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bilalhusain

1,462 karma · joined March 19, 2011

Seeking opportunities.

https://twitter.com/by1x

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bilalhusain··on Kernel Bypass (2015)
In case someone finds it interesting, kernel bypass also exposes hardware capabilities which can be used for optimization. A recent research attempts at leveraging NICs to accelerate data serialization https://www.sigops.org/s/conferences/hotos/2021/papers/hotos...

Source: https://www.micahlerner.com/2021/07/07/breakfast-of-champion...

bilalhusain··on Show HN: Hck – a fast and flexible cut-like tool
It is interesting to note how it compares to "choose" (also in Rust) in the benchmarks.

single character

    hck           1.494 ± 0.026s
    hck (no-mmap) 1.735 ± 0.004s
    choose        4.597 ± 0.016s
multi character

    hck           2.127 ± 0.004s
    hck (no-mmap) 2.467 ± 0.012s
    choose        3.266 ± 0.011s
The single pass optimization trick[1] seems to be helping a lot in single character case.

Of course, doing away with a pass is suppossed to give 2x, and I am wondering whether the regex constraint lead to this "side-effect".

[1] fast mode - https://github.com/sstadick/hck/blob/master/src/lib/core.rs#... https://github.com/sstadick/hck/blob/master/src/lib/core.rs#...

bilalhusain··on Io_uring is not an event system
Currently serving Bandwidth Restricted page - 451.

Cached version of the write up https://archive.is/VgHkW

bilalhusain··on An Unbelievable Demo
> I've learned ... instead to simply say "I have a lot of experience with that technology" and leave it at that.

Shows Brendan's maturity.

I am not sure what should be the appropriate reaction or corrective measure in these situations. We should talk more about handling these unfair situations.

Someone else can become more successful building on top of one's open source project. On a resume, a top contributor and a minor contributor to open source project might have same weightage depending on how you present it - making the situation unfair for a person dedicatedly working on a single project (quality) vs minor contributor to multiple projects (quantity).

But deleting name and credits is wrong. An acknowledgement from the benefitting person (if not the recognition/reward) has far more positive impact on career than justifying to other's that your work was stolen.

It was a bit strange to read some of the initial negative comments. I see Brendan being a sport. I would argue that reading the story as a report against unknown persons at Sun makes more sense. I don't see much sense in blaming victim. And, in my opinion, the VIP had a good run but he isn't the bad guy here.

bilalhusain··on India protests: Internet cut to hunger-striking farmers in Delhi
Even RSS (BJP cadres) affliated BKS questioned why the bills were passed in hurry.

They suggested changes to the bill and commented - "We have serious doubts whether the current bills will serve any purpose to the farmers and it appears more of a tool for the buyers rather than the farmers."

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-natio...

bilalhusain··on India protests: Internet cut to hunger-striking farmers in Delhi
Modi's BJP is a power hungry party unlike anything I have seen. I doubt they care about anything (nation, economy, welfare).

The way it has been going on is that government announces something or passes some bill because they have to do something on a particular topic (say black money, taxes, Covid). However, they are incompetent or don't have the willingness or interest in actually carrying it out. So, these changes turn out to be catastrophic. They take toll on economy as well as anyone impacted because of the decision making.

Agriculture reforms are much needed in India. However, the government did it in hurry by-passing rules and without consulting farmers. I guess, they just want to do something so that they can let the marketing take care of the rest (that the goverment has done something for farmers - doesn't matter what or irrespective of whether it really helps them).

With these bills, the concern is that it will let private players take over and exploit farmers because of insufficient provisions to take care of farmers' interest. And then nobody will care (very much a risk because no one raises voice of oppressed which might show government in bad light because of the sold-out media). And the government will push narrative that they did the "reforms" (backed by fake data which is a hallmark of this government).

bilalhusain··on Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store
You are not too off from what has already been stated in the link, just that you cherry-picked it. Regarding criticism, Modi himself tweeted that "criticism makes democracy stronger"[1] so why should anyone get blacked out!

[1] https://twitter.com/pmoindia/status/986672508542824456

bilalhusain··on Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store
I am talking about Justice Loya [1].

By the way, the govt has been very active in making sure that they have their loyal representatives in bureaucracy as well as in judiciary. Recently, the Supreme Court convicted a prominent lawyer for a tweet criticizing them [2]. It is very easy for them to dismiss cases which might show them in bad light. Media has no independence either. Eg. the case of Punya Prasun Bajpai [3] who's show was blacked out and eventually cancelled because it was critical of Modi.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brijgopal_Harkishan_Loya

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/31/world/asia/india-bhushan-...

[3] https://thewire.in/media/punya-prasun-bajpai-abp-news-narend...

bilalhusain··on Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store
Since the title mentions the idea as well as the govt, let me add that while the idea is excellent, the current (Modi) govt is incompetent when it comes to execution, or may be has some other interests. Examples - failed demonetization, poor implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST), failed Covid-19 lockdown. Most of what the govt does benefits select corporates (eg. rise of Jio). Interestingly, Paytm benefited the most during demonetization (2016) which is mentioned in the article and might have catalyzed the idea. The important part to notice is that demonetization was aimed at wiping out black money, GST was supposed to improve taxation, Covid-19 lockdown was supposed to dampen the long-term effect. However, these steps which were supposed to improve economy turned out to be counter-productive. Due to the poor or misdirected execution, India's economic is tanking down. So, although self-dependence is the stated goal, I am not sure where it will land. Moreover, the authoritarian tendencies don't help either. They are known to blackout journalists, assassinate lawyer, conduct media trials and put anyone speaking against them in jail. They will be a bigger bully than Google/Apple and pose a bigger risk to privacy.
bilalhusain··on Facebook Gizmo
Radish sounds pretty fascinating. Any suggestions for a cheap Cholesteric LCD screen (which retains displayed image even when off)?
bilalhusain··on TSMC officially begins 5 nm production
Intel's roadmap (from last year) is suspected to target 1.4nm in 2029

