[HN Gopher] The Night Watch (2013) [pdf]
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The Night Watch (2013) [pdf]
Author : kaycebasques
Score : 43 points
Date : 2023-01-25 19:16 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.usenix.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.usenix.org)
| jmorse2 wrote:
| As there's something about branch prediction on the front page
| right now, "The slow winter" [0] is well worth a read too because
| a) We should remember the magma people are waiting for our
| mistakes, and b) the branches really did make a pact with an
| adversary, resulting in the spectre CPU vulnerabilities we know
| and love today.
|
| (It really is worth a read; James Mickens is indeed a national
| treasure).
|
| [0]
| https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/mickens/files/theslowwinte...
| wstrange wrote:
| "If her hard disk is active for more than a second per hour, or
| if her CPU utilization goes above 4%, she either has a computer
| virus, or she made the disastrous decision to run a Java
| program"
| jeffrallen wrote:
| POINTERS ARE REAL.
|
| I believe.
| idlewords wrote:
| James Mickens is a national treasure.
| deepzn wrote:
| Great post, and funny writing. Do read. Systems programming IS
| crucial. One wonders if we do end up going to an apocalypse
| scenario, we would realize it's importance.
| trentnelson wrote:
| Tell you what would be neat: having ChatGPT author prose in the
| style of James Mickens.
| xrayarx wrote:
| Previously:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19289353
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13954077
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9671020
|
| Also, this is from 2013
|
| It is however, always worth a read
| kaycebasques wrote:
| Oh, yes. Forgot to add the year in the title. Done.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I think I've read it before. But for something like this, I've
| got time to read it again...
| sorokod wrote:
| It takes real skill to disparage so many programming languages,
| to offend multiple geek tribes, and still come out as a person
| I'd be delighted to buy a beer
| buildbot wrote:
| Re-reading these is nearly as good as the first time I discovered
| them in the undergrad computer labs in the wee morning was a
| cathartic break from FPGA programming.
|
| I'm honestly sad that Mickens left Microsoft before I joined,
| just working in the same company as the man would be an honor.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| James Mickens is a national treasure.
|
| Go watch his talks on YouTube and read everything he writes.
|
| https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/ Excellence.
| Quality. Science. These are just a few of the words that have
| been applied to the illustrious research career of James Mickens.
| In the span of a few years, James Mickens has made deep,
| fundamental, and amazing contributions to various areas of
| computer science and life. Widely acknowledged as one of the
| greatest scholars of his generation, James Mickens ran out of
| storage space for his awards in 1992, and he subsequently
| purchased a large cave to act as a warehouse/fortress from which
| he can defend himself during the inevitable robot war that was
| prophesied by the documentary movie "The Matrix." In his spare
| time, James Mickens enjoys life, liberty, and the pursuit of
| happiness, often (but not always) in that order, and usually
| (almost always) while listening to Black Sabbath.
|
| Feel free to start here
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D5xh0ZIEUOE
| [deleted]
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| > _I HAVE NO TOOLS BECAUSE I'VE DESTROYED MY TOOLS WITH MY TOOLS_
|
| Back when Craftsman tools had a no-questions-asked replacement
| guarantee, some friends of mine brought back a metallic blob, a
| former wrench that had "accidentally" shorted out a power line
| capacitor, and sheepishly said "it broke".
|
| I sometimes thought about that wrench, when borrowing an o-scope
| from the EE's, in order to reliably debug some low-level instance
| of _ex falso quodlibet_.
| caycep wrote:
| Ah, the LL Bean of the tool world?
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/fond-farewell...
| myself248 wrote:
| When I found myself on the west coast and had occasion to visit
| Noisebridge, I was most amused to find this on the wall of
| their workshop:
|
| https://flickr.com/photos/myself248/43675826702/
| kelnos wrote:
| Wait, so... did Craftsman honor the replacement guarantee for
| the metallic blob?
|
| I'm really hoping the answer is "yes".
| marktani wrote:
| > I am like the Statue of Liberty: I accept everyone, even the
| wretched and the huddled and people who enjoy Haskell.
|
| The text is so amusing, I enjoyed it even though the typesetting
| is hard to parse. That says a lot :)
| Animats wrote:
| "Systems programmers are high priests of a low cult." (Attributed
| to Alan Kay)
| labrador wrote:
| James Mickens is a funny guy. My favorite humorist is Patrick
| Boyle. He's also very informative. I'm finding I learn faster
| when I am enjoying what I am hearing.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@PBoyle
|
| This link is pretty funny too in the dry humor department. I
| thought it was serious when I first read it. "Terry Davis Was
| Right"
|
| https://www.palladiummag.com/2022/04/01/palladium-is-now-tem...
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(page generated 2023-01-25 23:00 UTC)