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coreai

32 karma · joined December 27, 2019

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coreai··on MIT and Harvard file suit against new ICE regulations
The decision of ICE essentially was to not change anything. A student on F1 is only permitted to take certain number of online classes and must maintain his status with in person classes. The change to online classes means this affects ones status and the ICE notice meant they will not make any changes to these rules even in this situation. What people are saying is that this affects ones work status if he leaves the US post study but ideally a student is a student not seeking work or immigration into the US especially given that the H1B is suspended and OPT is not work it’s training. If the university says class is online then it means there is no reason for a student to live in the US. People confuse students with long term immigration even if that maybe the intention of the student. They are just students who are paying tuition and living in the US as far as anyone is concerned.
coreai··on Linux Kernel Is Still Seeing Driver Work for the Macintosh II
You don’t need old hardware to verify the speed differences. If you just take a browser in i3wm on bare arch Linux install that will be faster than in windows10 on the same machine. At least snappier. It’s just significantly lower overheads in Linux because you can tailor to your needs and remove all bloat. Also windows GUI is just more taxing on the system compared to Linux so that is going to be better at rendering something like a simple browser. Linux is slightly faster in some benchmarks(like geek bench) but overall the differences are minor when comparing apples to apples. It’s things GUI related where Linux has the edge in performance and some of the recent games have for some reason performed better on Linux than Windows according to an LTT video which is due to some real interest and development in Linux gaming.
coreai··on Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year
If this is true then next year the chances of getting an H1B would become less than half while the applications would double.
coreai··on Massive spying on users of Google's Chrome shows new security weakness
I feel like this argument is the same as ‘how third party apps are allowed in windows and macOS by Microsoft and Apple’

To me there has always been a trusted part of computing which is audited to some extent and marked as trusted. Browser extensions work the same way as software on an operating system. If they blocked all extensions outside trusted ones they would be criticised as well. However the auditing process is very controversial and could become like the Apple’s App Store where the apps/extensions maybe blocked for reasons other than just security to make it anti competitive which is certainly something possible with chrome

coreai··on Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
After using a rMBP for 6 years, I realized that using a lower resolution and lower quality display makes absolutely no sense at all if both graphical power and budget is available (first 13' rMBP had some serious issue driving the display). Better quality image is better quality image. I think Apple's biggest selling point over any vendor right now, despite numerous issues with its hardware and software in the recent past, is absolutely top class input and output. It is such a simple concept. A great keyboard (seems to be fixed now) and absolutely incredible trackpad experience along with a display that basically is a huge step up from your past experience means that most users will prefer that setup even if they just use it for basic coding or web browsing. After looking at the first retina displays I realized that Apple didn't just change the displays but it changed how fonts behaved completely because the crisp and clear legibility was key to attract customers early on. I'd say even in 2020 most computers are struggling with good displays which can completely ruin the experience for someone using the product even if every other aspect of it was great.
coreai··on Apple, ARM, and Intel
The problem, as explained here, is also what Linus and recently GKH have mentioned is that the lack of any consumer ARM hardware like laptops and desktops mean that kernel developers or app developers are basically not able to develop and test their code easily to be able to deploy it in the cloud ... if Apple was able to sell their macs with ARM and not only that but also provide instances of the same platform then they might be essentially at the core of architecture revolution
coreai··on iOS 13's Music App Sucks
I have both Spotify and Apple Music but somehow the Spotify interface to me seems just simple enough that I can play what I want and the interface gets out of the way. With Apple it’s almost like they want you to listen to what they want you to listen and not what you want to listen to. This is what basically companies trying to push their content do over what content you prefer and it almost always ends up in bad interfaces.
coreai··on iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry
On the other hand recently I restored my iPhone as new. The default settings may give users prompts to disable tracking but Siri is now a big tracker itself. Siri now learns from apps how you use them by default. While this may not be advertising and data may be on your device or with a trusted company like Apple, the idea of privacy should be that by default everything is opt in only. Who’s to say Apple is tailoring your iPhone behaviour ‘to your needs’ when in reality they are just trying to make you invest more into their ecosystem by learning from you ? That might sound like that’s helpful and might make the experience better but the main idea of tracking is still the same.
coreai··on AMD launches new entry-level mobile ‘Dali’ processors
I think these chips go in really low end computers like possibly chromebooks or sub 300$ laptops where intel falls short on pricing. But from what I can understand AMD is already selling 300$ 3200U laptops which maybe perform similar to these. Nonetheless I find it really amazing that only 3 years ago 2c/4t was normal for high end flagship laptops like xps 13 with 7200u and now those chips are lowest end chips being offered.
coreai··on C Is Not a Low-level Language (2018)
This paper revealed me some of the things than modern designs have adopted, which the regular uninformed coder would never notice (which he may not need to most of the times). But recently I have been looking into HFT computers and I see that these things are running C code (a friend works at a small startup who said they use C programs for most of the orders) on regular computers with most even using off the shelf hardware (intels 9900KS and 9990XE are hot targets and anandtech and servethehome have shown off some hardware). HFTs are highly sensitive to optimizations and it is my understanding that the lower they go to the hardware, the better returns given how competitive it can get.

With so much in the middle from a high level C program to low level instructions on a CPU, I wonder if we will see companies like JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley (big ones with money and time to invest) enter the chip business heavily. This could then bring back some of those optimizations to the consumer space and startups in the area of fast and efficient C code then might get into trouble. As of now this area seems to be open to compete.