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xphos

591 karma · joined August 7, 2020

I do fixed point SIMD architecture, and a lot of RISCV core development. I love Rust and do mostly software but have implemented verilog and and core designs as well.
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xphos··on Leak Exposes 41,000 Homeland Security Workers–Including Undercover ICE Agents
I guess we agree to disagree here. This America which Uniquely evil is ahistoric. It is a worthless category to create to beat a nation on the head with. When you look at all of its peer nations which have committed far more war crimes and crimes against humanity and conclude America is evil. It just seems untethered to reality. Which nation which finds itself in conflict should the US be more like?

Its difficult to name a war in which the American miltary has killed, even close to the number of civilians as its opposition. WW2 germany? Japan (remember china). the USSR? the PRC today. North Viet Government? North Korean? Afganhstan? (yeah the Tailban killed more civilians) All of these war/conflicts the US kills far less civilians. Is that ideal no civilian dies but the conduct of the opposition in this war maximizes civilian causulty often but no one says anything about those and people led with the Armed Service is just all murders.

You are simplifying the horror of War to some ideal where people don't have to die. It just doesn't exist and just comes across as Russian anti-liberal rhetoric. The structure of our miltary and its actions are not poor or unprofessional espeically when you look at literally any other peer nation.

xphos··on Leak Exposes 41,000 Homeland Security Workers–Including Undercover ICE Agents
Should we have let the Nazi's win because the risk of the US killing 1 German civilians was greater than 0? I just find it very fake and mind broken to conclude the only evil empire is the US and that we need to beat them over the head endlessly without also calling out the other genocidal wars and empires that the US found itself existing among. The US army and its troops do have a deep shame for when they kill civilians. But don't act like the the US is some unique civilian killing machine. We infact are pretty good at not killing civilians as a ratio civilian per combatant than basically any army we've ever fought against or with. Certainly since WW2. Vietnam being particularly poor ratio but still far better than Viet Congs civilian to enemy combant ratio.

The matter of fact is that war is messy especially guerrilla warfare which is the only war that basically exists today and in that context what's an acceptable ratio? 0 means surrendering or being stepped on ask Ukraine but is it 1/5, 1/10? Ideally you have zero but to have total disregard of the service members life doesn't cause there to be less war or civilian death. Just more onesided brutal wars. These are hard questions but to paint the people that fight in wars in democratic societies as just souless sellouts is reductive and its the type of thinking that leads to mass murder by political groups. Souless people don't feel PTSD for what they did they are souless. PTSD is incredibly common in the services because we don't want empathless murder machines. Because when it comes to wining wars (wining a political objective ultimately) generally speaking civilian deaths don't help political goals which is what the elected officals ask the miltary to do. But most importantly the elected bodies are the ones asking for invasion.

I think these are hard questions that good solutions from the miltary side of things don't exist but most importantly I really think we as a society need to have more serious talks and rational conceptions of how war and conflict works. I can't recommend On War by Clauswitz enough, but acoup also has a great primer on it [1]

[1]https://acoup.blog/2026/02/13/collections-against-the-state-...

xphos··on Leak Exposes 41,000 Homeland Security Workers–Including Undercover ICE Agents
Honestly I couldn't say this better. I would just go one step further participating in the Miltary does not equal your doing atrocities as a natural conclusion. We want people of sound morals to be in the Miltary because they will make I hope moral decisions when it comes to the conduct of war.

I highly recommend reading On War by carl von clausewitz. He gives a pragmetic opinion on War and being read for it. Along with being ready for general conflict both non-violent and violent

xphos··on Leak Exposes 41,000 Homeland Security Workers–Including Undercover ICE Agents
I think you only come out with this type of thinking if you've never really spent much time with people who served in the armed forces. Wars are declared by politicans not soldiers. Soldiers are enlisted to serve (at least in the US and most western nations) at the behest of the democratic body that employs them.

I.e they shouldn't be blamed if politicans force them to fight battles they think are unjust. If they are ordered to they don't have a choice its fight or go to miltary prison per UCMJ. Other jobs (law enforcement) are not like that. Generally speaking its quite unfair to double blame soldiers forcing them to fight unjust wars and than punish them for being forced into stupid wars. They can choose to not be soldiers but not everyone will be in a position economically to ignore the possible benefits. Miltary service is a strong path to escape poverty especially in the US.

