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Media Trust Crumbles: Is Journalism Destroying Itself?

2025-03-01

Media Trust Crumbles: Is Journalism Destroying Itself?

A new Gallup poll reveals an all-time low in public trust in the media, with only 31% expressing confidence. The article argues that the media's abandonment of objectivity and shift towards overt advocacy journalism are key factors. Journalism schools now cultivate journalists as advocates for social justice rather than objective reporters. Media executives openly declare that 'objectivity has got to go.' This trend fuels a disconnect between the media and the public, leading to audience loss and ultimately undermining journalism's crucial role in a democracy. While some media organizations are trying to reverse course, rebuilding public trust will be a long and arduous process.

(jonathanturley.org)

Tech media trust objectivity

RainViewer API Sunset: A Migration Guide

2025-08-18

RainViewer API Sunset: A Migration Guide

After 10 years, RainViewer founder Oleksii Schastlyvyi announces the transition of its API services to limited operation throughout 2025. This isn't a marketing piece, but a genuine guide for developers who have supported RainViewer. The article presents five alternative API services: Rainbow.ai (closest technical match, providing past and nowcast radar tiles), OpenWeatherMap (developer-friendly, comprehensive data), Meteoblue (high precision, especially in Europe), Tomorrow.io (global coverage with satellite data), and Xweather (professional-grade accuracy, data from Vaisala). Migration strategy recommendations are provided based on technical requirements, budget, and geographic needs. The author expresses gratitude to the developer community.

(www.rainviewer.com)

Development API Migration Weather Radar Data

HP's 15-Minute Mandatory Wait Times for Tech Support Backfire Spectacularly

2025-02-21

HP's 15-Minute Mandatory Wait Times for Tech Support Backfire Spectacularly

HP implemented a controversial policy of forcing 15-minute wait times on tech support calls in several European countries. The goal was to push customers towards online self-service options. However, the policy backfired, causing significant customer frustration and internal backlash. After facing criticism, HP reversed the policy, admitting that timely access to live support was paramount. The incident highlights a disconnect between management decisions and the impact on both customers and employees.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech tech support

Mastering the Spotlight: Prioritization in Tech

2025-03-07

In the fast-paced world of tech, not all work is created equal. This article highlights that most high-priority tasks are actually low-impact. Success hinges on recognizing the 'spotlight' moments – projects receiving intense leadership focus. Engineers must develop the ability to quickly identify and seize these opportunities, dedicating themselves to high-impact projects. Conversely, when the spotlight isn't on them, leveraging personal time for valuable projects enhances skills and company contributions. This requires not just judgment but a skill honed through practice.

(www.seangoedecke.com)

Development

Massive Security Flaw Exposes Burger King, Popeyes, and Tim Hortons' Global Systems

2025-09-06

Massive Security Flaw Exposes Burger King, Popeyes, and Tim Hortons' Global Systems

Security researchers discovered critical vulnerabilities in the global ordering systems of Restaurant Brands International (RBI), impacting Burger King, Popeyes, and Tim Hortons. Attackers could access data from every store without authentication, including employee information, internal IDs, configuration details, and thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of customer voice recordings containing personally identifiable information (PII). The vulnerabilities stemmed from easily exploitable APIs allowing unauthorized user registration and admin access. RBI responded swiftly to patch the vulnerabilities after the report.

(bobdahacker.com)

Tech

DuckDB Preview: Seamlessly Connect to Amazon S3 Tables and SageMaker Lakehouse

2025-03-18

DuckDB Preview: Seamlessly Connect to Amazon S3 Tables and SageMaker Lakehouse

DuckDB announces a preview feature adding support for Apache Iceberg REST Catalogs, enabling easy connection to Amazon S3 Tables and Amazon SageMaker Lakehouse. This collaboration between AWS and DuckDB Labs allows users to query Iceberg tables directly. By installing the latest DuckDB and necessary extensions, configuring AWS credentials, and using simple commands, users can access and query data, even with schema evolution. This preview release paves the way for a stable release later this year.

(duckdb.org)

Development

Memfault is Hiring: Android SDK Engineer ($100k-$180k)

2025-02-06

Memfault is Hiring: Android SDK Engineer ($100k-$180k)

Memfault, an IoT reliability platform, is seeking an Android (AOSP) SDK Engineer. You'll collaborate with SDK leads (Linux, MCU) and cross-functional teams to shape the future of Android at Memfault. Expect a diverse tech stack spanning microcontroller SDKs, large-scale backend data processing, and complex frontend charting. The company encourages broad contribution across its technology and offers flexible work arrangements with regular team gatherings and annual off-sites.

