> Are you getting into Computer Science, or thinking about it? Or maybe you’re in it already. This super-high-level guide is for you!
> I’m not going to talk about how to write code (much). I’ll I’m going to talk about in these roughly 40 pages is more about how to learn when you’re a nascent software developer.
So the answer is "it's not a guide to computer science". It's like a guide talking about how to get better at mental calculation being titled "guide to learning mathematics", or a guide to language learning being titled "guide to learning linguistics".
I’ve had Beej’s Guide to C and Beej’s Guide to networking bookmarked for an embarrassing amount of time.
But this is the first guide that I know the material! I have “learned computer science” (somewhat). And I have to say it has propelled Beej’s other guides to the top of my reading list. The subchapters I skimmed and their content are just so relevant and I know many new and experienced devs (myself included) who would still benefit greatly from reading this. Just exceptionally well done.
I recently read his networking guide as part of a class and it was invaluable. It gets you up to speed without overwhelming you with detail. It's a lightweight read.
That sounds like HPBN (High-Performance Browser Networking), an awesome and accessible resource everyone doing anything w the web should read. https://hpbn.co (not .com)
Great point, tractors replaced labor and society has never recovered. We used to have a noble population of farmhands walking behind animals for miles, guiding plows with their bare hands. But thanks to tractors, all that fulfilling communal suffering vanished overnight.
This is like unbelievably awful journalism. From the abstract:
>The Index captures technical exposure, where AI can perform occupational tasks, not displacement outcomes or adoption timelines. Analysis shows that visible AI adoption concentrated in computing and technology (2.2% of wage value, approx $211 billion) represents only the tip of the iceberg. Technical capability extends far below the surface through cognitive automation spanning administrative, financial, and professional services (11.7%, approx $1.2 trillion). [https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.25137]
Does the author not know what displacement outcomes are?
It's possible we got 2.2% better quality software by augmenting engineers.
I expect we'll see at least 11.7% <metrixX> improvements in admin, financial, and professional services.
There is likely also a depressive affect on the labor market - there is nuance here and it would be equally disingenuous to believe there will be zero displacement (although, there is a case for more labor participation is administrative bottlenecks / cost are solved, tbd).
Either way this is like a textbook example of zero-sum minded journalist grossly misrepresenting the world.
I think it’s a textbook example of HN skimming through the paper and the summary.
The paper basically said:
1) AI may affect 2.2% of tech adoption, in terms of wage values,
2) but that’s only the surface. The rippled impact may be as much as 11.7% wage values.
That’s it. That’s all the index that they came up with measures, nothing else. They didn’t say there would be no displacement outcome, only that the index doesn’t quantify it. In other words, it’s the worst case scenario.
That's not true. They didn't measure wages, but used it as a proxy. What they're actually measuring is work done, or tasks.
Last I checked, most people work a job where there is more work to do than time in the day to do it - which would be the conditions for believing that wage value index would be closely correlated with displacement.
Not only does the article title say the thing the paper says it's not saying, there is little reason to believe that the thing it says is the outcome, even if the paper wasn't explicit about not saying the thing.
When Trump was elected I convinced myself it was positive in the way the depression of a business cycle is positive. Sure there is pain but it’s good to cut the strangulation and inefficiency of too much bureaucracy. I hoped this admin would “throw the baby out with the bathwater” more than I’d like. And those differences in opinion are okay and healthy.
But this is just insane. There is no bull case in these actions. None. It’s just outright grift and corruption.
Its wild to me how many people justified his re(!!!)-election on a bunch of hypotheses as if we didn’t have an entire first term of empirical evidence of how he operates.
People are so stupid. I volunteer at a food bank and help give away food to needy people wearing MAGA hats. Crazy. I want to go into snarky mode and say things but I stay professional.
These weird trump hagiographies need to go. Its clear he's a failure and a conman and an incredible bigot and awful human being way before 2016, VERY clear in 2016-2020 and inexcusable to vote for him in 2024 or support him in any way, shape, or form in 2025.
