The PC is Dead: Reclaiming Personal Computing

2025-01-20

This article argues that the personal computer era has ended due to surveillance capitalism and DRM. Once a symbol of technological liberty, allowing individuals complete control, the PC has been subverted. Today's tech companies prioritize endless growth over useful products, creating an "extractive economy" that treats user data as a resource to be exploited. The author calls for legislative reform, support for open-source projects, and other measures to regain control of our digital lives and usher in a "Personal Computer 2.0" era.

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Bing Masquerades as Google: A Desperate Move by Microsoft?

2025-01-07
Bing Masquerades as Google: A Desperate Move by Microsoft?

In a surprising move to boost Bing's usage, Microsoft has implemented a deceptive tactic. When users search for "Google" in the Bing search bar, they are presented with a nearly identical replica of the Google search page. This is seen as a desperate attempt by Microsoft to compete with Google's overwhelming dominance in the search engine market. While Bing has seen some growth in desktop search, Google still holds a commanding lead in mobile search. While this might temporarily increase Bing's user base, this deceptive practice could ultimately damage Bing's reputation in the long run.

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The 100-Page-a-Day Reading Strategy: A Habit for Life

2024-12-21
The 100-Page-a-Day Reading Strategy: A Habit for Life

Matthew Walther, editor of *The Lamp* magazine, shares his "100-pages-a-day reading strategy." It's not a rigid plan, but a cultivated habit designed to combat the distractions of modern life and reclaim the joy of reading. Walther breaks his day into several reading slots, utilizing even fragmented time. He emphasizes diversifying reading material, balancing heavy and light books, and always carrying a book. The ultimate goal is establishing a reading habit, not strictly adhering to a page count.

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Alcohol-Free Booze: A Booming Business

2025-01-07
Alcohol-Free Booze: A Booming Business

Dry January is driving growth in the alcohol-free beverage market. More people are choosing to abstain from alcohol or reduce their consumption, leading to increased demand for non-alcoholic beers, spirits, and other alternatives. These drinks cater to health-conscious consumers while offering a taste profile similar to their alcoholic counterparts. While improvements in taste remain a goal, the market shows significant potential for future expansion.

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Bypassing Windows Kernel Mitigations: A Deep Dive into Violet Phosphorus

2024-12-13

This post delves into bypassing modern Windows 10 and 11 kernel mitigations like SMEP and VBS. The author details Violet Phosphorus, a universal VBS/SMEP bypass technique, providing PoC code and a ROP chain. It explains SMEP and VBS, demonstrating how to exploit a vulnerability in the HackSysExtremeVulnerableDriver to use ROP gadgets and the MiGetPteAddress function to modify page table entries for kernel code execution. The author also shows how to use Kristal-G's SYSRET shellcode to return to user mode. This is a valuable resource for kernel exploit development and security researchers, categorized as Development.

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I Want My AI to Get Mad: On the Need for Agentic AI

2025-01-29

The author envisions a future where AI agents are not mere docile tools but assertive representatives capable of pursuing his interests, even expressing 'anger.' Drawing parallels to powerful historical leaders, the author argues that anger can be a powerful tool for achieving goals. However, he also warns of the social risks of deploying such 'angry AI' on a massive scale, as anger can be misused. The article concludes with a thoughtful reflection on the future of AI and a plug for the author's startup, Subble.

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Testing for Thermal Issues in Advanced Packages Becomes Increasingly Challenging

2024-12-21
Testing for Thermal Issues in Advanced Packages Becomes Increasingly Challenging

The increasing complexity and heterogeneity of chip architectures, coupled with the adoption of high-performance materials, are making it significantly more difficult to identify and test for thermal issues in advanced packages. Traditional corner-based thermal testing is insufficient due to unpredictable chip-level thermal effects and varying heat distribution under different workloads. Heterogeneous integration, thinner substrates and metal layers, and diverse materials and interconnect schemes all contribute to this complexity. To address these challenges, the industry is exploring advanced thermal modeling, test structures, adaptive testing strategies, and AI to achieve more accurate thermal characterization and reliable device testing.

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GitHub's New Project AuthorTrail: Track Your Git Contributions

2024-12-24
GitHub's New Project AuthorTrail: Track Your Git Contributions

AuthorTrail is a new GitHub project designed to help developers track all the files they've ever touched in a Git repository. It features search by author email, hierarchical file tree visualization, a built-in code viewer, and quick opening in your default editor. Built using React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, and supporting dark mode, AuthorTrail offers a user-friendly interface. Simply clone the repository, install dependencies, and run to start tracking your contributions.

