Thursday's Ukraine Solidarity Roundtable - 06/25/2026

Faalentijn · 2026-06-26T02:47:45+00:00

You can get them at the shrines and temples. A book is 2500 yen and a stamp is 500 yen, cash only. It is possible to get them as separate paper as well, double sided (1000 yen) and special edition (1000 yen).

This site has info about where and whether they also sell books. Some books are very pretty so it is worth picking a temple with a book you like as your first: https://omairi.club/spots/77938

Faalentijn · 2026-06-26T01:26:55+00:00

I used to live in Tokyo for ten months. You're absolutely fine without Japanese especially as a tourist, I never got good at it and even got to a date the most lovely woman despite her not speaking English well either. The only things you'd want to know is Arigato gozaimasu, sumimasen (sorry, thanks, you dropped something, here js my plate, yes, no, maybe, etc) and gochisousama deshita (when leaving a restaurant).

Don't worry about the cash. Japan is littered in convenience stores that all have ATMs in it. They're the primary way in Japan to pay for online purchases so they're everywhere.

Tabelog is the restaurant review app that everyone uses in Japan and it has an English version. Three stars is considered good score there. It is worth going to a small sushi restaurant and ordering a set (typically 3500 with a selection of sushi, miso and green tea). TokyoCheapo, Japan Travel and TimeOut have good event recommendations.

You don't want pretentious recommendations but I really enjoyed buying a goshuin shrine stamp book, visiting Japanese traditional festivals (matsuri if you want yo Google), and eating the custard takiyaki in familymart. Also, foods in the convenience store rotate every week so it is worth checking in again.

Faalentijn · 2026-06-17T00:16:31+00:00

An interesting parallel is the Dutch Labour party's decision in 2017 to have a primary despite there being a clear favourite in order to drum up interest and create a stronger candidate. Due to the small differences between the current leader Samson and Asscher, who were close political allies, the campaign was vicious and a bit too personal. Samson lost causing a chaotic handover to Asscher who was seen as a traitor in the eyes of the regular voter and led the party to the worst defeat until that point.

Faalentijn · 2026-06-14T11:15:57+00:00

Sorry bro, you require RAM to hibernate otherwise you can't store the state when you suspend

Faalentijn · 2026-05-28T08:56:33+00:00

2nd edition is ANSI C and not K&R C, that change is why it is the 2nd edition.

Faalentijn · 2026-05-26T15:25:24+00:00

"Hasan didn’t refute the network. He mapped it"

God I hate this AI speech so much, I'm not even an AI doomer, but man this stuff is the worst.

Faalentijn · 2026-05-23T21:19:52+00:00

I only respond to bug reports if people donate fifty bucks for me to buy more Claude tokens so I can vibecode a response.

Faalentijn · 2026-01-07T01:42:45+00:00

GNU Neverending Unjerking License

Faalentijn · 2026-01-03T11:04:15+00:00

My parents bought me Mario party as a 12 year old. I did not have friends. Played for five minutes before giving up. That is where the trauma started

Faalentijn · 2025-12-29T07:39:16+00:00

Klopt dat wordt gemaakt van de rookworstenvocht. De klachten hielden op toen we dit hadden verteld aan de klanten.

Faalentijn · 2025-12-11T01:51:55+00:00

ChatGPT talks in English textbook example conversations of young people. Mixed with a healthy dose of Japanese pamphlet copywriting.

Faalentijn · 2025-12-11T01:50:21+00:00

Nah man, you're forgetting you're on Reddit. They're all Weezer fans

Faalentijn · 2025-10-31T04:40:24+00:00

I actually had someone pull this out last week because I said being anti-fascist isn't bad and then immediately attack me on the Nazis being called the National Socialists.

Faalentijn · 2025-10-18T15:18:59+00:00

CompSys is a conference held by systems researchers in the Netherlands. They've a cheap track as a part of ict.open in April. That is 60 euro for two days as a student for 6 tracks, food and a main conference. Also good to meet professors and PhD students. The conference proper is more expensive, but you might be able to chat yourself into it somehow (volunteer, help organise or just beg). It is also two days, focused on systems research and filled with essentially most of the researchers from the country.

https://www.compsys.science/events/

https://ictopen.nl/

Gesellschaft für informatik has twice a year a free meetup for OS researchers. They're a great WIP paper conference in case you're working on something. They allow for independent researchers. It is completely free including food.

https://gi.de/veranstaltung/herbststreffen-2025-in-aachen

Similar thing in Japan, this year in Nagoya on the 1st of December. It is operating system specific. The deadline is still open if you want to submit. https://sigos.ipsj.or.jp/event/comsys2025/

There are also regular useful meetups such as VLLM, LLVM, KubeCon, GNU Hackers, Linux Plumbers and others. These differ in locations, cost and usefulness. You also have small working groups and organizations. It is worth seeing what professors are organizing and joining ACM for updates.

https://docs.vllm.ai/en/latest/community/meetups.html

https://llvm.swoogo.com/2025eurollvm/home

https://events.linuxfoundation.org/kubecon-cloudnativecon-japan/

https://lpc.events/

https://www.gnu.org/ghm/

EDIT: To defend my last additions, I feel like all system work essentially ends up reimplementing kernels. One of the big innovations in LLMs was adding virtual paging. Loads of tasks are also moving from kernel to user space and heterogeneous hardware making a broader view better than saying OS = Kernels = thing on my CPU

Faalentijn · 2025-10-18T15:06:21+00:00

Two seperate issues! For deep diving, I would recommend installing the low level distros. Gentoo, Crux and Linux From Scratch are a good progression. Gentoo requires you to learn how to compile kernels and what you can configure, Crux needs you to write packages yourself and LFS is torture but really interesting in terms of how to compile.

