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Irish Rewilding: The Exotic Gardens of Rossdohan Island

2024-12-21

Rossdohan Island in Ireland tells a captivating story of an exotic garden created by a 19th-century surgeon returning from India. The island boasts a unique microclimate, thanks to plantings of Southern Hemisphere species. Despite house fires and changing ownership, these exotic plants persist, forming a unique ecosystem alongside native flora. Today, rewilding efforts face the challenge of preserving this historical legacy while restoring native biodiversity, requiring legislation, policy changes, and public participation.

(worldsensorium.com)

Misc rewilding exotic species

Testing for Thermal Issues in Advanced Packages Becomes Increasingly Challenging

2024-12-21

The increasing complexity and heterogeneity of chip architectures, coupled with the adoption of high-performance materials, are making it significantly more difficult to identify and test for thermal issues in advanced packages. Traditional corner-based thermal testing is insufficient due to unpredictable chip-level thermal effects and varying heat distribution under different workloads. Heterogeneous integration, thinner substrates and metal layers, and diverse materials and interconnect schemes all contribute to this complexity. To address these challenges, the industry is exploring advanced thermal modeling, test structures, adaptive testing strategies, and AI to achieve more accurate thermal characterization and reliable device testing.

(semiengineering.com)

Hardware chip testing thermal management heterogeneous integration heat dissipation chip packaging thermal testing

Rec Room Releases Copyable Game: BonkysInferno

2024-12-21

Rec Room has launched a new copyable game, ^BonkysInferno. Based on the 'Make it to Midnight' environment, the objective is to score the most points by knocking opponents into lava or past a laser fence with Bonky's hammer. The game features a collectible system, damage system, Bonky's hammer mechanics, a round system, and a HUD, all built using Circuits and Rec Room Studio, allowing for player replication and modification. Players are encouraged to explore the circuits with their Maker Pen and use Rec Room Studio for deeper customization.

(forum.rec.net)

Game copyable game game development

The Untold Toll: How Many Birds Die Hitting Buildings?

2024-12-21

A recent study reveals a shocking truth: we drastically underestimate the number of birds killed by colliding with buildings. Previous research relied on finding carcasses, but many birds don't die instantly, succumbing days or weeks later. By combining carcass data with rehabilitation center records, researchers estimate over a billion birds die annually in the US from building collisions. This highlights the challenges of accurately assessing bird mortality and the need for improved data collection and analysis to better protect avian populations.

(robertvanwey.substack.com)

Misc bird conservation building collisions

MarkItDown: Free Online Markdown Converter

2024-12-21

MarkItDown is a free online tool that converts various file formats (like Word, PDF, HTML, etc.) into standard Markdown. Powered by Microsoft's open-source Markitdown project, it offers fast and reliable conversions, perfect for bloggers, note-takers, and technical writers. No downloads or installations are required; simply upload your file and get clean, organized Markdown output. It's a secure and efficient way to manage your content.

(markitdown.pro)

Development online tool

Qualcomm Wins Arm Licensing Dispute

2024-12-21

A Delaware jury ruled in favor of Qualcomm Inc. in its legal battle with Arm Holdings Plc, finding that Qualcomm did not breach a license agreement for chip technology acquired through its $1.4 billion purchase of Nuvia Inc. in 2021. Arm claimed Qualcomm used the technology without paying higher licensing fees. While the jury found Qualcomm didn't violate the agreement, they couldn't reach a verdict on whether Nuvia itself breached the license, leaving that question open for a later retrial. The ruling is significant for Qualcomm's position in the mobile chip market.

(www.bloomberg.com)

Tech Chip Licensing

Spotify's Shady Secret: Fake Artists and Inflated Play Counts Exposed

2024-12-21

A year-long investigation reveals Spotify's deceptive practices. A program called "Perfect Fit Content" (PFC) involves partnerships with production companies to create and promote fake artists and tracks, artificially inflating play counts to reduce royalty costs and boost profits. These fake tracks, often ambient, classical, electronic, jazz, or lo-fi, are strategically placed in playlists designed for background listening. The Spotify CEO's significant stock sales around the time of the revelations further fueled controversy. This scandal raises serious concerns about transparency and fairness in the music industry, prompting calls for congressional investigation and a more transparent music streaming ecosystem.

(www.honest-broker.com)

Tech music streaming royalties

The Winkel Tower: A Unique WWII Air Defense Structure

2024-12-21

In the early 1930s, German architect Leo Winkel designed a unique above-ground air raid shelter, the Winkel Tower. Unlike traditional underground bunkers, its sloped roof was designed to deflect bombs, minimizing the risk of explosion. This innovative design significantly reduced construction costs and time, while the ground-level detonation allowed for pressure wave dissipation. Patented in 1934, approximately 200 Winkel Towers were built throughout Germany during WWII. Many preserved towers now enjoy monument protection.

