dwheeler

29 ms·

331.
by dwheeler 4y ago
von Neumann probes are also relevant to the clicker game "Universal Paperclips": https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/ Universal Paperclips is a strange game that I found intriguing. Its premise is that
332.
by dwheeler 4y ago
I prefer wired everything, including keyboard, mouse, and headset. I simply don't have to worry about this.
333.
by dwheeler 4y ago
This article explains the basic idea: David Bertoldi's "How to write your first Quine program" https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-write-your-first-quine... However, that article is a basic introduction. Th
334.
by dwheeler 4y ago
I expect NASA to do the calculations, but I would expect boosting the orbit of an existing working telescope would be much cheaper than building a new one AND ALSO putting it in orbit. There are relatively few telescopes outside Earth
335.
by dwheeler 4y ago
This is my favorite sentence: > There are 550 members of the CSA participating in the Matter standard development, and this summer 280 companies including Amazon, Signify, Google, SmartThings, and more met up to test their products worki
336.
by dwheeler 4y ago
What is the deadline for the Indian government to respond? Is there a deadline?
337.
by dwheeler 4y ago
I appreciate the presence of #C0FFEE. Can't do computing without that!! :-)
338.
by dwheeler 4y ago
I did think of that :-) ... and I explained how I countered that in the paper and during my public defense. First, the proofs were verified by a separate prover that was itself independently formally verified. Second, the proofs were manual
339.
by dwheeler 4y ago
> I always had issues with this particular counter, because it assumes that you cannot create a sufficiently good back door-creating AI/heuristic machine that can also fit in the unused spaces in our systems and binaries without bei
340.
by dwheeler 4y ago
In some other companies I've seen (not my own), step 1 is "Designate the scapegoat". :-)
341.
by dwheeler 4y ago
Which Linux distributions are planning to use this new fortification level, and in what circumstances? I can imagine enabling this in programs that directly interact with the internet, e.g., web browsers, email clients, and resolver librari
342.
by dwheeler 4y ago
What I especially appreciate are the recommendations at the end. The Titanic was a disaster, but the good news is that it was carefully analyzed and changes were made to greatly reduce the impacts of problems in the future. For example, law
343.
by dwheeler 4y ago
Historically one of the first uses for computers was Monte Carlo simulations. In such simulations it's often important to be able to deterministically recreate sequences of "random" numbers. Thus, in almost all computer pro
344.
by dwheeler 4y ago
The Linux Foundation's Open Mainframe Foundation has some COBOL courses. Here is their "getting started": https://github.com/openmainframeproject/cobol-programming-co...
345.
by dwheeler 4y ago
Just to clarify: I've always thought this quote was funny, but my point is that if you want Oracle to do this, you'll have to give them a good reason. They can't spend good will.
346.
by dwheeler 4y ago
> Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphising Larry Ellison. You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand i
347.
by dwheeler 4y ago
I wrote something like this also in 2000: "Way Off Base" https://dwheeler.com/essays/bases.html
348.
by dwheeler 4y ago
Laws and regulations can be written to work with such situations, e.g., to treat different regions differently. It's not even terribly unusual. I haven't checked into this particular case, but this situation is so long-standing th
349.
by dwheeler 4y ago
> Economic interdependence is good to maintain peace. I think history has plenty of counter-examples. Interdependence also provides incentives for one to either take over or extort the other. Taiwan and mainland China are interdependen
350.
by dwheeler 4y ago
> Those warnings from the US are usually transparent geopolitical self interest. That’s not to say it’s incorrect, ... All countries speak for their own self interest... but the warnings can also be correct. If millions of Europeans free
351.
by dwheeler 4y ago
> "Told you so" always feels cheap, even more so when it's right. "Told you so" doesn't solve anything in the short term, but it might spur stronger future efforts. > America won the landgrab lottery and
352.
by dwheeler 4y ago
Perhaps I'm mis-remembering, but I remember US policymakers repeatedly warning Europe, over many decades, about the dangers of depending on Russian energy sources. Here's an article about the discussion while Reagan was president:
353.
by dwheeler 4y ago
To be fair, they are replacing strlcpy() with the very similar strscpy(). I do think that strscpy is an improvement, but it's quite similar.
354.
by dwheeler 4y ago
A pricing increase for at least some paying customers, really. I use Heroku (and pay for it), but I use free tiers for testing pre-production, and that's an extra fee even for someone willing to pay.
355.
by dwheeler 4y ago
Wonderful!! This will save $billions in US universities (at least) and speed research around the world.
356.
by dwheeler 4y ago
You're right it doesn't fully address the issue, but it does provide some pressure. If an article is available for free immediately, there's no need to spend $6K to make it available at all . Researchers want to be in spec
357.
by dwheeler 4y ago
Two phrases I've heard are "source available" and "open box". Both say recipients can see the source code, though they don't guarantee that the recipient can make modifications. Those are the closest I can thin
358.
by dwheeler 4y ago
Lots of organizations do not support IPv6. For another example, Heroku does not (and many systems are based on Heroku): https://help.heroku.com/I8L6RW01/does-heroku-support-ipv6 It's unfortunately harder to suppor
359.
by dwheeler 4y ago
I think government examples are relevant. Governments can haul you into court for fraud, for one thing. And they typically try to define things based on widespread understanding - they provide evidence that something is a common understan
360.
by dwheeler 4y ago
Um, no. If something can only be used for "non-commercial" uses, then it is not open source software. The OSI is not the final arbiter of the English language, but this definition is long-settled by the vast majority of people w

More ›