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initramfson The little book about OS development

Without knowing much about the type of OS this book is, I imagine that there a lot of architectural aspects of x86 are considered "standard" to many of the x86 OSes out there. I hear a lot about code density in the x86, MIPS, and SH-2, compared to a lightweight RISC processor. Or, the book glazes over some of the more universal aspects of OSes, to address specific features of x86.

initramfson Show HN: OpenTimes – Free travel times between U.S. Census geographies

awesome

initramfson Computers and Mice – Mister Rogers Neighborhood

maybe today's technology will become a fad and people outside of Hacker News will rediscover the joys of imagination.

It's funny how reality is distorted for those who pursue profit at any cost: https://dailygalaxy.com/2025/03/zuckerberg-declares-the-end-...

I wonder, are smart glasses being thrust upon us, or is society just picking them up like tablets, which were once awkward to use?

initramfson DARPA exploring growing bio structures of "unprecedented size" in microgravity

new to me. thanks!

initramfson DARPA exploring growing bio structures of "unprecedented size" in microgravity

tame as seaweed wrapped around your ankles in shallow water, i might say.

initramfson Lenovo's new concept laptop can be charged by the sun

Oops, I shared the wrong link. 2025: https://www.theverge.com/news/621693/lenovo-laptop-concept-y...

initramfson The Pentium contains a complicated circuit to multiply by three

https://github.com/EI2030/Low-power-E-Paper-OS/blob/master/P...

8086: 29,000 386: 275,000 486: 1.2 million Pentium: 3.1 million The NSA entered the game sometime after 2000, I recall.

initramfson The early days of Linux (2023)

bookmarked.

initramfson Freelancing: How I found clients, part 1

Author appears to have added an index on the left side of the webpage to allow skipping to sections of the page while removing the scroll bar on the right, making the desktop version more or less mobile-like. Sigh.

initramfson Max Headroom

amazing. I read a few months ago that it might have been a local high school. But something tells me it sounded like tv station employees.

This is a pretty interesting prediction from the Simpsons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOFE90iwVAk

I heard a theory that the FBI, which investigated it, decided not to pursue it further due to the low severity of the crime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v8DcgNacGQ

The theory that it was an original cast member of the movie, makes sense, but I have to do more research.

This is a pretty interesting analysis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCnip_Bjza8

initramfson Max Headroom

nope.

initramfson The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

this is why I want my next car to have physical dials.

initramfson Philosophy Eats AI

yes and no. ones encoded by the previous generation, and biological life is an open or partially open system

initramfson Philosophy Eats AI

The world is becoming an algorithm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Creepy_Line Algorithms create a compression of search values not unlike a Cartesian plane.

The question is, will more people embrace the Cartesian compression of ubiquitous internet communication?

initramfson Windows 95 on a 386SX 16MHz

nice to know!

initramfson Show HN: Doom (1993) in a PDF

Doom, the PDF Movie.

In Theatres, Near You

initramfson Show HN: Instantly visualize any codebase as an interactive diagram

Wow, this is awesome:

https://gitdiagram.com/EI2030/Low-power-E-Paper-OS

https://gitdiagram.com/hatonthecat/Solar-Kernel

https://gitdiagram.com/hatonthecat/OpenSourceCondo

https://gitdiagram.com/hatonthecat/Open-Source-Car

initramfson The number pi has an evil twin

I find it hard to believe that Shakespeare would spell the same wird dyfferntli as if heez noom is Sheikhspier een uh deefirind koontri.

initramfson The number pi has an evil twin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro

initramfson Kowloon Walled City: Heterotopia in a Space of Disappearance (2013)

fascinating. It represents every failed public housing project in the U.S. as well, like the one in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyaanisqatsi#Filming and in NYC

initramfson MIPS P8700 RISC-V CPU Support Posted for LLVM Compiler

They seem to have reappeared out of stealth mode. I wasn't aware of their rebrand.

initramfson Why Does Microsoft Have a Thin Scroll Bar? Reducing Clutter Is Their Opinion

yeah, it's insanely user-unfriendly There are 4k monitors which would make this very hard on 100% zoom. On 1080p it's pretty narrow.

initramfson Why is the scroll bar in Windows 10/11 so narrow? Reducing Clutter is MS Opinion

it's a link to a Microsoft forum which does not work because all the URLS are broken/truncated by HN and MS, which redirects to a login.

You can try the google search: https://www.google.com/search?q=why+microsoft+scroll+bar+so+... (it's the first link)

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/why-is... this might not work.

initramfson Why is the scroll bar in Windows 10/11 so narrow? Reducing Clutter is MS Opinion

It also suggests that most mice have the option to scroll without the wheel. But this still fails. And Discord has a dark background with a THIN scroll bar, making the problem even harder.

https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/4405047... "AI Overview Learn more If you find the scroll bar on Discord to be too thin, it's a common complaint as many users find the default scroll bar width in Discord to be quite narrow, making it difficult to click on precisely to scroll, and is considered by some as a design flaw within the platform; there's currently no direct setting within Discord to adjust the scroll bar thickness. "

"Mutant3 years ago All programs need to respect the GUI preferences the user has specified in their OS. If you have customised the scrollbar width and colour in your OS's Control Panel (Appearance Settings, if you're using Windows). Discord seems to defy this standard behaviour... and rather than defy it to use sensible, usable defaults, it chooses implausibly dark, impossibly narrow scrollbars to antagonise the user. This is extremely dysfunctional user interface design."

initramfson Why Does Microsoft Have a Thin Scroll Bar? Reducing Clutter Is Their Opinion

USE this link->> https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/why-is... the horrible URL that was pasted for no reason other than Chrome/Microsoft creating this monstrous URL and the main link doesn't work? I have to always double check the URL whenever this happens but it happens so often that I missed it. Sorry!

initramfson Why Does Microsoft Have a Thin Scroll Bar? Reducing Clutter Is Their Opinion

https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/4405047...

"AI Overview Learn more If you find the scroll bar on Discord to be too thin, it's a common complaint as many users find the default scroll bar width in Discord to be quite narrow, making it difficult to click on precisely to scroll, and is considered by some as a design flaw within the platform; there's currently no direct setting within Discord to adjust the scroll bar thickness. "

initramfson Why Does Microsoft Have a Thin Scroll Bar? Reducing Clutter Is Their Opinion

It also suggests that most mice have the option to scroll without the wheel. But this still fails. And Discord has a dark background with a THIN scroll bar, making the problem even harder.

initramfson What is the origin of the lake tank image that has become a meme? (2021)

There's also Father Thames, the River God of London https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1140390

initramfson GNU Artanis 1.0.0 Released

it would be slightly better if it were black background and green ink

initramfson A Crashed Israeli Lunar Lander Spilled Tardigrades on the Moon(2019)

what if the water bears made their way to the bags of feces and started to grow inside there. If the bags serves as a terrarium that produces oxygen from anaerobic microbes via photosynthesis.