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AGI in 2045? Founders of Mechanize Bet on Explosive Economic Growth, Not an Intelligence Explosion

2025-04-17

AGI in 2045? Founders of Mechanize Bet on Explosive Economic Growth, Not an Intelligence Explosion

Dwarkesh Patel interviews Ege Erdil and Tamay Besiroglu, co-founders of Mechanize, a startup focused on fully automating work. They offer a contrarian view on AI timelines, downplaying the likelihood of an 'intelligence explosion' and emphasizing instead the potential for explosive economic growth driven by AI. They argue that progress requires broad technological advancements across multiple sectors, not just increased computing power. While they predict full automation of remote work by 2045, they believe AI will fundamentally reshape the global economy and societal norms.

(www.dwarkesh.com)

Tech

Two-Year SSD Data Retention Test: Unexpected Results

2025-04-19

Two-Year SSD Data Retention Test: Unexpected Results

TechTuber HTWingNut conducted a two-year experiment testing the long-term data retention of SSDs. Four 128GB SATA SSDs were used, two new and two heavily used (exceeding their rated TBW). After two years, the new SSDs showed data integrity but a significant increase in error correction codes, indicating potential issues; while the used SSDs experienced file corruption and performance degradation. This highlights the risk of data loss in SSDs even when unplugged for extended periods and underscores the importance of regular backups.

(www.tomshardware.com)

Hardware Data Retention Data Integrity

OpenWISP: Connecting Communities Globally with Open-Source Networking

2025-02-05

OpenWISP: Connecting Communities Globally with Open-Source Networking

OpenWISP, a trusted open-source networking solution, boasts deployments in over 195 countries, exceeding 20,000 installations and serving 40+ commercial clients. It plays a vital role in connecting communities, fostering digital inclusion, and providing efficient solutions for thousands of active hotspots and daily users. Network administrators, municipalities, and universities worldwide rely on OpenWISP for its simplicity, adaptability, and enhanced connectivity.

(openwisp.org)

Development open-source networking community connectivity digital inclusion

4chan Hacked: Soyjak.Party Leaks Moderator Emails

2025-04-15

4chan Hacked: Soyjak.Party Leaks Moderator Emails

In April 2025, anonymous hackers claiming affiliation with Soyjak.Party successfully breached 4chan. Exploiting outdated PHP code and deprecated MySQL functions, particularly vulnerabilities in the core script yotsuba.php, they restored the deleted /QA/ board and leaked email addresses of numerous moderators and janitors, including three .edu emails. The incident rapidly spread across social media, sparking discussions about website security and code maintenance. While claims of .gov email leaks circulated, verification remains pending.

(knowyourmeme.com)

Tech

Million-Year-Old Mammoth Genomes Reveal Lost Genetic Diversity

2025-04-13

A groundbreaking genomic study has unearthed a treasure trove of long-lost genetic diversity in mammoth lineages spanning over a million years. Researchers analyzed 34 newly sequenced mammoth mitochondrial genomes, including specimens dating back to the Early and Middle Pleistocene. This unprecedented dataset, published in *Molecular Biology and Evolution*, reveals insights into mammoth evolutionary history and demonstrates the power of ancient DNA in characterizing past genetic diversity. The findings support an ancient Siberian origin for major mammoth lineages and highlight how population dynamics shaped the expansion and contraction of distinct genetic clades. The study also introduces an improved molecular clock dating framework, pushing the boundaries of ancient DNA research and providing a powerful tool for future studies of extinct and endangered species.

(www.sciencedaily.com)

Tech Mammoth

How Much Does the Internet Weigh?

2025-04-07

How Much Does the Internet Weigh?

The question of the internet's weight, seemingly absurd, has spurred scientific inquiry. Early estimates pegged it at roughly 50 grams, equivalent to a few strawberries. However, with the explosive growth of data, this figure is outdated. This article explores three calculation methods: server energy consumption, electron information transmission, and DNA storage density. The final calculation, based on the law of conservation of energy, reveals an incredibly small mass: 53 quadrillionths of a gram. Yet, regardless of its physical weight, the internet's impact on humanity remains immense.

