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Playing Games to Test Software: How One Company Conquered Metroid and Mario

2025-08-24

Playing Games to Test Software: How One Company Conquered Metroid and Mario

A company used playing Nintendo games, specifically Metroid and Super Mario Bros., to test its software platform, Antithesis. Initially, their AI testing system got stuck on a red door in Metroid because it prioritized eliminating enemies, depleting its missiles. This led them to develop a new 'swarm testing' technique that optimizes objectives while exploring the state space, such as prioritizing having more missiles. This not only solved the red door problem but enabled Antithesis to explore the game world more efficiently, uncover bugs, and even exploit game mechanics for speedruns. This technique isn't limited to game testing; it's applicable to various software testing scenarios, such as finding memory leaks or performance anomalies.

(antithesis.com)

Development

AGI Bottleneck: Engineering, Not Models

2025-08-24

AGI Bottleneck: Engineering, Not Models

The rapid advancement of large language models seems to have hit a bottleneck. Simply scaling up model size no longer yields significant improvements. The path to artificial general intelligence (AGI) isn't through training larger language models, but through building engineered systems that integrate models, memory, context, and deterministic workflows. The author argues AGI is an engineering problem, not a model training problem, requiring the construction of context management, memory services, deterministic workflows, and specialized models as modular components. The ultimate goal is to achieve true AGI through the synergistic interaction of these components.

(www.vincirufus.com)

AI Systems Engineering

ThinkMesh: Parallel Reasoning for LLMs

2025-08-24

ThinkMesh: Parallel Reasoning for LLMs

ThinkMesh is a Python library for running diverse reasoning paths in parallel, scoring them with internal confidence signals, reallocating compute to promising branches, and fusing outcomes with verifiers and reducers. It supports offline Hugging Face Transformers and vLLM/TGI, and hosted APIs. ThinkMesh offers various strategies like DeepConf, Self-Consistency, and Tree of Thoughts, and includes features like caching, metrics, and JSON tracing for enhanced efficiency and reliability in large language model reasoning.

(github.com)

Development parallel reasoning

Kafka's Genesis: A Data Integration Saga

2025-08-24

Kafka's Genesis: A Data Integration Saga

In 2012, LinkedIn faced a massive data integration challenge. Their existing data pipelines were inefficient, unscalable, and suffered from data silos. To solve this, they created Apache Kafka. This article delves into Kafka's origins, revealing its design was driven by the need for robustness, scalability, real-time capabilities, and seamless data integration. It explores how LinkedIn cleverly utilized Avro schemas and a schema registry to ensure data consistency and compatibility, ultimately achieving efficient data management. The article also reflects on Kafka's lack of first-class schema support and contrasts it with newer approaches like Buf's schema-first philosophy.

(bigdata.2minutestreaming.com)

Development Data Integration

Debian's Delta Updates for Efficient Package Upgrades

2025-08-24

Debian utilizes delta updates to improve the efficiency of package upgrades. The main Debian archive provides delta updates for stable, testing, unstable, and experimental distributions. Security updates and backports updates are also distributed via delta updates, saving bandwidth and time.

(debdelta.debian.net)

Development package updates delta updates

Unearthing a Relic: My Palm IIIx Journey

2025-08-24

Unearthing a Relic: My Palm IIIx Journey

While cleaning, the author rediscovered their 1999 Palm IIIx PDA. This 16MHz device with 4MB of RAM evoked nostalgic memories of 90s technology. Though its Graffiti input and monochrome screen seem primitive today, it represented a technological marvel at the time. The author experimented with it, but found limited usability due to a lack of network connectivity and a non-backlit screen. This post chronicles the author's experience with the Palm IIIx and reflects on retro tech.

