From denisovenator at gmail.com Wed Mar 4 12:58:35 2020 From: denisovenator at gmail.com (Victor Denisov) Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2020 04:58:35 -0800 Subject: Blog Aggregator and You Can, Too In-Reply-To: <20200224235806.hxwaabruoexugjge@begriffs.com> References: <20200223215745.GA8799@19a6.tech> <20200224235806.hxwaabruoexugjge@begriffs.com> Message-ID: Hi Joe, Could you please add mine: https://denisov.io/rss ? Thanks, Victor. On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 3:58 PM Joe Nelson wrote: > > Dave Bucklin wrote: > > Greetings. I've set up a blog aggregator at > > http://frostbyte.cc/blog.html > > It's cool to see how active list members are with writing. Great that > this aggregation requires no extra work on our part, too. Dave > configured it to auto-update. > > Anyway, those blogs are from a small fraction of people on the list. I > added just the feeds that were easy for me to find. If you have a feed > on your blog, please let us know and we'll add you! From dave at 19a6.net Thu Mar 5 03:15:39 2020 From: dave at 19a6.net (Dave Bucklin) Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2020 21:15:39 -0600 Subject: Blog Aggregator and You Can, Too In-Reply-To: References: <20200223215745.GA8799@19a6.tech> <20200224235806.hxwaabruoexugjge@begriffs.com> Message-ID: <20200305031539.GB11767@19a6.tech> On Wed, Mar 04, 2020 at 04:58:35AM -0800, Victor Denisov wrote: > Hi Joe, > > Could you please add mine: https://denisov.io/rss ? > > Thanks, > Victor. Added! From noelmiller at protonmail.com Sat Mar 7 16:04:20 2020 From: noelmiller at protonmail.com (Noel Miller) Date: Sat, 07 Mar 2020 16:04:20 +0000 Subject: Not Technology Related, But.. Message-ID: <16ac7077-d2ac-cc79-02b4-5e49e1b7c17c@protonmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 My son was born this last Thursday March 5th. It's been a harrowing journey so far as he was born with respiratory and lung issues. He was transferred to the neonatal ICU almost right away when he was born and ultimately got transferred to Children's Hospital. He's doing really great now and healing up fast, most all the tubes have come out to assist with breathing. I got a chance to hold him yesterday as I didn't get a chance to hold him when he was delivered. That being said, I will probably be less active on the mailing list and less available to come to meetings for a while if they are scheduled. I am looking forward to meeting up with you all once we get another meeting scheduled as I had a great time at the meeting that I was able to go to. Have a good day everyone! - Noel -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: ProtonMail wsBmBAEBCAAQBQJeY8YDCRB8HZRzFg9CAgAKCRB8HZRzFg9CAmomB/97ZFTw PWd9AboaSBJQuuzhTfuuGoDhdhgd39w6DcaZamSrT/4iRB1Mw7zgBg5AHjg0 R39pbxYFWDvJdh1gmivrpwG6is23pniZNlDoNAJzoVhaLUELSCPOSK0qshW6 TJMrVLXZcRBA8xXqsnv3hB805rk45lNL/OMU8Kkp9JfhnqTeTbQj1FSQOfQt K6FeTUmqWPGF2RtI0ZTuTnAsiuEhyI6qMI3E6T5vGBIMEwY6B0waue0aPg3s O0cNh7wtNK2+ZpCQZDY/knJl7ltF8531R281+jEuvdKGovn7ApLaPZRolvVx 3gDTp4GgJInEXYOPvUF2rw/SuceqET6fT0pT =jWTR -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From dklann at grunch.org Sat Mar 7 18:27:42 2020 From: dklann at grunch.org (David Klann) Date: Sat, 07 Mar 2020 12:27:42 -0600 Subject: Not Technology Related, But.. In-Reply-To: <16ac7077-d2ac-cc79-02b4-5e49e1b7c17c@protonmail.com> References: <16ac7077-d2ac-cc79-02b4-5e49e1b7c17c@protonmail.com> Message-ID: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 Congratulations Noel! On Sat, 2020-03-07 at 16:04 +0000, Noel Miller wrote: > My son was born this last Thursday March 5th. It's been a harrowing > journey so far as he was born with respiratory and lung issues. He was > transferred to the neonatal ICU almost right away when he was born and > ultimately got transferred to Children's Hospital. > > He's doing really great now and healing up fast, most all the tubes have > come out to assist with breathing. I got a chance to hold him yesterday > as I didn't get a chance to hold him when he was delivered. That being > said, I will probably be less active on the mailing list and less > available to come to meetings for a while if they are scheduled. > I'm sorry to learn that your son had issues! But it's also good to know that he and your family are in good hands and that healing is quick! I'm going out on a limb and predicting he won't remember any of this (other than through the stories you tell of his entrance into the world). I look forward to seeing you and meeting your son! ~David Klann -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iHUEARYIAB0WIQTCAQ/Y/BfjYtO+Po2/XnPyBfsBeAUCXmPnngAKCRC/XnPyBfsB eH4IAP9mw7nvt6AMNVg+FxxC8DgyBqfatxHRRxLtsiAbGOvJ1QEAyjZZbnYut5jF 09xAtbH6rT1GXotAjnaHSkiw7rhARgU= =AWL0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From mxu at uribe.cc Mon Mar 9 11:59:47 2020 From: mxu at uribe.cc (Mauricio Uribe) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2020 07:59:47 -0400 Subject: Not Technology Related, But.. In-Reply-To: <16ac7077-d2ac-cc79-02b4-5e49e1b7c17c@protonmail.com> References: <16ac7077-d2ac-cc79-02b4-5e49e1b7c17c@protonmail.com> Message-ID: <17a8a144-8fb9-150f-8a81-b39ac517be5e@uribe.cc> On 3/7/20 11:04 AM, Noel Miller wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA256 > > My son was born this last Thursday March 5th. It's been a harrowing > journey so far as he was born with respiratory and lung issues. He was > transferred to the neonatal ICU almost right away when he was born and > ultimately got transferred to Children's Hospital. > > He's doing really great now and healing up