(www.wired.com)

Tech data

Post-Startup Blues: Four Paths Forward After a Failed Venture

2025-06-04

A co-founder reflects on the successes and failures of their startup, Cord, after four years and two near-acquisition attempts. Despite a strong engineering team and impressive technology, Cord faltered due to shortcomings in go-to-market strategy and sales. Now facing uncertainty, the author weighs four options: founding another startup, joining an early-stage company, returning to big tech, or bootstrapping a solo project. Each path presents unique advantages and challenges, leaving the future unwritten.

(jg.gg)

Startup

Readyset DB: Optimizing Cold Path Query Performance with ICP

2025-08-23

Readyset DB: Optimizing Cold Path Query Performance with ICP

Readyset database achieved a significant breakthrough in query performance during cache misses (cold path), specifically for straddled joins where predicates filter both join sides. The previous hash join algorithm proved inefficient due to extensive reads of irrelevant data. By introducing Index Condition Pushdown (ICP), Readyset combines the left-side predicate results with the right-side predicates, enabling precise data retrieval at the storage engine level, avoiding full table scans. Benchmarks show a >450x throughput improvement and >450x latency reduction, effectively resolving the performance bottleneck of cold path queries.

(readyset.io)

Development index condition pushdown join queries

DE25-Nano: Pocket-Sized FPGA Dev Board with a Performance Boost

2025-09-25

DE25-Nano: Pocket-Sized FPGA Dev Board with a Performance Boost

Terasic introduces the DE25-Nano, a next-gen FPGA development board packing Agilex™ 5 performance into a compact form factor. A significant upgrade from the DE10-Nano, it boasts a 138K-LE Agilex™ 5 FPGA, 2GB LPDDR4, USB-Blaster III, and an enhanced dual-cluster ARM Cortex-A76/A55 HPS architecture. Its versatile I/O (HDMI, MIPI, ADC, GPIO, shared HPS/FPGA memory) makes it ideal for rapid prototyping of AI models, vision pipelines, and control systems, while its production-ready design enables deployment in real-world applications like embedded vision, robotics, and edge analytics. Terasic's ecosystem of daughter cards further enhances its scalability and ease of use.

(www.terasic.com.tw)

Hardware

New Orleans ICE Raids: US Citizen Children Deported

2025-04-26

New Orleans ICE Raids: US Citizen Children Deported

In a shocking early morning raid, New Orleans Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported at least two families, including two mothers and their minor children—three of whom are U.S. citizen children aged 2, 4, and 7. One mother is pregnant. These families, long-time residents with deep community ties, were deported under deeply troubling circumstances raising serious due process concerns. ICE denied access to attorneys and family members, isolating the families during critical decision-making moments regarding their children's welfare. One family's U.S. citizen child, suffering from a rare form of metastatic cancer, was deported without medication or access to their doctors. These actions violate ICE's own directives regarding the care of minor children and have sparked outrage over ICE's abuse of power and disregard for human rights.

(www.aclu.org)

Misc

90s.dev: A Retro Game Maker Running in Your Browser

2025-05-20

90s.dev is a novel browser-based game creation platform offering a 320x180 pixel canvas for building and sharing games and apps. Inspired by retro game makers like Pico-8 and Tic-80, it boasts unique innovations, including a ref-based GUI system and powerful composability, supporting module imports from GitHub or NPM. Users can create tools like pixel art editors, sprite makers, and map editors, sharing creations via iframes or links. 90s.dev aims to foster a vibrant community, encouraging collaborative game and tool creation.

(90s.dev)

Game

Hunting for a Fifth Dimension: Neutron Stars and the Weakness of Gravity

2025-04-06

Hunting for a Fifth Dimension: Neutron Stars and the Weakness of Gravity

From the mid-19th century's intriguing explorations of extra dimensions to the current search for evidence of a fifth dimension using the unusual behavior of neutron stars, physicists haven't stopped their pursuit. The article suggests that the unusually weak nature of gravity may hint at the existence of extra dimensions. Randall and Sundrum's 'brane-world' theory proposes that our universe may be a three-dimensional membrane embedded in a higher-dimensional 'bulk'. Gravity can escape into higher dimensions, explaining its weakness. Scientists are investigating the peculiar behavior of neutron stars, such as their anomalous mass and radiation beam characteristics, looking for clues of 'dark radiation' and 'dark pressure,' phenomena that might stem from the influence of an extra dimension on gravity. While there are no conclusive answers yet, neutron stars' anomalies offer new leads in the quest to uncover extra dimensions.

