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Indie App Dev: 20 Years of Lessons Learned

2025-03-02

This post recounts the author's 20-year journey as an indie app developer, from early experiments with REALbasic to building a sustainable business. The author highlights the challenges: initial apps saw little traction and minimal income; patience and continuous improvement are crucial; full-time dedication is demanding; and long-term success is threatened by technological advancements and market competition. Key advice includes starting small, prioritizing quality, responding to user feedback promptly, and diversifying to mitigate risks from market shifts and obsolescence.

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(blog.charliemonroe.net)
Startup indie development

BrainCraft Challenge: Navigate a Maze with 1000 Neurons

2025-09-07
BrainCraft Challenge: Navigate a Maze with 1000 Neurons

The BrainCraft Challenge invites participants to design a biologically-inspired, rate-based neural network to control a virtual agent navigating a simple maze and seeking energy sources. The challenge consists of five progressively difficult tasks, each lasting two months. The agent must navigate and acquire energy under resource constraints, using limited sensor data and only 1000 neurons. This poses a significant challenge to current neuroscience-inspired models, requiring integration of functional neural dynamics and sensorimotor control.

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(github.com)
AI

Sustainable Polymerization Revolution: Degradable Thermosets Arrive

2025-02-12
Sustainable Polymerization Revolution: Degradable Thermosets Arrive

Cornell researchers have developed a novel degradable thermoset plastic made from bio-based materials, offering both durability and recyclability. This material uses orthogonal polymerization of a single monomer, first creating a flexible polymer chain, then using remaining monomer for a second polymerization to form a tough, cross-linked polymer. By controlling light exposure and catalysts, material properties can be adjusted. This innovation promises a sustainable alternative to current non-degradable petroleum-based thermosets, offering a potential solution to plastic pollution.

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(phys.org)
Tech degradable plastic bio-based materials polymerization

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.

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(www.tomshardware.com)
Hardware

India's New Tax Law: Government Can Now Access Your Digital Life

2025-03-06
India's New Tax Law: Government Can Now Access Your Digital Life

A new Indian tax law grants tax authorities the power to forcibly access your social media accounts, emails, bank accounts, investment accounts, and more to investigate tax evasion. The law defines "virtual digital space" broadly, encompassing nearly all online accounts and data. This has raised serious privacy concerns, with experts arguing the law lacks sufficient oversight and procedural safeguards, potentially leading to abuse of power and conflicting with the Supreme Court's rulings on the right to privacy.

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(economictimes.indiatimes.com)
Tech tax law digital space

Stunning Note-Taking App: UI Design and Functionality Perfected

2025-05-09
Stunning Note-Taking App: UI Design and Functionality Perfected

This note-taking app boasts not only strong encryption but also a stunning user interface: intuitive, responsive, and customizable. Features like a folder tree in the left pane, a rich text editor (truly rich and classic), and an automatically generated clickable table of contents (showable/hidable via a hamburger menu, perfect for mobile) showcase its elegant design. A simple calendar, colorful tags, and Monday-starting weeks further enhance the experience. Support for other file types looks even more promising!

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(cryptpad.org)
Design

Shell Pulls Out of Major New Jersey Offshore Wind Project

2025-01-31
Shell Pulls Out of Major New Jersey Offshore Wind Project

Shell has abandoned its participation in the large Atlantic Shores offshore wind project off the coast of New Jersey, citing increased competition, delays, and a shifting market. This decision follows President Trump's early actions against offshore wind, creating regulatory uncertainty. While the Biden administration approved the project, the lingering effects of Trump's executive order, coupled with the high cost of offshore wind, led Shell to write off a nearly $1 billion investment. The move raises concerns about the future of offshore wind projects and highlights the importance of stable policy support for renewable energy investment.

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(apnews.com)
Tech energy policy

Albania's 750,000 Bunkers: A Cold War Relic

2025-01-20
Albania's 750,000 Bunkers: A Cold War Relic

Driven by paranoia of external invasion under Enver Hoxha's rule, the People's Socialist Republic of Albania built over 750,000 bunkers, averaging 5.7 per square kilometer. These bunkers, scattered across the country, are a unique landscape feature reflecting Hoxha's totalitarian regime and its impact on Albanian society and economy. Never used in combat, the bunkers drained significant resources, hindering development. Today, they serve as unusual tourist attractions and repurposed dwellings.

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(en.wikipedia.org)
Tech Albania Bunkers

US Officially Withdraws from the World Health Organization

2025-01-21
US Officially Withdraws from the World Health Organization

On January 20, 2025, the US President signed an executive order formally withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO). The order cites the WHO's mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic and other global health crises, failure to adopt necessary reforms, and susceptibility to undue political influence from member states. The US also alleges unfairly high financial contributions are demanded from it. This action will halt US funding to the WHO, recall personnel, and seek alternative international partners to assume previous WHO activities. Negotiations on the WHO Pandemic Agreement and amendments to the International Health Regulations will also cease.

