Full Width [alt+shift+f] Shortcuts [alt+shift+k]
Sign Up [alt+shift+s] Log In [alt+shift+l]
34
I’ve spent some time over the last few weeks reading about the various *nix init systems: venerable SysV, interim replacement Upstart, controversial monolith systemd, Apple’s proprietary launchd, and niche variants like runit and Epoch. Lots of history, lots of flame wars. One key takeaway: socket activation is a breathtakingly elegant way to parallelize system startup. […]
over a year ago

Improve your reading experience

Logged in users get linked directly to articles resulting in a better reading experience. Please login for free, it takes less than 1 minute.

More from essay – snarfed.org

Interactive navigation in embedding space

tdjgordon, Pixabay Discussed a fascinating idea for a foundation model tool at lunch today: interactive navigation in embedding space. Right now, you prompt most generative models with human language. That works, but it’s imprecise and coarse. If you’re generating an image of an outside scene, and you want the sunlight ever so slightly brighter, you […]

3 months ago 57 votes
Tech pace layers

I’ve been a fan of Stewart Brand‘s Pace Layering for decades now. Really great framework for thinking about how different ecosystems and emergent forces interact. I’ve been thinking about a tech version of it for the better part of a year, and I finally took advantage of the holiday break to bang out a rough […]

4 months ago 74 votes
Possible futures for Bridgy Fed

Tomorrowland / Walt Disney People regularly ask me whether Bridgy Fed is ready to scale and support more users. It’s a technical question, but their underlying motivation is usually broader: they believe in the social web, and the fediverse(s), and they want them to connect everyone who’s willing, across instances and networks and protocols. Right […]

6 months ago 60 votes
Sleep is so weird

Ian Dyball Our bodies are designed such that we need to lose consciousness, entirely, for a full third of every day. This is evidently necessary for some kind of regular brain maintenance, maybe forming long term memories, who knows what else. If we don’t sleep, we quickly become groggy and non-functional. Really? Evolutionarily, this is […]

a year ago 45 votes
Moderate people, not code

Dixit / Marie Cardouat The scope of the fediverse has been hotly debated recently. Are we a big fedi? Or a small fedi? Are instances just nodes? Or networked communities? Which Camp of Mastodon are we in? How far should our replies travel? How about our blog posts and Bluesky skeets? Should we welcome Threads? […]

a year ago 41 votes

More in startups

The crisis of the 21st century is here

Slipping a little bit closer toward a world of war.

22 hours ago 2 votes
Warren Buffett's $160B+ Apple Bet: A History

The story behind how Warren Buffett shunned tech for decades, before making (probably) the greatest tech investment ever.

2 days ago 4 votes
How do you compete with Chinese e-commerce giants? A Vietnamese company is deploying housewives

Sendo, once poised to become Vietnam’s leading e-commerce company, is reinventing itself to survive against TikTok Shop and Shopee.

2 days ago 4 votes
Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class

The protectionist narrative is more myth than fact.

3 days ago 5 votes
Will India’s new satellite internet rules impact Starlink’s ambitions? We asked five experts

Amid rising regional tensions, India's new regulations for satellite internet providers prioritize real-time tracking and border surveillance.

4 days ago 3 votes