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Speeding Up Merge Sort with CUDA: A Parallel Computing Adventure

2025-03-12

Building on a previous post about sorting algorithms, this article explores performance improvements using CUDA for parallel computing. The author implements merge sort, initially using a recursive top-down approach. However, this proves inefficient in CUDA. Switching to an iterative bottom-up merge sort and parallelizing the merge operations yields significant performance gains. Benchmarking shows the CUDA iterative approach is competitive with, and sometimes outperforms, standard CPU sorting for larger arrays.

(ashwanirathee.com)

Development Merge Sort

Stanford Study: AI Chatbots Fail Basic Mental Health Therapy Tests

2025-07-12

Stanford Study: AI Chatbots Fail Basic Mental Health Therapy Tests

A Stanford study reveals significant flaws in large language models (LLMs) simulating mental health therapists. Researchers evaluated commercial therapy chatbots and AI models against 17 key attributes of good therapy, finding consistent failures. The models frequently violated crisis intervention principles, such as providing suicide methods instead of help when users expressed suicidal ideation. Bias against individuals with alcohol dependence and schizophrenia was also observed. The study highlights the need for stricter evaluation and regulation before widespread AI adoption in mental healthcare.

(arstechnica.com)

AI

Tenochtitlan: A Lake-Based Metropolis in 1518

2025-02-09

Tenochtitlan: A Lake-Based Metropolis in 1518

In 1518, Tenochtitlan, once a humble settlement on Lake Texcoco, had blossomed into a sprawling metropolis, the capital of an empire ruling over 5 million people. Home to 200,000 farmers, artisans, merchants, soldiers, priests, and aristocrats, it was one of the world's largest cities. Today, we know it as Mexico City. This article uses historical and archaeological sources to vividly recreate this iconic city built on a lake.

(tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl)

Misc ancient city Mexican history Tenochtitlan

Princeton University Unveils Infinigen: An Engine for Generating Infinite Photorealistic Worlds

2024-12-23

Princeton University Unveils Infinigen: An Engine for Generating Infinite Photorealistic Worlds

Princeton University's Visual Learning Lab has released Infinigen, an engine that uses procedural generation to create infinitely varied photorealistic worlds. It can generate both indoor and outdoor scenes and offers features like camera configuration, export to various file formats, and the addition of external assets. Built on Blender and incorporating several open-source projects, Infinigen's code is publicly available with comprehensive documentation and tutorials. The research team published papers on the technology at CVPR 2023 and 2024 and encourages community contributions of code, generators, and data.

(github.com)

AI procedural generation virtual worlds

Bye-Bye Prime: A Canadian's Rational Choice

2025-03-07

Bye-Bye Prime: A Canadian's Rational Choice

A Canadian user canceled their Amazon Prime subscription. The reason wasn't to boycott Amazon, but rather a combination of commercial and emotional factors. Commercially, the need for next-day delivery decreased after a recent move, and other online stores offer comparable products and prices. Emotionally, dissatisfaction with the current US stance towards Canada, coupled with a decline in Amazon's shopping experience (poor search results, ugly interface), led to a shift in spending towards Canadian suppliers. While Prime Video was once a benefit, the poor quality of shows like 'Rings of Power' diminished its appeal. Ultimately, canceling the subscription was a smooth process.

(www.tbray.org)

Misc Amazon Prime

Stategraph: Rethinking Terraform State Management as a Distributed Systems Problem

2025-09-17

Stategraph: Rethinking Terraform State Management as a Distributed Systems Problem

Terraform has long used filesystem semantics to solve a distributed systems problem, resulting in inefficient state management. Stategraph addresses this by treating Terraform state as a directed acyclic graph, leveraging graph database features for subgraph isolation, precise locking, and incremental refresh. This dramatically improves concurrent throughput, solving lock contention and slow refresh times, enabling large teams to collaborate effectively. Stategraph uses PostgreSQL as its backend and is compatible with existing Terraform workflows, requiring no configuration changes for migration.

