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Git Annex: Master Your Data, No Matter Where It Is

2025-08-25

Bob and Alice face data management challenges: Bob needs to archive data across multiple offline drives, while Alice needs a seamless solution for managing data across a netbook, USB drives, and a cloud server. Git Annex solves both problems. For Bob, it provides a single directory tree for all files, regardless of their physical location, simplifying organization and preventing accidental data loss. For Alice, it manages various data sources like git remotes, enabling easy synchronization and version control without manual intervention. Whether offline or on the move, Git Annex ensures data accessibility, security, and long-term preservation.

(git-annex.branchable.com)

Development

Tencent's 'Thinkbot' Crawler: A 74-IP, 41-Network Block Web War

2025-08-25

A blogger discovered an unusually active web crawler called 'Thinkbot'. Tracing its activity revealed 74 unique IP addresses spread across 41 network blocks owned by Tencent, encompassing hundreds of thousands of IPs. The blogger speculates this is a large-scale data scraping operation by Tencent to externalize Great Firewall costs, and has added the IPs to a firewall rule set. This raises concerns about internet security and data sovereignty, highlighting the increasingly complex web battles in today's internet landscape.

(boston.conman.org)

Tech

Calculating Credit Card Debt with Code: Is Math Essential for Programmers?

2025-08-24

Calculating Credit Card Debt with Code: Is Math Essential for Programmers?

This article explores whether math is essential background knowledge for programmers. By building an Elixir program simulating credit card repayment, the author demonstrates how simple formulas and programming can solve real-world problems, such as calculating compound interest and repayment schedules. The program's simulation shows that slightly increasing the minimum payment percentage or adding a small extra monthly payment significantly reduces repayment time and saves substantial money, highlighting the importance of understanding compound interest and financial planning. Even without advanced math, practical application is shown.

(programmersstone.blog)

Development

SQLite's WAL Mode: Durability vs. Performance Trade-off

2025-08-24

SQLite's WAL (Write-Ahead Log) mode, often used for higher write throughput, compromises data durability compared to the default journal mode. The `synchronous` pragma controls how often fsync is called; the default is NORMAL. In NORMAL mode, WAL files are synced before each checkpoint, and the database file after, but most transactions lack sync operations. For applications where durability isn't critical, NORMAL is sufficient. For guaranteed durability across power loss, `synchronous=FULL` adds a WAL file sync after each transaction commit, increasing durability at the cost of write speed. This explanation, prompted by concerns about SurrealDB potentially sacrificing durability for benchmark performance, clarifies SQLite's approach.

(avi.im)

Development WAL mode Data Durability

Montreal Street Trees Thrive on Leaky Pipes

2025-08-24

Montreal Street Trees Thrive on Leaky Pipes

Street trees in Montreal are surprisingly drought-resistant compared to their park counterparts, thanks to an unexpected water source: leaky pipes. A study analyzing lead isotopes in tree rings revealed that street trees draw water from old lead pipes, unlike park trees relying mainly on rainwater. Given Montreal's daily water loss of 500 million liters from leaky pipes, this explains the street trees' superior drought tolerance. This finding challenges the common assumption that park trees are healthier.

(www.newscientist.com)

Tech urban trees lead isotopes

German Copyright Clearing House Reforms: Judicial Review for Website Restrictions

2025-08-24

German Copyright Clearing House Reforms: Judicial Review for Website Restrictions

After over four years, Germany's Copyright Clearing House for the Internet (CUII) claims success in combating illegal online business models. However, addressing criticism regarding its power, CUII is reforming its procedures. All website restrictions will now be subject to court review. This aims to create a more effective and legally sound process, addressing concerns about its private restriction of websites and potential fundamental rights violations. Hundreds of domains have been blocked, including streaming sites and Sci-Hub, sparking debate about freedom of science and information. The Federal Network Agency will no longer be involved in blocking recommendations; courts will become the ultimate arbiters. CUII states the new approach has been presented to the Federal Cartel Office and expects to reduce staffing.

