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tcbawo

2,363 karma · joined July 8, 2012

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tcbawo··on America's two largest school districts impose AI moratoriums
New approaches are tried in education all the time. What constitutes "good" is subjective and might take years to really play out. Education is like economics... so many variables and changing starting conditions
tcbawo··on America's two largest school districts impose AI moratoriums
Who is the authoritative voice of reason for the effectiveness of any educational approach or tool? It takes years to sort things out and by then the approach of the day has moved on. Education is an area where everybody feels like they are an expert. In the US, we can't agree on the simplest things impacting our children.
tcbawo··on Dolly Parton has died
Dolly Parton was an incredibly savvy business person, talented songwriter and performer, and an outstanding human being. One in a billion.

I will always remember her appearance on the Late Show with Steven Colbert where she moved him to tears with an a cappella song: https://youtu.be/R91VssUiGiY

tcbawo··on Show HN: An 8-bit live gamecast for baseball
I was somewhere recently where the World Cup games were on the TV, but the current score was also on what appeared to be a split-flap board mounted to the wall. Seeing your post had me look up commercial availability of these (it seems they exist, but are pricy). Serving up baseball scores in that kind of display would be pretty cool.
tcbawo··on APC–2 – A professional record cutter for producing original playback discs
I always loved the story of the "three-sided" Monty Python record, where the B side had two parallel concentric grooves, causing different tracks to play depending on where the needle was dropped. I always wondered what kind of equipment went into producing it.
tcbawo··on Usborne 1980s Computer Books
There isn't a lot of money in 40 year old computer books targeted at children
tcbawo··on Reverse-engineering the 1998 Ultima Online demo server
This game was created before virtual currency and pay to win was a thing. The potential money is probably too corrupting.
tcbawo··on Three Inverse Laws of AI
> Yes, the AI may have produced the recommendation but a human decided to follow it, so that human must be held accountable

It is common and a mistake IMO to rely on the AI as the sole source for answers to follow-up questions. Better verification would have humans sign off on the veracity of fundamental assumptions. But where does this live? Can an AI model be trusted to rely on previous corrections? This seems impossible or possibly adversarial in a public cloud.

tcbawo··on Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection
We now live in a courtier world where flattery and politics determine successful outcomes.
tcbawo··on British drivers over 70 to face eye tests every three years
I love the accessibility and diversity of large city living in the US, but it is definitely the exception to the rule. The US is hoping for technological breakthroughs in self driving electric cars to bail us out from the sprawl we've created.
tcbawo··on The Great Unwind
The actual smart money isn't selling knowledge to anyone else. They are using it to make money.
tcbawo··on Text-based web browsers
I had an idea once for connecting an old 8-bit computer to the modern web by connecting to a text-based web browser running on another device using the terminal. Maybe one day when I find more time.
tcbawo··on Dell admits it made a mistake when it abandoned XPS
I have a Framework laptop. It was expensive for the specs, but I really appreciate the philosophy of openness. I have replaced both the keyboard and battery, which was easy and painless. At least for Dell, I don't think Framework's target market is a fit for acquisition like Alienware's was. Although, Dell is big enough that they could probably build a competing brand themselves. It would be great for consumers if they did.
tcbawo··on I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too
From what I remember, trying to fix configuration was mostly to recover from whatever broken state package/distro updates caused. Thanks for the Silverblue suggestion. In recent years, I enjoyed using Pop!_OS, at least on VMs.
tcbawo··on I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too
It has been a few years, but for example breaking the display, bluetooth, power states/sleep, or wifi. Or subtly messing up dependencies of various other packages that I was trying. I just don't want the overhead of system administration. These days I mostly use VMs or WSL. But I am thinking that I want my host OS to be Linux.
tcbawo··on I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too
I am pretty sure that my previous attempts at a Linux desktop have failed because I would tweak my setup by installing packages and updates until I broke it and needed to reinstall. But I want my machine to be indestructible and "just work". Waiting day(s) to diagnose and fix an issue just isn't worth it. I have been contemplating a switch to Linux again. This time, I will embrace a LTS distribution and virtualization so that my tinkering doesn't break things. I always want a safe level to fall back to. Also, I would enthusiastically pay for a support subscription. I know they are out there. Which companies/organizations have the most positive impact in the open source community?
tcbawo··on Dialtone – AOL 3.0 Server
The dial tone was prior to dialing. Upon connection, there was an audible sound from the modem handshake. Through some google searches, I came across this recording: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=abapFJN6glo
tcbawo··on How exchanges turn order books into distributed logs
It would not surprise me at all if the sequencing step was done via FPGA processing many network inputs at line rate with a shared monotonic clock. This would give it some amount of parallelism.
tcbawo··on Larry Summers resigns from OpenAI board
Which policies contributed to income inequality?
tcbawo··on GNOME 50 completes the migration to Wayland, dropping X11 backend code
For certain jobs, I've done development for Linux while also having a Windows box for other things. Opening Linux GUI apps remotely on my Windows desktop is nice and allows me to consolidate my displays. This is an edge case, for sure. How well does Wayland support this?
tcbawo··on Visopsys: OS maintained by a single developer since 1997
Here is a dumb question. In an OS with user-space drivers, can't many existing drivers be wrapped and repurposed? Does this shorten the path to mainstreaming more new OSes?
tcbawo··on EVs are depreciating faster than gas-powered cars
Is it really true that ICE has been stable? Cars seem to have been getting many innovations, especially with power, torque, and reliability. We probably don't hear much about it because it is low profile stuff and a mature product.
tcbawo··on SEC approves Texas Stock Exchange, first new US integrated exchange in decades
Is there anything interesting or novel about this exchange, other than its headquarters are located in Texas? From what I can tell, the primary data centers will be in New Jersey like all the others.
tcbawo··on Callbacks in C++ using template functors (1994)
> Whose_ destructor, if not the receiving-type

