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SpacetimeDB: Multiplayer at the Speed of Light

2025-04-05

SpacetimeDB: Multiplayer at the Speed of Light

SpacetimeDB revolutionizes game development by merging database and server functionality. Developers upload application logic directly into the database as modules, eliminating the overhead of traditional client-server architectures. Clients connect directly to the database, executing logic within it for unparalleled speed and low latency. BitCraft Online's backend is built entirely on SpacetimeDB, processing and synchronizing all game data in real-time. SpacetimeDB uses in-memory storage and a write-ahead log for persistence, optimized for real-time applications. Installation is straightforward, and modules can be written in various programming languages.

(github.com)

Development

Stack Overflow Rebrands Amidst AI-Driven Traffic Plunge

2025-05-17

Stack Overflow Rebrands Amidst AI-Driven Traffic Plunge

Facing a dramatic 64% drop in traffic due to AI-powered alternatives, Stack Overflow's parent company, Stack Exchange, is undertaking a rebranding initiative. Despite continued profitability, the decline in user engagement presents an existential threat. The company aims to shift from a single Q&A focus to a three-pillar model encompassing community, careers, and Q&A, while also developing AI-assisted tools and improving its recruitment services. This move has sparked user debate, with some arguing that rebranding isn't the solution and the current platform is sufficient.

(devclass.com)

Development

Amazon Warns AI Will Shrink Its Workforce

2025-06-20

Amazon Warns AI Will Shrink Its Workforce

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy warned employees that artificial intelligence will lead to a smaller workforce in the future. Efficiency gains from AI will ultimately reduce the need for human employees, though the exact impact remains unclear. Over the next few years, widespread AI adoption is expected to decrease Amazon's overall employee count. Jassy also noted that AI's impact extends beyond Amazon, transforming how people work and live, and spawning countless AI agents. However, this prediction is controversial; critics argue these warnings lack research and come from those set to profit from AI adoption. Economists acknowledge AI's significant potential impact on the economy and employment but say the current effect is difficult to isolate due to broader economic slowdown and reduced hiring activity.

(www.cnn.com)

Tech

Qubes OS: A Seriously Secure Operating System

2025-01-12

Qubes OS is a security-focused operating system built on the Xen hypervisor, isolating applications and system environments to prevent malware and data breaches. Endorsed by security experts like Edward Snowden and used by organizations such as the Freedom of the Press Foundation, Qubes empowers users with control over their security. It supports multiple operating systems and integrates Whonix for anonymous browsing via Tor, providing robust privacy features.

(www.qubes-os.org)

Tech OS security

The Accidental Revolution: Making Gorillaz's Iconic 'Clint Eastwood' Music Video

2025-01-29

The Accidental Revolution: Making Gorillaz's Iconic 'Clint Eastwood' Music Video

This article features an interview with Pete Candeland, the director behind Gorillaz's groundbreaking 'Clint Eastwood' music video. Candeland recounts the challenges and serendipitous moments during production, detailing how he ingeniously combined 2D hand-drawn animation with 3D CGI on a limited budget. He drew inspiration from films like 'Natural Born Killers', 'Pulp Fiction', and 'The Matrix', utilizing experimentation and post-production editing to create a unique visual style that remains influential. This isn't just a behind-the-scenes look at a music video; it's a story of innovation, creative breakthroughs, and artistic fusion.

(animationobsessive.substack.com)

Design Music Video

Rediscovering Piranesi's Perspective Trick: A Forgotten Artistic Technique

2025-03-27

Rediscovering Piranesi's Perspective Trick: A Forgotten Artistic Technique

This article delves into the unique perspective technique employed by 18th-century artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Unlike traditional perspective, Piranesi's trick uses a near-large, far-small ratio when depicting a series of similar objects, rather than true perspective convergence. This technique, while violating perspective rules, enhances image readability and comprehension. The article analyzes the mathematical principles of this technique and, through comparison with traditional perspective, demonstrates its potential applications in image processing and mapmaking. The author even developed an algorithm to apply this technique to image editing software, offering a fresh perspective on image manipulation.