fast, most all the tubes have > come out to assist with breathing. I got a chance to hold him yesterday > as I didn't get a chance to hold him when he was delivered. That being > said, I will probably be less active on the mailing list and less > available to come to meetings for a while if they are scheduled. > > I am looking forward to meeting up with you all once we get another > meeting scheduled as I had a great time at the meeting that I was able > to go to. > > Have a good day everyone! > > - Noel > > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: ProtonMail > > wsBmBAEBCAAQBQJeY8YDCRB8HZRzFg9CAgAKCRB8HZRzFg9CAmomB/97ZFTw > PWd9AboaSBJQuuzhTfuuGoDhdhgd39w6DcaZamSrT/4iRB1Mw7zgBg5AHjg0 > R39pbxYFWDvJdh1gmivrpwG6is23pniZNlDoNAJzoVhaLUELSCPOSK0qshW6 > TJMrVLXZcRBA8xXqsnv3hB805rk45lNL/OMU8Kkp9JfhnqTeTbQj1FSQOfQt > K6FeTUmqWPGF2RtI0ZTuTnAsiuEhyI6qMI3E6T5vGBIMEwY6B0waue0aPg3s > O0cNh7wtNK2+ZpCQZDY/knJl7ltF8531R281+jEuvdKGovn7ApLaPZRolvVx > 3gDTp4GgJInEXYOPvUF2rw/SuceqET6fT0pT > =jWTR > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > Congratulations Noel! -- Best regards, Mauricio Uribe mxu at uribe.cc From joe at begriffs.com Mon Mar 16 00:49:51 2020 From: joe at begriffs.com (Joe Nelson) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2020 19:49:51 -0500 Subject: What if our next meeting was ...virtual? In-Reply-To: <8177E45F-A60D-4B1F-B7F0-78D60068B80E@19a6.net> References: <20200228015650.ih4xj7jzardr6lrh@begriffs.com> <30612BF7-9A1C-4AAD-902F-A3987B16157C@c3f.net> <8177E45F-A60D-4B1F-B7F0-78D60068B80E@19a6.net> Message-ID: <20200316004951.vd27i5pubdysnfcw@begriffs.com> > >However, the whole idea pitch and project group component sounds a > >bit... exhausting to me? Especially after a day at the office. I?d > >like to work on my own projects and chat casually with you fine folks > >while I fade in and out, having dinner and tea and such. > > > >Maybe more of a conversationy casual vibe? What do you think? Dave Bucklin wrote: > This sounds achievable to me. Set a time and a communication method > and let things happen organically. A casual format like that sounds fun to me too. Especially since I now stay at home most the time, I'd be nice to have a virtual meeting. > I wonder if it's preferable to have a large meeting window (e.g. noon > to midnight) or a short one (e.g. 6 to 9). ... Maybe a 6-to-whenever > type of approach would be enough. Six to whenever sounds fine for a weeknight. > We've used Doodle in the past to align on date and time. I'm open to > using that again or an alternative. That worked fine in the past, want to create a poll for us? For the chatroom, do we just pick an established IRC room in Freenode or something? For voice chat we should run a Murmur server on frostbyte. From Kurtis at riseup.net Mon Mar 16 03:01:00 2020 From: Kurtis at riseup.net (Kurtis Hanna) Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2020 03:01:00 +0000 Subject: What if our next meeting was ...virtual? In-Reply-To: <20200316004951.vd27i5pubdysnfcw@begriffs.com> References: <20200228015650.ih4xj7jzardr6lrh@begriffs.com> <30612BF7-9A1C-4AAD-902F-A3987B16157C@c3f.net> <8177E45F-A60D-4B1F-B7F0-78D60068B80E@19a6.net> <20200316004951.vd27i5pubdysnfcw@begriffs.com> Message-ID: <1f40a999-8c14-3a19-d94b-84c7bc24fc89@riseup.net> Hi, Joe Nelson: >> We've used Doodle in the past to align on date and time. I'm open to >> using that again or an alternative. > > That worked fine in the past, want to create a poll for us? > > For the chatroom, do we just pick an established IRC room in Freenode or > something? For voice chat we should run a Murmur server on frostbyte. > I can recommend https://framadate.org which is a free software alternative to proprietary Doodle. It has worked well for me in the past, at least. Cordially, Kurtis From j3s at c3f.net Tue Mar 17 01:26:13 2020 From: j3s at c3f.net (j3s) Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2020 20:26:13 -0500 Subject: Cyberia presents: Capsul Message-ID: Hi all, Cyberia Computer Club has been working on a project for the better part of a year, and we're finally in a workable state. I'd like to introduce you all to Capsul; Cyberia's new compute platform. Announcement blog post: https://cyberia.club/blog/20200311a Some key highlights include: - local SSD storage - free backups (3 month retention) - 1 public ipv4 address per Capsul - direct T3 network connection - supported by an awesome group of people - competitive pricing! - a multitude of OS's to choose from It's worth noting that Capsul is not built _on top of_ anyone elses platform - we shipped the metal that it runs on, and control it from the ground up. It has been a very fun project, and I figured that this list would be interested to know about it! If you want to get involved in any capacity - as a user of the platform, or if you want to sharpen your ops skills and help us develop it - feel free to chat with us! We hang out in Matrix, and a bridged IRC channel. matrix: https://cyberia.club/docs/matrix IRC: #cyberia on freenode One last note: we're also in the middle of building an email service on top of Capsul called Nullhex. I'll send another announcement message whenever that project is completed! Thanks for reading, and with much love, j3s From j3s at c3f.net Tue Mar 17 01:46:46 2020 From: j3s at c3f.net (j3s) Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2020 20:46:46 -0500 Subject: Cyberia presents: Capsul In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I should probably also note the project website: https://capsul.org /facepalm From eric at faehnri.ch Tue Mar 17 10:48:38 2020 From: eric at faehnri.ch (Eric Faehnrich) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2020 06:48:38 -0400 Subject: Cyberia presents: Capsul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42D3C741-0468-4065-9547-B41657AB0C61@faehnri.ch> I'd love to learn how you build out something like that, I'll jump on your chat. From nicholasdrozd at gmail.com Tue Mar 17 23:24:25 2020 From: nicholasdrozd at gmail.com (Nicholas Drozd) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2020 18:24:25 -0500 Subject: Cyberia presents: Capsul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Nice operating system supported ---------------- --------- alpine yes ubuntu18 yes debian10 yes centos7 yes centos8 yes OpenBSD 6.6 planned GuixSD 1.0.1 planned Windows no, never AIX whyyyy From joe at begriffs.com Tue Mar 17 23:29:11 2020 From: joe at begriffs.com (Joe Nelson) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2020 18:29:11 -0500 Subject: What if our next meeting was ...virtual? In-Reply-To: <20200316004951.vd27i5pubdysnfcw@begriffs.com> References: <20200228015650.ih4xj7jzardr6lrh@begriffs.com> <30612BF7-9A1C-4AAD-902F-A3987B16157C@c3f.net> <8177E45F-A60D-4B1F-B7F0-78D60068B80E@19a6.net> <20200316004951.vd27i5pubdysnfcw@begriffs.com> Message-ID: <20200317232911.kainoyh6gk2garbf@begriffs.com> Joe Nelson wrote: > For the chatroom, do we just pick an established IRC room in Freenode > or something? For voice chat we should run a Murmur server on > frostbyte. Responding to myself... :) Maybe we should use Tilde resources, like the IRC and Mumble that's already running at https://tilde.chat I'm more into programming than system administration, so I like that someone else is doing the work to keep those services running. From j3s at c3f.net Wed Mar 18 00:06:54 2020 From: j3s at c3f.net (j3s) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2020 19:06:54 -0500 Subject: What if our next meeting was ...virtual? In-Reply-To: <20200317232911.kainoyh6gk2garbf@begriffs.com> Message-ID: On Tue Mar 17, 2020 at 1:29 PM PST, Joe Nelson wrote: > Joe Nelson wrote: > > Maybe we should use Tilde resources, like the IRC and Mumble that's > already running at https://tilde.chat > > I'm more into programming than system administration, so I like that > someone else is doing the work to keep those services running. It's worth noting that Cyberia has a mumble server & a channel on freenode that you're welcome to use, if you'd like. j3s From j3s at c3f.net Fri Mar 20 15:39:20 2020 From: j3s at c3f.net (j3s) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2020 10:39:20 -0500 Subject: Cyberia Cafe Message-ID: <6F671C09-875C-4AF0-87FD-9CA5E7CC4C48@c3f.net> Hi friends, I know that it has been rough lately for many of us. Since many proprietary video chat platforms are being overwhelmed, we decided to open a free, local MN alternative at https://cafe.cyberia.club - feel free to use it to talk to friends, family, or coworkers. I?ll be hosting casual dinners most days at 6/7 CST and you?re welcome to join me. Stay safe! Best, Jes From nibz at spencerkrum.com Fri Mar 20 17:24:32 2020 From: nibz at spencerkrum.com (Spencer Krum) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2020 12:24:32 -0500 Subject: Cyberia Cafe In-Reply-To: <6F671C09-875C-4AF0-87FD-9CA5E7CC4C48@c3f.net> References: <6F671C09-875C-4AF0-87FD-9CA5E7CC4C48@c3f.net> Message-ID: <7f73324a-2d9c-44b3-a4f8-1c035adc07b0@www.fastmail.com> Thanks Jes, I'll try to stop by as my schedule allows. Cheers, Spencer On Fri, Mar 20, 2020, at 10:39 AM, j3s wrote: > Hi friends, > > I know that it has been rough lately for many of us. > > Since many proprietary video chat platforms are being overwhelmed, we > decided to open a free, local MN alternative at > https://cafe.cyberia.club - feel free to use it to talk to friends, > family, or coworkers. I?ll be hosting casual dinners most days at 6/7 > CST and you?re welcome to join me. Stay safe! > > Best, > > > Jes > -- Spencer Krum nibz at spencerkrum.com From joe at begriffs.com Sat Mar 21 17:18:09 2020 From: joe at begriffs.com (Joe Nelson) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 2020 12:18:09 -0500 Subject: What if our next meeting was ...virtual? In-Reply-To: References: <20200317232911.kainoyh6gk2garbf@begriffs.com> Message-ID: <20200321171809.qzowyzlpevgw6ggw@begriffs.com> Shaunny wrote: > I haven't used any of these services but i'll figure it out. Let's do > it; Pandemics are too isolating... Agreed! Here's a poll for the next week. Everybody please pick the times you like best. Maybe pick at least three each so we can find an overlap. https://doodle.com/poll/s5p55q3ygx442gvs (BTW Kurt, I tried that other scheduling site, but it was harder to use than Doodle, so I stuck with this one for now.) From joe at begriffs.com Sat Mar 21 17:21:08 2020 From: joe at begriffs.com (Joe Nelson) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 2020 12:21:08 -0500 Subject: Cyberia Cafe In-Reply-To: <6F671C09-875C-4AF0-87FD-9CA5E7CC4C48@c3f.net> References: <6F671C09-875C-4AF0-87FD-9CA5E7CC4C48@c3f.net> Message-ID: <20200321172108.7bizgxvgquv6wnyj@begriffs.com> j3s wrote: > Since many proprietary video chat platforms are being overwhelmed, we > decided to open a free, local MN alternative at > https://cafe.cyberia.club Much appreciated! You're such a pro at setting up infrastructure, this is great. Do you know if Jitsi can host a meeting where there are many people in a single room? This might be a nice place to congregate for hack night. From j3s at c3f.net Sat Mar 21 17:42:11 2020 From: j3s at c3f.net (j3s) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 2020 12:42:11 -0500 Subject: Cyberia Cafe In-Reply-To: <20200321172108.7bizgxvgquv6wnyj@begriffs.com> Message-ID: On Sat Mar 21, 2020 at 7:21 AM PST, Joe Nelson wrote: > Much appreciated! You're such a pro at setting up infrastructure, this > is great. > > Do you know if Jitsi can host a meeting where there are many people in a > single room? This might be a nice place to congregate for hack night. Thanks for the kind words! Jitsi does support having many people in the same room. We had ~10 or so during testing and it held up just fine. From joe at begriffs.com Wed Mar 25 01:44:38 2020 From: joe at begriffs.com (Joe Nelson) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2020 20:44:38 -0500 Subject: Finished pthreads article Message-ID: <20200325014438.oqi3dibnhart3x2h@begriffs.com> https://begriffs.com/posts/2020-03-23-concurrent-programming.html Didn't manage to cover all the topics from my notes, but sometimes you have to say "good enough" and just publish. Nonetheless I'm happy with it and learned a lot. From joe at begriffs.com Wed Mar 25 01:52:42 2020 From: joe at begriffs.com (Joe Nelson) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2020 20:52:42 -0500 Subject: What if our next meeting was ...virtual? In-Reply-To: <20200321171809.qzowyzlpevgw6ggw@begriffs.com> References: <20200317232911.kainoyh6gk2garbf@begriffs.com> <20200321171809.qzowyzlpevgw6ggw@begriffs.com> Message-ID: <20200325015242.onrqwm47uvmj5pva@begriffs.com> Joe Nelson wrote: > https://doodle.com/poll/s5p55q3ygx442gvs Looks like Thursday evening, 7-10 is the winner. That's unsurprising because it agrees with the earlier poll we took to establish the in-person hack nights. Wondering if I can get some help. I'm getting a little stressed out about organizing the event. We need to decide on IRC/Mumble/Jitsi details, as well as getting people access to the shared server. Can Dave and Jes maybe step in to run the event? Also considering if I should reach out to the mailing list for my blog audience to see if other people around the world want to join. Don't know how everyone would feel about that, since we're mostly geographically centralized right now, and perhaps people prefer the community feeling. Given that people are quarantined most everywhere, we're in a uniquely favorable situation for creating a global virtual hardcore hack night. From dave at 19a6.net Wed Mar 25 22:49:27 2020 From: dave at 19a6.net (Dave Bucklin) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2020 17:49:27 -0500 Subject: What if our next meeting was ...virtual? In-Reply-To: <20200325015242.onrqwm47uvmj5pva@begriffs.com> References: <20200317232911.kainoyh6gk2garbf@begriffs.com> <20200321171809.qzowyzlpevgw6ggw@begriffs.com> <20200325015242.onrqwm47uvmj5pva@begriffs.com> Message-ID: <20200325224927.GA22487@19a6.tech> On Tue, Mar 24, 2020 at 08:52:42PM -0500, Joe Nelson wrote: > Joe Nelson wrote: > > https://doodle.com/poll/s5p55q3ygx442gvs > > Wondering if I can get some help. I'm getting a little stressed out > about organizing the event. We need to decide on IRC/Mumble/Jitsi > details, as well as getting people access to the shared server. Can Dave > and Jes maybe step in to run the event? TBH I'm overloaded with work right now. From j3s at c3f.net Wed Mar 25 23:50:33 2020 From: j3s at c3f.net (j3s) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2020 18:50:33 -0500 Subject: What if our next meeting was ...virtual? In-Reply-To: <20200325224927.GA22487@19a6.tech> Message-ID: On Wed Mar 25, 2020 at 12:49 PM PST, Dave Bucklin wrote: > On Tue, Mar 24, 2020 at 08:52:42PM -0500, Joe Nelson wrote: > > Joe Nelson wrote: > > > https://doodle.com/poll/s5p55q3ygx442gvs > > > > Wondering if I can get some help. I'm getting a little stressed out > > about organizing the event. We need to decide on IRC/Mumble/Jitsi > > details, as well as getting people access to the shared server. Can Dave > > and Jes maybe step in to run the event? > > TBH I'm overloaded with work right now. Likewise, I can't take much else on myself. From joe at begriffs.com Thu Mar 26 00:05:47 2020 From: joe at begriffs.com (Joe Nelson) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2020 19:05:47 -0500 Subject: What if our next meeting was ...virtual? In-Reply-To: References: <20200325224927.GA22487@19a6.tech> Message-ID: <20200326000547.h7fgfvsxopua2ukh@begriffs.com> j3s wrote: > > TBH I'm overloaded with work right now. > > Likewise, I can't take much else on myself. OK, let's put it off for later then. Sounds like everyone is dealing with a lot right now. From nicholasdrozd at gmail.com Thu Mar 26 22:03:17 2020 From: nicholasdrozd at gmail.com (Nicholas Drozd) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2020 17:03:17 -0500 Subject: Finished pthreads article In-Reply-To: <20200325014438.oqi3dibnhart3x2h@begriffs.com> References: <20200325014438.oqi3dibnhart3x2h@begriffs.com> Message-ID: Great article, Joe! I'm curious, what did you think of the quality of the Hacker News discussion? (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22672128) Here are a few minor suggestions and corrections: - The word "atomic" is used without being defined (first use: "arithmetic operations which may not execute atomically on the hardware"). - "It?s threads are deadlocked." It's -> Its - When banker_lock is run, it looks like nothing is happening at all, because the only print happens at the end of the program and the end is never reached. You might add some print statements to show where exactly the program stalls. - I was unable to build life.c on Linux. -- undefined reference to `pthread_barrier_wait' -- undefined reference