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(www.whitehouse.gov)
Tech US WHO Withdrawal

Formula E Gen4: 804 hp Electric Beast on the Horizon

2025-06-27
Formula E Gen4: 804 hp Electric Beast on the Horizon

The upcoming Formula E Gen4 car boasts a massive power upgrade, jumping from 470 hp to a staggering 804 hp, nearing the power of F1 cars. Despite the significant power boost, energy efficiency remains a key focus, with regenerative braking reaching 700 kW. Williams Advanced Engineering is out, replaced by Italian battery supplier Podium Advanced Technologies, and Bridgestone takes over tire supply from Hankook, introducing high and low-downforce wing configurations. Performance will sit between F1, F2, and IndyCar; while not matching F1's cornering prowess, the Gen4's 800+ hp and AWD will deliver blistering acceleration out of corners. Testing has already seen speeds of 210 mph (338 km/h).

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(arstechnica.com)
Tech Formula E Electric Racing

Shocking VC Success Rate: Over Half of Senior VCs Have Never Had a Successful Deal

2025-07-29
Shocking VC Success Rate: Over Half of Senior VCs Have Never Had a Successful Deal

A report based on data from 12,069 mid-to-senior-level VC professionals at US VC firms from 1996 to 2025 reveals a startling statistic: only 54% of senior VCs have ever been involved in a successful deal. 'Success' is defined as an investment resulting in a pre-unicorn investment in a unicorn, an exit with at least double the initial investment, or a successful IPO. This means nearly half of senior VCs have never had a successful deal, prompting reflection on the industry's success rate.

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(www.linkedin.com)
Startup Success Rate Unicorns

AirBending: Plug-and-Play MIDI Controller for Universal Compatibility

2025-07-05
AirBending: Plug-and-Play MIDI Controller for Universal Compatibility

AirBending is a revolutionary MIDI controller offering seamless compatibility with popular DAWs like Logic Pro and Ableton Live, requiring no special drivers or plugins. Control external hardware synthesizers, software instruments, and effects processors with ease. Its advanced preset manager allows for customized gesture-to-music mapping, offering flexibility for both one-handed and two-handed control. Features include MIDI channel control, musical scale selection, and custom CC assignment for precise control over synth parameters like filters, effects, volume, and modulation, making it ideal for studio and live performance.

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(www.nanassound.com)
Development MIDI controller gesture control

Figma's Multiplayer Editing: A Simplified CRDT Approach

2025-08-19
Figma's Multiplayer Editing: A Simplified CRDT Approach

Four years ago, Figma embarked on building multiplayer functionality, opting for a custom-built system instead of the popular Operational Transform (OT) algorithm. Driven by a need for rapid iteration and concerns about OT's complexity, they created a simpler solution. This post details Figma's multiplayer system architecture, including its client/server architecture, WebSocket communication, offline editing capabilities, and data synchronization. While inspired by CRDTs (Conflict-free Replicated Data Types), Figma's implementation deviates from strict CRDT adherence, leveraging its principles while benefiting from a centralized server for efficiency and simplicity. The article contrasts OTs and CRDTs, delving into Figma's data structure design and how it handles edge cases.

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(www.figma.com)
Development Multiplayer Collaboration

Critical Vulnerability: UEFI Secure Boot Bypass Discovered

2025-06-10
Critical Vulnerability: UEFI Secure Boot Bypass Discovered

Binarly Research has uncovered a critical vulnerability, CVE-2025-3052, affecting most UEFI-enabled devices. This memory corruption vulnerability resides in a module signed with a Microsoft third-party UEFI certificate. Exploitation allows attackers to run unsigned code during boot, bypassing Secure Boot and compromising the system's chain of trust. This enables the installation of bootkits and circumvention of OS-level security. The root cause is unsafe handling of NVRAM variables. Microsoft addressed the issue, impacting 14 modules, with a June 10th patch.

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(www.binarly.io)
Tech

Bizarre Particle's Mass Depends on Travel Direction

2024-12-12
Bizarre Particle's Mass Depends on Travel Direction

Scientists have unexpectedly discovered a strange quasiparticle, a semi-Dirac fermion, in a ZrSiS material. This particle exhibits a peculiar behavior: it's massless when moving along a specific direction but gains mass when traveling in other directions. This discovery, stemming from research into the properties of quasiparticles within ZrSiS, relates to Einstein's mass-energy equivalence, E=mc². When moving at light speed in a specific direction, the quasiparticle is massless; changing direction and slowing down causes it to gain mass. The finding could potentially lead to novel applications for ZrSiS, similar to those of graphene.

