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DaveFlateron SI Units for Request Rate (2024)

SI avoids identifying countable entities and events except in special cases like bequerel. This is but one example among many where the needs of IT are outside the scope that SI serves. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339954122_Quantitie...

DaveFlateron College English majors can't read

There they go with Dickens again. Why always Dickens? Haven't we suffered enough?

DaveFlateron Hurl, the Exceptional Language

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36393673

DaveFlateron The return of the frame pointers

GCC optimization causes the frame pointer push to move around, resulting in wrong call stacks. "Wontfix"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38896343

DaveFlateron Ask HN: Are app signup dark patterns getting worse?

Whether over months or years, they have certainly gotten worse. It is a race to the bottom or to 1 micrometer above the legal red line if one should ever be established.

CFPB and FTC talked about it: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/compliance/circulars/consume...

Summary of comparable talk in the EU: https://www.insideprivacy.com/eu-data-protection/the-eu-stan...

Down in the details, it looks like there has been enforcement in individual cases, but it obviously was not enough to stop the flood.

DaveFlateron Porting to GCC 14: C language issues

In C++ this is simply legal code. But in C, the bogus warning has now escalated to a bogus error.

   void fun110 (char const * const *a) {}
   char **a;
   fun110(a);

DaveFlateron Still no love for JPEG XL: Browser maker love-in snubs next-gen image format

What makes it seem probable that it is patent-encumbered? Is there something specific I can read about or is it just the track record of previous standards (starting with arithmetic encoding in the first JPEG)?

DaveFlateron SI Units for Request Rate

Hertz, becquerel, et al. are algebraically defined as s^(-1) yet intended to be used for different kinds of quantities. The SI brochure also allows replacing radian by 1, which brings angular velocity into the fight. Further reading: https://doi.org/10.1088/0026-1394/52/1/40

DaveFlateron SI Units for Request Rate

Being careful to distinguish 'fundamental laws' from just 'quantities that we defined', information theory and queueing theory have some good examples of proven laws.

DaveFlateron SI Units for Request Rate

ISO 80000 Part 13 gives some symbols within the scope of communication technology (its scope is more narrow than its title would suggest). The standard itself is copyrighted but the quantity symbols are listed on Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_80000#Part_13:_Informa...

DaveFlateron SI Units for Request Rate

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39219573

DaveFlateron Ask HN: What does "vast majority" mean to you?

Vast majority: portion of a population that forms a consensus.

Consensus: agreement among a vast majority of a population.

DaveFlateron SI Units for Request Rate

The "two wrongs" hostname is apt. Hertz is for periodic phenomena; becquerel is for radioactive decay. The SI brochure discourages the use of counting units such as 'request'. The number of requests is regarded as just a number, or at best a quantity that is referred to the unit one. The applicable SI unit therefore is just the reciprocal second, s^(-1).

In practice, counting units are used everywhere (e.g., in MB/s, the byte is a counting unit), but I am relaying what the SI brochure actually says on this question.

Ref: https://www.bipm.org/en/publications/si-brochure/

DaveFlateron Windows 10 users report app problems after Microsoft update

SSE 4.2 appeared in Nehalem, which was 2008.

DaveFlateron Automakers Look to Neuter ME Right to Repair Bill Under Privacy Concern Pretense

DaveFlateron Man Who Sued 'Are We Dating the Same Guy?' Groups Files Class Action Lawsuit

Well, there are two pieces. The first piece is establishing that 'the groups' were doing something wrong. The second piece is the usual struggle about the responsibility of big tech to police and moderate what goes on in the fora that they own and generate their income from. Attention is skewed toward the second question because big tech has the deep pockets, but both questions involve nontrivial moral issues.

DaveFlateron It's Time the Word "Oligarch" Lost Its Russian Veneer

They wrote "the term has always referred to those empowered politically by massive wealth" but a more precise term for that is plutocrat. I always understood oligarchy as rule by any small group.

DaveFlateron Ask HN: Why is it even possible to downvote a comment on HN without elaborating?

If someone votes a personal prejudice or vested interest, any mandatory rationale provided would be pretextual. It would be great if downvotes were all well-motivated and accompanied by constructive critique, but it just ain't so. C.f. the Reviewer #2 problem in peer review.

DaveFlateron -O1 enables frame pointer push to move around on x86_64

Because everyone thinks frame pointers are cool again and as far as I know the problem was never fixed.

DaveFlateron Maestro: A Linux-compatible kernel in Rust

Forks are not inherently good or bad but can seriously muck up an ecosystem if they are not well-justified. Mucking up the Linux ecosystem would be BAD.

DaveFlateron Maestro: A Linux-compatible kernel in Rust

That's pure Rust evangelism. As devs we are responsible for what we send out into the world. A schism in the Linux kernel would be bad.

DaveFlateron Maestro: A Linux-compatible kernel in Rust

Disillusionment. I paid my dues with virtiofsd et al. I'm glad the dev is having fun and learning, I just hope it doesn't escalate into an OS schism.

DaveFlateron 5G networks won't have the capacity to cope by end of the decade

I have fam stuck on deteriorating DSL for whom the only other options are 5G data or the cable company (the other deteriorating copper wire). The actual-not-theoretical speed of 5G in the places I go has not wowed me. Wait on 6G or abandon all hope?

DaveFlateron One of the Most Controversial US Spy Programs Just Got Renewed

"There is nothing so permanent as temporary" emergency powers

DaveFlateron Does Wayland really break everything?

My Wayland performance experience was that it broke Nvidia at a time when Nvidia was supposed to be working. The reason it didn't work was down in the weeds of this version of Mesa and that version of Nvidia, both of which were recent, and the bottom line was that X performance still exceeded Wayland's.

Security has always been a hard sell to end users because the costs are immediate and tangible while the benefits are in the future.

DaveFlateron Does Wayland really break everything?

The pertinent question is whether the user sees anything valuable in exchange for what Wayland does break. If users are to accept breakage, it has to be in a tradeoff for something they want. That incentive has not appeared. That means that the market for Wayland is actually not users but distro builders (c.f. systemd).

DaveFlateron Show HN: Chrome Reaper

You mean this? https://github.com/usnistgov/Metrology

DaveFlateron Null Island Tourist Shirt

https://wiki.c2.com/?ZeroMeansNull

(Created by me long time ago)

DaveFlateron Null Island Tourist Shirt

Atlantic/Null is the same as GMT. 1970-01-01 00:00Z

DaveFlateron Null Island Tourist Shirt

This is simply the greatest tourist shirt of all time.