TDD Doesn't Work
Yeah, an in-depth study that repeated another study that was done a few years back. Both showed that TDD doesn’t work. The new one uses a multi-site, blind analysis, approach. It looks conclusive.
The NSA Is Hoarding Vulnerabilities
The National Security Agency is lying to us. We know that because data stolen from an NSA server was dumped on the Internet. The agency is hoarding information about security vulnerabilities in the products you use, because it wants to use it to hack others’ computers. Those vulnerabilities aren’t being reported, and…
How to implement a programming language in JavaScript
This is a tutorial on how to implement a programming language. If you ever wrote an interpreter or a compiler, then there is probably nothing new for you here. But, if you're using regexps to “parse” anything that looks like a programming language, then please read at least the section on parsing . Let's write less…
Julia 0.5 Highlights
It introduces more transformative features than any release since the first official version....
Docker 1.11: The first OCI-compliant runtime, built on containerd
Docker is a founding member of the Blueprint Alliance, a 12-company reference architecture for securing AI agents, built around four governance questions.
England and Wales House Price Analysis
The last time I looked at house prices it went pretty well, and I ended up winning a data science competition. There I was only dealing with a million or so records, and a relatively small 120 MB dataset. Then I found out it was possible to download 3.7GB of property sale records for all of England and Wales since…
Tool AIs want to be agent AIs
AIs limited to pure computation (Tool AIs) supporting humans, will be less intelligent, efficient, and economically valuable than more autonomous reinforcement-learning AIs (Agent AIs) who act on their own and meta-learn, because all problems are reinforcement-learning problems.
How old were the inventors of major inventions?
I came across this fun column the other day listing a number of Famous Inventions , like the airplane, the camera, electricity, the car, e...
Cartoon Laws of Physics
Cartoon Law I Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation. Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second per second takes over.
IPv6 Support for Amazon S3
Update October 1, 2021 – This post has been edited to remove outdated S3 buckets. As you probably know, every server and device that is connected to the Internet must have a unique IP address. Way back in 1981, RFC 791 (“Internet Protocol”) defined an IP address as a 32-bit entity, with three distinct network […]
iOS 10 to Feature Stronger “Limit Ad Tracking” Control
The release of iOS 10, the newest version of Apple's mobile operating system (coming this Fall), will bring an array of new features and upgrades, and a change to the functionality of the "Limit Ad Tracking" privacy setting.
DDoSCoin: Cryptocurrency with malicious proof of work
Eric Wustrow, University of Colorado Boulder; Benjamin VanderSloot, University of Michigan
Postgres Count Performance
Everybody counts, but not always quickly. This post looks into how the PostgreSQL database optimizes counting. In Postgres, there are ways to count orders of magnitude faster. We’ll look at exact counts (distinct counts) as well as estimated counts, using approximation algorithms such as HyperLogLog (HLL) in Postgres.
1995 Programming on the Sega Saturn
This is a document I wrote in 1995, while working on Neversoft’s first game: Skeleton Warriors. It was the first game I’d worked on where I did not use 68K Assembly.
Restoring YC's Xerox Alto, Day 6: Fixed a chip, data read from disk
In today's Xerox Alto restoration session we investigated why the disk drive isn't working and found a failed chip. With this chip repaire...
Don't Assume It's Difficult Until It Is
Algorithms, circle mazes, hex grids, masking, weaving, braiding, 3D and 4D grids, spheres, and more!
What Kubernetes users should know about the rkt container engine
No single cloud fits all. Explore how we build a more flexible future with hybrid cloud.
Tiny Lisp Computer
This article describes a self-contained computer with its own display and keyboard interface, based on an ATmega328, that you can program in Lisp. You can use it to run programs that interface to components such as LEDs and push-buttons via the I/O pins, read the analogue inputs, and operate external devices via the…
White House's Claims That the TPP Would Curb Internet Censorship Are Fantasy
One of the United States government's priorities in Internet policy is encapsulated by a term that's recently been making the rounds; the "free flow of information." It appears almost every time U.S. officials describe how they intend to protect the free and open Internet, especially when it comes...
Can computers become conscious?: My reply to Roger Penrose
A few weeks ago, I attended the Seven Pines Symposium on Fundamental Problems in Physics outside Minneapolis, where I had the honor of participating in a panel discussion with Sir Roger Penrose. T…
All quiet in the IPv4 Internet?
Guest Post: A new study measures 1.2 billion unique IPv4 addresses to provide a glimpse of what IPv4 usage activity looks like.