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2024-07-22

Jellyfin: We're Good, Seriously

  • Jellyfin has a budget of over $24,000, covering 40 months of expenses, and is asking users to redirect donations to the authors of the Clients they use.
  • This request aligns with Jellyfin's "no paid development" policy, as donations are voluntary, and the project will reassess if funds drop to 12 months of runway.
  • Community members are responding positively, with plans to support Client authors and inquiries about specific client support like WebOS.

Reactions

  • Jellyfin, an open-source media server project, announced they have sufficient funds and suggested donors support other ecosystem projects instead.
  • The community is divided on this approach; some believe funds should be distributed to ecosystem developers, while others agree with Jellyfin's decision to avoid additional administrative burdens.
  • The discussion highlights the complexities and potential issues of managing donations within open-source projects, including transparency, administrative overhead, and maintaining focus on core development.

Pin

  • The Pin type and the concept of pinning are essential but often misunderstood components of Rust's async ecosystem.
  • Pin was introduced to support self-referential types in async Rust, ensuring objects don't move once they contain self-references, unlike Mojo, which inherently handles object identity.
  • Despite its necessity, Pin introduces significant complexity for users due to its lack of syntactic sugar and support, leading to issues like reborrowing, pinned projections, and interactions with the Drop trait.

Reactions

  • The discussion revolves around the Rust programming language's Pin type, which is often misunderstood due to unclear documentation.
  • Pin ensures that certain objects cannot be moved in memory, which is crucial for self-referential structs, but this concept is not well-explained in the official docs.
  • The conversation highlights the need for better documentation and analogies to make the concept of Pin and Unpin more accessible to Rust developers, especially those new to the language.

Jiff: Datetime library for Rust

  • Jiff is a new Rust datetime library focused on ease of use and performance, inspired by JavaScript's Temporal proposal.
  • It offers features like high-level datetime primitives, seamless Time Zone Database integration, DST-aware arithmetic, formatting, parsing, and optional Serde support.
  • Jiff is dual-licensed under MIT or the UNLICENSE, supports Unix and Windows, and requires Rust 1.70.0 or newer.

Reactions

  • Jiff is a new datetime library for Rust, developed by BurntSushi, known for creating high-quality tools like ripgrep.
  • The library aims to address complexities in datetime handling, such as DST (Daylight Saving Time) arithmetic, timezone-aware calculations, and retrospective timezone conflict detection.
  • Jiff offers a more user-friendly and flexible API compared to the existing standard, Chrono, while maintaining correctness and capability in datetime operations.

No More Blue Fridays

  • A major outage on July 19th caused by a kernel driver update led to global Windows system crashes, highlighting the need for safer update mechanisms.
  • eBPF (extended Berkeley Packet Filter), already used in Linux, is a secure kernel execution environment that can prevent such crashes and will soon be supported by Windows.
  • eBPF programs are safety-checked and sandboxed, offering benefits like enhanced security and lower resource usage, with adoption by companies like Cisco, Google, and Meta for security and observability.

Reactions

  • Microsoft's eBPF (Extended Berkeley Packet Filter) support for Windows is currently limited to packet filtering, unlike Crowdstrike's comprehensive kernel monitoring drivers.
  • Integrating eBPF into Windows' existing frameworks is challenging, and it's uncertain if Microsoft aims to make it a standard.
  • eBPF could enhance security by isolating kernel code, but it is not a complete solution, as highlighted by the recent Crowdstrike incident, which underscores the need for improved deployment practices and security measures.

Parse, Don't Validate (2019)

  • The post emphasizes the principle "Parse, don’t validate," advocating for parsing data to preserve information in the type system rather than discarding it through validation.
  • It explains how type-driven design in languages like Haskell can turn partial functions into total functions by strengthening argument types, using NonEmpty lists as an example.
  • Practical advice includes using precise data structures, refactoring to push proof burdens upward, and avoiding denormalized data representations to improve program reliability and safety.

