Hacker News: AKluge

New comment by AKluge in "The Cray-1 Computer System (1977) [pdf]"

AKluge — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 20:01:15 +0000

I was a heavy user of the Cray-1, Cray-XMP and Cray-2 at the magnetic fusion computing center at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. One of the important things to remember was that the Crays of this generation were vector processors, that is they carried out operations across multiple elements of arrays at once. If you didn't structure your code properly, you didn't see these extraordinarily high instruction rates.

And, yes, quite some time ago I noticed that my cell phone had surpassed the capabilities of these early Crays :)

New comment by AKluge in "IRIX Introduction"

AKluge — Sun, 09 Nov 2025 10:26:55 +0000

As well as OpenGL, originally IRISGL, See for example,

  https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/sigraph-asia-2008-modern-opengl-presentation/905245#13

New comment by AKluge in "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (June 2025)"

AKluge — Sun, 29 Jun 2025 23:02:35 +0000

Updating a treatment of a finite difference approach to Schrodinger's equation from WebGL to WebGPU, using WebGPU compute shaders. Having actual arrays for data storage is so much cleaner than the older approach with textures for data storage and fragment shaders for computations. https://www.vizitsolutions.com/portfolio/webgpu/compute/ Once this is caught up with the earlier version, I'll be extending it in terms of additional numerical issues and techniques and use it to build explorable educational content in 1-D quantum mechanics. Eventually, on to 2-D quantum mechanics.

I welcome feedback, just keep in mind that this is a work in progress, and I haven't even reviewed it for clarity and typos.

New comment by AKluge in "Musk's xAI buys social media platform X for $45B"

AKluge — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 21:35:05 +0000

Am amazing bit of self dealing...

Musk's xAI buys social media platform X for $45B

AKluge — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 21:35:05 +0000

Article URL: https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/musks-xai-buys-social-media-platform-x-45-billion-2025-03-28/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43510015

Points: 10

# Comments: 3

New comment by AKluge in "Getting silly with C, part (void*)2"

AKluge — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 22:34:24 +0000

An old classic: Remember, C was never intended to be taken seriously. https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jbruce/humor/unix_hoax.html

New comment by AKluge in "How I animate 3Blue1Brown [video]"

AKluge — Sat, 12 Oct 2024 22:55:04 +0000

The traditional lecture does have a lot of value, however, we are also quite certain that the instructional experience can be improved through the addition of visualizations and simulations. This is especially true for interactive visualizations where the learner can ask, "What if ...", experiment, and see the results of their interactions.

The lecture format is very old and would not have persisted if it didn't provide a good value. At the same time, it's age also implies that there is room for improvement.

New comment by AKluge in "Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (January 2022)"

AKluge — Tue, 04 Jan 2022 20:46:54 +0000

SEEKING WORK | remote | Austin, Tx

Seeking collaboration across all phases of design and development with creators of instructional material and educational technology. Highly experienced in the design and development of instructional content and applications in mathematics and physics. Experience includes successful time in instructional design in academia, as well as significant private sector development. Can address issues from the most subtle design to the most nuanced development with attention to value for the learner.

  - Instructional design
  - Visualizations and simulations
  - Scientific computing and numerical methods
  - OpenGL, WebGL, GPU computing
  - Web based or native applications

Website: http://www.vizitsolutions.com

Email: akluge@vizitsolutions.com

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/avkluge

New comment by AKluge in "Will it rot my students' brains if they use Mathematica? (2002)"

AKluge — Fri, 05 Nov 2021 21:40:30 +0000

Yep - multiple representations, and interactivity, for the win. It is incumbent on the instructional designers and teachers to construct a process where the learner actually learns the concepts rather than learning processes and using computational resources to cover a lack of understanding.

New comment by AKluge in "Ask HN: How do you security-audit external software using NPM packages?"

AKluge — Thu, 04 Nov 2021 21:12:26 +0000

It is also useful to keep track of entries in a vulnerability database for some of the more "enterprisy" dependencies https://nvd.nist.gov/

Running a pen test against web apps can also be educational and amusing. ZAP is highly customizable, so you can extend it to cover particular areas of concern. https://www.zaproxy.org/getting-started/

New comment by AKluge in "The first webcam was invented to keep an eye on a coffee pot"

AKluge — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 23:39:06 +0000

Much props to this guy, The Mother of All Demos, presented by Douglas Engelbart (1968) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY

New comment by AKluge in "Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (September 2021)"

AKluge — Tue, 07 Sep 2021 20:30:20 +0000

SEEKING WORK | remote | Austin, Tx

Tap into a consistent record of innovation and success across a wide variety of roles and applications. Build on a drive to understand, design, and implement all the aspects that generate value for the customer. Success stories include varying roles from individual contributor to director level, with applications including

  - 3D Graphics with OpenGl and WebGL
  - Scientific Visualization
  - Data Visualization
  - Scalable computing
  - User Interface design
  - Instructional design
  - EdTech development
  - Database design
  - Familiarity with security in depth and pen testing such as OWASP and ZAP

Website: http://www.vizitsolutions.com

Email: akluge@vizitsolutions.com

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/avkluge

New comment by AKluge in "Black Hat Exploits of the Stupid-Easy 80s"

AKluge — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 23:11:17 +0000

One of my favorites was to open the frame buffer on a Unix workstation, then logout leaving a background job running.

