VM Cloning and Linux Random Number Generation: Security Implications and Solutions

2025-04-12

This document analyzes the security implications of restoring multiple VM clones from a single snapshot. Linux exposes three main RNG interfaces: /dev/random, /dev/urandom, and the getrandom syscall. Cloning VMs leads to inconsistent RNG states due to multiple parameters (like timer data or CPU HWRNG instruction outputs) being mixed into each result. The article examines different implementations of RNGs in newer and older kernels and proposes solutions: reinitializing the RNG after restore, using the virtio-rng device, and leveraging the VMGenID mechanism (introduced in Linux 5.18 and later) to address inconsistent RNG states after cloning.

(github.com)

Development VM cloning Linux RNG

PyReason: Explainable Inference Software for Graph-Based Reasoning

2025-04-12

PyReason is a visual inference tool that uses logical rules and facts to reason over graph structures. Supporting annotated, real-valued graphs and temporal logic, it offers Python library installation, multi-core parallel support (Python 3.9 and 3.10 only), and comprehensive documentation and code examples. The software is published with a paper and licensed under trademark permission from the Arizona Board of Regents/Arizona State University.

(github.com)

Development graph reasoning temporal logic

Do You Really Need WebSockets? HTTP Streaming Might Be Enough

2025-04-11

This article explores the limitations of WebSockets, particularly their shortcomings when handling messages requiring transactional guarantees. The author argues that WebSockets lack transactionality, making it difficult to reliably associate commands and responses, and handling errors and concurrent requests is more complex. In contrast, HTTP streaming offers a simpler alternative, effectively handling real-time data streams while avoiding the complexities of WebSocket lifecycle management and server-side intricacies. The article also introduces the author's eventkit library, simplifying the implementation of HTTP streaming.

(hntrl.io)

Development HTTP Streaming

Servo Rejects AI Code Generation Tools: Protecting Open Source Integrity

2025-04-11

The Servo browser project's Technical Steering Committee (TSC) initially voted to relax its ban on AI code generation tools like GitHub Copilot, but later reversed the decision due to strong community opposition. The author argues that AI-generated code suffers from logic errors and unpredictability, leading to lower code quality, increased maintenance burden, and reputational damage. The post details the potential risks of AI tools and community feedback, ultimately calling on the TSC to explicitly prohibit the use of AI-generated code to maintain the project's integrity and credibility.

(www.azabani.com)

Development

AI Coding's Bottleneck: Clear Communication Trumps Perfect Prompts

2025-04-11

The author details significant progress in AI development, rapidly building multiple products using AI tools. However, they found that AI tools often act like junior developers lacking product context and user insight, prone to errors on non-standard tasks. This recalls a university class using a peanut butter and jelly sandwich analogy to illustrate the importance of clear coding instructions. While today's AI is more advanced, it still requires developers to provide clear, precise instructions to avoid a messy outcome. The author argues that success in the AI era will depend on developers' ability to clearly understand and explain how to transform fuzzy ideas into workable products, not just coding speed.

(iamcharliegraham.substack.com)

Development prompt engineering

Datastar: A Hypermedia Framework That Reimagines Web Development

2025-04-11

Datastar is a new hypermedia framework designed to simplify and streamline the building of real-time web applications. Prioritizing server-side logic, it uses "signals" for automatic UI updates and leverages Server-Sent Events (SSE) for blazing-fast performance. The author, after struggling with the complexities of HTMX in a real-world application, found Datastar's reactive programming model and server-centric approach to be a refreshing alternative. Datastar minimizes front-end JavaScript dependencies, offering a compelling option for developers seeking efficiency and simplicity.

(chrismalek.me)

Development Hypermedia Framework Real-time Web Apps

Erlang's Secret Sauce: It's Not Lightweight Processes, It's Behaviors

2025-04-11

This post revisits the core ideas behind the Erlang programming language. The author argues that Erlang's success isn't solely due to its lightweight processes and message passing, but rather its unique "behaviors." Behaviors are similar to interfaces in other languages; they provide a set of predefined function signatures. Developers only need to implement these signatures to gain access to advanced features like concurrency and fault tolerance. This allows developers to focus on business logic without dealing with low-level concurrency details. The post uses examples of gen_server, gen_event, and supervisor behaviors to illustrate their importance in building reliable distributed systems. It also explores how to adapt Erlang's behavior pattern in other languages to improve software reliability and testability.

(stevana.github.io)

Development

WebRTC For The Curious: An Open-Source Deep Dive

2025-04-11

WebRTC For The Curious is an open-source book written by WebRTC implementers, sharing their hard-won knowledge. Focusing on protocols and APIs rather than specific software, it summarizes RFCs and undocumented knowledge, taking a vendor-agnostic approach. It's not a tutorial (minimal code), but perfect for WebRTC newcomers, developers seeking deeper understanding beyond APIs, those needing debugging help, and implementers requiring clarification. The book is structured for multiple readings, with self-contained chapters answering questions in three levels: problem, solution (including technical details), and further learning resources. It aims to teach the entire system without delving into expert-level detail.