Reactions

  • The article "Parse, Don't Validate" emphasizes the importance of parsing data to ensure correctness rather than repeatedly validating it throughout the program.
  • This approach, rooted in concepts like Design by Contract and Domain-Driven Design (DDD), leverages strong type systems to enforce guarantees and reduce errors, making code easier to reason about and maintain.
  • The discussion highlights practical examples and benefits, such as using distinct types for different validation stages and ensuring that data is always in a valid state, which can simplify complex applications and improve reliability.

When ChatGPT summarises, it does nothing of the kind

  • The author has been exploring and discussing the foundations of ChatGPT and other Generative AIs, aiming to provide realistic perspectives against the prevailing hype.
  • A key insight is that ChatGPT does not truly summarize content but merely shortens it, often missing essential details and proposals, as evidenced by a comparison with a human-generated summary of a 50-page paper.
  • This limitation arises because summarizing requires understanding, which ChatGPT lacks, leading to skepticism about the reliability of LLMs (Large Language Models) for practical business applications.

Reactions

  • The author argues that ChatGPT's text summarization lacks true understanding, resulting in incomplete and sometimes misleading summaries.
  • The critique points out the absence of details about the GPT model, the prompt, and the number of attempts in the original analysis.
  • User experiences and opinions vary, with some finding ChatGPT and other LLMs helpful, while others highlight their limitations and the need for improved prompting and context management.

Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling

  • A US court ruled that Booking.com violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by accessing Ryanair's website without permission, supporting Ryanair's stance against unauthorized screen scraping.
  • The Delaware District Court jury found Booking.com guilty of unauthorized access with intent to defraud and dismissed Booking.com's counterclaims of defamation and unfair competition.
  • Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary hopes the ruling will reduce illegal screen scraping and overcharging, while Booking.com plans to appeal, arguing that fare comparison benefits consumer choice.

Reactions

  • Ryanair won a legal case against Booking.com in a US court for unauthorized access to resell tickets, violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
  • The ruling could affect other online travel agents using similar practices, highlighting the complexities of web scraping laws.
  • There is speculation that the decision might be overturned due to conflicting legal precedents.

No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

  • Rob Henderson's post discusses the lack of societal expectations for young men and its negative consequences, including increased unemployment and incarceration rates.
  • He references "Promises I Can Keep" by Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas, which examines why low-income women often prioritize motherhood over marriage, attributing it to poor behavior from young males.
  • Henderson criticizes the upper class for undermining family stability norms while ensuring their own children benefit from stable homes, arguing that young men need high expectations to thrive.

Reactions

  • The article attributes the phenomenon of "young men with nothing to do" to wealth inequality and the concentration of wealth among older elites, which drives up prices for necessities and stifles demand for new ventures.
  • It also discusses the instability of family structures, noting that societal changes and economic pressures have altered traditional family dynamics.
  • Comments on the article debate the impact of absentee fathers, the role of women in family stability, and the broader societal and economic factors contributing to these issues.

James C. Scott, author of Seeing Like a State, has died

Reactions

  • James C. Scott, author of "Seeing Like a State," has passed away, prompting reflections on his influential ideas within the tech community.
  • Scott's work highlights how states and technology can enforce uniformity, impacting fields like medicine, education, and social engagement by reducing diversity.
  • Discussions on Hacker News explore Scott's concepts, particularly the balance between security and flexibility in software, and the broader implications of technological homogeneity.

Eza: A modern, maintained replacement for ls

  • eza is a modern replacement for the ls command in Unix and Linux, offering enhanced features and better defaults.
  • Key features include color-coded file types, symlink support, extended attributes, Git integration, and human-readable dates.
  • eza aims to be more user-friendly and feature-rich, with additional support for hyperlinking, mount point details, SELinux context, and bright terminal colors.