(nautil.us)

Tech extra dimensions neutron stars gravity

CocoIndex: Open-Source Data Indexing Engine Simplifies Data Processing

2025-04-24

CocoIndex: Open-Source Data Indexing Engine Simplifies Data Processing

CocoIndex is the world's first open-source engine supporting custom transformation logic and incremental updates, specialized for data indexing. Users declare transformations; CocoIndex creates and maintains an index, keeping the derived index up-to-date with minimal computation upon source updates. Documentation, a quick start guide, and video tutorials are available. It supports Python library installation and launching a Postgres database using Docker Compose. Users easily index data by defining indexing flows, such as splitting text into chunks, embedding them into vectors, and exporting to a vector index. Examples and demos are provided, and community contributions—code improvements, documentation updates, issue reports, feature requests, and Discord discussions—are welcome.

(github.com)

Development data indexing open-source engine

EU Eyes Cookie Consent Overhaul: The End of Annoying Pop-ups?

2025-09-25

EU Eyes Cookie Consent Overhaul: The End of Annoying Pop-ups?

The 2009 e-Privacy Directive requiring websites to obtain user consent for cookies has led to a deluge of consent banners, prompting user fatigue. The EU Commission plans a December “omnibus” regulation simplifying digital company oversight, potentially easing cookie rules. This might include allowing one-time cookie preference settings or exempting cookies for technically necessary functions and simple statistics. Denmark has proposed similar changes. However, the upcoming Digital Fairness Act focusing on advertising suggests further battles over cookie regulation are on the horizon.

(www.politico.eu)

Tech

The Unexpected Creativity Hack: Reading Obituaries

2025-04-27

The Unexpected Creativity Hack: Reading Obituaries

Boost your creativity by reading obituaries! This article argues that exploring the diverse lives detailed in obituaries exposes you to distant ideas, sparking associations that lead to unexpected breakthroughs. Research shows creativity thrives on connecting disparate concepts, and obituaries offer a unique source of cross-disciplinary inspiration. The author illustrates this with examples, encouraging readers to delve into the details, seek deeper connections, and unlock their creative potential. It's not just about facts, but asking 'why?' and finding distant connections to your own life.

(thereader.mitpress.mit.edu)

Misc obituaries association

High-Performance Programming on Low-End Hardware: My Terminal Workflow

2025-04-13

The author shares their experience of efficient programming on underpowered hardware (e.g., Intel Celeron N4000 and Intel Atom x5-Z8350). The secret lies in a lightweight Linux distro (Arch Linux), a minimal window manager like i3wm, and a terminal text editor like Neovim with Alacritty terminal. This setup is resource-light and portable across various machines, providing a comfortable programming experience even on low-end or outdated hardware. Furthermore, the author advocates for lightweight programming ideals, minimizing dependencies to improve compile times and binary sizes.

(colean.cc)

Development

Easy AI Chat API Integration with Python's Rowboat Library

2025-04-22

Easy AI Chat API Integration with Python's Rowboat Library

This Python code demonstrates how to interact with an AI chat API using the Rowboat library. It initializes a client, connecting to a locally hosted API service. The code then shows two ways to interact: using the `StatefulChat` class for stateful conversations, and using the lower-level `client.chat` method to send message arrays directly. Both methods successfully retrieve and print AI responses, showcasing Rowboat's ease of use for quickly integrating AI chat functionality into Python projects.

(github.com)

Development

Mysterious Rotations: Unraveling the Mystery of 3240 Iterations

2025-05-06

This data logs the number of iterations and total rotation angle of an object rotating at different angles. Angles range from 0.25° to 120°, iterations from dozens to thousands, and total rotation angles from hundreds to tens of thousands of degrees. This suggests a complex algorithm or mechanical device at play, demanding further investigation. Is this data from a scientific experiment or the operational parameters of some artistic installation?

