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Ants Outperform Humans in Teamwork Experiment

2024-12-25

Ants Outperform Humans in Teamwork Experiment

A Weizmann Institute experiment pitted ants against humans in a collaborative load-carrying challenge through a maze. Surprisingly, ant teams, even with limited communication, outperformed human teams. The researchers attribute this to ants' highly social nature and shared goals, while human teams struggled with individual differences and communication breakdowns, failing to fully realize the 'wisdom of the crowd'. This study sheds light on group decision-making and the benefits and drawbacks of cooperation, questioning the universal applicability of 'wisdom of the crowds' in human contexts.

(wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il)

AI teamwork ants humans

Interactive Yjs Tutorial Launched by Jamsocket

2025-01-16

Interactive Yjs Tutorial Launched by Jamsocket

Jamsocket has released Learn Yjs, an interactive tutorial series teaching developers how to build real-time collaborative applications using the Yjs CRDT library. Starting with Yjs basics, it covers techniques for handling state in distributed applications, explaining CRDTs and their benefits. The tutorial features explorable demos and code exercises, powered by Y-Sweet, their open-source Yjs server, for a real-time collaborative experience.

(learn.yjs.dev)

Development Real-time Collaboration

Hospital Workers' Dexterity Assessed: Surgeons Show Superior Skill, But Also More Swearing

2024-12-28

Hospital Workers' Dexterity Assessed: Surgeons Show Superior Skill, But Also More Swearing

A prospective study of 254 hospital staff members found that surgeons significantly outperformed other roles in a manual dexterity test using a 'buzz wire' game, achieving an 84% success rate. However, surgeons also displayed a higher rate of swearing during the task. Nurses and non-clinical staff showed lower success rates but expressed audible frustration more frequently. The findings highlight the diverse skill sets across hospital roles and suggest incorporating similar dexterity games into future training to improve both skill and stress management.

(www.bmj.com)

Tech manual dexterity hospital staff surgeons

Canva Outage: A Case Study in Saturation and Resilience

2025-01-12

Canva Outage: A Case Study in Saturation and Resilience

Canva recently experienced a major outage stemming from system saturation. A new editor page deploy wasn't the culprit; instead, a stale Cloudflare CDN rule caused massive latency for Asian users loading Javascript files. This triggered 270,000+ concurrent requests, subsequently overwhelming the API gateway with 1.5 million requests per second – three times its typical peak. A known, unfixed performance bug in the API gateway exacerbated the issue. The Linux OOM killer terminated all API gateway tasks, resulting in complete Canva.com failure. Canva engineers resolved the issue by manually increasing task counts, temporarily blocking traffic via Cloudflare firewall rules, and gradually restoring traffic. This incident highlights the importance of system resilience and the potential downsides of automated systems under heavy load.

(surfingcomplexity.blog)

Tech system outage system resilience

Exotic New Superconductors Delight and Confound

2024-12-13

Exotic New Superconductors Delight and Confound

Three new types of superconductors were discovered this year, challenging our understanding of this phenomenon. These two-dimensional materials, like graphene, exhibit unprecedented flexibility, switching between insulating, conducting, and superconducting states with simple adjustments. One even defies expectations by strengthening in a magnetic field. These discoveries deepen the mystery of superconductivity while offering hope for room-temperature superconductors, potentially revolutionizing energy and transportation.

(www.quantamagazine.org)

Physics superconductors 2D materials quantum physics

Pseudonymity in Academic Publishing: A Wikipedia Edit Sparks Debate

2024-12-27

A paper on editing mathematics on Wikipedia has sparked a debate about pseudonymity in academic publishing. One of the authors used the Wikipedia pseudonym "XOR'easter," but the American Mathematical Society (AMS) refused to publish the paper because they didn't know the author's real-world identity. This highlights the conflict between internet pseudonymity and traditional academic publishing, and the question of how readily academia accepts anonymous publications. The authors argue that Wikipedia's pseudonymity policy protects editors, and that academia needs to rethink the meaning of anonymous publication.

