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RIP Blue Screen of Death: Windows 11 Gets a Black Screen of Death

2025-06-27

RIP Blue Screen of Death: Windows 11 Gets a Black Screen of Death

The iconic Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), a Windows staple for nearly 40 years, is getting a makeover. Microsoft is replacing it with a Black Screen of Death in Windows 11, simplifying the design and removing the blue color, frowning face, and QR code. The new screen will clearly display the stop code and faulty driver, making troubleshooting easier for both users and IT admins. This change, part of a broader effort to improve Windows resilience following last year's CrowdStrike incident, will roll out later this summer alongside a new Quick Machine Recovery feature.

(www.theverge.com)

Tech System Stability

Sample Size in Baseball: How Much Data is Enough?

2025-04-04

Sample Size in Baseball: How Much Data is Enough?

A baseball season is a collection of countless small events, each pitch contributing to the final outcome. Evaluating player performance requires a substantial amount of data, but the key is understanding which data points are meaningful. This article explores the issue of sample size in baseball statistics, explaining why a single at-bat isn't enough to judge a player's skill and why more data is needed to cancel out randomness. It highlights that different statistics require different sample sizes to 'stabilize,' for example, strikeout rate needs a smaller sample than BABIP. The author stresses the importance of sample size to avoid jumping to conclusions based on limited data.

(library.fangraphs.com)

Game baseball analytics sample size data stability

Stop Shipping PNGs as Game Textures!

2025-09-07

Stop Shipping PNGs as Game Textures!

Still using PNGs for game textures? This post explains why that's suboptimal and introduces a better approach. While PNGs are great for interchange, they weren't designed for texture data and lack support for GPU-compatible texture compression (like BCn), leading to slow loading times and high VRAM usage. The author advocates for texture formats like KTX2 or DDS, providing an open-source tool, Zex, to convert PNGs to KTX2 with BC7 compression and zlib supercompression. Tips on pregenerating mipmaps and automating the conversion process are also shared, along with a recommendation to use Tacentview for viewing texture formats.

(gamesbymason.com)

Development Texture Compression

Mozilla to Shut Down Pocket Read-It-Later Service in 2025

2025-05-22

Mozilla to Shut Down Pocket Read-It-Later Service in 2025

Mozilla announced it will shut down its popular read-it-later service, Pocket, on July 8, 2025, disappointing longtime users. While users can continue saving and reading until July, the service will become export-only afterward, with all data permanently deleted on October 8. Mozilla cites changes in how people consume content and a desire to focus resources on tools aligning with modern online habits. Premium subscribers will receive refunds. A portion of Pocket's functionality will live on as the "Ten Tabs" newsletter.

(betanews.com)

Tech Read-it-later

ChatGPT's AI Image Generator Sparks Copyright Debate

2025-03-27

ChatGPT's AI Image Generator Sparks Copyright Debate

ChatGPT's new AI image generator has gone viral, with users creating Studio Ghibli-style images and sparking a copyright debate. The tool can mimic the styles of specific studios, like Studio Ghibli, even transforming uploaded images into the chosen style. This functionality, similar to Google Gemini's AI image feature, raises concerns about copyright infringement, as it easily recreates the styles of copyrighted works. While legal experts argue that style itself isn't copyrighted, the datasets used to train the model may be problematic, leaving the issue in a legal gray area. OpenAI stated it allows mimicking broad styles, not individual artists', but this doesn't fully resolve the controversy.

(techcrunch.com)

AI copyright debate

Air Pollution During Pregnancy Linked to Increased Postpartum Depression Risk

2025-03-28

Air Pollution During Pregnancy Linked to Increased Postpartum Depression Risk

A new study reveals a significant link between exposure to high levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and PM10 particulate matter during pregnancy and an increased risk of postpartum depression. Researchers at the University of California followed 361 low-income Hispanic/Latina women in Los Angeles for three years. Women exposed to high levels of NO2 or PM10 during their second trimester were nearly four times more likely to develop postpartum depression compared to those with lower exposure. The study highlights the importance of reducing air pollution exposure during pregnancy, especially during the second trimester, and underscores the need for mitigating traffic emissions.