(www.heise.de)

Tech

The Wicked Trick: Dynamically Patching Python Function Source Code at Runtime

2025-08-24

This post details a fascinating yet dangerous technique: dynamically altering a Python function's source code at runtime. By manipulating the `.__code__` attribute, recompiling, and injecting into a namespace, the author demonstrates dynamic function replacement. This powers LlamaBot's ToolBot, which focuses on tool selection, not execution. Generated code compiles and runs in the same Python environment, accessing runtime variables for enhanced AI capabilities. While security risks exist, this showcases Python's flexibility and the importance of separating tool selection from execution in LLM agents.

(ericmjl.github.io)

Development Dynamic Code

ICE Uses Private Jet Blacklist to Obscure Deportation Flights

2025-08-24

ICE Uses Private Jet Blacklist to Obscure Deportation Flights

For years, the wealthy and famous have used a little-known FAA program to shield their private jet flight records. Now, ICE is using the same program to obscure its deportation flights. Originally created by the private jet lobby to protect the privacy of the rich, the program is now being used to mask ICE's deportation operations, raising concerns about government transparency. While ICE flight information can be tracked through other means, this move highlights how the private aviation industry's pursuit of privacy is being used to limit oversight of government actions.

(jacobin.com)

Tech Private Jets Flight Tracking

Turn Your Old iPhone or RTSP Camera into an AI Security Camera

2025-08-24

Turn Your Old iPhone or RTSP Camera into an AI Security Camera

The Clearcam app lets you upgrade your old iPhone or any RTSP-enabled camera into a state-of-the-art AI security camera. With a simple Homebrew install and running a Python script, you can view live feeds and receive event notifications (objects/people detected) on your local browser. Clearcam Premium offers remote viewing, event clips, and end-to-end encryption. Currently only iOS is supported, Android users can use the iOS User ID temporarily.

(github.com)

Tech

Optimizing Airport Travel: A Practical Guide

2025-08-24

Optimizing Airport Travel: A Practical Guide

This article offers a practical guide to optimizing airport travel, drawing on the author's personal experiences. Key strategies include booking flights about two weeks in advance, opting for basic economy and direct flights, avoiding budget airlines, and efficiently managing time at the airport. The author suggests arriving at the terminal one hour before departure, adjusting this based on factors like traffic and checked baggage. The article also explores maximizing airport waiting time through activities like reading, listening to music, or watching movies, and cautions against attempting work on the plane unless absolutely necessary.

(thezvi.substack.com)

Misc airport travel travel strategies

Digging a Grave for Mom in North Carolina

2025-08-24

Digging a Grave for Mom in North Carolina

This poignant story recounts the author's experience preparing for their mother's passing. It details the practicalities of choosing a burial site, acquiring shovels, and the emotional journey of the family. From the initial preparations to the unexpected karaoke send-off, the narrative blends the somber reality of death with moments of humor and love, showing the complexities of grief and the enduring power of family bonds.

(bittersoutherner.com)

Misc burial

1700-Year-Old Roman Wine Bottle Found Intact

2025-08-24

1700-Year-Old Roman Wine Bottle Found Intact

A remarkably preserved Roman wine bottle, dating back to between 325 and 359 AD, has been unearthed in Speyer, Germany. Discovered in the tomb of a 4th-century Roman nobleman, this 1.5-liter vessel, nicknamed Römerwein, is the oldest known unopened wine bottle. While the wine's alcohol content is likely diminished, it remains sealed, its contents diluted with various herbs. The article also highlights a team of scientists in Catania, Sicily, who recreated ancient winemaking techniques, producing a modern equivalent to this ancient beverage.

