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Can Design Save the World? A Look at Design's Ideals and Limitations

2025-06-29

Can Design Save the World? A Look at Design's Ideals and Limitations

This article explores the social responsibility and limitations of design. From its humble beginnings as decorative art to its current involvement in hardware, software, services, and infrastructure, design now carries increasingly significant responsibilities. The author reviews key figures and events in design history, such as Eva Zeisel, the Bauhaus school, and Steve Jobs, showcasing the evolution of design philosophy. However, the popularity of design thinking has also brought challenges. The case of Gainesville, Florida, illustrates how design thinking failed to effectively address deep-seated social issues. Ultimately, the article emphasizes that design can contribute to building a better society, but it must avoid detachment from political and social realities. Participatory design and collaboration with other fields are crucial to truly address 'wicked problems'.

(www.theatlantic.com)

Design design thinking

Autonomous Agents: Turning Every Engineer into an Engineering Manager

2025-08-06

Developer tooling has come a long way, from autocomplete to copilots and now autonomous agents. This article explores how to effectively work alongside these agents to boost development efficiency. Key insights shared include clearly defining tasks, providing sufficient context, leveraging CI/CD for feedback loops, and understanding the limitations of these agents. While not a silver bullet, autonomous agents can significantly save time, freeing engineers from tedious tasks and allowing them to focus on more creative work.

(devin.ai)

Development

Misleading Adblocker Test Websites: A Critique from Brave

2025-02-20

Misleading Adblocker Test Websites: A Critique from Brave

Shivan Kaul Sahib, Lead for Privacy Engineering at Brave, criticizes many existing adblocker testing websites. These sites employ flawed methodologies, including arbitrary testing criteria, failure to emulate real-world scenarios, disregard for advanced features (like resource replacement), and inability to account for domain-specific rules. This leads to misleading results, even harming the adblocking ecosystem. Kaul Sahib argues that adblockers should be compared based on native support, performance, advanced features, and ethical practices, not low-quality tests. Brave refuses payments to unblock advertisers, collaborates with reputable testing sites, and strives for improved web privacy.

(brave.com)

Tech adblocker Brave browser

Microsoft Finally Fixes Security Update That Broke Dual-Booting

2025-05-18

Microsoft Finally Fixes Security Update That Broke Dual-Booting

Last August, a security update intended to address a GRUB bootloader vulnerability inadvertently broke dual-booting Windows and Linux on Secure Boot-enabled systems. This vulnerability allowed malicious actors to bypass Secure Boot's safety mechanisms. Nine months later, on May 13, 2025, Microsoft quietly released a patch (KB5058385) to fix the issue. The patch mitigates problems by refining how Secure Boot Advanced Targeting (SBAT) interacts with dual-boot systems, preventing legitimate Linux bootloaders from being blocked and avoiding "Security Policy Violation" errors. The fix applies to Windows 11 23H2, 22H2, 21H2; Windows 10 21H2; and Windows Enterprise 2015 LTSB, Windows Server 2022, 2019, 2016, 2012, 2012 R2. The patch is automatically applied via Windows Update.

(news.itsfoss.com)

Development dual-booting

A Riddle About Love and Weight

2025-08-01

A Riddle About Love and Weight

An author shares a riddle he created in high school: François and Marianne, a couple, lived together for ten years, buying 10kg of groceries weekly. After their divorce, each buys 5kg, yet the basket feels heavier. The riddle explores how the burden of life feels heavier after love fades.

(barycentre.substack.com)

Misc riddle love

UK Parliament Narrowly Approves Assisted Dying Bill

2025-06-20

UK Parliament Narrowly Approves Assisted Dying Bill

The UK Parliament narrowly passed a bill legalizing assisted dying for terminally ill individuals after a heated debate. The bill, which allows those with less than six months to live and a terminal illness to end their lives under strict conditions, places the UK among a small number of countries permitting assisted dying. The decision sparks complex discussions about autonomy, ethics, and resource allocation. Supporters argue it offers a compassionate choice for the terminally ill, while opponents express concerns about ethical implications and call for improvements in palliative care. The bill now moves to the House of Lords for further scrutiny.

