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huntero

346 karma · joined April 29, 2010

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huntero··on Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?
As a long time Altera user, one of the biggest things that made me want to jump the fence to Xilinx was the MUCH stronger community and hobbyist uptake. Xilinx benefitted from a ton of people out there educating others on their behalf.

Trying to shrink that community seems like a pretty obvious error. The closest thing the Altera world ever had were the old Altera user forums, which were a gold-mine. Intel shut them down immediately on acquisition. I guess it's AMD's turn.

huntero··on Xilinx HBM2 Internals (2023)
The HBM stacks are on-package for these parts, so you don't have to use any external I/O to interface with them.

You end up with a similar challenge accessing that much bandwidth internally from your FPGA logic though, it looks like the Xilinx HBM IP presents a set of 16 or 32 separate AXI interfaces, each of which gives you about 14.4GB/s of bandwidth (https://docs.amd.com/r/en-US/pg276-axi-hbm/Introduction).

huntero··on Time Card and PTP on a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4
PTP is a great choice when you need your time-sync to leave the software domain, for instance, locking an external PLL for frequency and phase aligned clocks.

PTP enabled MAC's and PHY's usually have a dedicated hardware output for a PPS (pulse-per-second) or faster clock, generated directly from the hardware PTP counters.

In the video world, we get great results synchronizing software events with NTP, but whenever you jump to a physical interface (DisplayPort, HDMI, SDI, etc.), NTP-based clocks are far too jittery.

I've seen some work using the PTP hardware in the MAC with the NTP protocol, a sort of hybrid approach, but don't have any first hand experience.

huntero··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2021)
Alcorn McBride Inc. | Full-Time | Orlando, FL | Onsite | http://www.alcorn.com Software Engineer, Design Engineer

We develop audio, video, and show control systems for themed entertainment. You'll find our equipment in the world's biggest theme parks, museums, and attractions.

The hardware (down to the PCB), firmware (from FPGA's to RTOS's), and software (C++/Qt) are all engineered in house. We're looking to hire great engineers with any mix of experience in FPGA's, embedded systems, and desktop application development.

It's amazing to see the things our creative customers do with our products, and it's exciting to work on next-generation tools and hardware to enable our customers to create the "next-big-thing".

If you'd like to chat about it, my contact info is in my profile. For more details and to apply, you can check out the job listings on our website: https://alcorn.com/about/careers/

huntero··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2019)
Alcorn McBride Inc. | Full-Time | Orlando, FL | Onsite | http://www.alcorn.com

Software Engineer, Design Engineer

We develop audio, video, and show control systems for themed entertainment. You'll find our equipment in the world's biggest theme parks, museums, and attractions.

The hardware (down to the PCB), firmware (from FPGA's to RTOS's), and software (C++/Qt) are all engineered in house. We're looking to hire great engineers with any mix of experience in FPGA's, embedded systems, and desktop application development.

It's amazing to see the things our creative customers do with our products, and it's exciting to work on next-generation tools and hardware to enable our customers to create the "next-big-thing".

If you'd like to chat about it, my contact info is in my profile. For more details and to apply, you can check out the job listings on our website: https://alcorn.com/about/careers/

huntero··on Ask HN: Writing cover letters for tech jobs
Cover letters might get lost in the HR departments of larger companies, but they're incredibly useful to me when sorting through applications at a small company.

Especially for entry level positions, a well-written cover letter is a much stronger positive signal than a bullet point style resume. Far too often the resume is a regurgitation of university class projects and career center templates.

Think of it like a pre-interview, but you get to choose the questions. Since most entry-level resumes look the same, this is your chance to explain why you stand out. (a passion for the industry, strong open-source contributions, etc)

If the position isn't entry level, my advice is the same. Use the opportunity to stand out and score the interview ( which is where the actual decisions will get made). At a small company, someone will read it.

huntero··on Developer Preview – EC2 Instances with Programmable Hardware
Given that the Amazon cloud is such a huge consumer of Intel's X86 processors, even using Amazon-tailored Xeon's, it's surprising that Amazon chose Xilinx over the Intel-owned Altera.

These Xilinx 16nm Virtex FPGA's are beasts, but Altera has some compelling choices as well. Perhaps some of the hardened IP in the Xilinx tipped the scales, such as the H.265 encode/decode, 100G EMAC, PCI-E Gen 4?

huntero··on A Large-Scale Study of Flash Memory Failures in the Field
You aren't alone.

The 840 and 840EVO were Samsung's first drives using 19nm planar TLC flash. With TLC flash they were storing 4 bits per flash cell, which at that small process size gave all sorts of trouble with old, stale data. It was a pretty well documented problem: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8997/samsung-releases-statemen...

