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DOTS: A 100+ Year Digital Archive Solution

2025-01-02

Group 47's DOTS (Digital Optical Technology System) offers a revolutionary approach to long-term digital data archiving. Promising a lifespan exceeding 100 years, DOTS utilizes non-magnetic, chemically inert media impervious to electromagnetic fields, including EMP. Its low-cost, environmentally friendly design requires no demanding climate control, functioning reliably in standard office environments (15º to 150º F). Uniquely, DOTS employs a visually readable format; with magnification, the digital information itself is visible, ensuring recoverability even decades later. Unlike magnetic tapes and hard drives demanding costly, frequent data migrations to prevent data loss, DOTS provides a stable, reliable solution for preserving legal, cultural, and historical data for generations to come.

(group47.com)

Tech archival technology

Procedural Generation of Realistic Terrain: Multi-scale Noise and Mountain Modeling

2025-09-17

Procedural Generation of Realistic Terrain: Multi-scale Noise and Mountain Modeling

This post, part III of a procedural terrain generation series, builds upon the paint map and mountain ridge system established in previous parts. It details the addition of multi-scale noise layers and distance-based mountain peaks, culminating in a final terrain elevation map through blending techniques. The author explains using Simplex noise to add detail at varying frequencies, and coastal noise enhancement to control coastline variation. A distance field is calculated using Delaunay triangulation and a breadth-first search (BFS) algorithm for more natural mountain shapes. Finally, the different terrain components are blended to create a realistic result.

(brashandplucky.com)

Game terrain

Meta's AI Copyright Battle: Did Using Pirated Books to Train AI Cross the Line?

2025-05-05

Meta's AI Copyright Battle: Did Using Pirated Books to Train AI Cross the Line?

Meta faces a copyright lawsuit from authors including Sarah Silverman and Ta-Nehisi Coates over its AI tools. The judge is questioning whether Meta illegally used their books, obtained through 'shadow libraries,' to train its AI and whether this harms the authors' sales. Meta claims 'fair use,' but the judge suggests that significantly impacting or destroying the market for their work might invalidate this defense. This case will set a precedent for future AI copyright cases, hinging on proving actual harm to the authors' commercial prospects.

(www.wired.com)

Tech

GOP Launches Probe into Wikipedia: A Conservative Assault on the Information Ecosystem?

2025-08-29

GOP Launches Probe into Wikipedia: A Conservative Assault on the Information Ecosystem?

Republican Representatives James Comer and Nancy Mace are investigating Wikipedia, alleging a search for evidence of bias, particularly anti-Israel sentiment. This is seen as part of a broader conservative effort to control the information ecosystem, following attempts to control social media and defund public broadcasting. The investigation's outcome and potential actions remain unclear, but are sure to be controversial.

(gizmodo.com)

Tech information control

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

Global Privacy Control (GPC): A User-Powered Solution to Web Tracking?

2025-03-16

Global Privacy Control (GPC): A User-Powered Solution to Web Tracking?

Unlike its predecessor, Do Not Track (DNT), the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal has backing from the California Attorney General and aims for alignment with the EU's GDPR, empowering users like never before. DNT's ineffectiveness stemmed from its lack of legal enforcement, but GPC changes that. It transmits users' "Do Not Sell" requests to websites, compelling compliance. With support from browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Brave, and DuckDuckGo's Privacy Browser, GPC signals a potential turning point in the fight against web tracking.

(developer.mozilla.org)

Tech web tracking

A* Pathfinding Explained: From Breadth-First Search to Greedy Best-First Search

2025-06-18

A* Pathfinding Explained: From Breadth-First Search to Greedy Best-First Search

This article provides a clear explanation of the A* pathfinding algorithm. Starting with the simple Breadth-First Search (BFS), it progressively introduces Dijkstra's algorithm (handling varying movement costs), Greedy Best-First Search, and finally, the A* algorithm. Through diagrams and code examples, the article clearly shows the operation and advantages and disadvantages of different algorithms, discussing their applicability in different scenarios such as map pathfinding and game AI. A*, by incorporating a heuristic function, finds the shortest path while improving search efficiency, making it a popular pathfinding algorithm in many games.

