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OBNC: An Oberon Compiler

2025-05-17

OBNC is a compiler for Niklaus Wirth's Oberon programming language, implementing the final 2016 version. It translates Oberon source code to C, which is then compiled and linked using the host OS's C compiler and linker. Released under the GNU General Public License (compiler) and Mozilla Public License (libraries), OBNC offers flexibility for project licensing. The package includes the compiler, build tools, documentation generator, a basic library, and an extended library (ext) adding features like command-line argument access and environment variable handling. It's implemented in C, works on POSIX-compliant systems, and requires the Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage collector. A pre-compiled Windows version is available.

(miasap.se)

Development

MatterRank: A New Kind of Search Engine

2025-04-03

Traditional search engines rely on keyword matching and algorithmic ranking, assuming users don't know what they want. But with advancements in computer language understanding, MatterRank offers a revolutionary approach. It empowers users to define ranking criteria with their own words, shifting from passively receiving results to actively controlling information retrieval. This marks a new era for search engines.

(www.matterrank.ai)

Tech information retrieval

Pushing the Limits of Physics: How Consciousness Might Influence Reality

2025-04-30

Nearly three decades of experiments suggest anomalous physical phenomena in PEAR studies correlate significantly with subjective variables like intention, meaning, resonance, and uncertainty. This starkly contradicts established physics and psychology, demanding new theoretical models. The article explores several, including applying quantum mechanics principles to consciousness and influencing reality through subconscious interaction with material processes. These models highlight consciousness' proactive role in shaping reality, offering a framework for a "science of the subjective" that challenges our understanding of reality.

(pearlab.icrl.org)

AI anomalous phenomena

Uber CEO Warns of Mass Driver Displacement Due to Self-Driving Cars

2025-09-22

Uber CEO Warns of Mass Driver Displacement Due to Self-Driving Cars

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi acknowledged at the recent 'All-In' summit the significant threat self-driving cars pose to ride-hailing drivers. While he expects human drivers to remain prevalent for the next 5-7 years due to the pace of technological development, Khosrowshahi predicts mass job displacement for drivers within the next 10-15 years. He admitted this is a major societal challenge with no easy answers. While AI is creating new jobs, such as data labeling, this is unlikely to fully offset driver job losses. Uber's partnership with Waymo, highlighting the efficiency of self-driving vehicles, further fuels these concerns.

(www.businessinsider.com)

Tech

Solo Music Listening Boosts Social Well-being, Study Finds

2025-04-04

Solo Music Listening Boosts Social Well-being, Study Finds

Research from the University at Buffalo reveals that listening to music alone can act as a 'social surrogate,' improving social well-being. Two experiments demonstrated that listening to favorite music reduced feelings of loneliness and buffered against the negative effects of social exclusion. Unlike previous research focusing on music's social aspects in group settings, this study highlights the benefits of solo listening. It suggests music fosters connection with artists, immersion in the musical world, and reminders of others, fulfilling the fundamental human need for belonging.

(phys.org)

Misc music therapy social well-being

Meta Whistleblower Accuses Zuckerberg of Prioritizing Power Over US National Security

2025-04-10

Meta Whistleblower Accuses Zuckerberg of Prioritizing Power Over US National Security

Former Meta employee Sarah Wynn-Williams testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, accusing Mark Zuckerberg of prioritizing power over US national security. She alleges that Zuckerberg, in an effort to curry favor with the Chinese government, compromised American interests by assisting in censorship and providing user data to the CCP. Wynn-Williams' testimony also details Meta's attempts to silence her and suppress her book, "Careless People," which details alleged dealings with the Chinese government and accusations of sexual harassment. Meta denies the accusations, calling them "divorced from reality and riddled with false claims." Lawmakers are demanding Zuckerberg testify before the committee.

