I’m an noob to Lean myself, but my best explanation is that asserts are checks that happen at runtime. Imagine compile-time asserts, where the compiler is able to determine the validity of assertions without needing to run the program. Formal verification techniques make this possible. In Lean, it is possible to write a proof that, if true, guarantees that the code works.
I’m out of the loop these days in systems research since I largely focus on programming languages and AI these days (though I still love systems) and I treat research more as a side hobby rather than a full-fledged career. It’s disappointing to hear about toxic systems labs. There’s also the “funding-or-perish” and “publish-or-perish” pressures of academia. This is one of the reasons why I teach at a community college, where 8 months of the year I focus on teaching, leaving me 4 months of break per year where I could do research without having to worry about my tenure chances or about funding, though it would be nice to be able to pay some students to help with research projects, and it would also be nice to have the funds to buy expensive equipment such as GPUs with large amounts of RAM.
I may be biased since I interned at Google in 2013 and 2014, but Google in the 2000s and early 2010s felt downright magical as someone who wanted to pursue a career in systems software research. They made impressive technologies that still hold up today, like MapReduce, BigTable, and Spanner. They hired many legends of computer science and software engineering, such as Rob Pike and Jeff Dean.
I’m concerned about the power that Google and other Big Tech companies have, but from a technical point of view Google has a lot of impressive technologies, and from a workplace standpoint, it seemed idyllic back in the early 2010s, though I’ve heard the work culture has changed in the past decade, and I may have rose-colored glasses from only being an intern there, never a full-timer.
I’ve been thinking about this over the past few days. There was an exciting keynote at PLDI 2026 by MIT professor Saman Amarasinghe where he talked about the intersection between compilers and machine learning, including LLMs. One of the works discussed during the keynote was the use of Claude Code by his colleague Martin Rinard to implement a compiler known as a credible compiler that outputs both compiled code and a proof that the output code correctly matches the input.
I'm a professor at a community college in Silicon Valley, and my students use online textbooks. I try to use Creative Commons or other libre textbooks, but sometimes I use paid textbooks when they are heads-and-shoulders better than their libre alternatives. Some e-textbooks can be accessed on a subscription basis. I admit I prefer non-subscription materials, but a colleague advised me that often the book that students learn from is different from a good reference book that students can use once they've already learned the material. For example, my colleagues and I have had great success with an online, interactive textbook for discrete math. While the subscription is unfortunately only valid for the duration of the course, once students have learned discrete math, they could buy a used copy of Rosen's discrete math textbook as a reference.
The nice thing about e-textbooks is not needing to carry around a bunch of heavy books. I remember the tomes I had in my college days, such as Stewart's Calculus.
I may be naïve or completely uninformed, but given the federal government’s vast resources, including supercomputers, national laboratories, the NSA, and many talented employees, why does the federal government need OpenAI or Anthropic for that matter when it has the resources to build its own LLM, even one exclusive for government use? The federal government has a long history of technical feats, such as the atomic bomb, the ARPANET, and the moon landing. Couldn’t it build its own state-of-the-art LLM?
When you have monopolistic or near-monopolistic control over platforms and other key pieces of software such as office suites, taste is irrelevant since people are still buying licenses out of necessity. Now, Microsoft is capable of writing impressive, tasteful software; I have fond memories of the Windows 95-2000 era, and I also enjoyed Office 97 and Visual Basic 6.0. Even Internet Explorer wasn't bad when it was competing against Netscape Navigator. The problem is Microsoft has a tendency of getting complacent and lazy once acquiring dominance, which breeds bad software.
Apple is more tasteful, IMO, but Apple also has a tendency to abuse its users, taking the attitude, "What are you going to do? Switch to Windows or Android?" Adobe has taken a similar attitude since the Creative Suite became subscription-only. "What are you going to do? The GIMP? Seriously?"
Come to think of it, modern cars have a lot of electronics such as touchscreens, cameras, and sensors. It wouldn’t surprise me if new car prices are not immune to what’s happening with RAM and storage prices.
This pressure works for pure software companies that don’t depend on hardware sales and that have competition. Unfortunately not all software vendors will respond to inflated RAM and SSD prices, since there are many important software vendors who have a vested interest in having users upgrade their hardware frequently. Microsoft still makes a good deal of money on OEM Windows licenses, Apple’s App Store and services revenue is built on regular sales of Apple hardware, and Google benefits from the sale of Android devices. The software needs to perform well enough on new hardware to not cause bad reviews, but sluggish enough (or with enough missing features) to motivate users to upgrade their hardware.
Additionally, software is often chosen based on market effects and not necessarily based on quality. If my colleagues use Zoom, then I need to use Zoom to avoid being difficult. If they use Microsoft Office and take advantage of features that LibreOffice and other competitors can’t support well, then I’m pressured to also use Microsoft Office for compatibility reasons.
The only silver lining I see is that these price hikes will effectively freeze current software requirements in the near future, since purchasing power has been diminished. The MacBook Neo has set 8GB of RAM as the standard for casual users. I’ve found that I don’t have a good time on Windows 11 with 8GB of RAM, but 16GB provides more breathing room and 32GB is great. I don’t expect software companies to revert to the days where they needed to squeeze every kilobyte of RAM like back in the 80s and 90s, but I do expect them to be more mindful of the fact that a lot of people will be using 8GB and 16GB configurations through at least the end of the decade.