(11011110.github.io)

Development academic publishing pseudonymity wikipedia

Why Adult Friendships Are Harder Than Ever

2024-12-24

This article explores the challenges of forming genuine friendships as an adult. As we age, our lives become busier, filled with work and family responsibilities, leaving less time and energy for nurturing deep connections. Changing social dynamics and the complexities of adult relationships further complicate the search for like-minded companions. The article suggests that proactively investing time and effort, and actively engaging in social activities, are key to overcoming these obstacles and building lasting adult friendships.

(www.theestablished.com)

Misc adult friendships social connections

IRATA.ONLINE: Retro Computing Community Gets PLATOTerm Updates

2024-12-14

IRATA.ONLINE, a PLATO-based online service for retro-computing enthusiasts, has released updated versions of its PLATOTerm terminal emulator. Now supporting Atari 8-bit, C64, Amiga, and Android, IRATA.ONLINE offers a multi-user graphical interface, multiplayer games, social features, and a development environment. This platform aims to revive the PLATO system, providing a unique social and development experience for users.

(irata.online)

Game terminal emulator

Webb Telescope Discovers Young Galaxy Resembling Early Milky Way

2024-12-21

Webb Telescope Discovers Young Galaxy Resembling Early Milky Way

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has made a groundbreaking discovery: a galaxy nicknamed 'Firefly Sparkle,' existing around 600 million years after the Big Bang, with a mass similar to that of our own Milky Way in its early stages. This galaxy, magnified by gravitational lensing, showcases ten distinct star clusters, providing unprecedented detail about early galaxy formation. Researchers found the 'Firefly Sparkle' is actively forming stars, with its uneven distribution of star clusters indicating a future of mergers and growth. This discovery offers invaluable insight into the evolution of galaxies in the early universe.

(science.nasa.gov)

Tech James Webb Space Telescope Galaxy Formation Early Universe

My 2024 Reading List: A Journey Through Philosophy, Science, and Literature

2025-01-01

My 2024 Reading List: A Journey Through Philosophy, Science, and Literature

Waqas Younas shares his 2024 reading list, a diverse collection spanning philosophy, logic, literature, history, and biography. From Cicero's letters to Nietzsche's Human, All Too Human, and from quantum mechanics to Tagore's poetry, the books reflect a journey of intellectual exploration. The engaging review interweaves insightful excerpts and personal reflections, making it a captivating read for anyone interested in a broad spectrum of subjects.

(thoughts.wyounas.com)

Misc reading list book review 2024 reads

Pink Floyd's 'Young Lust': A Hidden History of Telephone Technology

2025-01-02

The mysterious phone call at the end of Pink Floyd's 'Young Lust' isn't just random noise; it's a snapshot of 1979's technological transition in telephony. This article deciphers the various tones – multi-frequency (MF), single-frequency (SF) signaling, and switch interactions – revealing the shift from electromechanical to electronic digital systems. The recording, meticulously planned, captures the complexities of an international call, offering a fascinating glimpse into technological history.

(telephoneworld.org)

Tech Telephone Technology

Revolutionary Robot Simulator Genesis Unveiled: 430,000 Times Faster Training

2024-12-23

Revolutionary Robot Simulator Genesis Unveiled: 430,000 Times Faster Training

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have unveiled Genesis, an open-source robot simulation system that trains robots 430,000 times faster than real-world training. Genesis leverages graphics cards to run up to 100,000 simulations concurrently, drastically reducing the time needed for robots to learn complex tasks like object manipulation, walking, and tool use. Furthermore, the team is developing an AI agent capable of generating 3D physics simulations from text prompts, simplifying environment creation and reducing costs. Written in Python and open-sourced, Genesis represents a significant leap forward in robotics research, democratizing access to high-speed simulation.