Law enforcement is entirely different they are immune to judgement errors they make even if they kill someone. They have little accountablity, and often abuse of the law is just overlooked or covered up because they are the ones who enforce it. They don't even have to know how to do their job or law, if they mess up its someone elses problem due to qualifed immunity. Hence the craziness with the ICE they can violate rights with impunity and much of that has to due with the fact their oversight body is apparently just the president who says don't care about any law breaking.

xphos··on Microsoft offers mass buyouts for roughly a quarter of its workforce
Listen I am not even 30 yet its a big deal when an industry leader reduces work force by 1/4. It absolutely number yeah no company ever really matters but in agrogate the little loses can be devistating for the people and the boarder economy. 4M Boomers retire is a problem if we cannot replace them and want the same set of services as before. Not nearly as many people are entering as leaving right now which makes wage pressure up but if there isn't people the business moves.

I don't really think DSA had much that would help the economy beside the basic mainstream democrat tastes. Democrats generally speaking want less monopolies, better healthcare insurance (mostly a public option) and reasonable taxation but the DSA takes things to 11 with just politically unviable rhetoric in my opinion. But most of all, I think the ideas from the DSA that work doesn't matter as long as people are taken care is likely to cost a lot people.

The Mechanic takes pride that he can fix stuff. The engineer takes pride that they can design a system. Doctors take pride that they are the reason people don't die. If you take away pride you harm a lot of people this is arguable what got the democrats (republicans voted for this too) where they are today in that they embraced Free Trade regardless of the cost. It created a rust belt that is brain washed into blaming Democrats for 100% of the harm. Fox news helps in accomplishing that that too but I think a lot of the DSA is steeped in that MAGA like style of never engage in what harms the ideology thinking and that spooks me away from that group agressively.

xphos··on Microsoft offers mass buyouts for roughly a quarter of its workforce
I do agree maybe its a over generalization but I am trying reading the waves

If Microsoft is 40% based in the US the US probably would see 20K people in high salery positions get cut if its somewhat evenly leveled. They are still okay with reducing 1/4 people (they are offering a buyout so I am holding off on the F bomb).

The invest into AI is something like $6T if it hasn't produced $6T in value it better produce it in cuts. If you expect its just going to Microsoft laying off great the government is fine but if other companies in the next months cut high paid position it hits the country in non trivial ways. But You are correct its not just going to effect the US it and that dampens the magntitude but its still a massive reduction of force for a major company

xphos··on Oregon Police Are Charging a Local News Outlet $2.5M for Records About One Cop
These are independent events someone saying something about something else does not influence the probabilty that something was malicous. The event already occured. I think the original person is just question the probability of something malicously being 100% to be flawed thinking/misattributed. :)
xphos··on Microsoft offers mass buyouts for roughly a quarter of its workforce
I think you should review your equation

reality - expectations - uncertainy = happiness/saddness

It might just be a job but someone living happy in good conditions that feels like the rug might get pulled under them for something they cannot control for is a lot more unerving even if your material conditions work out just fine in the end.

Also I think your being a little atomizing in the impact here. 1 Person losing a job is their problem, I agree. 60 thousand people losing there job is a problem for the government and society. 60K people is a lot and it has a ton of consquences. This is also leading into the prospects of we have these massively profitable corportations who are on the cusp of firing large % of high income people. Whats the tax implication of losing 60K engineering staff level saleries. Its atleast in the billions which is small in the total Federal revenue but if this is a sign of whats to come we have problems. Maybe those people go to different employment but change will effect a lot of local economies.

Granted I know you are really talking about the local emotional effect but the granular net effect is worth the conversation too.

xphos··on Microsoft offers mass buyouts for roughly a quarter of its workforce
But like if your company is making money hand over foot you didn't typically cut staff by 25%. You could just as easily do a hiring freeze and get out ahead of it. I mean if your profit metric is showing all green and growing you have to be really cold to say we need to fire 1/4 people now why? (to maximize shareholders short term value of course)
xphos··on Japanese people still aren't having sex. And nobody knows why
Honestly R*pon*blity is probably not the word I'd use (but i get it) because, the addiction we are describing is stocastic. The timings between notifications for activity x/y/z is engineered to break down people. And it really is X/Y/Z not just porn or games, I was trying do draw the abstract idea of attention drain specifically engineered and designed. Dopamine micro dosing definitely reinforce that behavior. I don't know the solution is.
xphos··on Japanese people still aren't having sex. And nobody knows why
I don't think people have sex or not because the cost of living. Poor people have had plenty of sex in the past. I think modern society is more occupying and people just interact less in a romantic sense because they are getting attention drained, in the same way a vampire drains your blood. We relieved the hard labor from peoples life but we also replaced it with attention suction devices that occupied peoples hours at much higher rates.