I'm outside the US political sphere so might have a different perspective looking in from abroad, but how could anybody possibly have expected anything but just grift and corruption from a second Trump term? There was the whole first term to see that he said one thing and then would act only what ever way benefited his, his family's, and his associates' interests...
From inside the USA, I don’t know. It’s baffling how even in 2015 people expected anything different from the crassest man alive.
Perhaps they thought the grift and corruption would benefit them, and not harm them and thus were okay with it? Like how from the first term someone was quoted saying something along the lines of “they’re not hurting the right people”
In 2015 the democrats chose to go for the 'establishment obvious candidate' despite strong grassroots support for a more populist candidate with a clear track record of working for the best interest of the American People.
They did Bernie dirty, and were lucky to get even as many votes as they did. The email scandal immediately before the election didn't help, but that's more of an excuse for what someone was going to do anyway.
After ~10 years of the current president campaigning both in and out of office. Particularly after Jan 6th. Even more so after congress was too spineless to do their jobs for the people who elected them. NONE of what's happened since really, really, surprises me. Sadden? Disappoint? Dismay? Oh yes, all of those and more. I've been amazed at how fast all that stuff started to happen in the second term. I do totally believe that waste of carbon never read Project 2025 ; just rubber stamping what the rich supporters have asked for.
Looking back further. I'm seriously saddened the Democrats didn't do the right thing for the American People way back in 2008 / 2009. National Single Payer Healthcare. Make healthcare efficient, have competition among providers, but give every person the right to healthcare as part of the social contract and the taxes they pay.
I'm still hopeful that when the pendulum swings back the other way we can end the nightmare of all the damned paperwork and billing and having to do annoying renewals every bloody year.
I think the key reason is that Americans (and Brits) have been lead down the path that all politicans and government in general is corrupt and inefficient, and so it becomes which corrupt person you want in charge. Your guy or the other guy. This is, of course, due to decades of oligarch propaganda. Even otherwise intelligent people think government is the problem and libertarian market forces are the solution. Burn it (government) all down is their end game
Today, all of us have many choices about where we get our news from, and by and large we overwhelmingly choose to listen only to those sources that confirm our existing opinions.
This means that people who voted for Trump are unlikely to ever hear about this sort of corruption, or if they do it will be spun as "his enemies attacking him" or something.
The part you're missing is that a very large number of voters (on both political sides) expect nothing but outright grift and corruption from both parties. And they're not wrong to do so.
Remember, Trump won both times against a candidate who was anointed by the powers that be, not chosen by the people. (Hillary Clinton at least went through the motions of holding primaries, but Kamala Harris didn't even have that).
So people say - out of the two corrupt parties, I might as well vote for the one that isn't actively attacking me.
Keep in mind that Democrats will declare you an outcast if you disagree with any single line of the party agenda - and they're currently pushing at least 3 ideas each of which is strongly rejected by some (independent) fraction of the voterbase.
I agree with the corruption part. After all "drain the swap" was an effective election slogan.
The attack part is just a hyperbole. The leader of MAGA will openly call for people being jailed or primaried if they disagree.
I also get where you are coming from. I have seen this play out 3 times. A non-establishment candidate comes in promising change and removing corruption. Very good at agitation and rousing people by talking about how their government has failed them. Promising to make things better.
But once in power things take a nose dive. The candidate and the party members are even more corrupt. They believe grift and corruption is the norm so there is nothing wrong in being overly and openly corrupt.
And despite the blatant corruption supporters keep making excuses for the behavior. "At least they won against the establishment" or "at least they are in my corner" but often they cannot point to examples to how their lives are better. In most cases they either point to policies which are making lives better for a selected set of people i.e. corruption or just devolve into whataboutism along party lines.
In most cases it takes at about a decade for people to see that their lives aren't any better and this "non-establishment" candidate is even worse. By that time serious damage to the government infrastructure has already been done. There is no coming back.
Sooner or later this behavior will turn US into a third world country where government employees demand bribes openly. But hey, "both parties are corrupt" so why not have partisan and corrupt government employees too.
The real question is why was there this hope at all, given Trump has been telling us who he is for decades? Seems like a lot of projection has been going on in the minds of people who voted for him.
