Ask HN: Please help me recall a certain programmer horror story • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Please help me recall a certain programmer horror story

#41

Post by antsar » Tue, Jul 24, 2018, 1:41 PM UTC

TheArcane wrote: post #39

antsar wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if one of your transistors has a tiny logic board inside?

Logic boards can't be smaller than a modern transistor. Logic boards contain transistors.

"modern transistors" are available in differently-sized packages. I assumed someone building their own CPU would be using larger transistors than those normally used inside a production CPU. You sure one of these[0] couldn't contain a tiny processor inside?

[0] https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41bBdtuYF0L...

Re: Ask HN: Please help me recall a certain programmer horror story

#42

Post by rexpop » Tue, Jul 24, 2018, 6:10 PM UTC

hhmc wrote: post #23

rexpop wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that the first adjective you use was "smart" when, in any decent scope of consideration, he has actually wasted many hours of others' time, and caused only suffering. When I do that at my company, they do not call me "smart."

Cleverness and morality can be orthogonal.

Of course they can, but when I see an act of ingenious evil, my first response is not circumscribed admiration.

Re: Ask HN: Please help me recall a certain programmer horror story

#43

Post by breakingcups » Tue, Jul 24, 2018, 7:15 PM UTC

rexpop wrote: post #42

hhmc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cleverness and morality can be orthogonal.

Of course they can, but when I see an act of ingenious evil, my first response is not circumscribed admiration.

Concluding someone is smart doesn't always equal admiring them.

Re: Ask HN: Please help me recall a certain programmer horror story

#44

Post by emilfihlman » Mon, Jul 30, 2018, 11:12 AM UTC

antsar wrote: post #37

emilfihlman wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't even stop at hardware exactly (mcu/cpu), it only stops when you assemble the mcu/cpu yourself.

What if one of your transistors has a tiny logic board inside?

In theory yeah that's possible.

But given that you'd have to cram quite a lot of logic inside to analyse and influence all custom systems when all you are given is a single line that's just a single line in a huge system.