If you were a peasant in 1300s you worked hard probably 8-12 hours a day but once it was dark or the winter what you did radically changed because you couldn't see. It was just hanging out with people or going to bed, or other indoor task that usually involved other people or being around a limited light source. Those were the options of which one is kind of boring after a while. You'd thus interact with people and by interacting you'd end up having sex because it was fun when compared with doing anything else. Porn also didn't really exist so that as an outlet was basically zero so I'd attribute that to part of the attention occupying culture we have today

xphos··on X purges 13,000 accounts linked to suspected meddling ahead of US midterms
I am fine with content policeing actions from being legal but I think we content enforcement of this nature on platforms that live on freedom of press and speech should be forced to publicize when that take action against accounts. Publicize the lists for bans, and reason for it. Here the reason is given but its not account linked so its hard to say if the reason is justifed with the accounts histories.

Maybe the government needs a meta organization that upholds freedom of speech enforcement from platforms and companies that get broad Section 230 protections. I.e Facebook, X, Twitch, Youtube, etc. If a company can just purge you soruce of speech entirely the country protections seem lacking for the public welfare. Curious what other people think. I know an agency like this is rife to partisan infiltration but if its roll is to for unbanning rather than banning I think the scope of its potential abuse would be extremely narrow.

xphos··on Why Texas Is Making Data Centers Wait
Why would putting data center in space solve these problems? I feel like this is a total non sequitur. The solution is pay for more substations and power generation. This problem exists there regardless of space based compute and let me tell you the space based compute would 1000000x more expensive because you still need to build everything required in the current solution except in space! Its just not a real response to a lack of investment into infrastructure. And that means asking business to pay for the infrastrure they need as a collective industry.
xphos··on Reducing undefined behavior in the C language
I'd say the alternative is the rust approach. of debug mode always doing checked div and checked add ops. this prevents a large class of issues which you can find in debug mode. In release mode those UB checks are dropped. You of course can specify the type of add you want i.e saturating or wrapping etc. But yeah it makes things slower but the alterative is the code potentially doesn't work. Linux is funny in this regard which i think is why Linus allows rust and not c++ because potentially not working is a big deal in a kernel. C++ doesn't address this issue and of course C does not C++'s potential UB space is so much bigger because of alliasing issues and object patterns exposing more chances for UB.

Regardless you are right there is a cost is it worth paying hard to say

xphos··on What should we tell our students?
You ever hear the state if you owe the bank a 1000$ you have a problem, and if you owe the bank 100,000,000$ they have a problem? I think if a majority of students end up without basic skills the genius students will have problem. Will LLMs do that i don't think so but if you think its an acceptable outcome thats also not okay.
xphos··on Nearly 200 people under observation after Irkutsk lab worker dies from plague
I mean you need to show that trail Covid was very infectious even before it mutated more. It's been estimated to have a R-naught above 2. It seems incredulus that their is a hypotehtical lab worker who is infected who takes the train 7 miles to the wet market (distance from lab) infects no one, but than infects 1 person at the wet market. Than goes home on the train, infects no one afterwards after proving they have virulent infection. It seems to go against how virus work. Because they need to not only infect anyone after the ride home but also no infect anyone ever again execpt at the wet market. You need to show evidence of or you are just engaging in conspricy thinking

Also we don't have the Zoonosis of the plauge, or the spanish bird flu but we are very confident they came from animals because we can tell that. So that claim we always now is just dumb we are mising many origin animals for many diseases because can back generate dieasese lineages from the DNA of the disease sometimes we can't and I am sure there are some back traces that just go to the wrong animal.

China didn't help with the fact they killed and bleached every animal at that wet market but that is documented to have happened but that is not proof of lab leak.

xphos··on Nearly 200 people under observation after Irkutsk lab worker dies from plague
The Science community says no. And Statisically I say no as well. The strongest piece of evidence in my opinon is that for this virus to NOT have come from the lab is this.