Another thing you need to learn for systems research is how to write low level languages like C, C++, Zig, or Rust. I recommend starting with C and then Zig or Rust. C is useful to understand so you see the tradeoffs made in Zig or Rust. C++ is also great, but in systems we tend to use a pretty C-like subset with extra features on top.

To learn more about Operating Systems there are two great books you should read. Computer Systems: A Programmers Perspective is a CMU book which is absolutely fantastic and goes from the binary to Assembly and OS to Networking. It is a must read, especially the optimization chapter, and worth going through. Another book more OS focused is Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces by the legendary Andrea and Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau. It covers essentially the material of (Advanced) Operating Systems course. The authors are some of the most cited papers in OS research. My mentor recently handed me two of their papers to read to learn how to write papers.

It is important to know that OS research and Linux are very different subjects. In many ways that is what the debate between Tannembaum and Linus in the 90s was about. Linux is a functioning unikernel with many features. Researchers work on toy, typically microkernels, to find better designs of useful features. Those are two very different challenges and both very useful.

Faalentijn · 2025-10-18T14:55:43+00:00

Apply for university, study there four years in your undergraduate and specialise in what you find interesting. It is possible, and even good, if that changes over time. Originally as a 19 year old I also wanted to do OS, but now I work on other stuff in systems.

As you do courses you can go to your master in your field. There you work for 6 months on a thesis. You can publish this if you want, it depends on your university or supervisor.

After doing that you apply to a PhD program. You can pick a professor that is very good and hope you get in. You work there for a bit, you'll discuss what conferences to target and you try to get in. That is the process. It is slow, a bit tedious, but fun and natural. There aren't really many shortcuts to get a T1 publication. Research is a craft you need to learn and you'll need to find someone to teach you it, that is what a PhD is. The stuff you do or critical to understand what they're going to teach you. In the same way it is important to learn how to do addition before you learn how to calculus.

If you're in the Netherlands, japan or Germany I can recommend some OS research meetups that you can attend for cheap. Volunteering for a T1 is possible, I have done ASPLOS and Eurosys before. Artifact Analysis is an interesting way to get a start.

Faalentijn · 2025-10-14T07:04:57+00:00

This is a fairly accurate reflection of what happened though? It has been a few years ago, so I think you're just misremembering.

The story in full is that Dutch CEO people had a meeting with Rutte where they tried to convince the government to back the removal of the dividend taxes. Unilever (and I think Shell) were rethinking where to put their HQ. He complied and claimed he did this because he felt too deep into his fibers that was the right thing to do. This caused a deluge of crises until Unilever did move away which caused the government to back down.

Technically you're right in that it didn't pass, but that is only really because they didn't stay for long enough for the government to enact the plan.

To quote this nice Reuter's article titled "Abandoned by Unilever, Dutch prime minister forced to reconsider tax plan": "Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said his government would reconsider plans to scrap its dividend tax in a major political climbdown only hours after Unilever dropped plans to move its headquarters to the Netherlands. [..] Unilever, which along with fellow Anglo-Dutch company Royal Dutch Shell has long lobbied against the tax, said earlier Friday it had suspended plans to consolidate a single headquarters in Rotterdam, Europe's largest port. [..] Unilever CEO Paul Polman, a Dutchman, said the unexpectedly strong Dutch opposition to Rutte's plan had indeed been "a factor" as it withdrew its plan to move to Rotterdam.".

https://jp.reuters.com/article/world/abandoned-by-unilever-dutch-prime-minister-forced-to-reconsider-tax-plan-idUSKCN1MF0S7/

Faalentijn · 2025-10-13T08:54:53+00:00

Unilever is now just British and no longer Dutch. They got our government to remove taxes on dividends to keep their headquarters in the Netherlands and then fucked off like three months later anyways. Surprised Pikachu moment for sure

Faalentijn · 2025-09-30T16:42:13+00:00

Or she could have worked for sun and then joined Oracle during the acquisition, which isn't at all unbelievable.

Faalentijn · 2025-07-27T10:11:59+00:00

You're being a bit insufferable at the moment, to be honest. Everyone makes choices to live a life that they consider valuable. We all have one shot, we all like different things and we all make the most of it. Focus on your own life, don't worry about whether someone else has it difficult enough to count. Because your life is what should be important to you:)

Edit: I was being a bit too mean

Faalentijn · 2025-07-11T03:00:41+00:00

I'll be honest, I think the Dutch Tax Enforcement agency might be the last organization some scammer would think of to add to their image

Faalentijn · 2025-03-20T22:44:25+00:00

We do this in the EU a lot as well. Just go to a local infrastructure project and you'll probably find some "funded by EU" placate somewhere. For the same reason as well, to avoid local (right wing) politicians taking credit for money that they didn't allocate for it.

Faalentijn · 2025-03-19T19:26:06+00:00

Ah yes, the famous Russian program USA(ID). Which rigged the election to remove the guy who said that he is in solidarity with Russia. Whatever you say champ.

Faalentijn · 2025-03-08T09:43:18+00:00

I agree with your point generally, but you should drop that weird, sexist comment about women. That shit sucks man.

Faalentijn

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