[HN Gopher] John Carmack is reading and contributing to OpenBSD ...
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John Carmack is reading and contributing to OpenBSD source code
Author : hellschreiber
Score : 517 points
Date : 2020-05-18 16:29 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (marc.info)
(TXT) w3m dump (marc.info)
| toisanji wrote:
| I thought he was working on AGI? Gave up already?
| echelon wrote:
| My dream is to do what Palmer Luckey did - build a successful
| computer graphics-based startup and then lure John Carmack to
| be CTO.
|
| I've got a snowball's chance in hell of being that successful,
| but I do envy the fact Palmer was able to hire him. What an
| incredible hire.
|
| Then again, he did have Facebook money.
|
| It's cool that he's got the autonomy to pursue AGI after
| guiding Oculus into a good position.
| deltron3030 wrote:
| Oculus wouldn't have had that buzz without Carmack pushing
| the original Rift DIY kit _before_ their Kickstarter. He was
| already commenting on Palmers DIY creations in the community
| where the ideas for Rift were born.
|
| It was more or less a community project, because without
| community input in those forum threads Palmer woulnd't even
| had considered glasses, he was deciding between VR glasses
| and a 3D monitor in his first posts there, and got nudged by
| a member towards glasses, lol. He just never stopped
| absorbing information and kept iterating on his franken HMDs
| and prototypes, and one day when he had already reached a
| good level Carmack showed up.
| ywhjaknskkkw wrote:
| Maybe he is, and that's not really Carmack ;)
| bgorman wrote:
| Maybe he is testing AGI by seeing if it can pass the turing
| test for writing device drivers.
| yAak wrote:
| I don't feel like this precludes him from working on AGI -- and
| for him, it seems to be related:
| https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2110408722...
| rozgo wrote:
| The road to AGI is paved with yak shavings.
| solotronics wrote:
| First I have to have a stable OS. Then I have to make kernel
| updates to support the kind of process management I want.
| Then I have to fix the other kernel bugs affecting my update.
| Then I have to modify the network drivers. Then I have to ...
| 5 years later what was I even working on in the first place?
| Scarblac wrote:
| To make AGI from scratch, first you have to create the
| universe.
| dota_fanatic wrote:
| Not the original source, but better? ;)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc
| usefulcat wrote:
| That's one of the funniest things I've read on HN.
| 0xdeadbeefbabe wrote:
| And walls
| type0 wrote:
| But first we need to breed the yaks
| cameronfraser wrote:
| Most people who actually work in AI know that AGI being
| possible is still an IF and IF it is possible, it is centuries
| or even further away (basically some indeterminate time frame
| because we don't even know if we're on the right path). The
| techniques we're using today are likely not going to be
| applicable to AGI. John Carmack is very smart, but I wouldn't
| place him on the same pedestal as any of our great historical
| polymaths and IMO if a single person is going to make any
| progress in AGI it's going to be someone like Leibniz or Euler.
| jamesjyu wrote:
| That's an interesting perspective: why do you believe that it
| will be an individual who will make a breakthrough, as
| opposed to a web of Carmack-like folks?
| cameronfraser wrote:
| I actually don't believe an individual will make a
| breakthrough, that was more of a if an individual did do it
| statement. IMO it's actually going to be the result of a
| lot of methodical work by an army of researchers over a
| really long period of time.
| fancythat wrote:
| I am not saying that he will solve AGI on his own (he did
| quit rocket science after all), but you are greatly
| underestimating the impact he can have in the field. He
| basically evolved almost on his own two multi-billion dollar
| markets by doing noticeable technology leaps and finishing
| things at the right time. That must count for something. I
| would bet he cannot solve AGI, but he will surely leave
| something inspiring behind.
| cameronfraser wrote:
| > He basically evolved almost on his own two multi-billion
| dollar markets
|
| Not sure what this had to do with AGI, I don't even think
| there is a relationship in the skillset required
| vecter wrote:
| There is basically none. People on HN have this weird
| god-worship of John Carmack. He's a great engineer and
| businessman, but a top-tier theoretical researcher? He
| has less to offer than most PhD students in these fields.
| It's kind of insane the cult following he has.
| marvin wrote:
| > IF it is possible, it is centuries or even further away
|
| Just out of curiosity, would you have been willing to bet
| that something most people will agree on being AGI will not
| be developed before 2221 at the earliest?
|
| Because given the history of science and technology since
| 1821, that seems like a statement that's just drawn out of
| thin air. "I don't know" would make sense. "Definitely not in
| the next 200 years" does not make much sense.
| cameronfraser wrote:
| Sorry, the time frame was arbitrary, I clarified in parens
| what I intended by that statement (an indeterminate amount
| of time)
| mikorym wrote:
| Not to be judgmental, and to support your argument, but two
| points: I don't think we know how smart he is and I don't
| think it's _that_ important. Euler was to me a balanced
| person as opposed to a extreme person like Grothendieck. So,
| to each their own.
|
| Second point: I think almost everyone being promoted for
| being involved in AI or AGI are probably irrelevant in the
| longer run. Self driving cars are at this point something of
| a social problem rather than a clear mathematical problem.
