oddity

12 ms·

61.
by oddity 5y ago
I think this is to be expected. The oscillation between first-principles and empirical models falls out of the scientific method: see a few datapoints, develop a predictive theory, try to prove the theory wrong with new datapoints, and rei
62.
by oddity 5y ago
That might be part, but it's not the whole picture. The only way to put software on the iPad is through Apple's app store, which is a hill they seem awfully willing to die on. It's possible they give that up for the iPad but
63.
by oddity 5y ago
This isn't just a headline grabbing move. Even ignoring the obvious geopolitics, this is still beneficial for all parties. Intel, likely, has more idle capacity than TSMC and/or has enough leverage on its own demand (its own chi
64.
by oddity 6y ago
That's one way to view it, yes. And with unsound type systems, generally, that's the workflow. Your program is a proof that the interface can be implemented. The challenge is that sometimes the interface doesn't express mu
65.
by oddity 6y ago
Static typing inherently requires you to prove things about your program, but there are many contexts where you don't fully know the properties you'd like to prove, or the type system isn't sufficiently powerful to express th
66.
by oddity 6y ago
Some targets don't support integer division/remainder or some floating point ops in hardware and automatic vectorization can add/remove branches in places that won't be easily predictable.
67.
by oddity 6y ago
SE. How long is a day for you and what are you doing on it? Mine lasts at least 8 hours with light use (mostly standby with an hour of music but no streaming) before I decide to charge it around 50%, which is about what I'd expect of
68.
by oddity 6y ago
There's no breakthrough necessary. The batteries are already good enough to manage standby with an occasional call, which meets the _phone_ needs of most users. The Apple Watch today is at least as good as a phone today as the iPhone
69.
by oddity 6y ago
For sure. My objection is that I think that move was more obvious for Google than it was for, say, Microsoft or Apple, who still had a native-mindset and wanted to lock people into their existing platforms. Arguably, Google's move wa
70.
by oddity 6y ago
Merging the browser and OS has been attempted so often, I'd hesitate to say that Google was smarter than all of us. It's probably more that they had the most leverage and motive to be to be successful. To me, the interesting deve
71.
by oddity 6y ago
I'm strongly sympathetic to the Alan Kay vision of browsers-as-operating systems (see an earlier comment on a similar topic [0]) and yet I still miss the days where I could read what someone had to say without loading yet another JS we
72.
by oddity 6y ago
Yes. For a taste of it, episode 412 (and 411) of the Accidental Tech Podcast gets into the pain of the process around the 15 minute mark (and 1:30 minute mark for 411). [0] https://atp.fm/412 [1] https://atp.fm&#
73.
by oddity 6y ago
Some people only know JS, or just don't want to learn both embedded and C at the same time. If projects like this can help people get over that initial hurdle, then all the better. Plus, writing constrained environment language implem
74.
by oddity 6y ago
Killer apps, when it comes to languages, are feedback loops, but you need a statistically significant number of people using those languages to make it more likely that those killer apps get made. To me, this really just sounds like statis
75.
by oddity 6y ago
Thanks for pointing that out. I think closing the door on ICF and doubling down on vertical integration is a mistake on Intel's part (but likely forced because of their production issues), but the extent to which Intel should open up
76.
by oddity 6y ago
Disclaimer: I work for a competitor to Intel in one of Intel's many markets. I would indirectly stand to gain from Intel spinning out their fabs. I would love to see Intel open up their fabs. More fabs in more locations would be benef
77.
by oddity 6y ago
Presumably, in a functioning democratic system, those receiving taxes would also have a say in the matter. I don't think your first point is wrong, but there is a difference.
78.
by oddity 6y ago
Just to be clear, I agree with you, but I'm half convinced the culture came first. Charity, being on an individual basis, is quicker moving than governmental action. It fills the gaps, so to speak, and will (and should) always have a
79.
by oddity 6y ago
It would be very on brand for Apple. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designed_by_Apple_in_Californi...
80.
by oddity 6y ago
I'm not sure this is a useful summary of the problem. I've seen an awful lot of code written in C and C++ that pisses away any and all advantage of using either. In general, I think software devs (and the software market) tend t
81.
by oddity 6y ago
> I studied economics at Cambridge, a field which has become more and more mathematical since the 1970s. The goal is always to use a mathematical model to find a closed-form solution to a real-world problem. Looking back, I’m not sure w
82.
by oddity 6y ago
It's not too strange. Open source has taken off for a similar reason that news wire services took off in the early 1900s. Most software organizations create isn't the end product, so if you can leverage a community to maintain i
83.
by oddity 6y ago
The real benefits of DirectX 12, Vulkan, and Metal were that they let the API designers drop cruft and add new features. This was more significant for OpenGL->Vulkan and OpenGL->Metal than it was for DirectX 11->12 because OpenGL
84.
by oddity 6y ago
These are very good questions and I absolutely agree with last paragraph but it's far too early to conclude we're in for a VR winter. > There’s nothing fundamentally illogical about any of these ideas, but they do remind me a l
85.
by oddity 6y ago
What do you mean? They’re different branches on the tech tree. Saying one is more advanced than the other is strange.
86.
by oddity 6y ago
> even (or especially?) most C++ C++ hits the particularly nasty sweet spot of hiding boilerplate just enough that you have no idea what you're actually calling while also not having a sophisticated JIT that can do escape analysis a
87.
by oddity 6y ago
The “CS context” is very broad and diverse. In the context of teaching (which is, I think closest to what you mean), arithmetic being O(1) is primarily because it simplifies the analysis of most common algorithms. In this context, the mos
88.
by oddity 7y ago
It's not rare to leave a company but still be interested in that company's projects. And when you're a tech blogger, it's hard to not write about a trillion USD tech company. I don't think speculating about his mo
89.
by oddity 7y ago
> Const buffers over 64k get truncated on NVidia gpus This is an advertised limit in the feature set tables [0] (See "Maximum function memory allocation for a buffer in the constant address space") for non-Apple GPUs (though th
90.
by oddity 7y ago
What I find most interesting about this story is that we talk about "subscribers" for Netflix, but the service those subscribers have subscribed to has changed (mailed DVDs, then streaming, then own content and maybe some other st

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