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High-Performance BitTorrent Tracker in Elixir: ExTracker

2025-06-20

High-Performance BitTorrent Tracker in Elixir: ExTracker

ExTracker is a high-performance BitTorrent tracker written in Elixir. It boasts low memory usage, zero configuration, and utilizes all available cores. Currently featuring HTTPS support and database backups, it offers three deployment methods: source code, pre-built releases, and a Docker image. A test instance is already running with live statistics, though the project is still a work in progress. Future plans include features like whitelisting/blacklisting, enhanced peer management, and GeoIP support.

(github.com)

Development

From Hours to 360ms: Over-Engineering a Sudoku Solution

2025-02-08

The author tackles a Sudoku puzzle aiming for the highest possible GCD among the nine 9-digit numbers formed by the rows. Initial attempts using the Z3 solver failed to find a solution within hours. The author then employed several optimization strategies: mathematical analysis to reduce the search space, a BFS algorithm, and iterative improvements to the `is_good` function, transitioning from HashSet to bitset and finally leveraging SIMD for vectorized computation. Multithreading and refined thread synchronization reduced the solution time from hours to 360ms, achieving over 1600x speedup. While a hardcoded answer proved fastest, the article showcases how even seemingly simple arithmetic problems offer significant performance gains through meticulous algorithmic optimization.

(blog.danielh.cc)

Development

Anarchitecture: A 1970s NYC Art Collective's Rebellion Against Modernist Architecture

2025-05-09

In 1970s New York, the artist collective Anarchitecture, comprising figures like Laurie Anderson and Gordon Matta-Clark, challenged the rigidity of modernist architecture and its complicity in capitalist production. Their 1974 exhibition, similarly titled, anonymously showcased works critiquing architecture as a symbol of cultural excess. Matta-Clark's later 'building cuts' further explored this theme, transforming abandoned structures to expose society's obsession with material wealth. Concurrently, the group ran the influential restaurant 'Food' in SoHo, supporting a local artist network. Anarchitecture's work posed profound questions about modern architecture and urban space.

(www.spatialagency.net)

Design Avant-garde art Modernism critique

Automatic Sparse Differentiation: Taming High-Dimensional Hessians

2025-04-30

Computing high-dimensional Hessian matrices is a major bottleneck in machine learning. This post introduces Automatic Sparse Differentiation (ASD), a technique leveraging matrix sparsity to accelerate Hessian and Jacobian computations. ASD uses sparsity pattern detection and matrix coloring to combine multiple structurally orthogonal columns (or rows) into a single vector for computation, thus reducing computational cost and memory requirements. The article details ASD's workings, covering forward and reverse-mode automatic differentiation, sparse matrix representations, coloring algorithms, and more. A Julia code example demonstrates its application and performance benefits, concluding that ASD offers significant advantages in applications requiring sparse Jacobian or Hessian computations, such as Newton's method and other optimization algorithms.

(iclr-blogposts.github.io)

Development sparse matrix Hessian matrix

Death Penalty Support Plummets to 5-Decade Low: Younger Generations Lead Opposition

2025-03-08

Death Penalty Support Plummets to 5-Decade Low: Younger Generations Lead Opposition

A recent poll reveals that support for the death penalty in the US has fallen to a five-decade low of 53%. Strikingly, a majority of younger Americans (ages 18-43) now oppose capital punishment. Even among those who still support the death penalty, growing unease surrounds the execution of individuals with severe mental impairments or brain damage resulting from trauma. This shift in public opinion reflects a broader reconsideration of the death penalty's effectiveness and moral implications, with many victim's families reporting it brings no closure.

(www.pbs.org)

Misc death penalty polling data generational shift

India's E-Waste Crisis: A Tale of Two Recycling Industries

2025-09-01

India's E-Waste Crisis: A Tale of Two Recycling Industries

India's booming electronics sector has fueled a $1.5 billion e-waste recycling industry, but 95% of its workforce consists of informal laborers facing dangerous and toxic conditions for meager pay. The article highlights Khatta, a Delhi dumpsite where a complex informal network operates, controlled by powerful families like the Maliks. While formal companies like Recyclekaro showcase a modern, regulated approach, the informal sector persists due to its profitability and resistance from large tech firms challenging new regulations. The story underscores the stark contrast between the formal and informal e-waste recycling industries in India, highlighting the environmental and social inequalities at play.

(restofworld.org)

Tech environmental crisis

The Winkel Tower: A Unique WWII Air Defense Structure

2024-12-21

The Winkel Tower: A Unique WWII Air Defense Structure

In the early 1930s, German architect Leo Winkel designed a unique above-ground air raid shelter, the Winkel Tower. Unlike traditional underground bunkers, its sloped roof was designed to deflect bombs, minimizing the risk of explosion. This innovative design significantly reduced construction costs and time, while the ground-level detonation allowed for pressure wave dissipation. Patented in 1934, approximately 200 Winkel Towers were built throughout Germany during WWII. Many preserved towers now enjoy monument protection.

