ahh's comments

ahh | 3 years ago | on: Do not taunt happy fun branch predictor

Interestingly, Matt has invented a variant on the retpoline [1] which _intentionally_ missteers the branch predictor to prevent various speculative attacks. (Invented by my former Google manager.). It's pretty cool how much simpler a retpoline would be in aarch64, since we have explicit control over the link register rather than having to play stupid games with stacks.

(Real retpolines have a little more magic, naturally.)

[1]https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48089426/what-is-a-retpo...

ahh | 3 years ago | on: Challenging algorithms and data structures every programmer should try

> Do they have special interview channels for 'regular devs' and another for people who can write dynamo ?

Not special interviews, but certainly different pieces of headcount. There are Googlers and there are Googlers. Being the second is a lot more work, but a lot more interesting.

ahh | 3 years ago | on: New York rolling out noise law, listening tech for souped-up speedsters

> In 2021, New Yorkers filed the most complaints about engine idling since 2018: 13,489 complaints. The police issued 75 summons in response to complaints, data shows. > Specifically, police issued 14 summonses for excessive vehicle noise — the most between 2018 and the present, a period in which the police issued a total of 26 excessive vehicle noise summonses.

There is one dude who drives past my window on 6th Ave, every single morning, at 7 AM, with an engine so loud it rattles glass ten stories up. That should be 365.24 summons/year, _for that guy_.

Until the cops choose to enforce the laws, nothing will fucking change. I'm thrilled the government is claiming to care here, but until anyone chooses to have these people hanged from the yardarm^W^W^W^W nothing will fucking change.

By the way, did you know it is _illegal_ to honk your horn in NYC outside of an emergency? Neither do the the people honking constantly outside my window! Why doesn't the NYPD just fine all of these people every single day until it stops? They could fund the entire department! But they simply don't care.

Many of my friends dream happily of enforcing vigilante justice for the loud motorists. I personally would be thrilled if this guy:

>But Pennachio conceded he has modified four of the 11 cars he owns to enhance the rumbling of the engine, as a matter of pleasure, not safety. “Just to know you’re in a beefier man’s car,” he said.

was evicted from the city. He is a horrible person with no redeeming characteristics and doesn't deserve to live in society.

ahh | 4 years ago | on: Shoplifting reaches crisis proportions

You are welcome to advocate for pleasant, humane prisons. Run whatever antirecidivism campaigns you wish there. If they work, that's great.

In either case: send people who commit crime to those prisons. If they do it again, send them back.

ahh | 4 years ago | on: Shoplifting reaches crisis proportions

No, the issue is that we don't have the political will to arrest, prosecute, and imprison criminals, until our societies consist of people who don't commit crime.

ahh | 4 years ago | on: Shoplifting reaches crisis proportions

I think you're misinterpreting GP: even though it is true that possession-like crimes are badly handled by the US, you can erase them entirely and the US _still_ has a larger prison population. Our population commits more real crimes than most first-world countries. Treating addiction like an illness seems nice, but will not stop that. We either must imprison them (which don't do _enough_) or convince them not to commit crimes (which actually prosecuting crimes _might_ help with, and very little else we've tried does.)

ahh | 4 years ago | on: Shoplifting reaches crisis proportions

That's nice. Feel free to fix the prison system at any time; if the people who come out don't commit more crimes, I'll be happy.

In the meantime, imprison the people who do commit crimes, and if they do so again after they're out, imprison them again.

ahh | 4 years ago | on: Shoplifting reaches crisis proportions

Because it's fun, easy, and beats working.

Unless we arrest, prosecute, and imprison them. Or punish them other ways; how about flogging? It's arguably both a better deterrent and more humane than prison.

Saying "Sure, go ahead!" is better for no one.

ahh | 4 years ago | on: Shoplifting reaches crisis proportions

If only 1/5th of those prisoners are there for drug-crime (and I assume you believe as I do that much drug-related crime isn't worth the arrest?) then isn't that in fact evidence that our population commits substantially more _real_ crime than in other countries?

If so, then yes, let's lock them up. "Everyone steals" is not a good defense to stealing.

ahh | 5 years ago | on: Against Alcohol

The causation is backwards!

I'm not an alcoholic but I am an anxious wreck. Single best way to make me stop freaking out at a party? Two old fashioneds.

I'd prefer to be gregarious and unworried sober, but that's not an option. (Yes, there are other approaches. This works better than all of them.)

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