Dan Wallach

@[email protected]
6 Followers
333 Following
55 Posts
Professor, Department of Computer Science
Rice Scholar, Baker Institute for Public Policy
Rice University
Homepagehttps://www.cs.rice.edu/~dwallach/
Twitterhttps://twitter.com/danwallach
Githubhttps://github.com/danwallach
Dan WallachNov 23, 2022
Nerd gift recommendation: the compact Anker 747 charger has 3 USB-C ports plus one USB-A. What sets it apart is that the total output (150W) is available in any mix between the ports, so you can charge laptop, phone, etc from the same cables. Convenient.
https://www.anker.com/products/a2340?variant=41974288777366
Anker 747 Charger (GaNPrime 150W)

All the Power You Need: Charge 2 laptops at high speed, or power up to 4 devices simultaneously. Connect a single device to one of the USB-C ports to charge at up to 100W. Compact Yet Powerful: 38% smaller than an Apple 140W charger—but with even more power. ActiveShield 2.0: Anker's proprietary technology enhances protection by intelligently monitoring temperature over 3 million times per day and adjusting power output to safeguard your connected devices. Greener with GaN: If every household in the US used our GaNPrime™ products in place of non-GaNPrime™ products, the amount of power saved could be up to 796.39 million kWh per year—that's enough energy to power Hawaii for a full month. What You Get: Anker 747 Charger (GaNPrime 150W), silicone stabilizer, welcome guide, our worry-free 24-month warranty, and friendly customer service.

Dan WallachNov 23, 2022
Christopher JonesNov 20, 2022

Dear students:

If you’re considering emailing a former professor just to check in and say hi, but are hesitant because you have nothing substantive to say, consider this an invitation to go ahead and send that email. It really means a lot.

Dan WallachNov 23, 2022
Nerdy and apparently awesome tool for drawing box and arrow diagrams, which are ubiquitous in academic CS papers.
https://github.com/terrastruct/d2
GitHub - terrastruct/d2: D2 is a modern diagram scripting language that turns text to diagrams.

D2 is a modern diagram scripting language that turns text to diagrams. - terrastruct/d2

GitHub
Dan WallachNov 22, 2022
Show threadDr. Casey FieslerNov 21, 2022

I've been thinking about this a lot, and recognize what a hard problem it is, but "ethics" education in computer science absolutely needs to include discussion of how to raise ethical concerns and speak to power, and how to engage in resistance.

You can read the entire short paper "Entering the Techlash: Student Perspectives on Ethics in Tech Job Searches" here! https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3500868.3559446#BibPLXBIB0016

And more to come. :)

Entering the Techlash: Student Perspectives on Ethics in Tech Job Searches

Dan WallachNov 21, 2022
SeattleWXGuyNov 20, 2022
Mount Rainier casts shadow on clouds above. #wawx
Dan WallachNov 19, 2022
Norman WilsonNov 19, 2022

RT @[email protected]

Hey, US folks newly running Mastodon instances: do Future You a *huge* favor, mitigate your potential liability, and register with the copyright office and designate an agent to receive DMCA reports *right now*. https://www.copyright.gov/dmca-directory/

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1593819064161665024

DMCA Designated Agent Directory | U.S. Copyright Office

DMCA Designated Agent Directory

Dan WallachNov 18, 2022
rob pikeNov 18, 2022

Fred Brooks, architect of the IBM/360 and its OS, author of The Mythical Man Month, and advocate for the 8-bit byte (enabling lower case letters!), passed away today.

Few in computing have influenced so many.

Dan WallachNov 17, 2022
Dan PortsNov 17, 2022

Reminder: the Roomba was originally programmed in a dialect of Lisp.

That makes sense, because the hardware is optimized for garbage collection.

Dan WallachNov 16, 2022
A specialized Mastodon client for cryptic posts: "TootUncommon".
Dan WallachNov 16, 2022
Dan LuuNov 16, 2022

One of the things that I think is sad about the decimation of Twitter eng is that Twitter was doing a lot of interesting (and high ROI) eng work that, at younger companies, is mostly outsourced at great cost.

A few examples off the top of my head:

The now gutted HWENG group was so good at server design that, in a meeting with Intel, the Intel folks couldn't believe the power envelope Twitter achieved and Google thought we were lying about our costs during cloud price negotiations.