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CaliforniaKarl

10,033 karma · joined March 4, 2016

Hello! I work at Stanford University, at the Stanford Research Computing Center, as an HPC sysadmin.

I have a blog: https://karl.kornel.us/

My HN handle is also my Twitter handle.

My work email is a!k!kornel@stanford,edu (with ! removed and , corrected).

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CaliforniaKarl··on Great at gaming? US air traffic control wants you to apply
It does, and it's called VATSIM[0]. VATSIM Radar[3] will show you what's going on right now.

As a pilot, you connect using either Microsoft Flight Simulator or X-Plane. Your flight simulator will include graphics (hopefully up-to-date) for your chosen area. Pick a starting airport, spawn at a ramp location (a gate, cargo area, etc.), connect to the network, file a flight plan (or go VFR), call up (or announce intentions), and go.

As a controller, VATSIM organizes ATC by region of the world, then in to 6-8 divisions within the region, then in to individual ARTCCs, ACCs, or FIRs[2]. You'll typically register with a division, then make your home in a particular ARTCC/FIR. For example, I was registered with VATUSA and made my home in the Indianapolis ARTCC.

There is software[1] for both pilots (connecting your flight sim to the network) and controllers (providing a radar display). Each "radio frequency" has an associated text chat and voice chat for communication. ATC are trained to support both text and voice simultaneously, following pilot's preference.

For controllers, your chosen ARTCC/ACC/FIR handles your training. They provide the "sectorfiles" that give you a graphical view of your airspace and your airports. (Think of it like a modern version of an old-style vector display.) They also help you through training, both book learning and sim training. You start controlling things on the ground, and work your way up to controlling things in the air.

[0]: https://vatsim.net/

[1]: https://vatsim.net/docs/policy/approved-software

[2]: Air Route Traffic Information Center / Area Control Center / Flight Information Region. Different countries use different terms, but mean the same thing: It's a large three-dimensional volume of airspace.

[3]: https://vatsim-radar.com/

CaliforniaKarl··on How Invisalign became the biggest user of 3D printers
How early on in life?
CaliforniaKarl··on Certbot and Let's Encrypt Now Support IP Address Certificates
If an attacker manages to gain ownership of an IP address, and gets a Let's Encrypt certificate for that IP address, the certificate will show up in Certificate Transparency logs. In that way, if people are watching, the attack will become visible fairly quickly.
CaliforniaKarl··on DNS-Persist-01: A New Model for DNS-Based Challenge Validation
For folks who use certbot, here is where they are tracking work on support for this feature: https://github.com/certbot/certbot/issues/10549
CaliforniaKarl··on H-1B Exposed: Banking sector visa sponsorship investigation
See also "I Was a Director at Amex When They Started Replacing Us with $30K Workers [video]", posted twice:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47028155

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47038665

CaliforniaKarl··on Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89
I'm starting to think that we should be calling it "contained", not "eradicated". Eradication invites the question "Well then, why do we still need the vaccine?"
CaliforniaKarl··on Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica
For reference, here's a link to Waymo's blog post: https://waymo.com/blog/2026/01/a-commitment-to-transparency-...
CaliforniaKarl··on The Pink Park Ranger Takedown: CCC vs. White Supremacy
For folks looking for the presentation: https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-the-heartbreak-machine-nazis-in-...

In the player, click the gear to select from a range of languages.

CaliforniaKarl··on USPS announces changes to the postmark date system
If I remember correctly, the sign is located above the sign that lists the pickup hours for the inside drop box.
CaliforniaKarl··on USPS announces changes to the postmark date system
You can also use specific DHL, FedEx, and UPS services: https://www.irs.gov/filing/private-delivery-services-pds
CaliforniaKarl··on USPS announces changes to the postmark date system
That kindof makes sense to me: If I drop something into a post office’s mail box (outside or inside) after the day’s last pickup, even if the mail is inside the post office, it’s not going to be touched by USPS hands until the next day that the post office is open.

This can be tricky. For example, at the Stanford post office, the drop boxes outside the post office have Saturday pickup times, but the ones inside the building do not (the signs inside warn about this).

CaliforniaKarl··on Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
You are likely thinking of branded gift cards that are specific to one store (or one grouping of stores). An Apple or Target gift card, for example.

There are also gift cards that are credit cards. Or, really, debit cards. See “open-loop cards” at https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/more-than-you-want-to...

CaliforniaKarl··on 1.5 TB of VRAM on Mac Studio – RDMA over Thunderbolt 5
The "all nodes connecting to all other nodes" setup reminds me of NUMALink, the interconnect that SGI used on many (most? all?) of their supercomputers. In an ideal configuration, each 4-socket node has two NUMALink connections to every other node. As Jeff says, it's a ton of cables, and you don't have to think of framing or congestion in the same way as with RDMA over Ethernet.
CaliforniaKarl··on Grok Is Glitching and Spewing Misinformation About the Bondi Beach Shooting
That’s one definition. I can’t quote Oxford without a login, so in this case I have to use M-W:

> to create a false or misleading impression

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lie?src=search-di...

The verb(2) form, definition 2.

CaliforniaKarl··on Grok Is Glitching and Spewing Misinformation About the Bondi Beach Shooting
No. Per Oxford Languages…

> (of an artificial intelligence program or tool)

> produce a response that appears to be accurate or plausible but that contains inaccurate or misleading information.

The examples cited in the article were, in my opinion, neither accurate nor plausible.

In this case, I would say, LLMs lie.