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(newatlas.com)
Physics semi-Dirac fermion quasiparticle mass-energy equivalence

arXivLabs: Experimenting with Community Collaboration

2025-05-17
arXivLabs: Experimenting with Community Collaboration

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.

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(arxiv.org)
Development

AI Revolution Shakes Up Consulting: Efficiency Boost or Quality Drop?

2025-04-01
AI Revolution Shakes Up Consulting: Efficiency Boost or Quality Drop?

Major consulting firms like Boston Consulting Group (BCG) are enthusiastically adopting generative AI, using it for tasks like research and data analysis. However, this shift has placed immense pressure on junior consultants. AI-driven shorter deadlines force consultants to rush subpar reports to meet unrealistic expectations from senior partners, sacrificing creativity and in-depth analysis. This has led to discontent among consultants who argue that AI is not a 'magic bullet' but rather exacerbates workload and pressure.

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(the-ken.com)
Startup Consulting

Ocean Wave Energy Harvesting: A Six-Pillar Design for Next-Gen Triboelectric Nanogenerators

2025-08-31
Ocean Wave Energy Harvesting: A Six-Pillar Design for Next-Gen Triboelectric Nanogenerators

A groundbreaking study published in *Nano-Micro Letters* outlines six design principles for next-generation triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) to efficiently harness wave energy. Researchers from the Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy & Nanosystems and Guangxi University detail advancements like multilayer stacking and magnetic levitation, achieving significantly improved energy conversion efficiency in real-world wave environments. This innovation paves the way for self-powered ocean grids and marine IoT, promising a future where the ocean itself becomes a sustainable power source.

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(www.eurekalert.org)
Tech wave energy triboelectric nanogenerator ocean energy

The Housing Market's Fragility: Is Building More the Answer?

2025-07-21
The Housing Market's Fragility: Is Building More the Answer?

The prevailing belief is that increasing housing supply will lower prices and solve the affordability crisis. However, recent price drops in several US cities have triggered panic, not celebration. Developers are pulling out, lenders are tightening, and policymakers are scrambling to bail out the system. The article argues the problem isn't a lack of supply, but the fragility of the financial system. The current housing market treats homes as financial products, not shelter; price drops are seen as risk signals, leading to decreased, not increased, supply. The article calls for a bottom-up approach, focusing on local, small-scale affordable housing to build a healthier, more resilient housing ecosystem, rather than relying on national-level financial engineering and subsidies.

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(clmarohn.substack.com)
Tech real estate market

Ontology Is Overrated: Links, Tags, and the Death of Categories

2025-03-09

This essay challenges the conventional wisdom of ontology-based categorization in the digital age. The author argues that pre-defined categories, reminiscent of library catalogs, are constrained by physical limitations and human biases, ill-suited for the dynamic nature of the web. Instead, they propose a more organic system based on links and tags, allowing for free-form user labeling and valuable insights from large, messy datasets. Using Yahoo! and Google as examples, the author demonstrates the superiority of link-based search over pre-defined categories, showing how tagging systems better adapt to the scale, diversity, and dynamism of online information.

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(web.archive.org)
Misc ontology categorization

Google's Messaging Mayhem: A 16-Year History of Chaos and Failure

2025-01-13
Google's Messaging Mayhem: A 16-Year History of Chaos and Failure

From Google Talk in 2005 to Google Chat in 2021, Google's messaging app history is a rollercoaster of launches, shutdowns, and missed opportunities. This article chronicles the rise and fall of numerous Google messaging platforms, highlighting a lack of consistent strategy and top-down leadership. The constant churn of products, from Google Talk and Hangouts to Allo and Duo, resulted in fragmented user bases and ultimately, no dominant messaging app. Google’s inability to commit to a single, well-funded product contrasts sharply with competitors like Facebook and Apple, showcasing the high cost of Google's inconsistent approach. The article concludes by questioning Google’s future prospects in the messaging space.

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(arstechnica.com)
Tech Messaging Apps Product Strategy

AT&T Promises Bill Credits After Massive Outage

2025-01-08
AT&T Promises Bill Credits After Massive Outage

Following a major network outage last year caused by a botched update, AT&T is now promising full-day bill credits for future outages. The credits apply to wireless outages lasting at least 60 minutes affecting 10 or more cell towers, and fiber outages lasting at least 20 minutes (using an AT&T-provided gateway). However, the promise has caveats, excluding events like natural disasters or third-party issues. AT&T retains sole discretion on credit eligibility, raising concerns about service reliability and transparency in handling such incidents.