(medium.com)

Design

Torpedo Juice: The Legendary WWII Booze

2024-12-19

Torpedo Juice: The Legendary WWII Booze

During World War II, the US Navy used high-proof alcohol as torpedo fuel. Resourceful sailors tapped into this supply, mixing the alcohol with fruit juice to create the legendary "torpedo juice." This potent concoction, though harsh-tasting, became a popular drink among servicemen, representing a unique camaraderie and escape from the harsh realities of war. Despite the Navy's attempts to deter consumption by adding poisons, sailors devised ingenious methods of purification, even using bread as a filter. The story of torpedo juice embodies the ingenuity and resilience of soldiers during wartime.

(www.adn.com)

Misc World War II military history moonshine

Passive Microwave Repeaters: The Unsung Heroes of Telecommunications

2025-08-17

Passive Microwave Repeaters: The Unsung Heroes of Telecommunications

Post-WWII, microwave communications boomed, but line-of-sight limitations hampered its reach. This article tells the story of the Kreitzberg brothers and their invention: the passive microwave repeater. This power-free device, using reflectors to boost signals, solved communication challenges in mountainous and complex terrains. Widely adopted in the 1960s and 70s, especially in the American West, these repeaters enabled communication networks in remote areas. Now largely obsolete due to fiber optics and satellites, their ingenious design and historical significance remain noteworthy.

(computer.rip)

Tech microwave communication passive repeater telecommunication history

Gemini AI Assistant Now Integrated into Chrome

2025-09-19

Gemini AI Assistant Now Integrated into Chrome

Google's Gemini AI assistant is now integrated directly into the Chrome browser. Leveraging the context of your open tabs, it offers AI assistance for tasks like extracting key takeaways, clarifying concepts, and finding answers. This differs from the standalone Gemini web app; while accessible on other browsers, the web app lacks the ability to share page content or utilize live mode.

(gemini.google)

AI

Apollo 11's Lunar Customs Declaration: A Moon Rock Mystery

2025-07-24

Apollo 11's Lunar Customs Declaration: A Moon Rock Mystery

Upon their return from the moon in 1969, the Apollo 11 astronauts had to fill out a customs declaration form. The form listed "moon rock and moon dust samples" as acquired items, with "Moon" as the departure point and Honolulu, Hawaii as the arrival. This incredible document highlights not only humanity's first moon landing but also the meticulous nature of US customs and a charming anecdote about Neil Armstrong's friendship with a pilot.

(magazine.uc.edu)

Tech Apollo 11 Customs Declaration

Spreadsheet Showdown: A Head-to-Head Comparison of Nine Engines

2025-05-23

Spreadsheet Showdown: A Head-to-Head Comparison of Nine Engines

A late June 2024 survey assessed the capabilities of available spreadsheet software. The goal was to quantify the sophistication of each engine, considering feature set, formula and function support, calculation accuracy, and speed. Excel remains the de facto standard, though Google Sheets, GRID, and SpreadJS offer compelling alternatives. GRID excels in compatibility with both Excel and Sheets, while others (HyperFormula, jSpreadsheet, etc.) lag in features and accuracy. This comprehensive comparison highlights the strengths and weaknesses of each engine, offering valuable insights for users and developers alike.

(grid.is)

Development spreadsheet software software comparison

Iberian Blackout: Was It Renewables' Fault?

2025-06-17

Iberian Blackout: Was It Renewables' Fault?

A massive blackout hit Spain and Portugal in April 2024, affecting nearly 60 million people. While official investigations are ongoing, academics suggest several potential causes, including power plants sending excessively high voltage (overvoltages) to the transmission grid, and uneven reactive power distribution due to the distributed generation model of renewable energy (solar and wind). Traditional power plants provide inertia, stabilizing grid frequency, a characteristic lacking in renewables. The overvoltage issue highlights reactive power management, requiring adjustments to grid management rules to incentivize renewable energy plants to participate in reactive power balancing. Spain and Portugal's low interconnection capacity with neighboring countries also contributed to the blackout's widespread impact and duration. Future improvements in grid management rules, increased interconnection capacity, added energy storage, and AI-assisted grid operation are vital to prevent similar events.

