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Tuesday, December 1, 2015

CamperBob2 comments on "Why FPGA manufacturers keep their bitstream formats secret"

 "Customers will damage their FPGAs with invalid 
 bitstreams, and blame us for selling unreliable 
 products."

 This used to be true when FPGAs had internal tristate 
 resources (so you could drive the same net from 
 competing sources); this is no longer the case for 
 modern devices.

I agree that this is a bogus argument — nobody would blame the chip vendor for damaged caused by a third-party bitstream — but I don’t see what it has to do with tristate logic. The only thing keeping me from tying two (or two thousand) CMOS outputs together with an assign statement is the toolchain.

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CamperBob2 comments on "Why FPGA manufacturers keep their bitstream formats secret"

Falkon1313 comments on "Someone left my Gmail in debug mode"

By Falkon1313

Looks like the user was accessing his own browser on his own computer, so he probably had authorization to do that, and it’s unlikely that his own computer was ‘protected’ against him obtaining information from it.

Would you say that everyone who has ever clicked ‘view source’ is a criminal? (despite the fact that the source was sent to them in plain-text with the knowledge that a ‘view-source’ function is available to them)

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Falkon1313 comments on "Someone left my Gmail in debug mode"

gbhn comments on "Chernoff's Faces"

By gbhn

Thank you!

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gbhn comments on "Chernoff's Faces"

dools comments on "I.M.F. Makes China’s Renminbi One of World’s Select Currencies"

By dools

I don’t find it confusing, I find that the man is confused about economics. I already listed the main points in my post above, although admittedly this stuff is clearer when spelled out over 100 pages of a textbook with a bunch of examples, clear formulae, and discussion of competing theories versus a post on Hacker News[1]

MMT agrees with most of the points Wilson and Riley make (ie. that exporting is a cost and importing is a benefit, referred to in the article as “Seignorage”, and lower transaction costs) but they’re incorrect on the notion that one of the advantages of being the reserve currency is the ability to “run up huge amounts of debt at low interest rates” — the US doesn’t need to borrow US dollars, it creates US dollars. If they’re referring to the advantage in being that the US private sector has been able to borrow US dollars from foreigners cheaply, then maybe that’s a benefit I’m not really sure but they could just as easily have gotten that money from other banks with accounts at the Fed anyway (so long as there was sufficient cash reserves to satisfy the demand for dollars!)

[1]http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Money-Theory-Macroeconomics-Sov…

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dools comments on "I.M.F. Makes China’s Renminbi One of World’s Select Currencies"

hendzen comments on "2.5M men 'have no close friends'"

By hendzen

I’ve had multiple phases of my life where I’ve done most things alone. Months where I’ve gone eating almost every meal alone. Multi-day periods where I didn’t have a conversation with another person. Honestly, there were times I felt bad about it, but most of the time I was alone – but not lonely.

Currently I have a pretty active social life – I rarely eat alone, I have a wide circle of friends and date fairly actively (I am still single though :/). I think the best way to break out is to make a habit of trying to do things you haven’t done before. Whether it’s some athletic pursuit (tennis, rock climbing, etc.) or maybe getting involved in your community (volunteering, religious groups), modern society offers plenty of venues for meeting people. You say you’re in college so for you it might be as simple as joining a club.

Now even though I have ample opportunity to be around other people, I still choose to be alone some times. After a day spent with a group I usually need an hour or so alone to “recharge” – I guess I’m just naturally introverted.

Finally, allow me quote the following poem by Walt Whitman.

 To You.

 STRANGER! if you, passing, meet me, and desire to speak to me, 
 why should you not speak to me?	 
 
 And why should I not speak to you?

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hendzen comments on "2.5M men 'have no close friends'"

kordless comments on "A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted"

By kordless

For a variety of interesting reasons I wasn’t surprised, but there were moments where I could see how other people could be surprised by it. I spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff, so I saw it coming. The average Joe, well, maybe they didn’t.

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kordless comments on "A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted"

Qworg comments on "Parents Ready for Some Love from Silicon Valley Companies"

By Qworg

Leave is tied to having children because having children means you can’t walk away or take a break. The time off with your child isn’t time you get to choose – instead, you’re at the beck and call of a helpless human who relies on you for everything.

In your example, if you were sick or didn’t feel like it for the day, you could just choose not to go in. You simply don’t get that choice with kids.

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Qworg comments on "Parents Ready for Some Love from Silicon Valley Companies"