(www.redblobgames.com)

Development pathfinding graph search

Eliminating Memory Safety Vulnerabilities: A Collective Commitment to Secure-by-Design

2025-02-26

Eliminating Memory Safety Vulnerabilities: A Collective Commitment to Secure-by-Design

For decades, memory safety vulnerabilities have plagued the tech industry, costing billions and eroding trust. Traditional approaches haven't been enough. This post calls for a fundamental shift towards 'secure-by-design' practices to eliminate these vulnerabilities. Recent advancements in memory-safe languages (like Rust) and hardware technologies (like ARM's MTE) make this achievable. The authors propose a standardized framework to objectively assess memory safety assurances, incentivizing vendors to invest and ultimately empowering customers to demand and reward security, driving procurement of more secure systems. This requires a technology-neutral framework supporting diverse approaches, adapting safety requirements based on need, ultimately aiming for a secure digital world.

(security.googleblog.com)

Development secure-by-design

Breakthrough in High-Energy Density Materials: Novel Nitrogen Allotropes

2025-08-04

Breakthrough in High-Energy Density Materials: Novel Nitrogen Allotropes

Recent years have witnessed remarkable progress in polynitrogen chemistry. Researchers have synthesized various novel nitrogen molecular structures, such as hexazine rings and caged nitrogen molecules, using high pressure and other methods. These molecules possess extremely high energy densities, promising to become next-generation high-energy materials. However, the synthesis and stability of polynitrogen compounds remain significant challenges, with factors such as quantum tunneling effects profoundly influencing their properties. This research not only expands our understanding of nitrogen but also opens new avenues for developing novel high-energy materials.

(www.nature.com)

Tech high-energy materials quantum chemistry

China's Solar Industry Meltdown: Mass Layoffs and Overcapacity

2025-08-08

China's solar industry is facing a brutal downturn, with leading companies laying off nearly a third of their workforce last year. This reveals a crisis of overcapacity and vicious price wars, fueled by previous government-led expansion. While the government is attempting intervention, local resistance and corporate foot-dragging hinder solutions. This highlights the risks of central planning and foreshadows potential issues in other Chinese industries.

(www.zerohedge.com)

Tech solar industry overcapacity price war

Molluscs of the Multiverse: A Biological Look at Magic: The Gathering

2025-08-27

Molluscs of the Multiverse: A Biological Look at Magic: The Gathering

Three museum researchers delve into the surprisingly diverse mollusc representation in the popular card game Magic: The Gathering. They examine snails, slugs, bivalves, and cephalopods, comparing the game's depictions to real-world biology. The authors highlight the creative ways the game uses biological forms, behaviors, and ecology, revealing a fascinating interplay between fantasy and science. This article is a fun exploration of game lore and a surprisingly insightful primer on mollusc biology, appealing to gamers and biology enthusiasts alike.

(jgeekstudies.org)

Game Molluscs

Intentionally Slowing Down Programs: A Surprising Boost to Developer Tool Accuracy

2025-08-27

Intentionally Slowing Down Programs: A Surprising Boost to Developer Tool Accuracy

Most research on programming language performance focuses on speeding up programs, but a new study explores the benefits of intentionally slowing them down. By inserting NOP or MOV instructions into program basic blocks, researchers achieved fine-grained control over program execution, leading to more precise race condition detection, speedup simulation, and profiler accuracy assessment. Experiments on an Intel Core i5-10600 showed that NOP and MOV instructions are best suited for this purpose, opening new avenues for future advanced developer tooling.

(stefan-marr.de)

Development profilers

Apple's App Store Free Lunch: Who's Paying for the Ecosystem?

2025-06-05

Apple's App Store boasts of generating trillions in billings and sales for developers, yet a significant majority pay zero commission. However, a small minority, particularly indie developers, are burdened with hefty in-app purchase (IAP) fees, sparking controversy. The author argues Apple leverages IAP to force a select few to subsidize the entire ecosystem, including 'free' apps generating billions through ads or other means—a blatant 'free lunch' scenario. The article questions the fairness and rationale behind this practice, suggesting Apple's profitability stems from hardware sales, not developer commissions, and ultimately accusing Apple of exploiting a small subset of developers.