(arstechnica.com)

AI robot simulation

Oasis Security Research Team Discovers Microsoft Azure MFA Bypass

2024-12-12

Oasis Security Research Team Discovers Microsoft Azure MFA Bypass

Oasis Security's research team discovered a critical vulnerability in Microsoft Azure's Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) implementation. Attackers could bypass MFA to gain unauthorized access to user accounts, including Outlook, OneDrive, Teams, and Azure Cloud. The vulnerability exploited the lack of rate limiting, allowing rapid session creation and code enumeration to exhaust the possibilities of a 6-digit code without alerts. Microsoft has since implemented a stricter rate limit to address the issue. This highlights the importance of enabling MFA and monitoring failed attempts.

(www.oasis.security)

Tech Azure Security MFA Vulnerability Authentication Bypass

Quantum Teleportation Achieved Over Busy Internet Cables for the First Time

2024-12-27

Quantum Teleportation Achieved Over Busy Internet Cables for the First Time

Northwestern University engineers have achieved a breakthrough by successfully demonstrating quantum teleportation over a fiber optic cable already carrying internet traffic. This discovery, published in Optica, opens the door to integrating quantum communication with existing internet infrastructure, significantly simplifying the requirements for advanced sensing and quantum computing applications. The team cleverly navigated the challenge of entangled photons interfering with dense internet traffic by selecting an optimal wavelength and employing special filters. This successful transmission paves the way for next-generation quantum and classical networks sharing a unified fiber optic infrastructure, promising a future of more accessible quantum technologies.

(news.northwestern.edu)

Tech quantum teleportation quantum communication fiber optic networks fiber optic network

Permissionless: A Manifesto for the Future - Summary

2024-12-28

Permissionless: A Manifesto for the Future - Summary

Permissionless: A Manifesto for the Future explores the impact of the 'permissionless' concept on the future. Divided into five parts, the book covers the concept of permissionlessness, the problem of permissions, the role of gatekeepers, a revolution (of sorts), and the permissionless playbook. The author advocates for a decentralized and open future, challenging traditional power structures and control mechanisms, offering a unique perspective on the direction of future societal development.

(www.permissionlessbook.com)

Misc permissionless future development decentralization

Ray Tracing in One Weekend: From Zero to Stunning Images

2025-01-02

This tutorial teaches you how to write a ray tracer in a weekend using C++. Starting with basic PPM image output, it progressively introduces concepts like rays, cameras, spheres, and materials, culminating in a renderer capable of producing anti-aliased images with diffuse and metallic materials. The tutorial covers vector math, ray-sphere intersection, surface normal calculations, material abstraction, and depth of field, providing clear code examples and beautiful renderings. Even without prior programming experience, you can follow along and build your own ray tracer.

(raytracing.github.io)

Development

Linux Context Switching Internals: Process State and Memory

2025-01-02

Linux Context Switching Internals: Process State and Memory

This article delves into the Linux kernel's representation of processes and their states, focusing on the key data structures: task_struct and mm_struct. task_struct manages the execution state, including process state, CPU time tracking, and scheduling information. mm_struct handles memory state, encompassing page tables, memory segment boundaries, and architecture-specific details. The article thoroughly explains the fields within these structures and their roles in context switching, offering a deep understanding of the Linux kernel's inner workings.

(blog.codingconfessions.com)

Development Context Switching Process Management

U.S. Homelessness Hits Record High Amidst Affordable Housing Crisis

2024-12-28

U.S. Homelessness Hits Record High Amidst Affordable Housing Crisis

A new federal report reveals that over 770,000 people experienced homelessness in the U.S. this January, an 18% increase from last year and the highest number since 2007. Soaring rents and a recent surge in migrants are cited as key factors. While some cities saw decreases after implementing measures, the overall situation remains dire. The Biden administration has increased housing subsidies, but President-elect Trump's proposed shift towards mandatory drug and mental health treatment has raised concerns among housing advocates.