Neither of those seem like winning moves to me, just stalling moves for the status quo. They are certainly a better choice than Trump obviously, but that isn't very hard and it still doesn't make their own or party priority policies really any better.
The USA isn’t and hasn’t been a republic in quite a long time. The USA is financialist semi-fascist oligarchy, and operates as such regardless of who’s voted into power.
The USA isn’t capitalist, it’s financialist. The dollar is a financial product created via debt issuance.
The USA is semi-fascist as most people in prison aren’t given a trial, there’s a prison industrial complex, police are typically immune from prosecution, and there’s a massive surveillance apparatus that violates US law and human rights. This is wrapped in “patriotism” which is in keeping with fascist modes of propaganda, and the US corporate/state merger is a clear instance of the fascist model.
The US is an oligarchy, and not a republic. No matter who is elected the wars continue, the drug war continues, poverty increases, mass incarceration continues, and so on.
A republic is the “thing of the people”. The people of the USA have very little power over federal policy. The observed function is that a handful of wealthy oligarchs get what they want pretty much every time.
Trying to make broad assertions regarding who is financially responsible for the lawful execution of police power seems useless.
In this case, it seems obvious that the police should have to pay if the accessing of a device from a given IP should be enough to escalate a search warrant to that of a destructive one.
How did they make the trace? Is it possible the suspect was using a VPN? How did they verify they were never actually at that address? Has this police department executive destructive search warrants based on IP address traces that ended up being incorrect, and then they continued doing so knowing it can likely be inaccurate?
This is something your insurance should be required to cover or should be part of a standard homeowners insurance package, and the insurance company can sue the government and try to get those questions answered from the city.
The attempt to blame this on excessive policing in a broad stroke seems to be the wrong angle that doesn’t address the nuance of these situations.
> The attempt to blame this on excessive policing in a broad stroke seems to be the wrong angle that doesn’t address the nuance of these situations.
I don’t really understand how any of these outcomes can be the result of anything except excessive policing. What kind of crimes warrants police turning up with enough fire power to destroy an entire building?
In the case of a search warrant, what was wrong with just knocking on the door and looking around inside?
For a criminal barricaded in a building, what wrong with surrounding the building and waiting them out? They’re gonna need food, water, sleep eventually.
If there isn’t a clear immediate risk to life, what’s the justification for turning someone home or business into a war zone?
> For a criminal barricaded in a building, what wrong with surrounding the building and waiting them out? They’re gonna need food, water, sleep eventually.
Often the claim is that would give time to alter or destroy evidence.
> Not all of which the government should be responsible for paying out.
On the contrary, if the government was always on the hook for the damage they cause, even if the victim had committed a crime, then police would cause less property damage.
>This is something your insurance should be required to cover or should be part of a standard homeowners insurance package, and the insurance company can sue the government and try to get those questions answered from the city.
Then the city would have to charge the taxpayer. It's more fair to just revoke police personal immunity and have the incurence company sue the individual police officers involved. This way the police will be incentivized to not wreck people's homes, no?
While that may or may not be my belief as well, it’s a broader question than this specific article is addressing.
An individual citizen should not be bringing these complex issues to court for a $16k payout. Obviously their insurance companies should be covering victim compensation and then suing the city.
>In this case, it seems obvious that the police should have to pay
Do they ever? Even if they were guilty, wouldn’t it be on taxpayers to pay?
If it is so, then any investigation about potential wrongdoing should be separate from reimbursing the victim - they suffered damage by a public entity without personal fault, and that should be covered whether protocol was followed or not.
That way, there is no public economic incentive to declare police innocent, which is an extra plus.
>I explicitly stated that insurance should reimburse the victim and then the insurance company can pursue damages for police wrongdoing after.
I meant public funds, regardless of insurance. As in, if you (or the insurer) need to pursue damages then state payment is tied to wrongdoing. My point was that if public action results in a loss it should be reimbursed period.
A citizen doesn’t care (only) that protocol was followed, they care about a broken house either way.
> Trying to make broad assertions regarding who is financially responsible for the lawful execution of police power seems useless.
