1. The Origins of DS_store (2006)
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Summary
The “.DS_Store” files on Mac computers were named after the back-end of the Finder, which dealt with file enumeration, metadata, and other functions. The back-end was referred to as Finder_BE, and there were plans to make it available as a public API, so the name “Desktop Services” was chosen. The “.DS_Store” files were meant to store information related to the desktop services. Unfortunately, there is a bug that leads to excessive creation of these files, and they are created even when there are no adjustments made to view settings or icon locations. The back-end, now called Desktop Services, is also used by Navigation Services, but the API has not been fully released.
Top 1 Comment Summary
This article discusses the concept of the “fork” in Mac file systems and how it caused confusion. Unlike the function “fork()”, the fork in file systems refers to a resource and data component that exist as a pair. In Unix, the metadata was stored in the directory block inode and had to be represented separately in file formats like tar, cpio, or zip. To support Mac-compatible files in Unix, the resource fork had to be treated as a first-class component, which was done by having a “.file” beside each file. Mapping all the properties of the resource fork into an inode block was not possible in the UFS file system, as it contained additional data like icons.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author of the article mentions that there used to be ways to disable the creation of “.DS_Store” files on a Mac, but those methods have since been removed. The author expresses confusion over why this change was made and mentions that they had to write a program to monitor the file system and delete any “.DS_Store” files that are created. The program can be found at the provided GitHub link.
2. Should this be a map or 500 maps?
Total comment counts : 20
Summary
This article tells the story of an unrealized map from the 18th century. Spain’s geographer, Tomás Lopez, attempted to create an accurate map by asking local priests to draw maps of their provinces. However, the priests lacked cartography training, resulting in a collection of inconsistent and incompatible maps. Despite the failure, the author highlights two opposing lessons about shared protocols and modularity. While the experiment failed due to the lack of a standardized process, the individuality and expressiveness of the maps are celebrated. The article goes on to discuss the concept of modularity in design and how it can limit expressiveness. The author gives examples of personal maps and news article designs to illustrate this point.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author, Elan, agrees with comments stating that the statement “modularity is inversely correlated with expressiveness” is oversimplified. They removed some caveats in the article to avoid confusion. They mention that HTML is a flexible protocol that allows for expressiveness while also making certain decisions that limit certain forms of expression. Squarespace is given as an example of a product with exceptional modularity that makes expressiveness a challenge. The author encourages further discussion on this topic. They also mention that they don’t have access to all 500 maps mentioned in the article but are willing to share higher resolution versions of the maps they do have.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author expresses a dislike for news articles that are overly designed and prefers simple layouts with minimal distractions. They also mention that individual maps with whimsical and idiosyncratic designs are often more annoying than enjoyable in practice.
3. Beating NumPy matrix multiplication in 150 lines of C
Total comment counts : 19
Summary
In this article, the author shares their implementation of high-performance matrix multiplication on a CPU. The code is designed to be simple, portable, and scalable, following the BLIS design. The implementation achieves over 1 TFLOPS of peak performance on an AMD Ryzen 7700 CPU and is parallelized using OpenMP directives. The author encourages feedback on the performance of the code on different CPUs. The article also discusses the importance of matrix multiplication in neural networks and the use of BLAS libraries like OpenBLAS in optimizing matrix operations. The author shares their motivation for developing a different implementation and references tutorials and papers on matrix multiplication algorithms. The article concludes with details on how to perform benchmarks and the number of floating-point operations required for matrix multiplication.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the performance of optimized Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms (BLAS) implementations, specifically OpenBLAS and BLIS. The author mentions that optimized BLASes are performant, with CPU usage reaching over 90% for large matrices. They suggest using the papers referenced in the BLIS repository as the authoritative reference for understanding this topic. The author also questions why people use numpy instead of benchmark frameworks for performance comparison and suggests comparing AMD’s BLAS (based on BLIS) on Zen architectures. They point out that BLIS has better parallelization capabilities compared to OpenBLAS. Additionally, the article mentions that SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) intrinsics are not necessary for micro-kernel vectorization, as a good C compiler can fully vectorize and unroll it. The author highlights that BLIS’ pure C micro-kernel achieves over 80% of the performance of hand-optimized implementations on Haswell processors, with the difference potentially being attributed to prefetching, although the author admits not fully understanding it.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article emphasizes that there is often untapped performance potential in software, particularly in matrix multiplication (matmul) libraries. It suggests that significant improvements can be achieved without extensive effort by considering the following factors: choosing better algorithms, reducing round trips to the kernel and heavy operations, vectorizing data, optimizing for cache efficiency, and utilizing hardware-specific techniques such as intrinsics and assembly coding. The article highlights that performance is often overlooked by developers, so even minor optimization efforts can yield significant gains.