(www.arcanumurbex.de)

Tech air raid shelter

Webb Telescope Discovers Young Galaxy Resembling Early Milky Way

2024-12-21

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has made a groundbreaking discovery: a galaxy nicknamed 'Firefly Sparkle,' existing around 600 million years after the Big Bang, with a mass similar to that of our own Milky Way in its early stages. This galaxy, magnified by gravitational lensing, showcases ten distinct star clusters, providing unprecedented detail about early galaxy formation. Researchers found the 'Firefly Sparkle' is actively forming stars, with its uneven distribution of star clusters indicating a future of mergers and growth. This discovery offers invaluable insight into the evolution of galaxies in the early universe.

(science.nasa.gov)

2 James Webb Space Telescope Galaxy Formation Early Universe

Google Proposes Remedies in DOJ Search Distribution Case

2024-12-21

Google strongly disagrees with and will appeal the Department of Justice's (DOJ) ruling in the search distribution lawsuit. Ahead of an April 2025 hearing, Google submitted its own remedies proposal, focusing on contracts with browser and Android device makers. The proposal aims to give browser companies and device makers more flexibility in choosing default search engines, while ensuring compliance with the court's order and avoiding harm to consumer privacy and US tech leadership. In contrast, the DOJ's proposal is seen as overly interventionist and potentially harmful to consumers and US tech competitiveness.

(blog.google)

Tech

The Focusing Illusion: Why We Overestimate Success's Impact on Happiness

2024-12-21

Psychological research reveals we often mispredict what will make us happy in the future. A specific instance of this "affective forecasting error" is the "focusing illusion": the things we focus on achieving often don't bring the happiness we expect. This article offers an evolutionary explanation: the focusing illusion isn't a cognitive flaw, but a mechanism to motivate us to improve our circumstances. Because our experience of pleasure habituates (hedonic adaptation), foreseeing this adaptation could sap motivation. Evolution thus makes us naively believe the next achievement will bring lasting joy, driving our pursuit of goals.

(www.optimallyirrational.com)

AI Focusing Illusion Happiness Evolutionary Psychology

Technical Debt vs. Technical Assets: A Wise Investment Strategy

2024-12-21

This article explores the difference between technical debt and technical assets. Technical debt, similar to financial debt, represents code issues that must be addressed, such as bugs and poor code readability, hindering development efficiency. Technical assets, on the other hand, are proactive investments in known problems, like building high-quality SDKs, reducing future maintenance costs and increasing development freedom. The article advises prioritizing the repayment of technical debt before investing in technical assets, leveraging proven processes and technologies to avoid accumulating technical debt and ultimately achieving higher development efficiency and product quality.

(liblab.com)

Development technical debt technical assets

The Kelly Criterion: A Mathematical Approach to Insurance Decisions

2024-12-21

This article explores how the Kelly criterion can be used to make rational decisions about insurance. The author debunks common misconceptions about insurance, arguing it's a mathematical, not philosophical, problem. The core idea is that insurance prevents significant wealth drawdown, accelerating compound interest growth. A formula is presented to calculate the value (V) of insurance, considering current wealth, premium, accident probability, and cost. Motorcycle and helicopter insurance examples illustrate the calculations and deductible's impact. The author explains how insurance companies profit and the relativity of costs.

(entropicthoughts.com)

Misc Insurance Risk Management

NoDB: Processing Payments Without a Database

2024-12-21

Alvaro Duran's "The Payments Engineer Playbook" introduces a revolutionary approach to payment system design: processing payments without a database. He argues that the prevalence of asynchronous programming stems from the assumption of database necessity. Using event sourcing, each step in the payment process is recorded as an event, not as a persistent state. These events are temporarily stored in memory, and the system reconstructs the payment status from the event stream, eliminating the need for persistent storage. This high-performance, high-reliability approach, inspired by high-frequency trading, allows for quick recovery from outages through hot backups. The article details this concept using a payment flow example and looks toward future applications in payment systems.