| So, whether we solve the current list of business related AI
| problems is probably immaterial for mathematics, but
| important for public opinion. I haven't read or seen any
| projects that are even remotely close to AGI, unless someone
| is hiding something.
|
| Whether some person _x_ is doing (edit: working on) AGI I
| guess matters only in the social or business sense.
| swalsh wrote:
| I kind of get the feeling, that we're trying to build a plane
| by making the wings flap like a bird.
| corporateslave5 wrote:
| There's no reason AI can't happen from a single jump in
| innovation
| Voloskaya wrote:
| > [know that AGI] is centuries or even further away
| (basically some indeterminate time frame because we don't
| even know if we're on the right path).
|
| How can you, in the same sentence, say the time frame is
| indeterminate and that it is 100+ years away?
|
| We just don't know, period.
| cameronfraser wrote:
| Well what we do know is that current AI methods are very
| task specific and there is nothing that generalizes well to
| many tasks. If it was happening in the next century we
| would at least have some idea how to start generalizing to
| many tasks with a single model or something comparable to
| that. We had the analytical engine in 1830s and we didn't
| see a turing machine or lambda calculus until the 1930s
| pedrosorio wrote:
| > If it was happening in the next century we would at
| least have some idea
|
| Just like at the beginning of the 20th century we knew ~0
| about quantum physics and less than 50 years later
| A-bombs were getting dropped.
|
| Or how, at the same time no plane could achieve
| sustained/controlled flight (and the goal was merely to
| stay above ground) and less than 70 years later not only
| were we leaving Earth's atmosphere: a man was walking on
| the moon.
|
| We have no idea how long it will take to achieve AGI,
| let's leave it at that.
| Voloskaya wrote:
| It is extremely hard (read impossible) to predict what is
| going to evolve exponentially or asymptomatically in the
| future. Look at computing and aerospace for example. Take
| the state of those 2 domains and ask someone in 1900
| where they think we would be in 2000, I am pretty sure
| they would have been quite far off.
|
| Working at an AI lab myself, while I agree with your
| statement about the state of AI today, I don't know any
| of my colleague that would be confident to say it's 100+
| years away.
| HugoDaniel wrote:
| OpenBSD 6.7 is going to be released tomorrow
| https://www.openbsd.org/67.html
|
| Their release engineering is awesome!
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| This is the first release to install to UFS2 (which they
| confusingly call FFS2) by default.
| philsnow wrote:
| Looks like there haven't been any new openbsd release songs
| since 6.2 :\
|
| https://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html
|
| Some of these are pretty great.
| ksec wrote:
| As someone who is not following closely, did he ever mention why
| he is looking into alternative OS? And why OpenBSD instead of say
| NetBSD or FreeBSD? I assume he has many experience with linux
| already.
| criddell wrote:
| Is OpenBSD considered to be an alternative OS?
| tbrock wrote:
| It's certainly not mainstream if that is what you mean.
| cptnapalm wrote:
| While I can't say for sure, during a hole-up-for-a-week-to-
| learn a couple of years ago, he decided on neural networks and
| OpenBSD. He commented favorably on its opinionatedness. I'm
| suppose he liked the system and decided to contribute.
| AndrewBissell wrote:
| He wrote awhile back about why he chose OpenBSD to get more
| familiar with Unix during a coding retreat. tl;dr: the offline
| documentation and quality of the source code were major draws
| for him working with slow/no internet.
|
| https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2110408722...
| ksec wrote:
| I guess that is why I missed it. I deleted my Facebook.
|
| I dont understand why anyone make long post on Facebook and
| Linkedin instead of the good old blog post. But thanks for
| the link.
| selykg wrote:
| I didn't check the link, but keep in mind he worked for
| Oculus, which was acquired by Facebook. Not sure it was a
| requirement from Facebook, but was probably some choice
| around that.
| gigatexal wrote:
| But what is he using OpenBSD for? That's what is really
| interesting.
| boolcow wrote:
| John Carmack streaming his programming sessions would make me
| happier than almost anything else programming related.
| fwef64 wrote:
| Totally agree. He also seems like the type of person that would
| do this.
| williamscales wrote:
| http://archive.is/hNXNE
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Is it him or is it a general AI that he created?
| [deleted]
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| Be cool and you will be cool.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Next time I got flak for gratuitous refactors, I'll point to
| this.
|
| From John to John, thanks.
| BrandonM wrote:
| Take care to observe how John Carmack went about it, though. He
| described the issue from his perspective, gave a clear example,
| didn't blame anyone, and asked before making any changes at
| all. Someone replied suggesting that the refactoring be
| performed separately from other changes. It's hard to give flak
| to someone taking a measured approach like this.
| s_dev wrote:
| Is it possible Occulus has a big need for such an OS and this is
| the cause of the contributions? Or is this Carmack being a
| hobbyist and simply making contributions for its own sake?
| Lammy wrote:
| I assumed his use of an armadilloaerospace address was a signal
| that it isn't work-related.
| yellowapple wrote:
| Or perhaps he's bringing Armadillo Aerospace back and wants
| to use OpenBSD for guidance and control?
| dgritsko wrote:
| He's basically retired at this point and working on things he
| finds interesting (which was AGI as of a few months ago;
| there was a blog post where he went into more detail).
| chongli wrote:
| John Carmack stepped down as consulting CTO of Oculus in
| November 2019.
| polishTar wrote:
| Nit: In November, he stepped down as CTO. He still has a part
| part-time role at Oculus with the title of 'consulting CTO'
| jquast wrote:
| My favorite developer contributing to my favorite operating
| system! This is like Christmas. I've been contributing $ to
| OpenBSD since 3.x release days, and reading John carmack's
| ".plan" file since Doom 2, when they ran digital Unix!
|
| Did you know: you have John Carmack to thank for first porting
| X11 to OSX? Thank you John!!
