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JWST Discovers Most Distant Giant Spiral Galaxy Yet

2024-12-31

JWST Discovers Most Distant Giant Spiral Galaxy Yet

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have discovered Zhúlóng, an ultra-massive spiral galaxy that is the most distant of its kind ever identified. This grand-design spiral, with its well-defined arms, boasts a mass comparable to the Milky Way and formed a mere billion years after the Big Bang. Studies reveal a quiescent core and a still-active star-forming disk, suggesting Zhúlóng is in a transitional phase. This discovery challenges existing models of early universe galaxy formation, indicating mature galaxies may have emerged much earlier than previously thought.

(phys.org)

Tech JWST Spiral Galaxy

Modern C Updated: Free Edition Now Available with Full C23 Support

2025-03-27

The free version of the updated Modern C is now available! This release focuses on complete support for the new C23 standard. Key improvements include enhancements to integer types (new _BitInt(N) type, `` and `` headers, 128-bit type support), a nullptr constant, attribute annotations, enhanced type-generic programming (auto and typeof type inference), default initialization, and constexpr. New chapters cover compound literals, lambdas, internationalization, and robust error handling. An appendix and a temporary include header are also included to ease the transition to C23.

(gustedt.gitlabpages.inria.fr)

Development C23 standard

Redis-Powered LLM Acceleration: LMCache Delivers 3-10x Speedup

2025-06-28

Redis-Powered LLM Acceleration: LMCache Delivers 3-10x Speedup

LMCache is an LLM serving engine extension designed to drastically reduce tail latency and boost throughput, particularly in long-context scenarios. By caching reusable text KV pairs across various locations (GPU, CPU DRAM, local disk), LMCache reuses these caches for any reused text (not just prefixes) in any serving instance. This saves valuable GPU cycles and minimizes user response delay. When combined with vLLM, LMCache achieves a 3-10x reduction in latency and GPU cycles across numerous LLM use cases, including multi-round QA and RAG. Try it out with pre-built vLLM Docker images!

(github.com)

AI

1700-Year-Old Roman Wine Bottle Found Intact

2025-08-24

1700-Year-Old Roman Wine Bottle Found Intact

A remarkably preserved Roman wine bottle, dating back to between 325 and 359 AD, has been unearthed in Speyer, Germany. Discovered in the tomb of a 4th-century Roman nobleman, this 1.5-liter vessel, nicknamed Römerwein, is the oldest known unopened wine bottle. While the wine's alcohol content is likely diminished, it remains sealed, its contents diluted with various herbs. The article also highlights a team of scientists in Catania, Sicily, who recreated ancient winemaking techniques, producing a modern equivalent to this ancient beverage.

(www.openculture.com)

Misc ancient rome

ExpenseOwl: A Minimalist Expense Tracker for Your Homelab

2025-02-07

ExpenseOwl: A Minimalist Expense Tracker for Your Homelab

Tired of complex expense tracking apps? ExpenseOwl offers a minimalist solution. It uses a simple JSON file for data storage, provides a modern pie chart visualization of monthly spending, and features both command-line and web interfaces. No complicated setup or unnecessary features – just add, delete, and view expenses to easily manage your finances. ExpenseOwl also supports custom categories and currencies and deploys easily in Docker.

(github.com)

Development expense tracking

Microsoft-Backed AI Startup Builder.ai Files for Bankruptcy Amid Fraud Allegations

2025-06-03

Microsoft-Backed AI Startup Builder.ai Files for Bankruptcy Amid Fraud Allegations

Builder.ai, a once high-flying AI startup backed by Microsoft and valued at $1.5 billion, has filed for bankruptcy. The company's claims of AI-powered app building, facilitated by a virtual assistant named 'Natasha,' were revealed to be a massive fraud. Nearly 700 engineers in India were manually coding customer requests, exposing inflated revenue projections and misleading investors. The collapse has triggered a federal investigation and highlights the growing problem of 'AI washing,' where manual services are deceptively presented as AI-driven to attract funding.