(news.alvaroduran.com)

Development Event Sourcing Databaseless Payments High-Frequency Trading

Rules to Avoid Common Extended Inline Assembly Mistakes

2024-12-21

This article isn't an inline assembly tutorial, but rather a summary of six rules to avoid common mistakes. The author emphasizes that inline assembly is treacherous and should be avoided whenever possible, as modern compilers offer intrinsics and built-ins for most use cases. If unavoidable, the rules are: use the `volatile` qualifier; use a `memory` clobber if accessing memory; never modify input constraints; never call functions from inline assembly; don't define absolute assembly labels; and use the assembler's local label feature to avoid label conflicts. The article concludes by encouraging readers to practice applying these rules by reviewing online tutorials and even LLM-generated code.

(nullprogram.com)

Development inline assembly compiler

@celine/bibhtml v3.0.3: A Web Components-Based Referencing System

2024-12-21

@celine/bibhtml, a Web Components-based referencing system for HTML documents, has released version 3.0.3. It aims to provide a user experience similar to LaTeX/BibTeX referencing, using Citation.js under the hood and gracefully degrading when citations and references are malformed or JavaScript is disabled. Supporting BibTeX, unstructured text, DOI, and Wikidata formats, it offers three custom elements: ``, ``, and ``, simplifying reference management in HTML.

(maxbo.me)

Development Reference Management

California Ground Squirrels Caught Eating Meat: A Surprising Discovery

2024-12-21

A recent study has overturned long-held beliefs about California ground squirrels. Previously considered granivores (grain-eaters), researchers observed these common rodents hunting, killing, and consuming voles—small rodents—during the summer of 2024. This surprising discovery highlights the gaps in our understanding of even familiar animals and suggests California ground squirrels may be opportunistic omnivores, adapting their diet based on food availability. The observed carnivorous behavior, peaking when vole populations surged, demonstrates their behavioral flexibility and adaptability to changing environments.

(gizmodo.com)

Misc California ground squirrel carnivorous behavior

Groundbreaking Advance: Safely Compiling C to Rust

2024-12-21

Researchers have developed a novel method for safely compiling C code into Rust. This technique utilizes static analysis and type-directed translation to avoid reliance on Rust's `unsafe` blocks, thus guaranteeing memory safety. The method has been successfully applied to code from the HACL* cryptographic library and EverParse libraries, resulting in an 80,000-line pure Rust verified modern cryptographic library—a first of its kind.

(arxiv.org)

Development C compilation

Delta Emulator Triples Apple's In-App Prices to Push Patreon

2024-12-20

Delta gaming emulator developer Riley Testut is tripling the price of in-app purchases on Apple's iOS App Store to encourage users to subscribe via Patreon. This move leverages Apple's new policy allowing external payment links while protesting Apple's in-app purchase system. Patreon subscriptions offer additional benefits like iPad and SEGA Genesis support, private Discord access, and more convenient refunds and customer support.

(www.theverge.com)

Game game emulator in-app purchase

Programmer Creates Pseudo-3D Game in Bash

2024-12-20

A programmer, izabera, has developed a surprisingly impressive pseudo-3D game using the Bash scripting language. This project, a homage to the classic game Wolfenstein 3D, is open-source on GitHub. The code is concise yet the result is stunning, showcasing the power of Bash and the programmer's ingenuity. The repository includes the game source code and demonstration videos. Developers interested in learning more can check it out on GitHub.

(github.com)

Development Game Development

Monorepo Build Tools: Scaling Your Codebase

2024-12-20

Traditional build tools struggle with large codebases (100-10,000 active developers). Monorepo build tools like Bazel and Mill offer solutions by supporting multiple languages, custom build tasks, automatic caching and parallelization, remote caching and execution, drastically improving build speed and efficiency. They also feature dependency-based test selection and build task sandboxing, reducing testing time and non-determinism. While these features might seem unnecessary for small projects, they are crucial for large-scale collaboration and continuous integration in larger projects, preventing build times from becoming a bottleneck.

(mill-build.org)

Development build tools scalability

DOS APPEND Command: Bridging the Gap Between Old and New

2024-12-20

While reconstructing the DOS 2.11 source code, the author encountered a challenge: the ancient MASM 1.25 assembler lacked directory support, clashing with modern file organization using a tree structure. To avoid a monolithic directory, the author cleverly employed the DOS APPEND command. APPEND is a TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) program that intercepts system calls like file opening and searches a predefined path list if the file isn't found in the current directory. This allowed MASM 1.25 to locate files within the hierarchical structure, resolving the incompatibility and highlighting APPEND's surprising utility in specific scenarios.