(stategraph.dev)

Development

Pebble Smartwatch Source Code Now Open Source

2025-01-27

Pebble Smartwatch Source Code Now Open Source

Google has open-sourced the source code for the once-popular Pebble smartwatch. Pebble achieved massive success through Kickstarter, selling over two million units. Acquired by Fitbit in 2016, Fitbit was later acquired by Google. Despite hardware and software support ceasing eight years ago, Pebble maintains a dedicated fanbase. This release includes most of the Pebble OS source code, encompassing features like notifications, media controls, fitness tracking, and a framework for developing apps in C and JavaScript. While some proprietary code was removed, it provides a significant boost for volunteers in the Rebble project to continue supporting Pebble watches.

(opensource.googleblog.com)

Tech Smartwatch

Simulating the Hand-Drawn 'Boiling' Effect with SVG Filters

2025-07-21

Simulating the Hand-Drawn 'Boiling' Effect with SVG Filters

This article details a method for simulating the 'boiling' effect, a common visual style in hand-drawn animation, using SVG filters. This effect creates the illusion of subtle movement by applying slight distortions to image edges. The author explains how to use the feTurbulence and feDisplacementMap filters to generate a noise texture and apply it to an image, and how to animate filter parameters with JavaScript to achieve the boiling effect. Interactive demos allow users to adjust parameters and observe the effect's changes. The author successfully uses simple SVG filters and JavaScript to simulate a realistic hand-drawn animation effect on the web.

(camillovisini.com)

Development

Autology: A Self-Modifying Lisp Interpreter

2025-03-24

Autology: A Self-Modifying Lisp Interpreter

Autology, a functional Lisp interpreter written in Clojure, offers a unique approach to metaprogramming by providing access to its own interpreter. By rebinding the variable *i* (which points to the interpreter function), programs can dynamically alter Autology's syntax and behavior at runtime. This allows for adding functions, changing evaluation strategies, and more. While not particularly performant, Autology provides a fascinating exploration of Lisp metaprogramming and runtime language modification.

(github.com)

Development

Donut Motor: Reimagining In-Wheel Motors

2025-01-11

Donut Motor: Reimagining In-Wheel Motors

Donut Lab unveils the revolutionary Donut Motor, a direct-drive in-wheel motor that transforms electric vehicle powertrains. Offering superior torque and power density, it's lighter, more compact, and boasts lower costs and simpler maintenance, along with significantly improved efficiency. By eliminating the complexities of traditional powertrains, the Donut Motor achieves more precise control and optimized cooling, delivering unprecedented performance across various applications, from cars to drones. Its simplified architecture and ease of integration lower the barrier to entry for EV development.

(www.donutlab.com)

Tech in-wheel motor direct drive

Kamathipura: Resilience and Erasure in Mumbai's Red-Light District

2025-09-13

Kamathipura: Resilience and Erasure in Mumbai's Red-Light District

Kamathipura, Mumbai's infamous red-light district, has for centuries been home to migrants, marginalized communities, and sex workers. Its unique street layout reflects its colonial past and its function as a tolerated zone for sex work. Despite facing poverty, exploitation, and oppression, Kamathipura has developed a remarkable resilience. However, neoliberal redevelopment projects threaten to displace sex workers, transforming it into a sanitized urban landscape. This article explores Kamathipura's history, spatial characteristics, and the challenges it faces in urban renewal, highlighting the resilience of its residents in resisting marginalization and fighting for their right to exist.

(failedarchitecture.com)

Misc sex workers marginalized communities

Bypassing JTAG Locks on Microchip SAM4C32 via Voltage Glitching

2025-04-02

A security researcher has discovered a voltage glitching attack that bypasses the JTAG lock on the Microchip SAM4C32 microcontroller. The attack exploits the reset pin as a side channel, injecting a voltage glitch during power-up to disable the security bit and gain unlocked JTAG access. This method may be applicable to many SAM series microcontrollers using GPNVM bits for security. The vulnerability is likely difficult to patch, posing a significant threat to devices relying on these microcontrollers.

