Hacker News: projectileboy

New comment by projectileboy in "Distributed Systems Classics (2017)"

projectileboy — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 18:26:30 +0000

I suspect this is old news for you, but just in case you haven't heard of it, check out Feynman's Lectures on Computation. A surprising amount of the book is still relevant, and it's fun how much he always brings everything back to the physics.

New comment by projectileboy in "Distributed Systems Classics (2017)"

projectileboy — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 18:20:04 +0000

Obligatory shout out to Morris and Kaashoek's class at MIT - they update the reading list every year, and it's always great: https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.824/

New comment by projectileboy in "Volkswagen Just Built an EV That Can Go Nearly 900 Miles on a Charge"

projectileboy — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 13:53:04 +0000

I partially agree, but this doesn’t totally address the range issue. There are big sections of the western US (for example) where the existing EV ranges are a dealbreaker.

New comment by projectileboy in ".name Termination"

projectileboy — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 22:17:49 +0000

We keep expecting for-profit organizations to behave as governments. And this is an especially easy sell in the US, where government has been vilified for decades as part of a long propaganda game run by those who wish to privatize and steal those things which should rightfully exist in the public domain. But for-profit organizations, by design, will never ever ever behave in the public interest, and it’s foolish to expect otherwise. This is not a criticism of the author; this is a criticism of ICANN, and the subcontracting of governance.

New comment by projectileboy in "Why OOP Exists"

projectileboy — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 06:23:14 +0000

A good book for appreciating the OO mindset is Object Thinking by David West.

New comment by projectileboy in "Google kills Earth AI generator after one day"

projectileboy — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 13:37:06 +0000

Google has always been a technology company, never a product company. It’s very deep in their DNA.

New comment by projectileboy in "Taylor Farms Called White House to Try to Delay Cyclospora Recall"

projectileboy — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 04:21:07 +0000

Well… the system mostly worked for a pretty long time. As I used to tell my kids, if you try hard enough to break something, you’ll probably succeed.

New comment by projectileboy in "Advertise in ChatGPT"

projectileboy — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 14:41:14 +0000

It is impossible to overstate how utterly horrible and dystopian this is. I have not been one to reject AI, but they seem hell-bent on driving me to that conclusion.

New comment by projectileboy in "Mathematicians still don't know the fastest way to multiply numbers"

projectileboy — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 22:18:15 +0000

For anyone interested in digging, check out Karatsuba's algorithm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karatsuba_algorithm), Strassen matrix multiplication (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strassen_algorithm), and Toom-Cook multiplication (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toom–Cook_multiplication).

Of course, there are also implementation considerations. For example you can speed up Strassen by recursively breaking down the matrix into sub-matrices in parallel, but only down to a point - once the sub-matrices get small enough, it becomes faster to simply do a straight Strassen computation. And it depends on your hardware. For something seemingly so simple, you can go pretty far down a rabbit hole!

New comment by projectileboy in "Paxos Made Simple (2001) [pdf]"

projectileboy — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 15:40:16 +0000

More enjoyable to read this within a broader context: https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.824/

New comment by projectileboy in "Software, from First Principles"

projectileboy — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 02:15:49 +0000

Congratulations! This is incredibly well done. Please consider creating a “part ii” that expands on the entire thread to one level of greater detail.

New comment by projectileboy in "DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes"

projectileboy — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 20:13:53 +0000

Frankly, this doesn’t matter. What matters is that an unofficial agency of the executive branch is deciding unilaterally - with no oversight - to stop payments that were voted on by Congress. Even if Musk and team were geniuses and doing brilliant work, it would be outside the rule of law.

New comment by projectileboy in "Musk says DOGE is halting Treasury payments to US contractors"

projectileboy — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 04:01:04 +0000

Hacker News tries to avoid political news in general, but it seems warranted in this case because Musk is a major figure in the tech industry, and also because it appears he’s using a small number of young engineers from his companies to gain access to and control over systems at OPM.

New comment by projectileboy in "The Origins of Wokeness"

projectileboy — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 21:44:50 +0000

I just picked this one at random today; took about a minute to find something: https://www.startribune.com/mom-ids-son-as-teen-left-with-br...

I’m relieved to read that racism isn’t as bad as I think it is.

New comment by projectileboy in "The Origins of Wokeness"

projectileboy — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 19:32:53 +0000

This is a weird hill to die on for a billionaire. Is wokeness a problem? If I recast it as an assault on free speech, sure. But exactly how bad is this assault? I sure hear a lot of really rich people talk about wokeness, despite the proclaimed suppression of their speech. And is it as much of a problem as racism, sexism, homophobia or other forms of bigotry endemic in our society?

New comment by projectileboy in "When the U.S. tried to replace migrant farmworkers with high schoolers (2018)"

projectileboy — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 06:28:26 +0000

I live in Minnesota. I hear what you’re saying, but I would say two things: in general, teenagers here are not being somehow denied farm work that they really want but is unavailable; and there’s a pretty big difference between Minnesota/Iowa summer heat and picking cantaloupes in inland California. The big difference being about 20 degrees on average, with more sun.

New comment by projectileboy in "3blue1brown YouTube Bitcoin video taken down as copyright violation"

projectileboy — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 11:02:39 +0000

I apologize in advance for not offering something constructive to say. I just wish anyone here who is younger could see the difference between what the promise of the web was in ‘95 and what it has become. Such a burning pile of trash, it’s heartbreaking.

New comment by projectileboy in "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint [pdf]"

projectileboy — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 07:15:44 +0000

Is there some reason why Edward Tufte isn’t being properly being credited anywhere? This is copyrighted material.

New comment by projectileboy in "Seyfert Galaxies"

projectileboy — Tue, 31 Dec 2024 16:46:24 +0000

Hear, hear. The design subordinates to clear presentation of static content. Most newspapers and magazines would benefit from a similar approach.

New comment by projectileboy in "Ask HN: Is ChatGPT down?"

projectileboy — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 22:53:56 +0000

Would you be willing to elaborate on the ways in which the $200/month subscription is better than the $20/month subscription? I’m genuinely curious - not averse to paying more, depending on the value.