302 karma · joined January 18, 2021
No worrying about tampered logs, or any of that.
Of course, he had physical security at Lawrence Berkeley Lab.
I wouldn't want to play that game if I was in an insecure location. It's just not fun.
Still, good book. Formative in my youth.
Your input is appreciated, but I hope this space doesn't help breed hatred.
It's tough in today's world resisting the urge to take down others when we're suffering. But we all lose when we alienate those others who can bring intellectual sparks of joy into this world. Every voice matters, however brief it is.
I would be careful with that. There are software engineers, and talent in other fields in this world who are targeted by competitors. The competitors may not intend to put them on a project right away. Or ever.
If anything, getting squirreled away like that may be a signal, when combined with other signals, that you're talented. This backlash may have unintended consequences.
There are a lot of other variables. I'm sorry this happened to a lot of engineers, but a lot of them can talk publicly about it without getting made fun of.
We're not laughing at them.
It's great to see somebody picking up the idea again and extending it.
It's a cool idea. Lots of possibilities for fun RPC projects with distributed processing.
Remotely accessible 80-column cards and custom mappers FTW, eh?
Good reminder that projects are meant to be implemented.
Of course. But to ensure that's valid for multiple purposes we need a secure boot chain, and the infrastructure for it.
To get there we need an AI arms race. People trying to detect AI art with machine learning vs. increasing AI sophistication. Companies trying to discourage AI leaks of company secrets and reduce liability (and reduce the tragic cost of mistakes of course) vs. employees being human.
Or we could have built a responsible and reasonable government that can debate and implement that.
Maybe I'm naive. I'll take responsibility for that.
In the meantime, it's playtime for the AIs. Bring your fucking poo bags, theyre shitting everywhere (1), pack it in, pack it out.
(1) what the world didnt know, was that this was beautiful too.
Obviously, that's paranoid thinking. But the results are the same in many cases.
A market for lemons developing. A reinforcement of the strategy for others. And more stressful things in our lives.
If people are resentful, I understand. I hope they can find peaceful communities and safety wherever they go. I'm sure there will be political or technical reforms to accomplish that.
I hope people remember in the end that there were beautiful and good people in different spaces on the Internet, including Twitter.
I hope I can choose my own story.
I'll take the bait, and roll up several of my comments into one.
First, the support contract costs from the commercial vendors can make sense. It's one of the most expensive parts of software. We joke about fixing relatives' printers, but it's not false. Support costs introduce a counter-balance.
Second, a message to everyone looking into or using QuickLisp, it uses http instead of https: https://github.com/quicklisp/quicklisp-client/issues/167
You can patch your version to fix this. I'd also recommend adding firewall rules to deny in case your patches roll back. And any other mitigation. Or stricter policies, such as not using it, if it makes sense for your organization.
And the AI bots? I hope there aren't people herding them who don't want to, that's how you get unloving brats and a crappy world.
He posted that classic XKCD comic about critical infrastructure.
So while thousands of principal engineers at companies around the world hold meetings today on what to do about this critical bus factor issue, I'm going to do something else.
I'm going to go outside, drop off some library books (i don 't always finish them, that's ok), and wonder what critical infrastructure component exists in my life that I'm responsible for. Is it a person? A pet? A future idea?
Or who's supporting me? The parents and all the rest.
I'm not naive about what happens in OSS projects. And I wouldn't want to be this critical in a project, but this can be a message of future hope even if the world is dark right now.
I dont know the immediate solution. Maybe the engineers scrambling today can slowly remove this stress bomb over the next couple months.
My post was a bit cynical, but the network effects would make it. The community would make it.
If it ever happened, I hope the contributors have fun.
Maybe the new model is slower, and somebody looks into it, and realizes if they add a caching layer between the "REPL" module and the kernel ioctl, or service orwhatever, it will speed things up.
