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Budapest's Hidden Wonder: A Massive Geothermal Cave System

2025-08-22

Budapest's Hidden Wonder: A Massive Geothermal Cave System

Beneath the bustling streets of Budapest, Hungary, lies a hidden marvel: a vast underwater cave system heated by geothermal springs. The Molnár János Cave, stretching for over 3.6 miles and plunging nearly 300 feet below the surface, is one of the world's largest active thermal water caves, accessible only to certified cave divers. Hidden behind an unassuming entrance, the cave reveals a breathtaking world of spacious chambers, gentle currents, and stunning mineral formations. Divers navigate through crystal-clear water, encountering remnants of the ancient Pannonian Sea and contributing to ongoing scientific research exploring the cave's secrets and its still-growing network of passages.

(www.cnn.com)

Misc cave diving geothermal

Seamless NetHack and Emacs mu4e Integration for Email

2025-08-22

Seamless NetHack and Emacs mu4e Integration for Email

The author, deeply engrossed in a NetHack game, devised an elegant solution to check emails without interrupting gameplay. Leveraging NetHack's mail daemon functionality, a Python script converts maildir to mbox format and checks the mbox file's modification time. New emails trigger a Bash script launching emacsclient, opening mu4e, and directly navigating to unread messages. This ingenious integration showcases the author's problem-solving skills and efficient workflow.

(feyor.sh)

Development

Text.ai: Founding Full-Stack Engineer – Build the Future of AI-Native Communication

2025-08-22

Text.ai: Founding Full-Stack Engineer – Build the Future of AI-Native Communication

Text.ai, a consumer-first AI native company, is seeking a Founding Full-Stack Engineer. They're building an AI-powered communication platform that solves the challenge of making multiple people happy simultaneously in group chats. This involves creating seamless group collaboration experiences, leveraging AI for tasks like trip planning and restaurant selection. Backed by Y Combinator, SV Angel, and investors from Shopify and Tencent, the team includes founders from Tesla, Eventbrite, Amazon, and McKinsey. The role requires 4+ years of React Native experience, backend (Python) integration skills, and a passion for AI. This is a chance to build groundbreaking AI interaction patterns and impact millions of users.

(www.ycombinator.com)

Development AI-native app

US Water Consumption: A Deep Dive

2025-08-22

US Water Consumption: A Deep Dive

While US water is abundant and cheap, rising demand in the arid Southwest and from water-intensive industries like data centers is shifting this reality. This article analyzes the US's daily water consumption of 322 billion gallons, covering power generation, irrigation, industry, and domestic use. While thermoelectric power plants consume vast amounts, most is non-consumptive; irrigation's consumptive use is significant and difficult to reuse; data center water use, though relatively small now, is rapidly growing. The key takeaway: Careful interpretation of water use data is crucial, distinguishing between consumptive and non-consumptive uses.

(www.construction-physics.com)

Tech water consumption

GitHub Code Suggestion Application Limits: 12 Scenarios You Might Encounter

2025-08-22

GitHub Code Suggestion Application Limits: 12 Scenarios You Might Encounter

This concise note lists 12 potential limitations encountered when applying code suggestions on GitHub, such as no code changes made, pull request closed, viewing a subset of changes, only one suggestion per line, applying to deleted lines, suggestion already applied or marked resolved, and more. These limitations are designed to maintain the integrity of the codebase and the efficiency of the review process.

(github.com)

Development

The Paradigm Shift in AI Product Development: From Determinism to Probability

2025-08-22

The Paradigm Shift in AI Product Development: From Determinism to Probability

This article explores how general-purpose artificial intelligence (AGI) is disrupting the tech industry, particularly in software design, engineering, building, and growth. Traditional software development follows a deterministic model: known inputs produce expected outputs. However, AGI models are probabilistic, with outputs based on statistical distributions and inherent uncertainty. This renders traditional software engineering methods and metrics (like SLOs) obsolete. The author advocates for an empirical approach, using scientific methods and data-driven decision-making to build and iterate AI products, rather than relying on traditional engineering thinking. This requires organizations to transition from engineering to science, centering on data, and breaking down siloed departments for a holistic systems view.