(www.npr.org)

Misc homelessness migration

One Click, Half a Million Lost: Sophisticated Crypto Phishing Scam Exploits Google Services

2024-12-20

Two victims lost nearly $500,000 in cryptocurrency after clicking on a fraudulent Google account recovery prompt. Scammers used a real Google phone number, forged Google security emails, and tricked victims into clicking a Google prompt on their phones, gaining control of their Gmail accounts. One victim's mistake was storing a picture of their cryptocurrency wallet's seed phrase in Google Photos, giving the scammers easy access to their funds. This incident highlights vulnerabilities in Google's authentication system and the sophistication of scammers using Google services for high-tech phishing attacks.

(krebsonsecurity.com)

Tech phishing cryptocurrency security google authentication

Building AI Products: A Backend Architecture Deep Dive

2024-12-27

This article details the journey of an AI team building an AI-powered Chief of Staff for engineering leaders. Initially using simple inference pipelines, they transitioned to a multi-agent system as the application grew. The author explains agent design principles, differences from microservices, and object-oriented implementation. Memory management, including CQRS and event sourcing, and handling natural language events are discussed. Scaling to 10,000 users involved sharding, asynchronous programming, LLM call optimization, and migration to Temporal.

(philcalcado.com)

AI AI Architecture Agent Systems Backend Development

Broderbund's 'The Print Shop': A Nostalgic Look Back at a Software Revolution

2024-12-27

In the early 1980s, creating posters and greeting cards was a hassle. Enter Broderbund's 'The Print Shop' in 1984. This user-friendly software, with its abundant fonts and graphics, revolutionized personal computing. Its affordability and ease of use made it a bestseller, driving home computer adoption and laying the groundwork for the desktop publishing industry. While Broderbund's eventual fate was less triumphant, 'The Print Shop's' impact remains significant.

(theprintshop.club)

Tech The Print Shop Home Computing Desktop Publishing

Can LLMs Accurately Recall the Bible?

2024-12-29

Can LLMs Accurately Recall the Bible?

This article investigates the ability of Large Language Models (LLMs) to accurately recall biblical scripture. The author devised six tests evaluating different sized LLMs' ability to accurately reproduce verses. Larger models (Llama 405B, GPT 4o, and Claude Sonnet) performed best, accurately recalling verses and even entire chapters. Smaller models (7B parameter range) frequently mixed translations or hallucinated text. Medium-sized models (70B range) generally preserved the meaning but often blended translations or paraphrased slightly. The author concludes that for accurate biblical quotations, larger models are preferable, supplemented by verifying against an actual Bible.

(benkaiser.dev)

AI Bible Accuracy

Microsoft Patches Critical Windows Secure Boot Vulnerability

2025-01-16

Microsoft Patches Critical Windows Secure Boot Vulnerability

Microsoft has patched a critical vulnerability that allowed attackers to bypass Windows Secure Boot. The vulnerability, present in system recovery software from multiple vendors, involved a mis-signed UEFI application that allowed malicious firmware to be installed before the OS even loads. The patch revokes the problematic signature. The status of Linux systems remains unclear.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech

Gravitational Wave Detectors May Find Neutron Stars Lighter Than White Dwarfs

2024-12-26

Gravitational Wave Detectors May Find Neutron Stars Lighter Than White Dwarfs

Scientists used data from the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave observatories to search for low-mass neutron stars with less than 1.4 solar masses. While none have been found yet, the study suggests that such neutron stars could form due to the rapid compression of the core during a supernova explosion. This research provides new constraints on the properties of neutron star matter and the mass limits of neutron stars. More sensitive gravitational wave detectors in the future will further test this theory.