4. Shipt’s algorithm squeezed gig workers, who fought back
Total comment counts : 15
Summary
The article discusses how gig workers for the app-based delivery company Shipt noticed a decrease in their paychecks and decided to investigate. Previously, workers received a base pay plus a percentage of the customer’s order, but Shipt changed the payment rules without informing workers and implemented a new algorithm that determined pay based on factors like effort, order amount, shopping time, and mileage. Workers formed partnerships with researchers and organizations to analyze their pay data and discovered that the algorithm had cut pay for 40% of workers. They were able to challenge the opaque authority of algorithms and create transparency despite the company’s lack of detailed information. The article highlights the case of a worker named Willy Solis, who started collecting screenshots of pay receipts and eventually collaborated with the author, a data scientist, to analyze the data. The author saw this as an opportunity to work with a community and help its members control and leverage their own data. The article also mentions the poor working conditions and treatment of delivery gig workers during the pandemic.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article argues that while gig workers such as Shipt employees are vulnerable, the data analysis presented in the article does not support the claim that pay cuts are unfair. The author suggests that a redistribution of pay often leads to some workers receiving less, while others receive more. They give a hypothetical situation where a fairer algorithm is implemented, resulting in a similar pattern of some workers getting paid less while others get paid more. The author concludes that the data does show pay discrepancies, but it does not necessarily prove unfairness.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the concept of adverse selection in a gig marketplace’s pricing model. It explains that having jobs that are strictly better can lead to sophisticated workers taking all the best jobs, leaving less desirable ones for less sophisticated workers. The article suggests that preference optionality is preferred, where workers have different preferences and are fairly compensated for them. It concludes that while the change in the pricing model may not be unfair, better communication could have been implemented.
5. Building a data compression utility in Haskell using Huffman codes
Total comment counts : 15
Summary
The article discusses the implementation of a data compression program using Huffman coding in Haskell. The program is designed to handle arbitrary binary files with constant memory usage for encoding and decoding. Huffman coding involves mapping characters to unique bit sequences, where common characters are assigned shorter bit sequences and rare characters are assigned longer ones. This results in compression, where common characters are represented with fewer bits compared to their uncompressed representation. The article explains the process of creating Huffman codes by building a binary tree, with more frequent characters closer to the root. The article also provides an example of encoding and decoding using Huffman codes. Finally, the article discusses the implementation of the encoder and decoder functions in Haskell.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses an in-place algorithm for compressing data using minimum-redundancy codes. The author mentions that while the traditional tree-based approach is commonly taught, there is an alternative method that uses arrays. The author believes that working with arrays is more practical for situations where compression and speed are important. They also provide a link to a paper on the in-place calculation of minimum-redundancy codes.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the idea of making code words unambiguous by ensuring that no code word is a prefix of another code word. However, it is pointed out that this statement is not entirely correct. Uniquely decodable codes, which include prefix codes, are a class of codes that are unambiguous. An example of a uniquely decodable code is the reverse of a prefix code. Although the code for ‘a’ is a prefix of the code for ‘c’ in the example given, it is still possible to decode any code sequence unambiguously by processing it in reverse order. The article suggests that it would be interesting to find a uniquely decodable code that is neither a prefix code nor its reverse.
6. Sans-IO: The secret to effective Rust for network services
Total comment counts : 15
Summary
The article discusses the use of Rust in building secure remote access systems. It focuses on the connlib connectivity library, which manages network connections and WireGuard tunnels. The author describes the design of connlib as sans-IO, meaning it implements protocols as pure state machines and abstracts away tasks like sending and receiving bytes via a socket. The article also discusses the constraint of async functions in Rust and the desire to write code that is agnostic over the “asyncness” of dependencies. The author provides an example of implementing a STUN protocol using tokio’s UdpSocket and compares it to a blocking IO implementation. The article concludes by mentioning that writing sans-IO code is one way to solve the duplication issue.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author of the article explains that the implementation of async/await in Rust has brought significant productivity improvements to their embedded firmware development. They no longer have to manually create state machines and handle variable marshalling between each I/O operation because Rust now takes care of that automatically through the async/await syntax. The article concludes by highlighting that async in Rust essentially transforms into an automatic state machine that saves values across I/O points.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author of the article discusses a problem they were pondering and how they stumbled upon a great approach to solving it. They were working on a VT100 library and were struggling with unit testing. They realized that they were using an anti-pattern called “encapsulation infatuation” and saw its negative effects. The author acknowledges that this solution is taught early on in education but is often forgotten or ignored. They state that Rust has been a journey of unlearning for them and express their intention to adopt this new approach. The article includes a link to the relevant code.
7. Diffusion Forcing: Next-Token Prediction Meets Full-Sequence Diffusion
Total comment counts : 6
Summary
The article discusses a model called Diffusion Forcing that combines the strengths of teacher forcing and diffusion models. Diffusion Forcing achieves flexible and compositional generation by training sequence diffusion with different noise levels for each token. It allows for behaviors such as stabilizing auto-regressive rollout, guidance over a long horizon, and planning with causal uncertainty. The article provides synthesized videos to demonstrate the stable and consistent video prediction achieved by Diffusion Forcing compared to other models. The model can also generate longer videos without using a sliding window approach. Diffusion Forcing is able to model causal relationships and perform planning tasks by defining each token as an action and an observation. The model can handle non-markovian tasks and is robust to distractions at test time.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses a new approach that combines sequence masking and diffusion models to denoise images. The technique involves tracking an “uncertainty” level per pixel, which serves as the “noise” level for the diffusion model. This allows for fractional masking, where parts of the image can be firmed up earlier than others. The article mentions applications such as maze solving and controlling a robot arm to move fruit. The author finds the idea profound and interesting, but notes that there are many details not covered in the paper, including the setup of specific tasks and the architecture of the model.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses Russ, who is currently involved in diffusion, and speculates that it must have significant relevance to the field of robotics.