The newer Samsung TLC drives use V-NAND, which supposedly has lower cell-to-cell interference due to the larger process size and 3D structure: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/html/pr...

Samsung has some firmware updates and software utilities that should be able to restore the performance of your SSD's.

huntero··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2014)
Alcorn McBride | Full-Time | Orlando, FL | http://www.alcorn.com

Software Engineer

We develop audio, video, lighting, and show control systems for themed entertainment. You'll find our equipment in the world's biggest theme parks, museums, and attractions. We're looking for someone to develop and maintain MS Windows Based GUI applications for the programming, configuration, and control of our hardware products used in the themed entertainment industry.

It's amazing to see the things our creative customers do with our equipment, and it's exciting to work on next-generation tools and hardware to enable our customers to create the "next-big-thing". You'll wear a lot of hats, but your primary focus will be on our desktop software applications. If you'd like to chat about it, my contact info is in my profile.

For more details and to apply, you can check out the job listing on our website: http://alcorn.com/alcorn-mcbride-jobs/

huntero··on Apple CarPlay Infotainment System Runs on BlackBerry’s QNX
Many of the same manufacturers supporting CarPlay have already committed to Android support as well (http://www.openautoalliance.net/#press). I would imagine that Apple building on top of QNX allows for the car manufacturers to standardize on a single hardware platform across all mobile integrations.

I doubt that Apple could announce so many automotive partners if the system was completely Apple proprietary, due to both time and flexibility.

huntero··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (January 2013)
Alcorn McBride | Full-Time | Orlando, FL

Hardware/Software Design Engineer

We develop audio, video, lighting, and show control systems for themed entertainment. You'll find our equipment in the world's biggest theme parks, museums, and attractions. We're looking for someone with general knowledge of Digital Video technology and Video Compression. RTOS/Embedded software experience is ideal.

It's amazing to see the things our creative customers do with our equipment, and it's exciting to work on next-generation tools and hardware to enable our customers to create the "next-big-thing". You'll wear a lot of hats(today I'm bouncing between debugging a PC application and working on an FPGA design), but your primary focus will be on our video products. If you'd like to chat about it, my contact info is in my profile.

For more details and to apply, you can check out the job listing on our website: http://alcorn.com/alcorn-mcbride-jobs/

huntero··on Ask HN: Who Is Hiring? (November 2012)
Alcorn McBride | Full-Time | Orlando, FL

Hardware/Software Design Engineer

We develop audio, video, lighting, and show control systems for themed entertainment. You'll find our equipment in the world's biggest theme parks, museums, and attractions. We're looking for someone with general knowledge of Digital Video technology and Video Compression. RTOS/Embedded software experience is ideal.

It's amazing to see the things our creative customers do with our equipment, and it's exciting to work on next-generation tools and hardware to enable our customers to create the "next-big-thing". You'll wear a lot of hats(today I'm bouncing between debugging a PC application and working on an FPGA design), but your primary focus will be on our video products. If you'd like to chat about it, my contact info is in my profile.

For more details and to apply, you can check out the job listing on our website: http://alcorn.com/alcorn-mcbride-jobs/

huntero··on Ask HN: Who Is Hiring? (October 2012)
Alcorn McBride | Full-Time | Orlando, FL

Hardware/Software Design Engineer

We develop audio, video, lighting, and show control systems for themed entertainment. You'll find our equipment in the world's biggest theme parks, museums, and attractions.

We're looking for someone with general knowledge of Digital Video technology and Video Compression. RTOS/Embedded software experience is ideal.

It's amazing to see the things our creative customers do with our equipment, and it's exciting to work on next-generation tools and hardware to enable our customers to create the "next-big-thing". You'll wear a lot of hats( today I'm bouncing between debugging an iPad app and working on an FPGA design), but your primary focus will be on our video products.

If you'd like to chat about it, my contact info is in my profile.

For more details and to apply, you can check out the job listing on our website: http://alcorn.com/alcorn-mcbride-jobs/

huntero··on The Google Nexus Q Is Baffling
I agree with you that the banana plugs were an odd choice, but to be fair, none of the interfaces you listed would be found on a pair of speakers unless they were powered.

The 3.5mm jack would be common sense for a line out, but certainly not for the speaker-out from an amplifier.

The logical connector would be binding post, which allows banana connectors, bare wire, or lugs. As you mentioned, I'm sure these weren't used because of aesthetics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_post

huntero··on The Hacker is Watching
I can't find where I read this, but I believe the reset line of the camera module is typically tied to the LED, so it can't be in a powered-on state without the LED being active.
huntero··on What really happened aboard Air France 447
It's interesting that First Officer Bonin is able to doom the plane by continuing to hold back on his joystick, even when that action isn't having positive results. Had the other first officer pushed his joystick forward, would the plane begin to dive? I assume that one joystick has precedence over the other...