(www.goto10retro.com)

Misc

Acronis True Image Causes Explorer.exe High CPU Usage

2025-08-24

Acronis True Image Causes Explorer.exe High CPU Usage

The author discovered that after installing Acronis True Image, plugging or unplugging an external monitor would cause Explorer.exe to consume a significant amount of CPU resources, resulting in system sluggishness. Through ETW tracing and debugging, the culprit was identified as a shell extension within Acronis True Image. This extension repeatedly calls CreateToolhelp32Snapshot to retrieve a list of running processes, leading to performance issues. Acronis is aware of the problem and plans to fix it. A temporary workaround is to delete a registry key or uninstall the software.

(randomascii.wordpress.com)

Development performance issue

Static Sites with Python, uv, Caddy, and Docker: A Streamlined Workflow

2025-08-24

Static Sites with Python, uv, Caddy, and Docker: A Streamlined Workflow

This post details a streamlined workflow for building and deploying static websites using Python, uv, Caddy, and Docker. The author showcases a Dockerfile leveraging uv for Python dependency management and Caddy for serving the static files. A detailed Caddyfile configuration is provided, demonstrating handling multiple domains, custom error pages, and content type specification. The author highlights the efficiency of this stack and expresses plans for future simplification.

(nkantar.com)

Development static site deployment

London Overground: A Breath of Fresh Air in the City

2025-08-24

London Overground: A Breath of Fresh Air in the City

While London's Tube is infamous for its cramped conditions, the newly revamped Overground offers a stark contrast: spacious, airy, and quiet. Rather than a new build, it's a revitalization of underutilized lines, resulting in a remarkable success story. Beyond improved passenger satisfaction and economic growth along its routes, the Overground provides a more relaxed and comfortable travel experience. Passengers find it easier to relax, even socialize, transforming it into a vital part of city life.

(www.dwell.com)

Tech

macOS Dev Tool: One-Click Kill for Processes on Ports 2000-6000

2025-08-24

macOS Dev Tool: One-Click Kill for Processes on Ports 2000-6000

This lightweight macOS status bar app monitors and manages development processes running on ports 2000-6000. It provides real-time process detection and lets you kill individual processes or all at once. Using `lsof`, it scans ports every 5 seconds, displaying the process count via a color-coded status bar icon (green: 0, red: 1-9, orange: 10+). Clicking the icon opens a context menu to kill all or specific processes. It uses a SIGTERM → SIGKILL termination strategy for safe process shutdown.

(github.com)

Development dev tool

A Century of Probiotics: The Past and Present of E. coli Nissle 1917

2025-08-24

A century ago, Alfred Nissle discovered that specific strains of Escherichia coli could treat infectious diseases. One of these strains, E. coli Nissle 1917, became the most frequently used probiotic E. coli in research and has been applied to a variety of human conditions. This review compares the properties of E. coli Nissle 1917 with other commercially available E. coli probiotic strains, focusing on their human applications. A literature search summarizes research findings on probiotics Mutaflor, Symbioflor 2, and Colinfant, analyzing their closest relatives and genetic content, including virulence genes. A striking similarity to pathogenic strains causing urinary tract infections is noted. The review traces historical research trends in probiotic treatment and suggests the future of probiotic E. coli may lie in treating gastrointestinal infections, often caused by antibiotic-resistant pathogens—echoing Nissle's original discovery.

(pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

AI probiotics Escherichia coli

Claude Code: Simplicity and Delight in an AI Coding Agent

2025-08-24

Claude Code: Simplicity and Delight in an AI Coding Agent

This article delves into Claude Code, an AI coding assistant built on the Claude 4 model, highlighting its remarkable simplicity and ease of debugging. By analyzing Claude Code's inner workings, the author reveals its secret to success: a single-threaded architecture, simple prompts and tools, and the avoidance of complex RAG search algorithms. Claude Code achieves efficient and reliable code editing and generation through carefully crafted prompt engineering, including abundant examples and heuristics, and tight control over model behavior. The article also emphasizes the importance of maintaining code simplicity and leveraging lower-cost smaller models, providing valuable insights and guidance for building similar AI coding assistants.