Reactions

  • Eza is introduced as a modern and actively maintained replacement for the traditional ls command, which lists directory contents in Unix-like operating systems.
  • The discussion highlights user frustrations with "human-readable dates" in directory listings, advocating for exact timestamps instead of relative time formats like "1 day ago."
  • The post also mentions other modern command-line tools that users prefer over traditional ones, such as bat (a cat replacement with syntax highlighting) and rg (ripgrep, a faster alternative to grep).

How much money we can raise for transparently idiotic startups?

Reactions

  • The post discusses the phenomenon of raising funds for startups with seemingly nonsensical ideas, highlighting the ease with which capital can be obtained for such ventures.
  • It critiques the startup ecosystem, suggesting it operates like a "pump and dump" scheme, moving from one trendy field to another, often wasting resources.
  • The conversation includes examples of successful startups and debates the value and impact of focus groups and MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) in product development.

A source-available billing system I've spent 18 months building

  • The platform offers deep integration with Stripe, enabling comprehensive control over billing, tax management, and automated workflows.
  • Features include managing tax rates at various levels, creating custom subscription plans, and integrating with tools like Slack and email providers.
  • The system supports scalability, self-hosting, and provides detailed business insights such as subscription churn and lifetime value.

Reactions

  • A new source-available billing system, Billabear, has been launched after 18 months of development, offering features similar to Stripe but with the source code available under the Fair Source License (FSL).
  • The FSL allows users to access the source code, which transitions to an Apache 2.0 license after two years, providing more flexibility and control compared to Stripe's closed-source model.
  • Discussions highlight the importance of source availability for some users, the need for better localization in various languages, and concerns about handling US state sales tax and GDPR compliance.

The workers have spoken: They're staying home

  • Dell's policy requiring in-office presence for promotions was largely ignored, with many employees opting to stay home.
  • A Gartner report indicates that 48% of employees believe company mandates favor leaders' preferences over their own needs.
  • Remote work is increasingly preferred for its benefits, including no commutes, better work-life balance, cost savings, and flexibility, with high performers seeking remote opportunities.

Reactions

  • Workers are reluctant to return to offices due to poor environments, lack of permanent desks, and productivity issues in open-plan setups.
  • Many employees find remote work more efficient and are resistant to returning to suboptimal office conditions, with commutes being a significant factor.
  • Some companies are using return-to-office mandates as a strategy to reduce headcount without resorting to layoffs, fueling the ongoing debate on optimal work arrangements.

Apollo DN10000: Quad CPU/128Mb RAM workstation from 1988 [pdf]

Reactions

  • The Apollo DN10000, a quad CPU workstation with 128MB RAM from 1988, is being nostalgically discussed for its historical significance and technical capabilities.
  • Users recall its use in university labs and its role in early graphics programming, despite its complex Unix environment and configuration challenges.
  • The machine's high cost, up to $250,000 in the 1980s (equivalent to about $660,000 today), highlights its premium status and the significant technological advancements since then.

CrowdStrike's Falcon Sensor also linked to Linux kernel panics and crashes

  • CrowdStrike's Falcon Sensor software has caused system crashes on both Windows and Linux, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.4, Debian, and Rocky Linux.
  • Disabling the Falcon Sensor temporarily stabilizes affected systems, and CrowdStrike is testing a rapid recovery tool to address the issue.
  • The disruption has had significant global impacts, including flight cancellations and healthcare delays, with Microsoft estimating 8.5 million Windows machines affected.

Reactions

  • CrowdStrike's Falcon Sensor has been associated with Linux kernel panics and crashes, distinct from Windows BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) issues.
  • The Linux kernel panics are likely due to a bug in the kernel's eBPF (Extended Berkeley Packet Filter) implementation, potentially from a Red Hat-specific patch, indicating a kernel bug rather than a vendor issue.
  • The discussion highlights the challenges of supporting multiple OS versions and the complexities involved in kernel module testing, emphasizing the differences in kernel reliability engineering between Linux and Windows.