(www.universetoday.com)

Tech Neutron stars Gravitational waves

Tokyo Unveils 3D Digital Twin Viewer: Real-time Data for Urban Management

2024-12-26

Tokyo Unveils 3D Digital Twin Viewer: Real-time Data for Urban Management

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government launched a beta version of its 'See Tokyo in 3D' digital twin platform. Built using the TerriaJS framework, this 3D viewer integrates real-time data such as traffic, river levels, and shelter information, offering a comprehensive view of Tokyo. The platform aids urban planning and management by providing a clear visualization of city operations. Data conversion tools are also provided to promote the use of CityJSON in Japan's developer community, with parts of the source code being open-sourced.

(info.tokyo-digitaltwin.metro.tokyo.lg.jp)

Tech Digital Twin 3D Modeling City Data Visualization Urban Management

Lucid Dreaming: A New Science for Treating Insomnia and Nightmares

2024-12-27

Lucid Dreaming: A New Science for Treating Insomnia and Nightmares

Scientists are exploring the potential of inducing lucid dreams to treat insomnia and nightmares. Lucid dreaming, the state of being aware that you're dreaming while asleep, can be learned through training, allowing control over dream content and even communication with the waking world. Researchers are using neuroimaging and wearable devices to understand brain activity during lucid dreams and to induce them via external stimuli, aiming to improve sleep quality and reduce nightmares. This research offers promising new avenues for treating sleep disorders and mental health issues.

(www.scientificamerican.com)

AI lucid dreaming insomnia nightmares

Ryzen 7 9800X3D Teardown Reveals Mostly Dummy Silicon

2024-12-18

Ryzen 7 9800X3D Teardown Reveals Mostly Dummy Silicon

A teardown of AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor reveals a surprising finding: the majority of its volume is comprised of dummy silicon for structural integrity. While the SRAM cache die is significantly smaller than the compute die, AMD has added a substantial layer of dummy silicon above and below to protect the thin, fragile components. This results in a total package thickness of roughly 800µm, with dummy silicon accounting for a staggering 93%. Despite the seemingly wasteful design, it ensures stability and thermal performance. AMD is expected to announce 12-core and 16-core Ryzen 9 X3D processors soon.

(www.tomshardware.com)

Hardware

Dillo Browser: 25 Years of History, a Resurrection Story

2024-12-16

The Dillo web browser, born in 1999, has weathered 25 years of development. It has stalled several times but persevered. Initially led by Jorge Arellano Cid, it went through major GTK and FLTK phases, with key developers changing hands and the project experiencing ups and downs. In 2024, Rodrigo Arias Mallo took over, and with community help, released version 3.1.1, bringing this veteran browser back into the spotlight. Dillo's story exemplifies the spirit of open source and is a legendary tale of technological legacy and innovation.

(dillo-browser.github.io)

Development open-source browser

Missile Strike Confirmed as Cause of Azerbaijan E190 Crash

2024-12-28

Missile Strike Confirmed as Cause of Azerbaijan E190 Crash

An Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer E190 passenger plane crashed on Christmas Day, killing 38 people. The Azerbaijani government confirmed that a Russian Pantir-S1 surface-to-air missile caused the crash. The aircraft was attempting an emergency landing when it went down. Russian air defense forces were engaged in shooting down Ukrainian drones in the area, but civilian airspace wasn't closed. Despite pilot requests for an emergency landing, the plane was denied access to Russian airports and crashed near Aktau, Kazakhstan.

(aeroxplorer.com)

Misc missile strike international incident

HTML/ZIP/PNG Polyglot Files: A Clever Format Fusion

2024-12-28

This article details a clever method for creating HTML/ZIP/PNG polyglot files. By cleverly utilizing the flexible structure of the ZIP format and the fault tolerance of HTML, along with the characteristics of PNG files, web pages and their resources are packaged into a self-extracting PNG file. The article explains in detail how to handle character encoding, data reading, and cross-format compatibility issues, ultimately achieving an efficient and compact web archiving scheme. This demonstrates programmer ingenuity and a deep understanding of data formats.

(gildas-lormeau.github.io)

Development polyglot files

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