to `pthread_barrier_init' -- undefined reference to `pthread_barrier_destroy' Similar compilation errors on Mac. From halbachenator at gmail.com Fri Mar 27 00:59:44 2020 From: halbachenator at gmail.com (Brian H) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2020 19:59:44 -0500 Subject: Reading Group? Message-ID: Hello All, I was wondering if there would be any interest in a reading group for the book "The Art of Computer Programming" starting with volume 1. I am not a programmer by trade, but work with code very closely for work. I was hoping to read this to further my understanding of computer science in the academic sense and I was hoping others would join me on this journey so I am not alone. If anyone knows of another good resource to further my understanding of computer science I am all ears, but I heard this was comprehensive enough. From j3s at c3f.net Fri Mar 27 16:29:26 2020 From: j3s at c3f.net (j3s) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2020 11:29:26 -0500 Subject: Reading Group? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu Mar 26, 2020 at 2:59 PM PST, Brian H wrote: > Hello All, > > I was wondering if there would be any interest in a reading group for > the book "The Art of Computer Programming" starting with volume 1. I > am not a programmer by trade, but work with code very closely for > work. I was hoping to read this to further my understanding of > computer science in the academic sense and I was hoping others would > join me on this journey so I am not alone. > > If anyone knows of another good resource to further my understanding > of computer science I am all ears, but I heard this was comprehensive > enough. How fast paced do you expect this reading group to be? I am interested but have a pretty limited amount of time to participate. From salo at saloits.com Fri Mar 27 18:02:19 2020 From: salo at saloits.com (Timothy J. Salo) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2020 13:02:19 -0500 Subject: Reading Group? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 3/26/2020 7:59 PM, Brian H wrote: > I was wondering if there would be any interest in a reading group for > the book "The Art of Computer Programming" starting with volume 1. I > am not a programmer by trade, but work with code very closely for > work. I was hoping to read this to further my understanding of > computer science in the academic sense and I was hoping others would > join me on this journey so I am not alone. I'm not sure I would start with Knuth. It's a bit dated and a bit peculiar. And, I don't think that I have seen it used as a textbook for quite some time. I don't see my copies of Knuth (I think they are in my storage locker). But, for example, Knuth defines an imaginary machine architecture, the MIX machine, and uses that for a bunch of his examples. Today, algorithms are more likely to be described in Java, Python, or just pseudo code. In my view, getting familiar with the MIX machine seems sort of pointless. Or, maybe this was dropped from the current editions. If you want to [really] study algorithms, I recommend "Introduction to Algorithms" by Cormen, et al. But, Cormen probably expects some background in discrete math and probably even in algorithms. There are also another one or two widely used book on algorithms. I think I have pointers to these somewhere. A reading group in discrete math might be a good topic for those who want some background in academic computer science. I think that Rosen's "Discrete Mathematics and its Applications" is still used, but there are several good texts available. Every computer science curriculum has (or should have) a course in discrete math. You can check and see what departments are using as a textbook. Or, you can dig around Amazon and find something that people like, but isn't priced as a textbook. You might also consider "cracking the Coding Interview" by McDowell. I have described this as an introduction to computer science for non-majors. In particular, it doesn't require the math background that an introductory computer science course would. Plus, it's a lot cheaper than a textbook. There are undoubtedly other good intro to computer science books. But, I would consider alternatives to Knuth. By the way, it may not be in the current editions, but in the introductions to the early editions, Knuth stated that he intended to cover all of computer science in 17 volumes. I don't think he got past volume 3. -tjs From dklann at grunch.org Fri Mar 27 19:16:42 2020 From: dklann at grunch.org (David Klann) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2020 14:16:42 -0500 Subject: Reading Group? In-Reply-To: References:

Message-ID: <69afcfe9-49f5-3a42-a363-2eb4422bccbb@grunch.org> Great suggestion Brian! And a helpful, informative reply Timothy! I have interest in participating, and limited time to do so... On 3/27/20 1:02 PM, Timothy J. Salo wrote: > On 3/26/2020 7:59 PM, Brian H wrote: >> I was wondering if there would be any interest in a reading group for >> the book "The Art of Computer Programming" starting with volume 1. I >> am not a programmer by trade, but work with code very closely for >> work. I was hoping to read this to further my understanding of >> computer science in the academic sense and I was hoping others would >> join me on this journey so I am not alone. > > I'm not sure I would start with Knuth.? It's a bit dated and a bit > peculiar.? And, I don't think that I have seen it used as a textbook > for quite some time.? I don't see my copies of Knuth (I think they are > in my storage locker).? But, for example, Knuth defines an > imaginary