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returningfory2

2,452 karma · joined June 25, 2020

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returningfory2··on I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney, who does work for YC and startups. AMA
What process would you design for handling people who are denied entry at a land port of entry?
returningfory2··on I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney, who does work for YC and startups. AMA
The German person you link to was attempting to enter the US to work as a tattoo artist which is not allowed under tourist visa programs. I actually think the law should be more flexible and this kind of casual work should be allowed. However the law as it currently stands doesn't allow it and they were "correctly" denied entry.

The reason this person wasn't put on a "quick flight home" is because they (along with the British person) were detained at a land port of entry so there's no option to send them straight back.

In general, I think two things are simultaneously true. One is that Trump is cracking down on immigration. The second is that the media are suddenly reporting on a lot of cases -- like the German and British women -- that aren't actually new but were happening under Biden. It's just now the media has an angle and narrative such that these cases are deemed report worthy.

returningfory2··on I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney, who does work for YC and startups. AMA
nit: USBP (US Border Patrol) is not at the ports of entry. Border Patrol is for the land border _between_ ports of entry. CBP (customs and border protection) is the organization that does immigration control at the ports of entry.
returningfory2··on Changes since congestion pricing started in New York
They've already started doing this in NYC - the new 10th ave bike lane is double the width of normal bike lanes.
returningfory2··on Leaving Google
Perks have gotten better in some dimensions - for example, parental leave is much more generous than it was even 5 years ago. And that’s probably a more important perk than free backpacks tbh.
returningfory2··on Bloom Filters
This is the benchmark they wrote: https://github.com/eliben/code-for-blog/blob/7278526923168d2...

The benchmark alternates between ~1 million different keys to check in the filter, explicitly to account for cache effects.

returningfory2··on New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer
Tens of thousands of Americas are killed every year in car crashes. The existence of a case or some cases where a self-driving car caused injury has zero value. What matters is the rate of cases per mile driven.
returningfory2··on I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)
Good point!
returningfory2··on I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)
Indeed, the formula is correct. Wikipedia maintains a list of historic Forever pricing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_posta...

From the blog, the letter from California was dated April 2022, at which point the rates were domestic = $0.58 and global = $1.30. So the California sender correctly attached two domestics valued at $1.16 total plus an additional $0.14 to make $1.30.

returningfory2··on I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)
I don't understand the satire, can you explain?

We can't see the full set of "lower denomination" stamps on the letter, but I'm not 100% sure it's actually lower denomination. The sender of the stamps seems to be using the "2 domestic forevers + some amount of cents = 1 global forever" formula. I think the UK sender didn't need to include _two_ global forevers.

returningfory2··on Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law
The idea that Murdoch and Musk are not really American and are instead foreigners is a disgusting anti-immigrant sentiment.
returningfory2··on The Ghosts of Gaelic
It's always the outsider who's to blame!
returningfory2··on The Ghosts of Gaelic
I think it's a very different situation:

- Israel is composed of people from different parts of the world with different languages so as a matter of practical policy they had to standardize on some uniform language for the country. Scotland doesn't have this problem: English is already the uniform standardized language.

- Israel exists in a more "existential" position than Scotland - there is more of a sense that their country and culture could be lost. Thus there is a bigger motivation to preserve what makes them different. I think you see this play out in Ireland, actually: there seems to be more of an interest in the Irish language in Northern Ireland, where the Irish identify is seen as more under threat, than in the Republic, where it is safe.

returningfory2··on Optimizing Heap Allocations in Go: A Case Study
> It's possible that this is a compiler bug. It's also possible that there's some fringe case where the reference actually can escape via that method call, and the compiler doesn't have enough context to rule it out.

Here's an example, I think: suppose the method spawns a new goroutine that contains a reference to `chunkStore`. This goroutine can outlive the `ReadBytes` function call, and thus Go has to heap allocate the thing being referenced.

In general, this kind of example makes me suspect that Go's escape analysis algorithm treats any method call as a black box and heap allocates anything being passed to it by reference.

returningfory2··on A surprising enum size optimization in the Rust compiler
Many years ago I think, here: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/46213. (Found this via https://lobste.rs/s/w3jjb2/surprising_enum_size_optimization...)
returningfory2··on A surprising enum size optimization in the Rust compiler
In the strictly technical sense I agree, however in the Rust community when people say "the niche optimization" they usually are referring only to the simplest case. For example in the book Rust For Rustaceans (written by a pretty serious Rust expert and aimed at intermediate-level Rust programmers) the nice optimization is described as "the Rust compiler using invalid bit patterns to represent enum variants that hold no data". Note the "hold no data" part - it doesn't incorporate the case in the blog.

In any case, the definition of what is exactly niche optimization is besides the point. The point of the post is: the literature gives you the impression that there's one limited form of enum size optimization in the Rust compiler, but in fact there are other optimizations too. And knowing this is useful!

returningfory2··on Faster interpreters in Go: Catching up with C++
Really interesting technique. I guess one of the (theoretical?) drawbacks is the memory usage is not ideal? In a traditional bytecode compiler the result of compilation is a very-cache-friendly binary array, whereas here it looks like a vector of pointers to heap allocated closures.
returningfory2··on YIMBYism as Industrial Policy
I think that a significant cause of homelessness is unaffordable housing. In 2025 housing affordability is better in Republican-run states like Texas because the state governments allow more housing to be constructed. Because housing is more abundant and cheaper, the population is growing faster. (This is why the Electoral College is on track to become more biased in favor of Republicans after the 2030 Census: the US population is disproportionately growing in Republican states.)