(www.openculture.com)

Misc ancient rome

Is the AI Bubble Bursting? Signs Point to a Potential Tech Winter

2025-08-24

Is the AI Bubble Bursting? Signs Point to a Potential Tech Winter

For the past three years, AI has captivated Wall Street and Silicon Valley. However, recent events are raising serious questions about its future. Meta has frozen hiring and is reportedly considering downsizing its AI division; OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledges a bubble; ChatGPT-5 underperformed; Coreweave's stock plummeted; MIT research reveals 95% of generative AI projects failed to increase revenue; and Anthropic and OpenAI are providing their products to the US government at minimal cost. These signs have investors worried, rushing to buy put options, fearing a repeat of the late-90s dot-com crash. While some believe this is a temporary correction, the lack of demonstrable profitability in the AI sector is concerning, suggesting a potential AI winter may be on the horizon.

(www.cnn.com)

Tech AI winter investment risk

German ISP Changes DNS After Website Exposes Copyright Blocking Organization

2025-08-24

A major German ISP altered its DNS settings after the exposure of the CUII, a private organization deciding website blocks without transparency or judicial oversight. The author built cuiiliste.de to track blocked domains, as the CUII refuses to publish its list. The CUII previously mistakenly blocked defunct websites. ISPs initially used notice.cuii.info to indicate blocked sites, but later stopped, making blocked sites appear nonexistent. However, Telefonica (parent of o2, Germany's fourth-largest ISP) continued this method. After Telefonica checked its own test domain, blau-sicherheit.info, on the author's site, they changed their DNS to stop using notice.cuii.info, making tracking CUII blocks harder. This raises suspicions of the CUII trying to bury its mistakes.

(lina.sh)

Tech

Trump Admin Halts Nearly Complete Offshore Wind Farm, Citing National Security

2025-08-24

Trump Admin Halts Nearly Complete Offshore Wind Farm, Citing National Security

The Trump administration has halted construction of the nearly finished Revolution Wind offshore wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island, citing concerns about national security. This action, the latest in a series of moves targeting renewable energy, has drawn sharp criticism from industry groups who warn of economic damage and investor uncertainty. The halt could significantly increase energy prices and underscores concerns about the reliability of the US as a destination for long-term energy investment.

(www.npr.org)

Tech Offshore Wind

The AI Transparency Debate: To Disclose or Not to Disclose?

2025-08-24

The proliferation of AI writing tools has sparked a debate about transparency. This article explores the question of whether AI usage should be disclosed, drawing on the author's personal experience. The author argues that for factual content, reliability is paramount; for opinion pieces, the focus should be on sourcing and the author's creative contribution, not simply AI usage. Overemphasis on AI disclosure, the author suggests, creates a 'thought police' environment hindering the healthy development of AI.

(reflexions.florianernotte.be)

AI AI transparency

Multimodal Siamese Networks for Dementia Detection from Speech in Women

2025-08-24

Multimodal Siamese Networks for Dementia Detection from Speech in Women

This study leverages a multimodal Siamese network to detect dementia from speech data, specifically focusing on female participants. Utilizing audio recordings and transcripts from the Pitt Corpus within the Dementia Bank database, the research employs various audio analysis techniques (MFCCs, zero-crossing rate, etc.) and text preprocessing methods. A multimodal Siamese network is developed, combining audio and text features to enhance dementia detection accuracy. Data augmentation techniques are implemented to improve model robustness. The study offers a comprehensive approach to multimodal learning in the context of dementia diagnosis.

(www.nature.com)

AI Dementia Detection Multimodal Learning Speech Analysis

Six Ways to Tame the Beast: Mitigating Context Failures in LLMs

2025-08-24

Six Ways to Tame the Beast: Mitigating Context Failures in LLMs

Large language models (LLMs) boast ever-increasing context windows, but excessive context can hinder performance. This article details six mitigation strategies: Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) for selective information addition; Tool Loadout for choosing relevant tools; Context Quarantine for isolating contexts into separate threads; Context Pruning for removing irrelevant information; Context Summarization for condensing the context; and Context Offloading for storing information outside the LLM's context. Studies show these methods significantly improve model accuracy and efficiency, particularly when handling numerous tools or complex tasks.

