elwin

9 ms·

1.
by elwin 11y ago
That's definitely true, but counting function parameters was only a small part of the difficulty. Weren't most of the problems related to optimization being harder and less effective than predicted?
2.
by elwin 11y ago
> But there is a lot of work for the compiler here, wow. Knowing the maximum number of registers that is needed for any function call made within a function? Ouch. That shouldn't be too difficult. The compiler is already type-checki
3.
by elwin 11y ago
That's what I get for citing Wikipedia. But the idea was also brought up by actual southern politicians, particularly in the discussions at the end of the Mexican War.
4.
by elwin 11y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Circle_%28proposed_coun... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_%28military%29 If you're looking for a more serious reference, Freehling's Road
5.
by elwin 11y ago
A detector is typically a series of concentric cylinders, with the beam pipe, where the collisions occur, running through the center. The inner layers are tracking chambers, which detect the paths of charged particles. This is what produces
6.
by elwin 11y ago
tmux is an OpenBSD-influenced project. Those projects' version numbers often progress from N.9 to N+1.0 without having any special significance.
7.
by elwin 11y ago
This site has some useful articles: http://hpdz.net/TechInfo.htm
8.
by elwin 11y ago
Signals are too brittle and complex. That's why you have to read three whole manpages to figure out what happens if a process gets the same signal twice in rapid succession. They are also un-Unixlike: they are used to communicate three
9.
by elwin 11y ago
The current kdbus controversy is unrelated to systemd, as far as I can tell.
10.
by elwin 11y ago
There's a lot of good advice already, but here's one tip: Learn how to read documentation. Consult man pages and official documentation before resorting to random people on websites. This is a skill that requires practice, because
11.
by elwin 11y ago
The point I was trying to make is that production needs to match consumption. Which can be difficult to plan for digital goods.
12.
by elwin 11y ago
Yes, more content adds more value. But past a certain point of saturation, it no longer adds enough additional value to compensate its creators. My argument is that we are long past that point. Which would be more valuable, doubling the wor
13.
by elwin 11y ago
The world probably needs less content creation. We're long past the point where there are too many useful books to read in one lifetime. Even in narrow fields, we're producing comedy television, historical fiction novels, or cat p
14.
by elwin 11y ago
> a C to fpga compiler which you would suspect could do some crazy things and took thousands of engineering hours to make work. But instead it just implements a CPU in the FPGA Is that seriously how Vivado HLS works? Now I'm glad I
15.
by elwin 12y ago
That's an interesting analogy with nuclear weapons, but I think there's an important difference. Nuclear weapons have a deterrent effect. That's why the American first possession meant that nuclear weapons would never be used
16.
by elwin 12y ago
> The various civil rights movements got where they are today through the use of social repercussions. I don't think this was the case. Look at, for example, the abolitionist movement. You'll find the social repercussions direc
17.
by elwin 12y ago
I was going to say that social repercussions are prone to be abused, but I think it's more accurate to say that social repercussions are abuse. For every source of bigoted and hateful nonsense that is silenced, there are a hundred vict
18.
by elwin 12y ago
DCSS is a remarkable open source project. The game's design is focused and coherent, avoiding "feature creep". Yet the devs are open to community suggestions and stay on good terms with the players. I can't think of any
19.
by elwin 12y ago
Historically, debt neither increases forever nor collapses catastrophically. Individual sectors collapse, and new ones develop. In the early modern period, governments would simply refuse to repay their debts. Nowadays we have things like s
20.
by elwin 12y ago
It would only take a simple addon to add browser support. There are several in the Firefox catalog. Also, browsers tend to have better CSS support than e-readers.
21.
by elwin 12y ago
Try looking at the comments from a different angle. Instead of grouping them into "pro-NSA" and "anti-NSA" categories, try checking for technical ignorance. Look for ideas about cyberwarfare based on bad analogies with r
22.
by elwin 12y ago
I suspect that "cyberweapons", like biological weapons, are almost impossible to use in a way that does not harm civilians. Their development is practically certain to lead to use against civilians in a way hard to reconcile with
23.
by elwin 12y ago
> I actually don't know what you mean with "criticism of UNIX traditionalists for years" in regards to the Linux kernel and the userland. There's a joke from the 90's that goes something like "FreeBSD is wha
24.
by elwin 12y ago
> In fact the only purpose of an init system is to start executables in a defined order, not more. That's where the disagreement lies. I see the purpose of an init system as being to transition the machine from one state to another.
25.
by elwin 12y ago
> It makes me wonder if Moorcock has ever actually read Tolkien. Probably he just didn't read it thoroughly enough. Recent writers put characterization and moral ambiguities at the forefront of their stories, like Moorcock wanted. T
26.
by elwin 12y ago
On Amazon, I usually ignore the average rating. Read some 1 and 2 star reviews, and see whether they make serious critiques or are one-sentence complaints that the writing style was too difficult.
27.
by elwin 12y ago
Maybe I was too vague. I meant that a programmer would always use an API rather than scripted interactions with a GUI. An ordinary user might assume that programs use interfaces designed for humans, because the concept of an API doesn'
28.
by elwin 12y ago
The article shows an interesting illustration of the disconnect between programmers and normal computer users. Like the author says at the beginning, any experienced developer knows that automating interaction with a GUI is a crazy idea. It
29.
by elwin 12y ago
> While open source is great, its a terrible business model. I think this is a necessary trade-off. Great business models often lead to monopoly and stagnation.
30.
by elwin 12y ago
Because a right not to be offended requires a power to suppress offensiveness. The right to life and the right to property would be meaningless if murder and theft were decriminalized. In the same way, a right not to be offended implies tha

More ›