I find it curious that the author makes no attempt to compare his solution to other splines like B-splines or Catmull-Rom splines, given their popularity in computer graphics and CAD.

Ring -1 needs DRAM, so it tells the memory controller to give it some blocks. The memory controller hands back a “physical” address, and promises not to let anything but ring -1 access that address.

The exploit takes advantage of that control register to remap the same DRAM blocks to a different physical address. Since the memory controller only promised to protect the physical address it handed back, that protection is bypassed when using the new address.

There are several theoretical ways to mitigate this exploit, but it remains to be seen if the system is sufficiently field-upgradeable to defend.

> For example, you might install network drivers to support your Windows programs. You might choose this option instead of installing them globally because you don’t care about networking for your MS-DOS programs and want to free up conventional memory for them. Or because those drivers don’t support running in multiple virtual machines, so you’ll take them in the System VM and forego them for your MS-DOS programs.

In the Windows 95 era, it was not uncommon to still rely on MS-DOS TSRs for important functionality. Raymond has explained elsewhere about how Windows, after “sucking the brains out of MS-DOS,” maintained the ability to call into these TSRs.

Kalshi is clearly not an insurer. But the commercial role they filled in this very specific situation is the same as a prize indemnity policy.

In the case of those “make a free throw from half court and win a car” competitions, the risk is a known value: the prize sponsor’s wholesale vehicle cost. The sponsor pays a premium for each contest, which is calculated based on the likelihood of someone winning.

This is a very well established insurance market. You as an individual can go out and buy hole-in-one insurance. It’s more popular in Korea and Japan where there is a strong societal expectation of throwing a lavish party if one hits a hole in one. Here in the States, it’ll cover a round of drinks for the clubhouse.

In the case of the bar, the Kalshi bet is functioning as an insurance policy against a potentially open-ended loss. The bar could be packed, the U.S. wins and everyone drinks the bar dry. So Kalshi is fulfilling a legitimate business role here.

But insurance is boring and highly regulated. The bar could likely have bought an equivalent policy from an underwriter in the Financial District. Or frankly from a rich regular. Kalshi wants to make insane amounts of money from degenerate gamblers, and to be immune from state regulators who are more answerable to citizens than the CFTC commissioners. Hence adopting the fig leaf of “futures contracts.”

If you thought I’m on Kalshi’s side here, I’m definitely not.

In a similar vein, companies that run skill competitions (hole-in-one prizes, half-court shots, etc.) can and regularly do buy insurance on those events.

Under this theory, Kalshi is arguably not trading in commodities, but insurance, which is state-regulated.

While you could absolutely generate a list of compliance checks to execute like a formula, at the end of the day you need to have absorbed enough experience that, when presented a physical or imagined project, your brain is immediately able to make connections between what it sees and the general principles of how you build something correctly.

Since I don’t have that experience, I know I need to stick to the well-trod path. No clean-sheet deck construction methods for me. :)

> the tech companies that are bigger haven't offered human support to anyone in decades.