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marsovoon The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

Macroeconomics is very different from microeconomics. Your spending is my income and my spending is your income. If the government spends a dollar, where does it go?

Presumably it goes to some sort of goods and services. The employees pay income taxes. The businesses pay corporate taxes. And so on.

Similarly, when a business lays off 10,000 people, it's not their problem anymore. Whereas from a macroeconomic policy perspective, "everybody" is the government's responsibility.

marsovoon MySQL transactions per second vs. fsyncs per second (2020)

I see what you mean, but ACID is a fairly foundational expectation for SQL transactions (D being the relevant feature here)

That being said, my background is primarily Microsoft SQL more than Postgres. As such I'm occasionally bemused at the sort-of monoculture here around Postgres, where if Postgres doesn't have it, it may as well not exist*.

And so it is in this case (the DELAYED_DURABILITY documentation I linked above). Alas, this doesn't seem to be something I see in standard SQL, so indeed, as you say, it's too bad that the standard doesn't provide for relaxing the rules.

Relatedly, the other interesting thing is the chatter about fsync. I know on Windows that's not the mechanism that's used, and out of curiosity I looked deeper into what MS-SQL does on Linux, and indeed they were able to get significant improvement by leveraging similar mechanisms to ensure the data is hardened to disk without a separate flush (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43443703). They contributed to kernel 4.18 to make it happen.

> The repeated use of a write request followed by a flush request may be detrimental to performance and will increase traffic on the I/O bus.

> Prior to the Linux Kernel 4.18 updates, Linux could use Fua but only for the file system journaling writes and not data writes.

> If your system supports Fua and you have the Linux Kernel 4.18 or newer updates, you can enable SQL Server trace flag -T3979 and use /opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf set control.alternatewritethrough 0. SQL Server will use Fua write behavior patterns instead of Forced Flush. File systems supporting optimized Fua align SQL Server on Linux with SQL Server on Windows behavior and performance.

*I think performance of CTEs/Views is another topic where I noticed it, where it was just taken as given that they can hurt performance, whereas in T-SQL they are simply equivalent to subqueries

marsovoon MySQL transactions per second vs. fsyncs per second (2020)

I looked into this some more. There are other ways than explicit fsync. See this blurb on FUA (which basically treats the I/O as write-through)

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/sqlserver/sql-serve...

marsovoon MySQL transactions per second vs. fsyncs per second (2020)

I'm not sure we're using the same terminology. Committed means the transaction has been hardened to disk. That's the D in ACID.

Otherwise, is the suggestion that there be an artificial delay to allow other transactions to piggyback before returning success on commit 1?

Should that be a default? (That was the context of this thread)

marsovoon MySQL transactions per second vs. fsyncs per second (2020)

Sure, but now when transaction 1 is "committed", it isn't actually guaranteed to be there in the face of interruption. That's a big change to the default behavior...

marsovoon NASA Whoosh Rocket

More context on the external tank: https://archive.is/2017.03.30-030831/https://www.nasa.gov/mi...

> The common soda can, a marvel of mass production, is 94% soda and 6% can by mass. Compare that to the external tank for the Space Shuttle at 96% propellant and thus, 4% structure. The external tank, big enough inside to hold a barn dance, contains cryogenic fluids at 20 degrees above absolute zero (0 Kelvin), pressurized to 60 pounds per square inch, (for a tank this size, such pressure represents a huge amount of stored energy) and can withstand 3gs while pumping out propellant at 1.5 metric tons per second. The level of engineering knowledge behind such a device in our time is every bit as amazing and cutting-edge as the construction of the pyramids was for their time.

marsovoon Hidden Messages in Emojis and Hacking the US Treasury

PHP has grown up but in its wild youth was notorious for such gems as mysql_escape_string vs mysql_real_escape_string, rather than proper parameterization

It's not so much about Turing as it is libraries and patterns

After all, as I understand it this very issue was caused by escaping SQL rather than parameterizing it

marsovoon Tj-actions/changed-files GitHub Action Compromised – used by over 23K repos

Yes, you're right. I wasn't able to double-check as the repo was deleted at the time. That said, AIUI making the tags read-only would still often be vulnerable to semantic-version exploitation.

marsovoon Tj-actions/changed-files GitHub Action Compromised – used by over 23K repos

I don't think that's exactly what happened here: the compromise created new tags but generally the tag consumption relies on semantic versioning

In other words: you specify version 44, the attacker creates 44.1, you're still hosed.

marsovoon In S3 simplicity is table stakes

Erm, most file systems allow you to change data too, right? Hence S3 is emphatically not a file system.

marsovoon In S3 simplicity is table stakes

Here's the link to that https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40304666

Moral of the story: the "technical part" of things is not the end of the story

Alternative moral: The 3-2-1 backup rule of thumb is still alive and well (is your cloud account a single point of failure?)

marsovoon Planes are having their GPS hacked. Could new clocks keep them safe?

Not to mention removal of the alternatives in favor of GPS, e.g. shutting down VOR beacons (see e.g. https://www.flightaware.com/squawks/view/1/24_hours/popular/...)

marsovoon Planes are having their GPS hacked. Could new clocks keep them safe?

Can you point us to which part of that can deal with the scenario in question?

> What stops a malicious actor from recording the signals coming off the satellites and replaying them louder with a delay?

marsovoon Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

I don't think it's wrong to blame people who make life more difficult for others for their own aggrandizement

The game doesn't exist without players. I could make more money if I worked at Meta or Amazon, but at what cost?

