Alex

@akahn
21 Followers
409 Following
1.8K Posts
Self-conscious backend software guy. Into games, #Unschooling, bicycles, weird music.
PronounsHe/him
LocationMassachusetts
How many genders are there?I don’t know I just got here
AlexNov 8
Okay, trying out the move to @akahn …
AlexNov 8
I find distributed tracing so annoying and difficult to set up that at this point I just want metrics for everything. Just me?
AlexNov 8
I don't know who turned me on to this, but now I can't live without it: Karabiner Elements mapping so that my caps lock key is "escape" if I tap it and "control" if I hold it down. https://ke-complex-modifications.pqrs.org/?q=caps%20lock%20control%20escape#tap4caps_hold4ctrl
Karabiner-Elements complex_modifications rules

Karabiner-Elements complex_modifications predefined rules by community

AlexNov 4

Never saw my tech colleagues come closer to fighting back against the bosses than open enrollment season when facing stiff healthcare premium increases for worse coverage.

#TechUnionization

AlexNov 2
I have a colleague who is worse-than-useless when responding to even a minor incident. Extremely frantic, almost hysterical, to the point of losing analytical thought. For a while I found this just frustrating to deal with, until I realized… some past life experience made him this way. Now I'm more like "who hurt you?"
Show threadAlexNov 2

Also TIL that CPUs have special hint instructions (called PAUSE on x86) to make spin loops more efficient, which tell the CPU to let other hyperthreads progress instead, and again also improves CPU cache behavior.

Details on PAUSE: https://www.felixcloutier.com/x86/pause
Example from Go runtime: https://go.dev/src/runtime/asm_amd64.s#L803-809

#microarchitecture #golang

PAUSE — Spin Loop Hint

AlexNov 2

TIL Go's mutex is unfair by default, allowing the running goroutine to re-acquire a lock it just released. This is faster because it avoids having to park and unpark goroutines, and is kind to CPU caches. But if starvation is detected (defined as >1ms of waiting), it switches to fair servicing of waiters.

https://go.googlesource.com/go/+/refs/tags/go1.25.3/src/internal/sync/mutex.go#31

#golang

src/internal/sync/mutex.go - go - Git at Google

AlexNov 2
Daphne Preston-KendalOct 28
Alan Kay’s critique of SimCity games
AlexNov 2
Show threadJason GormanNov 2
It's the classic problem, though. Most software developers have been too busy developing software to learn software development.
Show threadAlexNov 1

Now I'm three weeks out from the bad wrist sprain. I can do most things, but some things are still really painful/impossible (e.g. chopping onions). And I'm at that part of recovery where the mind games about pain/recovery/reinjury come into play: If I overdo it, am I setting myself back? If I baby it, am I setting myself back?

Waiting for a phone call from occupational therapy to help me with recovery but… *cries in US healthcare system*