(webrtcforthecurious.com)

Development Open Source Book Protocols

Rust CUDA: Bringing High-Speed GPU Computing to Rust

2025-04-11

The Rust CUDA project aims to make Rust a top-tier language for extremely fast GPU computing using the CUDA Toolkit. It provides tools for compiling Rust to highly optimized PTX code and libraries for interfacing with existing CUDA libraries. Addressing past challenges in integrating Rust with CUDA, it offers a comprehensive suite of crates covering various aspects of the CUDA ecosystem, including GPU-side functions, CUDA driver API wrappers, and OptiX support for ray tracing. While still in early development, the project seeks to propel the Rust GPU computing industry forward.

(github.com)

Development

AI Website Builder: Instant WordPress Sites with a Conversation

2025-04-11

Tired of wrestling with website design? This AI-powered WordPress website builder lets you create a complete website—text, layout, images—instantly, simply by describing your vision. Perfect for entrepreneurs, freelancers, and bloggers needing a professional online presence without the hassle. Currently focused on non-eCommerce sites, with future updates planned.

(wordpress.com)

Development Website Builder

Founding Engineer Needed: AI-Powered Video Editing Revolution

2025-04-11

Mosaic, an AI-powered node-based video editing paradigm, won the $25,000 grand prize at the Google Gemini Kaggle competition. We're seeking a Founding Engineer to accelerate development of our core agentic video editing technology. Responsibilities include building scalable video processing and inference pipelines, designing evaluations, and making high-level product decisions. The team comprises ex-Tesla engineers and aims to reduce video editing time from hours to seconds. First-principles thinking is a must.

(www.ycombinator.com)

Development AI video editing Founding Engineer

Beyond Triangles: A Novel Quadrilateral Rendering Approach

2025-04-11

Real-time computer graphics has long relied on triangles due to GPUs' native support for hardware-accelerated rasterization of triangles only. This leads to C^1 discontinuities in vertex attributes like texture coordinates and normals along the shared edge when quadrilaterals are split into triangles. This article presents a novel method that preserves C^1 continuity across the common edge of two triangles generated from convex quadrilaterals using an algebraic solution for bilinear interpolation coefficients expressed in barycentric coordinates. The method is implemented across Geometry, Tessellation, and Mesh shaders, significantly improving rendering quality with negligible computational overhead.

(gpuopen.com)

Development GPU rendering quadrilaterals

Fedora Aims for 99% Reproducible Builds in Fedora 43

2025-04-11

Fedora is striving for 99% reproducible builds in its upcoming Fedora 43 release. This means anyone, given the same source code, build environment, and instructions, can recreate bit-for-bit identical binaries. While Debian has made significant strides in reproducible builds, Fedora's approach focuses on the payload of RPM packages, leveraging infrastructure improvements and tools like add-determinism and rebuilderd. Although largely invisible to end-users, this effort is crucial for bolstering supply chain security against malicious attacks.

(lwn.net)

Development

TI-84 Plus CE Calculator: Now Online & Free!

2025-04-11

Tired of lugging around your TI-84 Plus CE? This powerful online simulator lets you access all its features—graphing, Python programming, custom programs—directly in your browser. No downloads, no installations, just pure functionality. Perfect for students, teachers, and engineers alike. Use it on your phone, tablet, or laptop – anytime, anywhere. Boost your productivity today!

(www.ti84-online.com)

Development Python programming

Container Tools: Automating Minimal Debian Container Image Builds

2025-04-11

Container Tools is a project automating the creation of minimal Debian-based root filesystems using debootstrap. It supports customization with specific packages and configurations, and integrates security scanning for containerized environments. Easily extensible to other distros and projects, it addresses the bloat, network inefficiency, and slow iteration times of traditional Dockerfile builds. It creates lightweight, efficient container images by streamlining the build process, including only necessary components. Pre-built images with Java, Kafka, and more are available. The final output is a .tar file importable and runnable via `docker import`.

(github.com)

Development container images automated build

No-Code is Dead, Long Live AI-Powered Code Generation

2025-04-11

It's 2025, and the no-code revolution has failed to deliver on its promise of democratizing software creation. No-code platforms haven't replaced traditional programming, falling far short of expectations. A decade later, a new approach has emerged: 'vibe coding,' powered by AI and LLMs to generate production-ready code from natural language prompts. Tools like Bolt, Lovable, and v0 demonstrate the superiority of this prompt-to-code workflow. People prefer actual code and the control it offers, rejecting proprietary runtimes and embracing open standards and deployment flexibility. The need wasn't for less code, but a better way to write it. The new generation of tools leverages LLMs to generate clean, idiomatic code, deploying to open infrastructure, effectively unbundling the limitations of the previous no-code generation.