machine architecture, the MIX machine, and uses that for > a bunch of his examples.? Today, algorithms are more likely to > be described in Java, Python, or just pseudo code.? In my view, > getting familiar with the MIX machine seems sort of pointless. > Or, maybe this was dropped from the current editions. > I'm replying with this info not to be pedantic, simply to set the record straight and to lobby *for* Knuth. :) And full disclosure, I am not an academic, nor did I even study computer science in college. I am an amateur computer scientist (at best). This may be, at least in part, an emotional response: Knuth has been a personal hero of mine for quite some time. My sweetie gifted me a current copy of Knuth last Fall. There are four volumes in the series on my shelf: Volumes 1 and 2 are in their third editions, Volume 3 its second, and Volume 4A its first edition. In the preface to Volume 1 Knuth states that the complete set will have five volumes with a total of ten chapters. He also says he wants to update Volume 1 with a fourth edition ... in fifteen years or so (here's to his long life!). I think I understand your point about not learning algorithms using Knuth's generic MIX machine. But it also seems there might be value learning in a popular-language-agnostic way. It sort of frees your mind from the idiosyncrasies of the language du jour (of course the MIX machine has its own). > If you want to [really] study algorithms, I recommend "Introduction > to Algorithms" by Cormen, et al.? But, Cormen probably expects some > background in discrete math and probably even in algorithms.? There > are also another one or two widely used book on algorithms.? I think > I have pointers to these somewhere. > > A reading group in discrete math might be a good topic for those > who want some background in academic computer science.? I think > that Rosen's "Discrete Mathematics and its Applications" is still > used, but there are several good texts available.? Every computer > science curriculum has (or should have) a course in discrete > math.? You can check and see what departments are using as a > textbook.? Or, you can dig around Amazon and find something that > people like, but isn't priced as a textbook. > > You might also consider "cracking the Coding Interview" by > McDowell.? I have described this as an introduction to > computer science for non-majors.? In particular, it doesn't > require the math background that an introductory computer > science course would.? Plus, it's a lot cheaper than a > textbook. > > There are undoubtedly other good intro to computer science > books.? But, I would consider alternatives to Knuth. > These are wonderful suggestions and recommendations. I favor Knuth simply because of his long view of the subject and the "art" of computer science. I guess it depends on ones goal. In my case, I want to learn about math and computer science; I don't need this to advance my career. I think Knuth presents the foundations in a more-or-less "timeless" way. > By the way, it may not be in the current editions, but in > the introductions to the early editions, Knuth stated that > he intended to cover all of computer science in 17 volumes. > I don't think he got past volume 3. > > -tjs Thanks again for your views and suggestions! I intend to look at some of these as well. ~David Klann From nicholasdrozd at gmail.com Fri Mar 27 22:22:56 2020 From: nicholasdrozd at gmail.com (Nicholas Drozd) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2020 17:22:56 -0500 Subject: Reading Group? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: TAOCP has some great beginner-friendly material, but it also has tons of difficult math and machine-level programming. It would be nice if there were a digest version (supposedly that is in the works, but who knows if it will ever get written), but until then I don't know if it would be suitable for a group like ours. That is not to say that you shouldn't read it, because we should all at least take a look, but for a reading group I think something smaller and easier would be more appropriate. That's just my feeling, of course. A smaller and easier but still difficult and comprehensive book is Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP). It covers a lot of theory, but remains programming-focused. Unlike TAOCP, the full text is available online: https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full-text/book/book.html From joe at begriffs.com Fri Mar 27 23:13:40 2020 From: joe at begriffs.com (Joe Nelson) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2020 18:13:40 -0500 Subject: Reading Group? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20200327231340.yzpu26d5qbdeaeoi@begriffs.com> Brian H wrote: > I was wondering if there would be any interest in a reading group for > the book "The Art of Computer Programming" starting with volume 1. That series is overwhelming, you'd need to scale down the scope. For instance the exercises are rated on a logarithmic scale of difficulty: 00 Immediate 10 Simple (one minute) 20 Medium (quarter hour) 30 Moderately hard 40 Term project 50 Research problem They are also marked: ? Recommended M Mathematically oriented HM Requiring "higher math" Speaking for myself, I'd probably pick problems that are less than or equal to 20 in difficulty, and probably only the recommended ones. There's only so much time in a day to learn things, and there are other topics that I feel are more exciting. TAOCP uses a hypothetical computer architecture called MIX. Check out the wikipedia page, it's weird. When programmed in binary, each byte has 