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > Did you know: you have John Carmack to thank for first
| porting X11 to OSX? Thank you John!!
|
| Is there anything written about the background to this?
| Wikipedia doesn't talk about him ever working for Apple
| (although maybe that's just not mentioned).
| larrydag wrote:
| OSX roots are in BSD https://www.wired.com/2013/08/jordan-
| hubbard/
| jaquers wrote:
| Also id ran software on NeXTSTEP, itself a precursor of OSX
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP#Legacy
| deckard1 wrote:
| yep, was going to say that this is probably the real
| source behind the mystery. Early OS X is basically NeXT
| when Jobs came back to Apple. Doom was developed on NeXT,
| so id Software and Carmack already had a history of using
| BSD. They also released Quake for Linux around 1996,
| which may have used X11 (I cannot recall, maybe it just
| depended on 3dfx/nvidia without X11 at the time... it's
| been so long)
| jquast wrote:
| I discovered it by accident from a source file header many
| years ago, "that can't be THE John Carmack?!" I said to
| myself, it is! there are many web citations, too.
|
| https://github.com/timon37/xwayland/blob/master/hw/xquartz/m.
| ..
|
| http://www.finkproject.org/doc/x11/history.php
| thinkling wrote:
| I don't think Carmack ever worked for Apple. The XQuartz
| release notes say Carmack ported XFree86 (X server for x86
| machines) to OS X; my guess would be that he did a limited
| port to get what he needed to run the Doom/Quake engine?
| dylanz wrote:
| I share your excitement! I've never contributed to OpenBSD but
| have been running and following the distro for ages. I have a
| few mugs and t-shirts and support when I can. I'm hoping this
| may bring some fans of his over to the distro who wouldn't have
| run into (or contributed to) it before.
| jquast wrote:
| I tried many source contributions to OPENBSD when I was in
| school, but only one was accepted---to fix a "house purchase
| overflow bug" in the command-line monopoly game from the BSD
| games collection, lol :)
|
| I stopped hacking on it some years ago, but always contribute
| $$ when I'm well employed (currently not, sigh)
|
| I've yet to work at a $JOB with anyone else who wishes to use
| OpenBSD, even in the places it is most appropriate, my most
| recent employer had someone under qualified as the devops
| lead so we had to use pfSense, an endless source of
| frustration of issues that couldn't be addressed, but that I
| knew exactly how to address with OpenBSD, but, such is life.
| The most experienced people seem to have the least control, a
| common complaint in all industries, I'm sure.
|
| I always encourage everyone to use many different Unix's, it
| provides a much deeper understanding of everything you use,
| even if you end up only using Linux, anyway, it provides a
| much better perspective of what a distribution is and how to
| select the correct one even if you end up being forced into
| Linux anyway.
|
| But just like how I always end up using python and JavaScript
| and Ubuntu Linux everywhere --- unless you're in charge, it's
| much like school, the whole team has to succumb to the lowest
| common denominator, the lowest also often being the boss or
| lead, who does very little hands-on work but feels making
| decisions of which Linux and which Language to use is their
| best contributing factor, lol
| rvz wrote:
| > My favorite developer contributing to my favorite operating
| system! This is like Christmas.
|
| What? Calm yourself man. No need to get _too_ excited over the
| past.
| e12e wrote:
| It wasn't immediately obvious to me what this change actually was
| about (perhaps I scimmed the comments parts too quickly), but I
| found this reply somewhat illuminating:
|
| https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=158978831318077&w=2
| WalterBright wrote:
| John Carmack is the person I'd most like to read a programming
| book authored by.
| blakesterz wrote:
| If you're like me and can't remember names very well but thought
| "I know I've heard of him"...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carmack
|
| "He co-founded the video game company id Software and was the
| lead programmer of its games Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom
| and Quake and their sequels."
| [deleted]
| elyseum wrote:
| Omg never knew he did Commander Keen too. CK2 probably was the
| first video game I played (as far as I can remember). Go go
| pogo sticks!
| dEnigma wrote:
| Commander Keen is also Doom Guy's father, at least according
| to Tom Hall (co-founder of id software)
|
| https://twitter.com/ThatTomHall/status/958352500431572992
| komali2 wrote:
| Being now 1/4th of the way through Doom Eternal I wonder
| how Canon that is. It seems Doomguy is the direct
| descendent of human-but-not warrior race? So BJ Blascowitz
| being human (maybe?) doesn't quite fit. They're doing such
| an awesome job expanding the Doom mythology that it'd be
| tight to watch them go back and explore Keen more, silly a
| game though it may have been.
