Hacker News with Generative AI: Optimization

Kangaroo: A flash cache optimized for tiny objects (2021) (engineering.fb.com)
Kangaroo is a new flash cache that enables more efficient caching of tiny objects (objects that are ~100 bytes or less) and overcomes the challenges presented by existing flash cache designs.
Software, Caching, Facebook, Optimization, Data Structures
17 points by PaulHoule 16 hours ago | 1 comments
Loading Pydantic models from JSON without running out of memory (pythonspeed.com)
You have a large JSON file, and you want to load the data into Pydantic. Unfortunately, this uses a lot of memory, to the point where large JSON files are very difficult to read. What to do?
Python, Data Processing, Memory Management, Optimization, Pydantic
103 points by itamarst 17 hours ago | 36 comments
Fast Allocations in Ruby 3.5 (railsatscale.com)
Many Ruby applications allocate objects. What if we could make allocating objects six times faster? We can! Read on to learn more!
Ruby, Performance, Programming Languages, Optimization
226 points by tekknolagi 21 hours ago | 54 comments
Improving performance of rav1d video decoder (ohadravid.github.io)
Making the rav1d Video Decoder 1% Faster
Video Encoding, Optimization, Performance, Software, Open Source
275 points by todsacerdoti 23 hours ago | 96 comments
Fast Allocations in Ruby 3.5 (railsatscale.com)
Many Ruby applications allocate objects. What if we could make allocating objects six times faster? We can! Read on to learn more!
Ruby, Performance, Optimization
11 points by Ocha 1 day ago | 0 comments
Too Much Go Misdirection (tedunangst.com)
Poking through layers of indirection in go trying to recover some efficiency.
Programming, Go, Optimization
186 points by todsacerdoti 4 days ago | 95 comments
Layers All the Way Down: The Untold Story of Shader Compilation (moonside.games)
As a game developer who works primarily in frameworks instead of engines, one of the biggest pain points is the need to render on multiple platforms efficiently.
Game Development, Graphics, Optimization, Shaders
91 points by birdculture 4 days ago | 48 comments
Backtrace is finally cheap by abusing x86/Linux's shadow stack (intmainreturn0.com)
Backtrace is a very helpful debugging tool in native programming by giving out the source location at each call level. Unfortunately, getting a backtrace is expensive.
Debugging, Programming, Linux, Optimization, x86
15 points by htfy96 5 days ago | 0 comments
Show HN: KVSplit – Run 2-3x longer contexts on Apple Silicon (github.com/dipampaul17)
Run larger context windows and heavier LLMs on your Mac by applying different quantization precision to keys vs values in the attention mechanism's KV cache. KVSplit enables you to:
Apple Silicon, Optimization, Machine Learning
271 points by dipampaul17 7 days ago | 40 comments
New Life Hack: Using LLMs and Constraint Solvers for Personal Logistics Tasks (emschwartz.me)
I enjoy doing escape rooms and was planning to do a couple of them with a group of friends this weekend. The very minor and not-very-important challenge, however, was that I couldn't figure out how to assign friends to rooms. I want to do at least one room with each person, different people are arriving and leaving at different times, and there are only so many time slots.
Generative AI, Life Hacks, Time Management, Optimization, Personal Logistics
12 points by emschwartz 7 days ago | 0 comments
X X^t can be faster (arxiv.org)
We present a new algorithm RXTX that computes product of matrix by its transpose $XX^{t}$. RXTX uses $5\%$ less multiplications and additions than State-of-the-Art and achieves accelerations even for small sizes of matrix $X$. The algorithm was discovered by combining Machine Learning-based search methods with Combinatorial Optimization.
Machine Learning, Optimization, Algorithms, Matrix Multiplication
200 points by robinhouston 7 days ago | 60 comments
Solving the local optima problem – NQueens (github.com/Dpbm)
You can’t perform that action at this time.
Optimization, Algorithms, N-Queens, Programming, AI
11 points by ColinWright 7 days ago | 3 comments
A leap year check in three instructions (hueffner.de)
With the following code, we can check whether a year 0 ≤ y ≤ 102499 is a leap year with only about 3 CPU instructions:
Programming, Optimization, Algorithms
433 points by gnabgib 8 days ago | 164 comments
Determinate Nix 3.5: introducing lazy trees (determinate.systems)
Lazy trees have been one of the most hotly requested Nix features for quite some time. They make Nix much more efficient in larger repositories, particularly in massive monorepos. And so we’re excited to announce that lazy trees have landed in Determinate Nix version 3.5.2, based on version 2.28.3 of upstream Nix.
Software, New Releases, Nix, Programming, Optimization
18 points by biggestlou 8 days ago | 1 comments
The smallest possible Docker image (github.com/MarkMcCulloh)
This is (hopefully) the smallest possible docker image that can be successfully executed.
Docker, Containerization, Optimization
4 points by chriscbr 8 days ago | 0 comments
Backslash: Rate Constrained Optimized Training of Large Language Models (arxiv.org)
The rapid advancement of large-language models (LLMs) has driven extensive research into parameter compression after training has been completed, yet compression during the training phase remains largely unexplored.
Machine Learning, Optimization, Training
3 points by PaulHoule 10 days ago | 0 comments
JEP 515: Ahead-of-Time Method Profiling (openjdk.org)
Improve warmup time by making method-execution profiles from a previous run of an application instantly available, when the HotSpot Java Virtual Machine starts. This will enable the JIT compiler to generate native code immediately upon application startup, rather than having to wait for profiles to be collected.