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Development code contributions

Why Honeybees Die After Stinging: A Suicide Mission for the Colony?

2025-01-18
Why Honeybees Die After Stinging: A Suicide Mission for the Colony?

Honeybees die after stinging because their barbed stingers become embedded in the victim's skin, ripping off part of their abdomen. This isn't simply an accident; it's an evolved strategy. The stinger, connected to a venom sac and muscular pump, continues injecting venom even after the bee is gone. This contrasts with wasps, whose stings lack barbs, allowing multiple stings. The article explores the evolutionary reasons for this suicidal behavior, delving into honeybee social structure, the immune system, group selection, and kin selection. Worker bees, being reproductively sterile, are expendable, and their sacrifice protects the queen and colony. The article further examines kin selection theory and haplodiploidy, explaining how the high relatedness between worker sisters promotes this altruistic behavior. While not perfect, the theory offers a compelling explanation for the evolution of this suicidal defense mechanism.

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Springfield Weekend Weather Forecast: Sunny and Warm

2024-12-16

Springfield weather today is sunny with a temperature of 72°F, humidity at 55%, dew point of 65°F, barometric pressure of 12 PPI, north wind at 6 mph, and visibility of 35 miles. July precipitation is 1 inch. The weekend forecast predicts sunny skies and warm temperatures throughout, along with moderate humidity. Clark St. pool is back open, come on down!

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Overcoming Resistance to Extreme Programming: A Manager's Guide

2025-01-03
Overcoming Resistance to Extreme Programming: A Manager's Guide

This article explores the common resistance encountered when teams adopt Extreme Programming (XP). The author argues that forcing change is counterproductive; XP's success lies in team autonomy. Resistance stems from developer misconceptions about XP, managerial incentive structures, and the tools themselves. The author advises managers to empower teams, create space for experimentation, and help overcome resistance through shared experiences, hands-on practice, and accountability. The ultimate goal is achieving highly effective collaboration and joyful work.

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A Journey Through Time: The History of Infographics

2024-12-23
A Journey Through Time: The History of Infographics

The history of infographics is far richer and longer than many realize. It's not a modern invention, but a continuous thread weaving through centuries. From prehistoric cave paintings to medieval maps and Renaissance scientific illustrations, humanity has consistently sought more intuitive ways to present information. The 'chart craze' of the 18th century propelled infographics to new heights, becoming powerful tools for social science research. Today, with technological advancements, infographics are more vibrant and deeply integrated into our lives. This journey reflects humanity's ongoing exploration of information understanding and expression.

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Radxa Orion O6: World's First Open-Source Armv9 Motherboard Debuts

2024-12-20
Radxa Orion O6: World's First Open-Source Armv9 Motherboard Debuts

Radxa, in collaboration with partners, has unveiled the Radxa Orion O6, claimed as the world's first open-source Armv9 motherboard—more accurately, a single-board computer (SBC). Powered by CIX's CD8180 SoC, it boasts 12 CPU cores (including four Cortex-A720 cores up to 2.8GHz) and an Arm Immortalis G720 GPU, offering impressive performance with 8K video decoding and encoding capabilities and a 30 TOPS NPU. RAM options range from 8GB to 64GB (soldered DDR5-5500). The board is packed with I/O, including multiple M.2 slots, a PCIe x16 slot, and multi-gigabit Ethernet. Currently supporting Debian and Fedora Linux, with Windows and Android support planned. Pricing starts at $200 for the 8GB model.

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FormBee: Open-Source Form Backend for Privacy-Conscious Developers

2025-01-06
FormBee: Open-Source Form Backend for Privacy-Conscious Developers

FormBee is an open-source form backend built for developers who prioritize data privacy. It simplifies submitting website form data, allowing you to send form submissions to email, Telegram, webhooks, and more without writing server-side code. Features include plugin support, CAPTCHA protection, domain whitelisting, and automatic reply emails. Self-hosting is easy with readily available Docker images.

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Development forms

A German Cure for Loneliness: The Stammtisch

2024-12-22
A German Cure for Loneliness: The Stammtisch

In today's fast-paced world, loneliness is increasingly common. This article recounts the author's discovery of a traditional German way to combat loneliness—the Stammtisch, where like-minded individuals regularly meet at a bar or restaurant for drinks and conversation. The Stammtisch fosters friendships and provides a relaxed social atmosphere without the hassle of hosting, offering a solution to modern loneliness. The author draws parallels to their own coffee club, highlighting the benefits of regular social gatherings and emphasizing the importance of human connection.

