(This is putting aside that the old certification tests were deprecated, and transitioning to the new set of tests is... not simple due to mixed Python and Ruby usage. So I haven't done it yet.)

Anyways, Idk what to do here... probably will begrudgingly have Sentinel certified while bitching quite loudly about it. Like, I don't even want to work on Sentinel anymore, I'm so fucking pissed rn.

Real fucking glad we made it completely fucking impossible to have a new CPU arch succeed because our collective standards for codegen and programming languages are millions-of-person-years high.

https://github.com/riscv/riscv-arch-test/blob/act4/AGENTS.md

The RISC-V Certification Tests use Claude. Do I really say "I refuse to get Sentinel certified b/c the certification tests provided by RISC-V themselves are slop"? Christ Almighty...

(I'm also considering "Crimson", "Garnet", "Vermilion", and "Rose". Also, a darker variation of "Scarlet" works.)

I need a red shade as a Perfect Name for a piece of software... hmmm, Ruby works. Good thing there's no existing well-known software named Ruby...

Christ, I do NOT want to write another Amaranth simulator test wrapper... why couldn't pytest have just Not Gone To Slop?!

RE: https://mastodon.social/@hyc/117338679750480295

.oO (ACID compliant database for 8-bit/16-bit machines...)

4. I could've feasibly done this program in C, BASIC, or lang of choice. Python was just quickest for me (no external packages required).

I had to write a program to understand some math. But, I don't feel all that bad about it, b/c:

1. It helped me understand by letting me see patterns I couldn't feasibly calculate by hand.
2. This program could've feasibly run in the 80s, albeit probably taking 15 mins to 1 hour instead of 5 seconds.
3. It was completely handwritten- no AI/LLMs- and the majority of my references didn't require me to scour the Internet* :D.

* Now if only I didn't still have to look shit up about Python...

#lazyweb Can someone give me some good 7-letter magic hex constants?

E.g. 0xdeadbee... huh... I guess that works. Must be exactly seven letters.

Would you go back and tell your 18 year old self that "software industry in the future... isn't great"?

(Idk if I would personally. Although at 18, my intent was to stay away from software- except when necessary- while going for my degree. Certainly, that didn't pan out.)

Ya know what would be great? It'd be great if I could multiply polynomials (> 2 terms) without comically f***ing it up the first time...

The peer already downloaded the file, so it doesn't have need to do DHT queries. I don't recall Kademlia having a "actively search for nodes wanting the value associated with a hash" function either.

Thanks for the sincere replies. This was not one of my more intelligent questions. The question I was TRYING to ask was:

I have an incoming connection sending me data. It's not over DHT. Okay, cool. So presumably, that means the tracker announced I'm looking for a file, and the peer is connecting to me.

My question: is downloading a file over DHT where the peer connects to you to send data (incoming conn) possible? If so, how does the peer know to connect to me?

#lazyweb How do torrent clients announce what port they're using for incoming connections? Is it sent as part of DHT info?

Alternate question: I'm vaguely aware that some early CDs players had control systems that were completely analog. Were there also bespoke ICs for doing the EFM/CIRC decoding without requiring a DSP?

Maybe I underestimate how powerful the early 80s DSPs were. Or maybe I'm overlooking optimizations. But hey, CDs existed and worked in the 80s. So I must be missing something about finite field arithmetic impls in practice.

#lazyweb #retrocomputing Okay I'll bite. Before I start emailing around, anyone know the prior art to BCH decoders/encoders in hardware, especially Reed Solomon? Especially in the 80s.

I know of using LUTs to speed up finite field multiplies (and Zech's logarithm, to speed up basically everything). But unclear to me if those tricks were used in hardware back in the day.

Context is: Looking at Reed-Solomon/CIRC, and thinking to myself "this feels like it was unimplementable in real time in 80s"

#lazyweb Should know this, but I don't: Was the original 1970s 6502 microcoded?