(giansegato.com)

Development

C-Tubes: Revolutionizing 3D Design with Flat Materials

2025-08-22

C-Tubes: Revolutionizing 3D Design with Flat Materials

Researchers at EPFL's Geometric Computing Laboratory have developed C-Tubes, a groundbreaking method for creating strong, lightweight curved structures from flat strips of material. Their algorithm precisely bends and connects these strips, avoiding stretching or wrinkling, resulting in surprisingly stiff and durable tubes. This sustainable approach minimizes waste and opens possibilities in furniture, lighting, architecture, and beyond. C-Tubes promises to revolutionize design and construction, offering a more efficient and environmentally friendly approach to 3D object creation.

(actu.epfl.ch)

Design

SVG `<path>` Demystified: Mastering the Art of Curve Drawing

2025-08-22

SVG `<path>` Demystified: Mastering the Art of Curve Drawing

This blog post provides a comprehensive guide to the SVG `` element, a powerful tool for creating intricate curved shapes. It breaks down the commands – M, L, Q, C, and the notoriously tricky A (arc) – explaining their parameters and functionalities with clear examples and insightful analogies. The author tackles the complexities of the arc command, clarifying its often-confusing aspects. The post also covers the Z command, relative commands, and practical tips like smoothing chained Bézier curves. A must-read for web developers of all levels.

(www.joshwcomeau.com)

Development curve drawing

Go SQLite Driver Benchmarks: No Clear Winner

2025-08-22

Go SQLite Driver Benchmarks: No Clear Winner

This blog post benchmarks several Go SQLite drivers, revealing that performance varies greatly depending on the use case. Tests cover scenarios ranging from inserting a million rows in a single transaction, simulating real-world scenarios with multiple transactions, complex large JOIN queries, and concurrent reads. While sqinn shows strong performance across multiple tests, no single driver dominates all scenarios. The post emphasizes the importance of writing your own benchmarks and notes that CGO-free pure Go SQLite drivers are now a viable option.

(github.com)

Development

Slow SSD Mystery: Unmasking a Fake Kingston Drive

2025-08-22

The author purchased a supposedly 960GB Kingston SSD, but its speed was far below expectations. Tests revealed it was actually a 128GB drive, likely a counterfeit with modified firmware. Despite realistic packaging, poor back sticker printing gave it away. The author contacted the online retailer and received a full refund. This experience serves as a cautionary tale: even when buying from large online marketplaces, careful verification is crucial to avoid scams like the "fulfilled by Amazon" trick.

(andrei.xyz)

Hardware Counterfeit SSD eCommerce Fraud

Dark Magic in Python 3.10's Pattern Matching: Exploiting `subclasshook`

2025-08-22

This article explores the unexpected capabilities arising from the combination of Python 3.10's pattern matching and the `__subclasshook__` method of Abstract Base Classes (ABCs). By cleverly using `__subclasshook__`, the author demonstrates 'hijacking' pattern matching, allowing custom definition of which types match and even matching based on object attributes, not just types. While showcasing powerful functionalities like creating custom matchers, the author strongly cautions against using this technique in production code due to its unpredictable and potentially harmful nature.

(www.hillelwayne.com)

Development Abstract Base Classes

Bo's Electric Scooter: A 22mph Commuter and a Bonneville Speed Demon

2025-08-22

Bo's Electric Scooter: A 22mph Commuter and a Bonneville Speed Demon

UK-based Bo is making waves with two electric scooter models: the practical Model-M (22mph top speed, 40-mile range, $2,500) and the high-performance Turbo, aiming for triple-digit speeds at Bonneville. Founded by former F1 engineers, Bo aims to elevate e-scooters beyond disposable transportation. The Turbo boasts a 24,000-watt dual-motor setup and Safesteer stabilization technology, but commands a hefty $30,000 price tag. The article explores Bo's ambition, the high-end e-scooter market, and compares it to competitors like Rage Mechanics' RM-X.