(spectrum.ieee.org)

Tech reactive power

Uneven Evolution of the Responsible AI Ecosystem: A Growing Gap

2025-04-10

Uneven Evolution of the Responsible AI Ecosystem: A Growing Gap

AI-related incidents are surging, yet standardized responsible AI (RAI) evaluations remain scarce among major industrial model developers. New benchmarks like HELM Safety, AIR-Bench, and FACTS offer promising tools for assessing factuality and safety. A significant gap persists between corporate acknowledgment of RAI risks and meaningful action. Governments, however, are demonstrating increased urgency, with intensified global cooperation on AI governance in 2024, leading to frameworks from the OECD, EU, UN, and African Union emphasizing transparency, trustworthiness, and other core RAI principles.

(hai.stanford.edu)

AI AI Governance

Building an SR-71 Blackbird from Paper: A Guide to Low-Poly Paper Modeling

2025-09-12

Building an SR-71 Blackbird from Paper: A Guide to Low-Poly Paper Modeling

This article details the author's journey in creating a low-poly paper model of the SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft, covering the entire process from design to assembly. The author emphasizes balancing goals like ease of assembly, aesthetic appeal, and minimal resource consumption, while setting constraints such as using only single-color paper and employing only polyhedral shapes. The article thoroughly explains the use of Blender for mesh modeling, Pepakura Designer for mesh unfolding, and assembly techniques, and shares experiences of iteratively refining the model. The result is an impressive SR-71 Blackbird paper model, with PDFs available for download.

(www.arvinpoddar.com)

Design paper model SR-71 Blackbird

arXivLabs: Experimenting with Community Collaboration

2025-09-17

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 partners with those who share them. Got an idea for a project that will benefit the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

(arxiv.org)

Tech

Reservoirs Lab: Lightweight Postgres VectorDB GUI

2024-12-19

Reservoirs Lab: Lightweight Postgres VectorDB GUI

Reservoirs Lab is a lightweight Electron app that connects directly to a Postgres database to visualize high-dimensional vector embeddings stored alongside structured data. Users can interactively explore their data and see correlations between metadata and the semantic similarity of vector embeddings. Features include Postgres integration, vector visualization, neighborhood exploration, and a local, privacy-preserving workflow.

(github.com)

Development Vector Database Data Visualization

Sketchy Calendar: Bridging the Gap Between Digital and Analog

2025-05-23

Sketchy Calendar: Bridging the Gap Between Digital and Analog

This project explores a novel calendar concept—the Sketchy Calendar—that aims to combine the flexibility of paper calendars with the convenience of digital ones. Traditional digital calendars, while powerful, lack personalization and support for informal plans. Paper calendars, conversely, offer flexibility but lack the syncing and sharing capabilities of their digital counterparts. The Sketchy Calendar starts with a digital notebook, adding minimal structure to retain the personalized expression of paper calendars while achieving the convenience of digital features. This includes interconnected daily, weekly, and monthly views, integration of sketched annotations with formal calendar events, and exploring how shared calendars and calendar invites might work in such a semi-structured system. The project investigates how users can personalize their calendars with custom dynamic behavior, such as habit trackers or time trackers.

(www.inkandswitch.com)

Design digital calendar paper calendar

Blood Droplet Drying on Inclined Surfaces Reveals Novel Cracking Patterns

2025-05-01

Blood Droplet Drying on Inclined Surfaces Reveals Novel Cracking Patterns

A new study unveils asymmetric deposits and cracking patterns formed during the drying of blood droplets on inclined surfaces. Gravity's influence on red blood cell distribution leads to thicker deposits and coarser cracks on the downhill side, contrasting with the uphill side. This research is significant for forensic bloodstain pattern analysis, as surface tilt and droplet size significantly alter the resulting patterns, potentially leading to misinterpretations if ignored.

