timsally

I will admit I never expected to open the front page of HN in 2021 and read a comment about someone who had read The Overstory. Richard Powers is the preeminent American novelist of our time. With respect to all his works, HN types will especially enjoy Plowing the Dark and Galatea 2.2.

There is no better way to dig deep into the effects of modern technology on society than to read Richard Powers. It is no exaggeration to say that reading Powers fundamentally changed the course of my life. Reading his work is absolutely worth your time.

> More than 80% of the aid to USSR was delivered after the Battle of Stalingrad was won by the USSR, and the outcome of the war was pretty much settled.

If you think WWII was settled in February of '43 then that says all we need to know regarding your credibility on this matter. I only mean to be as harsh as is necessary, but it is crazy to be as cavalier as you are being regarding the history of a war where so many lives were lost.

> Why do you think Elon Musk chose to start SpaceX in the US?

Should we ask the founder in South Africa who was able to recruit the right technical talent and hold a majority share of a private rocket/satellite company while remaining in South Africa?

> Why didn't Elon start SpaceX in Canada or South Africa?

Exactly my point. If you want to start a company as ambitious as SpaceX, the US is the only place to do it. If you do it somewhere else, you incur serious risk of getting a large chunk of the company seized/taxed, even if you are successful.

> Frankly, it it not a coincidence that Silicon Valley and companies like SpaceX are in the US. They are direct results of the military ecosystem that has developed there.

SpaceX is the direct result of a South African who studied in Canada and came to the US because that's what he wanted to do. The idea that the US "military ecosystem" could claim "direct" responsibility for what Elon has achieved is an insult to him.

> Ww2 in Europe was largely won by the USSR.

This comment is unrelated to the discussion you are replying to, but I'll give it a brief response. First, all you need to know about whether the Soviet efforts in WW2 and the American efforts in WW2 were better for Europe is to consider the outcomes of East and West Germany. Second, I have serious doubts whether the USSR alone could have prevailed against Germany and Japan. But as to whether the US and the UK could have, you need only ask Oppenheimer.

Years ago I took 6.828 at MIT which is an operating systems engineering course for which Xv6 was designed. The part I found most useful as a student was the fact that the entire operating system printed out into a nice slim volume. Many significant subroutines fit entirely on one page. To sum up the pedagogical value: Xv6 is an operating system made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

After this course I able to translate the skills to real world results in include a small contribution to the Linux kernel, as well as a significant non-public Linux kernel module. I can recommend studying the Xv6 source code and accompanying book to anyone, without reservation. It was a great privilege to have been able to take that class.

This is really excellent, thanks for being willing to share Colin. It's an impactful essay and the last paragraph in particular hits very hard. I'm a big fan of your work and the path you have taken!

Generally in professional online tournaments there is not a tournament official onsite. Players are competing from their homes. Instead, tournaments require several Zoom sessions from multiple angles in an attempt to verify that the neither the player's computer nor a secondary device are being used to cheat. These Zoom sessions are monitored by tournament officials.

On top of this, commercial chess websites have extensive anti-cheating measures that are used to analyze the games after the fact. For example, one of the major players has 5+ engineers and several strong chess players on their anti-cheating team. These teams have caught professional players cheating a surprising number of times. Being caught results in a lifetime ban from the chess website and there are often consequences for the player in real life as well.

I don't really buy the idea of an adjournment. Are you supposed to have one every time a connection problem happens? Historically players knew at what point in the game an adjournment would happen. Having them happen at random throughout the game would change the whole dynamic.

Your idea of a cellular connection as backup is an excellent one. I think the first commercial chess website to implement a turn key way for players to utilize one will see huge returns from that investment.

The moderators will do it when they see the post. I haven't submitted a link in a really long time, but I don't think the submitter can change it. Makes sense to reserve it for the mods, given the implications of a regular user swapping out the link of a highly visible post.