4 ms·

The Saddest Moment (2013) [pdf]

127 points by tosh 9mo ago

AnimalMuppet 9mo ago
I don't actually care about byzantine fault tolerance. But, James Mickens wrote it? I'm reading.
- nemosaltat 9mo ago
  Your theories on Muppet physiology are childish and naïve, and I viciously refute them in my upcoming article “Parasitic Infections of Muppet Gastrointestinal Hand Holes.” [0] https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/tenure-announcement-april-2019/ https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/tenure-announcement-april-2...
  - EdwardDiego 9mo ago
    Oh thank you very much for that link! I have now bookmarked https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom/ https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom/ to binge read.
- cushychicken 9mo ago
  Mickens is a rare combination of bright, engaging, and absolutely hysterical. I hope I get to meet him someday.
  - bigstrat2003 9mo ago
    Same. No idea how that could ever happen but it would make my year. Mickens is a treasure.
- Avicebron 9mo ago
  The Night Watch... https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1311_05-08_mickens.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1311_05-08_mickens.pdf is one of my all time favorite pieces of internet writing
  - rubenflamshep 9mo ago
    Can you believe there are people out there who haven't read this yet? I can, because one of them was me. This was incredible. > A systems programmer will know what to do when society breaks down, because the systems programmer already lives in a world without law.
    - nemosaltat 9mo ago
      Me also, I found Mickens through his Harvard Tenure post, but somehow just found Night's Watch today.
  - bloaf 9mo ago
    "I have no tools because I've destroyed my tools with my tools" is a phrase I think to myself at least weekly.
riffraff 9mo ago
This is one of my favorite quotes from technical comedic writing > “How can you make a reliable computer service?” the presenter will ask in an innocent voice before continuing, “It may be difficult if you can’t trust anything and the entire concept of happiness is a lie designed by unseen overlords of endless deceptive power.” If you didn't know Mickens[0] and you enjoyed this piece, you may want to peruse more of the same[1]. They're not all this good, but they are good. [0] which I discovered through HN years ago, thanks folks [1] https://danielcompton.net/james-mickens-collection https://danielcompton.net/james-mickens-collection
- EdwardDiego 9mo ago
  Also just found this thanks to another user. https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom/ https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom/
  - riffraff 9mo ago
    Ah, indeed a better link, thanks!
jeffrallen 9mo ago
This is why I no longer work on trustless systems. In actually useful business problems, there is trust to be "exploited" to make the system simpler than Byzantine algorithms can manage. And what if the trust is exploited for theft? Then the parties take a loss, learn who can't be trusted, and get on with business. Humans trust. Their systems should too.
- bear8642 9mo ago
  > Humans trust. Their systems should too. And indeed as Thompson showed, you've got to trust at some point... https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/2223/R209/Reflections-Trusting-Trust.pdf https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/2223/R209/Reflections-Trus...
nilslindemann 9mo ago
Things would be profoundly simpler if Judge Dredd would take care of computer crackers.
HeliumHydride 9mo ago
"Listen, regardless of which Byzantine fault tolerance protocol you pick, Twitter will still have fewer than two nines of availability. As it turns out, Ted the Poorly Paid Datacenter Operator will not send 15 cryptographically signed messages before he accidentally spills coffee on the air conditioning unit."
- bigbuppo 9mo ago
  You can tell times have changed because nobody has tape backups these days, just a hope and a prayer that the copy of their data to a different cloud provider will still be good when The Great Oops takes out everything. Unfortunately, everything has a dependency on us-east-1, except that us-east-1 has a critical dependency on the dns servers of a small regional ISP probably somewhere in the southeast US.
brunooliv 9mo ago
Mickens is the best!
yk 9mo ago
Bitcoin did two things to this paper, first it demonstrates that Byzantine fault tolerance has practical applications, and second it demonstrates that anytime you have to deal with Byzantine fault tolerance the question is not "How do I verify this message?" but "Why am I trying to deal with those assholes?"
- noosphr 9mo ago
  Bitcoin manages to consume more power than all the AI systems were wringing our hands over: https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption And provides approximately none of the scant benefits of asking Claude to fix my spelling.
  - dchuk 9mo ago
    *we’re Sorry, had to do it for the irony
    - noosphr 9mo ago
      Still better than bitcoin.
    - bryanrasmussen 9mo ago
      just proves the point, that line was autocorrected by bitcoin, the next line without grammatical errors was autocorrected by Claude. on edit: changed ChatGPT to Claude, this post was written by me. This is the saddest moment.
Festivity1299 9mo ago
Hey man, leave Keanu out of this

