571
The collapse of complex software
In 1988, the anthropologist Joseph Tainter published a book called The Collapse of Complex Societies. In it, he described the rise and fall of great…
Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 3,821 posts.
572
2021 Letter
Getting worse and getting better; Jesuits; common prosperity; Rossini's glittering realm; slow-casual chains; Lem's ocean; vowelsongs.
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574
Idiot Proof Git
Aliases, etc that have made rebase-based workflows in Git much less advanced feeling.
575
Terminated
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
576
How many radioactive bananas would you need to power a house?
I heard that bananas are radioactive. If they are radioactive, then they radiate energy. How many bananas would you need to power a house?
577
Intellectual Loneliness
I have a confession to make: I leave most parties early because I'd rather read a book. The world comes to life when I'm surrounded by ideas.
578
Elementary OS is imploding
elementary founder: "I might take some time off from Linux or join another community maybe"
579
Cut the cutesy errors
If your app has just ruined my day, I need help, not humour.
580
My experience getting a tech job with no degree or relevant work experience
Sometimes you see a headline or a Youtube video “How I got into tech without a C.S.
581
Keyboard shortcuts for GNU Readline
Most command line programs that offer line editing -- like bash, Python, GDB, psql, sqlite and more -- do so using GNU readline. Readline's a powerful library that grants history, completion, movement and editing to programs that use it --- and a stable and consistent set of keyboard shortcuts. Shame, then, that even…
582
6 Raspberry Pis, 6 SSDs on a Mini ITX Motherboard
A few months ago someone told me about a new Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 cluster board, the DeskPi Super6c. You may have heard of another Pi CM4 cluster board, the Turing Pi 2, but that board is not yet shipping. It had a very successful Kickstarter campaign, but production has been delayed due to parts shortages…
583
Using GPT-3 to explain how code works
One of my favourite uses for the GPT-3 AI language model is generating explanations of how code works. It’s shockingly effective at this: its training set clearly include a vast …
584
All companies are fucked up
Belts in Karate are ordered from white to black. This is of course a new invention. Originally, new colored belts were not given upon arbitrary levels of attainment, a white belt was given at the beginning of one's training and you just never washed it. Over the years...
585
Experian, you have some explaining to do
Twice in the past month KrebsOnSecurity has heard from readers who had their accounts at big-three credit bureau Experian hacked and updated with a new email address that wasn’t theirs. In both cases the readers used password managers to select strong, unique passwords for their Experian accounts. Research suggests…
586
An X11 apologist tries Wayland
I think it’s only fair to call me an X apologist. I get incredibly frustrated when people talk about dropping support for X11. I fight back against the notion that some day X11 will be dead and unmaintained, a curiosity of a time before. I’ve spoken to people in my circles at-length about the accessibility tools that…
587
The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want
The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers actually want
588
I almost failed to search a 37 GB text file in under 1 millisecond
... in which we check if your password has been compromised in many inconvenient ways, in a tale of destruction, obsession, and self-discovery.
589
Why Galesburg has no money
It's not the normal stories we tell ourselves, but a new analysis
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Privacy vs. “I have nothing to hide” (2019)
A recent post received numerous comments asking why I was so concerned about privacy and asking what I have to hide. Here's my reply...
593
Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes
A textbook currency crisis, triggered by a bunch of policy mistakes.
594
Is Dark Mode Good for Your Eyes? (2020)
I've decided to stop using dark mode across all of my devices, because research suggests that going to the dark side ain't all that.
595
You don't need that CORS request
A low code optimization
596
Workplace surveillance is coming for you
If you want to do something terrible with technology, you can't just roll it out on people with money and social capital. They'll complain and your idea will tank. Successful shitty tech rollouts start with people you can abuse with impunity (prisoners, kids, migrants, etc) and then work their way up the privilege…
597
I’m taking some time away from Comma
I’m taking some time away from comma. In some ways, I feel like it’s all planned out, it only remains to see if it works or not. I rewatched my first Lex Fridman and realized I hadn’t said much new on the self driving front for the past couple years. My two part blog post from 2019 remains a true description of the…
598
Terraform should have remained stateless
For major providers, Terraform does not really need state. My proposal: add a ’none’ backend that uses the provider APIs as state. Here’s how.
599
Old jokes
That’s what she said, a rabbi resolves a dispute, and six categories in the Philogelos
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