(www.theverge.com)

Tech

Rebuilding the American Dream: A Conversation with Alexander Vindman

2025-03-06

Rebuilding the American Dream: A Conversation with Alexander Vindman

This article announces a joint talk by the author and Colonel Alexander Vindman at Cooper Union, focusing on rebuilding the American Dream. Vindman, known for his unwavering commitment to democratic ideals, and the author, experienced in building online communities, will explore this theme through the lenses of democracy, community, and economic mobility. They aim to foster a conversation about creating systemic change for a more equitable future, emphasizing the need for collaboration.

(blog.codinghorror.com)

Startup Community Building

Online Circle Image Cropper: No Downloads, No Hassle

2025-05-31

Online Circle Image Cropper: No Downloads, No Hassle

This online tool effortlessly crops images into perfect circles or other shapes. It's free, works on all devices, and requires no downloads. Simply upload your image, adjust the circular frame, and download a PNG with a transparent background—ideal for profile pictures, designs, and presentations. Your images are processed in your browser and never stored, ensuring your privacy.

(circlecropimage.io)

Design image cropping circle avatar

Bonfire 1.0: A Slow Software Manifesto and Decentralized Community Building

2025-05-10

Bonfire 1.0: A Slow Software Manifesto and Decentralized Community Building

Bonfire 1.0 is not a typical product launch; it's a manifesto for slow software, community governance, and decentralized networks. Rejecting Silicon Valley's "move fast and break things" approach, it champions slow development rooted in care, listening, and collective stewardship, aiming to build lasting and meaningful digital communities. Bonfire employs a modular design, sociocratic governance, and an AGPL license and decentralized architecture to resist centralized control and safeguard community autonomy. It invites users to participate in governance, co-design, and build a community-led digital commons based on sharing and mutual aid.

(bonfirenetworks.org)

Development community governance slow software

Recreating Delicious Library in 2025?

2025-01-29

The author, a long-time admirer of Delicious Library's design since the early 2000s, recounts multiple attempts to recreate its functionality as a web app. From internal tools like Code Helper to independent projects like catalog.im and various design concepts, the author's journey reflects a persistent pursuit. The article concludes with a proposal for a new web-based Delicious Library, soliciting reader feedback and sparking discussion about merging nostalgic software design with modern web applications.

(dingyu.me)

Design

Real-time Vector Glyph Rendering: Beyond SDFs, Towards High-Precision Anti-aliasing

2025-06-13

Frustrated with limitations in existing real-time text rendering solutions, like the blurring and texture issues of SDFs, the author embarked on a new approach. The subpixel structure problems of his new OLED monitor served as the final push. He abandoned SDFs and instead rasterizes glyph Bézier curves directly on the GPU, employing temporal accumulation to refine anti-aliasing quality over time. Clever atlas packing and Z-order algorithms efficiently manage glyph data, while subpixel anti-aliasing resolves color fringing on OLED screens. The result is high-quality, high-performance real-time text rendering, especially impressive when dealing with thin lines and intricate glyphs.

(osor.io)

Development glyph rendering anti-aliasing

Neuroscience's Theoretical Bottleneck: Can Spatial Dynamics Unlock the Brain's Secrets?

2025-03-12

While the cellular biology of brains is relatively well-understood, neuroscientists haven't yet generated a theory explaining how brains work. This article explores major obstacles in neuroscience, identifying them as largely conceptual. Neuroscience lacks models rooted in experimental results explaining how neurons interact at all scales. Brains aren't solely driven by external and internal stimuli; their autonomy is significant. Furthermore, the traditional assumption of time as an independent variable clashes with experimental findings; spatial dynamics may offer a more suitable framework. The paper proposes several conceptual frontiers needing breakthroughs, emphasizing the importance of single-trial designs and analyses, and the need for improved experimental methods to reveal the brain's spatial dynamics.

(pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

Tech brain mechanisms spatial dynamics

GoDaddy Error Takes Down Zoom for Nearly Two Hours

2025-04-18

GoDaddy Error Takes Down Zoom for Nearly Two Hours

A GoDaddy error caused a nearly two-hour outage for video conferencing platform Zoom on Wednesday afternoon US time. GoDaddy Registry mistakenly blocked the zoom.us domain, disrupting Zoom's services globally. Zoom restored service at 13:55 PDT, explaining the outage resulted from a communication error between Zoom's registrar, Markmonitor, and GoDaddy Registry. The incident highlights the risks associated with domain registrars maintaining domain stability and reminds users of technical details like DNS cache flushing.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech Outage

Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies: A Climate Action Roadblock

2025-02-23

Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies: A Climate Action Roadblock

Massive government subsidies for fossil fuels are hindering climate change efforts worldwide. Despite pledges to reduce them, progress remains slow due to political and economic factors. Subsidies take many forms, from direct price controls to tax breaks and the externalization of environmental costs, artificially lowering fossil fuel prices and increasing consumption and emissions. The article analyzes the stubborn persistence of these subsidies, exploring opportunities and challenges for reform during energy price volatility, highlighting the need to balance climate goals with socioeconomic stability.

(theconversation.com)

Tech fossil fuel subsidies

Google DeepMind Open-Sources GenAI Processors: Simplifying LLM Application Development

2025-07-11

Google DeepMind Open-Sources GenAI Processors: Simplifying LLM Application Development

Google DeepMind has released GenAI Processors, an open-source Python library designed to simplify the development of complex Large Language Model (LLM) applications. The library uses a Processor interface to abstract various data processing steps and handles multimodal input via asynchronous stream processing, enabling concurrent execution for improved responsiveness and efficiency. GenAI Processors integrates with the Gemini API and provides examples for building real-time applications such as live transcription and conversational agents.

(developers.googleblog.com)

Development Open Source Library

SpaceX Starship Flight 9: Partial Success, Both Stages Lost

2025-05-28

SpaceX Starship Flight 9: Partial Success, Both Stages Lost

SpaceX launched its Starship megarocket for the ninth time, marking the first significant reuse of Starship hardware. While the upper stage reached space – a major improvement – both stages were ultimately lost before completing their flight goals. Leaks caused a loss of main tank pressure during the coast and re-entry phases, according to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. Despite the loss, valuable data was gathered, and SpaceX plans three more Starship test launches in the next three to four weeks.

(www.space.com)

Tech

Meta's Shocking Copyright Infringement in Llama 3 Training

2025-03-23

Meta's Shocking Copyright Infringement in Llama 3 Training

Meta is accused of massive copyright infringement in the training of its large language model, Llama 3. Alex Reisner's article in The Atlantic reveals Meta's use of Libgen, a database known to contain pirated material, to train the model. Reisner discovered over 100 of his works were used without permission. Internal Meta communications show the company knowingly chose this route to avoid licensing costs and speed up the process. This has sparked outrage, with many authors coming forward to accuse Meta of copyright infringement.

(garymarcus.substack.com)

Tech

US Nuclear Arsenal to Cost $946 Billion Over Next Decade

2025-04-27

US Nuclear Arsenal to Cost $946 Billion Over Next Decade

A new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reveals that maintaining America's nuclear arsenal will cost a staggering $946 billion over the next decade, a 25 percent increase from the previous estimate. This massive sum covers operations, sustainment, and modernization, with significant cost overruns attributed to projects like the Sentinel ICBM. The report breaks down the costs across various areas, including strategic and tactical nuclear delivery systems, nuclear weapons laboratories, and command and control systems. The substantial increase highlights the immense cost and potential risks associated with maintaining a large nuclear arsenal.