(www.thedrive.com)

Tech electric scooter

uv 0.8.13 Experimentally Adds Code Formatting: uv format

2025-08-22

uv 0.8.13 experimentally introduces the highly anticipated `uv format` command for Python developers. This integrates code formatting directly into uv, streamlining Python workflows and eliminating the need to juggle multiple tools. Under the hood, `uv format` uses Ruff to automatically style code consistently. After upgrading to 0.8.13 or later, use `uv format` – it works similarly to `ruff format` and allows custom formatting via arguments after `--`. Note: this is experimental; future versions may change.

(pydevtools.com)

Development

Unlocking Shopping Carts with Phone Speaker Sounds: A DEFCON 29 Hack

2025-08-22

A hacker, @stoppingcart, demonstrated at DEFCON 29 a method to unlock electronic shopping carts using a phone speaker. Most electronic shopping cart wheels listen for a 7.8 kHz signal from an underground wire to lock and unlock. The hacker created a 7.8 kHz audio file and used the parasitic EMF from a phone's speaker to 'transmit' a similar signal, unlocking the cart. This exploits a vulnerability in the cart's security system, highlighting a security flaw.

(www.begaydocrime.com)

Tech electronic shopping carts

Zero System Calls: Building a High-Performance Web Server with io_uring

2025-08-22

This article details the evolution of building high-performance web servers, from early pre-forking to select/poll, then epoll, and finally achieving zero system calls using io_uring. The author developed an experimental web server called tarweb that utilizes io_uring to asynchronously add all operations to a kernel queue, thereby avoiding the overhead of frequent system calls. Combined with kTLS and descriptorless files, further performance improvements are achieved. While challenges remain, such as memory management and io_uring's safety concerns, the project demonstrates the potential for significant performance gains in high-concurrency scenarios.

(blog.habets.se)

Development high-performance web server

Adobe Acrobat Studio: AI Reimagines the PDF, Ushering in a New Era of Software?

2025-08-21

Adobe Acrobat Studio: AI Reimagines the PDF, Ushering in a New Era of Software?

Adobe's 1993 release of the PDF revolutionized document handling. Now, Adobe integrates generative AI into Acrobat Studio, introducing 'PDF Spaces' and an AI assistant, aiming to redefine the PDF. This isn't just a feature upgrade; it's a landmark event signifying AI's deep integration into everyday software. While AI functionality is attracting attention, concerns about AI's impact remain. Whether Adobe's move will lead the industry like its transparency support did remains to be seen, but it undeniably marks the arrival of the AI-dominated software era.

(www.wired.com)

Tech

arXivLabs: Experimental Projects with Community Collaborators

2025-08-21

arXivLabs is a framework enabling collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Individuals and organizations involved embrace arXiv's values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only partners with those who share them. Got an idea for a project that will benefit the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

(arxiv.org)

Development

Debugging Views: A Programmer's Time Saver

2025-08-21

Programmer Sophie encountered a bug in the Unison project, requiring complex SQL queries to track down the issue. The author introduces a solution: creating database views to streamline the debugging process. Pre-defined views join multiple tables, presenting data in a more readable format, eliminating the need to repeatedly write complex JOIN statements for each debugging session. While this approach might slightly impact performance on specific queries, it significantly improves debugging efficiency and saves development time.

