It's humbling to know that the RAM of computers like ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 would fit in a single IP packet. It took minutes to load that "paket" from cassette tape.
With IPv6 there is even an extension to go to 4 GB packets (extremely rare to actually be implemented though), which you can send in less than 100 ms with an 800G NIC!
Heh. Anyone remember the ping of death[0]? A lot (most?) of computers on the early internet didn't properly handle large packets, _especially_ from ICMP pings. Once upon a time, you could send a single ping w/ a packet size of 65536 and crash the remote.
Another way to donate is to proof read documentation and report on typos, spelling errors, etc. Some projects have documentation in multiple languages - helping out in a language you know is another excellent way to contribute.
Many projects have great communities, making it all fun and engaging.
WISH: Don't pad the hours with zero when using the 12-hour time format, e.g. '7:15:03 AM' instead of '07:15:03 AM'. The padding with zero is used in the 24-hour format, e.g. '07:15:03'.
I remember connecting a VHS video camera directly to a cathode-ray tube (CRT) teve to produce funky patterns back in the 80's.
You did it in a pitch dark room, aimed the camera towards the teve, and have someone briefly light a lighter in between. That generated a visual feedback loop.
By rotating the camera upside down, the feedback loop would introduce systematic effects, because the camera's vertical scan is now opposite to the teve's swipe. It would create random, constantly changing, colorful, spiraling patterns.
You could move your hands in front to adjust the patterns and control the brightness that could increase due to the feedback loop.
I read a long time ago that it's quite common, like 1 in 7 people got it. Some people don't even know they have it. I always had it as far as I can recall, but it wasn't until my mid 20s, when I stumbled upon a picture, that I reflected on it and the fact that not everyone sees number forms.
Oh wow. Count me in on the I didn't know I had that! camp.
When younger I struggled horribly with ALL things math, and to this day still do. OTOH I've always had a knack for DIY involving measurements: lenghts, rythms, quantities, sizes, you name it. I just invoke my own "dynamic mind ruler" for the task at hand and usually get it right 1st try. Cooking something new? I intuitively know the proper amount of ingredients and spices. Doing work in a friend's car? That nut looks like a 3/4 and that one a 11/16, and who the heck put a 11mm in place of a 7/16??
Incidentally, the whole concept of Time always flows from right-to-left to me. 1000BC is waaay to the right, and 2030AC is just a stone throw away to the left. Now I wonder if it's something only I perceive that way, or everyone does.
FWIW, the 'AVX' CPU feature is part of the x86-64-v3 level of the x86-64 microarchitecture standard [0].
There are chips produced in 2015 that are only supporting x86-64-v2 [0]. Also, according to [1], "The new server-class CPUs released in 2020 [2] do not implement the AVX instruction set."
FWIW2, RedHat Enterprise Linux 9 (RHEL9) requires x86-64-v2 or newer [1]. So, as a reference, they decided to not yet require support for AVX.
