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This seems to be a project that was derived from or a fork of Morphic.js, which in turn was inspired by the Smalltalk-based Squeak: https://squeak.org/

arjun-menonon How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

> Retiring sounds good right about now.

My personal plan, instead of retiring, is to work on inventing solutions to the issues plaguing large and complex software projects. One of my primary sub-goals under this mission, is to create a new programming language that'll handle complexity excellently, while also making it hard for a programmer to write bugs in it (strong static type system, deep static analysis, thorough linting, some kind of automatic proofing or verification, paradigms that make writing bugs less likely, paradigms that handle modularization and complexity gracefully, etc).

Overall, when there are big problems in the world (poverty, human rights abuses, climate change, bad software), I want to try to use my skills and abilities toward solving those problems, rather throwing my hands in the air, and giving into hopelessness.

arjun-menonon Japanese people may have gained longevity by balancing their diets

> Culturally it seems that fitness in general is encouraged, combined with a very different attitude toward being overweight (I had several locals comment that I was a bit fat [my BMI is ~26])

This, perhaps, is the key to their longevity.

The French have a similar attitude as well (based on my time in France).

arjun-menonon On Design Patterns in C++

> The only thing that's seen more impressive growth than memory volume is the relative cost of a cache miss.

Has the cost of cache misses truly increased? (Also: relative to what?)

Today's CPUs have far larger caches than in the past (and not to mention a lot faster too), so the number of cache misses and the time cost of each cache miss for the same program on a modern CPU should be much lower—right?

arjun-menonon The CPUs of Spacecraft Computers in Space

I was thinking, instead of that, what if you had a separate isolated tiny computer on spacecraft, that was powered by its solar panels (so there's no electrical wiring, or other connection to it), and have its own radio. And this separate computer could use the latest bleeding-edge CPU, and be encased in a radiation-hardened shell. It would use its radio to talk to the slower main computer, and do math really fast locally, and if need be, beam the results to Earth, or to a nearby orbiting satellite.

arjun-menonon Linus Torvalds' good taste argument for linked lists, explained

That does make it a bit clearer, but I do hope the compiler optimizes away the redundant curr variable.

Now, on a different note, I am a bit puzzled because I don’t see a free(*ptr) call in Linus’ or anyone else’s code. The code, as-is, would cause a memory leak.

There’s a need to capture the curr_ref before it’s overwritten, and free it after it’s overwritten.

arjun-menonon Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

You’re partly right, but there are actually a fairly significant amount of lateral transfers to other emirates (through the federal budget, which is mostly funded by Abu Dhabi). Things like the electricity and water system are run federally (by FEWA - the Federal Water & Electricity Authority) in 4 northern-most emirates. Many other benefit systems are also mostly funded by Abu Dhabi, and primarily for the benefit of the citizens of other emirates — one example might being the Sheikh Zayed Housing Programme. Abu Dhabi actually does help the nationals in all the emirates.

arjun-menonon Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

Do you realize most 401(k) and IRA accounts in the US are all invested securities (like equities and bonds)? Similarly, most wealthy people invest their money in general?

Also, I didn’t pull the 4% out of a hat. It’s actually the “Safe Withdrawal Rate[a]” recommended by Mr. Money Mustache. See his blog posts on it: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/05/29/how-much-do-i-nee...

Also, see: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2018/11/29/how-to-retire-for...

[a] Bogleheads article on Safe withdrawal rates: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Safe_withdrawal_rates

arjun-menonon Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

Who do you mean by “they”? Unscrupulous private companies with criminal managers that break the law?

A company taking a person’s passport is explicitly illegal in the UAE: https://dubaihow.com/holding-passport-employee-uae/

It carries a criminal prison sentence and a fine. And there’s a big push by the UAE government to go after, and prosecute employers who break this law.

I don’t know why people in Western countries, always without fail, mention this whenever the UAE comes up.

Imagine every time the US was mentioned, a person always pointed out how some private companies in the US treated their employees poorly and abusively (which I’m sure happens). It would be absurd.

arjun-menonon Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

Not sure what you mean “the outside”. Only indoors are air-conditioned (using electricity). And in the UAE, right now, electricity generation is slowly being switched over solar energy (away from natural gas), which is clean / renewable / sustainable. (https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/worlds-largest-...)

arjun-menonon Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

> I wonder if it will be solar energy generation due to natural abundance.

Yup, it’s happening. Gigawatts of solar power is being constructed. The UAE is getting this solar energy at the cheapest price per watt worldwide as well: https://www.forbes.com/sites/dominicdudley/2020/04/28/abu-dh...

> will be dependent on importing talented labour

This is already happening at a massive scale.

> That will only happen with low tax rate

This is also already true. The personal income tax rate is 0%. Most types of companies don’t pay any taxes either. The only tax you directly incur is the VAT of 5%.

> Will this be an ideal egalitarian society?

In the future, it’ll probably transform more and more into a sort of hyper-capitalistic and highly-successful country like Switzerland.

arjun-menonon Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

The quote is actually likely from a member of Dubai Royal Family.

An interesting fact here is that the UAE will never become poor.

The UAE has saved up over 1.3 million USD dollars per citizen[a]. And this is just the government’s savings. Obviously, there’s immense private wealth on top of that as well. Even if with investment returns as low as 4% per year drawn out, that would translate to $52,000 per citizen.

This is 52k of money that you could almost call free money. We’re not counting for the fact that at least half these citizens are not going to simply sit at home. They’re going to work, earn, start companies, etc. And the citizenry is very highly educated. And a lot of them actually have STEM degrees too (which correlates with higher earnings). So realistically, the per capita annual income could be in the over $100k per citizen range, even after the oil has run out.

[a] The UAE has about 1 million citizens (most of the ~9 million who live in the UAE are not citizens), and the UAE’s sovereign wealth funds have total assets exceeding USD $1.3 trillion: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_soverei...

arjun-menonon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (December 2020)

GitHub: https://github.com/arjun-menon

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: Java, Android, C++, C, Python, JavaScript (+ Flow types), React, ReasonML (OCaml analogue), Compiler & Interpreter implementation, HTML, CSS, Linux (Arch Linux), Git, C Windows API, SDL2 (C library); (less familiar:) Kotlin, and Go.

Résumé/CV: https://arjun-menon.com/resume

Location: Newton, Massachusetts

Email (1): arjungmenon@gmail.com

Email (2): arj9@protonmail.com