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15217/intels-manufacturing-ro...

bilalhusain··on GitHub Super Linter: one linter to rule them all
Used `checkstyle` 4 years ago to improve the quality of code. Has neat XML based rules and good IDE support. See if it fits your use-case.
bilalhusain··on Clang-11.0.0 Miscompiled SQLite
'sqlite3VdbeMemRelease' doesn't alter the value of 'c' but may alter the value of 'pmem->flags' which is what the compiler replaced 'c' with.

from the post by Dr. Richard Hipp "From the -S output, it looks like Clang-11.0.0 is compiling these three lines as if there were written as:"

      sqlite3VdbeMemRelease(pMem);
      pMem->flags = MEM_Str|MEM_Term|(pMem->flags&(MEM_AffMask|MEM_Subtype));
bilalhusain··on Rust 1.39
Another fix (one mentioned in detailed release notes) is where asinh(-0.0) used to return 0.0

These unexpected behaviours are tough to nail down when one is trying to get the code/setup working. Really appreciate the time these fixes potentially save for future users. The complex nature probably also hints at maturity of Rust codebase.

bilalhusain··on Rust 1.39
Completely agree. That ways discussion would be at one place and front page won't be hogged with possible duplicates.

Right now the other post is enjoying more attention and has meaningful engaging discussion. Requesting @dang to remove this (21473257) from front page and possibly tag the other one (21473259) with 1.39.0 release.

bilalhusain··on [dead]
As a firefox user, switching to Reader mode (Ctrl + Alt + R) and then refreshing the page (Ctrl + R) works for me.
bilalhusain··on How we store 400M phone numbers with fast lookup
Sounds promising. Little bit concerned on the computational cost of hashing function. Gotta explore this option!
bilalhusain··on How we store 400M phone numbers with fast lookup
Our solution maintains the data in a simpler scheme because keeping the data in a maintainable format is important aspect when the data is ever changing - every couple of days millions of people update their preferences and we need to be able to apply these changes. When choosing a single data structure for all the numbers, we need to optimize for space or for faster inserts/updates. Our solution is a trade-off between these options.
bilalhusain··on How we store 400M phone numbers with fast lookup
Earlier submission tanked on HN and the link didn't work, resubmitting with lookup timings added. Hopefully, readers will find it interesting this time.
bilalhusain··on Lua metacompiler
http://www.ibm-1401.info/Meta-II-schorre.pdf
bilalhusain··on IMDB hacked?
Its getting spammed. The page is supposed to show the newly created lists and is correctly doing that. An example of spam list

http://www.imdb.com/list/ls077456305/

bilalhusain··on Pigshell – Unix the Web
The psty links in README file are broken. A working link is http://pigshell.com/v/0.6.2/psty.py

As mentioned in the README, you need to run psty server locally and establish websocket connection (mount in pigshell). This will enable you to harness local filesystem from pigshell.

bilalhusain··on Google Timer
I was suspecting that it was from old times when audio wasn't supported in browser and you had to rely on Flash. The decompiled code[1] for the swf file[2] hints that sound is being used.

[1] http://pastie.org/9637758

[2] http://steep.it/timer/steep.it.swf

bilalhusain··on Anybody need a Linode account with $2000 credit?
Have you tried talking to Linode guys. This is a good amount, I think something can be arranged.
bilalhusain··on Why a linked list always come between me and a great job offer
I guess that some interviews are more about showing off their (interviewer's) skills instead of mutually exchanging views. Cliched puzzles around linked lists are one game they are good at and gives them a confidence to beat you at their own game.
bilalhusain··on "Make Simple Tasks Simple!" – Bjarne Stroustrup's CppCon2014 Keynote
Slides are available at github [1].

Other CppCon talks are available at CppCon youtube channel [2].

[1] https://github.com/CppCon/CppCon2014/tree/master/Presentatio...

[2] http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMlGfpWw-RUdWX_JbLCukXg

bilalhusain··on Cassandra at Instagram 2014
During the early phase when Instagram started moving towards Cassandra, Salvatore pointed out the cited issues as "sounds like problems that we can solve with Redis Cluster." [1] Now that the latest Redis Cluster is around the corner[2], I wonder if the issues are somewhat addressed.

[1] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/redis-db/Oazt2k7Lzz4/y1rzJce...

[2] https://twitter.com/antirez/status/517230620297404416

bilalhusain··on Yahoo Lays Off 400 Employees In India
You forgot to capitalize I in India.

edit: The edited title is way better. Thank you!

bilalhusain··on Scala – The good, the bad and the very ugly
I read the comment as condescending and as a reply to the parent commenter's lack of knowledge about Clojure and Clojure ecosystem. May be I interpreted it incorrectly and that's why I suggested to shine the light on the real picture.

Also, I didn't ask to write about web development, merely share information/links like the other comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8420463) did.

bilalhusain··on Scala – The good, the bad and the very ugly
You are right, they were mainly around pointers. As long as they are a handful and their meaning doesn't change (as opposed to using in a DSL), its easy to get used to them. Still, I find the explicit keywords a familiar territory and better to read.
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