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Go's New `slog`: A High-Performance Structured Logger for Observability

2025-09-12

Go's New `slog`: A High-Performance Structured Logger for Observability

Go 1.21 introduces `slog`, a native, high-performance, structured logging solution designed to be the new standard. Built around `Logger`, `Handler`, and `Record`, `slog` offers a flexible and efficient logging approach. The article details `slog` usage, covering log levels, context-aware logging, attribute handling, level control, and custom handler creation, emphasizing the use of `slog.Attr` to prevent malformed log entries. Performance considerations, OpenTelemetry integration for enhanced observability, and best practices like global loggers and dependency injection are also discussed. `slog` aims to transform logging from an afterthought to a crucial observability signal.

(www.dash0.com)

Development structured logging

Stack Overflow's Decline: The ChatGPT Impact and Uncertain Future

2025-01-08

Stack Overflow's Decline: The ChatGPT Impact and Uncertain Future

A GitHub data analysis reveals a staggering 70.7% drop in new questions on Stack Overflow from March 2023 to December 2024, plummeting from 87,105 to 25,566. This correlates strongly with the rise of ChatGPT; since its launch, Stack Overflow has seen nearly 83,000 fewer questions. The author, a top Stack Overflow contributor, describes their own experience of having well-formatted questions quickly closed, highlighting a potential key factor in the platform's decline. The drastic decrease in question volume suggests a concerning trajectory, mirroring levels seen in 2009 shortly after launch, hinting at a potential lifespan of less than a year.

(gist.github.com)

Development Platform Decline

Game-Changing Biomarker Test Detects Early-Stage Alzheimer's

2025-02-15

Game-Changing Biomarker Test Detects Early-Stage Alzheimer's

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have developed a biomarker test that can detect minute amounts of clumped tau protein in the brain and cerebrospinal fluid, a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. This breakthrough allows for early detection—up to a decade before noticeable symptoms or brain scan abnormalities—opening the door for potentially life-altering interventions. The test identifies specific modifications within the tau protein, providing an early warning system for this currently incurable disease. This significant advance builds on recent Alzheimer's research breakthroughs, including the identification of subtypes and novel therapeutic approaches.

(newatlas.com)

Tech Biomarker Early Detection

arXivLabs: Experimenting with Community Collaboration

2025-07-04

arXivLabs is a framework enabling collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Individuals and organizations working with arXivLabs share our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only partners with those who adhere to them. Have an idea to improve the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

(arxiv.org)

Tech

Uber and Waymo Team Up: Austin Gets RoboTaxi Choice

2025-03-08

Uber and Waymo Team Up: Austin Gets RoboTaxi Choice

Uber and Waymo have officially launched "Waymo on Uber" in Austin, offering users a choice between a Waymo robotaxi and a human-driven vehicle at the same price. This collaboration marks a shift in the relationship between the two former rivals, with Waymo handling vehicle technology and Uber managing fleet operations. The service hints at future partnerships in the autonomous vehicle industry and underscores Uber's strategic moves in the robotaxi market. The partnership builds on a previous collaboration in Phoenix and anticipates expansion to Atlanta.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech robotaxi Uber-Waymo partnership

EU Data Act Kills Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) in SaaS

2025-09-19

EU Data Act Kills Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) in SaaS

The EU Data Act, effective September 2025, dramatically alters the SaaS landscape in Europe. It mandates that all SaaS contracts with EU customers become “cancel anytime” subscriptions, requiring only two months' notice. This effectively ends the reliance on Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) as a predictable metric. SaaS companies must adapt, focusing on pricing models, customer retention strategies, and mitigating involuntary churn due to customer oversight. Success will hinge on robust customer relationship management and operational resilience, not contract terms.

(paid.ai)

Development EU Data Act

Microsoft Integrates Musk's Controversial AI, Grok, into Azure

2025-05-19

Microsoft Integrates Musk's Controversial AI, Grok, into Azure

Microsoft has become one of the first hyperscalers to offer managed access to Grok, the controversial AI model from Elon Musk's xAI. Available via Azure AI Foundry, Grok 3 and Grok 3 mini boast Microsoft's service-level agreements and billing. Known for its unfiltered and edgy responses, including the use of vulgar language, the Azure versions are more controlled and include enhanced data integration, customization, and governance features. While the X platform's Grok has faced controversy for biased outputs and sensitive topic handling—including incidents like undressing women in photos and censoring negative comments—the Azure versions aim for improved safety and reliability.