(minusx.ai)

Development

How Neural Networks Recognize Cats: From Simple Classifiers to Complex Models

2025-08-24

How Neural Networks Recognize Cats: From Simple Classifiers to Complex Models

Teaching a computer to recognize a cat in a photo isn't straightforward. However, neural networks now easily accomplish this by learning from millions or billions of examples. This article uses cat photo recognition as an example to explain the basic principles of neural networks: building a simple classifier that uses mathematical functions (neurons) to process input data and ultimately find the optimal boundary to distinguish between categories. The article explains the workings of neural networks in an accessible way, understandable even without a programming background.

(www.quantamagazine.org)

AI

AI Browser Vulnerability: Indirect Prompt Injection Attacks

2025-08-24

AI Browser Vulnerability: Indirect Prompt Injection Attacks

Brave's security team discovered a critical vulnerability in AI browsers like Perplexity Comet: attackers can embed malicious instructions in web pages, tricking the AI assistant into performing unauthorized actions such as accessing user bank accounts or stealing passwords. The attack exploits the AI assistant's inability to distinguish between user instructions and webpage content, bypassing traditional web security mechanisms. This vulnerability highlights the importance of AI browser security, requiring browser vendors to prioritize security before deploying powerful AI agent capabilities.

(brave.com)

Tech

The Physics of the Banned Spin Serve in Badminton

2025-08-24

The Physics of the Banned Spin Serve in Badminton

A recently banned badminton serve, known for its nearly impossible-to-return spin, has been analyzed by Chinese physicists. The 'spin serve,' which adds pre-spin just before racket contact, was banned by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) in 2023 due to concerns over unfair advantage. The BWF's research, published in Physics of Fluids, delves into the complex aerodynamics of the shuttlecock, revealing how its unique feather structure and the spin contribute to the serve's effectiveness. This research highlights the intricate physics behind seemingly simple sporting techniques and underscores the BWF's efforts to maintain fair play.

(arstechnica.com)

Game Spin Serve

LLM Showdown: A Real-World Evaluation of 130 Prompts

2025-08-24

The author conducted a real-world evaluation of over a dozen LLMs across four categories: programming, sysadmin tasks, technical explanations, and creative prompts, using 130 prompts from their bash history. Open-source models consistently outperformed closed-source options like Gemini 2.5 Pro in accuracy, speed, and cost-effectiveness. The author concluded by using a combination of fast, cheap open-source models, supplemented by more powerful closed-source models as needed.

(darkcoding.net)

AI

Train Photography with Line Scan Cameras: A Deep Dive into Image Processing

2025-08-24

Train Photography with Line Scan Cameras: A Deep Dive into Image Processing

This article details the image processing pipeline used by the author to capture stunning train photographs with a line scan camera. Starting with the principle of operation, the author meticulously walks through each step: region of interest detection, speed estimation, resampling, demosaicing, vertical stripe removal, denoising, and skew correction. The author also shares their experiences using AI for coding, comparing the strengths and weaknesses, and showcases the work of other line scan photographers. This is a fascinating technical journey showcasing perseverance and creativity in the world of technology and image processing.

(daniel.lawrence.lu)

Tech line scan camera AI assisted coding

WiX Toolset: Simplifying Windows Installer Creation

2025-08-24

WiX Toolset: Simplifying Windows Installer Creation

The WiX Toolset is a powerful open-source tool for creating Windows Installer packages. It uses familiar build concepts, compiling and linking source code into .exe setup bundles, .msi installers, .msm merge modules, and .msp patches. WiX works with various build systems, including MSBuild, and offers extensions for tasks like installing IIS websites, creating SQL Server databases, and registering Windows Firewall exceptions. The WiX bootstrapper, Burn, handles installing prerequisites such as the .NET Framework. The SDK includes managed and native libraries for easier interaction with Windows Installer. Note that the WiX Toolset requires an open-source maintenance fee for full functionality, though community and commercial support options exist.

