so far it is in general illegal in Canada, and I don't consider myself knowledgeable enough to try it out.