Hacker News Reader

z29LiTp5qUC30non Two's complement integers with only sign bit set should be a trap representation

So they want symmetric complement of the ancient Knight Processor where there was NaN encoded so that divide by zero wasn't an exception but just a return NaN.

z29LiTp5qUC30non Tracking SQLite Database Changes in Git

sometimes called audit or journal tables.

Every time something is updated or deleted, the entire previous record is inserted into its corresponding _A table with who did it and when (and optionally for what transaction number)

so delete from foo results in an insert into foo_A before the delete occurs. so update to bar results in an insert into bar_A before the update occurs and rolling back a delete results in picking the old values out of the _A table and rolling back an update results in picking the old values out of the _A table and inserting the current values into the _A table before the updating the main table.

z29LiTp5qUC30non Tracking SQLite Database Changes in Git

does no one know about _A tables anymore? This has been a solved thing since the 1970s

z29LiTp5qUC30non Ask HN: I’m an FCC Commissioner proposing regulation of IoT security updates

Well the easiest way to give people secure systems is to ensure that they are able to change the software themselves. So just require 90 days prior to end of support, that the manufacturers publish information that would allow independent their parties to build, install and run their own custom work on those systems. Basic hardware documentation goes a very long way with the Open Source community and without it we would only be able to support systems that the FSF community reverse engineers.

It is that lack of information, which prevents hardware drivers from entering the Linux Kernel main tree; which along with Tivoization are the leading drivers of e-waste and unsecured systems.

z29LiTp5qUC30non The 8088 Prefetch Algorithm

Please do the VIC-II chip next

z29LiTp5qUC30non Bored? How about trying a Linux speedrun? (2020)

Too easy.

Try you only have a single bootloader and a little bit of source code and building all the way up to a complete linux distro

https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap

(checkout the builder-hex0/fiwix work)

z29LiTp5qUC30non Nvidia releases new AI chip with 480GB CPU RAM, 96GB GPU RAM

Yeah, that was like trying to program when my ex-wife wanted attention.

Just wish I could have typed half as well as Hugh Jackman in Swordfish; then I wouldn't feel so sorry for all of the bugs I introduced into production because of her.

z29LiTp5qUC30non Distcc: A fast, free distributed C/C++ compiler

Clearcase was utter crap. 6 hour code checkouts and 2 weeks to setup a new developer is a freaking joke. I literally did a conversion from Clearcase to git and reduced the setup time to 15 minutes and this is for a code base older than Clearcase is.

Not to mention the absolutely bad design for handling merge conflicts (punt to human if more than 1 person touched a file seriously???)

z29LiTp5qUC30non Being Ridiculed for My Open Source Project (2013)

Well the Systemd developers got sent death threats.

Heck the cryptocurrency community has repeatedly sent death threats to the very people working on their root of trust.

People just plain suck

z29LiTp5qUC30non Trojan Source: Invisible Vulnerabilities

Just use sin

https://github.com/oriansj/stage0/blob/master/High_level_pro...

It'll dehex any non-humanly used ASCII characters

z29LiTp5qUC30non ‘Trojan Source’ Bug Threatens the Security of All Code

The bootstrappable community already produced a solution for this: https://github.com/oriansj/stage0/blob/master/High_level_pro...

z29LiTp5qUC30non Etsy to buy fashion reseller Depop for $1.63B

But I was born in 2002 and I still don't get this crap. It is like people are begging to be psychologically controlled for max financial extraction...

z29LiTp5qUC30non Qutebrowser 2.0

Let me know when they finally fix their SOCKS Proxy issue.

z29LiTp5qUC30non CentOS Linux is ending because Red Hat refused to invest in it

The Free Software community is having a Renaissance right now and making advances on nearly every front.

Turns out not compromising your principals and being zealots works.

z29LiTp5qUC30non Compilers are hard

But compilers are not hard but simple state machines.

If you don't believe me, look at cc_x86

https://github.com/oriansj/stage0/blob/master/stage2/High_le...

z29LiTp5qUC30non Kids find a security flaw in Linux Mint by mashing keys

The best part is the moved to physlock, specifically the version which you can bypass by hitting enter 3 times...

z29LiTp5qUC30non A Brief Introduction to Forth (1993)

I'd argue the easiest to implement language is macro-assembly then the C subset known as cc_x86

https://github.com/oriansj/mescc-tools-seed

z29LiTp5qUC30non Minimal safe Bash script template

It should be pushd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" >/dev/null 2>&1

not cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" >/dev/null 2>&1

with a matching popd at the end

Otherwise it can screw up parent scripts

z29LiTp5qUC30non Show HN: CLI plain-text notes & bookmarks with Git, sync, encryption, and more

https://github.com/oriansj/orgmode-bookmarks

enjoy

z29LiTp5qUC30non Why I bought a voting machine on eBay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAFMFjc6mJk

z29LiTp5qUC30non Show HN: Structopt for C++ – Parse command line arguments by defining a struct

but parsing command line arguments is a solved problem

https://github.com/oriansj/M2-Planet/blob/master/cc.c#L40

z29LiTp5qUC30non GitHub Arctic Code Vault: Tech Tree

It s missing solid pieces, like how to bootstrap a C compiler from nothing: https://github.com/oriansj/stage0

or how to use that C compiler to bootstrap the rest of the software: https://guix.gnu.org/

z29LiTp5qUC30non C Internals

For someone who wants to know how a C compiler converts C to assembly there is no better example than:

https://github.com/oriansj/mescc-tools-seed/blob/master/x86/...

z29LiTp5qUC30non “Maxwell's equations of software” examined (2008)

I think current bootstrapping work clearly shows that the Maxwell equations of software are:

   pop rx -> sp--; rx := mem[sp]
   push rx -> mem[sp] := rx; sp++
   sub rx ry -> rx := rx - ry
   jmp rx $I -> if rx is zero jump $I bytes from end of instruction.

One might also argue:

   call rx -> mem[sp] := IP; sp++; IP := rx
   ret -> sp--; IP := mem[sp]
   nand rx ry -> rx := rx nand ry

but those are just optimizations

z29LiTp5qUC30non Selfie – Tiny self-compiling C compiler, RISC-V emulator and hypervisor

You can get a proper C compiler in 2KLOC [or under 5Kloc of assembly https://github.com/oriansj/mescc-tools-seed/blob/master/x86/... | https://github.com/oriansj/mescc-tools-seed/blob/master/x86/...] Covering things like gotos, inline assembly, structs, unions, arrays and dozens of types and primitives.

Oberon doesn't provide much advantage over that.

z29LiTp5qUC30non Ask HN: How do you manage your bookmarks?

Why not just use emacs org-mode?

https://github.com/oriansj/orgmode-bookmarks

z29LiTp5qUC30non GNU Compiler Collection Internals [pdf]

The best things about compilers is that they have gentle ramps for learning. If you start simple enough, https://github.com/oriansj/M2-Planet the rest just becomes just add one more thing...

It even works if you start from zero: https://github.com/oriansj/mescc-tools-seed

z29LiTp5qUC30non Guix Reduces Bootstrap Seed by Half

well if you look at #bootstrappable's logs it looks like they are planning on building custom hardware out of TTL chips to eliminate all software/bios/firmware from the bootstrap; which when combined with libresilicon means no place for any attacks to hide.

z29LiTp5qUC30non Stage0 – A set of minimal C compiler bootstrap binaries

OTCC's binary is more than 22KB Thus OTCC is larger

z29LiTp5qUC30non Stage0 – A set of minimal C compiler bootstrap binaries

Yes that is the size of the source code with comments, the binary is less than 15KB