| weavie wrote:
| I am terrible with names, but John Carmack is one of the few
| that I never forget.
| montebicyclelo wrote:
| lm terrlble wlth letters, l always use l lnstead of l
| MR4D wrote:
| Wow, the idea of Carmack as BDFL for BSD [0] is pretty cool.
|
| Or would that be BSDBDFL ? (BSD Benevolent Dictator For Life )
|
| :)
| mrfusion wrote:
| What happened to his AGI work?
| [deleted]
| yuribro wrote:
| This is such a positive and wholesome example - both the mail
| itself (getting to know the preferences of the project), the
| proposed fixes (naming functions in a better way, adding
| explanatory comments), and on the higher level - the humility in
| which it was done, and the time being invested by him for a
| project he isn't part of.
| jlengrand wrote:
| My thoughts as well. Gentle suggestion, looking into other's
| suggestions first. Everything is there.
| wmichelin wrote:
| Here is your daily reminder to read "Masters of Doom", a book
| about the early days at ID Software. It's an amazing look into a
| really cool time in gaming and software as a whole.
|
| It's a great book, mostly about John Carmack and the guys at ID!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_of_Doom
| Insanity wrote:
| It's a great book, and they're also turning it into a series.
| :)
| MacSystem wrote:
| really?
| adventured wrote:
| I hope they bring in some of the people that made Halt and
| Catch Fire work so well. The Romero id Software years were
| filled with just enough drama and chaos to make it work.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Second time I've seen it mentioned today across the
| internet... Time for a rewatch...
| mindcrime wrote:
| HCF was great. I can't recommend it highly enough to anyone
| who hasn't seen it yet, if you have any interest in the
| history of the computer industry at all. And I say that not
| because of how historically accurate it is, or isn't. It's
| just plain good drama. I just finished watching the entire
| series for the second time, and I wouldn't be shocked if I
| wind up watching it all a third time at some point in my
| life.
| claudeganon wrote:
| The caveat being to stick through it for the first
| season, which is a little rough around the edges and
| overwrought. From there, it really takes off and becomes
| fantastic.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| I love that book. It is for me the best book which shows the
| spirit of what "hackers" really are and stand for.
| mrspeaker wrote:
| Counterpoint (just to manage expectations - you should read it
| for sure!): I was hyped to read the book, but ended up finding
| it a bit tedious. The technical parts were not technical enough
| (sometimes flat-out wrong, or maybe, naive sounding?) and the
| rock star parts got repetitive (even a lot of the same phrases
| used over and over). Still great fun, but not as good as I'd
| hoped.
|
| I'd recommend Fabien Sanglards's Wolfenstein and Doom books
| (https://fabiensanglard.net/gebbwolf3d/). These go into WAY TOO
| MUCH technical info (in a great way!), but don't cover any of
| the hilarious rock-star antics.
|
| My secret wish is someone would re-write Masters Of Doom to be
| 25% more Game Engine Black Book, and fix up some of the prose!
| kristopolous wrote:
| I've been going through computer themed historical
| narratives; soul of a new machine, where wizards stay up
| late, doom, startup, just for fun...
|
| The doom book is pretty forgettable and so is Linus's... I'll
| go take my cyanide pill now.
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| >I'd recommend Fabien Sanglards's Wolfenstein and Doom books
| (https://fabiensanglard.net/gebbwolf3d/). These go into WAY
| TOO MUCH technical info (in a great way!), but don't cover
| any of the hilarious rock-star antics.
|
| The Doom book does mention Romero getting locked into his
| office one day and Carmack cutting down the door with a
| battleaxe, but I didn't mind knowing that detail. (There's a
| picture too)
| anyfoo wrote:
| Thanks, ordered it immediately. Technical "history" books are
| fantastic, and knowing it's by Fabien Sanglard...
| epr wrote:
| I randomly selected this book off a shelf in my high school
| library when I had to pick a book to do a report on for a
| bullshit elective in high school. Procrastinated as usual, so
| on the Sunday before it was due I figured I had less than 24
| hours, so I might as well look up the cliff notes and barf 1000
| lines on paper. I decided to at least try reading the first
| chapter for whatever reason and couldn't stop reading. Went
| from planning to do the bare minimum to trying way too hard to
| do a good job and somehow convince everyone it was a good book.
| Now, working as a developer, I credit that book with getting
| myself into game development and programming in general. This
| book was life-changing for me.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| This thread reminded me that Carmack has been a free software
| advocate in the past, and my citation is, quite amusingly, that
| book:
|
| > It was February 8, 1998, and Carmack was about to put his
| brain to the test: counting cards in blackjack. This had become
| something of a new fascination of his. "Having a reasonable
| grounding in statistics and probability and no belief in luck,
| fate, karma, or god(s), the only casino game that interests me
| is blackjack," he wrote in a .plan file. "Playing blackjack
| properly is a test of personal discipline. It takes a small
| amount of skill to know the right plays and count the cards,
| but the hard part is making yourself consistantly [sic] behave
| like a robot, rather than succumbing to your 'gut instincts.' "
| To refine his skills before the trip, Carmack applied his usual
| learning approach: consuming a few books on the subject and
| composing a computer program, in this case one that simulated
| the statistics of blackjack dealt cards.
