1. .INTERNAL is now reserved for private-use applications
Total comment counts : 27
Summary
This article discusses the actions taken by the ICANN Board regarding recommendations from the Competition, Consumer Trust, and Consumer Choice (CCT) Review Team. The Board initially placed 17 recommendations into pending status and committed to taking further action after completing intermediate steps. On different dates, the Board took action on some of these recommendations, including 11 in October 2020 and two in September 2023. The Organizational Effectiveness Committee considered a study commissioned by ICANN org, which examined potential impacts on competition and suggested non-pricing data elements for assessing competition in the domain name market. On July 18, 2024, the Committee recommended rejecting recommendations 2, 3, 4, and 5, an action that was subsequently approved by the Board. The Board also directed the ICANN Interim President and CEO to evaluate and supplement existing metrics with additional data elements that indicate competition and consumer welfare.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses frustrations with the use of a private certificate authority (CA) in the “.internal” domain. It highlights the difficulties organizations face in establishing trust for the private CA on all internal systems, especially when incorporating BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) or contractor systems.
The author suggests using a publicly valid domain, which allows for benefits such as using a free public CA like Lets Encrypt. This approach ensures that every machine will trust internal certificates without any extra effort. To automate this process, the author developed “getlocalcert,” a free tool that enables the registration of a subdomain, publishing TXT records for ACME DNS certificate validation, and utilizing an internal DNS server for private use.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses whether it is better to use a top-level domain (TLD) like .internal or a regular generic TLD like .com for private-use applications. The author suggests that using a regular domain name as the root is preferable because it provides flexibility to make the name visible on the internet, even if it is entirely private and internal. Having this flexibility is advantageous for security models like zero-trust and allows for future changes without renaming the system. The author recommends using a publicly owned domain name but only publishing records for the domain on the private network, while still having the option to make them public later. The article cites Amazon’s strategy for using a .com domain as the root for all services, even those only reachable from private networks, to simplify naming and certificate management. However, there are tradeoffs, such as the potential disclosure of information through the presence of names in Certificate Transparency logs.
2. Urchin Software Corp: The unlikely origin story of Google Analytics (2016)
Total comment counts : 28
Summary
The article is a personal reflection on the history of Urchin Software Corporation, a web analytics company that was acquired by Google in 2005. The author, Scott Crosby, explains how the company was founded in 1995 by him and Paul Muret, and they initially started by building websites for businesses. They acquired customers slowly and had small businesses paying a monthly fee for their services. They eventually leased office space and signed larger clients like Sharp Healthcare and Solar Turbines. The first version of their product, Urchin, was created when Paul developed a log analyzer to accurately bill for bandwidth consumed. The breakthrough came when they became the web analytics solution for American Honda after finding out that their previous solution couldn’t process logs in a timely manner. The author concludes by reflecting on the success they achieved despite not following the trend of raising large amounts of funding.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The UTM, or Urchin Traffic Monitor, was a tool used to add cookies to Apache or IIS log files in order to track unique visitors. The term “utm” is now commonly used as a prefix for link tracking parameters, even outside of Google Analytics.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author describes their experience using Urchin, a software that they found to be cool and truly analytical. They credit Urchin for introducing them to concepts such as data analysis, design, software as a service, and acquisitions, which had a significant impact on their future career.
3. Grace Hopper, Nvidia’s Halfway APU
Total comment counts : 13
Summary
Nvidia and AMD are the main competitors in the high performance GPU space. While Nvidia has a larger market share, AMD’s CPU capabilities make it a strong competitor, particularly in consoles and supercomputers. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Frontier supercomputer is an example of this, as it uses AMD CPUs and GPUs connected via Infinity Fabric. Nvidia has its own high-speed interconnect called NVLink, and has also bundled CPUs with its GPUs in products like the Nintendo Switch. Nvidia’s latest CPU effort, codenamed Grace Hopper, aims to bring its CPU capabilities into high performance territory. Grace Hopper combines a CPU consisting of 72 Neoverse V2 cores with Nvidia’s top-of-the-line H100 datacenter GPU. The CPU and GPU have separate memory pools, with the GPU having dedicated HBM3 memory for high bandwidth. The CPU and GPU are connected using Nvidia’s proprietary interconnect called NVLink C2C, which offers high bandwidth and hardware coherency support. Overall, Grace Hopper provides good performance, particularly in terms of bandwidth, thanks to its CPU-GPU integration and proprietary interconnect.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the potential impact of AI becoming “self-hosted” and how it could benefit AMD’s APUs and interconnect technology. It suggests that while Nvidia may still excel in AI training, AMD’s ability to offer a single device capable of performing tasks like inference, rendering, and computing could position them as the winner in this scenario. However, the author acknowledges the need for further input from someone with more expertise in AI scaling. The article also raises the question of whether the current state of things is relevant in light of these considerations.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the performance of the Supermicro ARS-111GL-NHR with a Nvidia GH200 chipset. It highlights that the benchmarks performed significantly better with the RHEL 9 aarch64+64k kernel compared to the standard aarch64 kernel, especially with LLM workloads. However, it does not explicitly mention which kernel was used in the tests.