(lapcatsoftware.com)

Development Commissions

Open Source Power Plays: Rug Pulls, Forks, and the Shifting Sands of Control

2025-09-06

At the 2025 Open Source Summit Europe, Dawn Foster dissected the complex power dynamics in open-source software development. Large cloud providers often hold significant sway, potentially leveraging this power to the detriment of smaller companies. One tactic, 'rug pulls,' involves companies re-licensing software to restrict competitor profitability, often leading to 'forks' – community-driven project branches to regain control. The presentation analyzed case studies like Elasticsearch, Terraform, and Redis, comparing contributor composition changes before and after forks. The importance of neutral governance and a diverse contributor base emerged as key themes. Foster highlighted that while forking offers a means for maintainers and contributors to combat power imbalances, projects should prioritize neutral governance and broad contributor participation to mitigate the risk of rug pulls.

(lwn.net)

Development forking

SPVs and the Shadowy World of Pre-IPO Trading

2025-04-09

SPVs and the Shadowy World of Pre-IPO Trading

Private company share trading is booming, with accredited investors increasingly accessing pre-IPO shares through platforms like EquityZen and Forge Global. However, these trades often involve Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs), which own shares of the operating company, bypassing securities laws designed to limit the number of investors. This allows companies to stay private longer and raise capital, but it also exposes investors to opaque funding vehicles with hefty fees and limited transparency. The underwhelming IPO of CoreWeave highlights the risks, suggesting that reliance on private markets isn't sustainable without a robust public market for accurate valuation. The system exposes moderately wealthy retail investors to significant dangers.

(www.businesslawprofessors.com)

Startup Pre-IPO SPVs Securities Law

Lawyers Sanctioned for Using ChatGPT's 'Hallucinations' in Court Filings

2025-07-26

Lawyers Sanctioned for Using ChatGPT's 'Hallucinations' in Court Filings

Three lawyers from Butler Snow, a high-priced firm defending Alabama's prison system, were sanctioned by a federal judge for using ChatGPT to generate court filings containing fabricated case citations. The judge called the AI-generated citations 'completely made up' and 'recklessness in the extreme'. The lawyers, who have received over $40 million in state payments since 2020, were removed from the case and the matter referred to the Alabama State Bar for potential disciplinary action. This incident highlights the risks of using AI without proper verification in legal proceedings.

(apnews.com)

Misc Legal Malpractice

Microsoft 365 Price Hike? Cancel Your Subscription to Get the Old Plan!

2025-01-09

Microsoft 365 Price Hike? Cancel Your Subscription to Get the Old Plan!

Microsoft 365 quietly raised its prices, claiming integration with Copilot AI, but full access requires an additional subscription. Consumer NZ discovered that by pretending to cancel, users can magically access a cheaper 'Classic' plan retaining original features without Copilot costs. This is considered a 'dark pattern', misleading users through UI design, potentially breaching fair trading laws. The article suggests free alternatives and calls for legislation to regulate such practices.

(www.consumer.org.nz)

Tech dark patterns

Sanity Rescues Dying styled-components: 40% Performance Boost

2025-09-12

Sanity Rescues Dying styled-components: 40% Performance Boost

After the popular CSS-in-JS library styled-components entered maintenance mode, Sanity stepped in to rescue it. They released two forked versions, compatible with React 18 and React 19 respectively. These versions leverage React 18's `useInsertionEffect` hook and React 19's inline styles to dramatically improve performance, achieving up to a 40% speed increase in some cases. The article details the fixes and performance improvements, and provides a phased migration strategy for developers using styled-components, allowing for performance gains before transitioning to alternative CSS solutions.

(www.sanity.io)

Development

kapa.ai: AI-Powered Developer Support, Leveling Up User Experience

2025-07-22

kapa.ai: AI-Powered Developer Support, Leveling Up User Experience

kapa.ai empowers tech companies to easily build AI-powered support and onboarding bots for their users. Over 150 leading startups and enterprises, including OpenAI, Mixpanel, Mapbox, Docker, Next.js, and Prisma, use kapa to enhance developer experience and reduce support overhead. It leverages existing technical knowledge sources like docs, tutorials, chat logs, and GitHub issues to create AI bots that automatically answer developer questions. More than 750,000 developers access kapa.ai through website widgets, Slack/Discord bots, API integrations, or Zendesk. kapa.ai is backed by top-tier Silicon Valley AI investors, including Initialized Capital (Garry Tan, Alexis Ohanian), Y Combinator, Amjad Masad and Michele Catasta (Replit), and Douwe Kiela (RAG paper author and founder of Contextual AI), among others.