(kenneth.io)

Development

CodeSandbox: Cloning Dev Environments in Under 2 Seconds

2025-04-11

CodeSandbox achieves the remarkable feat of cloning development environments in under two seconds using Firecracker microVMs and memory snapshots. The article details how they leverage Firecracker's speed for VM instantiation, and memory snapshotting combined with copy-on-write (CoW) to drastically reduce snapshot creation and cloning times. This innovation not only improves the CodeSandbox user experience but also offers new approaches for cloud IDEs and microservice deployments.

(codesandbox.io)

Development microVM memory snapshot copy-on-write

Your Greatest Strength Is Also Your Greatest Weakness?

2025-04-11

A manager shares how he handles the duality of engineers: their greatest strengths often turn out to be their greatest weaknesses. Using personal experiences and team management examples, the article points out that the outstanding qualities of excellent engineers can be both advantages and disadvantages in different contexts. He offers three suggestions: frankly discuss the duality of engineers in daily communication, clearly point out the advantages and disadvantages of their characteristics in different contexts, and use the tension between team members' characteristics to improve efficiency. The ultimate goal is not to create perfect engineers, but to help them understand themselves and learn to adjust their behavior according to the situation, giving full play to their strengths.

(terriblesoftware.org)

Development engineer traits strengths and weaknesses

Rust FastCGI vs. Embedded Web Server: A Tale of Two Approaches

2025-04-11

This post details an experiment comparing a FastCGI server written in Rust with a simpler embedded web server using the Tide framework. While the author found FastCGI might offer advantages for scripted languages needing performance or security improvements in handling HTTP requests, the ease of use and efficiency of Tide for simple Rust HTTP servers proved compelling. The conclusion: for most use cases, embedded web servers win out over the complexity of FastCGI.

(brokenco.de)

Development

MediSearch (YC S23) is Hiring a Frontend-Leaning Founding Engineer

2025-04-11

MediSearch, a Y Combinator Summer 2023 company building a search engine for medical information using LLMs and trustworthy sources, is hiring a founding engineer with a frontend focus. This full-time role, based in Bratislava, Slovakia, offers flexibility for remote work but requires significant on-site presence. Responsibilities include frontend coding, design, and collaboration with backend engineers. Even candidates with no prior experience are encouraged to apply.

(www.ycombinator.com)

Development Medical Search Engine

ParticleOS: A Fully Customizable Immutable Linux Distribution

2025-04-11

ParticleOS is a unique immutable Linux distribution that lets users build and sign their own images, giving them complete control over system configuration. Users choose the base distribution (currently Arch and Fedora are supported) and the packages they want. System updates are handled by cloning the repository and running mkosi commands. Building systemd from source is recommended to ensure all features work correctly. ParticleOS uses the user's keys for Secure Boot signing and provides detailed installation instructions, including USB drive installation and systemd-homed configuration. In virtual machines, the default root password and username are both 'particleos'.

(github.com)

Development immutable system secure boot

TinyKVM in Varnish Cache: A Blazing-Fast Sandbox Compute Framework

2025-04-11

This article explores using TinyKVM as a compute framework within Varnish Cache, validating its performance with Deno JS benchmarks. TinyKVM boasts native performance sandboxing and per-request isolation, achieving only 0.95ms latency even when rendering complex React pages. The authors discuss shared mutable storage and prediction mechanisms for optimized game performance, along with APIs supporting multiple programming languages. Benchmarks highlight TinyKVM's significant performance advantages in GZIP compression and Deno JS execution, demonstrating a 12% performance boost from simple setting adjustments.

(info.varnish-software.com)

Development

AI Debugging Falls Short: Microsoft Study Reveals Limits of Code Generation Models

2025-04-11

Microsoft research reveals that even models from top AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic struggle to debug software bugs as effectively as experienced developers. A study testing nine models showed that even with debugging tools, these models failed to successfully complete more than half of the debugging tasks in the SWE-bench Lite benchmark. The study points to data scarcity as a major factor; the models lack sufficient training data representing human debugging processes. While AI-assisted programming tools show promise, this research highlights the limitations of AI in coding, underscoring that humans remain essential.

(techcrunch.com)

Development Code Debugging

Mbed TLS Port for Classic Mac OS: A Retro-Tech Challenge

2025-04-11

A developer successfully ported Mbed TLS to Classic Mac OS 7/8/9, a remarkable feat. The project overcame numerous hurdles, including the limitations of C89/C90 compilers lacking modern C features and the idiosyncrasies of the Mac's file system. The developer implemented 64-bit integer emulation and a custom entropy collection system, ultimately enabling a basic HTTPS GET request on a classic Mac. While security limitations exist, the project showcases a passion for retro technology and impressive programming skills.

