Category: Development

Outperforming cuBLAS: A CUDA Implementation of Single-Precision General Matrix Multiplication

2025-01-18

This article presents a CUDA implementation of single-precision general matrix multiplication (SGEMM) that outperforms cuBLAS in certain scenarios. By cleverly using PTX instructions, asynchronous memory copies, double buffering, and other optimization techniques, the author achieved efficient matrix multiplication, specifically tuned for an NVIDIA RTX 3090. The article details the algorithm design, optimization techniques, and benchmarking methodology, providing valuable experience for CUDA learners.

Development

Wasm GC Isn't Ready for Realtime Graphics

2025-01-18

David Thompson's blog post highlights significant performance issues with Wasm GC in realtime graphics. The core problem stems from the opacity of Wasm GC heap objects to the host JavaScript environment. This necessitates byte-by-byte data copying for WebGL rendering, severely impacting performance. In contrast, Wasm linear memory offers direct JavaScript access and superior efficiency. Thompson explores workarounds, finding none satisfactory. He urges the Wasm community to address these limitations to avoid hindering technologies like WebGPU.

Development Real-time Graphics

Mastering the Kalman Filter: A Comprehensive Tutorial

2025-01-18
Mastering the Kalman Filter: A Comprehensive Tutorial

This tutorial provides a thorough guide to the Kalman filter, a powerful tool for estimating and predicting system states. Starting with basic univariate filters, it progressively covers multivariate filters, non-linear filters, and practical implementation aspects like sensor fusion and outlier handling. The tutorial features numerous numerical examples and illustrations, along with Python and MATLAB code. Even without a strong math background, you can learn to design, simulate, and evaluate Kalman filter performance.

Browser UX/UI Redesign: What AI Agents Need

2025-01-18
Browser UX/UI Redesign: What AI Agents Need

The rise of AI agents demands a redesign of browser UX/UI. This article explores current limitations, including inadequate information architecture, limited accessibility, and insufficient APIs. A redesigned browser should prioritize data accessibility, automation, streamlined interfaces, and security. Key principles for AI-friendly design include context-aware interfaces, low-latency interaction, and modular, customizable designs. Case studies (Brave, Microsoft Edge, Opera) showcase successful AI integration, highlighting the need for a user-centric approach in creating browsers that seamlessly accommodate both human and AI users.

Development UX/UI Design

llmpeg: Generate FFmpeg Commands with an LLM

2025-01-18
llmpeg: Generate FFmpeg Commands with an LLM

llmpeg simplifies using FFmpeg commands via a large language model (LLM). Simply describe your desired video manipulation, and llmpeg generates the corresponding FFmpeg command. For instance, you can easily remove audio from a video. Requires FFmpeg and an OpenAI API key. This project provides a convenient AI-powered tool for video processing.

Development Video Processing

Amazon's AI Crawler DDoSing My Git Server

2025-01-18

Blogger Xe Iaso's Git server (gitea.xeserv.us) is under attack from Amazon's AI crawler, causing instability. Despite attempts to block the crawler using robots.txt and nginx configuration to filter specific user agents, the attacks continue with constantly changing IPs and spoofed user agents. As a last resort, the server was moved behind a VPN, and a proof-of-work reverse proxy is being developed for future protection. The post expresses frustration and anger at the resource consumption by the Amazon AI crawler, urging Amazon to stop the attacks or negotiate a solution.

Shapecatcher: Find Unicode Characters by Drawing!

2025-01-18

Shapecatcher is an innovative tool that lets you find Unicode characters by drawing their shape. Currently boasting 11817 glyphs, it's a convenient solution for finding characters whose names you don't know. Simply draw the character, click 'Recognize', and Shapecatcher will find the closest match. While Japanese, Korean, and Chinese characters aren't yet supported (due to font licensing), future updates plan to integrate the high-quality Noto font to address this. The project is still in beta.

Dusa: A Novel Logic Programming Language Blending Graph Exploration and Datalog

2025-01-18

Dusa, a logic programming language created by Rob Simmons and Chris Martens, marks the first implementation of finite-choice logic programming. Combining elements of Datalog and Answer Set Programming, Dusa also functions as a graph exploration language. Accessible via a web editor, command-line utility, and JavaScript API (npm), Dusa offers a smooth transition for users familiar with Datalog or ASP, while also providing an approachable entry point for newcomers through its graph exploration features.