(www.ycombinator.com)

Development

A Gentle History of Math: Strengths and Weaknesses

2025-03-13

A Gentle History of Math: Strengths and Weaknesses

This review examines Berlinghoff and Gouvêa's "Math Through the Ages: A Gentle History for Teachers and Others." Instead of a chronological narrative, the book uses 30 independent topical sketches, supplemented by a rich bibliography to facilitate further exploration. While the book contains some inaccuracies, particularly concerning the origins of zero and the history of computing, overall it serves as a reasonably priced and informative introduction to the history of mathematics. It's a good starting point for those developing an interest in the subject, though readers should be aware of potential historical oversimplifications.

(thonyc.wordpress.com)

Development

Hacker Infects 18,000 'Script Kiddies' with Fake Malware Builder

2025-01-25

Hacker Infects 18,000 'Script Kiddies' with Fake Malware Builder

A threat actor targeted low-skilled hackers, known as "script kiddies," with a fake malware builder that secretly installed a backdoor to steal data and take over computers. Security researchers at CloudSEK report that the malware infected 18,459 devices globally, mostly in Russia, the US, India, Ukraine, and Turkey. The malware, a trojanized XWorm RAT builder, was distributed through various channels including GitHub, file hosting sites, Telegram, YouTube, and websites. While many infections were cleaned via a kill switch, some remain compromised. The malware stole data like Discord tokens, system information, and location data, and allowed remote control of infected machines.

(www.bleepingcomputer.com)

Tech

Ripple: A New UI Framework Blending React, Solid, and Svelte

2025-09-02

Ripple: A New UI Framework Blending React, Solid, and Svelte

Ripple is an early-stage TypeScript UI framework that combines the best parts of React, Solid, and Svelte. Built as a JS/TS-first framework, it features a unique .ripple extension and superset language designed to improve developer experience and work well with LLMs. It boasts built-in reactive state management, a component-based architecture, JSX-like syntax, and high performance. While still buggy and in alpha, Ripple's innovative features—like automatically reactive variables and object properties prefixed with $, the `untrack` function for controlling reactivity, reactive arrays, and the `effect` function—make it an intriguing project to watch.

(github.com)

Development

The World's Longest Train Journey: A Myth Debunked?

2025-05-17

The World's Longest Train Journey: A Myth Debunked?

A purported train route from Lagos, Portugal to Singapore, spanning 18,755 km across 13 countries, claims the title of the world's longest train journey. However, this claim is riddled with issues: the route's definition is fluid, allowing for arbitrary additions; it requires numerous transfers, negating the 'single journey' aspect; and sanctions related to the Ukraine conflict have disrupted the Moscow-Beijing leg. The article explores the definition and feasibility of the 'longest train journey', highlighting that the actual longest single-train journey is Moscow to Pyongyang at 10,214 km. Ultimately, the author emphasizes the journey itself as more significant than the destination.

(bigthink.com)

Misc train travel

Math Problem Solving Course: Sharpen Your Competition Skills

2025-05-08

Professor Darij Grinberg's Math 235 course is an accessible introduction to mathematical problem solving, designed to equip students with techniques and tools commonly used in math competitions. These include induction, the Pigeonhole Principle, modular arithmetic, and the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. The course features weekly 50-minute video lectures and 40-minute online collaborative sessions, reinforced by weekly homework assignments. The course draws upon classic competition math texts like "Putnam and Beyond" and "The IMO Compendium," though the goal isn't solely IMO preparation; rather, it's to cultivate versatile problem-solving skills. Students gain hands-on experience and familiarity with standard mathematical problem-solving techniques.