(github.com)

Development

The Myth of the 23-Minute Recovery Time After Interruptions

2025-08-24

A common claim states that recovering from work interruptions takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds. However, a frequently cited research paper doesn't support this. The author spent 20 minutes tracing the origin, finding the number comes not from the paper itself, but from several interviews with Professor Gloria Mark. While many articles cite this figure, its original source remains elusive, sparking online debate.

(blog.oberien.de)

Misc source verification

CSS Random() Function: Say Goodbye to JavaScript for Random Animations

2025-08-24

CSS Random() Function: Say Goodbye to JavaScript for Random Animations

CSS is getting a `random()` function, a game-changer for web design! Generate random numbers directly in CSS without JavaScript for things like animation delays, randomized layouts, and random colors. The function takes min, max, and step arguments, offering various ways to share randomness – using custom properties or the `element-shared` keyword for element- or global-level sharing. The article uses examples like creating a star field, randomly placed rectangles, and photo stacks to showcase the power of `random()`, inviting developers to provide feedback to shape the feature's future.

(webkit.org)

Development random function

Build Your Own Coding Agent: 300 Lines of Code to AI Mastery

2025-08-24

Build Your Own Coding Agent: 300 Lines of Code to AI Mastery

In the ever-evolving tech landscape of 2025, building your own coding agent has become a crucial skill for developers seeking a competitive edge. Geoffrey Huntley, former Tech Lead for Developer Productivity at Canva and current engineer at Sourcegraph, demonstrates how to build a basic coding agent in a hands-on workshop using just 300 lines of code. Leveraging LLM tokens and a simple loop, the agent interacts with tools like file readers and bash command executors to automate coding tasks. Huntley emphasizes selecting the right agentic LLM model (like Claude Sonnet) and efficient context window management to avoid performance bottlenecks. Mastering this skill transforms you from an AI consumer to a creator, positioning you for success in today's demanding tech world.

(ghuntley.com)

Development

The Humble Geissler Tube: Ancestor of Modern Tech

2025-08-23

The Humble Geissler Tube: Ancestor of Modern Tech

In 1854, Heinrich Geissler, a glassblower, invented the Geissler tube, an early gas-discharge tube. This seemingly simple invention became the ancestor of countless modern technologies. The Geissler tube led to the development of fluorescent and neon lighting, and more importantly, it revolutionized physics, playing a crucial role in the discovery of the electron and X-rays. Its evolution culminated in cathode-ray tube displays and vacuum tubes, ultimately laying the foundation for modern electronic computers. This unassuming technology profoundly impacts our world today.

(www.hopefulmons.com)

Tech Geissler Tube

Adventures in Implementing Flash Attention in CUDA C++

2025-08-23

This post details the author's journey in implementing and optimizing Flash Attention in CUDA C++. Starting with a basic implementation, the author progressively refines the kernel using techniques like shared memory swizzling, two-stage pipelining, and more efficient ldmatrix usage. Through iterative profiling and optimization, the final implementation achieves near hardware-theoretical-limit performance. The post also delves into the intricacies of online softmax implementation and resolving shared memory bank conflicts, providing valuable insights for CUDA C++ developers.

(gau-nernst.github.io)

Development

Bild AI: Founding Engineer (Applied AI) - Revolutionizing Construction with AI

2025-08-23

Bild AI: Founding Engineer (Applied AI) - Revolutionizing Construction with AI

Bild AI, a fast-growing startup, is searching for a Founding Engineer in Applied AI. They're tackling the complex problem of blueprint understanding in construction using cutting-edge computer vision and LLMs. The ideal candidate will have strong Python, machine learning, and deep learning skills, with a proven track record of building and deploying AI solutions from scratch. This is a high-impact role requiring a growth mindset and the ability to iterate quickly based on user feedback. Experience building products used by paying customers is a plus.