(techcrunch.com)

AI

The Century-Long Keyboard War: QWERTY vs. Dvorak

2025-09-02

The Century-Long Keyboard War: QWERTY vs. Dvorak

This essay delves into the century-long history of the QWERTY and Dvorak keyboard layouts. QWERTY, far from being random, was ingeniously designed to solve mechanical limitations in early typewriters. Dvorak, conversely, aimed for efficiency and ergonomics. Despite Dvorak's demonstrated advantages in trials, historical factors like market inertia, switching costs, and a lack of sustained marketing prevented its widespread adoption. The article reveals the intricate interplay of technological progress, market forces, and human biases in shaping keyboard layouts, prompting reflection on technology standard selection and market competition.

(aresluna.org)

Tech qwerty dvorak

Ubuntu to Disable Intel Graphics Security Mitigations for Performance Boost

2025-06-23

Intel graphics security mitigations have been silently impacting performance, with disabling them potentially yielding a 20% boost for OpenCL and Level Zero GPU compute. Canonical, in collaboration with Intel, plans to disable these mitigations in Ubuntu packages to recapture this lost performance. This is enabled via the "NEO_DISABLE_MITIGATIONS" build option, already used in Intel's GitHub binaries. While a security risk exists, both Intel and Canonical security teams have approved this change, slated for Ubuntu 25.10. The mitigation primarily affects the Intel Compute Runtime and doesn't impact kernel-level security.

(www.phoronix.com)

Tech

Twitter: A Novel Messaging Protocol

2025-01-19

In April 2009, many questioned Twitter's significance. The article argues that Twitter's importance stems from its novelty as a messaging protocol where recipients aren't specified. New protocols are rare, successful ones even rarer; think TCP/IP, SMTP, HTTP. A new protocol is inherently a big deal. However, Twitter's private ownership makes it even more unique. Interestingly, the founders' slow monetization might be an advantage. Lack of heavy-handed control makes Twitter feel like established protocols, obscuring its private ownership and likely aiding its spread.

(paulgraham.com)

Tech Protocol

Mystery Masterpiece: National Gallery's Bicentennial Acquisition

2025-05-03

Mystery Masterpiece: National Gallery's Bicentennial Acquisition

To celebrate its bicentenary, the National Gallery acquired a mysterious altarpiece depicting the Virgin and Child with two saints, dating from 1500-1510. The artist remains unknown, with debate even surrounding their nationality (Netherlandish or French). The painting is full of humor and curious iconography, including a farting cherub and oddly nailed steps. Its acquisition represents a significant event, adding a fascinating puzzle to art history and becoming a prized possession of the National Gallery.

(www.theartnewspaper.com)

Design painting National Gallery

EU Launches OpenEuroLLM: A €37.4M Push for European AI Sovereignty

2025-02-09

OpenEuroLLM, a collaborative AI project involving 20 organizations across the EU, officially launched on February 3, 2025. Backed by €37.4 million (USD 39.4 million) in funding, including €20.6 million from the Digital Europe Program, the project aims to develop multilingual large language models (LLMs). The initiative seeks to boost Europe's AI competitiveness, expand access to advanced AI, and preserve linguistic diversity. OpenEuroLLM's strategic alignment with EU digital sovereignty goals and its STEP seal of excellence promise increased visibility and future funding opportunities.