4. Building a highly-available web service without a database
Total comment counts : 43
Summary
The blog post discusses a new architecture for web development that challenges the traditional approach of using separate databases and web service frameworks. The author suggests using a single server with more RAM and CPU, where the web service and database instance are combined, eliminating the need for serialization of data into SQL queries. In this architecture, data is stored in memory, and in-memory indices are used for efficient data retrieval. Debugging becomes easier, and background jobs can be run as threads within the process. The article also explains how to handle process crashes by periodically taking snapshots of the data in RAM and using transaction logs to recover the state. Additionally, the new architecture allows for the storage of closures in memory, eliminating the need for object serialization across page transitions.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article suggests that if your data can be stored in one server, it’s best to run the database on that server without worrying too much about special architectures or reducing round-trips. If the data can fit entirely in RAM, using a ramdisk for the database and replicating it to permanent storage with standard tools is a simple solution.
Top 2 Comment Summary
This article criticizes a strategy of keeping things simple by creating an in-memory database without separate instances of popular databases. The author suggests several complex steps to achieve this, including serializing transactions, writing to disk, orchestrating web servers, synchronizing transaction logs, implementing conflict resolution, sharding web servers, and implementing a load balancing layer. The author concludes that this strategy is not simple as it may seem.
5. Susan Wojcicki has died
Total comment counts : 41
Summary
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Top 1 Comment Summary
The author expresses shock upon hearing news about YouTube. They believe YouTube is one of the most successful businesses in the past 15 years and would be worth around $400 billion if not part of Alphabet. YouTube is described as a mix of a creator monetization network, a music channel, an education platform, a collection of niche content, and a utility. The article acknowledges YouTube’s innovative approach to creator monetization and notes its expansion into music, podcasts, and challenging Apple. YouTube TV is also praised as a good product. The author emphasizes YouTube’s brand, reach, monetization, and endurance within Google, attributing its success to effective management. The author personally values YouTube for its diverse content and cannot imagine a world without it.
Top 2 Comment Summary
This article discusses the impactful career of Susan Wojcicki, who is often associated with YouTube. She played a key role in various Google projects, including the creation of the Google logo, Google Doodles, Image Search, AdSense, and YouTube. The article suggests that Google owes much of its success today to Wojcicki’s contributions.
6. A wonderful coincidence or an expected connection: why π² ≈ g
Total comment counts : 44
Summary
This article explores the strange relationship between the mathematical constant π and the acceleration due to gravity, g. The author questions why π squared is approximately equal to g and delves into the history of the meter, which is related to π. The article explains that the 17th-century proposal for a “standard-free” definition of the meter involved using a simple pendulum, and the formula for the period of small oscillations of the pendulum includes π. However, the article notes that the equality between π squared and g is only approximate due to changes in the meter over time.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses a situation where a certain value loses its significance when expressed in different units. The author argues that this pattern would typically indicate a coincidence, but in this particular case, it does not.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article suggests that if the length of a meter was defined as the length of a seconds pendulum, then the acceleration due to gravity, g, would equal exactly π². The equation for the seconds pendulum is T = 2π√(L/g), and by substituting T = 2 seconds and L = 1 meter, the article derives the equation g = π² m/s². This relationship would hold true in any strength of gravity, but it would result in different values for the length of a meter depending on the strength of gravity. The proposal was originally suggested by Talleyrand in 1790.
7. Hal Hickel on Creating Tarkin for Rogue One
Total comment counts : 14
Summary
The article is a blog post by Todd Vaziri, who worked on the digital human team for the creation of Grand Moff Tarkin in the film “Rogue One.” The purpose of the article is to provide insight into the process of creating Tarkin and clarify any misconceptions or criticisms about his appearance in the film. Vaziri mentions that many people who saw the movie were unaware that Tarkin was a digital creation and thought he was portrayed by a regular human actor. The article includes a response from Hal Hickel, the animation supervisor for “Rogue One,” who explains the process used to create Tarkin. They hired an actor, filmed them in costume, and replaced the actor’s head with a CG Tarkin head. In some shots, they opted for full CG replacement of both the head and body. The actor chosen, Guy Henry, had a physical resemblance to the original actor, Peter Cushing, but the intention was not for him to do an exact impression. Henry’s voice and facial expressions were recorded simultaneously during filming, and no special makeup or physical alterations were used.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the author’s enjoyment of the movie Rogue One and praises its exploration of a previously unexplored part of the Star Wars universe. It mentions that the character of Takin may have felt a bit off due to CGI, but overall it was a good choice to include him. The author also expresses a desire for more exploration of the “mundane” aspects of Star Wars, as seen in the show Andor. The article also highlights the effectiveness of the Empire and the motivation of one of the characters to join the Rebels. Finally, it mentions a memorable exchange between characters and compares it to a discussion about ethics in Jurassic Park.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author criticizes the animation of the character Tarkin in the film Rogue One, stating that while the rendering may not have been the issue, the movement of the character felt unnatural and hand-animated rather than motion-captured. The article suggests that facial expressions were either captured or recreated by an animator, but it is unclear why the resulting movement was poor. The author also compares the portrayal of a younger Hugh Jackman in the film Logan, which they found impressive, and questions why the Tarkin model in Rogue One was not of higher quality. They mention that later depictions of Luke Skywalker and Carrie Fisher in the Mandalorian and the later Star Wars series were better in comparison.