|
| > His research proved successful, netting him twenty thousand
| dollars, which he donated to the Free Software Foundation, an
| organization of like-minded believers in the Hacker Ethic.
| anyfoo wrote:
| Why not Poker? As someone who feels similarly, Poker is fun
| because you play against other people, rather than just
| statistics.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| In 1998, not very many casinos ran poker rooms. It didn't
| start to boom as a game until after the WSOP on ESPN and
| online poker in the early 00s.
| Scottn1 wrote:
| If you would have said not many poker rooms ran No-Limit
| Hold'em in 1998, you would have been right. But poker
| rooms and poker (limit Hold'em and 7-card Stud) were
| easily accessible in casinos in 1998. At least in Las
| Vegas it was. No-Limit Hold'em is what took off in early
| 2000 with TV/WSOP popularity and quickly became basically
| the only game in town by mid 2000's.
| renewiltord wrote:
| On his recent appearance on Joe Rogan, he talks about Free
| Software and making older engine software open when they
| released new stuff. I think he might have mentioned icculus
| too but I don't recall.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| Didn't he also end up getting banned for life from that
| casino for counting cards?
| sigzero wrote:
| So? Counting cards is not illegal if that is what you are
| trying to insinuate.
| jasonjayr wrote:
| It's not illegal. But the casino is private property, and
| if you don't follow their instructions to stop counting,
| and ask you to leave, now it's trespass.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| I'm not insinuating anything, it's just a fun story.
| lemoncucumber wrote:
| No, but casinos are private businesses with the right to
| refuse service to anyone, and they tend to exercise that
| right against people they believe to be counting cards.
| Card counters are not a protected class.
| pacificmint wrote:
| > the right to refuse service to anyone
|
| If I remember correctly, then that is true in Nevada, but
| not in Atlantic City. There they have to let you play
| even if they suspect you of counting cards.
|
| Of course that just means they will employ other means to
| prevent you from counting cards (larger shoes, continuous
| shuffling, etc).
| headcanon wrote:
| Wouldn't surprise me - I've read some stuff on card
| counters and seen a few videos, seems like there's a whole
| other side of successful card counting beyond the technical
| skill where you have to read out the social situation,
| since any pit boss worth their salt will be able to spot a
| card counter a mile away. Which I'm guessing Carmack didn't
| really care to do since he was just on an intellectual
| kick.
| gowld wrote:
| What social situation?
| Raidion wrote:
| You need to leave before the pitt boss makes you leave.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| More like you need to leave before they notice you and
| make the decision to ban you (once they make that
| decision it doesn't matter if you've left already or not;
| you ain't coming back either way).
| Raidion wrote:
| Good card counters are always a team, you can't go far
| solo as it's pretty easy to tell when you're betting 20
| dollars one hand, and 500 another.
|
| You usually have a few smaller players just playing fixed
| bets who call over some higher roller that will do the
| big betting when the count is high, and then just leave
| when the count gets low.
|
| Rumor has it that the security cameras now have software
| that will tally the count automatically, and flag people
| that play when the count is up. Coupled with player
| identification (facial recognition/player rewards cards)
| and correlating player times, casinos are starting to
| automate this. All rumor, of course, but sounds plausible
| if you're willing to throw a few million at the problem.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Can confirm that the facial recognition cameras and
| correlating faces to blackjack play is not rumor. To
| abuse a joke, "There are more cameras in a casino than in
| a East Village camera close out store." :-)
|
| Back in 2005 I was approached by one of the casino groups
| that was looking for a director of technology to manage
| the team that did "camera analytics". Seemed like a
| pretty neat job technically.
| wjnc wrote:
| So just go to Europe? Pretty sure the GDPR prevents these
| kind of recognitions.
|
| So I looked up the privacy policy of Holland Casinos and
| there is no mention of facial recognition, only mention
| of CCTV for security purposes (under which I wouldn't
| expect prevention of adverse losses to fall) and a seven
| day storage period of camera footage. They are not
| explicit but suggest they do not use camera data for
| profiling purposes.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| It would be an interesting test case
| Steve0 wrote:
| Here is a policy of a London casino explaining their
| facial recognition to be compliant with the gdpr. I
| suppose this was written pre-brexit.
|
| https://www.hippodromecasino.com/facial-recognition-
| policy/
| [deleted]
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| Well yes, it wasn't the part that interested _me_ about
| that paragraph, but if you want the whole thing...
|
| > His research proved successful, netting him twenty
| thousand dollars, which he donated to the Free Software
| Foundation, an organization of like-minded believers in the
| Hacker Ethic. "Its [sic] not like I'm trying to make a
| living at [blackjack]," Carmack wrote online after his
| trip, "so the chance of getting kicked out doesn't bother
| me too much." It didn't take long for him to find out just
| how he'd feel. On the next trip, Carmack was approached by
| three men in dark suits who said, "We'd appreciate if you'd
| play any other game than blackjack."