It seems dangerous to have two joysticks, both capable of controlling the plane, that have no physical or simulated physical link. It means that one pilot could be attempting to control the plane and his actions will have no effect whatsoever if the other seat is panicking (as in this case).

Anyone have any insight into this?

huntero··on Ask HN: Did anyone hear back from HP/Palm on the developer Touchpads?
Yes, I received an email from them on Tuesday(11-22-11) with a coupon code.
huntero··on Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics
When I read the headline I imagined that Cloudant was going to be pretty upset to see this on the front page of HN - but it looks like it was submitted by Cloudant themselves and links to their own press release!

If it must be done, this is the type of deal that you sweep under the rug and never talk about again, much less publicize on a site like HN.

huntero··on Steve Jobs Book Excerpt: Why he wore the black mock turtleneck uniform
I was always curious why he would wear such ill-fitting turtlenecks after he lost so much weight in his sickness. I guess his supply of turtlenecks had more of a personal story behind them and it wasn't as simple as ordering a size smaller from the local department store.
huntero··on Why Windows Explorer in Windows 8 rocks
"Reason 10: Can Run Multiple Instances in Different Processes"

I'm not sure "open new window in a new process" really belongs in a windows menu. It's just more junk that only a tiny percentage of their users will understand.

I don't think the idea of a process is anywhere in the technical vocabulary of a typical windows user.

huntero··on AT&T Eliminating $10 Text Messaging Plan for New Customers
I wonder if the impending release of iMessage has something to do with this. With so much iPhone to iPhone messaging no longer counting towards text messaging, a lot of users would probably drop from the unlimited plan to the $10 plan - if it was still available.
huntero··on Dear Yahoo, hire me as your next CEO
I think the author is trying to make a point about acquisitions and the value of talent being left alone, not seriously pitch himself as a potential Yahoo CEO hire.
huntero··on Google reminds users to "Call Dad", makes users angry
When you operate on the scale of Google or Facebook, getting "cute" will inevitably end up with some angry users. But without little touches like this, the company would move closer and closer to the IBM-esque corporate monolith. And neither the users nor Google want to see that image.

That said, maybe this one was pushing it. I saw that this morning and thought, "Oh, here we go..."

huntero··on Redditor Explains Why Apple Continue Making Frail Power Cables
Good point.

This might have been one (of many) considerations when changing to the new Macbook power connectors. With the current design, there is no point in pulling straight on the cord as you described. The user must pull to the side of the strain relief, which allows it to do its job.

Has anyone had these problems with the new magsafe connectors?

huntero··on Ask HN: How do you learn your way around a new codebase?
I've recently started working with a decent size codebase in C. At first I spent quite a while looking through the code, but didn't really learn that much about it.

Eventually I bit the bullet and just dove right in, not afraid to break things. I had figured out more in 10 minutes than I did in a whole hour of passively looking through the code.

huntero··on Previewing Windows 8 (Video)
This fits well with all the earlier talk about Windows 8 supporting ARM.

Microsoft isn't scaling Windows Phone 7 up to the tablet, they are scaling Windows 8 down to the tablet. By the time Windows 8 is released, it might be viable to run this OS on a phone. Will the mobile and desktop OS's merge?

huntero··on Twitter Getting Photos In Order Ahead Of iOS 5 Integration
I wonder if TwitPic's motivation for striking the controversial deal with World Entertainment News Network was to mitigate the big drop in ad revenue they will see if Twitter launches their own photo service.
huntero··on Twitpic makes deal with news agency to sell users' uploaded photos
Apparently the news agency is primarily interested in the photos that Twitpic's celebrity users are posting. That's going to be a severe red-flag to celebrities and word will spread quickly among them/their social media folks to switch to another service.

As these popular trend-setting celebrities switch services, so will their followers. This is nothing but bad for the future of Twitpic.

huntero··on Apple Planning Major Product Launch For Retail 10th Anniversary?
If I had to guess, I'd say this will be the launch of Apple's cloud service. Coming right on the tails of Google I/O, it should take the spotlight from Google Music(what little it has). Also, this early announcement will allow developers to come to WWDC with some background on the service.

Actually, if I was a betting man, I'd say nothing is going to happen at all :)

huntero··on Out of Osama's Death, A Fake Quotation is Born
Google allows you to search up to a certain date. The results up to April 30th remove much of this latest "resurgence" of the quote, but it's still pretty much saturated with quotes about Bin Laden, a lot of the dates are just wrong and confusing Google.

I still don't see anything definitive attributing the quote to MLK

http://bit.ly/kC6VIR <- Google Search to April 30th.

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