(phys.org)

Tech blood drying cracking patterns

Undersea Cables Become Ocean Sensors: Monitoring Currents and Climate

2025-07-17

Undersea Cables Become Ocean Sensors: Monitoring Currents and Climate

Scientists have ingeniously repurposed existing transatlantic fiber-optic cables as ocean sensors, developing a new instrument that measures subtle changes in light signals to monitor water temperature and pressure. Without disrupting their primary function, the system uses reflections from repeaters spaced every 50-100 kilometers along the cable to measure variations in light travel time, inferring data such as daily and weekly water temperature and tide patterns. This groundbreaking research offers a cost-effective way to monitor the ocean environment, improving our understanding of ocean currents, climate change, and natural hazards like tsunamis.

(phys.org)

Tech Fiber Optic Sensors Submarine Cables

AI Chatbots' Inaccurate URLs: A New Opportunity for Criminals

2025-07-04

AI Chatbots' Inaccurate URLs: A New Opportunity for Criminals

Netcraft's research reveals that AI chatbots like GPT-4.1 frequently provide incorrect website addresses for major companies, achieving only 66% accuracy. This creates an opportunity for cybercriminals to leverage these inaccuracies for phishing attacks by creating fake websites. Researchers found that scammers are even exploiting AI-generated results, creating fake code repositories, tutorials, and social media accounts on GitHub to boost the ranking of malicious sites in chatbot results, enabling supply-chain attacks such as the one targeting the Solana blockchain API. This highlights the risk of solely relying on AI chatbots for information, particularly sensitive data like login URLs, emphasizing the need for careful verification.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech

My Bosch Dishwasher Demands a Cloud Connection: A Lament

2025-03-24

The author bought a Bosch 500 series dishwasher, praising its easy installation. However, key features like delayed start and eco mode require a Home Connect app and Wi-Fi connection. This sparked a reflection on manufacturers' over-reliance on cloud control, potentially contributing to planned obsolescence and data harvesting. The author argues that appliances should prioritize local control, with cloud features as add-ons, not replacements for core functionality. This creates unnecessary obstacles and dependence on internet access for basic operations.

(www.jeffgeerling.com)

Hardware planned obsolescence

20 Years of PerfectTablePlan: A Software Success Story

2025-02-21

20 Years of PerfectTablePlan: A Software Success Story

In February 2005, the author released version 1 of PerfectTablePlan, a table seating planning software. Initially created to solve a personal problem for his wedding, it has since evolved to version 7, becoming a surprisingly successful and enduring product. Built with C++ and Qt, it has thrived despite the shift to web-based software and a pandemic-induced sales slump. The author, balancing PerfectTablePlan with other software projects, has enjoyed the flexibility of a lifestyle business, demonstrating the power of perseverance and a well-crafted product in a constantly evolving tech landscape.

(successfulsoftware.net)

Development success story

Yahoo's Rise and Fall: From Internet King to Forgotten Giant

2025-07-27

Yahoo's Rise and Fall: From Internet King to Forgotten Giant

Yahoo, once the undisputed king of the internet portal, has fallen from grace. This article recounts Yahoo's tumultuous journey from its founding in 1994 to its 2016 sale to Verizon. Yahoo initially rose to prominence with its well-organized directory-style search engine and content aggregation, reaching a market capitalization exceeding $100 billion. However, a series of disastrous acquisitions, such as Broadcast.com and Geocities, coupled with missed opportunities to acquire Google and Facebook, led to its decline. Yahoo was eventually sold for $4.8 billion, marking the end of a once-dominant internet empire. Only its shrewd investment in Alibaba remains a bright spot in its legacy.

(dfarq.homeip.net)

Tech

SimpleGantt: A Lightweight, Offline-Capable Gantt Chart Tool

2025-01-12

SimpleGantt: A Lightweight, Offline-Capable Gantt Chart Tool

SimpleGantt is a lightweight project management tool designed for environments with software installation restrictions or where cloud applications are prohibited. Running entirely in the browser using only JavaScript, CSS, HTML, and YAML, it offers interactive Gantt chart rendering, task management with dependencies, milestone tracking, and offline usage. Even in restricted environments like SharePoint, SimpleGantt provides a simple project management solution. Project files are saved locally in YAML format, or can be manually uploaded to SharePoint.

