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crshultson Spacewar 1 and the Beginnings of Video Game Aesthetics

Nice reference. Gonna have to binge some Twilight Zone now. I can't find the exact quote from Highlander (TV series, not the movie) where Duncan has a friend, the "best swordsman in Europe", but he says something like, "don't ever be the best... God forbid you lose your nerve but they keep coming." Found the episode at least [0].

[0] https://highlander.fandom.com/wiki/Courage

crshultson Logica, a novel open-source logic programming language

Just want to put a very strong second on this recommendation. Three chapters in I knew enough to prototype something for work that reduced a mess of C++ to a couple pages of rules.

crshultson Talking with your hands alters the perception of your words

Totally relevant commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNCrMEOqHpc

crshultson What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

When one of the pumps on my aerobic system died a few years back it was less than 24 hours before the drains were backed up. If your soil won't pass a perc test I guess you can just go with aerobic which allows you to build pretty much anywhere. The final stage sprays effluent on your yard.

crshultson Filling the Void of a Physical Whiteboard

Lowes calls it "smooth white wall panel"

crshultson Digital sound processing tutorial

Crazy. I was just shopping for this book last night but got hung up on different editions. This one[1] also claims to be the 3rd Edition but looks to have an early publish date. I guess go with whatever's newest?

[1] Discrete-Time Signal Processing (Prentice-Hall Signal Processing Series) 3rd Edition

crshultson Ultimate Guide to Switch Debounce

When I saw the title I thought it would be the old Jack Ganssle article which is also worth a look if you're interested in this topic: http://www.ganssle.com/debouncing.htm

crshultson Raspberry Pi 4 not working with some chargers

Had to fire up Eagle quick and take a look at my latest design (first time using USB-C). Looks like I got lucky this time.

crshultson Ask HN: Best place to start learning about Markov Chains?

I thought this recent post: 'Generating More of My Favorite Aphex Twin Track'[1] had a good beginner-level write up on Markov Chains. [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19490832

crshultson The Calculus Trap (2005)

I read that "Java School" bit as being in the Joel Spolsky sense. As opposed to a more SICP approach.

crshultson Making My Own USB Keyboard from Scratch

> 7. Solder in order of cost and success rate.

Thanks for this. I guess I've always gotten lucky here but now I'm imagining the frustration of getting done with all the discretes on a board just to blow it all on the uC. Great advice, thanks again.

crshultson Guidelines for keeping a laboratory notebook

I've been using the big grid+ offering from Vela Sciences for my daily work. Only use pencil though, Graph Gear 1000. Recently switched from 0.5mm to 0.9mm. Have only been keeping "good" notes for a few years now and so far pencil hasn't been a problem. Was just rereading Jan 2017 this morning and even in 0.5mm, looks as good as new. I'm not in a real lab setting though so I just go with what feels good. If I was forced to use ink, I probably wouldn't take as many notes.

crshultson The true power of regular expressions (2012)

Have you tried using an XML parser instead?

crshultson Remains of the murdered Romanovs 'authentic'

My son asked me the other night how long we were going to live which took me down the Oldest_people[0] rabbit-hole on wikipedia. On the page for Jeanne_Calment[1] I found this interesting line:

"She considered the most important historical event in her lifetime to have been the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the execution of the Russian imperial family, a view shared by many fellow centenarians."

Goes to show just how impactful this act must have been.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_people [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment

crshultson Computer Science from the Bottom Up (2013)

Racket has an SICP plugin that makes everything from the book work.

crshultson Intro to modern hardware prototyping

I always had good results with Advanced Circuits out in Colorado, but this is over a decade ago now.

crshultson Ask HN: What's the best tool you used to use that doesn't exist anymore?

Iguana labs 8051 burner

crshultson Self hosted C – breakdown

Holub's 'Compiler Design in C' is out of print, so he gives it away for free: www.holub.com/software/compilerDesignInC.pdf

Probably not exactly what you're asking for, but hey, free book.

crshultson Tesla’s Model S Gets “Ludicrous” Mode, Will Do 0-60 in 2.8 Seconds

I always thought it would be cool to play an on-rails first person shooter where the "rails" matched the road you were travelling at the time.

crshultson UART Receive Buffering

Important to remember for each data byte in the buffer to also store the LSR along with that data. Windows serial port driver fails to do this, meaning you can tell there was (for example) a parity error on a byte in your fifo, you just don't know on which byte.

crshultson Ask HN: What are your recommended reads that are available for free?

Thanks for this. I was happy to see 'Patterns for Time-Triggered Embedded Systems' on your list, though the link appears broken - new link: [1]. I remember working through that book and porting everything from C to Assembly (my boss at the time was too cheap to buy me the nice Keil compiler). Once I had that library in hand, I was knocking out his projects in days instead of weeks.

[1] http://www.safetty.net/download/pont_pttes_2014.pdf

crshultson Python on Android

Wonder if some of the work from here [1] could be leveraged to fill that hole faster.

[1] http://www.androwish.org/index.html/home

crshultson “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”

I remember having that same feeling playing Road Rash after attacking Natasha during a race.

crshultson The Beard That Wasn't: Abe Lincoln's Whiskers

I wear one. I'd never hear the term "wreath beard" before reading this article. Terms I've seen for it are: tauferbard[1], chin curtain, donegal, lincoln[2], alaskan whaler[3], shenandoah, and spade beard[4].

[1]http://earofthesoul.blogspot.com/2010/06/my-spiritual-journe... [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chin_curtain [3]https://www.facebook.com/TheAlaskanWhaler [4]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenandoah_%28beard%29

crshultson A Simple Guide to Five Normal Forms in Relational Database Theory (1982)

First normal form excludes variable repeating fields and groups

What are the definitions of "variable repeating fields" and "groups?"

What would violating records look like?

crshultson A scientist stole my root beer

The renaissance fair in Muskogee always has Bud's Homemade Root Beer in from Alton, IL. The stuff is amazing and unlike any commercial root beer I've tried. http://www.budsrootbeer.com/

crshultson Deterministic, bit-identical and/or verifiable Linux builds

For jurisdictions that don't have their own state-run labs (so not NV, NJ, PA, etc.) everybody uses one or a mix of GLI[1], BMM[2], and Eclipse[3] Note: I'm only familiar with US gaming.

We do have a tool to zero these parts of the executable files out, but in our testing we still had unexplainable differences unless we were on the same machine working from the same sync.

The VirtualBox was generated once (installed Windows, Visual Studio, .NET, some others) and we just continue to use the same base .ova.

The package has to be sent to the lab on physical media where it gets loaded onto an offline machine that we've supplied.

[1]http://www.gaminglabs.com/ [2]http://www.bmm.com/ [3]http://www.eclipsetesting.com/

crshultson Deterministic, bit-identical and/or verifiable Linux builds

I'm in casino gaming. We have to send our source and tools to regulatory test labs so they can (hopefully) independently generate the same binary as what we are delivering. Given our tools (C++ and Windows), 'binary reproducibility'[1] is impossible, but we've got a workaround. We do our release builds on a VirtualBox that's all tooled up. When it comes time to deliver to the lab, we export the entire box (with source already synced) as an .ova. Part of our build pipeline is a tool that strips things like timestamps and paths from the PE files. Some people don't go to all this trouble and instead use tools like Zynamics BinDiff to explain away the diffs.

[1]https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=binary+reproducibility