(slator.com)

AI European Union

Apple Resurrects Blood Oxygen on Apple Watch, Bypassing Import Ban

2025-08-15

Apple Resurrects Blood Oxygen on Apple Watch, Bypassing Import Ban

Apple announced Thursday a redesigned blood oxygen feature for select Watch Series 8, Series 10, and Apple Watch Ultra models, circumventing an International Trade Commission (ITC) import ban. Blood oxygen data is now processed on the paired iPhone, viewable only within the Health app's Respiratory section. This follows a recent U.S. Customs ruling allowing Apple to import watches with the revised feature. The change doesn't affect previously sold models or those purchased outside the U.S., applying only to watches sold after the ITC ban in early 2024. Users can access the redesigned feature via an iPhone and Apple Watch software update released Thursday. This follows Apple's ongoing legal battle with Masimo, which accused Apple of stealing its pulse oximetry technology. Masimo won a 2023 ITC ruling blocking Apple Watch imports with blood oxygen monitoring, prompting Apple's removal of the feature. Apple countersued, claiming Masimo copied Apple Watch features, and appealed the ban.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech Patent Dispute

LIEF Adds DWARF Generation: Bridging Reverse Engineering Tools

2025-05-28

LIEF Adds DWARF Generation: Bridging Reverse Engineering Tools

LIEF now boasts a comprehensive API for creating DWARF files, along with plugins for Ghidra and BinaryNinja to export reverse-engineering analysis results. This allows sharing of crucial information like function names and structures across different reverse engineering tools. Leveraging LLVM's DWARF backend, the API (available in Python, Rust, and C++) simplifies the process, even handling details like stack variable offsets. This improves collaboration and understanding in complex reverse engineering projects.

(lief.re)

Development

Intel 1974-1981: From Fire to the Rise of the IBM PC

2025-02-23

Intel 1974-1981: From Fire to the Rise of the IBM PC

This article chronicles Intel's pivotal years from 1974 to 1981. The company faced a devastating factory fire but recovered quickly thanks to strong R&D and dedicated teams. Intel expanded internationally, launched iconic processors like the 8080 and 8086, and built a complete ecosystem of support chips. IBM's selection of the 8088 for the PC marked Intel's decisive victory in the microprocessor market, establishing its dominance in the computing industry.

(www.abortretry.fail)

Tech

Windows 10 System Settings Secretly Phoning Home?

2025-06-07

A blogger discovered that simply viewing the Windows 10 System Settings triggers DNS queries and data transmission to bing.com and cxcs.microsoft.net. Using Nir Sofer's DNSLookupView and TcpLogView, the blogger confirmed that Windows 10 secretly collects user data in the background. The article explores various methods to block this behavior, including modifying router DNS settings, using tools like Pi-hole or NextDNS, and modifying the hosts file. The author ultimately recommends network-wide blocking of www.bing.com and lists other Microsoft domains worth blocking.

(www.michaelhorowitz.com)

Tech Windows 10 Privacy

Solidroad: Revolutionizing Customer Experience with AI

2025-06-14

Solidroad: Revolutionizing Customer Experience with AI

Solidroad is a startup leveraging AI to revolutionize customer experience. From humble beginnings and investor rejections, they've grown to analyze hundreds of thousands of conversations monthly, delivering significant time and cost savings for clients like Crypto.com, Podium, and ActiveCampaign, all while experiencing substantial revenue growth. They're seeking fast-iterating, customer-obsessed individuals who embrace direct feedback and possess a strong drive to join their team and build the future of customer experience.

(solidroad.com)

Startup

Data Deluge: Drowning in Digital Trash

2025-04-06

Data Deluge: Drowning in Digital Trash

Trillions of blurry images, half-baked videos, and AI-generated content are being created and stored annually, leading to massive environmental waste. The author argues that most organizations lack proper data management, resulting in a deluge of redundant, outdated, and inaccurate information. Cloud storage exacerbates this, making data hoarding cheap and leading to a massive surge in digital garbage. This, in turn, negatively impacts AI training and accuracy. The article calls for better data management practices to combat this growing environmental and resource problem.

(gerrymcgovern.com)

Tech data management data waste

gkrellm: A Robust Linux System Monitor

2025-05-16

gkrellm is a powerful system monitoring tool for Linux, displaying hostname, CPU usage, temperature, fan speed, voltage, disk usage, network connections, memory usage, and much more. It offers customizable alarms and warnings, and boasts plugin capabilities for extended monitoring. gkrellm also supports remote system monitoring via client/server mode, providing various charts and display modes for intuitive system status understanding.