(www.arcanumurbex.de)

Tech air raid shelter

Ruby 3.4.0 Released: Performance Boost and Language Enhancements

2024-12-25

Ruby 3.4.0 is here with exciting updates! Language-wise, it introduces a new syntax for referencing block parameters, improves string literals, keyword splatting, and index assignments, and enhances exception handling. Core classes like Array, Hash, IO::Buffer, Integer, and String have been optimized with new methods added. YJIT has received significant improvements, boosting performance and memory efficiency. The standard library is also updated, including a 1.5x speedup in JSON parsing. This release enhances support for multi-core processors and improves garbage collection efficiency.

(docs.ruby-lang.org)

Development Performance improvements

CallFS: A Distributed, High-Performance REST API Filesystem

2025-07-15

CallFS: A Distributed, High-Performance REST API Filesystem

CallFS is an ultra-lightweight, high-performance REST API filesystem offering precise Linux filesystem semantics across various backends, including local storage, Amazon S3, and a distributed peer-to-peer network. Designed for speed, reliability, and horizontal scalability, it features a modular architecture with components like an API server, core engine, pluggable storage backends, PostgreSQL metadata store, Redis-based distributed lock manager, and a link manager. CallFS provides rich file and directory operations, secure single-use download links, comprehensive security, and robust observability.

(github.com)

Development

The Curious Limitation of errno(3) in Linux

2025-07-04

The Linux errno(3) man page reveals a peculiar limitation: errno can be modified even on successful function calls, and it's never set to zero by any system call or library function. This stems from traditional Unix design where system calls typically return errno only on failure, leaving it unchanged on success. C library functions might make multiple system calls, some of which could fail without affecting the library function's overall success, leaving errno with the failure value. ANSI C and POSIX inherited this behavior, requiring errno to be meaningful only when a function fails and its documentation specifies setting errno.

(utcc.utoronto.ca)

Development

arXivLabs: Experimental Projects with Community Collaborators

2025-07-14

arXivLabs is a framework enabling collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on the website. Individuals and organizations involved embrace arXiv's values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv only partners with those who share these commitments. Got an idea to enhance the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

(arxiv.org)

Tech

Colorado Springs' Top-Rated Restaurants: A Comprehensive List

2025-02-17

This list compiles reviews from numerous restaurants in Colorado Springs, offering a diverse culinary landscape from authentic Cuban food to Thai cuisine. Arelita Authentic Cuban Food takes the top spot with a 5-star rating and 262 reviews, while other establishments like Starving and Manitou Baked also garner high praise. This list provides a wide array of options for diners to explore based on their preferences and tastes.

(mattsayar.com)

Misc restaurant rankings Colorado Springs

Disruptive AI: Code-Free AI App Creation for Everyone

2025-01-06

Imagine creating your own AI application without any programming knowledge! This is no longer a dream. A groundbreaking technology has emerged, making building AI models as easy as building with blocks. Simply drag, drop, and click to design powerful AI applications, drastically lowering the barrier to entry for AI development and enabling more people to participate in the AI innovation wave. This technology heralds the arrival of a democratized AI application era.

(www.gatesnotes.com)

AI low-code

Reversible Computing: A Potential Energy Efficiency Game Changer?

2025-01-14

Reversible Computing: A Potential Energy Efficiency Game Changer?

The energy efficiency bottleneck plaguing the chip industry may soon be overcome by reversible computing. This technology cleverly avoids information erasure to save energy, theoretically achieving up to a 4,000x energy efficiency improvement. Vaire Computing is working to commercialize this technology, which has remained in academia for three decades. They plan to launch their first reversible computing chip prototype in Q1 2025, designed to recover energy used in arithmetic circuits. Future plans include energy-efficient processors for AI inference. While challenges remain, this technology offers a new hope for the computing field after the slowdown of Moore's Law.

(spectrum.ieee.org)

Tech chip technology

Detecting Constant Expressions in C: A Macro-Based Approach

2025-05-13

This article explores various methods for creating a C macro that checks if an expression is a compile-time constant. The author investigates approaches using C23's `constexpr` and `typeof`, GNU extensions like `__builtin_constant_p`, C11's `static_assert`, and clever tricks with `sizeof` and compound literals. Each method has its strengths and weaknesses; some require newer C standards, rely on compiler extensions, or might alter the expression's type or generate warnings. The article concludes by summarizing the pros and cons and expressing a desire for more elegant solutions.

