Hacker News Reader

srcmapon Seattle 3 Year Time-Lapse Video from the Space Needle

NASA should try to do this from Space. (Space Station? )

srcmapon AMD ships microcode update to disable some branch prediction

Love to see actual benchmark results from this with various applications - databases, network stack, apache, ngnix, etc.

srcmapon Vulnerability of Speculative Processors to Cache Timing Side-Channel Mechanism

From the spectre paper, https://spectreattack.com/spectre.pdf

"As a proof-of-concept, JavaScript code was written that, when run in the Google Chrome browser, allows JavaScript to read private memory from the process in which it runs (cf. Listing 2). "

That looks like is the current limit of javascript base attack. It doesn't seem to be able to access system resources nor execute system command script (yet....).

That kind of JS attack vector likely can be mitigated with web browser update.

srcmapon Reading privileged memory with a side-channel

Main/Big impacts are on the cloud computer.

For home computer, standard office use, there is no impact at this point, right?

srcmapon The Future of JQuery UI and JQuery Mobile

If you have to select a mobile framework today, what would you choose?

I play with Framework 7 https://framework7.io/ and it looks very nice.

Any other suggestions?

srcmapon Retrotechnology – PC desktop screenshots from 1983-2005

Love to see an animated GIF version of this website.

Specially if one can capture some of cool Linux KDE GL special effects.

srcmapon Magic Leap One

Just got a $399 50" Samsung TV on BlackFriday. Base on the review, it supports 4:4:4 which is a must as PC monitor. Hook up the one yrs old cheap HP laptop to it via HDMI port.

Looks great! 4k video streaming from Youtube works very good.

4 x 1080 Tiled windows - perfect for productivities.

I don't do gaming. The latency is less of an issue for me.

srcmapon Inside China's Vast New Experiment in Social Ranking

This is similar to the "like graph" in FB.

FB definitively know a lot folks' "political leaning" base everyone's "likes" in global scale and has profit from the info in the last elections.

srcmapon [dead]

"There is half a terabyte of DDR4 RAM on each machine."

I also wonder how much of the speed up is due to the GPU parallelization vs the DB size seem to fit within the size of DDR4.

   " 0.005 	0.011 	0.103 	0.188 	BrytlytDB 2.1 & 5-node IBM Minsky cluster" NVME 

    "1.034 	3.058 	5.354 	12.748 	ClickHouse, Intel Core i5 4670K"  SSD

The core i5 system only has 16GB of RAM. I love to see what that number would looks like if it also has 512GB or more of DDR4 with NVME drive.

Also one can also try increase to data size from 1.1 B -> 1000B and see how it scale on Minsky cluster.

srcmapon Microsoft Adds an OpenSSH Client to Windows 10

I use mac, windows, linux, embedded linux all the time. bash/python are just native languages for me.

The powershell's syntax is just too esoteric for me. I did tried that a few times.

srcmapon Microsoft Adds an OpenSSH Client to Windows 10

I have bash scripts within cygwin that control Windows firewall via netsh interface.

I still can't run those command under Windows Subsystem for Linux.

srcmapon Show HN: SeKey: An SSH Agent for OS X, Using Secure Enclave and TouchID, in Rust

    Virtual Keyboard Developer Leaked 31M Client Records (mackeepersecurity.com)

    Apple is sharing your facial wireframe with apps (washingtonpost.com)

srcmapon Show HN: SeKey: An SSH Agent for OS X, Using Secure Enclave and TouchID, in Rust

I have a slightly different point of view:

In Linux, I can easily monitor how much data, what kind of data are transferred to the remote IP and disable them on per apps base anytime I want.

In IOS, I can't do any of that. At most, I can only disable an app from using cell data. If anyone else know how to do monitor/block network connection on per APP base in IOS, I would love to hear about it.

For me, it is a different between "trust" and "trust and verify".

I use IOS and have some level of trust on Apple/IOS. But I don't trust majorities of the IOS APPs for security/privacy.

srcmapon Integrating “safe” languages into OpenBSD?

> Programmers love language wars

Programming Language Advocates love language wars

Most programmers just like to be aware of ALL the PROs and CONs of the languages and choose the right one for the task at hand.

srcmapon System76 ME Firmware Updates Plan

FYI, there is a good technical reason in additional to the philosophical one.

I used to work on embedded systems where I have full control of uboot. With that, I can easily reserve the section of memory in boot uboot and Linux kernel when the keys logging info (such as FTRACE of ISR, sched switches etc) from kernel are kept.

When a kernel panic happens, the system will go thru the warmboot sequence and detected there are logging info in that section of DDR and dump it out before continue to boot.

This "postmortem debugging features" make debugging certain category of very difficult bugs (kernel driver panic) much easier.

With typical close source x86 bios in Linux laptop, it is very hard to enable this kind of debugging.

srcmapon System76 ME Firmware Updates Plan

Me too!

@jackpot51 system76 folks -

Are your systems currently using opensource boot bios? If not, any plan to do so in near future?

srcmapon Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

In US, IRS has everyone's true salaries on per company, zipcode, job titles, years of experience base.

It would be very cool if they can be anonymized and some data scientists graph them out like this page.

srcmapon Learn C programming and the rest will come

For me, C programming is kind of like Calculus, Physics to modern day Engineering.

If you don't know Calculus, Physics, you can be a very good construction workers but hard to know the fundamental behind why/how the Buildings, Cars, Airplanes, are designed that ways.

