zomia.news

1nov2023

Apple unveils M3

A few things I noticed, as I'm seeing the variety of SKUs becoming more complex.

• Note that memory bandwidth is down. M2 Pro had 200GB/s, M3 Pro only has 150GB/s. M3 Max only has 400GB/s on the higher binned part.
• Just like the low-spec M3 14" has one fewer Thunderbolt port, it also doesn't officially support Thunderbolt 4 (like M1/M2 before it)
• The M3 Pro loses the option for an 8TB SSD. Likely because it was a low volume part for that spec.
• The M3 Pro actually has more E-cores than the Max (6 vs 4). Interesting to see them take this away on a higher-specced part; seems like Intel wouldn't do this

Use YouTube to improve your English pronunciation with YouGlish

Good alternative to reverso.net in many situations, especially when you need to say something

Rob Pike's 5 Rules of Programming

• Rule 1. You can't tell where a program is going to spend its time. Bottlenecks occur in surprising places, so don't try to second guess and put in a speed hack until you've proven that's where the bottleneck is.
• Rule 2. Measure. Don't tune for speed until you've measured, and even then don't unless one part of the code overwhelms the rest.
• Rule 3. Fancy algorithms are slow when n is small, and n is usually small. Fancy algorithms have big constants. Until you know that n is frequently going to be big, don't get fancy. (Even if n does get big, use Rule 2 first.)
• Rule 4. Fancy algorithms are buggier than simple ones, and they're much harder to implement. Use simple algorithms as well as simple data structures.
• Rule 5. Data dominates. If you've chosen the right data structures and organized things well, the algorithms will almost always be self-evident. Data structures, not algorithms, are central to programming.

Pike's rules 1 and 2 restate Tony Hoare's famous maxim "Premature optimization is the root of all evil." Ken Thompson rephrased Pike's rules 3 and 4 as "When in doubt, use brute force.". Rules 3 and 4 are instances of the design philosophy KISS. Rule 5 was previously stated by Fred Brooks in The Mythical Man-Month. Rule 5 is often shortened to "write stupid code that uses smart objects".

31oct2023

Romance book covers evolution throughout history

The thing nobody talks about with engineering management is this:

Every 3-4 months every person experiences some sort of personal crisis. A family member dies, they have a bad illness, they get into an argument with another person at work, etc. etc. Sadly, that is just life. Normally after a month or so things settle down and life goes on.

But when you are managing 6+ people it means there is always a crisis you are helping someone work through. You are always carrying a bit of emotional burden or worry around with you.

Twitter of Chris Albon

27oct2023

Twitter is dead and Threads is thriving

26oct2023

GPT-4V-Act

В последних версиях GPT4 появилось внятное распознавание образов. Чувак приделал его к браузеру и получил бота который умеет по команде что-то делать в сети. По ссылке достуно интересное видео как GPT самостоятельно находит и проигрывает рандомную музыку

Engineering Management Checklist

Like SQLlite but for Clickhouse

Законы индийской республики запрещают приданое и отдельно оговаривают, что любое требование приданого - это вымогательство. Женщина и ее семья имеют право пожаловаться в таком случае властям. Но на практике без приданого браки играют очень редко - и это известно решительно всем. Почему законы так суровы? Дело в том, что приданое в индийской культуре разрослось до совершенно неприличных масштабов: это подчас килограммы золота, автомобили, дома

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Не плати - и ты рискнешь собственной дочерью, потому что, как это ни ужасно, существует довольно широко распространенная практика убийств молодых жен, принесших недостаточное приданое

Из рассылки Константина Михайлова