(www.dbreunig.com)

AI Context Management

Coinbase Tightens Security Amid Growing North Korean Hacking Threat

2025-08-24

Coinbase Tightens Security Amid Growing North Korean Hacking Threat

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong revealed that the company has been forced to tighten its remote-first work policy to combat a growing threat from North Korean hackers. North Korean IT workers have been exploiting Coinbase's remote work policy to infiltrate the company's systems and steal sensitive information. In response, Coinbase is requiring all employees to attend in-person onboarding in the US and is implementing stricter background checks, including US citizenship requirements and fingerprinting, for those with access to sensitive systems. The company has also strengthened internal security measures to mitigate insider threats and bribery attempts.

(www.businessinsider.com)

Tech

YouTube Secretly Uses AI to Enhance Videos, Sparking Creator Backlash

2025-08-24

YouTube Secretly Uses AI to Enhance Videos, Sparking Creator Backlash

YouTube has been secretly using AI to enhance videos on its platform, causing significant backlash from creators. Videos uploaded have been subtly altered, with changes to shadows, edges, and overall look, impacting the artistic vision of creators. One artist, Mr. Bravo, known for his authentic 80s VHS aesthetic, reported significant changes to his videos. While YouTube claims to use traditional machine learning rather than generative AI, the lack of transparency raises concerns about ethical implications and trust. This trend mirrors other platforms like Meta’s promotion of AI-generated content, raising questions about the dilution of creator value and the long-term impact on platform trust.

(ca.news.yahoo.com)

Tech Video Creation

From Chaos to Collaboration: Using Claude Code for Enhanced Software Design

2025-08-24

Initially, the author used Claude Code with a naive, direct-instruction approach, leading to inefficiencies and errors. As tasks grew complex, limitations emerged: conversations lost crucial information, and context limits impacted code quality. The author switched to a plan-driven approach, using Claude Code to create a plan document serving as the single source of truth. Each development phase starts with a fresh conversation, the plan document providing all necessary context. This 'living document' approach enables Claude Code to update the plan during implementation, solving context limitations and improving code reliability. The result is increased efficiency and improved design skills for the author.

(betweentheprompts.com)

Development software development process

Mob Programming: How Collaborative Coding Solves Persistent Development Problems

2025-08-24

This article explores how mob programming effectively addresses persistent issues in software development. The author observes that many problems, such as communication bottlenecks, decision-making paralysis, and technical debt, simply fade away with this approach. Mob programming encourages Agile methodologies, fostering face-to-face collaboration and a continuous focus on code quality and simplicity. This leads to rapid problem-solving, reduced wait times, and increased efficiency. It minimizes reliance on email and extensive documentation, promoting close teamwork and knowledge sharing, ultimately improving overall software development efficiency and quality.

(mobprogramming.org)

Development mob programming software development efficiency

AI Coding Subscriptions vs. Top-Tier CPUs: A Productivity Showdown

2025-08-24

While AI coding subscriptions like Cursor are all the rage, costing upwards of $500 annually, the author argues that investing in a high-performance CPU offers a superior return. A top-end CPU like the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X costs roughly the same but provides a dramatic performance boost, often exceeding a 10x improvement in compile times. Benchmarks comparing CPUs across generations highlight the significant productivity gains from superior hardware. The author concludes that businesses should prioritize high-performance hardware over solely relying on AI tools for productivity improvements.

(blog.howardjohn.info)

Development

A Decade of Ruby Marshal Deserialization Exploits: A History and Path Forward

2025-08-24

A Decade of Ruby Marshal Deserialization Exploits: A History and Path Forward

This article delves into the decade-long saga of Ruby Marshal module deserialization vulnerabilities. Tracing the evolution from initial bug reports in 2013 to the latest exploit techniques in 2024, it reveals a persistent cat-and-mouse game between security researchers and attackers. The author highlights the limitations of a purely patch-based approach and advocates for the eventual deprecation of the Marshal module in favor of safer alternatives, aiming to eliminate this recurring security threat.