(github.com)

Development Retro Programming

Convenient Homelab LLMs with NixOS and WSL

2025-04-11

This post details a setup for running LLMs conveniently on a homelab using NixOS within Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). The author overcame challenges like VRAM locking, WSL auto-shutdown, and Nvidia driver issues. By leveraging Ollama, the Nvidia Container Toolkit, and NixOS's configuration management, they achieved automated updates and easy system rebuilding. The guide covers keeping WSL running, NixOS installation, Nvidia driver configuration, setting up an Ollama container, and optional Tailscale networking, ultimately providing a readily accessible local LLM environment.

(yomaq.github.io)

Development

Crystal 1.16.0 Released: Enhanced Multithreading and Crucial Bug Fixes

2025-04-11

The Crystal programming language has released version 1.16.0, bringing several improvements and bug fixes. This release addresses the implementation of File.match?, improves HTTP::Request resource string parsing, and deprecates parameter name suffixes ? and !. Most notably, it introduces Execution Contexts as a preview feature, significantly enhancing multithreading support and providing more robust tools for concurrent programming. Furthermore, the compiler has been improved with support for longer options and environment variables, and updated support for LLVM 20.

(crystal-lang.org)

Development

HTML's Implicit Heading Levels Removed

2025-04-11

The HTML specification previously defined an outline algorithm that implicitly determined the semantic heading level of

elements based on nesting within sectioning elements (, , , ). Browsers rendered section > h1 with the same font-size and margins as

, section > section > h1 as

, and so on. This default rendering was in browser UA stylesheets, but not the accessibility tree (used by screen readers). Websites using sectioning elements unexpectedly saw these auto-generated heading levels. This caused confusion over

usage, inconsistent tool handling, and the algorithm was deemed problematic. The algorithm was removed in 2022, but UA stylesheet rules remained. Now, browser vendors are removing those default styles.

(developer.mozilla.org)

Development

Realtime Collaborative Web Apps Without ClojureScript: The Power of Clojure and Datastar

2025-04-11

This article showcases a real-time multiplayer web game built using Clojure and the lightweight framework Datastar. Surprisingly, it uses zero ClojureScript and no user-written JavaScript! By streaming the entire main element of the page to the client every 200ms and leveraging Datastar's efficient DOM diffing algorithm, it achieves a smooth, real-time collaborative experience. The author cleverly uses SSE (Server-Sent Events) and Brotli compression to address bandwidth concerns and avoid the complexities and performance bottlenecks of WebSockets. The project demonstrates the potential of Clojure in building high-performance, real-time collaborative web applications, offering developers a simple and efficient alternative.

(andersmurphy.com)

Development

A Linux Kernel Thread Lifecycle Gotcha: The Case of the Randomly Dying Chromium Process

2025-04-10

While optimizing Recall.ai's Output Media startup latency, an engineer encountered a perplexing bug: the Chromium process would randomly terminate after launch. The root cause was traced to Bubblewrap's `--die-with-parent` flag and the Linux kernel's handling of PR_SET_PDEATHSIG. This flag causes child processes to receive a SIGKILL signal when the parent thread, not the parent process, terminates. Tokio's thread management interacted with this behavior, leading to unexpected Chromium termination when the parent thread was reaped. Removing the flag solved the issue but revealed a little-known quirk of the Linux kernel, underscoring the need for caution when handling the interaction between thread lifecycles and process isolation.

(www.recall.ai)

Development

From Blog Post to Bestseller: One Programmer's Go Language Book Journey

2025-04-10

This post details the author's journey in writing his book, "100 Go Mistakes and How to Avoid Them." Starting with a simple Go PoC in Switzerland, the author recounts the challenges faced, including job changes, publisher interactions, navigating editor and reviewer feedback, and the eventual publication and release. The story highlights the author's personal growth, the value of reader feedback, and improvements in writing skills. The book's success, including translations, is discussed, as well as reflections on the meaning and rewards of writing, and a detached perspective on money and fame.

(www.thecoder.cafe)

Development

Category: Development

elements based on nesting within sectioning elements (, , , ). Browsers rendered section > h1 with the same font-size and margins as

, section > section > h1 as

, and so on. This default rendering was in browser UA stylesheets, but not the accessibility tree (used by screen readers). Websites using sectioning elements unexpectedly saw these auto-generated heading levels. This caused confusion over

usage, inconsistent tool handling, and the algorithm was deemed problematic. The algorithm was removed in 2022, but UA stylesheet rules remained. Now, browser vendors are removing those default styles.