8. Ask HN: Resources about math behind A/B testing
Total comment counts : 25
Summary
The article provides recommendations for books and resources on experimental design, survey research, and online A/B testing. Some recommended books include Donald Wheeler’s “Understanding Variation,” Deming’s “Some Theory of Sampling” and “Sample Design in Business Research,” and Efron and Tibshirani’s “Introduction to the Bootstrap.” Additional recommendations are provided for online resources and tools related to A/B testing.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article emphasizes that incorrect procedures, rather than complex mathematics, are what typically lead people into trouble. The author recommends reading traditional texts on experimental design and survey research as a way to understand the various ways an experiment can go wrong. They specifically mention Donald Wheeler’s “Understanding Variation” and Deming’s “Some Theory of Sampling” and “Sample Design in Business Research” as highly recommended readings. Additionally, the author suggests Efron and Tibshirani’s “Introduction to the Bootstrap” for gaining a different perspective on experimental errors. They apologize for not being able to remember the specific book on survey design that they liked.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article suggests two recommended resources for learning about statistical A/B testing: the book “Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments” by Kohavi, Tang, and Xu, and the article “Statistical Methods in Online A/B Testing” by Georgi Georgiev. The article also mentions other books, courses, and videos available on O’Reilly for further learning. Additionally, it suggests exploring Evan’s tools and examining the JavaScript code to understand how they work. The article provides a link to Evan’s tools and a specific JavaScript file for analysis.
9. Caltech Develops First Noninvasive Method to Continually Measure Blood Pressure
Total comment counts : 16
Summary
A team of researchers from Caltech has developed a noninvasive method to continuously measure blood pressure anywhere on the body. The technique, called resonance sonomanometry, uses sound waves to stimulate resonance in an artery and then uses ultrasound imaging to measure the artery’s resonance frequency, providing an accurate measurement of blood pressure. The device, which is currently in prototype form, produces results comparable to those obtained with a blood pressure cuff. It has the potential to enable better vital-sign monitoring at home, in hospitals, and in remote locations with limited resources. The device is able to measure not only systolic and diastolic numbers, but the full waveform of blood pressure, providing more information about a person’s blood pressure. The team hopes to first use the device in hospitals, where it would connect to existing monitors. The method has the potential to expand access to high-quality blood pressure monitoring and cardiac health metrics.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author, who experienced a hypertensive crisis, is frustrated with how blood pressure is measured incorrectly in doctors’ offices and hospitals. Factors such as talking, movement, lack of rest, waking up, and unsupported position can impact blood pressure readings. The major health organizations provide guidelines on proper measurement, but these are often not followed due to time constraints. The author emphasizes the importance of taking multiple measurements to avoid misdiagnosis. They suggest that a more reliable method may exist, but acknowledge that it would still require time to collect data as blood pressure is influenced by behavior, posture, and activity.
Top 2 Comment Summary
Biobeat is a company that sells a patch for continuous 24-hour blood pressure measurement. The patch is placed on the chest and is reported to be in clinical use and effective. [1]
10. Deep Live Cam: Real-time face swapping and one-click video deepfake tool
Total comment counts : 32
Summary
The article discusses the features and capabilities of Deep Live Cam, an AI tool that specializes in real-time face swapping and video deepfakes. It highlights the tool’s ability to generate high-quality images and videos with just a single image as input. Deep Live Cam is compatible with various platforms and hardware setups, providing flexibility to users. It also emphasizes the importance of ethical use and includes built-in checks to prevent processing inappropriate content. The article provides instructions on how to use Deep Live Cam and offers tips for optimal results. It mentions that the tool is open-source and free to use, but advises reviewing the license terms for commercial use. The article concludes by encouraging users to explore the possibilities of Deep Live Cam for both entertainment and professional applications.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article claims to have built-in checks to prevent the processing of inappropriate content, thereby ensuring legal and ethical use. However, the examples shown on the website demo involve impersonation of famous people, including a politician. The reader questions what the authors consider “ethical” deepfaking and what the intended ethical use case of this technology is compared to other possibilities offered by AI.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses how deep-fake technology has become accessible to many people, allowing them to convincingly manipulate faces in real-time during video calls. This raises concerns about the trustworthiness of what can be seen on video calls. The author concludes by remarking on the interesting times we live in.