127 points by tosh 9mo ago

AnimalMuppet 9mo ago

I don't actually care about byzantine fault tolerance. But, James Mickens wrote it? I'm reading.

nemosaltat 9mo ago
Your theories on Muppet physiology are childish and naïve, and I viciously refute them in my upcoming article “Parasitic Infections of Muppet Gastrointestinal Hand Holes.” [0] https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/tenure-announcement-april-2019/ https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/tenure-announcement-april-2...
- EdwardDiego 9mo ago
  Oh thank you very much for that link! I have now bookmarked https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom/ https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom/ to binge read.
cushychicken 9mo ago
Mickens is a rare combination of bright, engaging, and absolutely hysterical. I hope I get to meet him someday.
- bigstrat2003 9mo ago
  Same. No idea how that could ever happen but it would make my year. Mickens is a treasure.
Avicebron 9mo ago
The Night Watch... https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1311_05-08_mickens.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1311_05-08_mickens.pdf is one of my all time favorite pieces of internet writing
- rubenflamshep 9mo ago
  Can you believe there are people out there who haven't read this yet? I can, because one of them was me. This was incredible. > A systems programmer will know what to do when society breaks down, because the systems programmer already lives in a world without law.
  - nemosaltat 9mo ago
    Me also, I found Mickens through his Harvard Tenure post, but somehow just found Night's Watch today.
- bloaf 9mo ago
  "I have no tools because I've destroyed my tools with my tools" is a phrase I think to myself at least weekly.

riffraff 9mo ago

This is one of my favorite quotes from technical comedic writing > “How can you make a reliable computer service?” the presenter will ask in an innocent voice before continuing, “It may be difficult if you can’t trust anything and the entire concept of happiness is a lie designed by unseen overlords of endless deceptive power.” If you didn't know Mickens[0] and you enjoyed this piece, you may want to peruse more of the same[1]. They're not all this good, but they are good. [0] which I discovered through HN years ago, thanks folks [1] https://danielcompton.net/james-mickens-collection https://danielcompton.net/james-mickens-collection

EdwardDiego 9mo ago
Also just found this thanks to another user. https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom/ https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom/
- riffraff 9mo ago
  Ah, indeed a better link, thanks!

jeffrallen 9mo ago

This is why I no longer work on trustless systems. In actually useful business problems, there is trust to be "exploited" to make the system simpler than Byzantine algorithms can manage. And what if the trust is exploited for theft? Then the parties take a loss, learn who can't be trusted, and get on with business. Humans trust. Their systems should too.

bear8642 9mo ago
> Humans trust. Their systems should too. And indeed as Thompson showed, you've got to trust at some point... https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/2223/R209/Reflections-Trusting-Trust.pdf https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/2223/R209/Reflections-Trus...

nilslindemann 9mo ago

Things would be profoundly simpler if Judge Dredd would take care of computer crackers.

HeliumHydride 9mo ago

"Listen, regardless of which Byzantine fault tolerance protocol you pick, Twitter will still have fewer than two nines of availability. As it turns out, Ted the Poorly Paid Datacenter Operator will not send 15 cryptographically signed messages before he accidentally spills coffee on the air conditioning unit."

bigbuppo 9mo ago
You can tell times have changed because nobody has tape backups these days, just a hope and a prayer that the copy of their data to a different cloud provider will still be good when The Great Oops takes out everything. Unfortunately, everything has a dependency on us-east-1, except that us-east-1 has a critical dependency on the dns servers of a small regional ISP probably somewhere in the southeast US.

brunooliv 9mo ago

Mickens is the best!

yk 9mo ago

Bitcoin did two things to this paper, first it demonstrates that Byzantine fault tolerance has practical applications, and second it demonstrates that anytime you have to deal with Byzantine fault tolerance the question is not "How do I verify this message?" but "Why am I trying to deal with those assholes?"

noosphr 9mo ago
Bitcoin manages to consume more power than all the AI systems were wringing our hands over: https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption And provides approximately none of the scant benefits of asking Claude to fix my spelling.
- dchuk 9mo ago
  *we’re Sorry, had to do it for the irony
  - noosphr 9mo ago
    Still better than bitcoin.
  - bryanrasmussen 9mo ago
    just proves the point, that line was autocorrected by bitcoin, the next line without grammatical errors was autocorrected by Claude. on edit: changed ChatGPT to Claude, this post was written by me. This is the saddest moment.

Festivity1299 9mo ago

Hey man, leave Keanu out of this