Hacker News .hnnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | snicklepuff's commentslogin

> C presents a simple "big array of bytes" memory model that totally abstracts all that complexity.

I don't understand what you mean by this. Machine code itself abstracts away the underlying hierarchical memory structure. Sure, some machine language might have instructions to manipulate the cache, but those are easily invoked from C, using either inline assembly or __builtin functions.


Jesus, $150!? For a smoke detector!? How hard is it to hit the little "mute" button on the cheap one you already have?


This is why they use git - subversively inserting code into git is not possible like it is with CVS


Except the article is from 2003 when Git did not exist (of course, you may have meant this is why they use git now...)


> but objectively you can't identify which students won't do the work - ergo, you can't discriminate who to enroll

I'm calling complete bullshit on this one: isn't that the very definition of admissions? Even if you claim it's not, I think that if you look at any student's previous grades / work experience / references, you can quite reliably determine who will do the work and who will not.

These schools simply don't want to: they want to admit everybody so they can take their money in exchange for basically nothing. I would fully support legislation to bar for-profit institutions from receiving any federal tuition aid (whether loans or grants).

> public money[1] should not be involved. The school management can't say "no" to it

This is false: schools are not required to accept federal loans.[1]

[1] http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865576111/No-more-student... to accept federal loans


You'd be very surprised at who won't do the work. I was. Interacting with them, and knowing how they were admitted, I have no doubt of their previous grades / work experience / references, and yet am time & again stunned at their utter reluctance to take basic required initiative.

By "won't do the work", I mean really simple things. A student has a week to take a simple on-line 10-question multiple-choice quiz, but doesn't even look at it. For every creative assignment, I make clear "submit something - even if it's just a text file saying 'I have no idea', I'll work with you on it", but nothing is submitted. I'll take a submitted "program" of pure gibberish, write a detailed explanation of what's wrong and how to make it work, tell them to fix it, and give them until the very end of the course to do anything & everything to make it passable, but no resubmission is attempted. Online group discussion participation is required with a weekly N-post minimum (N very small) with very low content standards, a very simple requirement, but little or no participation occurs. These are students who passed high school, hold jobs, can hold competent conversations, show up for class, etc.; I have no reason to doubt they have references, adequate prior grades, and work experience. Yet...when given a very basic collegiate task, they won't do it to a mere 60% sufficiency.

There's a fundamental difference between high school and college: the latter is not obligated to pass you. Every opportunity is given, every task may be simplified to near-triviality, but if the student won't take the steps on their own, they reap the consequences of willful inaction.

But, of course, you refuse this experiential insight and insist it's all about malicious greed.


This is false: schools are not required to accept federal loans.

You miss my point: it's not about rejecting federal loans, it's about rejecting an applicant who does satisfy grade/work/references/funding criteria when there are openings, but the admissions personnel concludes admission still isn't a good idea. The mortgage industry knows what I'm referring to.


I've seen and read the entire speech dozens of times: In school, I distinctly remember being given the entire speech transcription and talking about it as a class on more than one occasion. In elementary school, we would have an actor come on our "morning announcements" and re-enact the speech each year. One teacher showed it to us on YouTube in it's entirety.

Is my experience really that unusual?


Yes. This is unusual. I went to 4 elementary schools. My wife is a elementary school teacher and has taught at around 5 of them and none did this.

I am curious how old you are if you saw a Youtube video in your class in elementary school.


I was jumping around chronologically, the video was shown by a teacher I had in high school. That wasn't clear, sorry.


I don't think so. I distinctly remember discussing it multiple times throughout grade school and watching it at least once.


To imply that the US is somehow out of order to pursue his extradition makes no sense. What does he expect them to do?

IMHO, he should not have run. I don't think he would have any trouble convincing 12 people that what he did was the right thing. Running was bad form.

I don't like this guy, and I don't trust him.


Then show him up. Put your money where your mouth is by doing what you think is right.

In the meantime, let's get back to the message, not the messenger.


> they couldn't release it under an updated license (like the > ASL2 or GPL3) or dual-license it for compatibility with > other projects without getting clearance from each and > every contributor.

IMHO, this is a huge advantage: it guarantees that the maintainer of the project can't run off and so something crazy. The linux kernel allows every author to retain copyright, and there's some security in that: since it is basically impossible to get clearance from even the most significant subset of copyright holders in the kernel, it will forever be GPLv2.

Look at it this way: if Torvalds were evil, he could require everybody to assign him copyright, and then take everybody's work and let corporations pay him to allow them to use it closed-source enviorments. Or even un-GPL the whole thing and sell it to somebody. (IANAL, obviously - not sure about that last one)

Point is, there is security in nobody having controlling ownership of a project,


Why the hell is CONFIG_PERF enabled in distribution kernels?? A normal server/desktop user would NEVER USE THAT. If you're smart enough to use Perf, you ought to be smart enough to compile your own kernel.

This is a brilliant example of how stupid many distros are with their kernel configurations. They need to start understanding that enabling features that nobody uses only increases the probability of problematic bugs.

Also, they need to stop enabling CONFIG_CC_STACKPROTECTOR. It slows stuff down, and as can be seen here, often doesn't do any good.


Wrong -- works on x86_64 Debian.


Consider applying for YC's Summer 2026 batch! Applications are open till May 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: