Jim Walsh

Co-founder and SVP Eng at cybersecurity startup. Technology pioneer, race team owner/driver. ex Salesforce SVP. ex Microsoft, founder of Cosmos.

[Jim Walsh @jim1walsh]

@DrugGovoruna @davepl1968 The refragger was in Office 97. Wouldn’t have stopped faults, but that page was much more likely to be within a cluster already in your drive’s track cache, so physical read want needed, and if it was, more likely to be the next cluster on disk, so no or minimal head movement.

[Jim Walsh @jim1walsh]

@GeorgeSmit62538 @davepl1968 There was no better optimizing compiler than the internal MS C compiler. Miles ahead of Lattice or Intel or Watcom. It was also a very secret weapon.

BBT used instrumentation of dynamic app usage, which no compiler has access to.

[Jim Walsh @jim1walsh]

@Bluduvmuhugana @davepl1968 More like the office refragger. Defrag put things into plain linear order, like the standard linker.

Both BBT and Refrag instrument app launch / usage, then ‘scramble’ things into the REAL order that they were actually touched at app launch.

[Jim Walsh @jim1walsh]

@DrugGovoruna @davepl1968 It also played well with some other tools we wrote in Office, like refrag.exe, the refragger.

It arranged disk clusters (often the same 4K code pages that BBT was filling with ‘hot’ code) into the exact order they’d be touched during app launch. 70% reduction in app launch time.

[Jim Walsh @jim1walsh]

@DrugGovoruna @davepl1968 BBT was the second name, Basic Block Tool.

Office shipped using it before Windows, we were playing with it very early.

I hired the original author into the Office Base team from MS Research.

[Jim Walsh @jim1walsh]

@mapledcode @davepl1968 No, you don’t. You choose to. Finally upgraded iPhone 11 to a 17. My primary laptop is 2013. 2 of my 3 iPads are over 8 years old. My main two vehicles are 2007’s, going strong. We can afford new stuff, don’t need to. Buy quality then maintain and upgrade, vs dispose and replace.

[Jim Walsh @jim1walsh]

@PorscheRacesNA @PorscheRaces @Customer_Racing Always an amazing event, and truly an honor to be invited.

[Jim Walsh @jim1walsh]

@davepl1968 Maybe in Saskatchewan, not in Alberta. This is the first I’ve heard, I think I got my first 300 baud acoustic coupler in 1978.

[Jim Walsh @jim1walsh]

@davepl1968 For sure. I grew up in Edmonton, and there’s not as much to be thankful for in Edmonton at the end of a November…

[Jim Walsh @jim1walsh]

@ash__274 @TerribleMaps And Oregon has always allowed self-serve on diesel.

[Jim Walsh @jim1walsh]

@davepl1968 Also Lisp, dBase II, Clipper. Not counting anything still regularly used today.

[Jim Walsh @jim1walsh]

@davepl1968 6502 assembler, Algol W, Pascal, Modula 2, Algol 68, IBM 360 Assembler, IBM 360 BAL/CCW, APL, Prolog, Z80 assembler, Z8000 assembler, Interdata 32 assembler (and microcode), Motorola 6809 assembler, Motorola 68000 assembler, PScript, Wang BASIC, Wang Cobol. I’m sure others.

[Jim Walsh @jim1walsh]

@davepl1968 Cosmo?

[Jim Walsh @jim1walsh]

@EricTopol @EconTalker Fabulous episode. Thanks Russ and Eric.

I knew some of this research, but was amazed how much we’re learning so quickly.

[Jim Walsh @jim1walsh]

@CoxHelp I am in retention hell, after well over an hour of phone and chat, I need a call from a Retention Supervisor, not someone that will transfer me to new installs in the middle of a call, or make an account change I said three times not to make

[Jim Walsh @jim1walsh]

@EconTalker Great podcast with @reidhoffman on AI, future, and it’s fascinating how you use Claude and Reid uses Pi in daily life.

Russ, are you using the free or paid version of Claude? They appear to use different models, whichever you’re using sure seems to work well!

[Jim Walsh @jim1walsh]

@Simucube I scored on the Black Friday Simucube ActivePedal Ultimate! Also Simucube 2 Pro wheelbase w a Gomez Black Friday wheel bundle. Rest of my rig finally here, but too bad my Simucube Throttle Pedal never made it in the shipment, so I can't drive 55 :-(

Support ticket created.

[Jim Walsh @jim1walsh]

@m2jr So sorry Mike, my condolences to you and all your family.

I loved Mike Maples Sr. He started just before I joined Microsoft in 1988 as an IC dev on Word.

Still hard to believe but he shortly invited me to have 1:1 lunches with him once a month. Never told a soul, too precious.

[Jim Walsh @jim1walsh]

@cedcolas @JeffDean @paulg @Waymo Exactly my first thought.

I doubt it, as this would require Swiss Re to have access to full resolution location and time data for all the 200 billions miles they reference in the control (human driven) cohort.

Subsamples possible for monitored drivers which some insurers have.

[Jim Walsh @jim1walsh]

@nntaleb Every organization with a broad outage failed Deployment 101.

Test ALL updates on a non-production environment, then roll out in stages, with validation, across your broader infrastructure.

This update bluescreened any system it was deployed on. Not a single system tested 1st.