No. Most people are distracted by qualified immunity, but this is exactly where the rot starts - poor incentives from damaged caused by "government agents" just being waved away as if it is nobody's fault, like it was some kind of natural disaster.
The primary reform we need here is that any damage caused by government agents should start off being the responsibility of the government itself. If the government wants to shift that liability (eg your stuff was damaged because you committed a crime and were found guilty, or as part of a plea), that's fine. If the government successfully subrogates (you were hit by a cop during a high speed chase, so the government and the criminal that necessitated the high speed chase are jointly liable, and the criminal's insurance company has paid out), that's fine. But the basic default should be one of making the victims of policing whole. To do otherwise is to fail to account for the full cost of policing, taking the extra from its victims in a perverted reverse-lottery.
My point is that it makes far more sense to have insurance lawyers deal with this. It’s a much better way of aligning incentives to have large insurance companies pressure the government to operate better than individuals.
Attorneys did deal with this. Courts decided against the victim. Courts have decided against the victims in much larger cases, where even more money would have been spent on attorneys. Fundamentally, there has to be a cause of action in order for insurance companies to apply any "pressure".
The attorneys you buy, and the hours and angles they’re willing to explore for a single $16k payout is very different than the attorneys your insurance company buys for 50 $50k payouts.
I would say victims of erroneous policing. No compensation is due if the person who suffered the loss is convicted, or the person who was convicted had ongoing permission to access whatever is involved even if they didn't own it.
But I would apply this to all such victims. You spend a night in jail and are not convicted, you are owed some statutory compensation which I think should at a minimum be your annual earned income/365.
> No compensation is due if the person who suffered the loss is convicted
I already included how I propose this is handled - explicit law outlining that the liability falls to someone convicted of a crime.
> or the person who was convicted had ongoing permission to access whatever is involved
I don't see why this needs to be an exception, and also if it was an exception why it wouldn't just form another avenue of unaccountable abuse (eg imagine roommates. Let's say the police bust up a whole apartment for fun - the innocent roommates really should be getting compensated for that (they're innocent, remember?), and if that damage was necessary to effect the arrest/search, the govt can then recover from the criminal.
What makes this case particularly egregious is that the criminal was never inside the premises. The police were apparently so cowardly that they were too afraid to enter and search, without first lobbing 30 tear gas canisters through the walls that they tore down.
Seems like they could have used some mm-wave radar, or other means to sense whether or not somebody was inside, before destroying somebody else's house.
I think this is just an incredibly well written blog post regardless of the topic. I often get frustrated when I realize I'm working or conversing with individuals who don't fully understand the actual mechanisms for _how_ money creates perverse incentives in the real world, how systems (*of sufficient scale) that rely on everyone to be perfect and good natured are flawed, and how just because two things rhyme doesn't mean they're the same thing.
And, though I'm sure the author wasn't particularly concerned with his literary technique, this was all foreshadowed discussing the strained relationship with Tobi (maximalist vs nuance).
This is a very broadly applicable/generalizable blog post that I think should be read even if you don't care about the specific ruby drama going on.
I think the fundamental misunderstanding (for the majority of devs who dont "get hotwire") is that you can very often delegate the statefulness of a given interaction to A: The Server via the database or B: The Browser via localstorage.
If your page can be written with it's state being "reasonably" delegated to one of these two, hotwire is _all you need_. (To be clear, it's more common that you're just doing a bunch of work to duplicate state that already exists in the database/on the server, or handled natively by the browser, and by "delegate" I mean don't-duplicate-for-no-good-reason.)
There are many (but fewer than those who "don't get" hotwire believe) cases where it's more of a headache to delegate state to A or B. In which case you should absolutely pull in react/vue/<insert_js_framework>/etc. My go-to is: https://github.com/skryukov/turbo-mount + react because it minimizes it's footprint on the "omakase-ness" of your rails app.
> Are you getting into Computer Science, or thinking about it? Or maybe you’re in it already. This super-high-level guide is for you!
> I’m not going to talk about how to write code (much). I’ll I’m going to talk about in these roughly 40 pages is more about how to learn when you’re a nascent software developer.
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