(github.com)

Development gantt chart offline

Why VCDs Kinged Southeast Asia: It Wasn't Just the Mold

2025-07-15

Why VCDs Kinged Southeast Asia: It Wasn't Just the Mold

This article explores why VCDs and Laserdiscs were more popular than VHS tapes in humid Southeast Asia. While mold damage to VHS tapes was a factor, economics played a far larger role. VCDs were cheaper, smaller, easily duplicated and distributed, making them the dominant format, especially in the rampant piracy scene. Laserdiscs, while offering better quality, were too expensive for most consumers. The author recounts personal experiences in Singapore, illustrating the VCD market's dominance and its competition with VHS.

(rubenerd.com)

Misc

French Anti-Piracy Battle Escalates: DNS Provider Quad9 Blocks Pirate Sites Globally

2024-12-12

In an escalating fight against online sports piracy, French media giant Canal+ secured court orders forcing DNS providers Quad9 and Vercara to block access to pirate streaming sites in France. Quad9, deeming this an absurd application of copyright law, plans to appeal but has globally blocked the domains for now. This action sparks a global debate about copyright and net neutrality, with Quad9 seeking public support for its appeal to maintain an open internet.

(torrentfreak.com)

Tech copyright net neutrality DNS blocking

Humanely Hatched: Tech Solves the Male Chick Culling Problem

2025-07-21

Humanely Hatched: Tech Solves the Male Chick Culling Problem

Approximately 350 million male chicks are culled annually in the US egg industry. A new technology, in-ovo sexing, allows producers to identify and remove male eggs before hatching. NestFresh and Kipster are pioneering this technology in the US, launching 'Humanely Hatched' eggs. Consumer interest is high, with 73% expressing strong interest in ethically sourced eggs. This represents a significant turning point for the US egg industry, offering both improved animal welfare and a more sustainable future for egg production.

(optimistsbarn.substack.com)

Tech

FSF's 40th Anniversary Merch Drop: Limited Time Only!

2025-06-30

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is having a limited-time sale of its 40th-anniversary merchandise in its GNU Press shop. This includes a summery yellow anniversary shirt, restocked favorites like the popular book 'Ada & Zangemann', a GNU baseball cap, and a webcam guard. Purchases support the FSF's mission to empower the world through free software. They're also running a summer membership drive, with new members getting a 20% discount in the GNU Press shop. Shipping is delayed due to volunteer-based fulfillment.

(www.fsf.org)

Misc Merchandise

Anthropic's Claude Browser Extension: A Controlled Test for AI Safety

2025-08-27

Anthropic's Claude Browser Extension: A Controlled Test for AI Safety

Anthropic is testing a Chrome extension that allows its AI assistant, Claude, to interact directly within the browser. While this greatly enhances Claude's utility, it introduces significant safety concerns, primarily prompt injection attacks. Red-teaming experiments revealed a 23.6% attack success rate without mitigations. Anthropic implemented several safeguards, including permission controls, action confirmations, and advanced classifiers, reducing the success rate to 11.2%. Currently, the extension is in a limited pilot program with 1000 Max plan users to gather real-world feedback and improve safety before wider release.

(www.anthropic.com)

AI

Superman Soars to Record-Breaking Box Office Debut

2025-07-13

Superman Soars to Record-Breaking Box Office Debut

James Gunn's Superman is on track for a record-breaking domestic box office opening, projected between $115 million and $120 million, following a stellar Friday with $56.5 million, including $22.5 million in previews. The film's success marks a significant reboot for DC Studios and its flagship franchise. The international launch is also exceeding expectations, adding to a strong global opening weekend exceeding $96.5 million. This marks a significant win for DC and a potential turning point for the superhero genre, which has faced recent struggles with 'superhero fatigue'.

(uk.news.yahoo.com)

Game

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