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Boston City Hall: A Controversial Architectural Masterpiece

2024-12-20
Boston City Hall: A Controversial Architectural Masterpiece

On its 50th anniversary, Boston City Hall, a concrete behemoth designed by Kallmann and McKinnell, prompts reflection on its complex history. Built in the 1960s to revitalize a struggling Boston, its bold modernist design, a stark departure from traditional city halls, initially polarized opinions. Today, it's hailed by the architectural world as one of the greatest buildings of the 20th century, yet public opinion remains divided. The architects envisioned it evoking profound reflections on human existence and history; however, its cold concrete exterior and labyrinthine interior fell short. This article recounts Boston City Hall's journey from design competition to completion and its impact on urban development, showcasing how a building can encapsulate a city's transformation.

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Sony Pushes for C++20 as LLVM Clang's Default

2025-01-11

Sony engineers are proposing a change to the default C++ mode in the LLVM Clang compiler, switching from C++17 to C++20. This aligns with Sony's upcoming plans to make C++20 the default for their PlayStation 5 compiler. While some C++20 test cases currently fail and Clang's C++20 support isn't yet complete, Sony intends to contribute a build/test bot to assist upstream development. This initiative aims to accelerate Clang's adoption of C++20, leading to a more efficient compilation environment for game development.

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Development

DockView: Zero-Dependency Docking Layout Manager for React, Vue, and TypeScript

2025-01-11
DockView: Zero-Dependency Docking Layout Manager for React, Vue, and TypeScript

DockView is a zero-dependency docking layout manager supporting tabs, groups, grids, and split views. It works with React, Vue, and vanilla TypeScript. Features include serialization/deserialization, theming, drag-and-drop, popout windows, floating groups, a comprehensive API, and high test coverage. Built with security in mind, DockView uses GitHub Actions for verified publishing and builds. It boasts excellent documentation and live examples, making it a powerful and easy-to-use layout management solution.

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Development Layout Manager

Langfuse: Open-Source LLM Engineering Platform Streamlines Development

2024-12-17
Langfuse: Open-Source LLM Engineering Platform Streamlines Development

Langfuse is an open-source LLM engineering platform designed to simplify the development and deployment of large language model (LLM) applications. It offers features such as LLM observability, metrics, evaluations, prompt management, a playground, and datasets, integrating seamlessly with tools like LlamaIndex, Langchain, OpenAI SDK, and LiteLLM. Developers can use Langfuse to monitor LLM performance, manage prompts, evaluate model effectiveness, and ultimately accelerate LLM application development.

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Development Development Platform

Mullvad VPN 2024 Year in Review: Enhanced Security and Privacy

2024-12-25
Mullvad VPN 2024 Year in Review: Enhanced Security and Privacy

Mullvad VPN's 2024 review highlights significant advancements in user privacy and security. Key achievements include migrating the support email inbox to self-hosted hardware, launching DAITA technology for enhanced traffic obfuscation, adding multi-hop connections and ShadowSocks support across all platforms, and completing multiple security audits of both VPN servers and apps. Additionally, Mullvad ran traditional outdoor advertising campaigns to raise awareness of mass surveillance.

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Tech

Auto-Commit Bot: Automated Git Commits with Gemini AI

2025-02-01
Auto-Commit Bot: Automated Git Commits with Gemini AI

The Auto-Commit Bot is a Python tool automating Git workflows. It monitors a directory for changes, generates descriptive commit messages using Google Gemini's AI, and commits them. This eliminates repetitive tasks and ensures consistent messaging. Features include real-time file monitoring, auto-committing, AI-powered commit messages, and easy customization. Simply install dependencies, set your API key, and run the command.

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Development

Google's New Load Balancer, PReQuaL: Beyond CPU Load Balancing

2024-12-16

Google Research presented PReQuaL (Probing to Reduce Queuing and Latency), a novel load balancer, at NSDI 2024. Unlike traditional CPU load balancing, PReQuaL actively probes server latency and active requests to select servers, dramatically reducing tail latency, error rates, and resource consumption in systems like YouTube. Deployed in YouTube for over a year, PReQuaL has significantly improved system utilization. This innovative approach challenges conventional wisdom and offers a new paradigm for high-performance distributed systems.