(blog.trailofbits.com)

Development Ruby Security Deserialization Vulnerability

Seed: An Interactive Programming Environment in Your Browser

2025-08-24

Seed: An Interactive Programming Environment in Your Browser

Seed is an interactive software environment built on Common Lisp that runs inside a web browser. It allows you to create and use computer programs in diverse ways, visualizing them as a tree grid with glyphs representing functions and data types. Seed aims to transcend the limitations of traditional text-based programming by offering a representation orthogonal to the language's structure. It integrates the ASDF build system and provides comprehensive installation and usage instructions.

(github.com)

Development Interactive Programming

OceanGate Disaster: When Accountability Fails

2025-08-24

OceanGate Disaster: When Accountability Fails

The OceanGate submersible implosion investigation report repeatedly mentions 'accountability,' but this article argues it's not a panacea. It categorizes problems into two types: coordination challenges and miscalibrated risk models. In coordination challenges, accountability can lead to blaming individuals while ignoring systemic issues. With miscalibrated risk models, even with the CEO piloting the submersible and having 'skin in the game,' incorrect risk assessment led to disaster. The article argues that solutions require cross-team collaboration and independent safety oversight, not just accountability. Accountability can exacerbate 'double binds,' where individuals face conflicting pressures, leading to safety risks being overlooked.

(surfingcomplexity.blog)

Tech systemic safety

Equal Earth: A World Map for Everyone

2025-08-24

The Equal Earth Wall Map accurately represents the relative sizes of countries and continents. Unlike many maps, Africa appears its true size, not diminished. It's free to download and print in three regional versions (Africa/Europe, Americas, East Asia/Australia), measures a substantial 55” x 29”, and boasts high resolution for larger prints. Featuring over 2,600 labels, it provides ample geographic detail without being overwhelming, all in a professionally designed, aesthetically pleasing format.

(equal-earth.com)

Misc

ESP32-S3 Serial Speed: Much Faster Than Expected!

2025-08-24

ESP32-S3 Serial Speed: Much Faster Than Expected!

This post unravels the mystery behind the surprisingly high serial communication speed of the ESP32-S3. The author found that despite setting the baud rate to 115200 in the code, the actual data transfer speed was much higher. This is because the ESP32-S3 uses native USB support, and serial communication happens over USB, not the traditional UART. Tests showed data transfer speeds exceeding 5MB/s on the ESP32-S3, and even over 7MB/s with an Arduino version. This is far beyond the limitations of a traditional UART.

(atomic14.substack.com)

Hardware Serial Communication

Arch Linux Under Week-Long DDoS Attack

2025-08-24

Arch Linux Under Week-Long DDoS Attack

The popular Arch Linux distribution is under a week-long distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack targeting its main website, AUR, and forums. The attacker's motive is unknown. The Arch team is actively working with its hosting provider to mitigate the attack and evaluating DDoS protection options. While Arch is known for its technical difficulty, the attack causes inconvenience to the community. Users can obtain packages via the pacman-mirrorlist package or GitHub to work around service outages.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech

FSF40 Photo Contest: Celebrating 40 Years of Free Software

2025-08-24

To celebrate its 40th anniversary, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) is holding a photo contest, inviting global free software supporters to share how they use free software daily. Prizes include a grand prize FSF40 T-shirt, a second-place "Fight for your user rights" bag, and a third-place free software sticker pack. Entries close August 31, 2025, with winning photos displayed at the 40th-anniversary celebration in Boston, MA on October 4, 2025. This is more than a contest—it's a tribute to the free software community.

(www.fsf.org)

Development photo contest

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