Hilbert Curve: A Beautiful Space-Filling Curve and its Visualization

2025-01-18

This article delves into the Hilbert curve, a space-filling curve with excellent clustering properties. The author creatively visualizes it by projecting a 3D RGB color space Hilbert curve onto a 2D plane. The visualization is aesthetically pleasing and intuitively demonstrates the clustering characteristics of the Hilbert curve. The article also explains the algorithm implementation of the Hilbert curve and provides a Python project for generating and visualizing various space-filling curves.

isd: A TUI for Effortless systemd Unit Management

2025-01-18
isd: A TUI for Effortless systemd Unit Management

isd is a terminal-based user interface (TUI) designed to simplify systemd unit management. It offers fuzzy search, auto-refreshing previews, smart sudo handling, and a fully customizable interface for both power users and beginners. Frustrated with repetitive systemctl commands? isd streamlines the process, providing a unified interface showing only relevant information and commands. Installation is easy via AppImage, Nix, or uv, making it accessible across various Linux distributions. Even if you only use `systemctl status`, isd's auto-refreshing output enhances efficiency.

Development

Disabling Password Authentication for Internet-Facing SSH: Security Boost or Overkill?

2025-01-18

This article weighs the pros and cons of disabling password authentication for internet-facing SSH. While strong passwords offer protection against brute-force attacks, the author argues that disabling password authentication provides extra layers of security against stolen credentials, SSH server vulnerabilities, and attacks targeting default accounts. However, this also introduces inconvenience, such as the inability to log in without a keypair. The author suggests a careful consideration of the trade-offs based on individual circumstances.

When a Simple Concurrent Program Defies Intuition

2025-01-18

A seemingly simple concurrent program, involving two processes incrementing a variable 'n' ten times each, yielded a surprising result when analyzed with a model checker. Intuitively, the final value of 'n' should be between 10 and 20. However, an extreme interleaving of the processes resulted in 'n' being 2. While a Go program attempting to reproduce this behavior failed, highlighting the rarity of such extreme interleavings in practice, the example underscores the complexities and counter-intuitive nature of concurrent programming.

Emulating a GPU on a CPU Using Finite Field Assembly

2025-01-17
Emulating a GPU on a CPU Using Finite Field Assembly

This article introduces Finite Field Assembly (FF-asm), a novel programming language enabling GPU emulation on CPUs. FF-asm uses a recursive computing paradigm, bypassing the need for SIMD vectorization or OpenMP parallelization. It achieves massive parallel computation on a CPU by creating a custom mathematical system based on finite field theory and congruences. The article provides step-by-step code examples demonstrating addition and multiplication in FF-asm, showcasing its potential for GPU emulation.

PowerPoint in PHP: A Roundup of Open-Source Libraries

2025-01-17

Tired of struggling with PowerPoint files in your PHP projects? Several open-source PHP libraries now make creating, editing, and converting PPT and PPTX files a breeze. These libraries not only streamline the development process but also offer a wide range of features, including formatting, merging, and protecting files. Whether you need to generate stunning presentations or handle large volumes of PPT files, these libraries will meet your needs and save you considerable time and effort.

Development Open-Source Libraries

Hands-On Graphics Without X11: A NetBSD wscons Deep Dive

2025-01-17
Hands-On Graphics Without X11: A NetBSD wscons Deep Dive

This article details how to perform low-level graphics programming on NetBSD without X11 or Wayland, leveraging the wscons framework. The author demonstrates accessing and manipulating the framebuffer to draw graphics directly on the terminal and handle keyboard input. This bypasses traditional graphics systems, allowing direct hardware interaction, ideal for resource-constrained environments like embedded systems, enabling faster boot times and reduced resource consumption.