(jk-keller.com)

Misc rotational motion

Verizon and AT&T Achieve Satellite Video Call Milestones

2025-02-24

Verizon and AT&T Achieve Satellite Video Call Milestones

Verizon and AT&T have each announced breakthroughs in cellphone-to-satellite video calling, partnering with AST SpaceMobile. Verizon completed its first video call from a phone to a satellite, while AT&T achieved the same using satellites destined for its commercial network. This sets up a competitive landscape against T-Mobile's SpaceX/Starlink satellite-to-cell service, which began public beta testing for satellite messaging earlier this month. AT&T and Verizon claim T-Mobile and SpaceX's offering will harm their networks. Both companies used AST's five BlueBird satellites launched last September for their tests.

(www.theverge.com)

Tech video calling

Why the Take9 Cybersecurity Campaign is Doomed to Fail

2025-05-30

The new Take9 cybersecurity awareness campaign encourages pausing for nine seconds before clicking links or downloading files. However, this article argues it's ineffective. The nine-second pause is unrealistic in daily life, similar past campaigns have failed, and it wrongly blames users, ignoring systemic design flaws. A successful campaign would guide users through a two-step process: triggering suspicion and then directing their attention to what to look for and how to evaluate it. Simply pausing isn't enough; cognitive scaffolding and system designs accounting for dynamic interactions are necessary. The author concludes that fixing the system, not the user, is key.

(www.schneier.com)

Tech user education

EU Eyes Tech Retaliation in US Trade War

2025-04-07

EU Eyes Tech Retaliation in US Trade War

The US-EU trade war escalates as the EU considers retaliatory measures against US tariffs. France's suggestion to target currently untaxed digital services faced immediate pushback from Ireland, home to many US tech giants. The EU enjoys a large goods surplus but a significant deficit in services, making the tech sector a potential target for retaliation. French officials predict the trade war will reduce France's GDP by over 0.5% and increase job losses. The potential economic impact on Europe is substantial, leaving tech companies facing considerable uncertainty.

(www.politico.eu)

Tech

EInk Mode: Reimagine Web Browsing on E Ink Displays

2025-04-16

EInk Mode: Reimagine Web Browsing on E Ink Displays

Tired of eye strain from backlit screens? EInk Mode transforms web browsing on E Ink devices into a paper-like reading experience. It presents web pages in a paginated format, significantly reducing power consumption and improving readability. Rich touch gestures and stylus support let you easily turn pages, adjust font size, highlight text, and even write notes directly on the webpage. All highlights and annotations are saved as a PDF for later review. EInk Mode isn't limited to E Ink devices; it also enhances readability on iPads and other tablets, offering a more comfortable and efficient reading experience.

(jackscogito.blogspot.com)

Tech E Ink Web Browsing EInk Mode

Hydrogen Buses: A Failing Experiment?

2025-04-19

Hydrogen Buses: A Failing Experiment?

Multiple European cities have experimented with hydrogen buses, but the results have been disappointing. High manufacturing and operating costs, coupled with an unstable hydrogen supply chain, have led to many projects being scrapped or scaled back. Several cities have switched to more affordable battery-electric buses. While a few cities have achieved some success using industrial byproduct hydrogen or building their own green hydrogen production plants, these cases are difficult to replicate and face challenges such as hydrogen leaks. The EU continues to invest heavily in hydrogen projects, but their economic and environmental benefits are questionable. In the future, low-carbon hydrogen may play a role in specific industrial sectors, but its potential as a major transportation fuel is diminishing.

(cleantechnica.com)

Tech

How Programmers Hunt Elephants: A Hilarious Look at Tech Personalities

2025-04-16

This humorous piece uses the analogy of elephant hunting to cleverly characterize the personalities and work styles of different tech professionals. Mathematicians pursue rigorous proofs, computer scientists follow algorithms, engineers focus on efficiency, economists believe in the power of money, statisticians rely on data, and so on. The article uses witty humor to showcase the diverse thinking patterns and characteristics of various professions, prompting reader resonance and offering a lighthearted interpretation of tech culture.