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(arstechnica.com)
Tech outage bill credits

Roame is Hiring a Chief of Staff: Revolutionizing Points Travel

2025-03-07
Roame is Hiring a Chief of Staff: Revolutionizing Points Travel

Roame, a company helping millions redeem points for dream vacations, seeks a Chief of Staff. This executive will work directly with the CEO on numerous strategic initiatives across product, sales, marketing, and more. The ideal candidate will have a background in investment banking, management consulting, or strategy/operations, and a passion for points travel. Roame offers competitive benefits but emphasizes a strong work ethic and high accountability. This is a fast-paced startup role perfect for those aspiring to be a founder or COO.

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(www.ycombinator.com)
Startup Points Travel

Byung-Chul Han: A Critique of the Shallow Achievement Society

2025-05-22
Byung-Chul Han: A Critique of the Shallow Achievement Society

This article explores the critique of modern society offered by South Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han. Han argues that we live in a shallow achievement society driven by the pressure of 'what we can do', leading to burnout and mental illness in the pursuit of ultimate success and self-gratification. He analyzes how this social mechanism causes crises in love, beauty, and entertainment, and criticizes the 'smoothness' of digital media for erasing negative experiences and authenticity. Han calls for people to break free from the pressure of achievement, embrace imperfection and negative experiences, and rediscover the essence of love and true entertainment.

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(newintrigue.com)
AI Byung-Chul Han achievement society

50,000-Year-Old Evidence of Widespread Human Fire Use

2025-06-29
50,000-Year-Old Evidence of Widespread Human Fire Use

New research reveals humans began extensively using fire approximately 50,000 years ago, much earlier than previously thought. Analysis of a 300,000-year-old sediment core from the East China Sea uncovered a significant increase in pyrogenic carbon, indicating a dramatic rise in fire activity. This finding aligns with similar discoveries in Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Papua New Guinea-Australia region, suggesting a global intensification of human fire use around this time. Researchers attribute this to the spread of Homo sapiens, increased population densities, and greater reliance on fire, particularly during glacial periods. This widespread fire use significantly impacted ecosystems and the carbon cycle, potentially underestimating the historical baseline of human-environment interactions in current climate models.

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(phys.org)
Tech human fire use

SoilScanner: Detecting Lead Contamination with Radio Waves

2025-01-04
SoilScanner: Detecting Lead Contamination with Radio Waves

Researchers at Cornell University have developed SoilScanner, a portable device that uses radio frequency signals and machine learning to detect lead contamination in soil. The device sends radio waves through a soil sample and analyzes how the soil affects the signal to determine lead levels. SoilScanner achieved 72% accuracy in testing real soil samples and a zero-error rate for lead levels above 500 ppm. This technology promises to make lead detection cheaper and more accessible, aiding in environmental remediation efforts.

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(phys.org)
Tech soil contamination lead detection

The Credibility Crisis in Academia: How Metrics Are Killing Research Quality

2025-01-14
The Credibility Crisis in Academia: How Metrics Are Killing Research Quality

Academia is facing a credibility crisis, with a record number of retracted papers and the rise of AI-generated content. The article argues that the over-reliance on metrics like publication counts and impact factors has led to 'indicatorism' – a focus on manipulating metrics rather than pursuing genuine research quality. This has resulted in unethical practices like citation cartels and fabricated data. While metrics have their uses, the author advocates for a more nuanced approach, incorporating qualitative assessments alongside quantitative data to gain a more holistic understanding of research quality and credibility. The current system, he warns, risks sacrificing long-term scientific progress for short-term performance gains.

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(www.socialsciencespace.com)
Misc research metrics indicatorism

LLMs Fail at Font Identification: A Live Benchmark

2025-08-04
LLMs Fail at Font Identification: A Live Benchmark

A developer benchmarked GPT-4 and Gemini on a live, continuously updating dataset of unidentified fonts from the DaFont forum. Despite providing context like images, titles, and descriptions, both LLMs performed abysmally. This highlights limitations in even seemingly straightforward image classification tasks, suggesting LLMs are far from a universal solution. The project uses Python scripts for data scraping, GitHub Actions for automation, JSON for storage, and Observable for a dynamic dashboard.

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(maxhalford.github.io)
AI Font Identification AI Limitations

EmbedPDF: A Slick, Open-Source JavaScript PDF Viewer

2025-08-15
EmbedPDF: A Slick, Open-Source JavaScript PDF Viewer

EmbedPDF is a framework-agnostic, MIT-licensed, open-source JavaScript PDF viewer easily integrated into any JavaScript project (React, Vue, Svelte, Preact, or vanilla JS). It boasts a smooth, modern reading experience with a clean developer API. Features include annotations (highlighting, sticky notes, free text, ink), true redaction, search, text selection, zoom, rotation, and smooth, virtualized scrolling. It's built with a pluggable architecture and tree-shakable plugins. Contributions are welcome!

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(github.com)
Development PDF viewer
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