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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 3,290 posts.
Don't Make Students Use Eclipse
Using Java or Python in a professional IDE like IntelliJ IDEA, NetBeans, PyCharm, or Eclipse is not a good first introduction to programming for computer science students, whether they’re in the field to become web developers, systems software engineers, or academic computer science researchers.
Why We Sleep: A Tale of Institutional Failure
In our previous installment of this podcast, we learned from independent researcher Alexey Guzey that famed sleep researcher Matthew Walker seems to have committed research misconduct in his bestselling book, Why We Sleep. Walker is a University of California professor, Google researcher, and Ted talk star, and his…
Moving Away from Gmail
tl;dr: I like PurelyMail and I will slowly switch all my online accounts to use it. I've been using it for almost three months and I didn't have any issues (except with some Hotmail/Outlook addresses). I have a GMail account since 2006 (that's the date
I Want Decentralized Version Control for Structured Data
How do I synchronize application data between devices and people? That's the question I was unable to answer when thinking about ideas for new applications I could develop. I wanted the synchronization to be
YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account
For the past two years, the Boston Basic Income YouTube channel has been live streaming our weekly discussion group as we explore…
Sleeve cap ease is bogus (2005)
I have no illusions; I know that today’s post will upset quite a few people. Why, might you ask? Well, it’s because there has been a long standing myth -myth- in construction that the p…
Prefer associative ontologies to hierarchical taxonomies
Let structure emerge organically. When it’s imposed from the start, you prematurely constrain what may emerge and artificially compress the nuanced relationships between ideas.
Questions to ask at the end of a technical interview (2017)
A comprehensive list of useful questions to ask the interviewer a the end of a technical interview.
Leakage paths for the Apple / Google Bluetooth tracing system
Plus general overview
Introduction to Hacking PostgreSQL (2007)
Gavin Sherry and I have presented several versions of a tutorial introduction on how to modify the PostgreSQL source code. The original version was given at the PostgreSQL Anniversary Summit in June of 2006. Gavin has since given a revised version of the talk (at LCA 2007), as have I (at PgCon 2007).
Untangling microservices, or balancing complexity in distributed systems
The microservices honeymoon period is over. Uber is refactoring thousands of microservices into a more manageable solution [1]; Kelsey Hightower is predicting monoliths are the future [2]; and even Sam Newman is declaring that microservices should never be the default choice, but rather a last resort [3]. What’s going…
Protecting Lives & Liberty: How Contact Tracing Can Foil COVID-19 & Big Brother
If you'd like to help translate this comic, click here to see what translations have already been done! If your language hasn't been done yet, send a Pull Request to that repo with your translated comic, or send it to . Thank you! 💖
Systems that defy detailed understanding
Last week, I wrote about the mindset that computer systems can be understood, and behaviors can be explained, if we’re willing to dig deep enough into the stack of abstractions our software is built atop. Some of the ensuing discussion on Twitter and elsewhere lead me to write this followup, in which I want to run…
Ode to J
From a confusing page of old C code to APL/J praise.
What's Next for Scala
A recent tweet by a friend of mine noted how the public interest in the Scala programming language seems to have plateaued or waned, which matches my feeling of the latest trends and zeitgeist. This blog post will go into why I think that has happened, where Scala stands now, and what the future holds for the Scala…
A (possible) solution to Covid-19
Notice. Since this seems to be such a common question I think I should describe my background. I have a PhD in molecular microbiology and I was once a tenured academic (professor). I now work in the biotech sector. I have published a number of peer reviewed papers in virology. If you really want to know more about me…
CuPy Accelerates NumPy on the GPU? Hold My Cider, Here's Clojure
Everyone knows that Java is slow and Clojure is not a great choice for number crunching, but as soon as I dig anywhere with my software, I discover that the ...
The Global Dollar Short Squeeze
Published February 2020 There is currently a short squeeze affecting most of the global economy, slowing its growth. This has been the case well before the impacts from the trade war and the coronavirus. A short squeeze occurs when something that is heavily shorted goes on to rise sharply in price for one reason or […]
First trans-Atlantic contact made on 432 MHz
On Tuesday the 7th of April 2020 , a remarkable contact was made with the FT8 digital mode on 432 MHz between D4VHF on the Cape Verde Is...
PC-XT Emulator on a ESP8266 (2018)
Can you run a 8086 PC-XT emulation with 640K RAM, 80×25 CGA composite video and a 1.44MB MS-DOS disk on a ESP12E without additional components? Yes, you can and I did. The CPU emulator is a po…
Quantifying the Adpocalypse
Someone is off sides - advertising revenue in the time of COVID
Life Is Made of Unfair Coin Flips
It’s time we did a non-pandemic related newsletter issue. So this week we’ll do something more fun. Today we’re going to talk about an interesting journal article that came out two weeks ago,…
Open-Source Virtual Background
With many of us around the globe under shelter in place due to COVID-19 video calls have become a lot more common. In particular, ZOOM has controversially become very popular. Arguably Zoom’s most interesting feature is the “ Virtual Background ” support which allows users to replace the background behind them in…
Analyzing HN readers' personal blogs
Analyzing the little guys
Why I’m Leaving Elm
Why I can't use Elm, and can't recommend it to others.