I run find and grep lot. And I'm sure the kernel caches a lot of the FS stuff, but there are higher-level things that could be cached and shared with other "REPL" modules. Like predictive URL middleware in browsers. Pluggable middleware that can be enabled or disabled.
Available now on the OS module store:
Larry's Grep Count Document Prefetch Module. Certified Safe by BlahCorp.
This isn't a new idea, and I'm sure others have had it before me.
Haha. Ohh geez, herding cats.
Of course, the joke is I can have the most consistent, predictable engineer ever. He gives me a constant stream of ones. Always passes the test. But I don't even know what Zero means.
Anyways, in the real world I've just had a major issue dumped in my lap and I just need to stop the fucking bleeding in a complex system.
Interesting work.
One of the lectures I remember mentioned some work being done using genetic algorithms to design automotive fenders to absorb the greatest amount of energy.
I could imagine using GAs to design optimal screw heads. You'd need a set of restrictions, but I think physics models are well known and simple enough to do it.
Then there's the big question. What other common everyday objects do we overlook that could use a redesign using similar techniques?
The term "crypto bro", and its societal connotations, is relatively new. Even if cypherpunk work is decades old. Google Trends shows that.
I recognize that, for most citizens, all cryptography work gets tainted by that term, "crypto bro". If I meet somebody at a social event tomorrow and tell them I build NFT crypto libraries for Woozle, vs. CRC32 crypto libraries for Tooble, are they going to differentiate? A lot of the current progressive crowd will wrinkle their nose, regardless.
I recognize the trend-makers who coined that term did so with political means in mind.
I recognize that they were attempting to say, "We're all part of this system. Unrestrained pursuit of work above all else can be harmful. By coining this term multiple people are taking a social hit."
But I also recognize some may want to re-orient allegences not just for the benefit of those we may spend less time with if we work more, but to reinforce other power structures.
Decades have been spent iterating on that idea. Good puzzles and enigmas take a while to work out.
Anyways, I'm happy they're proud of their work. There are some good points hidden in there, even if I'm more hardened to the reality now.
That doesn't mean every member of that community needs protection.
People scrape their knees, right? Let's build real public social safety nets to manage those falls.
Because sometimes these calls for action have other purposes.
I can never win that argument. And hopefully I don't have to work making it ever again. I don't want to be that character, ok? As the media floods with cries for help over social media hypochrondia, I don't want to work myself into a corner.
The author talks about this with a line about agency. but it's the aggregate story flood that forms the consensus.
Some groups made their risk assessment on costs with some hidden values in the middle. They'll regulate social media and software. But humanity isn't sick and life continues.
But at the risk of loss of respect, I'll wait for Rust2ShinyNewLanguage to solve this.
All I know is I hope I'm smart enough to understand ShinyNewLanguage's compiler. Or maybe even build it.
I've got several projects that could use some additional Boxes of structures, and borrow instead of move, and maybe a few more complex reference counting mechanics.
Rust forced me to understand what that meant. That's good for building a better engineer.
But it's not fun to work with.
I hope the next experience is better. Sorry Rustaceans.
It depends on the problem.
If it's education, I'd argue Forth still has a place. Writing a Forth compiler is a manageable project for a single developer.
Restricted resource creative projects, in code and other mediums, may help with teaching and creativity. I don't have research on that, and it isn't my idea, that credit should go to multiple others.
More than thorny and interesting problems with indexing modes and building blocks. Which is frankly sad. I don't know how many kilometers of neurons I've lost to these discussions. Trust me, it's not just your comment.
I understand if you feel the purpose of inceration isn't rehabilitation. Maybe some classes of prisoners should stay in prison forever, due to their threat to others.
I just know that it's tough to resist pressure when you are in a helpless and powerless situation, like I suppose prison might be.