(jobs.lever.co)

Development

18 Toy Projects to Rekindle Your Programming Joy

2025-06-15

The author advocates for a hands-on approach to learning, believing that creating is the best way to understand. The article lists 18 toy programming projects of varying difficulty and time commitment, ranging from OS kernels and game emulators to physics engines, compilers, and GUI toolkits. These projects aim to reignite the joy of programming and enhance technical skills. Difficulty levels are provided, making them accessible to programmers of all levels, along with links to helpful resources.

(www.jsbarretto.com)

Development toy projects

Don't Use the Obsolete ISO/IEC 14977:1996 EBNF Specification!

2025-05-19

This essay strongly advises against using the ISO/IEC 14977:1996 EBNF specification due to its numerous flaws. The author details the specification's shortcomings, including its lack of support for Unicode characters, character ranges, and common regular expression syntax, as well as its cumbersome "one or more" notation. The author argues that the specification is difficult to understand, lacks readability, and is out of sync with modern software development practices. In contrast, the W3C's EBNF specification is presented as a more concise, user-friendly, and compatible alternative. The author also points out that blindly following ISO standards isn't always correct; choosing the most suitable tool is paramount, rather than being constrained by outdated standards.

(dwheeler.com)

Development

Nextest: Why Process-per-Test?

2025-01-12

Nextest: Why Process-per-Test?

Cargo-nextest, a Rust test runner, distinguishes itself by running each test in a separate process. This article delves into the rationale, emphasizing not just the technical benefits but also its role as a coordination point within the massive Rust ecosystem. Process isolation prevents test interference, addressing issues like shared resource contention and memory leaks, thus boosting reliability. While process creation incurs some overhead, the advantages outweigh the costs, particularly for large test suites, making it a stable and reliable focal point in Rust testing.

(sunshowers.io)

Development test runner process isolation

2024 Amiga Game Releases Index: Retro Gaming Thrives

2024-12-31

2024 Amiga Game Releases Index: Retro Gaming Thrives

The Lemon Amiga website has released its 2024 index of Amiga game releases, showcasing a plethora of new titles spanning various genres, including platformers, puzzles, and shooters. The index features both faithful ports of classic arcade games and original creations, highlighting the vibrant Amiga gaming community. It also includes game prototypes and titles under development, demonstrating the enduring passion for Amiga game creation.

(www.lemonamiga.com)

Game Amiga games retro gaming

The Secret of Elite Sales: It's Not Skill, It's Emotional Manipulation

2025-01-05

The Secret of Elite Sales: It's Not Skill, It's Emotional Manipulation

The author recounts three encounters with elite salespeople: a con artist in an Iowa jail, a top performer in a telemarketing call center, and a master street beggar. The author discovers that top sales aren't about skill, but about manipulating customer emotions. They create demand with their words, skillfully navigating rejection to achieve sales targets. The author's personal experience reveals the brutal reality of the sales industry and its impact on individuals and society. The article explores the evolution of sales from a respected profession to a pervasive force shaping modern life, where everyone is constantly selling themselves.

(slate.com)

Startup sales techniques emotional manipulation psychology

Microbial Minimalism: A Newly Discovered Archaeon Challenges the Definition of Life

2025-08-20

Microbial Minimalism: A Newly Discovered Archaeon Challenges the Definition of Life

Scientists have discovered Sukunaarchaeum mirabile, an archaeon with one of the smallest genomes on Earth. Surprisingly, this organism is almost entirely dependent on its host for survival, lacking genes for essential metabolic functions. This discovery challenges fundamental understandings of life and suggests a new archaeal lineage. The researchers believe many more such life-defying microbes may exist within the 'microbial dark matter', further highlighting the vast unknowns in the microbial world.

(nautil.us)

Tech life definition

arXivLabs: Experimenting with Community Collaboration

2025-06-10

arXivLabs is a framework enabling collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Individuals and organizations involved share our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners who adhere to them. Got an idea for a project that will benefit the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

(arxiv.org)

Tech

JWST Discovery: Was the Universe Born Inside a Black Hole?

2025-03-15

JWST Discovery: Was the Universe Born Inside a Black Hole?

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has made a startling discovery: most early universe galaxies rotate in the same direction, contradicting random universe models. One explanation is that the universe was born rotating, aligning with 'black hole cosmology,' which posits our universe resides inside a black hole. This challenges existing cosmological theories, suggesting each black hole might birth a new 'baby universe'. The research, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, prompts a re-evaluation of the universe's origins and may necessitate recalibrating deep-space distance measurements.