|
| > The others at the table watched in disbelief. "Why are
| they doing this to you?" a woman asked.
|
| > "They think that I'm counting cards," Carmack said.
|
| > "They think you can remember all those different cards?"
|
| > "Yeah," Carmack replied, "something like that."
|
| > "Well, what do you do?"
|
| > "I'm a computer programmer," he said, as he was escorted
| out the door.
| [deleted]
| djhworld wrote:
| I recommend the audiobook version too, narrated by Wil Wheaton
| akraker wrote:
| Seconded.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| I love that book so much. It makes me sad sometimes that I
| missed those days of programming in the 90's.
| self_awareness wrote:
| Well, you still can experience early days of conventional
| programming in 2020 until quantum programming takes over in
| 2040 ;)
| MacSystem wrote:
| sounds quite fun, right? I also have this impression and
| kinda miss that
| epicide wrote:
| I also often long for that magical feeling of everything
| being new and exciting again (to you). Like the computer was
| waiting for you to just press the right sequence of
| buttons...
|
| I obviously can't guarantee getting that feeling back in
| full, but I've been able to experience remnants of it by just
| poking around with completely unfamiliar
| tools/languages/servers/systems that have little to no use in
| business. Maybe even obsolete.
|
| Basically, look for anything that you wouldn't be tempted to
| turn into a job or use to make any real money. Just enjoy it
| for what it is. Write hacky code. Press all the wrong
| buttons. Make it do things it was never meant to do. Do
| stupid things with it just for the sake of doing stupid
| things. Have fun just for the sake of it being fun.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I really enjoyed the book, especially the part between Softdisk
| and Quake when the two Johns combined to form a great team and
| productivity was super high.
| ridhwaan wrote:
| Lol you should have put an amazon affiliate link, I just bought
| it right now!
| gambiting wrote:
| Also the audible version is fantastic
| anderspitman wrote:
| I read a lot and have read very few books more than once. This
| is one of them.
| MacSystem wrote:
| The book is on my must-read list has been a while. That's a
| shame I haven't got time to read yet.
| etrk wrote:
| It's very interesting, especially if you grew up playing id
| games, and it's also an easy read. Go for it!
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| I thought it was funny that the first reply comes from someone
| whose email address was @id.au. (Pretty sure this is unrelated to
| Id Software but quite a coincidence!)
| sgt101 wrote:
| Also he's had a look at the Imperial COVID19 model that has
| attracted so much bile in the last week:
| https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/1254872368763277313...
|
| I share his opinion on the code (though not his expertise!)
| renewiltord wrote:
| I've always liked Carmack's walking the walk. It's common on
| Internet forums (like this one) to talk about how some code is
| shit or whatever. Carmack submits patches and sees them
| through. An ideal to aspire to.
|
| His Twitter is a great replacement for his planfiles. One of
| the few I follow.
| fit2rule wrote:
| If there is anyone that could successfully submit a patch
| containing only comment breadcrumbs, it'd be Mr. Carmack.
|
| I'd love to read it, personally.
| jasoneckert wrote:
| I have read many posts and articles by John Carmack, as well as
| viewed or attended many of his talks. In short, I have nothing
| but respect for him as a developer, thinker and human being in
| general. Consequently, if he's contributing to OpenBSD, that can
| only be a good thing in my opinion.
| TeaDude wrote:
| Oooh. Very interesting.
|
| I really hope he does write an article on the source. I'd read
| the hell out of it.
| cbsks wrote:
| Does John Carmack have a blog somewhere? I did a quick search
| and couldn't find anything.
| samplatt wrote:
| To expand on jimbob45 - his tweets aren't your usual "140
| characters" style of affair :D
| jimbob45 wrote:
| https://mobile.twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoo.
| ..
|
| His Twitter is a pseudo-blog
| Icedcool wrote:
| Cool and exciting. Carmack has a level of brilliance that I find
| astounding.
|
| Some of his youtube video's of him talking about graphic
| rendering and compression are really cool.
| Icedcool wrote:
| For anyone interested:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUxcVzpeFqc&list=PL-wlZ9j-w5...
| unknown2374 wrote:
| Why does that link contain such a screwed up playlist?
|
| Clean link to a different playlist with just the lectures: ht
| tps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLfhkR8m8wYsgLEqr__PI...
| yfiapo wrote:
| That's neat to see. This may not be a big story but as a fan of
| OpenBSD who doesn't currently have time to read the CVS log I
| appreciate it.
|
| OpenBSD source is one of the cleanest I've had the pleasure to
| work with. You (generally) won't be scoffed at for submitting a
| semantic change like this, fixing typos, or the like. It
| certainly isn't perfect but the bar feels higher than elsewhere.
| Clean code and as importantly the documentation kept in sync.
| mikorym wrote:
| Is there any more context to OP's post? I guess someone just
| noticed in the mailing list, but it's not clear whether maybe
| John Carmark does this with _all_ code everywhere in the
| universe. And then probably still has some interesting coffee
| break conversations...
