871
Things I Was Wrong About: Types
I have changed my mind about some topics big and small so far in my life. Today: the value of types for programming.
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 3,290 posts.
872
873
All you need is λ, part one: booleans
Words by Rob Rix.
874
How to properly manage SSH keys for server access
This article was on the hacker news frontpage. You can find the related discussion here. Every developer needs access to some servers for example to check the application logs. Usually, this is done using public-private key encryption where each developer generates their own public-private key pair. The public keys of…
875
876
Stop Asking Me to “Sign Up” (2014)
The fate of many startups depends almost entirely on one conversion point: When a visitor becomes a user. All too often, this pivotal role falls on the shoulders of a pitifully generic “sign up” button that’s lucky to get even a minute of consideration during development. If you take
877
Towards Principled Reactive UI
Update 7 May 2022: A followup to this post containing significant conceptual advance is Xilem: an architecture for UI in Rust. I consider the Crochet experiment to be mostly negative, as there were a number of ergonomic and functional “paper cuts,” though several of the research goals were met, at least to some extent.
878
Randomized Living
Max Hawkins is nomadic artist and software engineer.
879
Last Phase of the Desktop Wars?
The two most intriguing developments in the recent evolution of the Microsoft Windows operating system are Windows System for Linux (WSL) and the porting of their Microsoft Edge browser to Ubuntu.
880
Reverse engineering a Hit Clip (2013)
It’s hard to see a child outside today without some kind of iDevice pumping high fidelity 192kbps stereo lossless audio into their shiny white headphones, but BACK IN MY DAY, the iPod hadn’t been invented yet. Pickings were slim. Walkmen were outdated, CD players were pricey and would skip if bumped around despite…
881
882
883
The K-shaped recovery
This installment of The Pomp Letter is free for everyone.
884
Iron, How Did They Make It? Part II
Bret Devereaux (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry)2020263 points74 commentscited by 10History & Retro Computing details
This week we continue our four-part (I, II, III, IVa, IVb, addendum) look at pre-modern iron and steel production. Last week we prospected our iron ore and extracted it from the ground and did some…
885
Finding Goroutine Bugs with TLA+
My job these days is teaching TLA+ and formal methods: specifying designs to find bugs in them. But just knowing the syntax isn’t enough to write specs, and it helps to have examples to draw from. I recently read Chris Siebenmann’s Even in Go, concurrency is still not easy and thought it would make a good case study…
886
PG and Jessica
A lot of people want to replicate YC in some other industry or some other place or with some other strategy. In general, people seem to assume that: 1) although there was some degree of mystery or...
887
People expect technology to suck because it sucks
I get at least 27 tech annoyances on a single day
888
889
You're enlightened – now what?
Suppose you are enlightened.
890
The US is using the Guardian to justify jailing Assange for life
Julian Assange is not on trial simply for his liberty and his life. He is fighting for the right of every journalist to do hard-hitting investigative journalism without fear of arrest and extradition to the United States. Assange faces 175 years in a US super-max prison on the basis of claims by Donald Trump’s administ
891
Assange Hearing Day 17
During the hearing of medical evidence the last three days, the British government has been caught twice directly telling important lies about events in Belmarsh prison, each lie proven by documentary evidence. The common factor has been the medical records kept by Dr Daly, head of the jail’s medical services. There…
892
AppStore Reviews Should Be Stricter
Miguel de Icaza's Blog
893
Work on What Matters
I’ve taken to using the word “energized” over “impactful.” “Impactful” feels company-centric, and while that’s important, “energized” is more inwards-looking. Finding energizing work is what has kept me at Stripe for so long, pursuing impactful work. - Michelle Bu We all have a finite amount of time to live, and…
894
Escaping the Dark Forest
On September 15, 2020, a small group of people worked through the night to rescue over 9.6MM USD from a vulnerable smart contract. This is our story.
895
896
Compiling a Lisp: Reader
Adding a reader to our Lisp compiler
897
898
Assange Hearing Day 16
On Wednesday the trap sprang shut, as Judge Baraitser insisted the witnesses must finish next week, and that no time would be permitted for preparation of closing arguments, which must be heard the immediate following Monday. This brought the closest the defence have come to a protest, with the defence pointing out…
899
How expensive is integer-overflow trapping in C++?
Integers in programming languages have a valid range but arithmetic operations can result in values that exceed such ranges. For example, adding two large integers can result in an integer that cannot be represented in the integer type. We often refer to such error conditions as overflows. In a programming languages…
900
The Cement of Society Is...
... submission to the laws of society (George Berkeley, 1712): "And since the bond and cement of society is submission to its laws, it plai...