(www.latintimes.com)

Startup startup bankruptcy

Dusk OS: A Minimalist OS for the Post-Collapse World

2025-05-13

Dusk OS is a 32-bit Forth-based operating system designed for survival in a post-civilizational collapse scenario. It aggressively prioritizes simplicity, sacrificing some features for extreme efficiency and ease of operation. Using an 'almost C' compiler, Dusk OS easily ports existing UNIX C code and boasts an incredibly small footprint (a complete system is under 6000 lines of code). It's fully self-hosting, runs smoothly on older hardware, and possesses a remarkably high "power density," challenging conventional software culture.

(duskos.org)

Development

The Busy Beaver Game: A Race to the Universe's Edge

2025-08-25

The Busy Beaver Game: A Race to the Universe's Edge

Mathematician Tibor Radó's Busy Beaver game challenges finding the longest-running Turing machine for a given number of rules. Recent years have seen a thrilling competition between Shawn Ligocki and Pavel Kropitz in the BB(6) challenge, pushing the boundaries of computation. Their discoveries resulted in runtimes exceeding the number of atoms in the universe, showcasing both the incredible advancements in computing power and the ingenuity of algorithms.

(www.quantamagazine.org)

Tech Computation

Moral Panics and Copaganda: How Data is Manipulated

2025-05-15

Moral Panics and Copaganda: How Data is Manipulated

This article exposes how moral panics are used to inflate law enforcement budgets and intensify punitive measures. Using California's shoplifting crisis as an example, it shows how media-fueled panic led to massive funding increases for law enforcement, while ignoring root social causes. The author points out how selective reporting of anecdotes and isolated data points distorts public perception of crime, creating a false sense of crisis even when crime rates are declining. This 'copaganda' tactic uses truthful elements to manipulate the narrative, resulting in misallocation of resources and the perpetuation of social problems.

(www.teenvogue.com)

Misc moral panic copaganda

DeepMind's Table Tennis Robots: An Endless Match for a Smarter Future

2025-07-26

DeepMind's Table Tennis Robots: An Endless Match for a Smarter Future

Google DeepMind has trained two robots to play an endless game of table tennis to improve general-purpose AI. The goal isn't a final score, but continuous learning and strategy improvement through competition. The robots have reached a level comparable to amateur human players, achieving a 50/50 win rate against intermediate players. Researchers hope this will spark a robotics revolution, creating robots that can safely and effectively interact with humans in the real world, similar to the impact of ChatGPT on language models.

(www.popsci.com)

AI

Google's Offerwall: An AI-Powered Lifeline for Publishers?

2025-06-26

Google's Offerwall: An AI-Powered Lifeline for Publishers?

Google's AI-driven search features are hurting publisher traffic, prompting the launch of Offerwall, a new tool designed to diversify revenue streams. Offerwall provides publishers with various monetization options including micropayments, surveys, and ads, allowing them to move beyond traditional traffic-dependent models. Following a year-long beta with 1000 publishers, Offerwall is now freely available within Google Ad Manager. While micropayment models have historically struggled, Google's integrated solution, including partnerships like Supertab, offers customizable options and shows promising results: an average revenue increase of 9% during testing, with some publishers reporting increases as high as 20%.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech

Git @ 20: Linus Torvalds Reflects on its Journey

2025-04-13

Git @ 20: Linus Torvalds Reflects on its Journey

To celebrate Git's 20th anniversary, GitHub hosted a Q&A with Linus Torvalds. He recounted Git's origins, born out of necessity to solve the Linux kernel's version control chaos. Developed in just 10 days, the early version quickly evolved into an indispensable tool for software development worldwide. Despite initial difficulties, Git's adoption exploded. Linus admits his personal interest waned after his needs were met, quickly handing maintenance over to Junio Hamano. Today, Git's ubiquity presents new challenges, such as a surge in abandoned projects. Linus' focus remains on the ongoing development of the Linux kernel, with no immediate plans for new projects.

(news.itsfoss.com)

Development

Local NVMe SSDs: The Future of Cloud Databases?

2025-06-02

Local NVMe SSDs: The Future of Cloud Databases?