8. The Sphere
Total comment counts : 23
Summary
The article discusses the author’s experience at The Sphere, a music and entertainment venue in Las Vegas with a 16K screen, claimed to be the highest resolution in the world. The author describes the immersive film experience called Postcard from Earth and highlights a moment inside a cave where they felt genuinely transported. The article also mentions the use of practical effects, such as rumbling seats and scents, to enhance the experience. The author compares The Sphere to other immersive experiences, like Disney’s Soarin’ and watching Avatar in 3D, but notes that they were more impressed by those older rides. However, the author acknowledges that the cave scene in Postcard from Earth at The Sphere was truly immersive.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article highlights that U2’s performance was impressive and well-suited for the format, but the experience of Postcards from Earth was disappointing. The video had errors, such as curved pillars and trees, that were not corrected. Additionally, the tickets were considered expensive, starting at least $100. A notable irony mentioned was that while the story had an environmentalist theme, it was being displayed on the world’s largest LED screen in an air conditioned venue in the desert.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article suggests visiting Carlsbad Caverns, or a similar large cave system, for a surreal experience. The author describes feeling in awe and compares the size of the enclosure to being in an aircraft hanger multiplied by ten. They mention that there are no human-built structures as large, and the experience is different from anywhere else.
9. The History of Machine Learning in Trackmania
Total comment counts : 10
Summary
The article discusses the game Trackmania (2020) and its main event called Cup of the Day (CotD), where players race against each other to set the fastest time on a track. The goal is to create a program using machine learning techniques that can win Division 1 of the Cup of the Day without prior knowledge of the track. The article explains how machine learning techniques typically require massive amounts of data and processing time, but the goal is to achieve nontrivial goals with limited training data and computing power. The article also mentions the existence of several autonomous programs that can play Trackmania, but their progress and capabilities are not fully known. The article refers to an earlier attempt at creating a self-driving car in Trackmania using supervised learning techniques.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article provides an overview of the challenges faced by projects that involve training AI agents using reinforcement learning in video games. The author, a developer of a TAS (Tool-Assisted Speedrun) tool for the game TrackMania, discusses the various aspects that need to be taken care of in order to set up training for RL agents in games. These include speeding up the game, controlling the vehicle, accessing simulation information, navigating menus, skipping cut scenes, capturing screenshots, and more. Implementing these functionalities natively can improve stability and performance. The article also mentions the Linesight project, which has made significant progress in approaching world records. The developers have made the setup process easy and documented it. The article provides links to relevant resources for further information.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the author’s recent experiences playing Trackmania, a challenging game, and their admiration for professional players. The author became interested in the game after watching the streamer Wirtual attempt to win a $30,000 prize by beating the game’s most difficult map, Deep Dip 2. This map features a tower climb with the rule that falling requires starting over from the beginning. The author mentions that Wirtual spent several hundred hours playing the map over a few weeks and experienced over 1,500 falls before ultimately giving up.
10. Finding near-duplicates with Jaccard similarity and MinHash
Total comment counts : 7
Summary
The article discusses the method of approximate deduplication using Jaccard similarity and the MinHash approximation trick. The approach involves defining a similarity measure between documents and searching for pairs where the similarity value is above a threshold. The Jaccard index, which compares sets and calculates the ratio of overlap to the union, is used as a measure of similarity. The article explains how to convert textual documents into sets and then compute the Jaccard similarity. To avoid the quadratic cost of comparing every pair of documents, the article explores the use of hashing and locality-sensitive hashing techniques. The goal is to find a small, fixed-size signature for each document that can be used to group similar documents together. Sampling is used as a strategy to estimate the Jaccard similarity ratio. The article ends by discussing the process of generating a random sample from the union of two sets.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the use of set-based metrics such as the Jaccard similarity and F1 score with fuzzy sets. It explains that using fuzzy sets requires selecting a suitable T-Norm/T-Conorm pair to express intersection and union. The author provides an example of validating medical image segmentations using probabilistic/fuzzy sets instead of binary masks. The article also criticizes the common practice of simply thresholding at 0.5 to obtain binary sets, which can decrease the precision of the validation operator significantly. The author suggests that it is important to consider the potential error margin when claiming algorithm superiority. The article includes links to related resources.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article mentions that the writer worked with a client who implemented their own Python version to remove duplicate citizen entries in a French government database. The writer suggests using datasketch instead. They also mention that there are other new tools available on the same topic, such as rensa, which is a specialized and faster version of datasketch minhash written in Rust with a Python component.