|
| On a different note. I am something of a Ubuntu fan and try to be
| more involved there. But then again the xBSDs where x = {Free,
| Open, Net, ...} are one of those things that always prods the
| back of your mind. It's a bit like topics in mathematics that
| always catch my attention, only to be forsaken for more mundane
| tasks. Then again, mathematics is a bit like the art of making
| everything mundane.
| rhacker wrote:
| To me this kind of stuff is fan junk news. I get that even
| hackers need celebrities, but front page of HN is a little
| extreme for a thing like this without context. If there was
| more context like, John C has re-written half of BSD, then
| we're talking - but this is very celebrity grocery list to me.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| So many celebrities are celebrities for banal, superficial
| reasons.
|
| Calling this a "very celebrity grocery list" story is a
| disservice.
|
| Carmack's one of the most accomplished programmers in history
| in terms of innovation, skill, and longevity. His words and
| opinions also carry a fair bit of weight, even today. His
| contributions and technology choices matter in a way that a
| celebrity's grocery list do not.
|
| If there's an injustice here, it's the fact that there are
| many Carmack-level coders out there, toiling away in relative
| obscurity, who don't have their contributions trumpeted in
| this way.
| rvz wrote:
| I'd bet everyone on this thread will be grabbing their
| cheerleading squad and their pom-poms everywhere if John
| Carmack visited them in person. They won't be able to contain
| themselves and start bursting into tears of joy.
|
| 'Extreme' maybe an understatement here but it seems like
| HNers here love seeing the second coming of King Midas when
| everything he touches turns into gold.
| jquast wrote:
| I'm sorry you feel this way, maybe if you could try
| contributing more positively to FOSS in some way and
| receive some accolades for yourself, you would not feel so
| spiteful about the attention Carmack receives.
|
| I think you will find Carmack has contributed more to the
| hacker ecosystem than anyone else if you just take a very
| shallow peek.
|
| I would suggest to start by reading the source code to
| Doom, it is surprisingly approachable and educational in
| several fields of math, geometry, data structures, and
| computer science. There are even books to help you
| understand it, heck, there are a dozen or more books about
| Id software and John Carmack, so there are many authors and
| readers who feel very differently from you, maybe you could
| consider the reason. There are many things in our field
| that would have happened eventually, no matter who did it,
| but much of Carmack's contributions really would not have
| happened without him, he really is in a league of his own.
|
| It's really amazing to me that you feel so negatively
| towards people who have endearment for one of the hacker
| community's greatest contributors. I can only guess that
| you might be very unhappy, for that I'm very sorry and I
| hope it turns around for you very soon.
| dkarl wrote:
| I get what you're saying, but I think it's great for people
| to see that an old-school hard core programmer puts effort
| into improving documentation and names. I've worked with a
| lot of people who think programmers can and should be too
| good to invest time and thought into changes like that.
|
| Also to see that he would be so tactful about asking if the
| changes are welcome, even though he is who he is and knows
| it. I like to think there are people in their twenties or
| teens or even younger browsing HN and subconsciously
| absorbing the fact that this is how a programming god
| behaves.
| type0 wrote:
| BSDs are mundane and also stable, not like some rolling linux
| distros
| dijit wrote:
| The bsds are actually less stable than Linux.
|
| Stable meaning changes, in this context, right? freeBSD
| changes ABI compatibility with every version.
|
| If you mean that they have old software (and old==stable if
| you think Debian) then that's because of BSD licensing vs
| GPL. GPL can take from BSD but the other way around is not
| possible.
|
| Stability of uptime? Yeah, they're rock solid.
| snazz wrote:
| For me, stability means uptime and infrequency of
| application crashes. Unfortunately, OpenBSD didn't meet
| that requirement on my (standard desktop) machine--it would
| frequently kernel panic on resume.
|
| On the other hand, I found that OpenBSD has absolutely
| outstanding reliability and stability on hardware like my
| ThinkPad X220.
| justin66 wrote:
| > The bsds are actually less stable than Linux.
|
| > Stable meaning changes, in this context, right? freeBSD
| changes ABI compatibility with every version.
|
| Every major version, right? From becoming -Stable to ending
| its support lifecycle, I'd think a FreeBSD version and its
| ABIs are supported as long as many Linux distro LTS
| releases.
| dijit wrote:
| The major difference being that if you have a statically
| compiled binary from linux 2.4 it will work on linux 5.5
|
| The only difference will be any shared libraries and
| potentially the libc. But if we're speaking from a pure
| technical perspective, the libc is not linux.
| yfiapo wrote:
| I don't see any additional context but this does appear to be a
| new thing. Two commits credited to Carmack in the OpenBSD
| source and they are dated 5/16/2020 and 5/17/2020.
| mcepl wrote:
| For me *BSD is like Plan9 or ZX Spectrum emulator ... guilty
| pleasure with absolutely no practical use whatsoever.
| sulam wrote:
| I think you're confusing BSD with posting on HN.
| lilSebastian wrote:
| > guilty pleasure with absolutely no practical use
| whatsoever.
|
| Are you sure you are talking about the right thing here?