CaliforniaKarl··on My Father's Instant Mashed Potatoes
If you ever wonder how fine-dining restaurants do their mashed potatoes, here’s a video from the chefs at Fallow: https://youtu.be/MvSYttvUxA0?si=9BbZtiS0bb87MGON
CaliforniaKarl··on Deprecations via warnings don't work for Python libraries
> After 12/24 months, cut a new semver-major release. People notice the semver-major through the dependency management tools at some point, an maybe they have a look at changelog.

The urllib3 package doesn't use SemVer.

CaliforniaKarl··on Deprecations via warnings don't work for Python libraries
This, I think, is the crux of the matter.

As an example, I always knew urllib3 as one of the foundational packages that Requests uses. And I was curious, what versions of urllib3 does Requests pull in?

Well, according to https://github.com/psf/requests/blob/main/setup.cfg, it's this:

    urllib3>=1.21.1,<3
That is exactly the kind of dependency specification I would expect to see for a package that is using semver: The current version of urllib3 is 2.x, so with semver, you set up your dependencies to avoid the next major-version number (in this case, 3).

So, it seems to me that even the Requests folks assumed urllib3 was using semver.

CaliforniaKarl··on Deprecations via warnings don't work for Python libraries
If you (either directly or from SerpApi) are supporting the urllib3 folks (through a Tidelift subscription), then yes, that is a valid point.

Otherwise, I'd say that's a very brave comment you are making.

CaliforniaKarl··on Atomic time source failure at NIST Gaithersburg campus
Huh, I guess it's best to think of each site's NIST NTP servers as 'load-balancers' in front of a single 'application server'.

Fun fact: Per [0], if you provide enough servers, the NTP client can detect a "falseticker" that is not providing accurate time. The number of NTP servers required is `2n+1` where `n≥1`.

Of course, that requires each NTP server use its own time source.

So, note for me: If I want NTP redundancy and I'm using NIST's servers, pick one NTP server from each of NTP's three sites.

[0]: https://support.ntp.org/Support/SelectingOffsiteNTPServers#U...

CaliforniaKarl··on Nothing in standard Ubuntu app set relies on curl?
I'm curious: Have a look at /var/log/apt/term.log on that system. When you installed the `curl` package, did apt…

1. Also install the `libcurl4t64` package; or

2. Upgrade an existing installation of the `libcurl4t64`; or

3. Not do either (1) or (2)?

If the answer is (1), then please check if the `libcurl3t64-gnutls` package is installed. Is it…

A. Installed; or

B. Not installed?

If your answer is (1)(A), (2), or (3), then that means something already had the curl libraries installed! If your answer is (1)(B), then yes, curl had not yet been installed!

CaliforniaKarl··on Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri
You follow the style guide or rules for the court in which you are filing. The US Supreme Court, for example, does not use Courier.
CaliforniaKarl··on Canada's US Travel Boycott Is Backfiring in the Most Unexpected Way at US Border
IMO, this article is written weirdly, so have the main quote:

    During an interview with CTV News, Canadian immigration law specialist Warren Creates said:
    
    “The adjudication at the border is a lot more thorough, a lot more detailed, and perhaps at times a lot more hostile. It’s (...) because there are fewer travelers. Which means these same officers have more time to spend on each examination, that is to say, each person presenting in front of them.”
Personally, I don't know if that's the case: If CBP are told to be more thorough, then I'd expect them to be more thorough, regardless of how that affects the number of vehicles processed per unit time.
CaliforniaKarl··on The stack circuitry of the Intel 8087 floating point chip, reverse-engineered
I wonder, if C used Reverse-Polish notation for math operations, would compilers have been able to target the 8087 better than they did?
CaliforniaKarl··on Kids who own smartphones before age 13 have worse mental health outcomes: Study
In the US, we restrict driving to around age 16, alcohol consumption to 18, voting to 18, and tobacco consumption to 21. Then there are industry-applied age ratings, like the MPA’s PG-13, R, and NC-17 ratings. Barbiturates and amphetamines we’re once available without a prescription.

There’s official/unofficial wiggle room, but there are limits. For example, if you live on a farm, you may be driving on the farm before you have a license to drive on public roads.

I could see mobile-phone ownership becoming similarly-restricted.

CaliforniaKarl··on Our babies were taken after 'biased' parenting test
And I wonder if “one light-day” would even be accepted as an answer.
CaliforniaKarl··on California DMV approves map increase in Waymo driverless operations
BTW, this is the way: Assuming nothing exceptional, with the every-half-hour or better frequency, I use Waymo to get to a Caltrain station, take Caltrain to a nearby stop, and then Waymo from there to destination.
CaliforniaKarl··on Lucent 7 R/E 5ESS Telephone Switch Rescue (2024)
(2024), but still a good read!
CaliforniaKarl··on WeatherNext 2: Our most advanced weather forecasting model
For folks who are interested, I suggest checking out "The weather machine: a journey inside the forecast" by Andrew Blum[0]. It's a great read into the history of weather forecasting pre-Covid.

[0]: https://search.worldcat.org/title/1153659005

CaliforniaKarl··on XSLT RIP
From https://chromeenterprise.google:

> For over a decade, Chrome has supported millions of organizations with more secure browsing – while pioneering a safer, more productive open web for all.

… and …

> Our commitment to Chromium and open philosophy to integration means Chrome works well with other parts of your tech stack, so you can continue building the enterprise ecosystem that works for you.

Per the current version of https://developer.chrome.com/docs/web-platform/deprecating-x..., by August 17, 2027, XSLT support is removed from Chrome Enterprise. That means even Chrome's enterprise-targeted, non-general-web browser is going to lose support for XSLT.

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