(nrk.neocities.org)

Development compile-time constant

arXivLabs: Experimental Projects with Community Collaborators

2025-05-09

arXivLabs is a framework enabling collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on the website. Individuals and organizations involved embrace arXiv's values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners adhering to them. Have an idea to enhance the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

(arxiv.org)

Development

Deferred Resignation Program for Federal Employees

2025-01-29

Deferred Resignation Program for Federal Employees

The US government launched a deferred resignation program, allowing federal employees to apply until February 6, 2025. This program addresses government restructuring and workforce reductions. Employees choosing this option retain pay and benefits until September 30, 2025, and are exempt from daily in-person work requirements. The program excludes military personnel, postal service employees, those in immigration enforcement and national security, and others as specified by their employing agency.

(www.opm.gov)

Misc personnel changes deferred resignation

SpaceX vs. ULA: A Battle of Orbital Altitudes

2025-04-10

SpaceX vs. ULA: A Battle of Orbital Altitudes

SpaceX and ULA are competing in the rocket launch market. SpaceX dominates low-Earth orbit (LEO) launches with its Falcon 9 rocket, leveraging high launch frequency and reusability for cost-effectiveness. ULA's Vulcan rocket excels in high-energy orbit missions, with its Centaur V upper stage proving efficient for long-duration tasks, particularly placing military payloads directly into geosynchronous orbit. While SpaceX significantly outpaces ULA in launch volume, ULA maintains a strong position in high-energy missions due to experience and the Vulcan's capabilities. Each company holds an advantage in different orbital niches, making the competitive landscape mission-specific.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech rocket launches

Restate: Simplifying Complex AI Game Workflows

2025-03-10

Restate: Simplifying Complex AI Game Workflows

This article demonstrates building an interactive text-adventure game from a single user prompt using the Restate framework. The application orchestrates image generation, audio synthesis, and multiple large language model calls, tasks traditionally requiring complex message queues and error handling. Restate simplifies this with durable handlers and built-in concurrency primitives, providing automatic retries, state management, and guaranteed request execution. The author details the application architecture, code implementation, and challenge solutions, showcasing how Restate efficiently handles long-running workflows and improves developer productivity.

(restate.dev)

Game

Critical Google Account Flaw Allowed Phone Number Extraction

2025-06-09

Critical Google Account Flaw Allowed Phone Number Extraction

A security researcher discovered a critical vulnerability in Google accounts that allowed attackers to easily obtain users' phone numbers through brute-forcing. The exploit leveraged Google Looker Studio's document ownership transfer feature, allowing attackers to guess phone numbers without the victim's knowledge. Google has since patched the vulnerability and awarded the researcher $5,000. This flaw poses a significant risk to SIM swappers, enabling them to steal various accounts, including cryptocurrency and email, through identity theft.

(www.wired.com)

Tech

Retro Tech: Tektronix's Vintage Soldering Training Videos

2025-01-09

Retro Tech: Tektronix's Vintage Soldering Training Videos

This article highlights two vintage soldering training videos produced by Tektronix in the 1970s and 80s. The first video, aimed at assembly line workers, focuses on practical PCB soldering techniques. The second, geared towards repair technicians, delves into more advanced skills like desoldering and PCB repair. Both videos blend practical demonstrations with theoretical knowledge of soldering chemistry and tool usage, showcasing Tektronix's dedication to high-quality soldering.

(hackaday.com)

Hardware retro tech soldering techniques electronics repair

Massive Underground Water Reservoir Discovered on Mars

2025-05-12

Massive Underground Water Reservoir Discovered on Mars

New research using seismic data from NASA's InSight mission has revealed evidence of a vast liquid water reservoir deep beneath the Martian surface, between 5.4 and 8 kilometers below. This reservoir could contain enough water to cover the entire planet, matching estimates of Mars's "missing" water. This discovery not only explains the fate of Mars' ancient oceans but also opens exciting new avenues for future exploration and the search for extraterrestrial life. The subsurface water could support simple life forms and even provide valuable resources for future human explorers.

(theconversation.com)

Tech

Intel Patents 'Software Defined Supercore': A Single-Threaded Performance Boost?

2025-09-01

Intel Patents 'Software Defined Supercore': A Single-Threaded Performance Boost?

Intel has patented a technology called 'Software Defined Supercore' (SDC) designed to significantly improve single-threaded performance. SDC fuses multiple physical cores into a virtual 'supercore' by dividing a single thread's instructions and executing them in parallel. Specialized instructions maintain program order, maximizing instructions per clock (IPC) without increasing clock speed or core width. While currently just a patent, if successful, SDC could dramatically enhance single-thread performance in select applications on future Intel CPUs. The technology tackles the limitations of building extremely wide cores by using software and a small hardware module to manage synchronization and data transfer.