Development framebuffer

Dr.TVAM: An Inverse Rendering Framework for Tomographic Volumetric Additive Manufacturing

2025-01-17
Dr.TVAM: An Inverse Rendering Framework for Tomographic Volumetric Additive Manufacturing

Dr.TVAM is an inverse rendering framework for tomographic volumetric additive manufacturing (TVAM) built on the Mitsuba renderer. It leverages physically-based differentiable rendering to optimize patterns for TVAM, supporting scattering printing media, arbitrary vial shapes, and projector motions. An improved discretization scheme for the target shape is also included. A command-line tool and comprehensive documentation are provided for easy customization and optimization.

C to FlipJump: A Minimalist RISC-V Virtual Machine

2025-01-17
C to FlipJump: A Minimalist RISC-V Virtual Machine

The c2fj project is a compiler that translates C code into FlipJump, a minimalist instruction set virtual machine. It first compiles C code into a RISC-V ELF file, then translates RISC-V instructions into FlipJump instructions, and finally runs the resulting FlipJump program. This process cleverly leverages FlipJump's space optimization, allowing for efficient compilation even of large C codebases. c2fj supports various compilation flags and provides Makefile support for complex projects. It also includes a minimal C library implementing necessary system calls such as `exit`, `getc`, `putc`, and `sbrk`.

Development

Branchless UTF-8 Encoding: A Clever Hack

2025-01-17
Branchless UTF-8 Encoding: A Clever Hack

This article explores branchless UTF-8 encoding. The author starts with a problem: efficiently calculating the number of bytes needed for UTF-8 encoding. An initial solution using if-else statements is presented, but the author cleverly uses bit manipulation and lookup tables, leveraging Rust's features, to achieve branchless UTF-8 encoding and eliminate runtime array bounds checks. While performance isn't deeply analyzed, this article showcases a creative solution in the pursuit of elegant code, offering a fresh perspective on efficient UTF-8 encoding.

Skyvern Browser Agent 2.0: Achieving State-of-the-Art in Web Automation

2025-01-17
Skyvern Browser Agent 2.0: Achieving State-of-the-Art in Web Automation

Skyvern, an open-source no-code browser agent builder, released version 2.0. This release boasts a state-of-the-art 85.85% score on the WebVoyager benchmark, achieved by implementing a planner-actor-validator agent loop. This architecture breaks down complex instructions into smaller, manageable tasks, and a validation step ensures successful completion. Skyvern 2.0 can handle complex prompts like "Navigate to Amazon and add an iPhone 16, case, and screen protector to cart." The team's commitment to open source is further demonstrated by publicly releasing the entire evaluation results.

Development browser automation

hyveOS: Serverless Swarm Orchestration for Drones and Robots

2025-01-17

hyveOS is a decentralized system for coordinating swarms of robots and drones, eliminating the need for internet connection or central servers. Developers can install hyved on various devices (like Raspberry Pis) and use diverse SDKs (including Python, Rust, JavaScript, etc.) to build applications. Its core strength lies in its decentralized architecture, enabling flexible and reliable swarm control adaptable to complex scenarios. Sample applications are provided for easy onboarding.

Development

Fast Food vs. Home-Cooked Software: A Developer's Dilemma

2025-01-17

This article explores two contrasting approaches to software development: fast food and home-cooked. Fast food software uses agile sprints, prioritizing rapid iteration over long-term maintainability. Home-cooked software emphasizes upfront design, resulting in lean, stable code, but with longer development cycles. The author criticizes the prevalent fast food approach, highlighting its creation of massive technical debt and poor user experiences. A call for a return to a more quality-focused, maintainable approach is made.

Development

Mermaid Chart Visual Editor Update: Effortless Class Diagram Editing

2025-01-17
Mermaid Chart Visual Editor Update: Effortless Class Diagram Editing

Mermaid Chart recently updated its visual editor to make creating and editing class diagrams significantly easier. New features include changing rendering direction, adding classes and relationships, adding titles and notes, updating diagram configuration, and changing themes and layouts. Users can now easily create and update class diagrams via drag-and-drop, eliminating the need for manual Mermaid syntax. The visual editor also provides a powerful dialog interface for modifying class properties, such as adding attributes and methods, setting visibility modifiers and data types. These improvements make creating and maintaining complex class diagrams more efficient and accessible, especially for team members less familiar with Mermaid's syntax.