The receiving type should control the lifetime of any callbacks to itself that it gives away. The destructor is the best place to ensure this gets properly cleaned up.

Like anything, custom callbacks can be used well or misused. Design is a matter of expertise and taste bordering on an art form. Connecting framework implementation and business logic can be done cleanly or clumsily. I am skeptical of an argument that callbacks have a code smell prima facie.

tcbawo··on Callbacks in C++ using template functors (1994)
> most debuggers just show you two opaque addresses

This has not been my experience. But I haven't needed to deal with RTTI disabled.

By RAII, I mean using destructors to unregister a callback. This covers 99.9% of use cases. Generally callback registration is not where you really want type erasure anyways.

tcbawo··on Callbacks in C++ using template functors (1994)
Can you elaborate on your third point? What would a class need to do to affect debugging info?

Regarding your fourth point, sometimes an architecture can be vastly simplified if the source of information can abstracted away. For example, invoking a callback from a TCP client, batch replay service, unit test, etc. Sometimes object oriented design gets in the way.

To your first point, I think RAII and architecture primarily address this. I'm not sure that I see callback implementation driving this. Although I have seen cancellable callbacks, allowing the receiver to safely cancel a callback when it goes away.

tcbawo··on One Battle After Another: PTA and the Death of Revolutionary Cinema
Watching this movie, I did not get a sense of glorifying violence in any way. If anything, it glorifies resistance to authority. The strongest and most successful members of the resistance (like the Sensei) avoid confrontation. It's the violent ones that end up detracting from their cause. Funnily enough that character's name is Perfidia, which is the Latin word for treacherous. To anyone considering watching, it is a well-paced action movie with some very funny parts.
tcbawo··on Burnend alive inside a Tesla as rescuers fail to open the car's door
How often are all doors of a car inoperable after a crash? Getting out the other side of a burning vehicle is an option I want
tcbawo··on Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
There is an astute comment floating around here that describes the tendency for human psychology to absorb information first through the limbic/emotional center first before the logical part. It is unsurprising to see horrible reactions after tragedies through social media. Living too close to the edge of the present brings out the worst in people. My faith in humanity hopes that many of these people will reconsider and regret some of the things they say and post.
tcbawo··on Beyond Meat fights for survival
I don’t understand the downvotes. Replacing foods that have been prepared in the same way for hundreds of years with foods treated with processes that have not yet been considered harmful is inherently risky. There are plenty of examples of unknown byproducts, isomers, and side effects that take years to flesh out.
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