6 bits (values range from 0 to 63). In decimal, each byte has 2 decimal digits (values range from 0 to 99). Bytes are grouped into words of five bytes plus a sign. The integers are sign-magnitude rather than twos' complement, and there are only nine registers with special purposes. You program the machine with an assembly language called MIXAL. Subsequently Knuth switched to an improved 64-bit RISC architecture called MMIX. I think the goal behind both of these architectures was to make the book timeless, and not a vendor-specific trade publication. However, I personally don't want to commit any of that stuff to memory. I'd rather use a medium level language like C and reason using the C abstract machine model. That's why if I were learning algorithms I would probably go through Sedgewick's book "Algorithms in C." I understand it may not match your goals because it doesn't go very deep into correctness proofs or mathematical analysis. From ian at ianbicking.org Sat Mar 28 01:28:13 2020 From: ian at ianbicking.org (Ian Bicking) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2020 20:28:13 -0500 Subject: Reading Group? In-Reply-To: <20200327231340.yzpu26d5qbdeaeoi@begriffs.com> References: <20200327231340.yzpu26d5qbdeaeoi@begriffs.com> Message-ID: Classical AI (not neural networks/machine learning) could also be an interesting topic. It's really lots of different algorithms, often involving search and heuristics. AIMA is mostly like this: http://aima.cs.berkeley.edu/ ? it feels kind of like SICP. On Fri, Mar 27, 2020 at 6:13 PM Joe Nelson wrote: > > Brian H wrote: > > I was wondering if there would be any interest in a reading group for > > the book "The Art of Computer Programming" starting with volume 1. > > That series is overwhelming, you'd need to scale down the scope. For > instance the exercises are rated on a logarithmic scale of difficulty: > > 00 Immediate > 10 Simple (one minute) > 20 Medium (quarter hour) > 30 Moderately hard > 40 Term project > 50 Research problem > > They are also marked: > > ? Recommended > M Mathematically oriented > HM Requiring "higher math" > > Speaking for myself, I'd probably pick problems that are less than or > equal to 20 in difficulty, and probably only the recommended ones. > There's only so much time in a day to learn things, and there are other > topics that I feel are more exciting. > > TAOCP uses a hypothetical computer architecture called MIX. Check out > the wikipedia page, it's weird. > > When programmed in binary, each byte has 6 bits (values range from 0 > to 63). In decimal, each byte has 2 decimal digits (values range > from 0 to 99). Bytes are grouped into words of five bytes plus a > sign. > > The integers are sign-magnitude rather than twos' complement, and there > are only nine registers with special purposes. You program the machine > with an assembly language called MIXAL. > > Subsequently Knuth switched to an improved 64-bit RISC architecture > called MMIX. I think the goal behind both of these architectures was to > make the book timeless, and not a vendor-specific trade publication. > However, I personally don't want to commit any of that stuff to memory. > I'd rather use a medium level language like C and reason using the C > abstract machine model. > > That's why if I were learning algorithms I would probably go through > Sedgewick's book "Algorithms in C." I understand it may not match your > goals because it doesn't go very deep into correctness proofs or > mathematical analysis. -- Ian Bicking | http://ianbicking.org From joe at begriffs.com Sat Mar 28 01:38:34 2020 From: joe at begriffs.com (Joe Nelson) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2020 20:38:34 -0500 Subject: Finished pthreads article In-Reply-To: References: <20200325014438.oqi3dibnhart3x2h@begriffs.com> Message-ID: <20200328013834.ia7n36zuczohbrxe@begriffs.com> Nicholas Drozd wrote: > Great article, Joe! I'm curious, what did you think of the quality of > the Hacker News discussion? > (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22672128) The first thing I noted was a high vote to comment ratio. Seems consistent with an n-gate comment about a different article, "A large portion of the documents are technical in nature, so Hackernews doesn't have much to say [...] the vote:comment ratio is in excess of 4:1." As for some of the comments: * There are of course the "ooo scary!" comments by people who insist we write in Pony, Zig, Rust or whatever. * The observation that functional languages like Haskell help to isolate code with side effects from the pure functions, and that the latter can more easily be parallelized. That's true. * What's the origin of the distinction between the terms concurrent and parallel? Not sure, I'd be curious to learn. * Users jayd16 and moring had a misconception about data visibility. They thought threads might not see each others changes to variables. In reality many pthread primitives guarantee that data written by one thread will be visible to another. - when you spawn a new thread with pthread_create, any writes prior will be visible to the new thread - if you unlock a mutex, the person to grab it next will be able to see your changes - if a thread ends and another joins, anything that happened before the end will be visible - if you signal a cond var then the waker will see your writes (This was one of the notes that didn't make it into the article) > Here are a few minor suggestions and corrections: > > - The word "atomic" is used without being defined (first use: > "arithmetic operations which may not execute atomically on the > hardware"). > > - "It?s