(www-users.york.ac.uk)

Development

Figma Sends Cease and Desist to AI Startup Lovable Over 'Dev Mode'

2025-04-15

Figma Sends Cease and Desist to AI Startup Lovable Over 'Dev Mode'

Design giant Figma has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Lovable, a rising AI no-code startup, over the use of the term "Dev Mode." While "dev mode" is a common term in software development, Figma holds a trademark for the shortcut. This isn't just a trademark dispute; it highlights the potential for larger tech companies to stifle competition. Lovable, using "vibe coding" to let users build with text prompts, directly challenges Figma's market. The outcome will be interesting, especially considering Lovable's seemingly unconcerned reaction.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech AI No-Code

PgDog: Open-Source Sharding for pgvector

2025-03-26

Scaling pgvector beyond a million embeddings becomes challenging due to slow index building. This post introduces PgDog, an open-source project that shards the pgvector index. Leveraging IVFFlat's inherent clustering, PgDog distributes vector space partitions across multiple machines. Query vectors are routed to appropriate shards based on proximity to centroids, calculated using scikit-learn, significantly improving search speed and recall. The implementation details cover centroid calculation, a custom sharding function, and SQL parsing using pg_query. Experiments demonstrate PgDog's effectiveness, offering optimizations like parallel cross-shard queries and refined centroid allocation. Future work includes supporting more distance algorithms and SIMD instructions for faster calculations.

(pgdog.dev)

Development sharding

Quantum Rubik's Cube: Infinite Possibilities and a Quantum Advantage

2025-04-23

Quantum Rubik's Cube: Infinite Possibilities and a Quantum Advantage

Mathematicians have created a quantum Rubik's Cube with infinite possible states, introducing novel quantum moves. Unlike the classic Rubik's Cube's finite permutations, the quantum version allows for superposition, where pieces exist in multiple states simultaneously. Simulations comparing classical, quantum, and combined solving algorithms revealed the combined approach performed best, followed by quantum, then classical. While the classical solver could sometimes achieve faster solutions, the quantum solver provided more consistent solving times. This research offers a fresh perspective on quantum computing and presents a fascinating puzzle for math enthusiasts.

(www.sciencealert.com)

Tech

Plato's Atlantis: Fictional Allegory or Lost Civilization?

2025-04-22

Plato's Atlantis: Fictional Allegory or Lost Civilization?

This article delves into the story of Atlantis as depicted by Plato. Despite widespread belief in Atlantis's existence, the author argues that Plato's description contradicts geological and historical records. The article meticulously traces the origins of the Atlantis narrative, suggesting it's a fictionalized account inspired by events like the Greco-Persian Wars and Plato's experiences in Syracuse, rather than a factual historical event. Atlantis is likely an allegory used by Plato to convey philosophical points about the rise and fall of civilizations and human hubris.

(talesoftimesforgotten.com)

Misc Atlantis historical allegory

Helm Dependency Update Vulnerability: Crafted Chart.yaml Can Lead to Local Code Execution

2025-07-09

Helm Dependency Update Vulnerability: Crafted Chart.yaml Can Lead to Local Code Execution

A vulnerability in Helm allows for local code execution through a carefully crafted Chart.yaml file and a symlinked Chart.lock file during dependency updates. Fields from Chart.yaml are written to Chart.lock during updates. If Chart.lock is symlinked to an executable file (e.g., bash.rc), updating dependencies writes the Chart.lock content to the symlinked file, leading to arbitrary code execution. Helm v3.18.4 patches this; upgrade and check for symlinked Chart.lock files.

(github.com)

Development local code execution

UK Universities Shell Out Millions for Controversial Oracle Java Deal

2025-06-13

UK Universities Shell Out Millions for Controversial Oracle Java Deal

UK universities and colleges have signed a £9.86 million ($13.33 million) framework agreement with Oracle to continue using its controversial Java SE Universal Subscription. The deal includes a waiver of historical fees for institutions using Oracle Java since 2023. This follows criticism of the new subscription model's high cost, prompting many to switch to open-source alternatives. Despite this, UK higher education institutions chose to renew, citing simplified licensing and increased efficiency. However, questions remain about why they didn't switch to open-source options.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech Licensing Agreement Open Source Alternatives

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