I understand the realities of Game Theory, but then one could argue that being blamed and criticized for one's choices is also part of the game. "Mr Wolfcastle, how do you sleep at night?" "On a big pile of money with many beautiful ladies"

marsovoon Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP

It depends on what the broader economy is doing

Is government spending crowding out private investment? (Is the private sector competing with the government for employees?). If so then GDP should increase

Is unemployment high? Then probably it would hurt GDP, but that depends on interest rates. If interest rates are very low, then there's very little cost to having excess employees being paid by the government: indeed presumably you can find something else useful for them to do. If interest rates are high, then the government is paying a heavy rate to subsidize these now-redundant employees. That's stagflation, which is essentially economic hard mode.

For example, what a waste it was during the Great Recession, when interest rates were basically zero, to have people unemployed instead of doing something useful, like maintaining or upgrading infrastructure. Alas!

marsovoon Losing a 5-year-long Illinois FOIA lawsuit for database schemas

As I understand it, the trial was about whether or not providing the database schema is a security risk.

> Your request seeks a copy of tables or columns within each table of CANVAS. The dissemination of these pieces of network information could jeopardize the security of the systems of the City of Chicago.

marsovoon Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

What evidence have you seen that this was somehow instigated by China, and not Russian ethnic nationalism/imperialism for its own sake? Remember that this started well before 2022. This is a recap and prescient analysis from 2014: https://www.fpri.org/article/2014/05/putins-greater-novoross...

And you can see a premature declaration of victory along similar lines from the Russian state media, which was then taken down when Ukraine did not in fact fold in three days: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60562240. You can see the archive.org capture of the original article linked there if you wish to see the primary source.

Yes, their GDP is weak (nevertheless, Russia persists). No, it doesn't make any sense if you look at it through a normal Western lens, which is why there was widespread disbelief that Russia was to imminently invade Ukraine. But, as the saying goes, "Russia can't be understood by the mind alone"

marsovoon GSA Eliminates 18F

I once thought this was the solution too, then NYC's ranked-choice mayoral race gave it Eric Adams. Now I don't know. Maybe open primaries?

marsovoon Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

Did Jeff Bezos enter your home and annex your attic?

marsovoon Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

Not to take away from your accurate point about oil, but I think it's silly to say the "we're still in the cold war" crowd were out of touch in this of all threads.

marsovoon Breaking into apartment buildings in five minutes on my phone

So change it afterwards. Good defaults are important. If someone doesn't change it, it's important that they be on the right path instead of...this one.

(See also: opt-in versus opt-out for retirement plans, organ donation...heck, even this from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43144611)

marsovoon Migraine is more than a headache – a rethink offers hope

Might be a question of cause and effect. My neurologist theorized my migraines were triggered by microemboli leaking through a PFO (leak between left and right side of the heart: normally the lungs filter this stuff out)

PFO closed, migraines basically gone.

PFO can lead to stroke too for the same reason, and that's when it's usually closed, after a stroke. Not all migraines are caused by PFO. I went on blood thinners first for a year as a test.

Here's the long story version: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40895116

marsovoon How X-Plane Works

FSacademy has lesson packs that I've found pretty good for Microsoft Flight simulator. Though they are not super US-centric.

The built-in lessons are decent for the basics. The older flight simulator lessons with Rod Machado were much, much better. I had picked up FSX on Steam for cheap during some sale, and they are available digitally there. I've still used that for reference, and even though they obviously don't integrate interactively with the new Microsoft Flight simulator, you can still use them as ideas to practice skills.

If you decide to get serious about it, bite the bullet and get rudder pedals. In my opinion adding feet coordination is a much bigger adjustment than yoke versus stick or a fancier stick.

Also VR is truly a game changer. It requires beefy hardware and will ratchet up the cost, but it will seem downright cheap compared to real flight time.

marsovoon CDC Study Finds Silent Bird Flu Infections in Dairy Veterinarians

It's not clear what you're saying. That COVID was overblown because of how we tested for it?

Let's pretend COVID didn't exist. Yet, let's also look at all-cause mortality (CDC data). Death rates approached twice normal. Certainly looks like "something" was happening!

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/figures/mm7150a3-F2.g...

marsovoon Boring tech is mature, not old

Well, I'm not sure I'd say Windows is a good example of that anymore, in fact I was going to use it to argue the very point: as they seem to rewrite the UI in new frameworks, we've lost a lot of features (not even talking about speed and reliability)

marsovoon Kill the "user": Musings of a disillusioned technologist

Indeed. The trouble with subscriptions is that you don't need to make the new version actually good enough to convince people to upgrade, you just need to make it not bad enough for people to abandon the subscription entirely.

I think the same thing happened to Windows and Office.

Having said that, there's probably another elephant in the room, namely the current generation that grew up with phones and tablets and didn't really learn to use traditional computers fluently

marsovoon Software development topics I've changed my mind on

Heartily disagree. I have had to fight with others over automated formatting because it obscured intent or clarity. For example (C#) mandating `var`, mandating one and only one line of whitespace between lines of code, mandating the => syntax for single-line functions (instead of

Function(vars) { ... } )

I would say, when to use one or the other of each of those options is very much a craft.

marsovoon Soviet Shoe Factory Principle

Overall I agree: I think a big root cause of current woes is that companies have grown too large and competition is broken. Not only that, but larger entities have more leverage to tilt the playing field and become even more anticompetitive.

There is another issue: collusion. If every company requires binding arbitration in their contracts (of adhesion), do I just opt out of having a cell phone, internet service, etc.?