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Development load balancing

Human Thought Speed: A Mere 10 Bits Per Second

2024-12-18
Human Thought Speed: A Mere 10 Bits Per Second

Caltech researchers have discovered that human thought processes are surprisingly slow, operating at a mere 10 bits per second—significantly slower than our sensory systems' billion bits per second input rate. This study presents a paradox: why is our thinking so slow? Researchers speculate this may stem from the evolution of our brains from simple navigational systems, processing information sequentially rather than in parallel. This finding challenges some science fiction concepts regarding brain-computer interfaces, suggesting even neural interfaces would be limited by our inherent 10-bit-per-second processing speed.

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18 Million Deceased US Veterans' Records Now Searchable Online

2025-01-13
18 Million Deceased US Veterans' Records Now Searchable Online

Reclaim The Records, a non-profit organization, won a multi-year FOIA lawsuit against the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), gaining access to the BIRLS database. This database, now freely available online, contains biographical information on over 18 million deceased US veterans. Searching the database allows researchers to request complete veteran claims files, potentially containing hundreds of pages of historical documents. While most files remain at the VA, BIRLS provides a crucial index, significantly aiding historical and genealogical research.

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2024's Most Scathing Book Reviews: Literary Heavyweights Face the Critics

2024-12-22
2024's Most Scathing Book Reviews: Literary Heavyweights Face the Critics

The most brutal book reviews of 2024 are in, and even literary giants didn't escape unscathed. From Melania Trump's clichéd memoir to Haruki Murakami's disappointing magical realism, Lionel Shriver's clumsy satire, and Malcolm Gladwell's hollow brand extension, critics delivered scathing critiques. The reviews dissected the shortcomings of these works, pointing out bland writing, shallow character development, and tired plots, offering readers a thought-provoking glimpse into the literary landscape.

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Quiet Quitting: A Symptom of Workplace Imbalance

2025-01-26
Quiet Quitting:  A Symptom of Workplace Imbalance

The recent surge in 'quiet quitting' and 'soft quitting' isn't about laziness; it's a response to unfair compensation, excessive workloads, and a lack of work-life balance. Employees aren't necessarily uncaring, but seek alignment between work and personal well-being. The article argues that businesses must address employee needs through fair pay, flexible arrangements, and meaningful work to avoid massive economic losses from disengagement. Fostering a culture of curiosity and collaboration is key to creating a more effective and engaging workplace.

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Startup quiet quitting

Federal Data Vanishing: Civil Society Steps Up to Save the Day

2025-02-13
Federal Data Vanishing: Civil Society Steps Up to Save the Day

Hundreds of federal datasets and government websites have mysteriously disappeared or been drastically altered since the start of the Trump administration. Responding to this crisis, civil society organizations are taking action. Harvard's Library Innovation Lab recently released 16 terabytes of archived data.gov, a complete copy of the platform's former holdings. On February 13th at 3 PM Eastern, MuckRock will host an event featuring the Internet Archive and the Harvard Law School Library Innovation Lab, discussing at-risk data, how to access rescued data, and how to contribute to preservation efforts.

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OpenAI Outage: Unexpected Load from New Telemetry Service Causes Major Disruption

2024-12-16
OpenAI Outage: Unexpected Load from New Telemetry Service Causes Major Disruption

OpenAI experienced a major service disruption on December 11th, stemming from a newly deployed telemetry service. Intended to improve reliability, this service unexpectedly generated massive Kubernetes API server load, saturating the servers and causing the Kubernetes control plane to fail in most large clusters. This led to the breakdown of DNS-based service discovery. The incident highlights the unpredictable interactions within complex systems and the challenges of testing for failure modes that only appear under full load. OpenAI restored service by scaling down clusters, blocking network access to Kubernetes admin APIs, and scaling up API servers.

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Sonair Accelerates 3D Ultrasonic Sensor Development with Rust

2024-12-28
Sonair Accelerates 3D Ultrasonic Sensor Development with Rust

Sonair leveraged the Rust programming language to dramatically accelerate the development of its groundbreaking 3D ultrasonic sensor. The article details the reasons for choosing Rust, including its speed, safety, and robust ecosystem. Despite the team's initial lack of Rust experience, they found it surprisingly easy to learn, and its strong type system and borrow checker helped them write safer, more reliable code. Sonair uses Rust for production and Python for algorithm prototyping, creating an efficient workflow. Ultimately, Sonair aims to be among the first to deploy a safety-certified Rust implementation, setting a new standard for functional safety in embedded systems.

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