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deaddabe

432 karma · joined July 9, 2021

French hacker.
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deaddabe··on Choosing a Name for Your Computer (1990)
cmon
deaddabe··on Ask HN: I'd like to start reading the Linux source code. Where should I start?
And to track that down, use https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source to ealisy browse between kernel version, functions, etc..
deaddabe··on HP rushes to fix bricked printers after faulty firmware update
Do you have a source or a link? From my experience Brother is the best brand of printers that I have worked with (monochrome, laser).
deaddabe··on Linux tool to show progress for cp, mv, dd
I feel that dd is never the correct tool to write to SD cards. At least cp can figure out the block size itself. Or the more elaborated bmaptool can even skip empty blocks which are often found in disk images.
deaddabe··on Hetzner Launches Arm Cloud
Link should be https://www.hetzner.com/news/arm64-cloud explaining the offer.
deaddabe··on Community Hackerspaces should be part of being an Engineering Student
I live near a major university that has as many as 4 fablabs listed. All of them is reserved to students. If you are an outside "thinkerer", you need to pay something like 400€/month to show up and use a soldering iron. Sometimes there is only a "contact us" form where you can ask for a quote! These efforts are completly sterile. Students have free access, but nobody from the outside world of the university to learn from.

I had access to a local hackerspace during my studies that was 100% run by volonteers, without any university involvment. It was glorious. I sat next to software and hardware professional doing amazing projects on their free time.

I guess I still have to tinker on my own instead of sharing it with people eager to learn in a common space. I think that somehow big universities actually prevent such spaces from emerging by creating their own sterile initiatives.

deaddabe··on Hetzner launches three new dedicated servers
Which fire? Are you not confusing with OVH SGB2 fire in 2021?
deaddabe··on Jabber.org has migrated to Prosody IM
Conversations [1] is the best Android XMPP client I know. IIRC they pushed the adoption of OMEMO and implemented it first, before the desktop clients could catch up.

[1] https://conversations.im/

deaddabe··on Faster than the filesystem (2021)
On Linux, this could be done using an userspace FUSE driver I guess.
deaddabe··on Floppy Disk Museum on a Bootable Floppy serving from a 286 PC
The other counters on the page are updating after each refresh. I think only the ICMP counter is broken. The IP address points to a Norway provider. I do not think there is a CDN, elsewise the counters would be frozen.
deaddabe··on Severe Hypertension: Drinking Too Much Coffee May Double Mortality Risk
" in people with severe hypertension"

This title is misleading. Original title: "Severe hypertension: Drinking too much coffee may double mortality risk".

deaddabe··on Just Say No
Worse, stalebot makes it looks like the project has no issues nor known problems. Issues should be closed either with "wontfix" or let open if they detail a real bug that others may stumble upon. In the end, I agree that it takes time to do that, and who am I to dictate how people spend their time.

Maybe the best solution would be to completly disable issues and PRs on Github. Still better than having to deal with stalebot. At least you know what to expect: external solicitation is not welcomed.

deaddabe··on Good old-fashioned code optimization never goes out of style
> Data structures and algorithms: We used a dictionary instead of a list to go from O(S) to O(1) operations.

The list in TFA is so small that I wonder at what point creating a hashtable is more economical than going through a 9 items arrays. In C, accounting for allocations, etc. I would not be surprised that strcmp on an static array would be faster.

As always, measure with benchmarks (which does the article, but not on array vs. hashtable). In theory, O(1) is better than O(N). In pratice, with memory allocations and all, the order of magnitude of N plays a role.

Anyways, I would have used a hashtable also to convey the idea that I only want to check if the item is in the list. Python makes this easy. In C, I would have used an array unless N is "large enough".

deaddabe··on Ask HN: Why is Reddit the only major platform with rich third party mobile apps?
Reddit is already aggressively pushing for users to go to their official app when browsing on mobile. I would not be suprised that custom-made apps will be more limited in the future, up to the point of being pointless. Twitter did it. Reddit may do it (only allow read-only as a first step?). They also may disable old.reddit.com at some point. Enjoy the ride while it lasts.
deaddabe··on Ask HN: Why is Reddit the only major platform with rich third party mobile apps?
This also explains app size, IMO. Querying an API and displaying remote videos/images should not require 40+ MiB Android apps. I think most of the app size is the tracking code that analyze how much time you glare at ads.
deaddabe··on The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry
> You may also look into Kernel Programming for a lucrative systems programming career.

This is the road I have taken since I started to work professionally, but I yet have to find a lucrative job. I know that I am paid more than microcontroller devs, but less than web devs. The market for kernel developers is not that big either.

deaddabe··on The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry
Because Python pays more. Or Javascript. Or Ruby. More demand, more salary. Apart from finance, pay is lower than web languages. And finance is small. Embedded systems programming, that also uses the language, pays 30% less than web jobs from my last job hunting period.