A lab worker would need to have taken public transit for 7 miles through a place more densely populated than Manhattan infect no one arrive at the wet market infect 1 person than leave and go several miles home without infecting anyone. This basically seems impossible and if it did happen it would have radically changed the infection pattern and with how we know how covid works seems impossible. Its not bullet proof but it basically requires us abandoning everything we know about epidemology for it to have come from that lab.

Now there are issues we never found the animal of origin but its hard because China killed and bleached the whole market trying to hid evidence. It seems very consistent though with China trying to perserve reputation. There could be scheme to sell infected dead animals from the lab to the wet market but its conspiry theory seeking as there is no evidence supporting lab leak besides China bad. (And Trust me I think China is bad they are a horrible government who definitely hid covids existence and that behavior propably enhanced the likelyhood of it become the pandemic it was but there is just no hard evidence that lab leak as theory is true just scary hypothetic and stories. I hate that I sound like a China shill here)

xphos··on Memory Companies Have Destroyed the Consumer Market
The economy always recovers because the value in society is create by people existing and wanting things. The people won't stop existing or wanting things and eventually they just will believe something new is valuable and the economy will recover and grow. Because nothing material was lost just numbers in the spreadsheet. The recovery will be rough though your right about that.
xphos··on Seattle City Council votes to ban surveillance pricing in sale of groceries
The fun part about amendments you can write that into the amendement and it can say whatever you want. There is no special expceptions, it defines what legal government and persons actions are by definition. The only problem (good thing imo) is it takes 2/3 to approve it which is a mountain of opposition. Complex Amendements suffer immensely from this since they have much more power than laws congress passes. But honestly privacy could probably be ensired easier with a law from congress. It is a right but perhaps starting with a law would actually be easier than an amendment nothing stops the government currently from have laws about privacy if there is an objection the escape hatch could be granted by an amendment
xphos··on I don't like passkeys
I agree 100% i learned that my old school with whom I had linked to my windows computer and finished my degree with one day required passkeys rather than passwords on all devices. This force locked my windows PC back to passkey mode luckily I remember recovery account and got a passkey to work. But it took months to figure out why I had to use it. All the help board were said just click this button which was grayed out. Or set this register key which auto repopulated. It was an awful experience. I like my password as default
xphos··on How much of HN is AI?
I think you are being a little overly broad the Hacker news says on topic is "Anything that good hackers would find interesting" or "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" an AI article through by how it is generate might actually default to off-topic and unles its refined enough to edify the intellect. But beyond that all of that language is loaded a Good hacker is incredibly fickle and if the community values shift on-topic as a concept shifts. I guess I just feel the community has a lot more latitude to shape its content then your saying.

I.e a long winded way of saying I don't think a campaign to flag stuff actually could be abuse if its done in good faith. I think politics flagging is sometimes in good faith sometimes not. There was an article yesterday that talked about the USDA finding uninspected food which I thought was off topic but only in so much that they shared a headline article and not the actually USDA report. Not bad faith but just the wrong way of sharing. The headline wasn't edifying but the USDA report was concise factual reporting and was mildly interesting. The community is the source of what is on-topic which strong veto powers against things that become non-edifying they way that AI is becoming

xphos··on Chicken products recalled in five states due to “false marks of inspection”
OP really should have just shared the USDA website annoucment[1]. Regardless this comment reminds me of a fictitious but expositiory scene from a Theodore Roosvelt Documentry. Where he served a steak dinner to a bunch of food lobbyist and read the excepts from the Jungle. It might be a shockingly small amount but for the 20K people eating bad meat it matters, and having tainted/uninspected meat floating about is bad. These are not computers that are facing downtime they are people. People who could be subjected to crippling food born illiness. I commend the adminstration (a rare occurrence but earned)

[1] https://www.fsis.usda.gov/recalls-alerts/shanghai-ravioli-co...

xphos··on How much of HN is AI?
If people feel this way they should just start a flag this AI post campaign. If people can flag anything they disagree with a little effort the community can be AI free at least on main page.