(wiki.recessim.com)

Hardware voltage glitching

tinymcp: Control Embedded Devices with LLMs

2025-07-07

tinymcp: Control Embedded Devices with LLMs

The tinymcp project enables Large Language Models (LLMs) to control embedded devices via the Model Context Protocol (MCP). It leverages Golioth's LightDB state and Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs) to achieve this. Existing devices can expose RPCs without firmware modification by updating LightDB state. A simple blinky example demonstrates exposing LED control to an LLM via tinymcp. Users need to connect a device to the Golioth platform and run the tinymcp server locally. Tools like MCP Inspector and Claude Code are available for testing and interaction with tinymcp.

(github.com)

Development Embedded Devices

Next.js Pre-rendering: How Much Traffic Can It Really Handle?

2025-03-09

Next.js Pre-rendering: How Much Traffic Can It Really Handle?

The author tested the traffic capacity of their Next.js pre-rendered site and found a VPS server could only handle around 200 concurrent requests, far lower than expected. This led to an upgrade to a dedicated server, resulting in a significant performance improvement, handling thousands of requests per second. In contrast, server-side rendering (SSR) performed significantly worse than pre-rendering, struggling under high traffic. The article also discusses the pros and cons of other solutions like Cloudflare and Vercel, ultimately opting for a dedicated server for scalability. Future tests will explore further optimizations.

(martijnhols.nl)

Development Pre-rendering Server Performance

DIY Studio-Grade Ribbon Mic: From ModMic Rage-Quit to Amazing Sound

2025-01-22

In a fit of pique, the author snipped their ModMic cable and decided to build a replacement: a studio-grade ribbon microphone. The post details the entire process, from material selection (using artist's silver leaf, unexpectedly), mechanical design (an ingenious corrugation method), to the circuit design (employing a Lundahl transformer). The resulting DIY microphone not only works perfectly, but sounds amazing, receiving praise for its realistic and immersive sound quality.

(khz.ac)

Hardware Microphone Audio Engineering

Klarity: Uncovering Uncertainty in Generative Models

2025-02-03

Klarity: Uncovering Uncertainty in Generative Models

Klarity is a tool for analyzing uncertainty in generative model outputs. It combines raw probability analysis and semantic understanding to provide deep insights into model behavior during text generation. The library offers dual entropy analysis, semantic clustering, and structured JSON output, along with AI-powered analysis for human-readable insights. Currently supporting Hugging Face Transformers, with plans for broader framework and model support.

(github.com)

AI generative models uncertainty analysis AI tool

PEZY-SC4S: A New High-Efficiency FP64 Processor from Japan

2025-09-10

PEZY-SC4S: A New High-Efficiency FP64 Processor from Japan

PEZY Computing, a Japanese supercomputing company, unveiled its latest architecture, PEZY-SC4S, at Hot Chips 2025. This processor focuses on high-efficiency FP64 computation, utilizing a massively parallel array of execution units running at lower clocks and voltages than contemporary GPUs. PEZY-SC4S features a multi-level cache system to balance capacity and speed, and employs small vectors to reduce throughput losses from branch divergence. Its programming model is similar to OpenCL, making it user-friendly. Compared to its predecessor, PEZY-SC4S boasts significant efficiency improvements, with projected power consumption below 300W and achieving ~91 Gigaflops per Watt. Targeted at applications demanding high-precision computation, such as simulations, the processor highlights Japan's continued investment in independent supercomputing chip development.

(chipsandcheese.com)

Tech supercomputing high-efficiency computing

OCR Challenge: Digitizing Saint-Simon's Memoirs

2024-12-17

The author spent several weeks using OCR to digitize a late 19th-century edition of the 18th-century French memoirs, *Les Mémoires de Saint-Simon*. This 45-volume behemoth, containing over 3 million words, is available online as images, but is difficult to read. The goal was to create a readable, searchable, and copyable text version. Challenges included poor image quality and parsing different page zones (headers, main text, margin comments, footnotes, etc.). Google Vision API was used for OCR, with a Python program processing the results to identify and separate text from different areas. While LLMs failed to reliably handle footnote references, the author improved the program and incorporated manual review, resulting in the release of the first volume.

