901
Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?
One of the main reasons some people tend to avoid updating their PCs is that “it makes it slower”. Especially with Windows 10’s Software as a Service approach, where it gets the s…
902
In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click
In August of 2019, I published research from now-defunct clickstream data provider, Jumpshot, showing that 50.33% of all Google searches ended without a
903
Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers?
What are the underlying forces that account for the success of software engineering CEOs?
904
905
Every pricing page should have GIFs
Made in Notion, the connected workspace where AI agents and teams organize docs, projects and knowledge together.
906
Second IC
In 2018 I made the first lithographically fabricated integrated circuits in my garage fab. I was a senior in high school when I made the Z1 amplifier, and now I’m a senior in college so there are some long overdue improvements to the amateur silicon process. The Z1 had 6 transistors and was a great test chip to…
907
We live in an age of distractions, dealing with constant mental stimulus
Yet another calm weekend after months of lockdowns and I sit down to enjoy a book. After turning a couple of pages, I'm no longer able to keep going. In-between, I've managed to look at my phone four times and I've had my thoughts wander away. Why does something so simple feel suddenly so difficult?
908
“AI promised to revolutionize radiology but so far its failing”
Geoffrey Hinton is a legendary computer scientist . . . Naturally, people paid attention when Hinton declared in 2016, “We should stop training radiologists now, it’s just completely obvious within five years deep learning is going to do better than radiologists.” The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the…
909
Spectre mitigations murder userspace performance
Robert O'Callahan. Christian. Kiwi. Software guy. All content human-authored unless otherwise noted.
910
The Tyranny of Spreadsheets
Early last October my phone rang. On the line was a researcher calling from Today, the BBC’s agenda-setting morning radio programme. She told me that something strange had happened, and she hoped I…
911
912
I received my first donation on my open-source side project
I decided to build an extension for VSCode. That would add handy buttons for many common commands like save file, format file, show opened files etc.
913
Setting up Starlink
In March, I got an email from SpaceX saying Starlink was available at my address, and I could pre-order. I paid $500 for the equipment, plus $25 for a Volcano Roof Mount, and $99 for the first month of service, and a few weeks later, I got the kit you see in the image above. I was a little too excited about getting…
914
My ISP Is Killing My Idle SSH Sessions
tl;dr: My ISP’s CGNAT session timeout is too short, meaning TCP keepalives gets dropped. Test if your own NAT, or your ISP’s CGN, violates RFC5382 ‘s REQ-5 using this tool: https://github.com/AndersTrier/NAT-TCP-test .
915
916
Tab Unloading in Firefox 93
Firefox will monitor available system memory and, should it become that a crash is imminent, Firefox will respond by unloading memory-heavy.
917
Designing Low Upkeep Software
It's common for me to get excited about a personal project, put a bunch of time into it, and then lose interest. As much as possible, I want these projects to continue working; upkeep isn't fun. What does designing for minimum maintenance look like? The biggest piece is minimizing your dependencies, and limiting them…
918
To learn a new language, read its standard library
The best way to learn a new programming language, just like a human language, is from example. To learn how to write code you first need to read someone else’s code. But who is the best person to learn from? Which code should we read? Where should we look to find it?
919
Speeding up SQL queries by orders of magnitude using UNION
SQL's UNION operation isn't usually regarded as a way to optimize query performance, but in many cases it can be used to achieve massive improvements in speed.
920
An Opinionated Guide to Xargs
This post has everything you need to know about xargs , an essential tool for shell programming . It's based on my # comments on this "wrong" post:
921
I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility (2007)
A note from the author This is an older version of this story, from 2007. Here's the latest version, from 2022. Tim already had his bag and overcoat on and his keys in his hand and was about to leave when Diane stopped him at the door. "I just got this thing working....
922
iPhone apps can tell many things about you through the accelerometer
Nearly every modern smartphone is equipped with an accelerometer, which, as the name implies, is a sensor that measures acceleration. It’s most commonly used for detecting the device’s orientation. It also has many other uses, whether as a game controller in racing games, as a pedometer for counting daily steps, or to…
923
Playstation 3 Architecture
An in-depth analysis that explains how this console works internally
924
How we built an auto-scalable Minecraft server for 1000+ players
Raising Minecraft world capacity by spreading players across multiple synchronized server processes
925
Timezone Bullshit
People often use short timezone abbreviations like EST and PST to refer to timezones. If you're doing this in a computer program, you are almost certainly making a huge mistake. Let's take take a look, using the disastrously bad unix libc timezone tools , which you're almost certainly using under the hood if you're…
926
927
Another 0-day looms for many Western Digital users
Countless Western Digital customers saw their MyBook Live network storage drives remotely wiped in the past month thanks to a bug in a product line the company stopped supporting in 2015, as well as a previously unknown zero-day flaw. But there is a similarly serious zero-day flaw present in a much broader range of…
928
Was Google Earth Stolen?
[October, 2021]
929
Tech compensation in 2021
Salaries in tech are going up, and many people are looking for new jobs or reevaluating the ones they have. However, many tech workers have no idea what their labor is worth on the open market. There’s a huge information asymmetry here: employers have access to detailed industry data on salaries, but workers don’t. In…
930
What it's like to be cancelled
An honest look at what it looks like to be cancelled, one year after it happened. A hopeful yet realistic message for everyone.