Cloud storage was initially designed around the limitations of older hardware, using network-attached disks to enhance durability and scalability. However, today's cost-effective NVMe SSDs offer significantly superior performance. This article demonstrates that PostgreSQL databases using local NVMe SSDs outperform AWS RDS and Aurora by several times in TPC-C and TPC-H benchmarks. While network-attached storage retains advantages in elasticity and durability, the reliability and affordability of NVMe SSDs now largely compensate, making local NVMe SSDs a compelling future for cloud databases.

(www.ubicloud.com)

Tech Cloud Databases

Google Gemini 2.5: Faster, Cheaper, and More Powerful

2025-06-17

Google Gemini 2.5: Faster, Cheaper, and More Powerful

Google announces the general availability of its Gemini 2.5 Pro and Flash models, alongside a preview release of the even more cost-effective and faster Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite. These models achieve a Pareto optimal balance of cost and speed, outperforming their predecessors across various benchmarks including coding, math, science, reasoning, and multimodal tasks. Flash-Lite especially excels in high-volume, low-latency applications like translation and classification. The Gemini 2.5 family boasts features like adjustable reasoning budgets, integration with tools like Google Search and code execution, multimodal input, and a massive 1 million-token context window.

(blog.google)

AI

EU Launches Rival Vulnerability Database as US CVE Program Faces Uncertainty

2025-05-13

EU Launches Rival Vulnerability Database as US CVE Program Faces Uncertainty

Amidst US budget cuts and uncertainty surrounding its CVE program, the EU has launched its own vulnerability database, the EUVD. This streamlined platform offers real-time monitoring of critical and actively exploited vulnerabilities, providing a stark contrast to the US NVD's struggles with backlogs and navigation. The EUVD features both CVE and its own unique identifiers, prominently displaying critical and exploited vulnerabilities. This move significantly bolsters EU cybersecurity capabilities and offers a viable alternative globally.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech vulnerability database

Fixing the Loading Issues in Myst IV: Revelation

2024-12-13

Fixing the Loading Issues in Myst IV: Revelation

This article documents the author's journey in fixing the notoriously slow loading times in Myst IV: Revelation. The game suffers from a two-second load time per click, even on SSDs. Using profiling tools, the author pinpointed the issue to the game's inefficient image loading via the LEADTOOLS library, which loads images row by row. The solution involved extracting game assets, converting images to the DDS format for faster loading, and implementing multithreading. However, challenges remain, such as crashes related to water effects, requiring further optimization.

(medium.com)

3

Game game optimization performance profiling

The Pains and Pleasures of Typeface Licensing: A Designer's Perspective

2025-08-14

The Pains and Pleasures of Typeface Licensing: A Designer's Perspective

A designer shares their experiences navigating typeface licensing across numerous projects. High-quality commercial fonts and supporting independent foundries are key considerations. However, varying licensing terms from different foundries create complexities. The article explores ideal licensing features: clear and easily accessible terms, shareable shopping carts, straightforward payment options, flexible pricing models, and the ability to subset fonts. The author highlights the need for a balance between foundry needs and client usability for a smoother workflow.

(davesmyth.com)

Design Typeface Licensing Commercial Fonts

Revisiting Earthsea: A Stunning Illustrated Edition of a Classic Fantasy Series

2025-04-28

Revisiting Earthsea: A Stunning Illustrated Edition of a Classic Fantasy Series

The author rereads Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea cycle in a new, fully illustrated omnibus edition featuring art by the beloved Charles Vess. This massive volume includes all six novels, along with short stories and afterwords. While praising the beautiful artwork, the author expresses some reservations about its style compared to Vess's other works. The large page size and slightly small font size present minor reading inconveniences, but overall the experience is positive. The author finds the Earthsea books as compelling as ever, particularly highlighting the dark and brutal nature of *Tehanu*. This new edition offers a fresh appreciation for this classic fantasy world, showcasing Le Guin's masterful world-building and character development.

(lars.ingebrigtsen.no)

Game Fantasy Fiction Illustrated Edition

Compiling a Tiny Functional Language to LLVM: A Simple Calculator Example

2025-09-23

This article details the process of compiling a small functional language to LLVM. Starting with a basic calculator language, the author progressively builds a lexer, parser, and LLVM code generator. The article thoroughly explains each step, including parsing with the megaparsec library, generating LLVM IR code using llvm-hs-pure and llvm-hs-pretty, and finally compiling and running the result. Through this example, readers can learn how to translate functional language features (such as pattern matching) into LLVM IR and how to use LLVM for code generation and compilation.