(chrispenner.ca)

Development

China's Great Firewall Mysteriously Blocks Port 443 for an Hour

2025-08-21

China's Great Firewall Mysteriously Blocks Port 443 for an Hour

On August 20th, China's Great Firewall experienced a mysterious outage, blocking access to most foreign websites for about an hour. The outage affected TCP port 443, the standard port for HTTPS traffic, disrupting services reliant on it, including some Apple and Tesla services. The cause remains unclear, possibly a new device being tested, misconfiguration, or human error. This isn't the first Great Firewall glitch, highlighting flaws in China's internet censorship.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech Network Outage

D3.js: The Art Behind the Verbose Code

2025-08-21

D3.js: The Art Behind the Verbose Code

The journey of learning D3.js is like climbing a mountain. Initially, its lengthy code and complex syntax can be daunting; drawing a simple line requires a substantial amount of code. The author uses the example of drawing a box plot – 194 lines of code – to illustrate D3.js's powerful flexibility and customizability. D3.js is not just a simple drawing tool; it's a brush that empowers developers to create data visualization art, allowing for fine-grained control over SVG elements to achieve complex and unique visualization effects, ultimately transcending the limitations of off-the-shelf tools.

(theheasman.com)

Development

Lakehouse Tiering Strategies: Shared Tiering vs. Materialization?

2025-08-21

Lakehouse Tiering Strategies: Shared Tiering vs. Materialization?

This article explores data tiering strategies in lakehouse architectures. Direct access to shared tiers poses reliability risks; API access is preferable. Data lifecycle management requires a canonical metadata service coordinating primary and secondary storage locations. Schema management should be controlled by the primary system, ensuring compatibility with secondary storage. The choice between shared tiering and materialization depends on the location of stitching/conversion logic (client or server-side) and their respective pros and cons. With client-side stitching, the difference is minimal; server-side stitching requires careful consideration of metadata maintenance and real-time data processing integration.

(jack-vanlightly.com)

Development data tiering metadata management

Meta Accused of Inflating Ecommerce Ad Performance Metrics

2025-08-21

Meta Accused of Inflating Ecommerce Ad Performance Metrics

A whistleblower complaint alleges that Meta artificially inflated the return on ad spend (ROAS) for its Shops ads product by including shipping fees as revenue, subsidizing bids, and applying undisclosed discounts. The former employee, Samujjal Purkayastha, claims this was done to counteract the impact of Apple's 2021 privacy changes and boost adoption of the fledgling ecommerce ad product. Internal reviews allegedly revealed a 17-19% ROAS inflation due to the inclusion of shipping fees and taxes, a practice not followed by Meta's other ad products or competitors like Google. Purkayastha, who was subsequently terminated, brought these concerns to senior leadership. Meta denies the allegations and is actively defending the lawsuit.

(www.adweek.com)

Tech Ad Fraud

AI Crawlers Overwhelm the Open Web: Meta and OpenAI Leading the Charge

2025-08-21

AI Crawlers Overwhelm the Open Web: Meta and OpenAI Leading the Charge

Fastly's report reveals that AI crawlers are consuming the open web at an alarming rate, accounting for 80% of all AI bot traffic. Meta's AI division contributes over half of this crawler traffic, while OpenAI dominates on-demand fetch requests. This excessive scraping leads to increased website load, server overload, and harms content creators. Some companies ignore robots.txt directives, prompting website operators to fight back with anti-scraping techniques like Anubis. Experts call for responsible crawling standards, even suggesting that only the bursting of the AI bubble can solve this, with government regulation becoming urgent.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech web load

Running Common Lisp in the Browser: Progress on the Web Embeddable Common Lisp Project

2025-08-21

The Web Embeddable Common Lisp (WECL) project aims to bring the Common Lisp runtime environment into web browsers. The project currently allows running Common Lisp code via `` tags and provides JS-FFI for low-level interaction between Common Lisp and JavaScript. Furthermore, LIME/SLUG enables interaction with WECL from Emacs. However, the project is still in its early stages, with limitations such as insufficient threading support and room for performance optimization. Future plans include porting to WASI to address these issues.

