queuebert

Completely depends on the program of study and school. In astronomy and physics programs, graduate courses are far more advanced, but grades are based almost entirely on homework sets. Undergraduate course are less comprehensive, but have a mix of homework and tests. Working on problem sets is chronically hard, while tests are acutely hard.

Well that Windows 11 article is laughably short, considering it's a major version. But I appreciate you taking the time to compile all those links.

My point is the vast majority of this stuff is either "fluff" or cosmetic changes or random things that 99% of users don't use OR they are security and bug patches. HN users are not typical, so I'm sure some of the Windows updates are very important for people like us.

Maybe to Microsoft this is a significant rewrite: "The Calculator has been completely rewritten in C# and includes several new features." (Just picked at random.) Ok, but like why? Who cares? What was wrong with the last calculator? Absolutely nothing. Also who even uses Windows calculator instead of Excel or their phone? Was calculator rewritten to justify an FTE somewhere at Microsoft?

I'm not trying to troll, but I am trying to be contrarian. I honestly feel like a majority of desktop users don't really think too hard about their OS. None of the existing OSes should be significantly rewritten unless they are just completely flawed. Like say Apple decides to ditch the microkernel or Linux goes to Rust. Most people need stability and security, not new calculator features or different button shading. I'm singling out Microsoft for being the only one that rent seeks for superfluous changes. Apple is notoriously bad about wasting users time with constant updates for dumb stuff, but at least it's free, except for the cost of time while your computer slowly reboots and updates.

Simple patches/upgrades vs tricking people into thinking you've made a whole new piece of software. Linux, BSD, and Apple roll out OS upgrades with new functionality without charging for the new versions.

All of this could've been added to XP, right?

As long as they aren't photino birds. -- Stephen Baxter, probably [1].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_(Baxter_novel)

I would be very hesitant to say "cannot" in a million-line C code base.

I believe the term you are looking for is "rent seeking". Other than visual changes, what new functionality does Windows 11 actually have that Windows XP didn't have? (I'm being generous with XP, because actually 95 was already mostly internet ready.) Yet how many times have many of us paid for a Windows license on a new computer or because the old version stopped getting updates?

This will be a huge time saver for shady accountants everywhere.

That team was probably laid off because they weren't shipping product fast enough.

So it's using a new stack that hasn't been vetted like OpenSSH? I'd rather use OpenSSH + LibreSSL for this application.

.plan was the original status update.

I don't even think Linux is the definite answer. The majority of these critical apps are just full-screen UIs written in C, C++ or Java with minimal computing and networking, so they could just as easily run on Qubes or BSD without all the constant patching for dumb vulnerabilities that still persist even though Windows is 40 years old.

The problem is the middle management class at hospitals, governments, etc., only know how to use Word and maybe Excel, so they are comfortable with Microsoft, even though it's objectively the worst option if you aren't gaming. So then they make contracts with Microsoft and all the computers run Windows, so all the app developers have to write the apps for Windows.

And they all invariably use Windows instead of a high-reliability OS.

Probably not. It's hard to be certain about a classical object with a singularity (e.g. infinities) at the center, but, so far from gravitational wave observatories, we aren't seeing anything not predicted by classical bendy space GR.

It is hoped that if we can unify GR with quantum mechanics or string theory that the singularity will go away or look different. One of my favorite crazy ideas is fuzzballs [1].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzball_(string_theory)

I appreciate the elegant blog design. Reminds me of Edward Tufte's books.

Do you think we the people chose the presidential candidates we keep having? There are multiple levels of representation, and all of them are tainted by special interests and partisanship.

The primary system can choose candidates however they wish -- the Constitution does not specify the method [1]. A Democratic challenger to Biden this time was blatantly refused ballot access in many states. Backroom deals can cause good candidates to drop out and support worse candidates (see Buttigieg dropping out in 2020 and supporting Biden, and then Biden appoints him SecTrans). Kamala Harris was among the worst performers in the 2020 Democratic primary, but for some reason she was chosen (not elected, mind you, but chosen by Biden's team) as Biden's running mate, so now the Democrats have no good choices.

The Electoral College is winner-take-all in many places and the congressional districts are often gerrymandered to completely eliminate representation of the minority party. For example, Nashville had a Democrat representative, but after redistricting the city was split like a pizza among three mostly rural GOP districts to completely eliminate its member of Congress [2]. It is the capital of the state and largest city but has no member of Congress now.

I'm glad you have such a positive view of US democracy, but many of us living here are extremely worried about our trajectory.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_pri...

2. https://www.usnews.com/news/elections/articles/2022-11-04/na...

You're right that political systems are far too complex to get perfect in a thought experiment, but I would argue that thinking about it ahead of time can't possibly be worse than blindly forging ahead.

> I'm talking about America, with a so-called democracy far older than the USSR

Technically America is not a democracy -- it's a federal republic composed of states with widely differing interpretations of democracy.

I was expecting it to be someone like Vernor Vinge and was excited to learn about a new author I could read, but instead we got some lazy box ticking.

Science fiction allows us to explore the ramifications of theoretical political systems in a way that is not possible in reality except over very long timescales and with extremely cooperative citizens.

I read the author's short story from the article, and your comment is by far the better piece of writing.

Boeing's bad decisions were not based on shareholder votes, but rather a cabal of bad actors. You could have this happen in any economic system. In fact, Boeing planes, even with all the cheating, are statistically safer than those produced by the former USSR.

I should print this and put it on my wall for all those times when I'm frustrated with Rust lifetimes.

> e is the unique real number satisfying 1 + x <= e^x for all x.

I think if you replace e by 2e, this still holds. Therefore your definition of e is not unique.

I always suspected Emacs would achieve sentience before vim. Maybe I'll be wrong.

New crontab job incoming...

This also works with other government agencies, such as the ATF.

One job requires much more specialized training than the other. My father in law was a revenue agent, and the size of the books he had to use to do his job was astounding.

I have the same problem on my Mac since installing Teams. Now Microsoft Update Manager starts every time I boot, even though it's not listed in the boot items. And it always shows that I have an update available ... to Microsoft Update Manager. It's a software ouroboros.