(danieljharvey.github.io)

Development Functional Language

Ballista Botnet Exploits TP-Link Router Flaw, Infecting 6,000+ Devices

2025-03-11

Ballista Botnet Exploits TP-Link Router Flaw, Infecting 6,000+ Devices

A new botnet, Ballista, is exploiting a high-severity vulnerability (CVE-2023-1389) in unpatched TP-Link Archer AX-21 routers, infecting over 6,000 devices. The vulnerability allows remote code execution, enabling Ballista to spread automatically via command injection. The botnet targets manufacturing, medical, services, and technology organizations, predominantly in Brazil, Poland, the UK, Bulgaria, and Turkey, but also impacting the US, Australia, China, and Mexico. Ballista uses a malware dropper and shell script to execute its main binary, establishing a C2 channel to control infected devices and perform DoS attacks and sensitive file reading. Researchers suspect an Italian origin, but the use of Tor networks suggests ongoing development and active evasion techniques.

(www.tomsguide.com)

Tech botnet

Revolutionizing Bacterial Diagnosis: Identifying Pathogens in Minutes with Mass Spectrometry

2025-05-08

Revolutionizing Bacterial Diagnosis: Identifying Pathogens in Minutes with Mass Spectrometry

Traditional bacterial disease diagnosis involves days of tedious pathogen isolation and culturing. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich and Imperial College London have developed a groundbreaking method using mass spectrometry to identify bacteria in mere minutes. By detecting bacterial metabolic products instead of the bacteria themselves, the new technique significantly reduces diagnostic time. A database currently containing 232 medically important bacterial species and their metabolites will be expanded to include over 1400 known pathogens. This technology promises to revolutionize personalized medicine, enabling rapid and precise treatment.

(phys.org)

Tech mass spectrometry bacterial infection rapid diagnosis

The Myth of the 10x Engineer: Teamwork Trumps Individual Heroism

2025-03-13

The Myth of the 10x Engineer: Teamwork Trumps Individual Heroism

This article debunks the myth of the "10x engineer," arguing that a single metric for measuring engineer productivity is misleading and ignores the importance of teamwork. The author points out that software development isn't a stage for individual heroes; the overall efficiency of the team is key. High-performing engineering organizations should enable even ordinary engineers to create significant value and cultivate more excellent engineers through good system design and team culture, rather than over-relying on so-called "geniuses."

(spectrum.ieee.org)

Development

Intel's Aggressive Restructuring: 50% Margin Mandate, 20% Layoffs Imminent

2025-06-06

Intel's Aggressive Restructuring: 50% Margin Mandate, 20% Layoffs Imminent

Intel's new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, is implementing aggressive measures to turn the company around. To boost profit margins, Intel will no longer approve new projects that cannot achieve at least a 50% gross margin, leading to project cancellations and engineer reassignments. Simultaneously, Intel plans up to 20% layoffs in Q2 and a streamlining of middle management. The goal is to transform Intel into an engineering-focused company and attract and retain top talent. While this approach seemingly contradicts fostering a culture of innovation, Tan appears to have investor backing. Intel's recent gross margin has plummeted to 31.67%, far below the pre-pandemic level of around 60%, making the success of this transformation uncertain.

(www.tomshardware.com)

Tech profit margin

Hidden JavaScript Quirks: Beyond the Memes

2025-04-04

This article uncovers lesser-known quirks in JavaScript that go beyond typical programmer humor and tutorials. Examples include the peculiar scoping of the `eval` function; the counter-intuitive variable capture in `for` loops; the falsiness of `document.all`; Unicode pitfalls in string iteration; and the performance and strange behavior of sparse arrays. The author also touches upon the complexities of Automatic Semicolon Insertion (ASI) and potential errors it can cause, listing many other noteworthy oddities within JavaScript.