(breakingdefense.com)

Tech military budget defense spending

Infected qBittorrent Docker Image Secretly Mines Crypto

2025-09-23

While migrating servers, the author discovered a suspicious process, netservlet, consuming excessive CPU resources within a hotio/qbittorrent Docker container. Investigation revealed netservlet to be a stealth cryptocurrency miner, likely XMRig or a variant. Analysis of a core dump revealed strings related to cryptocurrency mining (e.g., cryptonight, ethash_calculate_dag_item) and a mining pool address (auto.c3pool.org:19999). This highlights the importance of not trusting random Docker images, regularly monitoring system resources, and auditing hosts and containers to prevent security breaches.

(apogliaghi.com)

Development cryptocurrency mining

Uncollected Woolf Letters Reveal a Multifaceted Writer

2025-06-30

Uncollected Woolf Letters Reveal a Multifaceted Writer

A new book, *The Uncollected Letters of Virginia Woolf*, unveils over 1,400 previously unknown letters, offering a fresh perspective on the celebrated author. These letters reveal Woolf's relationships with other writers like Eliot and Forster, showcasing her as a sociable woman, shrewd businesswoman, and committed humanitarian, challenging the established image of a reclusive depressive. The correspondence covers a wide range of topics, from literary creation and social interactions to personal emotions, providing invaluable primary source material for scholars.

(literaryreview.co.uk)

Misc Virginia Woolf Unpublished Letters Literary Studies

It's Time to Delete Some Tests

2025-08-30

For decades, the importance of testing has been emphasized, yet developers have developed a misguided belief that 'deleting tests is blasphemy'. This article argues that the purpose of tests is to increase confidence, but failing, redundant, slow, or outdated tests actually decrease confidence. Flaky tests waste time, while overly numerous tests reduce efficiency. The author suggests that to improve efficiency and confidence, tests that decrease rather than increase confidence should be deleted, and new tests should be written for new requirements.

(andre.arko.net)

Development

Zero-Cost Static Blog with React Server Components

2025-05-08

Zero-Cost Static Blog with React Server Components

This blog post details how to deploy a completely static blog using Next.js's static site generation capabilities and React Server Components (RSC) on Cloudflare's free static hosting plan, costing exactly zero. The author explains the concept of 'hybrid' frameworks, capable of both server-side rendering and static site generation. By running RSC code during the build process and saving its output, a fully static deployment is achieved, eliminating server costs. A code example shows data being read from the local filesystem during the build, generating static pages. This demonstrates that 'static' is essentially a 'server' running ahead of time, with the code logic remaining the same, only the timing changes.

(overreacted.io)

Development

Chinese Hackers Breached US Telecom Firm Earlier Than Previously Known

2025-06-05

Chinese Hackers Breached US Telecom Firm Earlier Than Previously Known

Corporate investigators uncovered evidence that Chinese hackers infiltrated an American telecommunications company in the summer of 2023, suggesting a breach of the US communications system earlier than publicly reported. Investigators discovered malware linked to Chinese state-sponsored hacking groups residing on the company's systems for seven months, starting in summer 2023. An unclassified report, shared with Western intelligence agencies, confirms the intrusion but omits the name of the affected company.

(www.bloomberg.com)

Tech Chinese hackers US telecom

AI Agent Traffic: The New Bot Detection Challenge

2025-02-14

AI Agent Traffic: The New Bot Detection Challenge

AI agent tools like OpenAI's Operator can mimic real user behavior, improving UX but also enabling abuse. Traditional bot detection methods (CAPTCHAs, IP blocking, user-agent filtering) are ineffective against modern AI agents, as they simulate real IP addresses, user agents, and mouse behavior. OpenAI and BrowserBase's agents are easier to detect because they run in cloud datacenters; Anthropic's agents can run locally, making them harder to detect. Some sites (like Reddit and YouTube) are blocking AI agent traffic, but many lack effective detection mechanisms, creating opportunities for malicious attacks. Future detection will rely on machine learning-based browser "lie detectors".

