Berb is a lightweight, privacy-focused web app that uses WebRTC to send files directly between devices. No servers are involved; files transfer directly between sender and receiver. It's secure and fast because files never touch a server. Currently under development, future plans include auto-reconnect, multi-file support, and stream saving.
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Google is redirecting all its country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) versions (like google.fr, google.co.uk) to Google.com. This change, rolling out gradually over the coming months, is due to Google's improved ability to provide localized search results globally. While users shouldn't experience major disruptions, they might need to re-login or adjust search settings. The core search functionality remains unchanged.
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The author documents their experiment in daily driving a Linux phone instead of Android or iOS. This isn't about convenience, but a quest for enhanced security, privacy, and a different lifestyle. While acknowledging the slower hardware of the PinePhone Pro, the author prioritizes the open-source nature and privacy benefits of Linux. The ultimate goal is to install PostmarketOS on a more powerful LGv40 Thinq for a superior experience.
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A 404 error was encountered while accessing Examine.com, indicating the requested page was not found. Examine.com is a website providing evidence-based health information and supplement insights, featuring details about its team, editorial policies, database, and FAQs.
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Starting with a Frege (JVM Haskell) Android project in 2015, the author's functional programming journey led to a quest to decouple their DataFrame library from GHC for MicroHs compatibility. This post details implementing core DataFrame functionality – construction, basic expressions, `filterWhere`, `derive`, and Markdown rendering – in Haskell 2010, without GADTs, type families, or reflection. The experiment demonstrates that while verbose, the core functionality remains viable, offering portability between MicroHs (for tiny CLIs or embedded contexts) and GHC (for speed and ecosystem access). MicroHs binaries are roughly 100x smaller but 5-10x slower; a worthwhile trade-off for many data-wrangling tasks, allowing a GHC backend for heavy lifting.
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Recent Metasploit releases include several new exploit modules. These include a chain exploit leveraging vulnerabilities used by APT groups and a 0-day discovered by Rapid7, a module for an authenticated remote code execution bug in NetAlertx, and auxiliary modules targeting Argus Surveillance DVR and Ivanti Connect Secure. These updates significantly enhance Metasploit's penetration testing capabilities.
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A complete beginner in CAD, 3D printing, and aerodynamic modeling built a 130-mile range VTOL drone in just 90 days. The drone boasts a 3-hour flight time on a single charge, making it one of the longest-range and highest-endurance 3D-printed VTOLs in the world. This achievement overcame numerous challenges, including learning CAD design, sourcing components, improving foaming PLA print quality, and extensive power loss troubleshooting. The project even garnered a quote tweet from Reid Hoffman on X, highlighting the accessibility of modern toolchains.
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Donald Trump threatened to impose additional tariffs on countries that regulate American tech companies. He claims digital taxes and similar measures harm US tech firms while giving Chinese companies a pass. This could lead to tech export bans, potentially hurting even US chipmakers. However, this threat might be another Trumpian bluster, possibly ending with no action or minor concessions through negotiations.
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This article details a 12-bit rainbow palette designed for National Grid: Live. The palette consists of twelve colors carefully chosen considering human perception of luminance, chroma, and hue. Using a 12-bit color depth, each color requires only four hexadecimal characters, making it efficient for use in CSS or SVG. The design addresses the limitations of standard RGB palettes by leveraging the LCH color space, resulting in a visually pleasing and smoothly transitioning rainbow spectrum. This palette offers both efficiency and aesthetic appeal.
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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) plans to invest $100 billion in building state-of-the-art chip manufacturing plants in the U.S. over the next four years. This massive investment aims to bolster the U.S.'s efforts to revive its domestic semiconductor industry, a goal pursued for decades as manufacturing shifted largely to Asia.
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far (Find And Replace) is a fast and flexible command-line tool for searching and replacing text across files and folders. It targets specific files, directories, or glob patterns, and boasts smart casing support (e.g., Foo → Bar, FOO → BAR), inspired by Sublime Text's find and replace functionality. Installation is straightforward: clone the GitHub repo and build. For example, `far --find "Foo" --replace "Bar" --target "./src/**/*.rs"` replaces "Foo" with "Bar" in all .rs files within the src directory. Licensed under the Apache-2.0 License, contributions and suggestions are welcome.
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The death of Bram Moolenaar, Vim's creator, shook the community, but the project lives on. At VimConf 2024, new maintainer Christian Brabandt outlined the project's reorganization and future plans. The team expanded, the website and infrastructure were upgraded, security vulnerability reporting and community communication were addressed. While Vim is currently in maintenance mode, development hasn't stopped; version 9.1 was released, with plans to improve the GUI, terminal support, and spell checking. Community collaboration is crucial; Brabandt emphasized listening to user needs and maintaining a healthy community.