For context I'm a center-left person, but at this point I'm pretty fed up with the standard California Democrat stance of simultaneously saying that housing affordability is really important but also using many tools of government to actually block housing construction.

returningfory2··on YIMBYism as Industrial Policy
The main reason they can't get housing though is that the government of California, which is dominated by Democrats, refuses to allow sufficient housing construction to make housing affordable.
returningfory2··on How to Secure Existing C and C++ Software Without Memory Safety [pdf]
Maybe you could build a domain-specific language.
returningfory2··on Framework 13 AMD Setup with FreeBSD
If anyone from Framework is reading, I've noticed something weird about your website which I think would be worth fixing. When I go to the Framework Laptop 13 page [1] the only buttons I see are "pre-order now" which makes me think I can't buy one today. But when I click "pre-order now" and go to the shop, I can choose older version of the 13 and buy them today.

Context is I've a friend who told me last night he wants one of these laptops but that they're not currently available...overall seems the website is a bit misleading on current availability.

[1] https://frame.work/laptop13

returningfory2··on How Fast the Days Are Getting Longer
Yes. At these latitudes there are times of the year when it's always night or always day. This messes with the math such that the graphs look weird.
returningfory2··on Zest: a programming language for malleable and legible systems
Rust has this, and it just makes so much sense. Especially when you write a library in which the basic demo is also the basic unit test you want to make. Instead of writing a specific unit test that's hidden in source code, you just embed it in the docs and then you (a) don't have code duplication and (b) have verification your documentation's code samples are actually correct.
returningfory2··on Zest: a programming language for malleable and legible systems
The person behind Zest runs an interesting blog/work journal, I recommend subscribing [1]. I could be wrong, but my understanding is that they don't have a full-time job. Instead they do some amount of consulting, and then spend most of their time and intellectual energy working on their projects. Which is pretty cool I think.

[1] https://www.scattered-thoughts.net

returningfory2··on I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
> Are there any obvious advantages of H1B other than eligibility for applying for a green card (which is a loooooong wait for people of Indian origin)

Was your partner also born in India? If not and you get married you can use their country of birth for the green card, even if the green card is being sponsored by your employer. Maybe you're aware of this but just to say if you're not.

returningfory2··on Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed
I agree that Trump's move was very bad, but we know that Biden didn't need a new law to "fix" the situation at the border. After Trump blocked that law, Biden made the executive order that for years he claimed he couldn't make, and then the situation at the border got "better". If Biden had instead made that executive order in, say, Fall 2022, there's a good chance that the situation at the border would not have been as salient in 2024 and Trump wouldn't have been elected. (Or, if Trump was still elected, he wouldn't have a mandate to come down so hard on immigration like he's doing now).

The reason Biden didn't make the executive order earlier is because of pressure from groups like the ACLU. The ACLU was simultaneously telling us that Trump is a threat but also pressuring the administration to keep pursuing policies that were clearly playing right into Trump's reelection campaign.

By the way, the ACLU was also against the border bill that Trump blocked.

returningfory2··on Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed
Is your claim seriously that Kamala Harris's image on cultural issues like trans rights did not harm her election campaign? One of Trump's most successful campaign ads was the one that included her talking about government-funded gender affirming care for people in prison. It even has its own Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_is_for_they/them). The fact that this stuff started in 2019 that she won as VP in 2020 is irrelevant; it _clearly_ was an issue in the 2024 that hurt her.

But that's just one example of many. There's also, say, Biden's handling of the border. Even though in 2022 it was clearly deeply unpopular and playing right into Trump's reelection campaign, he didn't change course (until too late) because of pressure from groups like the ACLU.

Overall, IMO one of the biggest factors in Trump's reelection is that the left and the center-left _talked_ about Trump being a big problem, but were unwilling to actually alter their policies or behavior or messaging to broaden their appeal and ensure Trump lost.

returningfory2··on Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed
By successfully pressuring Democratic politicians like Kamala Harris to publicly adopt progressive positions that are unpopular, but highly favored by the kind of people who donate to and operate organizations like the ACLU.

For example, the (unfortunately very successful) Trump ad “Harris is for they/them, Trump is for you” ultimately originates with the ACLU. In 2019 they successfully got Harris to pledge government funding for gender affirming care for people in e.g. immigration detention [1]. It is totally insane that the ACLU thought it was important and worthwhile to get a pledge on this edge case. In general this advocacy was way out of touch with the country at large, has totally backfired, and now landed us with an anti-trans administration.

[1] question 14 here https://www.aclu.org/documents/aclu-rights-for-all-candidate...

returningfory2··on Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed
Edit: decided I don't want to engage on this issue.
returningfory2··on Eggs US – Price – Chart
My understanding is that the main improvement being implemented is determining the sex before the eggs hatch, and destroying the eggs.
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