(www.space.com)

Tech Black Hole Cosmology Universe Origin

Beware Fake Unsubscribe Links: A New Phishing Scam

2025-06-15

Beware Fake Unsubscribe Links: A New Phishing Scam

Online scammers are employing increasingly sophisticated tactics, including deepfake audio and AI-generated images. However, some continue to use simpler methods, such as fake unsubscribe links in emails. Clicking these links can lead to malicious websites designed to steal login credentials or other personal information. The article recommends using email service provider's 'list-unsubscribe headers' for safer unsubscribing, or simply marking as junk. Setting up dummy email accounts or leveraging browser privacy features are also effective countermeasures.

(www.popsci.com)

Tech email scams

Meta's Wrist-Based sEMG: Mind-Controlled VR is Closer Than You Think

2025-01-10

Meta's Quest blog announced a groundbreaking new technology: a wrist-based surface electromyography (sEMG) wearable that lets users control their Meta Quest VR headset solely through wrist muscle movements. The device uses advanced sensors to detect subtle muscle activity, translating it into digital signals for precise VR control. This promises a revolutionary leap in VR interaction, offering a more natural and intuitive experience and potentially providing more accessible VR for individuals with disabilities. While still under development, the technology hints at a significant shift in future human-computer interaction.

(www.meta.com)

Tech VR interaction sEMG sensor wearable technology

Sidekick: A Powerful, Locally-Run LLM App for macOS

2025-03-11

Sidekick: A Powerful, Locally-Run LLM App for macOS

Sidekick is a native macOS LLM application that runs entirely locally, accessing your files, folders, and websites without needing extra software. Utilizing RAG technology, it handles vast datasets, supports multiple reasoning models including a code interpreter, generates images, and boasts advanced Markdown rendering capabilities, plus built-in writing assistant tools. Sidekick prioritizes simplicity and ease of use, operating entirely offline, with no conversation tracking, and an open-source approach for transparency.

(github.com)

Development local LLM

Reinforcement Learning Algorithms from Sutton's Book

2025-05-06

Reinforcement Learning Algorithms from Sutton's Book

This GitHub repository provides code implementing algorithms and models from Sutton's renowned reinforcement learning textbook, "Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction." The code covers various model-free solvers, requiring only the definition of states, actions, and a transition function. Examples include a single-state infinite variance problem and a Monte Carlo Tree Search maze solver. While not optimized for production, it's a valuable resource for learning reinforcement learning and implementing algorithms from scratch.

(github.com)

Development

The GLP-1 Shortage Ends: A Battle of Price and Legal Loopholes

2025-03-15

The GLP-1 Shortage Ends: A Battle of Price and Legal Loopholes

Three GLP-1 weight-loss drugs approved in the US soared in price due to shortages, leading telehealth startups to partner with compounding pharmacies to sell them cheaply. However, with the FDA declaring the shortage over, this is about to change. Pharmacies are attempting various legal strategies to continue sales, including modifying dosages or adding ingredients, but their success is questionable. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies are launching new direct-to-consumer models with prices between high and low, and are taking steps to prevent dosage arbitrage. The outcome will affect millions relying on these drugs, offering a new perspective on innovation in pharmaceutical business models.

(www.astralcodexten.com)

Tech weight loss drugs pharmaceutical pricing

Blast from the Past: Classic CDE Desktop Environment Added to OpenBSD Ports

2025-07-31

The classic Unix desktop environment, CDE (Common Desktop Environment), is making a comeback! OpenBSD developers have imported CDE 2.5.2 into their ports collection. While not yet directly installable as a package (it needs some fixes and improvements), nostalgic developers can compile it locally and experience the classic Unix desktop. A warning: the code is old and insecure, not recommended as a daily driver, but fun for a trip down memory lane.

(undeadly.org)

Development Unix Desktop Environment

Florida Insurers: A Masquerade of Poverty?

2025-02-22

Florida Insurers: A Masquerade of Poverty?

An unreleased study reveals that while Florida insurers claimed losses after hurricanes Irma and Michael, their parent companies and affiliates raked in billions of dollars. The study found that insurers distributed $680 million in dividends to shareholders while diverting billions more to affiliates, leaving some insurers financially weakened and potentially unable to pay claims. Despite state lawmakers never seeing the report, its findings confirm long-held suspicions about Florida's insurance market: companies claim poverty to raise premiums or justify insolvency, citing litigation and fraud, while shifting money internally. Regulators are taking steps to increase oversight of affiliates, but some question whether these measures are sufficient to address the problem.

(www.tampabay.com)

Misc insurance fraud affiliates

Codeberg: A Non-Profit Git Hosting Platform Championing Open Source

2025-02-04

Codeberg, a non-profit organization based in Berlin, Germany, operates a Git hosting platform prioritizing the commons. Unlike commercial platforms, Codeberg rejects tracking, third-party cookies, and profiteering. It maintains its own servers, ensuring user data remains secure and is never sold. Its vibrant community comprises developers, artists, academics, hobbyists, and professionals united by a passion for free culture, openness, and creativity. Codeberg's future depends on its users, and welcomes global participation.