That said it would be interesting to have a AI flagging so you can just filter the just AI topics. Its very different from people harping on crypto or VC focus. I dislike reading the AI output when someone says they have an opinion the original source material the AI ripped content from to me is more valuable flaws in all than a normalized AI output

xphos··on Xiaomi: New CPU matches Apple cores single threaded, much faster multithreaded
While I agree in passing. I think saying you'll export all your work to places with worse labor laws is short-term thinking. Chinese companies are successful yes but they also don't necessarily compete fairly. We still can export large portfolios of goods to China. So to just say they are best because they have a government protected market, plus subsidies so we should abandon local is a bad optimization in the long term
xphos··on Canada will match US tariffs 'dollar for dollar' as trade talks break down
I think the clamoring of the aesthetic of impartiality is destroying interesting discussion. The president is currently lining his pockets with tax payer dollars and being an overall bumbling buffoon. It is not partisan when the would view the US as weaker, less intelligent, and less reliable. Its consequences of inaction and bad policy of the current administration
xphos··on Paul Atkins misreads Adam Smith and the American founding
Their is nothing new to people warping the founders thoughts and word to whatever they want. Its a common tactic of conservative politicians to paint rosey understanding of the USAs founding that are nothing more the utopian. Its not surprising considering the founders are the perfect target. They are both deeply philosophical and contradiction laddened but also distant, from people who don't reflect on the current American culture. I'd argue though we have a broad disinterest in the principles of the founding at this moment. People are upset the current administration is engaged in nothing more than grift to the maximal amount.

I applaud people continuing to point out corruption. The only thing surprising about the article is that is hasn't been flagged yet

xphos··on Copyright does not protect AI-generated content in EU
I feel like this question is typed wrong but the same reason someone wants copyright on human work to make money by prevent other people from stealing your work
xphos··on People who grew up with high economic connectedness earn more
Consider your assertions contrapositive.

If hard work implies good outcomes. --contrapositive -> If bad outcomes implied bad work.

I don't think it takes a lot of life experience to see that the above is not true. I argee that hardwork can definitely be corrolated or rather feels corrolated in retrospect but its not a given. Some of the hardest working people are paid the least if you adjust for the hours they actually work, or if the inherent value of their work is low (you mentioned failure to generalize) but even in specific case of tech its not a given that hardwork will actually make the differnece.

Almost no amount of hardwork can overcome the better sitution some people are born into / inherent. Someone staving in africa just isn't going to be the next physics star or atleast the statisistics don't predict them. There is certainly an equalization curve where if you incoming connects and circumstances are good enough hardwork because the decider. But your starting conditions play a huge role on where you will land in the grand scheme of things. You certainly can change your outcome but sometimes hardwork is not the same as smart work, if getting a promotion is 5 year process at your current job or moving to a new place. The better outcome actually comes from working less. I think some other commenters mention this as well.

xphos··on SIMD for Collision
Remember the part of the article where he talks about a shocking number of people didnt have the version of AVX he wanted. This is a big issue because SIMD is writing ASM for the most part not C code so new architecture you have problems . RVV riscv SIMD has an interesting way to adapt to different CPU tiering and is a rather complete SIMD architecture but most SIMD architectures have small holes which can be mildly annoying

Simd is by far the most efficient cycles wise paradigm but its also brittle. When the shape of data is odd which is common enough you have to handle it properly which is sometimes a distraction from what people actually care about. Also GPUs exist, GPUs despite being way less power efficient are not brittle in this same way they have issues if memory is difficult but most problems work nicely on GPUs so people just do that because its easier and the tiering problem is less a big deal because GPU process instructions different than SIMD and batching and what not is left to hardware not the programmer

xphos··on Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM
Imagine you have pictures of someones baptism and the kid was nude. Is it CSAM? I think the program would have to say use but morally I'd say no. The issue with client scanning is it has to assume the worst, or they are than liable. If its the person has 20+ different baptism of nude babys well huh that actually might be CSAM because the context of how that concentrated photos implies but even than its hard what if that person actually has 20 God Children its less crazy than one thinks... Especially if they have multiply phones from a single baptism.

You might not like pictures that way but honestly I think more important in procescuting CSAM is to go after the large sources of CSAM generation. Its trafficing in East Asia, and in Europe. I think weirdly America actually produces less CSAM in general because Americans are lot more off put by Sex than most other cultures. Abuse definitely happens in the US but making policy decisions like this produces bad policy.

Does iCloud rehost the photos to other people I don't really know because I use andriod tbh. If they are being rehosted (I assume to members of your contacts) that can be problematic but I think honestly the issue a lot more complex than just protect the children which the source of critic is a lot attacks against apples are coming from

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