(edition.cnn.com)

Misc assisted dying euthanasia UK Parliament

Enterprise Software's Next Frontier: From Records to Autonomous Agents

2025-02-26

Enterprise software is undergoing a revolutionary shift: static data records are evolving into autonomous agents. The article explores three eras of enterprise software: the database era, the cloud era, and the upcoming autonomous agent era. In this third era, leveraging actor models, durable execution, state machines, and LLMs, business objects like invoices gain the ability to autonomously handle processes such as automatic approval, information gathering, policy interpretation, and cross-system coordination. This isn't simply AI replacing humans; it's giving life to data objects themselves, reshaping business processes, enabling more granular operations, and providing more powerful analytical capabilities. Companies are already experimenting with this model, such as CoPlane, Koala, and Hightouch, transforming static data into goal-oriented entities for more efficient workflows.

(sperand.io)

Development autonomous agents

DeepSeek's AI Breakthrough: Bypassing CUDA for 10x Efficiency

2025-01-29

DeepSeek's AI Breakthrough: Bypassing CUDA for 10x Efficiency

DeepSeek achieved a 10x efficiency boost in AI model training by bypassing the industry-standard CUDA and using Nvidia's PTX programming language instead. Employing 2,048 Nvidia H800 GPUs, they trained a 671-billion parameter MoE language model in just two months. This breakthrough stemmed from meticulous optimizations of Nvidia's PTX, including reconfiguring GPU resources and implementing advanced pipeline algorithms. While this approach has high maintenance costs, the drastic reduction in training expenses sent shockwaves through the market, even causing a significant drop in Nvidia's market capitalization.

(www.tomshardware.com)

AI

Synthesizing OOP and Functional Design for Reusability

2025-09-09

This 1998 ECOOP paper tackles the challenge of extending both tools and data types in evolving programs by combining the strengths of object-oriented and functional programming. Traditional approaches struggle to support both: functional programming excels at adding tools, while OOP excels at adding new tools or extending datasets, but not both simultaneously. The paper proposes a composite design pattern that synthesizes the best of both, suggesting new linguistic features for class-based languages to achieve extensibility without modifying existing code.

(cs.brown.edu)

Development code reuse

Traits of Exceptional Programmers: It's Not About Genius, It's About Habits

2025-04-09

Traits of Exceptional Programmers: It's Not About Genius, It's About Habits

This article outlines the common traits of exceptional programmers, as observed by the author. These include meticulously reading documentation, thoroughly analyzing error messages, breaking down complex problems, actively contributing and helping others, strong writing skills, continuous learning without chasing trends, humility and a willingness to learn from everyone, building a strong reputation, patience and persistence, taking ownership of bugs, admitting 'I don't know', avoiding guesswork, and prioritizing simplicity in code. The author emphasizes that becoming an exceptional programmer is a journey, not a race, requiring consistent effort and dedication.

(endler.dev)

Development

Why C for Codec Implementation?

2025-03-08

Why C for Codec Implementation?

This blog post explores the author's choice of C over Rust for implementing codecs. While Rust offers a powerful type system and memory safety features, these benefits come at a performance cost in low-level, performance-critical code like codecs. The author argues that C's simplicity and direct control over hardware make it better suited for high-performance codec development. Examples from PAQ8, bzip3, and LZ4 implementations highlight memory management and performance optimization challenges. The author finds low-level optimization easier in C. While Rust's safety is advantageous, the overhead is unacceptable in performance-demanding scenarios.

(palaiologos.rocks)

Development

Internet Archive's Great 78 Project Faces Copyright Lawsuit: Preservation or Infringement?

2025-03-07

Internet Archive's Great 78 Project Faces Copyright Lawsuit: Preservation or Infringement?

