_0w8t

31 ms·

301.
by _0w8t 4y ago
Huw Price nicely explains that the normal formulation of the second law of thermodynamic uses circular reasoning about the direction of time. This was already spotted by Boltzmann who even proposed that the physical direction of time was th
302.
by _0w8t 4y ago
All laws of physics are CPT-invariant. Moreover, there is no separation of future and past in thermodynamics. Philosopher Huw Price argued about it in [1] rather conveniently. In general it is a deep unresolved question why our personal per
303.
by _0w8t 4y ago
I studied theoretical physics and read Tolman’s book almost 30 years ago before switching to programming. After that I have been following the topic as a hobby. As I understand, the math behind a particular generalization of thermodynamics
304.
by _0w8t 4y ago
One has to be skeptical even about the whole notion of the temperature of a black hole and existence of Hawking radiation. In a book from 1927 Richard Tolman tried to generalize thermodynamics to General Relativity. One of the most interest
305.
by _0w8t 4y ago
The segmented memory may come back to provide a cheap way to sandbox code within a process.
306.
by _0w8t 4y ago
The problem with remotely controlled switches is that they can be (and will be) placed in very inconvenient places. So when the remote part breaks, one cannot just continue to use them because it can be difficult to reach them (like behind
307.
by _0w8t 5y ago
Frequent and complex merges are inevitable if one maintains a few patches to an actively developed upstream and the upstream either does not want them or the patches are too specific to the product to be a part of the upstream.
308.
by _0w8t 5y ago
Indeed efficiency of a modern ICE engine in a car is 25% max in ideal conditions, while a modern industrial turbine powered by natural gas can get 60%. In fact even with coal the amount of CO2 will be smaller per distance driven. The effici
309.
by _0w8t 5y ago
Comparing with abstract steel is kind of useless as the strength of common steel varies by factor of 3. If one compare the cheapest steel and exotic alloys (that are often only produced in Sweden and may cost more than silver), then the dif
310.
by _0w8t 5y ago
The problem with nuclear plants is the risk is really unknown. One cannot say it is small. For example, nobody considered that Russia would fire artillery against nuclear reactors. And now a threat of attacks with powerful conventional weap
311.
by _0w8t 5y ago
I think comments here that this all about Chinese government wanting to silence political opponents via arbitrary application of the law miss the point. Preventing use of algorithms takes power from big internet companies to feed addictive
312.
by _0w8t 5y ago
I think it all depends on the problem. If it is known how and what the code need to do, like transform the input in a particular way, then the data structures will naturally follow from actions. But if actions are not known or too abstract,
313.
by _0w8t 5y ago
5 years ago we evaluated cold storage for 100 TB of data. Even at that relatively small amount magnetic tapes were much more cheaper even after accounting for an extra copy to ship to a remote location.
314.
by _0w8t 5y ago
«When the living will envy the dead.»
315.
by _0w8t 5y ago
Hierarchical data structures are bad for CPU caches, see, for example, references in [1] how various data-oriented programming techniques try to avoid them. From that point of view Fortran may be even more relevant for high-performance comp
316.
by _0w8t 5y ago
The article mention about future trials in aerospace industry. So presumably the current is not a problem. But the number of recharging cycles can be the one. On the other hand if the new chemistry allows applications that were not possible
317.
by _0w8t 5y ago
Most of the attacks target Windows and Mac, so one is already protected by using Linux. As regarding effectiveness of firejail, then it relies on Linux container protection which is quite good given that many providers use that to run untru
318.
by _0w8t 5y ago
The biggest coming change is raw_ptr wrapper to replace raw pointers stored in structs and classes. Presently in Chromium it is no-op, but soon will be replaced by a non-trivial implementation that will instantly crash on use-after-free.
319.
by _0w8t 5y ago
In theory one gets better security. Distribution or manual apps can access and modify everything the user can do. Flatpack and Snap tries to address that with a security model similar to mobile apps. In practice for many apps the security p
320.
by _0w8t 5y ago
If a solution has been working for 20 years, then by Lindy effect there is a good chance it will be relevant in 20 years as well. Basically an old but still actively used software or principle implies that it has being compatible with a lot
321.
by _0w8t 5y ago
Russia wanted to take Ukraine long before Zelensky or any NATO expansion or even Putin, see https://youtu.be/IavEOx3hUAk , an interview of Dzhokhar Dudaev, Chechen leader during the the war with Russia in 1994-1995.
322.
by _0w8t 5y ago
Short-term given the current political situation burning coal is better than burning oil or natural gas. Coal is distributed much more evenly among countries than oil and gas. Wars like in Ukraine or Yemen are only possible due to money Rus
323.
by _0w8t 5y ago
There were a lot of rather abrupt changes even during Holocene [1]. We do not understand what could have been triggers for those changes. Which really emphasizes that we do not know how the climate works and as a civilization should have be
324.
by _0w8t 5y ago
Stable climate have never existed. 9000 years ago the average temperature was likely higher than presently by 1 - 1.5 degree. 1000 years ago Northern Atlantic and Pacific were warmer than today. Vikings called Newfoundland Wine Land due to
325.
by _0w8t 5y ago
By type-safety I indeed also implied inability to send messages that the receiver would not process. This is essential to allow safe refactoring.
326.
by _0w8t 5y ago
Hm, is this pattern the best Erlang has and VM does not optimize it to avoid the need to lock the queue twice? If so then you are right double-select is equivalent even if it is rather messier in Go then in Erlang with the need to provide 2
327.
by _0w8t 5y ago
Go could have provided message queues with priorities Erlang style or something closer native solutions in Linux/Max/Windows that are known to work. They are safe, allows to avoid deadlocks just as channels and much more flexible.
328.
by _0w8t 5y ago
For me the most puzzling aspect of Go is channels. Ada tried CSP (Concurrent Sequential Processes that Go channels are based on) in eighties and people quickly realized that it lead to bad performance and was unsuitable for a lot of useful
329.
by _0w8t 5y ago
Judging by history the history has never taught anybody. So if sanctions will be lifted I am sure there will be plenty of Western companies willing to “capitalize on the opportunity “. The problem for Russia is its ever increasing dependenc
330.
by _0w8t 5y ago
Transportation by water is like 50 times cheaper than by land and it has been like that for at least the last 2000 years. So most people live either along the coast or along rivers.

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