Employees may be leaving the embedded space (and C++) for web tech because of this. This is the feeling I get from my local job market (western Europe). Maybe as the old timers retire, job offers will align? Who knows.

deaddabe··on Koch method to learn Morse
Initially, I learned it for fun and ham radio emitting. But I find it fascinating that you can use it with anything that can be turned on and off with a rythm.

I used a flashlight to say "hello" while waiting for a fireworks event, but the other person far away just blinked their flashlight randomly in response.

I guess it could be used for worst scenario speech, like blinking eyes for examples if I ever have a terrible accident somehow (has been used by tortured persons, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ256UU8xJ0). When I saw Tuco’s grandpa in Breaking Bad taking so much time to write words with his bell, I just tought about using morse (but with something more elaborate than a bell, because you want to use long and short tones; same problem applies if you want to knock on walls or doors).

deaddabe··on Ox64 – a sub $10 Linux-capable SBC
At $internship I developed a network router with something like 32 or 64 MiB of RAM. Basically configuring iptables, some routes, QoS, etc.. with a bunch of bash scripts, systemd units and custom drivers.

You do not need a lot of RAM for such applications. When running, the system was using 24 MiB of RAM. So, plenty left!

Edit: I am currently playing with NanoPi Neo that has 128 MiB of RAM and I never ran out of for small applications.

deaddabe··on 8bitworkshop
Having to program down to the bit (not byte) sparks a little something for me. I feel proudness in the craft, even if this is a bit (pun!) far frow nowadays’s constraints.

I just learned the hex decades (1, 16, 256, 4k, 64k, 1M, 16M, 256M, 4G…) and now if I need to generate a 1M empty file I know that `head /dev/zero -c $((0x100000)) > 1M.bin` would do without having to multiply 1024 three times. This kind of little things. :)

Nevertheless, it can still be useful if you write Linux device drivers or some other low-level tasks. Microcontroller programming, too, but without having to buy them in the first place (MCU shortage…).

deaddabe··on 8bitworkshop
I can also recommand WASM-4 (https://wasm4.org/), that has even more constraints (screen resolution, color count, …) and that you can program with your language of choice, as long as it can compile to WASM (eg. C, C++, Rust, probably Nim…).
deaddabe··on Microsoft opens first global datacenter region in Qatar
According to other sources, $18 billion will be injected and 36,000 jobs created over a 5 years period (https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220831-microsoft-to-...).
deaddabe··on Are You a ‘Digital Nomad’? European Locales Want Remote Workers
> Many digital nomads are skilled knowledge workers who earn well beyond the €2,000-€3,500 monthly income requirements of most European digital visa programs—a big reason so many countries and towns are trying to lure them.

So, what gives as an European SW developer in this income bracket?

1. Go to US 2. Negotiate US salary 3. Come back to your native village, hopefully with "well beyond" money 4. Profit?

Or just directly work for an US company, I guess.

deaddabe··on Type of Barcodes and Their Usage
TIL about GiroCode: QR codes for EU SEPA bank info.

I wonder why it is not used in major banking applications. I have manually copypasted IBAN numbers from friends so many times it gets old. I guess scan with a visual check that the numbers are correct before adding account could provide a boost in usability.

Maybe it is not done on purpose so that easier alternatives (like Paylib) are used instead, which may incur a fee while IBAN transferts are free.

deaddabe··on Explaining Code Using ASCII Art
I wonder how this kind of schematics would sound like when using a screen reader. Hopefully the schematics can be passed if the screen reader struggles to read it, or read an "alt" alternative text instead. But I doubt it. After seeing how a person uses a screen reader, I think using a spreadsheet is sometimes more accessible than ASCII art because I guess screen readers cannot interpret ASCII characters in terms of columns and lines.

If I would have to document a table into the code, I would try to use as little ASCII characters as needed, in order to not confuse the screen reader.

deaddabe··on Ask HN: Why XMPP failed and SMTP didn't?
Before the pandemic hit and management decided to move to MS Teams, we have been using Cisco Jabber which — by the name — obviously seems to use XMPP.
deaddabe··on Taking Open Source contributions to next level with the Reward System
A reward system is something nice for new contributors in my opinion. I am currently thinking of something similar for the Debian project to incentivize new contributors with a bit of opt-in gamification.

However I did not understood why NFTs were necessary. We had badge systems way before NFT became fashionable, on forums for example.

deaddabe··on Bringing Bcachefs to Linux Mainline
See also this other thread about the bcachefs user manual : bcachefs: Principles of Operation [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31419120
deaddabe··on The rebellion against the return to the office is getting serious
You measure productivity by output divided by time, eg. 10 items produced by hour. If output was the same during lock down, but worked time increased, then productivity decreased.
deaddabe··on Coding Up an IoT PCB Design
This talk was impressive. Especially repeating parts and even using machine learning to optimize values of resistors.

TL;DW the tool is named Skidl ans uses Python to generate net lists for KiCAD. https://github.com/devbisme/skidl

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