| petee wrote:
| You know, other than helping run the internet. They make
| great servers, so your viewpoint is a little confusing to me
| mouldysammich wrote:
| Seems a little dismissive of BSD systems given how widely
| deployed the are in comparison to plan9 or zx spectrums. As
| far as I understand Netflix uses freebsd fairly extensively,
| and there are powerful tools like pfSense built on BSDs too,
| which are also used fairly extensively as far as i know.
|
| I would describe that as having practical use.
| wolrah wrote:
| I think there's a difference between using _BSD to build an
| appliance and running_ BSD as a day-to-day system.
|
| pfSense is a wonderful firewall appliance. FreeNAS is a
| wonderful storage appliance. If you need pf or native ZFS,
| a BSD is probably your best way to get it.
|
| If you want to run a random headless server to mess around
| with, you are probably going to have a harder time with any
| of the BSDs than you would with even bleeding-edge Linux
| distros. If you want to run a graphical desktop with 3D
| acceleration and HD video you will almost certainly have a
| harder time than any Linux user.
|
| ---
|
| There are, of course, people who are happily using BSD-
| based desktops right now and I am certainly not denying
| them anything, but even they'd have to admit they would
| have been able to get most of the same experience with a
| lot less effort on a modern Linux.
| [deleted]
| deltron3030 wrote:
| >Is there any more context to OP's post? I guess someone just
| noticed in the mailing list, but it's not clear whether maybe
| John Carmark does this with all code everywhere in the
| universe.
|
| I remember a story about Carmack going off the grid with a
| laptop and OpenBSD for a couple of weeks, and him being
| delighted about their documentation and the ability to build
| things without access to the web.
|
| Carmack is a hero in the C community, and OpenBSD is also all
| about C and classic Unix, so he might just feel at home there.
| nailer wrote:
| > whether maybe John Carmark does this with all code everywhere
| in the universe.
|
| A lot of people rename things and add comments as part of
| understanding a new code base. I do and I'm sure I'm not the
| only one on HN.
| yuribro wrote:
| I would suggest to just install OpenBSD and try it (maybe in a
| VM?), one of the selling points is the simplicity of the setup
| process. It can be a one evening project.
| dEnigma wrote:
| A selling point in comparison to what? A "one evening
| project" installation doesn't seem to be all that amazing by
| any standard, in my opinion.
| greggyb wrote:
| I think that the parent is saying that "trying OpenBSD" is
| a "one evening project". The installation should be
| complete within just a couple minutes.
| int_19h wrote:
| I don't see how one could try OpenBSD, and derive any
| conclusions other than, "oh great, yet another Unix", in
| a single evening.
| erk__ wrote:
| I recently went and installed FreeBSD on my laptop. It has
| until now been a pretty good experiance. The main reason I
| went with FreeBSD over OpenBSD at the moment was that NVIDIA
| only supports FreeBSD. FreeBSD is also pretty simple (at
| least compared to linux) so it wins there as well.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| By NVIDIA supporting FreeBSD you mean that half-assed thing
| with binary drivers allowing you to get a picture, but no
| CUDA?
|
| Or is that old information which i should forget?
| loeg wrote:
| Sure, the factual parts of that are accurate. Your
| opinion colors some of the adjectives. OpenGL works well,
| for example. No CUDA, no NVENC/DEC.
| erk__ wrote:
| Well it is a bit of a grey zone but I have gotten Vulkan
| to work and I think at least NVENC works as well. The
| solution is rather hacky though. It extracts libraries
| from the Linux driver and loads them when you run
| programs. A look at the code make it seems like cuda is
| getting loaded as well so it may work.
|
| https://github.com/shkhln/nvshim
| loeg wrote:
| Nvshim is an amazing project, but it is a far cry from
| official Nvidia support for CUDA/NVENC/NVDEC.
|
| (All Nvidia would have to do is build another binary;
| it's still chatting with the same driver blob internally
| so it's not really clear to me why they don't bother
| compiling it for FreeBSD.)
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| They could even do it with _less_ churn, because https://
| github.com/freebsd/freebsd/blob/master/sys/conf/opti...
| FreeBSD easily achives binary compatibility with earlier
| versions. So no need to mess around with DKMS or their
| own thing. Or at least less so.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| While i respectfully congratulate the authors of that
| shim for their ingenuity, that is no _support_.
| chupasaurus wrote:
| Nothing drastically changed since Torvalds had sended his
| gratitude[0].
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/MShbP3OpASA?t=2997 (time coded)
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| I concur.
| cbsks wrote:
| If OpenBSD knows what's good for them they will encourage him to
| read and contribute as much as possible!
|
| What I'd give for John Carmack to clean up my code...
| teknopurge wrote:
| OpenBSD doesn't need their code cleaned-up. Theo is the Liam
| Gallagher of development mangers.
| yfiapo wrote:
| Ah, but there is so much value in fresh eyes. Miod, who has
| been involved with OpenBSD development for 20 years and has
| surely seen those function names a thousand times, provided
| the historical reason (they thought they might need to
| allocate memory) but agreed they never ended up using that.
|
| The fresh eyes don't have the history and are thus able to
| point things out that the older eyes inherently accept.
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