(gkrellm.srcbox.net)

Development

37signals Ditches AWS, Saves $1.3M Annually

2025-05-09

37signals Ditches AWS, Saves $1.3M Annually

Software company 37signals, creators of Basecamp and HEY, has successfully migrated its data from AWS to on-premise storage, projecting annual savings of $1.3 million. This follows a previous migration of compute workloads, resulting in $2 million in annual savings. The company moved 18PB of data from AWS S3 to Pure Storage, with AWS waiving $250,000 in egress fees. Upon completion, 37signals will close its AWS account, saving $1.5 million annually on S3 storage. Overall infrastructure costs will drop from $3.2 million annually to under $1 million on-premise, without additional staff.

(www.theregister.com)

Development

The Loneliness Epidemic: A Call to Leave the House

2025-06-29

The Loneliness Epidemic: A Call to Leave the House

This article tackles the pervasive issue of loneliness in modern society, arguing that leaving the house is key to combating it. The author uses their experience with a dog and community engagement at a dog park as a prime example of building connections. They highlight the importance of urban infrastructure, like sidewalks, in fostering community. The piece criticizes late-stage capitalism for profiting from and exacerbating loneliness, urging readers to actively participate in community life and experience human connection.

(buttondown.com)

Misc

ZeroMQ's C4 Collaboration Protocol: A Reusable Open Source Collaboration Model

2025-03-13

This article details ZeroMQ's C4 collaboration protocol, an open-source project collaboration model built on Git and GitHub. C4 aims to maximize community size and project development speed by reducing friction, clarifying roles (Contributors and Maintainers), and standardizing processes (e.g., pull requests). It emphasizes solving real problems with minimal solutions, avoids branch usage, and employs an optimistic merging strategy to accelerate development. The ultimate goal is a healthier, larger-scale open-source community.

(hintjens.gitbooks.io)

Development open source collaboration

Cultural Evolution of Cooperation Among LLM Agents

2024-12-18

Researchers investigated whether a 'society' of Large Language Model (LLM) agents can learn mutually beneficial social norms despite incentives to defect. Experiments revealed significant differences in the evolution of cooperation across base models, with Claude 3.5 Sonnet significantly outperforming Gemini 1.5 Flash and GPT-4o. Furthermore, Claude 3.5 Sonnet leveraged a costly punishment mechanism to achieve even higher scores, a feat not replicated by the other models. This study proposes a new benchmark for LLMs focused on the societal implications of LLM agent deployment, offering insights into building more robust and cooperative AI agents.

(arxiv.org)

AI Cooperation Social Norms

AmigaDOS String Interpolation: Beyond {} Braces

2025-03-22

This blog post explores the flexibility and quirks of string interpolation in AmigaDOS shell scripts. While AmigaDOS defaults to using `<` and `>` for interpolation, it allows customization via `.BRA` and `.KET` directives. Experiments demonstrate the successful use of various character pairs, including printable and non-printable ASCII characters (like BEL and NAK). This highlights the robustness of the AmigaDOS script parser and its resilience in handling unusual input.

(www.datagubbe.se)

Development string interpolation

ARIA: A Powerful Tool for Web Accessibility, and Its Pitfalls

2025-06-17

ARIA: A Powerful Tool for Web Accessibility, and Its Pitfalls

This article delves into the role of ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) in web accessibility, exposing common misconceptions. ARIA isn't a silver bullet; it supplements native HTML elements, providing additional information for assistive technologies like screen readers to enhance interactivity, purpose, and state understanding. The article covers ARIA's history, usage rules, its grammatical structure (roles, states, and properties), and challenges in real-world application, such as varying assistive technology support and ARIA attribute misuse. The author advocates prioritizing semantic HTML, using ARIA judiciously, and emphasizes manual testing to ensure correctness and effectiveness. Ultimately, the article connects ARIA usage with care for disabled people, urging developers to prioritize accessibility and build a more inclusive web.

(www.smashingmagazine.com)

Development Web Accessibility Assistive Technology

AWS S3 Vectors: The Rise of Tiered Storage for Vector Databases?

2025-09-08

AWS S3 Vectors: The Rise of Tiered Storage for Vector Databases?

