_russross

6 ms·

1.
by _russross 4d ago
I've been a Debian user since the late 90s, and their packaging system is the main reason. Not the tools and package format, but the culture and strict rules that govern inclusion in the system. Every time I see a new package system th
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by _russross 5d ago
What a weird coincidence that his safety concerns so often align with his business incentives.
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by _russross 5d ago
I started contributing to OSM recently after a bike trail was built near me. The arial imagery typically takes years to refresh around here so I walked it a few times to capture GPX tracks and then drew the new path. It was exciting to see
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by _russross 3mo ago
I read Careless People and then Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter and they felt like a good pairing. "Character Limit" is also one of the best book titles ever. I highly recommend both.
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by _russross 3mo ago
I don't have a problem with data centers and would welcome one nearby if it was a good deal for the area. But I'd want binding contractual agreements about environmental guarantees and requirements for building out new renewable e
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by _russross 5mo ago
Turing himself argued that trying to measure if a computer is intelligent is a fool's errand because it is so difficult to pin down definitions. He proposed what we call the "Turing test" as a knowable, measurable alternative
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by _russross 9mo ago
I bought one of the first 2022 Maverick Hybrids and took delivery in January 2022. At the time my build came in at MSRP of $25k (+ tax). I just built the closest equivalent on the Ford website (several standard features then are options now
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by _russross 2y ago
I am in the minority who thinks Raft is overrated. I tried teaching Raft one year instead of Paxos but ended up switching back. While it was much easier to understand how to implement Raft, I think my students gained deeper insight when foc
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by _russross 5y ago
Let me make sure I understood this correctly: having a CS degree will turn you into a cartoon stereotype of a technical nerd, but getting any other kind of degree in the world will enable you to be a well rounded person and still learn CS s
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by _russross 5y ago
There is an RFC for this: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2550
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by _russross 5y ago
I've never really liked the look of the Tikz-generated automata. Something about them always looks a little off to me. I also dislike the use of 0 and 1 as the canonical alphabet. a and b look nicer, they stand out better in written in
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by _russross 5y ago
I was expecting it to be hard to recognize, but I guess all those countless hours listening to Kid A on repeat back in the day have finally paid off. The moment is unmistakable.
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by _russross 5y ago
It seems like modern languages adopt more and more ideas from functional programming as time goes by (garbage collection, closures and higher-order functions, parametric polymorphism, immutable values, algebraic types). Modern languages des
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by _russross 5y ago
I can't wait for the rest of the series: Climate change is 99% solved. The last 1% is the hardest. We are 99% of the way to ending all wars. The last 1% will be the hardest. Scientists are 99% of the way to curing cancer. The last 1% w
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by _russross 5y ago
In English, meaning is defined by common usage. I know the formal logic hipsters have mounted a persistent campaign to make an exception here, but the fact remains that "begging the question" means exactly what ordinary people thi
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by _russross 6y ago
I think that overstates the difference. I think a better analogy is architects vs. construction workers. Any decent architect will have a pretty strong understanding of the realities of construction, and an experienced construction worker w
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by _russross 6y ago
I teach using xv6 and would add a couple more items to what others have already pointed out. They mainly come down to simplifications that remove distractions from the core ideas: * The system assumes a fixed amount of RAM and a fixed memor
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by _russross 8y ago
I remember this was a protection scheme, but I don't remember who used it. They would use a laser to burn a small hole in the disk. At load time, the program would attempt to write to the sector with the hole and then read it back. If
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by _russross 9y ago
Search for "timetabling". Googling for "scheduling" isn't very helpful because it can mean so many different things, but "timetabling" will give you lots of info on a problem very similar to yours.