I don't think you should also have to resist pressure for phone scams. There are multiple scams that can be run, and cooperating with wardens can hurt those who were too weak to resist say, giving up two minutes of their authenticated and tracked phone time to an inmate who just needs two minutes with their "daughter." Is the inmate who shared time at fault? Technically yes, but why does the scam succeed? Would cooperating with a warden possibly destroy a person's life in that case who may not be a pedophile? Most wardens are probably good people, and cooperation is of course probably legally required. I wouldn't want to advocate breaking the law. You just hope there is slack once the paperwork train starts rolling.
Making us stronger is a philosophy on its own.
In the same sense, this post is a larger win for government authentication methods. And I didn't want to be a part of it, regardless of the benefit to the incarcerated.
I hope I don't have to be dragged into it in the future. To some people, these discussions may be interesting philosophical debates about justice, rehabilitation and control models that are just as interesting to them. They may have built their life around them. That's awesome, but it's tiring on the other side.
It's a reminder that we live in a shared world.
And if we start seeing more keywords in alternative scripts...
That's more improvement in strong typing, IDEs, LSP, dev containers, static analysis and a slew of related technologies. It's exhausting, but it seems a little more fair than the URL debate. Of course there will be human auditing and approval advancements there that are exploitable. But it is what it is.
Look closely, and you'll see it.
Your solution helps. But the better solution being pushed for, which is frankly the correct one, is "out-of-band" certification of domain names. Whether it's a little padlock next to the URL, or locking down the browser completely on non-certified domains. This will of course require more infrastructure, human and technical.
And, ugh, we'll get moral leakage.
Your advice is good. It's helpful if you don't fall victim to feeling too secure.
But, for the debate as a whole, I'm exhausted reading through everything like a lawyer. And dealing with it as a crisis instead of a meeting of minds.
That's unfortunately not how many humans work.
Take VCR tape rewinding. It's one of those things you just let slip, because it's so inconvenient. Maybe you lie to yourself about the reason why. Or maybe not.
It doesn't matter. The video rental store is going to take advantage of human nature and find a new revenue stream.
And the system will find a new metaphorical revenue stream.
Software engineering unions and professional organizations and other things. Or maybe just more digital tracking. Not that these institutions are bad. I want my doctor to be accredited. I want individuals to have the right to organize if they truly feel exploited by management.
It just doesn't feel collaborative or cooperative here.
Anyways, it's tough to escape that human nature. I'm sorry for my mistakes.
It's interesting how the story switches between reasons. To me, the most salient is: "could not overcome Heisenberg's complete lack of interest and gave up the effort".
Attention to detail has been one of my largest issues in mistakes I've made, and this reminds me that sometimes that's what is required.
And sometimes what's required is putting a draft on arxiv.org and waiting for the criticism or roast.
Growing up in a house where your parent is worried about your performance in a subfield and reaches out to experts in the field. That's the complicated double-edged sword.
I remember a story my Dad told about cultural clashes with overseas employees.
I'm ironically constrained by those stories. I dont think I'll escape them. It's work trying.
I should put in a base case and one child test. Eh, I'll do it later.
The bigger thing is asking yourself these questions should reduce the pain.
When it doesn't, what are we doing?
For example, do you have read-write filesystems or swap? If it gets corrupted, will a reboot cycle with fsck corrupt it further, preventing post-mortem forensics? This may have security implications too.
What about network access to a shared system? Will a power outage cause a stampede on your servers? Should you stagger that 60 value?
Just a few questions to ask.
So, how can I make that without killing the crowd? That's the question of the day.
Is stevia a decent substitute for sugar? Is sugar ok if consumed on weekends only? I know, silly questions.
And then we get Jenny McCarthy provoking editorials, targeting the people who could use knowledgeable advice.
And years later, we'll be lectured on bad decisions.
No, I'm not a bot. Hello.
No shit Science? This is reasoned discourse?
One of the most critical components of our world-wide health system, sugar and diabetes. And this is the response.
It makes it difficult to truly (no fucking pun intended) assess risk in life.
This isn't about cheap rebellion. That's not the relationship you build for.
One reason of hundreds.
They understand who I am.
Have a good week!