The Internet Archive (IA) is facing a copyright lawsuit over its "Great 78 Project." Music publishers argue that the songs included are readily available elsewhere and don't need archiving. However, archivists and the Association for Recorded Sound Collections counter that 78 RPM records are scarce, many aren't commercially re-released, and IA's project is crucial for preservation and long-term access. They emphasize the project's value extends beyond the audio, including metadata such as labels and copyright information. The dispute highlights the tension between preserving cultural heritage and copyright restrictions in the digital age.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech Digital Archive 78 RPM Records

Google Services Suffer Major Outage Across Eastern Europe

2025-09-04

Google Services Suffer Major Outage Across Eastern Europe

On September 4th, a widespread outage impacted numerous core Google services across several Eastern European countries, including Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece, causing significant disruptions to daily life and work. Affected services included YouTube, Google Maps, Google Search, Gmail, and Google Drive, with users reporting failures to load videos, map data, search results, and send/receive emails. While not all Google services were affected, the disruption to core services caused major inconvenience for a large number of users. Initial reports point to a server-side issue at Google, rather than user-side connectivity problems.

(www.novinite.com)

Tech Google outage Eastern Europe

Gaussian Processes: A Gentle Introduction

2025-08-18

Gaussian Processes: A Gentle Introduction

This blog post provides an accessible introduction to Gaussian processes (GPs), a powerful tool in machine learning. Starting with the fundamentals of multivariate Gaussian distributions, it explains marginalization and conditioning, leading to the core concept of GPs: predicting data by incorporating prior knowledge. Interactive figures and practical examples illustrate how GPs use kernel functions to define covariance matrices, controlling the shape of the predicted function. Bayesian inference updates the model with training data, allowing for prediction of function values and their confidence intervals.

(distill.pub)

AI Gaussian Processes

VW's Pay-to-Unlock Horsepower Feature Sparks Debate

2025-08-16

Volkswagen is offering a paid upgrade to unlock extra horsepower in its vehicles, sparking controversy. Owners question why this power is present but requires additional payment. VW argues this mirrors traditional options for different engine power, but shifted to a post-purchase choice. However, unofficially unlocking this power ('jailbreaking') could void warranties or invite legal action. This practice isn't unique to VW; BMW and Polestar have also offered similar paid performance upgrades.

(www.autoexpress.co.uk)

Tech pay-to-unlock vehicle performance

C STL Library Performance Showdown: Does M*LIB Reign Supreme?

2025-08-17

C STL Library Performance Showdown: Does M*LIB Reign Supreme?

This project compares several C libraries offering C++ STL-like container template functionalities. The author is a primary contributor to one of these libraries, M*LIB. For comparison, the author implemented the same simple programs using each library and compared performance and API ergonomics. Results show a mixed bag in terms of performance and features, with M*LIB showing promise. However, the project is a work in progress and contributions are welcome.

(github.com)

Development

DuckDB Now Has a Built-in Local UI!

2025-03-12

DuckDB Now Has a Built-in Local UI!

The DuckDB team and MotherDuck are thrilled to announce a built-in local UI for DuckDB! This powerful web interface runs locally, eliminating the need for extra software. It features interactive notebooks, database browsing, table data preview, and data analysis tools, making interacting with DuckDB significantly easier. All queries are processed locally for enhanced data security. The UI also offers optional connection to MotherDuck cloud services for seamless data sharing and collaboration.

(duckdb.org)

Development Local UI

Grief, Motherhood, and the Remaking of Self

2025-02-12

Grief, Motherhood, and the Remaking of Self

The author recounts her transformative year, marked by her husband's death from cancer and the birth of her daughter. This profound duality reshaped her brain, impacting memory, anxiety, and sense of self. The article details the neurological changes brought on by grief and motherhood, highlighting a blurring of identity and the struggle to navigate a new reality. Despite the immense pain, she finds strength in her daughter and commits to building a future.

(bessstillman.substack.com)

Misc grief motherhood identity

FFmpeg 8.0 "Huffman" Released: Vulkan-Accelerated Decoding/Encoding and More

2025-08-23

FFmpeg 8.0 "Huffman" is here! After several delays, this major release delivers the largest update yet. It introduces a new class of decoders and encoders based on pure Vulkan compute, supporting FFv1 and ProRes RAW (decode only). This unlocks significant speed improvements across various hardware, opening possibilities for non-linear video editing and lossless screen recording/streaming. The release also boasts native decoders for APV, ProRes RAW, RealVideo 6.0, and more, plus hardware-accelerated decoding/encoding enhancements for Vulkan VP9, VAAPI VVC, and OpenHarmony H264/5. Numerous format and filter improvements round out this substantial update.