(turtleware.eu)

Development

Image Scaling Attacks: A New Vulnerability in AI Systems

2025-08-21

Image Scaling Attacks: A New Vulnerability in AI Systems

Researchers have discovered a novel AI security vulnerability: data exfiltration can be achieved by sending seemingly harmless images to large language models (LLMs). Attackers leverage the fact that AI systems often downscale images before processing them, embedding malicious prompt injections in the downscaled version that are invisible at full resolution. This allows bypassing user awareness and accessing user data. The vulnerability has been demonstrated on multiple AI systems, including Google Gemini CLI. Researchers developed the open-source tool Anamorpher to generate and analyze these crafted images, and recommend avoiding image downscaling in AI systems or providing users with a preview of the image the model actually sees to mitigate the risk.

(blog.trailofbits.com)

AI image scaling

Sütterlinschrift: The Rise and Fall of a German Handwriting Script

2025-08-21

Sütterlinschrift: The Rise and Fall of a German Handwriting Script

Sütterlinschrift, a widely used German handwriting script from 1915 to the 1970s, represents the final form of Kurrent. Designed by Ludwig Sütterlin, it was banned by the Nazi regime in 1941 and replaced with 'normal script'. Despite this, Sütterlinschrift continued to be used by many post-war, fading from common use only in the 1970s. Its unique letters and ligatures even left a mark in mathematics and proofreading, showcasing its historical and cultural impact.

(en.wikipedia.org)

Misc German history

Google Search's AI Mode Gets a Powerful Upgrade: Your Personal Taskmaster

2025-08-21

Google Search's AI Mode Gets a Powerful Upgrade: Your Personal Taskmaster

Google is supercharging its AI Mode in Search, giving it advanced agentic capabilities and personalization. Now you can ask complex questions naturally, and AI Mode will handle the task, such as making restaurant reservations, scheduling appointments, and buying tickets. It searches across multiple platforms based on your preferences (party size, date, time, location, cuisine, etc.), and directly links to the booking page for easy completion. This is powered by Project Mariner's live web browsing, Search's partner integrations, and the power of Google's Knowledge Graph and Maps.

(blog.google)

AI

Daemonless Docker Compose Builds with Podman, BuildKit, and a Pinch of Bakah

2025-08-21

Due to Docker's incompatibility with nftables and a preference for a rootless, daemonless approach, the author uses Podman to build a Docker Compose project. The article explores the shortcomings of using both the official Docker Compose CLI and podman-compose, ultimately achieving builds under Podman using the Docker Compose CLI and BuildKit by enabling the Podman socket, creating a Docker context. To avoid a BuildKit daemon, the author developed Bakah, a tool that converts Compose projects into Bake JSON files and uses Buildah for building, resulting in a completely daemonless build process.

(emersion.fr)

Development

Revitalizing Your Mavericks: Giving an Old System New Life

2025-08-21

This guide shows you how to breathe new life into your aging OS X Mavericks system. It involves a simple script to update the system, replacing the outdated browser with a modern Firefox (Firefox Dynasty), using Aqua Proxy to fix HTTPS compatibility issues, adding new emojis, and setting up Time Machine backups. The guide also instructs users on deleting unwanted pre-installed apps such as Chess, iTunes, and iBooks for a personalized experience. The entire process is straightforward, making your Mavericks system run smoother and more tailored to your needs.

(mavericksforever.com)

Development

Cubix: A ZX Spectrum 3D Platformer Defies Expectations

2025-08-21

Cubix: A ZX Spectrum 3D Platformer Defies Expectations

Gogin's Cubix, released during the YRGB 2025 retro game competition, is being hailed as the first-ever 3D platformer for the ZX Spectrum. This impressive feat is achieved through clever 2D manipulation and pre-calculation, creating a Fez-like rotating level mechanic. By pre-calculating and storing data to overcome the hardware limitations of the ZX Spectrum, Gogin completed this stunning game in just 4.5 months. Cubix challenges the boundaries of what's possible on this classic '80s computer.

(www.timeextension.com)

Game 3D Platformer

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