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The Trump administration's Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has purged four years' worth of business guidance blogs, including crucial information on AI and consumer privacy related to landmark lawsuits against companies like Amazon and Microsoft. This move raises concerns about government transparency and corporate compliance, particularly as new chair Andrew Ferguson aims to ease regulations on tech firms. Deleted blogs offered FTC advice on avoiding consumer protection violations, ethical AI development, and children's data privacy. This action is seen as benefiting tech companies by eliminating precedents for regulatory compliance.
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This essay explores why certain poems go viral on social media, yet attract fierce criticism. The author analyzes three viral poems, identifying common traits: juxtaposing the mundane and profound, using contemporary poetic forms, signaling a political ingroup, urging a moral or therapeutic takeaway, and exhibiting 'cringe' qualities. These elements fuel generational divides. The author argues that social media algorithms dictate the poems' trajectory, not their artistic merit. In the fast-paced online environment, poetry becomes social currency, losing its aesthetic value and space for deep reflection.
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Python's subprocess module is changing its default behavior of closing all file descriptors. This change aims to improve performance, especially when dealing with a large number of file descriptors, avoiding performance bottlenecks caused by closing each descriptor individually. However, altering the default behavior could introduce security risks. Developers are advised to choose the `close_fds` parameter based on their specific needs and take appropriate security measures, such as ensuring all file descriptors are marked as non-inheritable. This change carefully balances performance and security, aiming to provide developers with a more flexible and efficient subprocess management solution.
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This article examines the enduring legacy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, *The Great Gatsby*, a century after its publication. Beginning with Fitzgerald's early depictions of first kisses and exploring the recurring theme of 'nothing further' in his work, the article delves into Gatsby's obsessive pursuit of Daisy. Gatsby's love for Daisy becomes a metaphor for the pursuit of the American Dream and the yearning for a lost youth, ultimately ending in tragedy. The novel's exquisite prose, insightful social commentary, and exploration of enduring themes solidify its status as a timeless classic, prompting ongoing discussions on love, dreams, and the disillusionment of the American Dream.
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This website has updated its privacy policy, utilizing technologies like cookies to store and access device information for an enhanced user experience. Consent allows the processing of data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs. Withholding or withdrawing consent may impact functionality. The policy details legitimate purposes for technical storage or access, including enabling specific services, communication transmission, preference storage, and statistical purposes. It clarifies that access solely for anonymous statistical purposes generally cannot be used to identify users. Finally, it addresses the use of technical storage for creating user profiles to deliver targeted advertising or track users across websites.
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This article explores the enduring legend of Yucca Man in Southern California's Mojave Desert, alongside other similar cryptid sightings. Since the 1970s, reports of an eight-foot-tall, hairy, red-eyed creature have emerged from military bases, national parks, and remote areas. While Native populations viewed these beings as supernatural entities, modern accounts depict them as Bigfoot-like creatures. The article delves into historical parallels, including tales of a winged beast at Elizabeth Lake and the 'Cement Monster' of a nearby mine, weaving together geography, history, and folklore into a captivating narrative of mystery.
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Owl leverages the science of spaced repetition to boost memory retention and creativity. Create your own flashcards or utilize our expanding library of public decks. Learn anything, anytime, anywhere—for free! Owl is used across various industries to improve recall, accelerate learning, and generate more ideas. Built for our own needs, we're now sharing it with you. Happy learning!
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This post delves into the hardware architecture of the arcade game Kiki KaiKai. Released in 1986, this game uses a sprite-based rendering system, not a unique feature at the time. Key hardware components include a YM2203 FM synthesizer, a Taito-customized MCU (JPH1020P) based on the Motorola 6801, and a Z80 CPU. The author details the 12-bit RGB color display, PAL programmable array logic, and high-speed RAM. A unique visual artifact is analyzed, attributed to the switching between sprite and background rendering. The post concludes with details of the PCB, including interesting finds in the manual and stickers, such as a Taito seal featuring what appears to be a Prussian eagle.
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Researchers uncovered a malicious campaign, dubbed "GitVenom," where threat actors created hundreds of fake open-source projects on GitHub to deliver malware. These projects, disguised as legitimate tools like Instagram automation scripts, Telegram bots, and game cheats, featured polished README files and frequent commits to appear authentic. Malicious code was cleverly hidden within projects written in various languages (Python, JavaScript, C/C++, C#), ultimately downloading and executing further malicious components from an attacker-controlled GitHub repository. These components included information stealers, remote access Trojans, and clipboard hijackers. The campaign has been active for years, impacting users globally, highlighting the risks of blindly running third-party code.
