In my experience the biggest entropy generator with browser fingerprinting in system fonts. I ran Panopticlick against both my Firefox browser instance (running Ghostery, uBlock Origin, and Privacy Badger) against a…
In what ways do the database architecture change when one discards the assumption that I/O is the bottleneck? Does it obviate the relational model? I always found the relational model to fit working with data sets very…
Joe Armstrong's passing is tragic. I never him, but he also inspired my own thinking as a software engineer. Even though Erlang is a language from the 1980s, it still feels like something from the future. I have only…
For the purposes of learning antenna theory at the level of Balanis's 'Antenna Theory', I think Jackson is severely overkill. It's also written for physicists rather than engineers, so the emphasis is different. On the…
Thank you for your contributions to the Rust ecosystem over the years! I've tinkered with many novel programming languages over the years, and most of those come and go, but Rust is one of the ones I stick with. Rust is…
I also recommend Dawkins' follow-up book, "The Extended Phenotype." Dawkins' most popular writing may be on atheism and the critique of religion, but I think his greatest contributions were really found in this book…
This is one reason I wonder whether there is room in the world for a better C. Low complexity programming languages with a simple machine mental model along the lines of Go (or perhaps in future, Zig and Jai?) for doing…
I played Magic for about 12 years (1994 - 2006), and played competitively for a good chunk of that time. I am absolutely mind-blown at how expensive the old stuff has become. I remember when moxes were $100 cards and…
How many software engineers had to study IEEE floating point in (any amount of) detail? Part of my formal education is in computer (hardware) engineering, and we studied hardware number representations and manipulations…
John Michael Godier is a futurist and scifi author. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEszlI8-W79IsU8LSAiRbDg He also has a podcast called Event Horizon. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz3qvETKooktNgCvvheuQDw
I did one of my undergrads in mathematics. For me the primary benefit of studying pure mathematics was that it greatly improved my ability to think clearly. Mathematics more than almost any other discipline (physics and…
Remember that software engineers have two skill sets: programming/development skills and domain knowledge. Many of the comments here are focusing on the former, but consider the latter as well. What kinds of problems do…
I find this funny since I had the opposite experience: at the time I left undergrad I didn't think I had the chops to do a Ph.d., so I went into industry instead.
I would still do software engineering if I could do it all over. I came into SWE from the EE side. I studied both mathematics and computer (hardware) engineering, with a hefty CS minor in undergrad. I think EE/CE is a…
In my experience the biggest entropy generator with browser fingerprinting in system fonts. I ran Panopticlick against both my Firefox browser instance (running Ghostery, uBlock Origin, and Privacy Badger) against a…
In what ways do the database architecture change when one discards the assumption that I/O is the bottleneck? Does it obviate the relational model? I always found the relational model to fit working with data sets very…
Joe Armstrong's passing is tragic. I never him, but he also inspired my own thinking as a software engineer. Even though Erlang is a language from the 1980s, it still feels like something from the future. I have only…
For the purposes of learning antenna theory at the level of Balanis's 'Antenna Theory', I think Jackson is severely overkill. It's also written for physicists rather than engineers, so the emphasis is different. On the…
Thank you for your contributions to the Rust ecosystem over the years! I've tinkered with many novel programming languages over the years, and most of those come and go, but Rust is one of the ones I stick with. Rust is…
I also recommend Dawkins' follow-up book, "The Extended Phenotype." Dawkins' most popular writing may be on atheism and the critique of religion, but I think his greatest contributions were really found in this book…
This is one reason I wonder whether there is room in the world for a better C. Low complexity programming languages with a simple machine mental model along the lines of Go (or perhaps in future, Zig and Jai?) for doing…
I played Magic for about 12 years (1994 - 2006), and played competitively for a good chunk of that time. I am absolutely mind-blown at how expensive the old stuff has become. I remember when moxes were $100 cards and…
How many software engineers had to study IEEE floating point in (any amount of) detail? Part of my formal education is in computer (hardware) engineering, and we studied hardware number representations and manipulations…
John Michael Godier is a futurist and scifi author. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEszlI8-W79IsU8LSAiRbDg He also has a podcast called Event Horizon. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz3qvETKooktNgCvvheuQDw
I did one of my undergrads in mathematics. For me the primary benefit of studying pure mathematics was that it greatly improved my ability to think clearly. Mathematics more than almost any other discipline (physics and…
Remember that software engineers have two skill sets: programming/development skills and domain knowledge. Many of the comments here are focusing on the former, but consider the latter as well. What kinds of problems do…
I find this funny since I had the opposite experience: at the time I left undergrad I didn't think I had the chops to do a Ph.d., so I went into industry instead.
I would still do software engineering if I could do it all over. I came into SWE from the EE side. I studied both mathematics and computer (hardware) engineering, with a hefty CS minor in undergrad. I think EE/CE is a…