jmrm (u/jmrm) - Readit News

jmrm commented on HP and Dell disable HEVC support built into their laptops' CPUs arstechnica.com/gadgets/2... · Posted by u/latexr

jmrm · a month ago

Maybe I'm reading between lines, but isn't it ridiculous to talk about license prices when the affected machines are $900 pro laptops?

I mean, I understand that in a cheap single board computer, but this is nonsense.

jmrm commented on C++26: range support for std:optional sandordargo.com/blog/2025... · Posted by u/birdculture

fair_enough · 2 months ago

"I would like C++ would be a little more "batteries included" in some ways, like having a basic standard for signals, networking (just handling sockets would be a huge thing), and some basic system calls."

Besides basic handling of TCP sockets and the Unix-style "Ctrl-c" keyboard interrupt, none of the stuff you're asking for is portable across different platforms. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just that there is no one single universal standard for what an OS should do and what knobs and levers it should expose, or at least one that everybody follows.

Linux has non-trivial deviations from the POSIX spec, and even FreeBSD and OpenBSD have deviations. POSIX has its own compliance test suite that it runs to award certification of compliance, but it's not open source and it you need to pay a fee for it.

All of that however, is a drop in the bucket compared to making an API that exposes all the knobs and levers you want in a way that behaves exactly the same on Windows which barely has any architectural resemblance to UNIX. For exmaple, NTFS is case-insensitive by default and has nothing resembling the UNIX style of file permissions. Or more importantly, signals do not exist on Windows; something resembling signals for keyboard interrupts exists, but stuff like SIGHUP and SIGBUS does not. I'm talking the kind of known caveats that come with using a POSIX-compatibility layer on Windows, e.g. Cygwin.

I think if I get much deeper than that I'm just being pedantic, but even Python code behaves differently on Windows than it does on all the POSIX-like OSes out there.

jmrm · 2 months ago

I knew about the difference they have between UNIX-like OSs in the usage of different signals (and the System V vs BSD battles, between others), but I didn't know Windows didn't have a similar system (I haven't done too much low-level in Windows).

Thanks for the long comment!

jmrm commented on C++26: range support for std:optional sandordargo.com/blog/2025... · Posted by u/birdculture

jcelerier · 2 months ago

> I really like how some good structures used by other languages, specially Rust and Zig, have been added to the newer C++ standard. The Result, Optional, and Variant are really sweet for day-to-day use of the language, and those in-process standard libraries of SIMD operations, BLAS mathematical functions, and the the execution library looks really cool, specially as standard.

for Optional and Variant they both were basically standardized versions of boost.optional & boost.variant, which exist since 2003 and 2002 respectively. Most of the time you can just change boost:: to std:: and it works exactly the same ; for many years software I develop could switch from one to another with a simple #ifdef due to platforms not supporting std::optional entirely (older macOS versions, pre 10.14 IIRC)

jmrm · 2 months ago

I knew some changes (like STL containers) came from Boost, but I didn't know those also came from there, and specially since such a long time!

That means I need to look more Boost documentation :)

jmrm commented on C++26: range support for std:optional sandordargo.com/blog/2025... · Posted by u/birdculture

jmrm · 2 months ago

I really like how some good structures used by other languages, specially Rust and Zig, have been added to the newer C++ standard.

The Result, Optional, and Variant are really sweet for day-to-day use of the language, and those in-process standard libraries of SIMD operations, BLAS mathematical functions, and the the execution library looks really cool, specially as standard.

I would like C++ would be a little more "batteries included" in some ways, like having a basic standard for signals, networking (just handling sockets would be a huge thing), and some basic system calls.

jmrm commented on Apple M5 chip apple.com/newsroom/2025/1... · Posted by u/mihau

gcr · 2 months ago

So how many hardware systems does Apple silicon have for doing matrix multiplies now?

1. CPU, via SIMD/NEON instructions (just dot products)

2. CPU, via AMX coprocessor (entire matrix multiplies, M1-M3)

3. CPU, via SME (M4)

4. GPU, via Metal (compute shaders + simdgroup-matrix + mps matrix kernels)

4. Neural Engine via CoreML (advisory)

Apple also appears to be adding a “Neural Accelerator” to each core on the M5?

jmrm · 2 months ago

I wonder if some Apple-made software, like Final Cut, make use of all of those "duplicated" instructions at the same time for getting a better performance...

I know how just the multitasking nature of the OS probably make this situation happens across different programs, but nonetheless would be pretty cool!

jmrm commented on USB-A isn't going anywhere, so stop removing the port pocket-lint.com/usb-a-isn... · Posted by u/speckx

jmrm · 3 months ago

We already have some USB-C flash drives. Isn't just more practical to have USB-C keyboards, mice, and other devices like that instead of conserving the USB A?

jmrm commented on We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that thenexus.media/your-phone... · Posted by u/natalie3p

fy20 · 4 months ago

Maybe this is why Europe is so popular with migrants? I've lived in four European countries and never had anything like that. To rent a place you just need to pay 1 or 2 months deposit up front. I've never heard of anyone being denied to buy a car with cash (but we don't use cheques... the payment is either successful or not - it doesn't need to clear).

Loans are a different story, it varies a lot - but in my country for example, after working 6 months in a full-time job you can get a mortgage without issues. All they care about is how much you are earning, and that you don't have any other debts so that you couldn't afford the repayments.

jmrm · 4 months ago

IIRC some countries, like UK, have a similar thing like Credit Score, mostly used for what type of loans they can give you, max credit card limits, and other financial products, but won't affect at all to buy a car in cash or renting an apartment.

For me it's crazy not being able to rent a place even paying a whole year beforehand.

jmrm commented on A high schooler writes about AI tools in the classroom theatlantic.com/technolog... · Posted by u/dougb5

jmrm · 4 months ago

You can avoid this problem easily not letting students using phones or computers in the classroom and making doing more tasks at the classroom than at home.

If you're going to say "but in a working environment you use a computer", then teach them how to use text processing and spreadsheets int the computer room, a thing that didn't happen today in most schools btw.

jmrm commented on A high schooler writes about AI tools in the classroom theatlantic.com/technolog... · Posted by u/dougb5

Anonyneko · 4 months ago

Back in the day we were writing code on paper (or on punched cards, using them as a paper substitute, as there were a lot of them left over from the Soviet times and they looked very "computer-y"), so even during computer classes you didn't necessarily need a computer. Not that I really think that it can still work in the year 2025 and beyond...

jmrm · 4 months ago

In my Uni we still had some coding test done with pen and paper (2014-2018), and AFAIK, they're still doing them. I even done a part of an exam in assembly with a provided Xilinx PicoBlaze assembly mnemonics list.

I don't know why people demonize them. If you know the syntax you're asked for, you can write in that language, and if you were asked to write in pseudo-code some algorithms, you should be able without any additional computerize help.

jmrm commented on Perfect Freehand – Draw perfect pressure-sensitive freehand lines perfectfreehand.com/... · Posted by u/NikxDa

jmrm · 4 months ago

I remember in the mid 2000s how some Xara Designer illustration software was able to do that, I don't know how isn't a more common thing (or maybe I don't know enough specialized software in that matter).

I remember well that program because it was available both for Windows and Linux, a really rare thing in that time.