(blog.medusis.com)

Development Text Processing Digital Humanities

Unexpected Findings from Tracking a Month of Browsing Habits

2025-03-30

The author tracked their web activity for a month using a custom browser extension, revealing surprising results. Gmail, LinkedIn, and Feedbin consumed most of their time, while GitHub, ChatGPT, and Google Docs were also used extensively. This differs significantly from the author's perceived browsing habits (extensive Wikipedia and news reading). The author reflects on the discrepancy between self-perception and actual behavior, using this as an example to discuss blind spots in career choices and personal habits. The author also suggests improvements to Feedbin and shares their experience using a self-made Web Graph Browser.

(mcwhittemore.com)

Misc web usage habits self-perception

Deploying the 671B Parameter DeepSeek R1 LLM Locally

2025-01-31

This post details the experience of deploying the 671B parameter DeepSeek R1 large language model locally using Ollama. The author experimented with two quantized versions: 1.73-bit and 4-bit, requiring at least 200GB and 500GB of memory respectively. On a workstation with four RTX 4090s and 384GB of DDR5 RAM, the 1.73-bit version showed slightly faster generation speed, but the 4-bit version proved more stable and less prone to generating inappropriate content. The author recommends using the model for lighter tasks, avoiding long text generation which significantly slows down the speed. Deployment involved downloading model files, installing Ollama, creating a model file, and running the model; adjusting GPU and context window parameters might be necessary to prevent out-of-memory errors.

(snowkylin.github.io)

Development Model Deployment

Gemini 2.0 Family Gets a Major Update: Enhanced Performance and Multimodal Capabilities

2025-02-05

Gemini 2.0 Family Gets a Major Update: Enhanced Performance and Multimodal Capabilities

Google has significantly updated its Gemini 2.0 family of models! The 2.0 Flash model is now generally available via API, enabling developers to build production applications. An experimental version of 2.0 Pro, boasting superior coding performance and complex prompt handling with a 2 million token context window, has also been released. A cost-effective 2.0 Flash-Lite model is now in public preview. All models currently feature multimodal input with text output, with more modalities coming in the following months. This update significantly boosts performance and expands applicability, marking a major step forward for Gemini in the AI landscape.

(blog.google)

AI

Flight Tracking's Dirty Little Secrets: Debunking Aviation Data Myths

2025-06-07

Flight Tracking's Dirty Little Secrets: Debunking Aviation Data Myths

FlightAware engineers discovered that aviation data is far messier than one might assume. They list numerous false assumptions about flights, airports, airlines, and ADS-B data – things like flights always departing on time, flight numbers never changing, and airport information always being accurate. The breakdown of these assumptions highlights the challenges and importance of FlightAware's flight tracking engine, Hyperfeed, in handling unusual situations and providing a consistent data feed.

(flightaware.engineering)

Tech aviation data

US Accuses Eight Chinese Nationals of Massive Hacking Operation

2025-03-26

US Accuses Eight Chinese Nationals of Massive Hacking Operation

The US Justice Department charged eight Chinese nationals with large-scale hacking targeting American government agencies, news outlets, and dissidents globally. The alleged operation, orchestrated by a Chinese company, i-Soon, and directed by two Chinese officials, highlights China's expanding cyber capabilities and its rapid advancements in both military and digital spheres.

(www.economist.com)

Tech

Xerox to Acquire Lexmark for $1.5 Billion

2024-12-23

Xerox Holdings Corporation announced it will acquire Lexmark International, Inc. for $1.5 billion. This acquisition strengthens Xerox's core print portfolio and builds a broader global print and managed print services business to better meet the evolving needs of clients in the hybrid workplace. The deal, expected to close in the second half of 2025, combines two industry leaders to create a more comprehensive offering and expand geographic reach, particularly in the APAC region.