AWS recently launched S3 Vectors, a vector database built on top of its S3 object storage. This has sparked debate about whether it will replace existing vector databases like Milvus, Pinecone, etc. The author, a engineering architect at Milvus, argues that S3 Vectors is not a replacement but a complement, particularly suitable for low-cost, low-query frequency cold data storage scenarios. He analyzes S3 Vectors' technical architecture, highlighting its advantages in cost and scalability, but also its limitations in high query latency, low precision, and limited functionality. The author further elaborates on the evolution of vector databases: from in-memory storage to disk storage, and now to object storage, ultimately leading to a tiered storage architecture (hot, warm, and cold data layers) to balance performance, cost, and scalability. Milvus is also moving in this direction, with the upcoming 3.0 release featuring a vector data lake for unified management of hot and cold data. The emergence of S3 Vectors proves the maturity and growth of the vector database market, rather than disruption.

(zilliz.com)

AI tiered storage

6502 Code Generator Outperforms GCC and LLVM

2025-02-16

A developer built a 6502 code generator that surprisingly outperforms GCC, LLVM, and other compilers. The speed advantage isn't from superior high-level optimizations, but rather innovative code generation techniques. The compiler leverages "illegal" instructions, computationally expensive instruction selection, and space-for-time optimizations. The core algorithm combines instruction selection with register allocation, cleverly using continuation-passing style. It works with a DAG and SSA-form intermediate representation, generating multiple assembly code combinations, pruning with dynamic programming and branch-and-bound, and finally solving a PBQP problem for optimal selection. While employing some "cheats," the compiler shows remarkable benchmark results, offering fresh perspectives on code generation.

(pubby.games)

Development

Global Scam Call Center Metastasis: A Worldwide Criminal Expansion

2025-04-23

Global Scam Call Center Metastasis: A Worldwide Criminal Expansion

The UN warns that global scam call centers are spreading like a cancer, with criminal syndicates expanding and operating worldwide. Crackdowns in East and Southeast Asia have led to operations shifting to more permissive regions, including Africa, South Asia, parts of the Pacific Islands, and even links to money laundering and recruitment in Europe and North America. These groups leverage local language skills to broaden their victim pool and drastically increase profits. The report estimates annual earnings between $27.4 billion and $36.5 billion, targeting regions with weak governance. Law enforcement actions have resulted in arrests of foreign nationals involved in fraud and cybercrime; for example, 77 suspects, including 22 Chinese nationals, were arrested in Zambia in April 2024. While reliable data is limited in South America, Asian criminal groups are expanding online fraud and gambling infrastructure and forging money laundering partnerships with local drug cartels. In Europe, Georgia and Turkey have emerged as cyberfraud hotspots. Additionally, criminal syndicates establish seemingly legitimate businesses (hotels, casinos, travel agencies) in Pacific island nations to conceal illegal online gambling, drug and human trafficking, migrant smuggling, and money laundering. The UN recommends strengthening regulatory frameworks and equipping authorities with the resources to combat these crimes.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech Scam Call Centers

Hacker News: A Cure for Eternal September?

2025-09-22

This article explores how Hacker News (HN) maintains high-quality discussions and content while experiencing relentless user growth and traffic. HN uses strict rules, algorithmic ranking, human moderation, and a unique link aggregator model to effectively filter low-quality content and encourage in-depth discussions. While HN isn't flawless, suffering from issues like commenters not reading articles, excessive criticism, and user base biases, its unique operational model offers valuable lessons for other online communities.

(hsu.cy)

Tech

Securely Disposing of Smart Devices: Factory Reset is Key

2025-01-10

Securely Disposing of Smart Devices: Factory Reset is Key

A Rapid7 blog post highlights the importance of securely disposing of old smart devices. The author's experiment of buying used Amazon Echo devices revealed many were not factory reset, retaining user data like WiFi passwords and home addresses. This underscores the need to factory reset devices before disposal or resale, even if seemingly broken. The article emphasizes this applies to businesses as well as consumers, recommending businesses establish comprehensive IoT lifecycle management processes to mitigate security risks.

(www.rapid7.com)

Tech device disposal

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