Aussie living in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Coding since 1998.
.NET Foundation member. C# fan
https://d.sb/
Mastodon: @dan@d.sb

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • ECC (and other methods) write the corrected value back to memory

    That was my understanding (it corrects the error and writes the good value back to RAM), but now I’m not so sure! I imagine it must do that, otherwise a second bit flip would actually corrupt the RAM, and the RAM manufacturer would want to reduce that risk.

    Regular ECC adds an extra parity bit for each byte. For each byte of memory, it can correct an error in one bit, and detect but not correct an error in two bits, so they wouldn’t want a one bit error to linger for longer than it needs to.


  • A better use of your time is to improve documentation. Developers generally hate documentation so it’s often in need of improvement. Rewrite confusing sentences. Add tutorials that are missing. Things like that. You don’t necessarily have to be a good developer or even understand the code of the project; you just have to have some knowledge of the project as an end user.






  • Australia: Consumer protection laws are better than most other countries, even European countries. For example:

    • Products must last as long as a “reasonable consumer” would expect them to last, regardless of the warranty period. For example, at least 5-10 years for large appliances.
    • If there’s a “major failure” any time during that period (a big problem with the product, if it stops working, if it differs from the description, is missing advertised features, or you wouldn’t have bought it if you knew about the problem beforehand), the customer has a choice of whether they want to have the item repaired, replaced, or return it and get a refund. Customers can also ask for a partial refund based on loss of value.
    • The store you bought the item from must accept returns and warranty claims. They can’t tell you to go to the manufacturer.
    • For repairs, returns and replacements of large items (like appliances), the company must pick it up and drop it off for free.
    • It’s illegal for a store to not offer refunds (unless the items are second-hand).
    • Products must match descriptions in advertising, including what a sales person tells you. If a sales person tells you the product does something but it actually doesn’t, you can get a refund.
    • Businesses get fined for breaking these rules. A chain of computer stores had to pay a $200,000 fine for showing an illegal “no refunds” sign and forcing people to go to the manufacturer for warranty claims, and were later fined $750,000 for doing it again: https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/msy-technology-ordered-to-pay-penalties-of-750000-for-consumer-guarantee-misrepresentations

    This applies for digital goods, too. As far as I know, Australia is the only country where you can get a refund from Steam for a major bug in a game regardless of how long you’ve owned the game for or how many hours you’ve played. Valve tried to avoid doing this and was fined $3 million: https://www.cnet.com/culture/entertainment/valve-to-pay-3-million-fine-for-misleading-australian-gamers/