• SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    50
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 years ago

    Just yesterday I ran into some chucklehead here on Lemmy that had convinced themselves that the average person would interpret “crypto” to mean SSL rather than cryptocurrency.

  • Rose@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    2 years ago

    NOP is $EA, of course, and… um…

    …sorry, I’m just a Commodore 64 scrub, I don’t know nothing about this high and mighty Intel 8086 nonsense.

    [looking up]

    …it’s 0x90 on IA-32? WHAT? Someone told me every processor used 0xEA because that was commonly agreed and readily apparent. …guess I was wrong

    • A Basil Plant@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INT_(x86_instruction) (scroll down to INT3)

      https://stackoverflow.com/a/61946177

      The TL;DR is that it’s used by debuggers to set a breakpoint in code.

      For example, if you’re familiar with gdb, one of the simplest ways to make code stop executing at a particular point in the code is to add a breakpoint there.

      Gdb replaces the instruction at the breakpoint with 0xCC, which happens to be the opcode for INT 3 — generate interrupt 3. When the CPU encounters the instruction, it generates interrupt 3, following which the kernel’s interrupt handler sends a signal (SIGTRAP) to the debugger. Thus, the debugger will know it’s meant to start a debugging loop there.

      • Valmond@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        2 years ago

        Hey thank you!

        Not what I thought it was for sure 😃

        How does it work if an instruction gets replaced by the INT3 though?

        • A Basil Plant@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          2 years ago

          Excellent question!

          Before replacing the instruction with INT 3, the debugger keeps a note of what instruction was at that point in the code. When the CPU encounters INT 3, it hands control to the debugger.

          When the debugging operations are done, the debugger replaces the INT 3 with the original instruction and makes the instruction pointer go back one step, thereby ensuring that the original instruction is executed.

  • milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    2 years ago

    There’s an old joke about two mathematicians in a cafe. They’re arguing about whether ordinary people understand basic mathematics. The first mathematician says yes, of course they do! And the second disagrees.

    The second mathematician goes to the toilet, and the first calls over their blonde waitress. He says to her, "in a minute my friend is going to come back from the toilet, and I’m going to ask you a question. I want you to reply, “one third x cubed.'”

    “One ther desque,” she repeats.

    “One third x cubed,” the mathematician tries again.

    “One thir dek scubed.”

    “That’ll do,” he says, and she heads off. The second mathematician returns from the toilet and the first lays him a challenge. “I’ll prove it. I’ll call over that blonde waitress and ask her a simple integration question, and see if she can answer.” The second mathematician agrees, and they call her over.

    “My friend and I have a question,” the first mathematician asks the waitress. “Do you know what is the integral of x squared?”

    “One thir dek scubed,” she answers and the second mathematician is impressed and concedes the point.

    And as she walks away, the waitress calls over her shoulder,

    “Plus a constant.”

    • nikaaa@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 years ago

      I would not consider integration to be basic maths, honestly. Basic maths is addition and multiplication, and maybe vector geometry.

  • Philip@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 years ago

    I mean who hasnt watched “Assembly Language in 100 seconds” by Fireship

  • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    2 years ago

    One of the most useful concepts ever:

    the Curse of Knowledge.

    Explaining something to someone? Zoom out. Back up. What if that person were an alien, how much more context would you need to explain?

    The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias that occurs when an individual, who is communicating with others, assumes that others have information that is only available to themselves, assuming they all share a background and understanding. This bias is also called by some authors the curse of expertise.

    • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      2 years ago

      One of the things I look for in employees is the ability to distill complex topics into the important elements and explain it to someone unfamiliar. Some people are just naturally good at it, and it’s a really important skill for moving up a leadership chain.

    • AVincentInSpace@pawb.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      2 years ago

      Me talking to my dad (who last held the position of professional programmer 30 years ago) about the programming problem I’m working on and vastly overestimating how much he knows about modern software development parlance

  • moosetwin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 years ago

    It’s insane how close that handwriting is to randall’s, did he make multiple versions of this comic or was this written by a professional forger?

  • SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 years ago

    I recently took a class on ARM assembly, and yet I don’t even know half of these x86 instructions.