(stack-auth.com)

Development quirks

Beyond the Billions: Reimagining the American Dream in a Decentralized World

2025-01-07

Jeff Atwood's blog post reflects on the current state of the American Dream and the impact of tech giants on society. He shares his personal journey from humble beginnings to success through Stack Overflow and Discourse, ultimately realizing that wealth shouldn't be the sole measure of achievement. The post calls for addressing social inequality and advocates for building a fairer society through decentralized platforms (like Mastodon) and charitable giving, sharing the American Dream. He's donated substantial funds to charities and plans to donate half his family's wealth over the next five years to support democratic institutions and promote social equity.

(blog.codinghorror.com)

Startup American Dream Social Equity

Perplexity AI Bids to Merge with TikTok to Avoid US Ban

2025-01-18

Perplexity AI Bids to Merge with TikTok to Avoid US Ban

With a US ban on TikTok looming, AI search engine Perplexity AI has surprisingly submitted a bid to merge with TikTok US. The proposal would create a new entity combining Perplexity, TikTok US, and new equity partners, bringing more video content to Perplexity's search engine while allowing most ByteDance investors to retain their equity. While ByteDance has repeatedly stated its unwillingness to sell TikTok, Perplexity hopes a merger, rather than an acquisition, will overcome this obstacle. This unexpected move has sent ripples through the tech world, with its success or failure having significant implications for US tech regulation and the convergence of AI and social media.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech

Astral Launches Pyx: A Next-Gen Python Package Registry

2025-08-14

Astral Launches Pyx: A Next-Gen Python Package Registry

Astral has launched Pyx, a native Python package registry and the first component of its next-generation infrastructure for the Python ecosystem, the Astral platform. Pyx optimizes the uv package manager, serving not only as a package registry but also solving problems beyond the scope of traditional package registries, such as increased speed, enhanced security, and GPU support. Currently live with early partners including Ramp, Intercom, and fal, Pyx aims to deliver a next-generation Python experience for teams. Astral builds high-performance developer tools for the Python ecosystem, with the goal of making Python the most productive programming ecosystem on Earth.

(astral.sh)

Development Astral Platform

Kernel Community Debates AI-Generated Patches

2025-08-23

The Linux kernel community is grappling with the rise of AI-assisted coding tools. Submissions using LLMs to generate patches have sparked debate, with proposals to add tags identifying LLM usage. However, concerns about patch quality, copyright issues, and increased maintainer burden are prevalent, leading some to suggest banning LLM-generated contributions. A consensus remains elusive, but discussions are expanding to encompass a broader AI policy, slated for further discussion at the December Maintainers Summit.

(lwn.net)

Development Code Patches

Cycle-Exact Commodore 64 Emulation on Cheap Microcontrollers

2025-05-03

Cycle-Exact Commodore 64 Emulation on Cheap Microcontrollers

Connomore64 is a project that achieves cycle-exact emulation of the Commodore 64 using multiple parallel, inexpensive RP2040/RP2350 microcontrollers. Initially a holiday project exploring the capabilities of the RP2040's PIOs, it's evolved into an accurate emulator running most games and a portion of demos, even interfacing with original C64 hardware like floppy drives. While still under development, it demonstrates potential for running compute-intensive software on low-cost hardware and provides a framework for parallel emulation using multiple RP2040/RP2350s.

(github.com)

Hardware

Asteroid 2024 YR4: A Near Miss, But a Valuable Lesson

2025-06-11

Asteroid 2024 YR4: A Near Miss, But a Valuable Lesson

Asteroid 2024 YR4, once flagged as the highest-ever recorded impact risk to Earth, is back in the news – this time for a slightly increased chance of a lunar impact in 2032. Observed briefly by the James Webb Space Telescope in May, new data refined its trajectory, increasing the lunar impact probability from 3.8% to 4.3%. While a collision is unlikely to significantly alter the moon's orbit and any debris would burn up in Earth's atmosphere, the event served as a valuable real-world test of planetary defense strategies. Initial concerns of a higher Earth impact probability were later dismissed as further data ruled out any risk. The asteroid, roughly the size of a 10-story building, provided scientists with a rare opportunity to practice the entire planetary defense process, from detection and analysis to public communication.

(www.space.com)

Tech planetary defense

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