Java, Optimization, Performance, Virtual Machines, Programming Languages
101 points by cempaka 12 days ago | 10 comments
15 Years of Shader Minification (ctrl-alt-test.fr)
How do demosceners create complex computer animations in just a few kilobytes? One of our secret weapons is Shader Minifier, a tool that minifies GLSL code. Over the years, it has evolved to pack more data into tiny executables, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. In this blog post, we’ll go through its evolution.
Computer Graphics, Programming, Optimization, Demoparty, History
147 points by laurentlb 13 days ago | 25 comments
A whippet waypoint / Nofl: A Precise Immix (wingolog.org)
Hey peoples! Tonight, some meta-words. As you know I am fascinated by compilers and language implementations, and I just want to know all the things and implement all the fun stuff: intermediate representations, flow-sensitive source-to-source optimization passes, register allocation, instruction selection, garbage collection, all of that.
Compilers, Programming Languages, Optimization, Intermediate Representations
13 points by matt_d 13 days ago | 0 comments
Engineering Design Optimization Textbook (mdobook.github.io)
A graduate-level textbook covering a range of fundamental to advanced optimization theory and algorithms with practical tips, numerous illustrations, and engineering examples.
Engineering, Optimization, Education, Algorithms, Textbooks
5 points by TheHideout 14 days ago | 0 comments
Optimizing an HTML5 game engine using composition over inheritance (radicalfishgames.com)
We started with HTML5 game development around the end of 2011. We bought an impact.js license and started working on CrossCode. And since CrossCode demanded 3D collision, we modified the engine – and continued doing so until almost every nook and cranny was changed in one way or the other. So it’s safe to say that we did not only develop a game but a whole game engine with it.
Game Development, HTML5, Software Engineering, Optimization, Inheritance
7 points by JSLegendDev 14 days ago | 0 comments
Blazeio.SharpEvent: A Python Async Primitive That Scales to 1M Waiters with O(1) (ycombinator.com)
I’ve been working on a Python async library ([Blazeio](https://github.com/anonyxbiz/Blazeio)) and stumbled into a shockingly simple optimization that makes `asyncio.Event` look like a relic.
Python, Asynchronous Programming, Optimization, Performance, Libraries
6 points by anonyxbiz 14 days ago | 0 comments
Linear Programming for Fun and Profit: Finding Arbitrages in the GPU Market (modal.com)
If you haven’t noticed, the GPU market is highly volatile. NVIDIA repeatedly spews out new chip architectures, doubling FLOPS every few years. Everyone shifts towards the newest cards, causing temporary supply crunches and high prices. But Modal’s customers don’t want to think about these price fluctuations. They want GPUs of all kinds at predictable and good prices, and the ability to demand thousands of GPUs on a moment’s notice, without having to worry about pricing, capacity planning, or supply.
Linear Programming, GPU Market, Artificial Intelligence, Optimization, Supply Chain
11 points by cweld510 16 days ago | 0 comments
Optimizing Common Lisp (fosskers.ca)
I recently released a Parser Combinator library for Common Lisp, but was unhappy with its performance. This article is a description of how I used sb-sprof, built in to SBCL, to identify both CPU and memory allocation hotspots, improving the runtime speed of the parcom/json module by 3x and decreasing memory allocation by 25x.
Programming, Optimization, Common Lisp, Performance
52 points by todsacerdoti 16 days ago | 6 comments
Faster sorting with SIMD CUDA intrinsics (2024) (winwang.blog)
Recently, I finished a batch at the Recurse Center… is what I would have said if this post were written when I intended to write it (i.e. 3 months ago). My project there focused on a questionable application of CUDA (mostly irrelevant to this post), but it got me thinking more about other GPU-friendly algorithms.
CUDA, GPU Programming, Sorting Algorithms, Optimization
92 points by winwang 18 days ago | 11 comments
Load-Store Conflicts (zeux.io)
meshoptimizer implements several geometry compression algorithms that are designed to take advantage of redundancies common in mesh data and decompress quickly - targeting many gigabytes per second in decoding throughput.
Computer Graphics, Optimization, Game Development, Data Compression
117 points by ashvardanian 19 days ago | 5 comments
Minecraft runs on 8MB of VRAM using a 20-year-old GPU (tomshardware.com)
Gaming, Hardware, Optimization, Minecraft
7 points by 01-_- 19 days ago | 4 comments
Fast(er) regular expression engines in Ruby (serpapi.com)
Performance-oriented comparison of alternative regexp engines that may (or may not) speed up your Ruby code.
Ruby, Regular Expressions, Performance, Optimization
60 points by davidsojevic 21 days ago | 6 comments
An illustrated guide to automatic sparse differentiation (iclr-blogposts.github.io)
In numerous applications of machine learning, Hessians and Jacobians exhibit sparsity, a property that can be leveraged to vastly accelerate their computation.
Machine Learning, Optimization, Sparse Matrices, Differentiation
137 points by mariuz 24 days ago | 24 comments
Finding paths of least action with gradient descent (2023) (greydanus.github.io)
The purpose of this simple post is to bring to attention a view of physics which isn’t often communicated in introductory courses: the view of physics as optimization.
Physics, Optimization, Gradient Descent
73 points by E-Reverance 27 days ago | 14 comments