Same for C, if you don't know C. You can certainly a very good program Python, java script, web developers, but might not have deep understand of Kernel, Browser, Database, Network, nor why Java, Go and Rust need all those new language features.

Know how the tools are different will help you to choose the best tool for the jobs.

srcmapon HP installs system-slowing spyware on its PCs

Running MacOS on virtualbox on top of Windows works ok. There are a lots of tutorials on the web that shows you how to do that. It does violate Apple's SW license.

It is very fun to play with a full screen MacOS on a touch screen enable Laptop.

srcmapon HP installs system-slowing spyware on its PCs

I use HP laptop. With latest Windows, it is manageable. One can use windows firewall to block out going connections on per app base.

1) Use SystemInternal's process explorer and track all network connections: (As admin: Add column to track the network tx, rx counts)

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/proc...

2) When I see some app, system that connect to network which I think it should not. I just block their network connections with Windows Firewall or uninstall those app.

There is a "netsh advfirewall firewall" command that can do this from command line.

3) BTW this works very well with Windows' own service too. I block svchost.exe, Edge, SerchIndex, etc from accessing internet. svchost.exe is allowed to access local subnet for file, print sharing. When I feel like upgrade to to latest version windows 10. I turn off the firewall rules for a few hours to allow the update to go thru.

4) Only Firefox and Chrome in my windows system are allowed to connect to internet full time. The CPU usage is normally < 15% and most of the time < 10% even when playing youtube @ 1080 resolution.

   The latest Firefox Quantum has less CPU usage and faster also.   I love it.

5) The WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) is getting better - X, xfce4-termnial now working good enough for me. I like accessing the Ubuntu shell in windows environment without the overhead of Virtualbox.

srcmapon When somebody loses weight, where does the fat go?

I wish there is a way to allow one to enjoy eating but control how much to absorb the food.

srcmapon Linux Runs All of the World’s Fastest Supercomputers

"grsecurity/PaX" didn't show up in the main tree but is alive in a different branch or as patch. Various distributions and users are free to enable and use it upon demand.

It kind of prove Linux kernel is not mono-culture and natural selection and evolution are happening.

I believe the AOSP's kernel patches are also not mainlined - also proof Linux kernel are evolving very healthily.

srcmapon Replacing x86 firmware with Linux and Go

Need to add/remove/read system's crypto keys, Do it in ME.

Need to monitor/hack the computer when the users think it is "power off", Do it in ME.

Need to add other "features" to the system in the future, Do it in ME.

srcmapon Desktop compositing latency is real

According to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTURkjYJ_uk

Firefox's servo engine can compose CSS elements/Display List together at 500 frames / second.

Maybe next version of Windows / Linux desktop should use FF's servo engine?

srcmapon Installing TensorFlow 1.4.0 on MacOS with CUDA Support

Should also publish the benchmarks of best of class machines running TensorFlow - for Linux, Windows and Mac HWs.

Show Apple why they need to release better Mac Desktop/Laptop HW or risk loss the heart and mind of next generation of developers.

srcmapon Microsoft and GitHub team up to take Git virtual file system to macOS, Linux

From reading the first post "The largest Git repo on the planet" - "Windows code base" of "3.5M files", "repo of about 300GB", "4,000 engineers" - I assumed that "Windows code base" contains all the utilties, DLLs that included in windows release such as notepad, games, IE/Edge etc and not just the Windows KERNEL.

If so, the comparable code base to check against is Android AOSP, Ubuntu, RedHat or FreeBSD.

If that is true, I believe the source code base for Ubuntu/RedHat distribution with all the Apps likely be bigger compare to Windows in term of number files, source repo and number of engineers (open source developers for all the packages such as ff, chrome openoffice.)

Microsoft folks feel free to correct me here.

It seems that the existing git's process, dev model seems to work well for much bigger projects already by using different git repo for each apps.

Still not sure what pain point does the new GVFS solve.....

srcmapon RISC-V port merged into Linux 4.15

Also, is there any (low cost?) FPGA board that is capable of running RISC-V + Linux?

That would be a fun thing to to do.

srcmapon Low-cost, non-invasive melanoma detector wins award

Can the initial check (diagnostic) be done with camera app and update the capture image(s) to the cloud and come back with "No problem" or "Check with your doctor soon" kind of message?

Anyone know what kind of potential regulatory/FDA issue will this kind of apps have?

srcmapon Flaw crippling millions of crypto keys is worse than first disclosed

"use fast graphics cards, which have the potential to shave the average cost of factorizing a vulnerable 2048-bit key to $2,000."

Anyone has estimated the impact of this on crypto currency or crypto wallet system?

It would be interesting to see how many if any of the public keys use n crypto currency systems are potentially impacted by this type of hack.

srcmapon Fixing the Ethernet Board from a Vintage Xerox Alto

Fundamental engineering debugging process is similar.

I recently debugged packet issues after 100gbps port speed change to 25gbps, to 10 gbps issues. Breakdown the issue to sub-system components - check phy, mac loopback, check link status on both side of the QSFP connections before and after speed changes, check counters (A LOT of them), enable debug packet to send to CPU with special command. Check all the VLAN, port settings, configuration commands over and over again. Enable debugging on kernel driver to track down every bytes/bits of every packet. Use tcpudmp on linux socket layer when one gets to that point.

Instead of oscilloscope, today's SOC does have a lot of counters inside that help one identifies issues.

For complex issue, one does get tremendous high when the issue was ID and resolved.