dqh

I didn't claim it to be a new idea - I asked why we didn't do something simple like that (as the solution) instead of all the expensive complexity of trying to upgrade the entire Internet to IP6 over multiple decades.

> ISPs just haven't been enabling it.

It’s a chicken and egg problem. It would have been nice if everybody everywhere agreed to build and use an entirely new network at the same time, but that was never going to be practical.

The actual problem at hand was lack of address space, and I think this could have been addressed with a more viable upgrade path - turn every IP4 address into x number of addresses behind it, and allow retail ISPs to remain IP4 only.

I think you have missed that a IP4.4 packet would be a valid IP4 packet. The first 4 octets of the 4.4 address are where IP4 expects them to be. The router at this IP4 address needs to understand IP4.4, but routers before do not. The additional octets are smuggled within the IP4 options header.

If a source behind an IP4.4 router sent a packet to an IP4 destination, then yes, the source router would need to apply NAT to the source address. But this is already a standard IP4 router capability, and I think that most connection origins on the internet are already behind a NAT.

I don't agree that it wouldn't have been easier to migrate. No changes would have been needed within retail ISPs for starters. Source code changes to existing IP4 stacks would have been minimal, without requiring a whole new stack like IP6. Practical migration requires only that the source and destination networks be IP4.4 aware.

The idea might make less and less sense over time, but if we'd done this 20 years ago we would have reliably had all the address space we needed 10 years ago, no further transition necessary. So much money spent on IP6 could have been saved, not to mention the opportunity cost of IP4 space being hard to get in recent years.

> or potentially even create an infinite loop

I think that's what TTL is for. Without it, it would be entirely possible to have infinite loops between IP4 networks.

Thanks for that. As a transition-to-IP6 technology that makes a lot of sense, but I think it required a lot of prerequisite technology and work (i.e. IP6 itself). The hack I described could have been implemented on top of existing IP4 codebases.

Happily traverse the existing IP4 Internet, to an IP4.4 aware edge network. The point is that you don't need to modify any IP4 networks between the IP4.4 aware origin and destination routers.

It routes it as an IP4 packet, because it still is a valid IP4 address. Think of it as a way to let a stateless IP4.4 aware NAT router at the edge join two 32-bit networks together. An IP4.4 client could send a packet to a destination in that network by putting the address of the IP4.4 router in the usual IP4 destination, and the 'internal' IP address in the IP options header. No 'entire Internet update' necessary

> Almost everybody was safe from covid -- it was a handful of high risk people who we were trying to protect.

Just on that point, it’s also worth considering what happens when hospitals are overwhelmed.

I am not a network engineer, but for about 20 years I have wondered why we didn't 'just' do something like:

1. Include an extra 32-bits of address information as an IP options header. Call it an IP4.4 packet.

2. (I think?) IP4.4 packets would therefore happily travel over existing IP4 infrastructure.

3. Each existing IP4 address becomes a potential IP4.4 network with 32-bits of address space behind it.

IP4.4 aware routers at the network border could swap inbound IP4 destination with the .4 address before forwarding on to the internal network. Basically like NAT, but you can allow inbound connections without maintaining state.

EDIT: formatting

I can also tell the difference, as displayed in a rainbow, but if they were next to each other in a data visualisation I think i'd have no chance.

Yeah, I scored a 6 where 0 is perfect.

Each of the 8-bit channels is only allowed 16 different values, i.e. needs 4 bits to represent. I think it's reasonable to describe three 4-bit channels as 12-bit colour?

I really like this, but FYI I do struggle to tell the difference between the first and last colour. There are probably others out there with this problem.

Given the observable order of the universe, I have always found it hard to accept that pausing it, copying it, then resuming both copies could result in two different universes over time.

We use both Slack and Teams on Mac - and I find that Teams is more reliable lately.

Do you really think you should have the right to disrupt the funeral of someone you don’t like?

Well, I expect this sort of activity to escalate over time.

Unfortunately our government advice appears to be that we should comply if we "offer goods and services in the EU", or "monitor the behaviour of individuals in the EU.": https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/guidance-and-advice/australi...

I have no idea what would actually happen if they decided to fine an Australian entity.

Based in Australia. Straightforward B2B SaaS offering - nothing to do with exploiting personal information. But having been through it, not doing anything wrong and compliance are two very different things.

What worries me is that it’s still early days for enforcement, but they’ve already handed out something like US$1.6B in fines. I assume they will only get more aggressive with this over time.

Good to know, and I would not be surprised if that were the case.

I had a similar initial thought - I find unsolved technical problems genuinely thrilling to work on - but then I noticed the word ‘stuck’. That implies having run out of ideas on how to approach the problem and I can imagine that being stressful. Perhaps you are similar? Or do you also enjoy having run out of ideas?

Can anyone recommend a good practical learning resource on adding vector optimisations to C code?

We could use some further optimisation in the emulated screen rendering code in VICE, particularly on ARM.

$4000 a month is enough to live on. Knowing that solo founders have bootstrapped to $4000 a month is highly significant to someone with the right skills but a short financial runway.

> Humans really aren't that good at long-term planning, is one conclusion.

I think the problem is long-term co-operation rather than planning. The temptation of short-term gain is always too great for someone.

I can easily smash a whole pizza myself. So I’ve often wondered what size team this really is and why it’s not expressed directly.

I wonder how it will treat the (a bit over 50Hz) PAL and (a bit under 60Hz) NTSC Commodore 64 s-video signals - will it generate a DVI signal at these rates, or adjust the frame timing by either tearing or skipping/duplicating as necessary.

Inspired by pg essay “Lies We Tell Kids” we haven’t lied to ours yet (ages 5 and 7). It’s worked out well so far and I think we are building a good foundation of trust for later years.

Thank you so much, this is ideal! I had already settled on Unreal due to the platform support, license model and ability to work with C++.

I just quit my job to pivot to full time indie game development - what serious indie game dev communities can you recommend, if any?

Thanks for sharing your story. I am a similar age and a couple of weeks ago I took the somewhat scary step of quitting my CTO job to pivot to indie game development. Can't wait to get started after my notice period ends. It helps to know that i'm not alone starting game dev later in life :)