Go 1.24: Weak Pointers, Improved Finalizers, and Blazing-Fast Maps

2025-01-17
Go 1.24: Weak Pointers, Improved Finalizers, and Blazing-Fast Maps

Go 1.24, slated for a February release, packs a punch with significant improvements. This interactive tutorial highlights key features like weak pointers, enhanced finalizers, a highly optimized map implementation using SwissTable, concurrent hash-trie maps, directory-scoped filesystem access, and more. Example code showcases usage and performance gains. Testing is also enhanced with synthetic time for testing, simplified logging, and new string and byte iterators. These improvements significantly boost Go's development efficiency and performance.

Rust Prototyping: Debunking the Myths

2025-01-17
Rust Prototyping: Debunking the Myths

This article challenges the common belief that Rust is unsuitable for rapid prototyping. The author argues that Rust's strong type system and tooling actually help developers catch design flaws early, reducing rework later. The article details several Rust prototyping techniques, such as using simple types, leveraging type inference, judiciously using `unwrap`, and utilizing IDE features effectively. Real-world examples illustrate how Rust's type system aids design, leading to robust production-ready code. The author also emphasizes avoiding premature optimization and recommends the `dbg!` macro for debugging. In short, this article provides a practical guide to Rust prototyping, enabling developers to efficiently translate ideas into working code.

Zig 0.14.0 Release Incoming: Improved x86 Backend and Incremental Compilation

2025-01-17

After a period of quiet development, the Zig Software Foundation is gearing up for the release of Zig 0.14.0. This release focuses on improvements to the x86 backend (potentially becoming the default for debug builds) and incremental compilation (disabled by default, but enabled via a compiler flag). Other improvements include labeled switch continue and upgraded support for nearly all target platforms. The team encourages users to upgrade to the latest master branch and will focus on ensuring a smooth upgrade during the release month. While a 1.0 release is still some time away, the team is committed to delivering stable, incremental releases.

Development

Fern, a YC Startup, is Hiring an AI Engineer – Up to $192k!

2025-01-17
Fern, a YC Startup, is Hiring an AI Engineer – Up to $192k!

Fern, a Y Combinator-backed startup, is hiring an AI Engineer with a salary of up to $192,000 plus an $18,000 living proximity bonus. Fern simplifies API usage by providing high-quality SDKs and documentation for businesses. The role requires 4+ years of backend or full-stack development experience, proficiency in TypeScript and at least one other language, and experience developing and deploying AI products. This is a fast-growing SaaS company offering end-to-end project ownership and the chance to build zero-to-one AI features.

Development

Programming in Lua (First Edition) Online

2025-01-17

The online version of the first edition of "Programming in Lua," a comprehensive guide to Lua programming by its chief architect, Roberto Ierusalimschy, is now available. This detailed resource covers all aspects of Lua, from language fundamentals to data structures, standard libraries, and the C API. While written for Lua 5.0, it remains largely relevant for later versions. All errata have been incorporated into this online edition, which is freely available for personal use.

Development Tutorial

PostgreSQL Anonymizer: Declarative Data Masking for Postgres

2025-01-17

PostgreSQL Anonymizer is a powerful database extension enabling declarative definition of data masking rules directly within the database schema. It supports multiple masking methods including static, dynamic masking, and anonymous dumps, offering various masking functions like randomization, faking, partial scrambling, and custom functions. Designed for anonymization-by-design, it protects sensitive data like PII and commercially sensitive information during development. The extension includes detection functions to suggest columns needing anonymization. Quick start via Docker, complete tutorials, and success stories from organizations like the French Public Finances Directorate General (DGFiP) and bioMérieux are provided.

McDonald's App Security Flaw: The Perils of Trusting Clients

2025-01-17
McDonald's App Security Flaw: The Perils of Trusting Clients

A blog post exposes a critical security vulnerability in the McDonald's app. The vulnerability stems from the app's excessive trust in clients, allowing hackers to bypass security checks and obtain free Big Macs and other deals. The post details how attackers utilize root access, custom recovery systems, and other methods to circumvent the app's security mechanisms, highlighting that simply checking client trustworthiness is ineffective. The author urges developers to abandon blind trust in clients and implement stronger security measures to prevent similar incidents.

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