991
ZFS: Use mirror vdevs, not RAIDZ
Continuing this week’s “making an article so I don’t have to keep typing it” ZFS series… here’s why you should stop using RAIDZ, and start using mirror vdevs instead.
Most cited
Posts that commenters keep linking to, ranked by how many different people have cited them in Hacker News comments. 6,981 posts.
992
Numbering should start at zero (1982)
To denote the subsequence of natural numbers 2, 3, ..., 12 without the pernicious three dots, four conventions are open to us
993
How I Cured my RSI Pain (2010)
For two years I suffered from severe hand, wrist, and forearm pain while typing. After spending a lot of money on world-class medical professionals and ergonomic products but seeing poor results, I was ultimately able to cure all my pain by reading The Mindbody Prescription (TMP). Now I can type for as long as I want…
994
Understanding LSTM Networks (2015)
Humans don’t start their thinking from scratch every second. As you read this essay, you understand each word based on your understanding of previous words. You don’t throw everything away and start thinking from scratch again. Your thoughts have persistence.
995
What the Dunning-Kruger effect is and isn’t (2010)
If you regularly read cognitive science or psychology blogs (or even just the lowly New York Times!), you’ve probably heard of something called the Dunning-Kruger effect. The Dunning-Kruger e…
996
Microsoft killed my Pappy
I was talking to a young ( The ones I find the most interesting are the ...
997
Europe: The end of the privacy of digital correspondence
The End of the Privacy of Digital Correspondence The EU wants to oblige providers to search all private chats, messages, and emails automatically for suspicious content - generally and indiscriminately. The stated aim: To prosecute child pornography. The result: Mass surveillance by means of full
998
A dozen USB chargers in the lab: Apple is good, but not quite the best (2012)
When you buy a USB charger, how do you know if you're getting a safe, high-quality charger for your money? You can't tell from the outside...
999
The Original Hacker's Dictionary (1988)
[This file, jargon.txt, was maintained on MIT-AI for many years, before being published by Guy Steele and others as the Hacker's Dictionary. Many years after the original book went out of print, Eric Raymond picked it up, updated it and republished it as the New Hacker's Dictionary. Unfortunately, in the process, he…
1000
And so I'm giving up the Mozilla project - Jamie Zawinski (1999)
April 1st, 1999 will be my last day as an employee of the Netscape Communications division of America Online, and my last day working for mozilla.org.
1001
Rewriting the Technical Interview (2020)
Update, November 2023: here are the full term rewrite and language macros which formed the seed of this story. These files include OO notation as well as the basic Algol syntax shown here. There is also a sketch of an object-oriented language with classes and inheritance, implemented as a Clojure macro. I do not…
1002
Lessons from the Debian/OpenSSL Fiasco (2008)
Last week, Debian announced that in September 2006 they accidentally broke the OpenSSL pseudo-random number generator while trying to silence a Valgrind warning. One effect this had is that the ssh-keygen program installed on recent Debian systems (and Debian-derived systems like Ubuntu) could only generate 32,767…
1003
Face Masks: Much More Than You Wanted to Know
There’s been recent controversy about the use of face masks for protection against coronavirus. Mainstream sources, including the CDC and most of the media say masks are likely useless and no…
1004
Back to Basics (2001)
We spend a lot of time on this site talking about exciting Big Picture Stuff like .NET versus Java, XML strategy, Lock-In, competitive strategy, software design, architecture, and so forth. All thi…
1005
Unyielding
Be as the reed, not the oak tree. Green threads are just threads.
1006
Archipelago and Atomic Communitarianism
I. In the old days, you had your Culture, and that was that. Your Culture told you lots of stuff about what you were and weren’t allowed to do, and by golly you listened. Your Culture told yo…
1007
Anecdote Origin: Knowing Where To Tap
A Fired Machinist? Charles R. Wiers? Hubert N. Alyea? Charles Proteus Steinmetz? Henry Ford? Anonymous?
1008
1009
Ranto (JBR Anti‐Zamenhofism)
Esperanto: espèce de conlang
1010
The Wetware Crisis: the Thermocline of Truth : Bruce F. Webster
[Copyright 2008 by Bruce F. Webster. All rights reserved. Adapted from Surviving Complexity (forthcoming).]
1011
Collections: Strategic Airpower 101
Bret Devereaux (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry)2022cited by 16History & Retro Computing details
This week, I’m going to offer a fairly basic overview of the concept of strategic airpower, akin to our discussions of protracted war and nuclear deterrence. While the immediate impetus for t…
1012
A Mole of Moles
What would happen if you were to gather a mole (unit of measurement) of moles (the small furry critter) in one place?
1013
Cordless Dog: Stay
If you're fastidious about keeping your windows tidy, Stay is for you. Stay ensures that your windows are where you want them, even as you connect and disconnect displays.
1014
iPad charger teardown: inside Apple's charger and a risky phony
This article is now available in Turkish iPad şarjının iç yapısı and Chinese [中文翻译版本] Apple iPad原装充电器拆解 . Apple sells their iPad charger...
1015
Jepsen: Postgres
Previously on Jepsen , we introduced the problem of network partitions . Here, we demonstrate that a few transactions which “fail” during the start of a partition may have actually succeeded.
1016
Tail Recursion Elimination
I recently posted an entry in my Python History blog on the origins of Python's functional features . A side remark about not supporting ta...
1017
Plato's Argument Against Writing
The people who invent something new, create a new tool or technology are not necessarily the people who are going to understand what the social impact of those inventions are going to be.
1018
Using FizzBuzz to Find Developers who Grok Coding
On occasion you meet a developer who seems like a solid programmer. They know their theory, they know their language. They can have a reasonable conversation about programming. But once it comes do…
1019
Ideology
Some people claim that unit tests make type systems unnecessary: "types are just simple unit tests written for you, and simple unit tests aren't the important ones". Other people claim that type systems make unit tests unnecessary: "dynamic languages only need unit tests because they don't have type systems." What's…
1020
Sick Systems: How to Keep Someone With You Forever
So you want to keep your lover or your employee close. Bound to you, even. You have a few options. You could be the best lover they’ve ever had, kind, charming, thoughtful, competent, witty, and a tiger in bed. You could be the best workplace they’ve ever had, with challenging work, rewards for talent, initiative, and…