(www.tomshardware.com)

Hardware Single-Threaded Performance

Solving eBPF Portability: BPF CO-RE to the Rescue

2025-04-23

Solving eBPF Portability: BPF CO-RE to the Rescue

eBPF program execution relies heavily on the kernel version, and differences in struct definitions across kernel versions can cause programs to crash. This article introduces BPF CO-RE, a technique that generates relocation information during compilation and uses BTF (BPF Type Format) information at runtime to correct field offsets, thus solving the portability problem of eBPF programs. Even without BTF support on the target kernel, pre-downloading and embedding BTF files achieves cross-kernel compatibility. The author also provides a GitHub repository with a complete solution that automatically downloads and embeds BTF data, producing a single binary that runs across a wide range of kernels without requiring BTF support on the target system.

(ebpfchirp.substack.com)

Development

Google Tightens Android Developer Verification: Offline Sideloading May Be Restricted

2025-09-19

Google Tightens Android Developer Verification: Offline Sideloading May Be Restricted

Google is strengthening its Android developer verification system, requiring developers to register their identities and preventing the installation of unverified apps. While workarounds like ADB exist, recent Android SDK code suggests that even verified apps might be uninstallable offline. This means even safe apps could be blocked from installation without a network connection, potentially inconveniencing some users. The policy rolls out in a year, leaving time to refine details and find solutions.

(www.androidauthority.com)

Development

D&D's Absurd Peasant Railgun: A Deep Dive

2025-07-03

D&D's Absurd Peasant Railgun: A Deep Dive

This article explores the infamous "Peasant Railgun" tactic in Dungeons & Dragons. It explains how, by exploiting rules loopholes, 2,280 peasants can pass a wooden pole at ludicrous speed, dealing 300d6 damage in a single round. The article details the rules involved and then humorously contrasts the tactic with real-world physics, concluding that while fun, a DM would almost certainly not allow it.

(knightsdigest.com)

Game Game Mechanics Absurd Tactic

Floppotron 3.0: A 512-Floppy-Drive Orchestra Upgrade

2025-02-11

The Floppotron 3.0 is here! This massive hardware orchestra, featuring 512 floppy disk drives, 4 scanners, and 16 hard disk drives, has undergone a major upgrade. This enhanced version boasts increased scale and capabilities, incorporating custom electronic circuits and a completely rewritten firmware. The article details its operational principles, construction, and sound generation, explaining the intricacies of the floppy disk drive wall, scanners, and hard drives, and how MIDI controls them to produce music. It also addresses the significant power consumption and the power supply solution, along with plans for future instrument additions.

(silent.org.pl)

Hardware Creation

Trump Admin to Use AI to Target Pro-Palestine Students

2025-03-09

Trump Admin to Use AI to Target Pro-Palestine Students

The U.S. State Department is launching "Catch and Revoke," an AI-powered program to scan news and social media for pro-Palestinian and Hamas sympathies among student visa holders. This initiative, starting October 7th, raises serious concerns about free speech and potential biases in AI. The program aligns with the Trump administration's broader efforts to combat perceived antisemitism and domestic terrorism, efforts criticized for their overbroad definitions and potential for silencing dissent. The passage of the "Take it Down Act," ostensibly targeting revenge porn and deepfakes, further exacerbates these concerns, potentially providing a tool for suppressing criticism. The combined actions represent a significant attack on free speech and expression, fueled by surveillance technology.

(gizmodo.com)

Tech

The Past, Present, and Uncertain Future of Desktop UI Design

2025-03-18

From Engelbart's 1968 'Mother of All Demos' to today's touchscreen ubiquity, this article traces the evolution of desktop user interface design. Examining iconic examples like the Xerox Alto and Sun Starfire, it explores visions for future UIs, including touch, voice control, and infinite canvases. However, the author argues many innovations haven't been true improvements, adding friction instead. The article concludes that the future of desktop UI might not be radical reinvention, but rather incremental refinement of existing designs, emphasizing consistency and familiarity over novelty.

(www.datagubbe.se)

Design User Interface Design

Open Source Maintainer Revolt: The Libxml2 Case Study

2025-06-26

Libxml2, a widely used XML parser, highlights the successes and failures of the open-source model. After years of being relied upon by major corporations like Apple, Google, and Microsoft without adequate support, its maintainer, Nick Wellnhofer, is rejecting security embargoes and treating security vulnerabilities like regular bugs. This decision, driven by burnout and insufficient funding, sparked a debate about corporate responsibility in open source and the need for sustainable maintenance models. Wellnhofer's actions suggest a growing frustration within the open-source community and could signal a shift in how maintainers engage with large companies.

(lwn.net)

Development corporate responsibility

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