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Following the 1982 Tylenol murders, James and Leann Lewis, the prime suspects, went on the run, using aliases and even brazenly reading Chicago newspapers in a New York City library to track the investigation. Their eventual arrest stemmed from their audacious behavior. The investigation revealed Lewis's troubled past and prior crimes, suggesting a possible link to another case, although their direct involvement in the Tylenol murders remained ambiguous. Leann's lie detector test indicated deception, adding a further layer of complexity to the case.
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In Google's antitrust trial, Yahoo expressed interest in acquiring Google's Chrome browser. Yahoo sees browsers as a crucial distribution channel for search engines, believing that owning Chrome would significantly boost its search market share. While Yahoo is developing its own browser prototype, acquiring Chrome would be a faster route to scale. The deal would cost tens of billions of dollars, but Yahoo's parent company, Apollo Global Management, is backing the potential acquisition.
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This article details an unconventional method to run postmarketOS and the Phosh desktop environment on an Android phone without rooting or flashing a custom ROM. The author leverages Termux and proot to create an Alpine Linux environment within Android, converting it to postmarketOS and installing the lightweight Phosh desktop. While not perfect, with limitations like Chinese input requiring the Android keyboard, it offers Android users a convenient way to experience a mobile Linux system.
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NIST's new cesium fountain clock, NIST-F4, is one of the world's most accurate timekeepers. If it had been running since the dinosaurs roamed the Earth, it would be off by less than a second today. This breakthrough in atomic clock technology will help calibrate official US time and contribute to the global Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), ensuring accuracy in critical systems like finance, telecommunications, and transportation. The achievement solidifies NIST's leading role in precision timekeeping.
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AWS announced Aurora DSQL at re:Invent, and this post delves into its development journey. To tackle the challenge of horizontally scaling writes in traditional databases, the AWS team initially used JVM but encountered severe performance bottlenecks, especially tail latency issues caused by garbage collection. They ultimately decided to rewrite the data plane in Rust, which significantly improved performance and reduced tail latency. Furthermore, the team also migrated the control plane to Rust, avoiding the complexities of multiple languages. This project demonstrates that questioning existing solutions and experimenting with new technologies (even costly language migrations) can yield significant rewards.
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Harvard Library's digital archive of over 3,000 posters on the HIV/AIDS epidemic reveals the evolution of public health communication. Early posters prioritized simple, impactful visuals and a single, emotionally resonant message with a clear call to action (phone number, website, now QR code). Later campaigns diversified messaging for varied audiences, shifting from shame-based to positive and affirming approaches. Researchers emphasize co-creating messages with target audiences for better impact. The archive highlights the progress made with modern prevention and treatment (PrEP, antivirals), aiming to end HIV transmission and prevent further deaths, contrasting past limitations with current capabilities to eliminate new infections.
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A blogger attempted to synthesize glow-in-the-dark strontium aluminate (SrAl2O4) at home, a material known for its persistent luminescence. The synthesis involved multiple steps, including the preparation of aluminum nitrate, mixing oxide precursors, and high-temperature calcination. However, due to a lack of appropriate equipment and high-purity reagents, the blogger only achieved short-lived luminescence, falling short of the persistent glow seen in commercial products. This post meticulously details the entire experimental process, including chemical equations, procedures, and challenges encountered, serving as a valuable resource for chemistry enthusiasts.
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The UN is set to discuss a proposal to eliminate trans fats, but experts urge clarification between industrially produced and naturally occurring trans fats to avoid harming nutritious foods. This sparks a broader debate on "ultra-processed foods," often high in sugar, salt, and saturated fat, linked to obesity and cardiovascular disease. While the NOVA classification system helps identify them, its limitations lie in focusing solely on processing, ignoring factors like palatability and calorie density. Therefore, clearer definitions and more precise policies are needed, balancing control over excessive industrial food production with ensuring sufficient and appropriate food for all.
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This article updates a 2022 post on GIF alternatives. AV1 and animated AVIF are now supported across browsers (with Safari caveats). WebP remains a strong contender due to its size and wide browser support. JPEG-XL supports static images, but animated support is limited. The article also explores using the `` element, comparing AV1 and VP9 codecs, and highlighting media queries for responsive videos. While AVIF shows promise, current frame rate issues and browser bugs in Safari make a blanket recommendation difficult. The best choice depends on project needs and browser compatibility trade-offs.
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