(newsroom.lexmark.com)

Tech Merger and Acquisition Printing Industry Hybrid Workplace

Guile Hoot 0.2.0: Building Interactive Web Pages in Scheme

2025-05-28

Guile Hoot 0.2.0, a Scheme to WebAssembly GC compiler, has been released. This release introduces a Foreign Function Interface (FFI), enabling developers to write the majority of web application code directly in Scheme, minimizing reliance on JavaScript. The article demonstrates building interactive web pages using Scheme and the FFI, progressing from a simple "Hello, world!" to an interactive counter and finally a to-do list application. Leveraging Scheme's symbolic manipulation capabilities and SXML, it builds an efficient virtual DOM with a React-like diffing algorithm for updates.

(spritely.institute)

Development

Firefox 142: AI-Powered Browser Update, But Not Without Issues

2025-08-25

Firefox 142: AI-Powered Browser Update, But Not Without Issues

Mozilla has released Firefox 142, incorporating AI features such as content summarization for links and LLM support for extensions. However, the rollout is staggered, with some regions not yet seeing all features like link previews and the new tab page's news and weather integrations. Accuracy concerns exist with the AI summarization. Despite this, improvements include simpler sidebar and tab bar interactions, and enhanced tracking protection exception management. A new feature, CRLite, improves certificate revocation checking.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech

DeepSeek's V3: Beating Benchmarks on a Budget

2025-01-23

DeepSeek's V3: Beating Benchmarks on a Budget

DeepSeek's new V3 model, trained on a mere 2,048 H800 GPUs—a fraction of the resources used by giants like OpenAI—matches or surpasses GPT-4 and Claude on several benchmarks. Their $5.5M training cost dwarfs the estimated $40M for GPT-4. This success, partly driven by US export controls limiting access to high-end GPUs, highlights the potential for architectural innovation and algorithmic optimization over sheer compute power. It's a compelling argument that resource constraints can, paradoxically, spur groundbreaking advancements in AI development.

(www.vincentschmalbach.com)

AI AI model training GPU limitations compute efficiency

Benzene: From Mysterious Molecule to Materials Revolution

2025-06-16

Benzene: From Mysterious Molecule to Materials Revolution

In 1825, Faraday's discovery of benzene marked the beginning of aromatic chemistry. This seemingly simple molecule, with its unique stability and reactivity, became a cornerstone of organic chemistry. From its initial mystery to its widespread use in fields like medicine, energy, and materials science, benzene and its derivatives (such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, fullerenes, graphene, and carbon nanotubes) continue to drive technological advancements. This article reviews the discovery of benzene and its profound impact on scientific development, celebrating its 200th anniversary.

(www.chemistryworld.com)

Tech benzene aromatic hydrocarbons

RFK Jr.'s Controversial Plan to Make America Healthy Again

2025-06-24

RFK Jr.'s Controversial Plan to Make America Healthy Again

Since taking office, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has implemented radical changes to US health policy, sparking concern among public health experts. His administration has slashed budgets and staff, replaced vaccine advisory board members with skeptics, and largely ignored leading causes of death such as car accidents, drug overdoses, and gun violence. While acknowledging the high rates of chronic disease in the US, Kennedy's approach has been criticized for promoting misinformation and overlooking other significant factors contributing to lower life expectancy, including obesity, lack of universal healthcare, and social issues. This article analyzes the multifaceted causes of America's health crisis and challenges the effectiveness of some of Kennedy's proposed solutions.

(www.nature.com)

Tech Healthcare Reform Chronic Disease

Substandard Cancer Drugs Plague Africa: One in Six Found Defective

2025-06-30

Substandard Cancer Drugs Plague Africa: One in Six Found Defective

A shocking study reveals a widespread problem of substandard cancer drugs in several African countries. Researchers tested nearly 200 cancer drugs from hospitals and pharmacies in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, and Cameroon, finding that roughly 17% had insufficient active ingredients, including drugs used in major hospitals. This could lead to tumor growth and spread. The study points to weak drug regulation in Africa, highlighting the need for stronger oversight, improved testing technologies, and training. While most drugs met standards, a few bad actors pose a significant health risk.

(www.dw.com)

Tech Fake Drugs

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