(codeberg.org)

Development

Is Your X Feed Poisoning You? Free Social Media Feed Analysis

2025-01-19

IsMyFeedF*cked is an anonymous and private tool that analyzes your social media feed (e.g., X) without requiring an account. Simply upload a 2-minute screen recording of your typical scrolling, and receive a detailed report covering key metrics and insights, including overall feed health, political balance, vibe assessment, and violence level. The report reveals how your feed shapes your thoughts, emotions, and identifies blind spots, offering actionable recommendations to regain control.

(www.ismyxfeedfucked.com)

Misc feed analysis mental wellbeing

Running NetBSD on a Vintage ThinkPad 380Z: A Retro Computing Adventure

2024-12-17

The author acquired a 1998 IBM ThinkPad 380Z and embarked on a journey to install an operating system on it. After trying several options, NetBSD proved to be the best choice due to its excellent performance, hardware support, and stability. The article details the process of upgrading the hard drive, connecting to the network, installing NetBSD, and configuring various software components, including the X Window System, WireGuard, and a terminal emulator. The author successfully transformed this vintage ThinkPad into a functional machine suitable for lightweight programming, note-taking, and other tasks.

(luke8086.dev)

Misc

Incremental Compiler Course: From Tiger to x86-64 Assembly in OCaml

2025-04-05

This is a highly practical compiler course aiming to build a compiler that translates the high-level Tiger language into x86-64 machine code. The course uses OCaml and emphasizes test-driven development, version control, and code reuse. It employs an iterative, incremental development approach, gradually extending language and compiler features, leveraging the tagless-final style for enhanced extensibility. The course covers standard compiler topics like parsing, type checking, optimization, and assembly generation, but in a non-traditional way.

(okmij.org)

Development incremental development

A Lavish 16th-Century Christening: A Pictorial Record

2025-08-11

A Lavish 16th-Century Christening: A Pictorial Record

The christening of Princess Elisabeth von Hessen-Kassel in 1596 was a four-day extravaganza featuring fireworks, knightly tournaments (among the last in Europe), and elaborate pageantry. Engineer-engraver Wilhelm Dilich commemorated the event with his richly illustrated work, *Historische Beschreibung der Kindtauf des Fräuleins Elisabeth zu Hessen* (Description of the Christening of Lady Elisabeth of Hesse). The images depict the four-day celebration and showcase the participants' costumes, drawing on mythological, allegorical, and historical figures: Hannibal, Impudence, Alexander the Great, Jason, Perseus, Fortune, and Julius Caesar all make appearances.

(publicdomainreview.org)

Misc celebration

Lumina-DiMOO: A Revolutionary Open-Source Multimodal Diffusion Model

2025-09-12

Lumina-DiMOO is an open-source foundational model for seamless multimodal generation and understanding. Unlike previous unified models, it uses a fully discrete diffusion modeling approach for all input and output modalities, resulting in significantly higher sampling efficiency compared to autoregressive or hybrid models. It adeptly handles tasks like text-to-image, image-to-image generation (including editing, subject-driven generation, and inpainting), and image understanding, achieving state-of-the-art performance on multiple benchmarks. The code and checkpoints are publicly available to advance research in multimodal and discrete diffusion modeling.

(synbol.github.io)

AI

LLMs and AI: Scraping the Web Dry

2025-03-20

LLMs and AI: Scraping the Web Dry

LLM and AI companies are aggressively scraping data from the web, targeting everything from large websites to small project forges like the GNOME GitLab server. This unchecked scraping is overwhelming servers and creating significant financial burdens and security risks for website owners. The author urges website owners to set billing limits to avoid unexpected costs and condemns the irresponsible actions of these companies. The question is raised: how long until personal websites and services like Mastodon become targets?

(sethmlarson.dev)

Tech AI abuse

J.G.A. Pocock's 'The Machiavellian Moment': A History of Political Contention

2024-12-27

J.G.A. Pocock's 'The Machiavellian Moment': A History of Political Contention

This article explores the impact of J.G.A. Pocock's influential work, 'The Machiavellian Moment,' on historiography and political thought. Pocock challenged the purely liberal interpretation of the American founding myth, arguing for the enduring presence of classical republicanism, sparking intense debate. This controversy extended beyond differing historical interpretations, touching upon the core of American national identity. Pocock's central argument posits the inherent political nature of historical narratives and the crucial role of historians in shaping political identities, highlighting the inevitable political contestation surrounding historical interpretations.

(aeon.co)

Misc Political Thought American Founding

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