this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2026
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This is so true tho

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[–] SalamiDommie@lemmus.org 17 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

The amount of businesses with things you just can't touch for whatever reason is surprising.

The reliance on something made that is barely understood by the entire company makes me think that society will drag on generations after any kind of societal collapse.

[–] yakko@feddit.uk 8 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Social collapse isn't an exciting day in your life, it's a broad trend historians will puzzle over centuries later. Look at the bronze age collapse for an example.

[–] SalamiDommie@lemmus.org 2 points 1 hour ago

Yeah, and things can putter on for hundreds of years before they really "collapse"

[–] Alberat@lemmy.world 2 points 50 minutes ago* (last edited 49 minutes ago)

>>> import runk

>>> print(runk.count(1))

1

[–] Corbin@programming.dev 8 points 2 hours ago

Discussed previously (here, there).

I like to think of myself as the kind of person that, given enough time and documentation, can maintain anything; I think it’d still take three of me to do Ronald’s job. (Well, “job.” I think he technically works for Red Hat or something?)

[–] Tattorack@lemmy.world 43 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

Ah. He must be a KDE contributor as well.

[–] spazzman6156@sh.itjust.works 29 points 3 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Tattorack@lemmy.world 6 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

You know, I was VERY tempted to write it that way, but decided against it at the last moment.

[–] ulterno@programming.dev 7 points 1 hour ago

Klearly you are not a KDE Kontributor.

[–] lividweasel@lemmy.world 100 points 4 hours ago (3 children)
[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 18 points 2 hours ago (1 children)
[–] bilb@lemmy.ml 1 points 29 minutes ago* (last edited 25 minutes ago) (1 children)

What do we think the blocks on the right represent? Projects like TempleOS?

[–] tutter@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 8 minutes ago

ffmpeg is a good candidate im p sure

[–] Tattorack@lemmy.world 34 points 4 hours ago

By gods, the interactive one is great!

[–] W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 9 points 3 hours ago

I didn’t know how much I needed the interactive version until now.

[–] FedX@quokk.au 171 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Ronald is indescribably more important than any tech billionaire could ever hope to be. So let's raise a glass and give out a hardy thank you to all the Ronalds of the world!

[–] Kirp123@lemmy.world 74 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Too bad all the tech billionaires profit from Ronald's work while he does it for free.

[–] some_designer_dude@lemmy.world 18 points 4 hours ago

“Ronald” is all of us.

[–] dracc@discuss.tchncs.de 94 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Not sure if it's part of the joke but that word means "jerk" (as in "jerk off") in Swedish.

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 89 points 5 hours ago

So a perfect open source name then.

[–] HerbalGamer@sh.itjust.works 57 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Runk that hog, swedish boy.

[–] wyldrstallyns@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

pojke/kille/grabb/gosse = boy/dude/guy/kiddo, so have fun with that. 😂

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 120 points 5 hours ago (1 children)
[–] AnxiousMiisha@lemmy.blahaj.zone 55 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Our math depends on him 🙏

[–] pelya@lemmy.world 56 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Written in hand-optimized assembly with individual implementation for every CPU on the planet, with integer division function in 10000 lines of code impelented with XOR and bit-shifting which is somehow 0.3% faster than CPU built-in division operation.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 30 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

He had to de-optimize the init sequence because the little trick he added that caused the init sequence to return a little power to the grid instead of taking it was causing grid stability issues because the returned power from offices starting up was a bit higher than the extra power required for factory startup weekday mornings.

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[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 6 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

The mention of division has triggered a memory. I think I actually saw a library like that once. It was in C, not assembly, and was almost certainly for one specific architecture (probably Intel), but other than that, there was a lot of low-level stuff that claimed to make division faster for all CPU-native data types.

It was above my skill level to just pick up and use, let alone read and understand, but I can tell you that it at least looked legit, and the author seemed earnest in their description, so something like your hypothetical is very much out there.

[–] vrek@programming.dev 2 points 45 minutes ago

There is a video where a real game dev was showing how bad a specific benchmark was. It was basically read arguments, get a random number, do a for loop 10,000 times, inside there do another for loop 10,000 times, do some equation with a modulo, put result in array, pick a number from array and print to screen.

The biggest time cost was the modulo as that's the hot path. He basically went through and typecast all the ints to double. He got 4x the speed. It went from almost 2 seconds to less than 0.5 second just on that change. This is mostly due to cpu and compiler now using simd instructions.

Small changes can have big impacts.

[–] alpine_jim@piefed.social 31 points 4 hours ago (1 children)
[–] AnxiousMiisha@lemmy.blahaj.zone 34 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

FFmpeg and QEMU? Holy shit!
I had no idea

[–] Arghblarg@lemmy.ca 13 points 4 hours ago

and tcc, which while maybe not as 'important', is extremely cool.

[–] comrademiao@piefed.social 7 points 4 hours ago (2 children)
[–] themoken@startrek.website 9 points 2 hours ago

It's basically the best virtualization platform. It can do full system emulation across a number of platforms, or hardware assisted virtualization (using KVM). It's incredibly useful for debug as well as doing real work.

[–] AnxiousMiisha@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 4 hours ago

I would say so? It's an emulator and I personally use it to manage KVM on Linux. Makes my life easier.

Not really sure about the precise details, sorry

[–] mastertigurius@lemmy.world 59 points 5 hours ago (6 children)

Everyone who understands Norwegian love the name Ronald chose for his invaluable tool.

[–] lena@gregtech.eu 36 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

For the uninitiated: well, let's just say. jorkin it.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 26 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

and by "it".. hehe, well lets just say... my digits

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[–] vrek@programming.dev 32 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

For a long time all systems which deal with timezone data (like ability to convert utc to est for example) was reliant on 1 server in 1 random guy's basement which he paid for himself. I heard they were working to correct this situation but haven't been following it.

[–] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 30 points 4 hours ago

You sent me down the exact kind of weird rabbit hole I love. Genuinely thank you.

It's maintained by the IANA now (the same people who basically run the modern Internet, saying what domains are allowed and such for those who don't know). Though Arthur David Olson (the man you mentioned) still contributes his expertise and data.

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[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 37 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

The myth of Steve Jobs needed the actual genius of others to exist. Steve's gift to the world was recognizing and pointing out actual gifts tonthe world that would have otherwise gone unoticed or not brought to their full potential.

If Steve was still around, he would have taken Ronald's idea and had it rebuilt with a little polish and an exorbitant price tag.

[–] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 2 points 43 minutes ago (1 children)

There is no Jobs without Wozniak.

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 1 points 37 minutes ago

One hundred percent, but don't forget Jony Ive. The mythology of Steve Jobs is built on the genius of Woz and the designs of Ive.

[–] agentTeiko@piefed.social 11 points 4 hours ago

Its almost like his name was Dennis Richie and its a shame a blow hard like Jobs died around the same time as him and overshadowed his passing and his legendary legacy.

[–] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I think it’s worth noting there’s few people like Jobs and more like Gates but they’re all psychopaths.

[–] unmagical@lemmy.ml 23 points 5 hours ago

Those were both exploitative business men more than engineers or developers. Jobs wasn't special and there're reasons why Microsoft boosted Gates to be the richest person in the world at one point.

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