threads are deadlocked." It's -> Its Ah thanks. For some reason I tend to make that mistake more when I compose in vim vs in a word processor. Don't know why that is... :) > - When banker_lock is run, it looks like nothing is happening at all, > because the only print happens at the end of the program and the end > is never reached. You might add some print statements to show where > exactly the program stalls. Like output a message saying, "(And now the bankers will deadlock...)" ? > - I was unable to build life.c on Linux. > -- undefined reference to `pthread_barrier_wait' > -- undefined reference to `pthread_barrier_init' > -- undefined reference to `pthread_barrier_destroy' > Similar compilation errors on Mac. Interesting, I wonder if this is an instance of gcc being a special snowflake. Or maybe my Makefile isn't as portable as it should be. Doing a quick search, I see people say that gcc uses the -pthread option rather than the linker directive -lpthread. Here's my current Makefile: .POSIX: CFLAGS = -std=c99 -pedantic -D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=200809L -Wall -Wextra LDFLAGS = -lpthread First of all, I should use the POSIX C compiler interface called c99, and remove the options it doesn't know about. That would yield this: .POSIX: CC = c99 CFLAGS = -D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=200809L LDFLAGS = -lpthread However, this still runs into errors: $ make life c99 -D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=200809L -lpthread life.c -o life /tmp/cc6q4ZoR.o: In function `update_strip': life.c:(.text+0x2eb): undefined reference to `pthread_barrier_wait' life.c:(.text+0x32e): undefined reference to `pthread_barrier_wait' /tmp/cc6q4ZoR.o: In function `main': life.c:(.text+0x435): undefined reference to `pthread_barrier_init' life.c:(.text+0x4a1): undefined reference to `pthread_create' life.c:(.text+0x4f9): undefined reference to `pthread_barrier_destroy' collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status : recipe for target 'life' failed make: *** [life] Error 1 I'm testing on Ubuntu 18 on AWS, and on this platform c99 is just a script calling gcc with -std=c99: extra_flag=-std=c99 for i; do case "$i" in -std=c9[9x]|-std=iso9899:199[9x]) extra_flag= ;; -std=*|-ansi) echo >&2 "`basename $0` called with non ISO C99 option $i" exit 1 ;; esac done exec gcc $extra_flag ${1+"$@"} POSIX says that the c99 command should support -lpthread: https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/c99.html#tag_20_11_13 -l pthread This option shall make available all interfaces referenced in and pthread_kill() and pthread_sigmask() referenced in . An implementation may search this library in the absence of this option. However the standard also says there are "programming environments" that the compiler can run inside. For instance there is an environment for multi-threaded programs. https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/c99.html#tagtcjh_25 My next attempt is this Makefile: .POSIX: CFLAGS = -D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=200809L `getconf POSIX_V7_THREADS_CFLAGS` LDFLAGS = `getconf POSIX_V7_THREADS_LDFLAGS` It doesn't know about these variables getconf: no such configuration parameter `POSIX_V7_THREADS_CFLAGS' getconf: no such configuration parameter `POSIX_V7_THREADS_LDFLAGS' In fact there is no variable at all like that: $ getconf -a | grep THREAD PTHREAD_DESTRUCTOR_ITERATIONS 4 PTHREAD_KEYS_MAX 1024 PTHREAD_STACK_MIN 16384 PTHREAD_THREADS_MAX _POSIX_THREADS 200809 _POSIX_THREAD_ATTR_STACKADDR 200809 _POSIX_THREAD_ATTR_STACKSIZE 200809 _POSIX_THREAD_PRIORITY_SCHEDULING 200809 _POSIX_THREAD_PRIO_INHERIT 200809 _POSIX_THREAD_PRIO_PROTECT 200809 _POSIX_THREAD_ROBUST_PRIO_INHERIT _POSIX_THREAD_ROBUST_PRIO_PROTECT _POSIX_THREAD_PROCESS_SHARED 200809 _POSIX_THREAD_SAFE_FUNCTIONS 200809 _XOPEN_REALTIME_THREADS 1 _POSIX_THREAD_CPUTIME 200809 _POSIX_THREAD_SPORADIC_SERVER GNU_LIBPTHREAD_VERSION NPTL 2.27 What am I supposed to do? Does anyone know a portable way to add `-pthread` for GCC, and whatever option is needed for other compilers? From eric at faehnri.ch Sat Mar 28 13:08:19 2020 From: eric at faehnri.ch (Eric Faehnrich) Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2020 09:08:19 -0400 Subject: Reading Group? In-Reply-To: References: <20200327231340.yzpu26d5qbdeaeoi@begriffs.com> Message-ID: <7c32ac4c-8b0d-c2c8-4d2a-7fedd956d67b@faehnri.ch> Speaking of books, No Starch Press, purveyors of fine tech books, is putting out the book Effective C by Robert Seacord who wrote books like The CERT C Coding Standard. I like that the cover has Cthulhu, like the language is an eldritch horror or something. https://nostarch.com/Effective_C From dave at 19a6.net Mon Mar 30 22:04:39 2020 From: dave at 19a6.net (Dave Bucklin) Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2020 17:04:39 -0500 Subject: frostbyte.sh Message-ID: <20200330220439.GA17726@19a6.tech> I registered frostbyte.sh a while back. It's up for renewal and, without a compelling reason to do otherwise, I'm going to keep my $38. From joe at begriffs.com Mon Mar 30 22:13:49 2020 From: joe at begriffs.com (Joe Nelson) Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2020 17:13:49 -0500 Subject: frostbyte.sh In-Reply-To: <20200330220439.GA17726@19a6.tech> References: <20200330220439.GA17726@19a6.tech> Message-ID: <20200330221349.fx75s7zbhzeyl4b2@begriffs.com> Dave Bucklin wrote: > I registered frostbyte.sh a while back. It's up for renewal and, > without a compelling reason to do otherwise, I'm going to keep my $38. Wow that's an expensive TLD. I'd say keep your money. :)