1923
This is Alyssa Rosenzweig. She reverse-engineered Apple's M1 GPU with no public documentation and also developed an open-source Linux driver. (programming.dev)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/linux@lemmy.world
244 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[+] -47 points 2 months ago (27 children)

She has this out-of-focus look that makes it seem like she's visually impaired or blind - but I guess then she wouldn't be working on graphics drivers, of all things?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 27 child comments
    •
  • [+] 16 points 2 months ago (6 children)
    [deleted]
  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    I think he's intrigued about how she contrive to work on graphics with limited visual clues (if she has impaired vision that is)

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [+] 3 points 2 months ago (4 children)
    [deleted]
  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    She could be blind and deaf and would still be able to reverse engineer GPU’s and sound cards.

    Not simultaneously though.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
    • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    She looks like someone who doesn’t get her photo taken often and may in fact be uncomfortable with the process, like a lot of people are. I worked for three years at a school for the blind and visually impaired, and people who have visual limitations don’t look directly into the lens.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    Another hint is her eyes looking in different directions.

    But it doesn't make her bad or something.
    It makes OC intrigued in her ability to work on heavily graphical matter.

    And if she truly has impaired vision, then I, for one, even more awed.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 6 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    one of the co heads of this graphics lab whose maine claim to fame was 3d stuff could not see 3d.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    That's fascinating. Have you got a link with further info on that?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    I worked there so I don't know if there is any public information on that but its not like he kept it hidden and I bet there are articles where it might have been mentioned. It was kinda funny because I was on the tech team and I had the opposite issue. 3D just pops for me and I will see it even if the system settings are real loose. Its funny because I would need to setup the projectors but he could do a much better job of getting it configured optimally. Turns out not seeing 3D and just seeing the individual images is an asset to that activity.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    You...you do know you can like...represent the blinky lights as numbers right?

    A fully blind programmer could contribute to graphics driver development just fine. They don't need to appreciate the picture rendition of the math problems they're solving, to solve them.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Yes, I do know that, but it's more complicated doing it all in your head. Hence my curiosity. Also, specifically reverse engineering requires trial & error and visual cues in the output to assess the result of an attempt. Having to do all that with visual aids would be a lot more difficult.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (1 child)

    No, you misunderstood me. You're not translating the blinky lights at the correct layer.

    Reverse engineering requires trial and error, and graphics output requires a nuanced assessment between the values and inputs expressed by different sources that correspond to mappings ultimately upon a display interface.

    A sighted person would perform this work using their eyes, because that's the most efficient set up they literally would have the hardware handy to use.

    Computers being math, and the human sense of touch being pretty dang sensitive, means that other peripherals than screens, can represent that nuance required to reverse engineer, or anything else relating to computer code.

    The difficulty you imagine in not having your vision to perform a task, would not be a reality or an inherently extant limitation on this hypothetical blind programmer, in of itself.

    Maybe (definitely) in the availability and pricing of good specialty peripherals, but that's it.

    The term for what you are doing and which isn't something that requires malice, is ableism.

    Now the term for making the assumption that someone is blind or visually impaired, just from a critique based on perception of facial features from a picture? That one I'm not sure what to call. Weird maybe?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] -1 points 2 months ago

    Computers being math, and the human sense of touch being pretty dang sensitive, means that other peripherals than screens, can represent that nuance required to reverse engineer, or anything else relating to computer code.

    I am genuinely interested in what's available today on that level - the last I checked, it was still Braille displays, and those were not good for much beyond text.

    There are blind programmers, I am very much aware, and I could definitely see myself still enjoying development would I not be able to see. But for myself, I always assumed I would need someone else with normal eyesight to debate the algorithms and help me implement.

    The term for what you are doing and which isn’t something that requires malice, is ableism.

    Aren't you jumping to conclusions now? I never made any comments about her skill, I expressed - poorly worded, I now admit - my curiosity. But the answer I was expecting was "yes, she is visually impaired but she did all of this anyway", which would be all the more impressive. You do agree it is harder to work on graphics drivers as a visually impaired person, don't you?

    [..] just from a critique based on perception of facial features from a picture

    Let me quote my original comment verbatim:

    She has this out-of-focus look that makes it seem like she’s visually impaired or blind - but I guess then she wouldn’t be working on graphics drivers, of all things?

    Where / how do you read any form of critique into that?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago* (3 children)

    What do you mean by out-of-focus look?

    Edit: I don't fully understand your comment, but there are blind people who can program. So even if she was blind, it does not mean she couldn't reverse engineer the graphics drivers. Can you be more specific?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (2 children)

    As if you don't know where the camera is. People with normal vision will typically look straight at the camera, or focus on some object behind the camera. And since blind people don't see where the camera is, their eyes sometimes (often) appear to be looking unfocused. You can't tell where their gaze goes because they are not gazing at anything. This is what the two photos (this one and wikipedia) look like and why I was curious.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 child)

    So from one photo you conclude if a person is blind or not? I don't get that what you described, the person looks to the camera. And even if not, sometimes its an artistic decision not to look into the camera (well to be fair in a portrait photo that would be unusual). As far as I know she is not blind, couldn't find any documentation on that on the Wikipedia article about her.

    Edit: In example on some photos of me I look a bit different, like I would be a demon or something like that. Would you conclude I'm a demon?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
    • load more comments (-1 replies)