The only other event I could remember in the history of Apple that is remotely comparable is the release of the original Power Mac G4 towers in 1999. They were originally going to have 400MHz, 450MHz, and 500MHz models, but due to issues regarding processor availability, Apple lowered the specifications by 50MHz for each model, but without lowering the prices.
That’s terrible. I purchased my M4 Mac Mini (base 16/256 model) two months ago because I wanted an ARM Mac for a software project. I feared that the M5 Mac Mini would have a price bump, but I would’ve never guessed that Apple would dramatically hike prices for existing models.
I have some choice words for Sam Altman for destroying the personal computing marketplace by cornering the memory market…
I’d love to see a new operating system that explores radically different APIs for applications. The trouble is writing an operating system is a large effort. Barring market effects, OS has to be heads-and-shoulders better than existing ones in order to convince application developers to write software for it. Windows, macOS, and Linux are good enough for most people, even techies. Additionally, it is often easier to modify an existing operating system such as Linux than to go through the trouble of writing a brand new operating system.
I feel the exact same way. I was a Ron Paul Republican from 2007 (when I became old enough to vote) until 2016, when I changed my registration to “no party preference” in the aftermath of the GOP primary results. It hasn’t gotten to the point that I started donating to Democrats, but I’ve found myself voting for Democrats in recent elections. My stance these days is that as nice as it would be to have libertarian governance, rule of law and maintaining our liberal institutions is much more important, and if it means voting for Democrats, then I’d rather deal with a bigger government than I’d like than the chaos we’re seeing now.
I’m not optimistic about the near future. It seems that the post-WWII order in the developed world is disintegrating. It seems that the political and business elites of America and some other developed countries have forgotten the concept of noblesse oblige, that elites have a responsibility to serve the general public. Greed and power have gone unchecked. This has negatively affected the lives of many in the developed world, and many are justifiably angry. Unfortunately, anger can either devolve into uncontrollable rage or be misdirected as a controlled weapon. Demagogues have been able to capture some of this anger and use it for their own aims, which is making matters worse by increasing the number of angry people.
Rising inflation, especially in housing prices, is demoralizing, where one’s efforts to save is quickly evaporated thanks to a combination of bad fiscal/monetary policy and housing regulations that benefit existing homeowners over prospective ones.
Personal computing was one of the nice bright spots of modern society. I grew up during the rise of the personal computer, the Web, and mobile computing. Computing felt liberating, empowering, and enjoyable. Unfortunately major players have been able to gain oligopoly power over computing. Enshittification is the norm in modern software, and it’s difficult for upstarts to compete against entrenched oligopolies. The generative AI boom and the massive run on the RAM and storage markets have caused massive price hikes, which now threaten to price us out of personal computing. The one area that has long resisted price inflation has succumbed to it. It seems like we are getting priced out of living.
Pre-Carly Fiorina Hewlett-Packard was a great example of an old-school Silicon Valley company, long before the era of “move fast and break things” and of Zuck, Elon, and Altman. I used to work for a Japanese company until I left a few years ago to teach, and when I read about the HP Way, it reminds me in many ways of life at my former employer:
Unfortunately marketing helps sell OS upgrades and new PCs, and one way to market a new OS is to advertise its “new and improved” UI. OS UI used to be more utilitarian and rooted in HCI principles, notably the classic Mac OS and Windows 95/98/NT/2000.
Ironically Apple got the ball rolling with fashionable UI when it released Aqua in early Mac OS X, though Aqua was well-executed, having style while still being rooted in HCI principles. Unfortunately the industry took the wrong lesson; competitors responded to Aqua’s style without providing UIs of substance. Sadly even Apple has slipped once Steve Jobs passed away; its UIs have increasingly become more style over substance. Apple has long abandoned the days of Bill Atkinson, Larry Tesler, Bruce Tognazzini, and Don Norman, and unfortunately Jony Ive was less effective when Steve Jobs was no longer around to provide critical feedback. macOS 26 is one of the biggest UI regressions in the entire history of the Mac, though thankfully it’s not unusable and it appears that macOS 27 will be a big improvement thanks to user and reviewer feedback.
Unfortunately when you live in a place (like most American cities) where they’re largely built under the assumption people will drive everywhere, a car is essentially required. It’s expensive owning and maintaining a car, but it also feels demoralizing dealing with limited public transportation and neighborhoods that aren’t walkable. There are walkable metro areas in the United States, but they tend to be very expensive, sometimes more expensive than living in a suburb or exurb and dealing with the cost of commuting. I grew up poor; dealing with hour-long bus waits, late buses, multiple transfers, and limited choices is a powerful motivation to save up for a car.
I love Tokyo (I spent eight months in Kawasaki in 2010), but I can see the appeal of living in a smaller place in Japan (though I’d personally be hesitant to live in a small, isolated town with little or no public transportation). Crowded trains and long lines can get tiring after a while.
I spent last summer in Toyohashi in Aichi Prefecture; I was a visiting researcher at Toyohashi University of Technology. While Toyohashi is not a small town by any means, it is far smaller than Tokyo. I found it nice for day-to-day living. Not crowded at all, and I found the bus service to be good; not world class, but comprehensive and ran frequently enough to be useful. It had plenty of grocery stores and department stores for everyday living. If I needed something unavailable in Toyohashi, Nagoya wasn’t too far away, and if I needed to be in Tokyo, I could get there in 90 minutes on a Hikari train on the Tokaido Shinkansen. I’d do it again; in fact, I’m going back to Toyohashi in a few weeks for another monthly stay.