(www.bps.org.uk)

Tech Air Pollution Postpartum Depression Pregnancy Health

Swiss e-ID Referendum Headed to Ballot Box After Signature Verification

2025-05-08

Swiss e-ID Referendum Headed to Ballot Box After Signature Verification

Switzerland's e-ID law, aimed at simplifying online government services, will face a referendum after enough valid signatures were collected by opponents. The Federal Chancellery confirmed 55,344 of the 55,683 submitted signatures were valid, triggering a public vote. The referendum, fueled by concerns over data privacy and security, was supported by various groups including the youth wing of the Swiss People's Party and a faction of the Pirate Party. A physical altercation during signature submission highlights the passionate debate surrounding the legislation. The outcome will significantly impact Switzerland's digital identity strategy.

(www.swissinfo.ch)

Tech Swiss referendum

UK Tech Jobs Soar, but London's AI Dominance Highlights Regional Divide

2025-06-06

UK Tech Jobs Soar, but London's AI Dominance Highlights Regional Divide

Accenture research reveals a 21 percent surge in UK tech vacancies, reaching pre-pandemic highs. AI job postings nearly doubled year-over-year, with London accounting for 80 percent. While the UK saw a 53 percent increase in individuals reporting tech skills (1.69 million), a significant regional disparity exists. London-based companies plan to allocate 20 percent of their tech budgets to AI, compared to just 13 percent in regions like North East England, Scotland, and Wales. This highlights the UK's AI opportunity alongside a concerning digital divide, threatening long-term competitiveness unless regional talent and infrastructure gaps are addressed.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech AI talent regional development

Large Reasoning Models: Collapse and Counterintuitive Scaling

2025-06-08

Large Reasoning Models: Collapse and Counterintuitive Scaling

Recent Large Language Models (LLMs) have spawned Large Reasoning Models (LRMs), generating detailed reasoning traces before providing answers. While showing improvement on reasoning benchmarks, their fundamental capabilities remain poorly understood. This work investigates LRMs using controllable puzzle environments, revealing a complete accuracy collapse beyond a certain complexity threshold. Surprisingly, reasoning effort increases with complexity, then declines despite sufficient token budget. Compared to standard LLMs, three regimes emerged: (1) low-complexity tasks where standard LLMs outperform LRMs, (2) medium-complexity tasks where LRMs show an advantage, and (3) high-complexity tasks where both fail. LRMs exhibit limitations in exact computation, failing to use explicit algorithms and reasoning inconsistently. This study highlights the strengths, limitations, and crucial questions surrounding the true reasoning capabilities of LRMs.

(machinelearning.apple.com)

AI

The Enduring Appeal of Tiny Laptops: A 17-Year Retrospective

2025-03-17

The Enduring Appeal of Tiny Laptops: A 17-Year Retrospective

Seventeen years ago, Steve Jobs unveiled the first Macbook Air, a revolutionary device compared to the bulky netbooks of the time. The author reminisces about their Lenovo IdeaPad S10e and expresses a continued yearning for small, lightweight laptops. Despite advancements in hardware, the author believes an A4-sized Macbook Air or Macbook Mini, paired with a powerful home server, represents the ideal remote work solution. Portability and remote work are the future.

(gokmengorgen.net)

Tech lightweight laptops

IPv6's Failure: A 30-Year Retrospective

2025-03-21

This article reflects on the 30-year journey of IPv6, from its initial design principles to its current practical applications, delving into the reasons why IPv6 failed to replace IPv4. The author points out that IPv6, in its initial design to simplify the transition, added new features that led to complexity. For example, extension headers are difficult to parse, and the multi-addressing mechanism has increased the difficulty of implementation and deployment. The author argues that there were key mistakes in the IPv6 design, such as the use of 128-bit addresses, inclusion of fragmentation handling and extension headers. Ultimately, these problems led to IPv6 deployment and adoption being far lower than expected, and in some ways inferior to IPv4.

(ipv6.hanazo.no)

Tech networking protocols

Recovering from Accidental Deletion of /lib on Linux

2025-03-22

This post details how to recover a Linux system after accidentally deleting the crucial `/lib` directory. The author explores several methods, from leveraging existing tools like a static busybox to creating and transferring a minimal, statically compiled C program to replace essential files. The step-by-step guide covers techniques using bash built-ins and network transfers, providing a solution to avoid reinstalling the OS.

