jeff-davis

6 ms·

1.
by jeff-davis 1y ago
My friend once told me that physics formulas are like compression algorithms: a short theory can explain many data points that fit a pattern. If that's true, then perhaps AIs would come up with something just by looking at existing obs
2.
by jeff-davis 1y ago
Note that there are quite a few ways that crypto implementations can be insecure even if it's proven to be "correct" (in terms of inputs and outputs). For instance, it may leak information through timing, or by failing to cle
3.
by jeff-davis 2y ago
Sincere question about communism: Let's say hypothetically that the distribution of stock ownership was more even across the population, and variance was largely (but not completely) due to length of time in the workforce. And further,
4.
by jeff-davis 2y ago
Longjmp is used by Postgres for transaction aborts. With C, there's not really a better option available.
5.
by jeff-davis 2y ago
"It is our responsibility to chose the right tool for the job." That perspective doesn't work well for database products, in my opinion. There is a huge pressure for databases to evolve with your business and applications and
6.
by jeff-davis 2y ago
Simon was one of the first people I met in the Postgres community, perhaps in 2007 at the first PGCon that I attended. We've attended many of the same conferences in places around the world, and I've occasionally had the chance to
7.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
What are the barriers to doing so?
8.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
"Plus, you don't give out your secrets to fabs, too." That's a perfect answer to my question, thank you. Also many other great answers in this thread, but I don't have much to add.
9.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
What are some killer apps for FPGAs? What major products do they enable?
10.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
It works. Bugs have been found, and some more bugs probably exist, but I think it meets a fairly high bar of quality.
11.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
Postgres is designed to recover on OOM in most cases.
12.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
Part of the theory is that abstract thought enables culture, and culture enables much faster adaptation than genetic evolution. But still far from instant. So maybe the abstract thought hardware was there for a long time before we got cultu
13.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
I happen to be reading Sapiens right now. The author seems convinced that we genetically developed the ability for abstract thought (which he calls imaginary or fiction), and that allowed us to cooperate much more easily in large numbers.
14.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
Do you believe it was designed and standardized as a reasonably implementable feature?
15.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
It looks like Ada 2022 has a way to track at compile time whether functions block or not. Seems cool for async programming. http://www.ada-auth.org/standards/22over/html/Ov22-2-2.html
16.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
setjmp/longjmp exist in a lot of real world C code, so there is a lot of value in allowing rust to deal with longjmp in a defined way at least in some narrow cases. And I don't think it's impossible -- it probably requires so
17.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
I'd be happy if there were a way to always unwind when a longjmp() happens, regardless of whether there are !Leak types on the stack.
18.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
The article addresses this: "However - and this is the big, enormous caveat of this section - this would rely on the compiler effectively implementing some kind of unbreakable firewall, to prevent a type that does not implement Leak fr
19.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
Why do you say they'd have to be splattered over basically all rust code? The post compares them to Send and Sync, and I don't have to use those very frequently (though I don't write a lot of rust code, either).
20.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
The Leak trait could be interesting when it comes to C code that calls rust code that calls C code that might longjmp() over the rust code in the middle. Right now longjmp()ing over rust code is not a great idea for a couple reasons, but be
21.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
Postgres has a free space map, which allows it to reuse the space of deleted tuples for new or updated tuples created in the same table. If no new/updated tuples are created in the table after the DELETE, you have fragmentation, which
22.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
What is the larger issue here? Why is this significant? It seems like a fine point within trademark law. It maybe sorta kinda has implications for parody speech? But even there, it doesn't seem like a major threat to parody speech unle
23.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
"Enough profit they can fund efforts to tilt the system in their favor." That might explain things in the US, but worldwide? Why didn't some other country at some point run some studies, call some cabinet head in the US and s
24.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
If you depend on the company making the chemical to do studies and be transparent about them, of course the reaction time will be bad. You need independent studies and environmental monitoring. The blame game gives the politicians and burea
25.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
If the chemicals are bad, and everywhere, we need a reaction time faster than 50 years. For new inventions (not well-known issues), it would be far better to be fast-reacting and no-fault rather than slow-reacting with vengeance. Run studie
26.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
"Ford will make a zillion dollars on electric trucks, they did the obvious thing and Musk couldn't get out of his own way in needing to create the unnecessary and unwanted just to do something different." Negativity aside, is
27.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
"There are no real world natural keys — only someone else’s surrogate key... SSN, VIN, email address, UPC, tax numbers, country codes, language codes, URIs… they’re all just someone else’s made up identifier." Every time this topi
28.
by jeff-davis 3y ago
Regarding framework in general (I have 12th gen): I'd like a full-size SD card expansion card for trasferring photos. Other than that and my 12th gen is nearly perfect. A few really minor things that are probably software issues.
29.
by jeff-davis 4y ago
If the fundamentals of the course change, shouldn't that be a new course? If the previous course existed, would that still be worthwhile for some students even if most move to the new course?
30.
by jeff-davis 4y ago
Is the difficulty switching from SWI due to tooling issues or because source code changes are required?

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