(stytch.com)

Tech bot detection

Video Game History Foundation Launches Digital Library

2025-01-31

Video Game History Foundation Launches Digital Library

The Video Game History Foundation (VGHF) has launched its digital library, a treasure trove of historical video game materials. This includes scans of the 1999 E3 catalog and old PC Gamer magazines, even unearthing information on the obscure 3D racing game Pretzel Pete. Digitizing this information proved challenging, requiring the development of a custom text recognition tool to handle the complex layouts of 90s gaming magazines. While direct access to game ROMs is currently restricted by copyright, the VGHF continues to advocate for change.

(arstechnica.com)

Game

CoreWCF Streaming RPC Performance Bottleneck: A Stack Overflow Failure Postmortem

2025-05-08

CoreWCF Streaming RPC Performance Bottleneck: A Stack Overflow Failure Postmortem

The author attempted to use CoreWCF for streaming RPC between .NET Framework and .NET 8 to test the throughput of random number transfers. However, after posting a question on Stack Overflow, it was closed without an answer. The issue is that the CoreWCF service continues to consume significant CPU and write to the stream even after the client disconnects. The author suspects a misunderstanding of how WCF streams are supposed to work, suggesting WCF streams may not be suitable for handling streams of unknown length. The article explores the challenges of using WCF streaming for high-throughput RPC and considers alternatives, such as using single message requests or session mode, to improve performance and reliability.

(richardcocks.github.io)

Development

Beginner's Guide to Bow Making: A Step-by-Step Tutorial

2025-04-11

This tutorial breaks down the bow making process into easily digestible chunks. Whether you're using a laptop or a phone/tablet, you'll find a menu to navigate the different sections. It's recommended to start with Part 1, but you can jump to any section that interests you. While not exhaustive, this tutorial provides a step-by-step guide to get you started, offering encouragement and inspiration along the way. Remember, learning anything new takes time and patience; take it one step at a time, and you'll overcome any fears and be on your way to making your own bow.

(www.howtomakealongbow.co.uk)

Design bow making handicraft tutorial

NASA: 2024 Sea Level Rise Exceeds Expectations, Climate Change a Major Culprit

2025-03-16

NASA: 2024 Sea Level Rise Exceeds Expectations, Climate Change a Major Culprit

NASA's latest analysis reveals that 2024 saw a far greater-than-expected sea level rise of 0.23 inches, surpassing the predicted 0.17 inches. This is primarily attributed to thermal expansion of ocean water due to global warming. Melting land-based ice also contributed. Interestingly, in 2024, thermal expansion accounted for two-thirds of the rise, while ice melt contributed one-third, a reversal of previous trends. The rate of annual sea level rise has more than doubled since 1993, with sea levels rising at least 4 inches since then. Since 1880, sea levels have risen between 8 and 9 inches. Human-induced climate change is the primary driver of current sea level rise.

(abcnews.go.com)

Tech

YC Deletes Controversial AI Factory Worker Monitoring Demo

2025-02-26

YC Deletes Controversial AI Factory Worker Monitoring Demo

A demo video from Y Combinator-backed startup Optifye.ai, showcasing AI-powered software for monitoring factory worker productivity, sparked a social media backlash. The video depicts a supervisor using the software to reprimand a low-performing employee, leading to accusations of creating "sweatshops-as-a-service." While some argued it reflects existing issues, YC ultimately deleted the video. This incident highlights growing concerns about AI's use in the workplace, particularly regarding worker surveillance.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech worker monitoring

Rust for C++ Programmers: A Practical Guide

2025-05-31

This book serves as a practical guide for C++ programmers transitioning to Rust. It translates common C++ patterns into idiomatic Rust, using concrete code examples and discussing engineering trade-offs. The book is designed for both sequential and random-access reading, perfect for when you encounter a Rust problem and think, "I know how to do this in C++". Written by experts at Brown University's Cognitive Engineering Lab, it focuses on accuracy and detail, with no AI-generated content.

(cel.cs.brown.edu)

Development

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