(tinyhack.com)

Development system recovery troubleshooting

WebAssembly and DOM Support: The Future of Glue Code

2025-07-23

The question of whether WebAssembly (Wasm) is truly production-ready for web applications, given its need to integrate with web pages and APIs like the DOM, is addressed. The article argues that direct DOM access in Wasm isn't necessary; existing JavaScript APIs and compiler-generated glue code provide seamless integration. While a mechanism for directly calling web APIs might be added in the future, it would require significant effort. Currently, Wasm leverages JavaScript function imports (e.g., `console.log`) and cleverly uses JavaScript object array indices to manage object references, enabling flexible interaction with JavaScript. This approach, while not purely Wasm, effectively boosts performance. Ongoing improvements in exception handling, blocking I/O, and garbage collection are further optimizing Wasm-JavaScript integration efficiency. The author concludes that Wasm's focus should be on improving program performance, not eliminating JavaScript entirely. The future of WebAssembly involves refining the component model and toolchains to enhance interoperability with JavaScript without sacrificing performance or code size.

(queue.acm.org)

Development

Slave Ship Mutiny: The Amelia (1811)

2025-09-21

On January 20th, 1811, off the west coast of Africa, enslaved people aboard the illegal slave ship Amelia staged a successful mutiny. Armed with wooden planks, they overpowered the crew and forced the ship back to Africa. This event exposed a vast multinational criminal enterprise, with global repercussions. Unlike the infamous Zong massacre, the Amelia's attempted cover-up was foiled by the captives' rebellion.

(www.historytoday.com)

Misc slave revolt slave trade historical event

Anduril Banned from Discourse Recruiting: Weapon Maker Sparks Controversy

2025-04-04

Anduril Banned from Discourse Recruiting: Weapon Maker Sparks Controversy

A job posting from Anduril, a weapons manufacturer, on the Discourse forum ignited a firestorm of controversy. Users criticized Anduril's involvement in creating weapons of war and questioned its company culture. An Anduril employee attempted to address concerns about Nix/NixOS usage, non-compete agreements, and open-source opportunities, but the controversy escalated. Discourse's moderation team ultimately banned Anduril from posting future job openings on the platform to resolve the ongoing community dispute.

(discourse.nixos.org)

Tech defense contractor recruiting controversy

Infinite Mac Now Runs Early Mac OS X!

2025-06-20

Infinite Mac Now Runs Early Mac OS X!

Infinite Mac, a web-based emulator, now boasts compatibility with early versions of Mac OS X, with 10.1 and 10.3 showing the best performance. While not blazing fast, the developer notes that it's comparable to the experience on original hardware. The project involved porting the PearPC emulator to WebAssembly, overcoming numerous hurdles including legacy C++ code and performance optimizations. The updated Infinite HD also includes a curated selection of indie software from the era.

(blog.persistent.info)

Tech web emulator retro software

Voyager Probes: Breaking Through the Solar System's Firewall

2025-06-23

Voyager Probes: Breaking Through the Solar System's Firewall

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and 2 have journeyed for decades, eventually breaching the Solar System's 'firewall' – the heliopause. Temperatures there reach 30,000-50,000 Kelvin, yet the probes survived due to the low particle density. Data confirms the heliopause isn't a rigid boundary, shifting with solar activity. Surprisingly, the magnetic field beyond is parallel to the inner heliosphere's field, a discovery defying prior assumptions. Voyagers continue transmitting invaluable data, offering unprecedented insights into interstellar space.

(www.iflscience.com)

Tech Voyager probes Heliopause Interstellar space

The Tech Industry's Inclusion Illusion: A Schizoaffective Programmer's Story

2025-08-28

The Tech Industry's Inclusion Illusion: A Schizoaffective Programmer's Story

A programmer with schizoaffective disorder recounts their experience of being systematically excluded from over 20 tech companies over the past few years, each time after disclosing their mental health condition. This powerful essay details the systemic discrimination faced in healthcare, the workplace, and personal relationships, exposing the gap between tech companies' performative diversity initiatives and the reality of supporting employees with severe mental illnesses. The author calls for genuine inclusion across healthcare, professional environments, communities, and personal relationships, moving beyond superficial awareness.

(kennethreitz.org)

Tech workplace discrimination

Tailwind CSS 4 and the FOMO Trap: A Developer's Cautionary Tale

2025-04-07

This article recounts the author's frustrating experience with Tailwind CSS 4, which relies on Bun.js and crashed on their older Mac Pro due to a lack of AVX2 instructions. Debugging this issue consumed several days, forcing the author to buy a new machine and abandon Tailwind CSS 4. The author reflects on the tech industry's 'fear of missing out' (FOMO) and the pitfalls of blindly chasing new technologies. The experience highlighted the importance of careful technology selection, prioritizing personal needs and project realities, rather than being swept along by trends.

(blog.julik.nl)

Development

Chomsky Slams AI Hype: LLMs Fail to Understand Language

2025-05-25

Noam Chomsky, in a recent interview, critiques the current hype surrounding AI, particularly Large Language Models (LLMs). He argues that while LLMs show progress in mimicking human behavior, they are fundamentally engineering projects, not scientific endeavors, failing to grasp the essence of language. Chomsky points out that LLMs cannot distinguish between possible and impossible languages, preventing them from truly understanding language acquisition and cognition. He emphasizes the importance of scientific methodology and warns of potential ethical risks and societal dangers posed by AI, urging caution in its development.

(chomsky.info)

AI Noam Chomsky

Oregon's Exploding Whale: A 54-Year-Old Viral Sensation

2025-03-18

Oregon's Exploding Whale: A 54-Year-Old Viral Sensation

Fifty-four years ago, on November 12, 1970, Oregon made headlines with a bizarre event: the dynamiting of a dead whale on a Florence beach. The resulting spectacle, captured live on KATU news, showered onlookers with whale parts and became an instant viral sensation (long before the internet!). Today, the 'Exploding Whale' remains a beloved, memetic legend, celebrated annually with festivals, themed merchandise, and even a baseball team tribute. While the method of whale disposal has since changed, the story of the exploding whale continues to entertain and fascinate.

(katu.com)

Misc Exploding Whale Oregon Viral Story

Rivian Sues Ohio Over Direct-to-Consumer EV Sales Ban

2025-08-05

Rivian Sues Ohio Over Direct-to-Consumer EV Sales Ban

EV maker Rivian is suing Ohio, challenging the state's ban on direct-to-consumer vehicle sales. Rivian argues the law stifles competition, harms consumers, and points to Tesla's exemption. This is the latest chapter in the ongoing battle between emerging automakers and powerful dealership lobbies. Rivian seeks a license to sell EVs directly in Ohio.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech Direct Sales

AI Productivity Revolution: Hype or Reality?

2025-05-29

AI Productivity Revolution: Hype or Reality?

Despite the hype surrounding generative AI's productivity revolution from tech leaders and media, economic theory and data cast doubt. While AI holds potential in automating tasks and boosting productivity in some occupations, its impact on overall economic growth may be far less than optimistic forecasts suggest. Studies show current AI yields average labor cost savings of only 27% and affects approximately 4.6% of tasks. This translates to a mere 0.66% TFP growth over ten years, potentially lower considering some tasks' automation difficulties. While AI might not exacerbate inequality, some groups will still be negatively impacted. A cautious optimism regarding AI's potential is warranted, avoiding uncritical techno-optimism and focusing on broader societal impacts.

(www.project-syndicate.org)

AI

Urgent: Update Your Firefox Browser Before March 14th!

2025-03-13

Urgent: Update Your Firefox Browser Before March 14th!

Mozilla is urging Firefox users to update their browsers to version 128 or later (or ESR 115.13 or later) before March 14th, 2025, to avoid significant security risks. A critical root certificate is expiring, rendering add-ons unusable and potentially exposing users to malicious add-ons, fraudulent websites, and compromised password alerts. Failure to update could lead to severe performance issues and security vulnerabilities. The update affects Windows, Android, Linux, and macOS users, but not iOS. While older versions might still function, Mozilla strongly advises updating for optimal security and performance.