A little after someone logged in, the code would do something cute, like draw a crack on the screen. I once saw the guy next to me back away from the computer, and ask, "It's not supposed to be doing that is it?"

Perhaps not quite black hat, but I was amused at least. :)

New comment by AKluge in "Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (June 2021)"

AKluge — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 22:05:28 +0000

SEEKING WORK, remote or Austin, Tx

Tap into a consistent record of innovation and success across a wide variety of roles and applications. Build on a drive to understand and implement the details that generate value for the customer. Success stories include varying roles from individual contributor to director level, with applications including

  - 3D Graphics with OpenGl and WebGL
  - Scientific Visualization
  - Data Visualization
  - Scalable computing
  - User Interface design
  - Instructional design
  - EdTech development
  - Database design
  - Familiarity with security in depth

Website: http://www.vizitsolutions.com

Email: akluge@vizitsolutions.com

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/avkluge

New comment by AKluge in "Ask HN: Resources to Learn Scientific Computing?"

AKluge — Tue, 25 May 2021 06:18:35 +0000

Another option, also supported from within MATLAB is GPU computing, that is running the code on the GPU rather than on the CPU. https://www.mathworks.com/solutions/gpu-computing.html This works very well, but only for some specific types of problems.

Scientific computing is a huge field - you may find yourself needing to acquire some background in the science, in calculus, perhaps a bit of linear algebra (matrices), etc.

It can, especially since it is associated with space flight, be a great deal of fun :)

The odds are good they don't expect you to carry the science side of the project, but to work on performance and scalability of existing algorithms and methods. So, look at the existing code

  - what is the scientific domain
    - find an introduction or overview
  - what is the mathematics being employed
    - find reviews, and some more detailed material here
  - what numerical methods are in use
    - you will need to understand these, built on the above
  - exactly how do they envision it scaling
  - what are the performance issues that follow from this scaling

New comment by AKluge in "Ask HN: Resources to Learn Scientific Computing?"

AKluge — Tue, 25 May 2021 01:10:22 +0000

Scalable Computing: Practice and Experience, is a great one. Especially the past issues where they talk about the basics of parallel and distributed programming. https://www.scpe.org/index.php/scpe/issue/archive

Do they have a hardware or software environment for large scale computing? I think a good place to start is understanding their environment and expectations. Do they expect a move to another language, like Fortran, or to exploit parallelism in Matlab? https://www.mathworks.com/help/parallel-computing/index.html

New comment by AKluge in "Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (May 2021)"

AKluge — Mon, 03 May 2021 21:28:23 +0000

SEEKING WORK, remote or Austin, Tx

  - 3D Graphics with OpenGl and WebGL
  - Scientific Visualization
  - Data Visualization
  - Scalable computing
  - User Interface design
  - Instructional design
  - Database design
  - Familiarity with security in depth and pen testing such as OWASP and ZAP

Website: http://www.vizitsolutions.com

Email: akluge@vizitsolutions.com

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/avkluge

New comment by AKluge in "Funds for Open Source"

AKluge — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 22:37:47 +0000

The ultimate purpose is to fulfill the will of the shareholders. While this is usually dominated by profit concerns, other factors can come into play as well. Especially social good and community impact.

New comment by AKluge in "Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (March 2021)"

AKluge — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 20:00:12 +0000

SEEKING WORK, remote or Austin, Tx

  - Instructional design
  - Visualizations and simulations
  - Scientific computing and numerical methods
  - OpenGL, WebGL, GPU computing
  - Web based or installed applications

Website: http://www.vizitsolutions.com

Email: akluge@vizitsolutions.com

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/avkluge

New comment by AKluge in "Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (February 2021)"

AKluge — Wed, 03 Feb 2021 23:04:21 +0000

SEEKING WORK, remote or Austin, Tx

Seeking collaboration across all phases of design and development with creators of instructional material. Highly experienced in the design and development of instructional content and applications in mathematics and physics. Experience includes successful time in instructional design in academia, as well as significant private sector development. Can address issues from the most subtle design to the most nuanced development with attention to value for the learner.

  - Instructional design
  - Visualizations and simulations
  - Scientific computing and numerical methods
  - OpenGL, WebGL, GPU computing
  - Web based or installed applications

Website: http://www.vizitsolutions.com/

Email: akluge@vizitsolutions.com

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/avkluge