linux.conf.au-2018.md (4525B)
1 # linux.conf.au 2018 2 3 ## Making Technology More Inclusive Through Papercraft and Sound 4 5 By Andrew Huang. 6 7 I like how the talk goes over a range of cross-domain topics: 8 9 - high-level motivations: 10 11 Improving inclusiveness is necessary to make open-source actually 12 empower people; right now a very small subset of the population is 13 computer-savvy enough to take advantage of it. If the situation 14 does not improve, a handful of developers will hold a lot of power 15 over lots of alienated users, and lawmakers may resort to 16 "preposterous" solutions to attempt to regain control, e.g. license 17 bonds for software developments. 18 19 - Kickstarter campaign management 20 - design choices & rationale 21 - "China-ready" 22 - "patience of a child" constraint 23 - gory hardware details 24 - the end result 25 26 ## QUIC: Replacing TCP for the Web 27 28 By Jana Iyengar. 29 30 Starts by introducing impressive application performance improvements, 31 although where were those measured? E.g. rural areas? 32 33 Advantage that can already be inferred from the layer view: QUIC needs 34 fewer handshakes than TCP+TLS. 35 36 Achieves 0-RTT when the server's cryptographic credentials are known. 37 38 Supports "stream multiplexing": the upper layer (e.g. HTTP) can 39 transfer multiple objects independently in a single connection. 40 Losing part of one object does not block the others: retransmission is 41 managed at the stream level, not at the connection level. 42 43 On top of UDP: allows userspace (Chrome) implementation. 44 45 > If you think of layers as a set of functions, things that you want 46 > done, UDP is not a transport protocol. 47 48 I.e. UDP does not provide reliability, same-order delivery… 49 50 Jana was "in the SCTP bandwagon". 51 52 They actually have *better performance improvements* for *bigger 53 latencies*? Nice. 54 55 > § QUIC improvements by country 56 57 👏 58 59 (Of course the end goal is probably to make sure regions with poor 60 connections do not miss out on the adfest; still, these remain welcome 61 technical improvements) 62 63 Transport headers are encrypted to prevent "middlebox ossification". 64 They left a *single* byte unencrypted (the flags byte): this allowed 65 middleboxes to observe that it kinda had the same value on most 66 connections, assume that this was a "nominal" value, and block traffic 67 when this value differed. 68 69 ## You Can't Unit Test C, Right? 70 71 By Benno Rice. 72 73 - Mentions [Check](https://libcheck.github.io/check/) and 74 [Kyua](https://github.com/jmmv/kyua). 75 - Factor your boilerplate into libraries, especially the ugly hacks. 76 - Keep `main` small so that you don't need to test it so much. 77 78 ## Changing the world through (fan-)fiction 79 80 By Paul Fenwick. 81 82 Reading fiction is a convenient way to get us to think through 83 concepts we had not considered before. By re-purposing a familiar 84 setting, *fan*fiction lowers the barrier to entry to the writing 85 exercise: it makes it easier for the writer to get their point across 86 and to reach their audience. 87 88 Some recommendations: 89 90 - The Last Ringbearer 91 - [My Little Pony: Friendship is Optimal] 92 - [Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality] 93 94 Our media teaches us what is normal. Hence fiction opens up ways to 95 improve the status quo by acquainting us to new ideas. 96 97 Another recommendation: Steven Universe. 98 99 Mainstream and folklore stories feature a fair amount of unhealthy 100 relationships; this is problematic because repeated exposure helps 101 normalization^[I find that SMBC is a positive example of this effect: 102 it regularly (and, AFAICT, fairly randomly) features gay couples in 103 comics where the joke is *not* about homosexuality]. 104 105 In Japan, doujinshi is considered normal and "adding value to the 106 brand", whereas similar things are flagged as "copyright infringement" 107 in other countries. 108 109 [My Little Pony: Friendship is Optimal]: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/62074/Friendship-is-Optimal 110 [Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality]: http://www.hpmor.com/ 111 112 ## Lessons from three years of volunteering to teach students code 113 114 By David Tulloh. 115 116 Takeways: 117 118 1. Volunteering in schools is easy and fun. 119 2. We should care about what is taught in schools. 120 3. We should get involved and support schools teaching IT. 121 122 CSIRO: Australian program to get professional developers to teach in 123 schools. 124 125 [Pixees](https://pixees.fr/) seems to be a French equivalent. 126 127 Tried to move students from "programmers" to "developers" by evoking: 128 129 - automated testing 130 - version control 131 - bug tracking 132 - code review 133 134 An audience member noted that while programs ala CSIRO are helpful, 135 this should be organized at the government policy level. 136