(ffmpeg.org)

Development Video Codec

Mathpad: Effortless Equation Typing with a Dedicated Keypad

2025-05-26

Mathpad: Effortless Equation Typing with a Dedicated Keypad

Mathpad is a keypad designed for engineers, scientists, students, and STEM professionals who frequently work with equations. It allows for easy input of 112 symbols from algebra, calculus, set theory, and logic, plus the entire Greek alphabet. Connecting via USB-C, Mathpad works seamlessly with your existing keyboard on Windows, macOS, and virtually all Unix systems. It supports multiple output modes including plaintext, LaTeX, and the Microsoft Office equation editor. The open-source hardware project will soon be available on Crowd Supply.

(github.com)

Hardware hardware keyboard math input

Excel's MAP Function: Functional Mapping of Array Elements

2025-04-04

Excel's MAP function offers a powerful way to process arrays. It transforms each element in an array using a custom LAMBDA function and returns a new array. You can input multiple arrays, and the LAMBDA function will calculate the elements at corresponding positions. This makes batch data processing concise and efficient; simply define the calculation formula, and the MAP function automatically completes the mapping of all elements.

(support.apple.com)

Development MAP function LAMBDA function

Conquering Japanese Writing: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji

2025-03-27

Learning Japanese begins with its intricate writing system: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. This article provides a clear explanation of how these three scripts are used, their historical evolution, the Joyo Kanji list, and the JLPT. It also offers learning tips, guiding learners to master this system step-by-step, ultimately enabling fluent reading and writing in Japanese.

(www.kanjimaster.ai)

Development Japanese learning Kanji Writing System

The Man Keeping 70-Year-Old Pinball Machines Alive

2025-01-06

The Man Keeping 70-Year-Old Pinball Machines Alive

Steve Young, a metallurgical engineer with a lifelong passion for pinball, has built The Pinball Resource, a unique business that supplies parts and expertise for repairing vintage pinball machines. His vast collection of rare parts and schematics, accumulated over 50 years, makes him the go-to resource for enthusiasts worldwide. Operating out of an unassuming workshop, Young eschews modern marketing, relying instead on word-of-mouth and a reputation for trust and expertise to maintain his thriving, old-school business.

(arstechnica.com)

Game vintage games pinball

Make Ubuntu Packages 90% Faster: A Tale of Recompilation and Allocators

2025-03-19

Make Ubuntu Packages 90% Faster: A Tale of Recompilation and Allocators

This post details how recompiling the jq source package used by Ubuntu resulted in a staggering 90% performance improvement. The author benchmarked against a 500MB GeoJSON file. Simply rebuilding the package yielded a small but noticeable speedup. Further optimizations included using clang with better flags (-O3, -flto, -DNDEBUG), which provided a 20% boost. Switching to the TCMalloc allocator improved performance by another 40%. Finally, using mimalloc, either dynamically loaded or integrated during the rebuild, resulted in the remarkable 90% speed increase. The recompiled jq with mimalloc is nearly twice as fast as the default Ubuntu package in various tests.

(gist.github.com)

Development compilation optimization memory allocation

Troubleshooting Amazon EKS Authentication Error: "You must be logged in to the server (Unauthorized)"

2025-02-18

Troubleshooting Amazon EKS Authentication Error:

Encountering the "You must be logged in to the server (Unauthorized)" error when connecting to the Amazon EKS API server? This usually happens because the IAM entity configured in kubectl isn't authenticated by Amazon EKS. This guide details solutions for two scenarios: you are the cluster creator or you are not. If you're the cluster creator, verify that the IAM entity configured for the AWS CLI matches the one used to create the cluster and update your kubeconfig file using `aws eks update-kubeconfig`. If not, map your IAM entity to the aws-auth ConfigMap using `eksctl create iamidentitymapping` or by manually editing the ConfigMap. Finally, don't forget to check CloudWatch logs for troubleshooting.