(www.cip.ifi.lmu.de)

Development higher mathematics

WD and Microsoft Launch Massive Hard Drive Recycling Program to Reduce Reliance on China for Rare Earths

2025-04-21

WD and Microsoft Launch Massive Hard Drive Recycling Program to Reduce Reliance on China for Rare Earths

Western Digital, in collaboration with Microsoft and recycling partners CMR and PedalPoint Recycling, has launched a large-scale hard drive recycling program to address growing e-waste and rare earth element shortages. The program utilizes acid-free dissolution recycling (ADR) technology to reclaim Rare Earth Oxides (REO), including dysprosium, neodymium, and praseodymium, along with aluminum, steel, gold, palladium, and copper. The recovered REO boasts 99.5% purity and reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 95% compared to virgin mining. This initiative aims to lessen the US tech industry's dependence on China for rare earths and promote a circular economy. The program has already successfully recycled 47,000 pounds of hard drives, achieving a reclaim rate exceeding 90%.

(www.tomshardware.com)

Tech Hard Drive Recycling Rare Earths

Tracing JITs in PyPy: A Pragmatic Choice?

2025-01-10

This post delves into the advantages and disadvantages of tracing JIT compilers, specifically focusing on their implementation within PyPy. Tracing JITs, which generate code by tracing program execution, offer benefits when handling complex languages like Python, effectively slicing through layers of abstraction and reducing overhead. However, they also suffer from performance instability and edge cases. Based on two decades of experience with PyPy, the author provides a nuanced analysis of tracing JITs' suitability, comparing them to method-based JITs. The conclusion suggests that, within PyPy's meta-JIT context and given its resource constraints, tracing remains a relatively pragmatic approach.

(pypy.org)

Development tracing JIT

Salesforce CEO: AI Now Handles 30-50% of Our Work

2025-06-26

Salesforce CEO: AI Now Handles 30-50% of Our Work

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff revealed that AI is currently handling 30% to 50% of the company's workload, encompassing roles like software engineering and customer service. This aligns with statements from Microsoft and Alphabet, who also reported AI's contribution to software code generation. Salesforce's internal AI usage has reduced hiring needs, and they've developed an AI-powered customer service tool boasting 93% accuracy, serving clients such as Walt Disney. Benioff anticipates AI taking on more routine tasks, freeing humans for higher-value work. Salesforce aims to maintain its industry leadership by integrating AI throughout its platform.

(finance.yahoo.com)

Tech

AI Dev Tools: Building a Prototype in 48 Hours – and the Implications for Silicon Valley

2025-03-14

AI Dev Tools: Building a Prototype in 48 Hours – and the Implications for Silicon Valley

The author recounts building a working app prototype in just 48 hours using AI development tools, shattering preconceived notions about software development speed. This experience revealed flaws in his initial idea and sparked a broader reflection on AI's impact on Silicon Valley. The author argues that while AI accelerates product iteration, it also risks a surge in products lacking domain expertise, ultimately favoring individuals with deep knowledge and unique insights.

(benn.substack.com)

Development

CF-Shield: Automated Cloudflare DDoS Protection with Python

2025-06-23

CF-Shield: Automated Cloudflare DDoS Protection with Python

CF-Shield is a Python script that automatically detects and mitigates DDoS attacks on Cloudflare. It requires your Cloudflare email, API token, zone ID, and account ID. After installation, the script prompts you to set a CPU usage threshold, challenge type, and optional Discord, Slack, and Telegram notifications. It monitors CPU usage; if it exceeds the threshold, it automatically enables Cloudflare's WAF rules and disables them after the attack. This powerful tool helps protect your website from DDoS attacks.

(github.com)

Development DDoS protection Python script

Debugging React Server Components in Next.js with OpenTelemetry

2025-01-23

Debugging React Server Components in Next.js with OpenTelemetry

React Server Components (RSCs) offer performance benefits but introduce debugging challenges. This article demonstrates using OpenTelemetry, a powerful observability framework, to trace RSC activity within Next.js applications. OpenTelemetry allows tracing requests, collecting metrics, and aggregating logs, giving developers insights into server-side component execution, including lifecycle events, data fetching operations, and rendering performance. A real-world case study showcases optimizing a page loading numerous GitHub API calls using OpenTelemetry. The article details installing necessary packages, creating an instrumentation.js file, and configuring data export destinations. It also explains creating custom spans for more granular insights.

(www.dash0.com)

Development

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