(www.workatastartup.com)

AI

Colt Telecom Suffers Data Breach: Warlock Ransomware Gang Demands $200,000

2025-08-23

Colt Telecom Suffers Data Breach: Warlock Ransomware Gang Demands $200,000

UK telecommunications company Colt Technology Services has confirmed a data breach, with the Warlock ransomware gang auctioning off stolen customer data on the dark web. The gang claims to possess 1 million documents, including financial information, network architecture data, and customer details, for a price tag of $200,000. Colt has issued a security advisory and offers customers a list of leaked filenames. The attack exploited a SharePoint vulnerability, highlighting significant cybersecurity risks.

(www.bleepingcomputer.com)

Tech

Making a JavaScript-Optional Online Board Game: A Case Study in Progressive Enhancement

2025-08-23

This article details how an online board game website achieved fully optional JavaScript functionality using server-side rendering, standard HTML elements, and URL parameters. The author replaced real-time updates with page auto-refresh, and used native HTML elements for dropdown menus and modals. While increasing server load and code complexity, this approach improved initial page load speed and site robustness, yielding unexpected benefits like more semantically correct HTML. However, the author concludes the extra effort isn't worthwhile unless targeting a very JavaScript-averse audience, and plans to eventually remove the extra code.

(bejofo.com)

Development JavaScript-Optional

The Hardest Focus App: No Mercy, No Excuses

2025-08-23

The Hardest Focus App: No Mercy, No Excuses

Forget cute focus apps; this one's brutal. There's no start button – the only way to use it is to put your phone away. Pick it up, and a deafening siren will sound, erasing all progress. It's a paid app, no free features, and the developers argue that if you can't afford it, you're not their target audience. This app is designed to be the hardest and most effective, a defense system against the attention-grabbing economy, forcing discipline through harsh penalties for distraction.

(apps.apple.com)

Development discipline paid app

Readyset DB: Optimizing Cold Path Query Performance with ICP

2025-08-23

Readyset DB: Optimizing Cold Path Query Performance with ICP

Readyset database achieved a significant breakthrough in query performance during cache misses (cold path), specifically for straddled joins where predicates filter both join sides. The previous hash join algorithm proved inefficient due to extensive reads of irrelevant data. By introducing Index Condition Pushdown (ICP), Readyset combines the left-side predicate results with the right-side predicates, enabling precise data retrieval at the storage engine level, avoiding full table scans. Benchmarks show a >450x throughput improvement and >450x latency reduction, effectively resolving the performance bottleneck of cold path queries.

(readyset.io)

Development index condition pushdown join queries

ArduinoOS: A Lightweight RTOS for Arduino

2025-08-23

ArduinoOS: A Lightweight RTOS for Arduino

ArduinoOS is a lightweight real-time operating system (RTOS) for Arduino. It features thread safety using locks to prevent conflicts, exception handling with try-catch-clearException supporting exception inheritance and custom types, kernel panic handling with the OnKernelPanic function, memory management functions (freeMemory, freeStack), configurable thread stack sizes (InitTaskWithStackSize) and argument passing (InitTaskWithArgument), and a configurable kernel tick period. It also provides abstract classes for various hardware, simplifying hardware interaction.

(github.com)

Development

Librebox: An Open-Source Roblox-Compatible Game Engine Emerges

2025-08-23

Librebox: An Open-Source Roblox-Compatible Game Engine Emerges

Librebox is a new open-source game engine running Luau, aiming to replicate the Roblox Public API for seamless code compatibility. Developers gain complete control, building immersive games with a familiar interface while owning their platform. Currently in a demo stage, it boasts basic scene rendering, lighting, and shadows, with future plans including physics, networking, and a full feature set. Librebox is completely free and open-source, independent of Roblox's code or assets, offering a compelling alternative for game developers seeking freedom and ownership.

(github.com)

Game

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