(repost.aws)

Development

NVIDIA's RTX 50 Series: A Disaster Fueled by Monopoly?

2025-07-05

NVIDIA's RTX 50 Series: A Disaster Fueled by Monopoly?

Since the disastrous launch of the RTX 50 series, NVIDIA has faced a barrage of criticism: scalpers control stock, prices far exceed MSRP, power connectors continue to melt, marketing is deceptive, GPUs arrive with missing components, drivers are unstable, and NVIDIA is accused of manipulating media narratives. This reflects a growing indifference to consumer needs, prioritizing data center GPU profits. The RTX 50 series not only perpetuates the 12VHPWR connector melting issues but introduces Multi-Frame Generation (MFG) in drivers, sacrificing image quality for higher frame rates, resulting in blurry visuals. Accusations of intimidating reviewers to influence reviews further damage their reputation. The RTX 50 series launch showcases the negative consequences of NVIDIA's monopoly, harming consumers.

(blog.sebin-nyshkim.net)

Hardware

Simplified Omarchy Installation on CachyOS

2025-09-15

Simplified Omarchy Installation on CachyOS

This project offers a script for installing DHH's Omarchy desktop configuration on CachyOS, a performance-optimized Arch Linux distribution. Omarchy, a Hyprland-based setup, prioritizes simplicity and productivity. The script streamlines the installation but requires familiarity with Arch Linux. It doesn't install CachyOS or handle partitioning, formatting, or encryption; users must do this beforehand. The script opts for Yay (AUR helper) and Fish (shell), retaining CachyOS's Tealdeer and Omarchy's Mise. Importantly, it doesn't install a display manager or autostart Hyprland unless already installed by CachyOS. No warranty is provided; use at your own risk.

(github.com)

Development

London Suburb Dweller's Megawatt-Hour Battery Dream

2025-09-15

London Suburb Dweller's Megawatt-Hour Battery Dream

A London suburban resident attempts to calculate the battery size needed for complete home energy self-sufficiency. Using data from their solar panels (generating 3800 kWh annually, matching their consumption), and years of data analysis, they find a massive 1068 kWh (nearly a megawatt-hour) battery is required to store summer's excess energy for winter use. While currently unrealistic due to technology and cost, they remain optimistic about future battery technology advancements and price drops, envisioning a future where every home has such a battery, achieving complete solar self-sufficiency.

(shkspr.mobi)

Tech batteries energy self-sufficiency

Deep Dive: Humans to Test Underwater Habitat in 2025

2025-01-06

Deep Dive: Humans to Test Underwater Habitat in 2025

British startup Deep is pioneering underwater living with its Sentinel project, a modular habitat slated for completion in 2027. Utilizing advanced 3D printing and welding, Sentinel will enable scientists to live and work at depths up to 200 meters for extended periods. A smaller, transportable habitat called Vanguard, launching in 2025, will serve as a testbed. Vanguard can house three divers for up to a week, demonstrating the potential to dramatically increase the efficiency of ocean research and enhance our understanding of marine ecosystems in the face of climate change.

(spectrum.ieee.org)

Tech Underwater Habitat Ocean Exploration 3D Printing

10 Awesome D Language Features You Should Know

2025-07-03

This beginner-friendly post explores ten captivating features of the D programming language. From smaller quality-of-life improvements to major features like automatic constructors, design by contract, compile-time function execution (CTFE), and built-in unit testing, the article provides clear explanations. D's powerful metaprogramming capabilities are also highlighted, rivaling few statically compiled languages in flexibility and modeling power. The post also covers unique D syntax features such as the dollar operator, parenthesis omission, and uniform function call syntax (UFCS), significantly improving code readability and efficiency. Additionally, D supports scoped and selective imports and a built-in documentation generator, further enhancing code maintainability and readability. In short, D offers a compelling blend of features for efficient and convenient programming.

(bradley.chatha.dev)

Development Features

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