(www.os2museum.com)

Development

OpenAI Releases Realtime Embedded SDK for Microcontrollers

2024-12-20

OpenAI has released the openai-realtime-embedded-sdk, enabling developers to utilize its Realtime API on microcontrollers such as the ESP32. Supporting Linux and ESP32S3, the SDK allows for testing on Linux without physical hardware. After installing protobufc, setting the target platform, and configuring WiFi and OpenAI API keys, developers can build and deploy applications. This expands OpenAI's AI capabilities to embedded devices, opening doors for innovative IoT and edge computing applications.

(github.com)

AI Realtime API Embedded SDK

Anthropic Unveils Secrets to Building Effective AI Agents

2024-12-20

Anthropic shares its insights on building effective AI agents, emphasizing the importance of simple, composable patterns over complex frameworks or libraries. The article distinguishes between workflows and agents, detailing various agent building patterns including prompt chaining, routing, parallelization, orchestrator-worker, and evaluator-optimizer. It stresses maintaining simplicity, transparency, and a well-designed agent-computer interface. Finally, the article highlights the practical value of AI agents with examples in customer support and coding agents.

(www.anthropic.com)

AI AI agents workflows

io_uring Gains New Process Creation Functionality

2024-12-20

LWN.net reports on the development of a new process creation feature for the io_uring subsystem. This functionality is implemented via two new io_uring operations: IORING_OP_CLONE, which creates a new process, and IORING_OP_EXEC, which performs an execveat() system call to load a new program. This promises increased efficiency and allows for more complex logic, such as path searching, to be executed asynchronously within the kernel. However, the feature is still in its early stages and has limitations, such as requiring synchronous execution of io_uring operations within the new process. Future development aims to increase flexibility and eventually merge the feature into the mainline Linux kernel.

(lwn.net)

Development process creation Linux kernel

Retro Revival: Bringing a Tandy Coco Back Online with FujiNet

2024-12-20

This article details the author's journey in connecting an old Tandy Coco computer to the internet using the FujiNet project, an ambitious open-source initiative aiming to be the only peripheral needed for vintage computers. The author faced challenges during the assembly process, including soldering difficulties, hardware bugs, and software compatibility issues. Despite these hurdles, they successfully connected to the internet and ran various applications, including an ISS tracker and games. The experience highlights the vibrancy of the open-source community and the potential of retrocomputing, showcasing the fun of hardware repair and software development.

(www.leadedsolder.com)

Tech internet connectivity

Parker Solar Probe to Make Historic Dive into Sun's Atmosphere

2024-12-20

After six years of traveling through space, NASA's Parker Solar Probe is poised to make history on Christmas Eve, plunging into the Sun's atmosphere at an unprecedented speed, coming within 3.8 million miles of the solar surface. This daring mission aims to unravel the mystery of the solar wind's origin, a question that has puzzled scientists for over half a century. The probe is equipped with cutting-edge materials, including heat-resistant titanium-zirconium-molybdenum alloy and sapphire crystal tubes, to withstand the extreme temperatures exceeding 2,500° Fahrenheit. This groundbreaking endeavor promises to shed light on the solar wind and its impact on our solar system.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech Parker Solar Probe Solar Wind Solar Atmosphere

Grayjay App: Follow Creators, Not Platforms

2024-12-20

Grayjay is a multi-platform video player that aggregates content from YouTube, PeerTube, Twitch, and more, eliminating the need to switch between different platforms. Prioritizing user privacy, it stores watch history locally and offers data import/export and auto-backup. Features include a personalized content feed, screen casting, and Harbor integration for connecting with audiences and monetizing content.

(grayjay.app)

Development video player cross-platform

OpenAI's o3 System Achieves Breakthrough Score on ARC-AGI Benchmark

2024-12-20

OpenAI's new o3 system, trained on the ARC-AGI-1 public training set, achieved a breakthrough score of 75.7% on the semi-private evaluation set, surpassing previous limitations of large language models. This represents a significant leap in AI capabilities, demonstrating novel task adaptation never before seen in the GPT family. While not yet achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), o3's success highlights the importance of test-time knowledge recombination and provides valuable data points for ongoing AGI research. Further challenges remain, as o3 still fails on some simple tasks, underscoring the complexities of achieving true AGI.

(arcprize.org)

AI

Unprecedented Drop in Teen Drug Use Continues to Surprise Experts

2024-12-20

A new study reveals a continued and unexpected drop in teen drug use in 2024, reaching historic lows. The decline, which began during the COVID-19 pandemic, has not reversed despite the lifting of restrictions. Rates of alcohol, marijuana, and nicotine use among 8th, 10th, and 12th graders have all plummeted. Researchers are now investigating the contributing factors to this unprecedented trend and planning interventions to maintain these low rates.

(arstechnica.com)

Health teen drug use pandemic impact

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