(www.bleepingcomputer.com)

Tech

The Morro Castle Disaster: A Suspicious Fire and a Trail of Suspects

2025-01-17

The Morro Castle Disaster: A Suspicious Fire and a Trail of Suspects

In 1934, the luxury liner SS Morro Castle was ravaged by a sudden fire at sea, resulting in a devastating loss of life. The captain's mysterious death just hours before the blaze only deepened the mystery. Chaos ensued as passengers and crew struggled to escape the inferno and the stormy waters. Investigations pointed towards radio operator George Rogers, whose past and connections to the captain’s death raised significant suspicions, yet a lack of definitive proof left the case unresolved. The tragedy highlighted maritime safety failings of the era, leaving behind a lingering question mark about who was truly responsible for the disaster.

(www.damninteresting.com)

Misc maritime disaster SS Morro Castle arson

Landmark Alzheimer's Study Possibly Faked: 16 Years of Research Misdirected?

2025-06-13

Landmark Alzheimer's Study Possibly Faked: 16 Years of Research Misdirected?

A landmark 2006 Nature study on Alzheimer's disease, which proposed the amyloid hypothesis (that amyloid-beta protein is the cause), may have been based on fabricated images. This has cast doubt on 16 years of research and funding allocation. A whistleblower revealed potential image manipulation, prompting an investigation. Millions of dollars in research funding may have been wasted, and more importantly, millions of Alzheimer's patients may have missed out on effective treatments. The investigation is ongoing, and the research community is reevaluating its approach to Alzheimer's research, advocating for broader funding distribution to prevent similar incidents.

(www.discovermagazine.com)

Tech research fraud amyloid hypothesis

Firefox Terms of Use: A Deep Dive

2025-02-28

Firefox Terms of Use: A Deep Dive

Firefox, the free and open-source web browser, operates under a comprehensive set of Terms of Use outlining the agreement between users and Mozilla. These terms cover software licensing, intellectual property rights, user feedback, terms for optional features, updates and termination, user responsibilities, limitations of liability, and disclaimers. Users must adhere to Mozilla's Acceptable Use Policy, refraining from infringing on others' rights or violating applicable laws. Mozilla disclaims liability for losses incurred through Firefox usage but commits to notifying users of service suspensions or terminations. California law governs the agreement.

(www.mozilla.org)

Development Terms of Use

Transformer²: Self-Adaptive LLMs Break New Ground

2025-01-15

Transformer²: Self-Adaptive LLMs Break New Ground

Transformer² is a novel machine learning system that dynamically adjusts its weights for various tasks. Inspired by nature's adaptive mechanisms, like an octopus changing color or the brain rewiring itself, it enables Large Language Models (LLMs) to adapt to new tasks in real-time. Using Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) and Reinforcement Learning (RL), Transformer² decomposes model weights into independent components and learns how to combine them optimally for diverse tasks, including math, coding, reasoning, and visual understanding. Results show Transformer² outperforms traditional static approaches like LoRA in efficiency and task-specific performance, requiring far fewer parameters. This work paves the way for building 'living intelligence' AI systems that continuously learn and evolve.

(sakana.ai)

AI

The Android Maintenance Nightmare: Why the Google Play Store App Count Plummeted

2025-06-08

A hobby Android developer with five years of experience maintaining MusicSync, a Google Play Music + Podcast replacement, shares the struggles of Android app maintenance and explains the 47% decline in Google Play Store apps. The article highlights the significant challenges compared to backend development, including Java/Kotlin compatibility issues, breaking changes from Google's frequent library updates (e.g., ExoPlayer, Google Auth), dropping support for older Android versions, forced upgrades across various components (Android Studio, Gradle, SDKs), unpredictable UI design guideline changes, and the deprecation or lack of maintenance for crucial third-party libraries like Picasso, Glide, OkHttp, and EventBus. The dual versioning scheme for Android versions and API levels adds further confusion. The conclusion emphasizes the higher maintenance cost of Android apps compared to server-side development.

(ashishb.net)

Development App Maintenance

Regulations.gov: Your Voice in Federal Rulemaking

2025-01-16

Regulations.gov is the U.S. government's website for public participation in the federal rulemaking process. Here, you can browse, comment on, and participate in discussions regarding proposed and final federal regulations. It's designed to increase government transparency and foster public engagement in policy creation. Whether you're interested in a specific regulation or want to voice your opinion on government policy, Regulations.gov is a crucial resource.

(www.regulations.gov)

Misc federal regulations public participation policymaking

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