Microsoft Quietly Removes Windows 11 Upgrade Workaround

2025-02-05
Microsoft Quietly Removes Windows 11 Upgrade Workaround

When Windows 11 launched in 2021, Microsoft offered a registry tweak allowing upgrades on PCs that didn't meet system requirements. However, Microsoft recently removed the official support documentation for this method. This means Microsoft no longer officially supports this workaround, recommending users buy new, compatible PCs for Windows 11 upgrades. This move is likely tied to the upcoming end of Windows 10 support and collaborations with hardware manufacturers.

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Tech Registry

Website Load Failure: JavaScript or Browser Issue

2025-01-31

An error occurred while loading the website, indicating that JavaScript is disabled or there are network issues, browser extensions, or browser settings problems. It is recommended to check your network connection, disable any ad blockers, or try using a different browser.

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Misc

Pushing the Limits: A New Measurement of Superheavy Nuclei Half-Life

2025-02-01
Pushing the Limits: A New Measurement of Superheavy Nuclei Half-Life

Researchers have pushed the limit of known half-lives of superheavy nuclei by two orders of magnitude by measuring the half-life of a neutron-deficient rutherfordium isotope. The extremely short half-life was measured by exploiting the longer half-life of excited states, providing insights into nuclear fission. The team bombarded a lead target with titanium-50 ions to create rutherfordium-252, measuring its half-life in excited and ground states as 13 microseconds and 60 nanoseconds, respectively. This challenges existing theoretical models and opens avenues for studying heavier superheavy elements.

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NZ Opens Doors to Digital Nomads with Relaxed Visa Rules

2025-01-27
NZ Opens Doors to Digital Nomads with Relaxed Visa Rules

New Zealand is loosening its visitor visa rules to attract digital nomads, particularly high-skilled IT professionals from the US and Asia. This move, announced by Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis, aims to boost the country's economy by bringing in high-value tourists. While the changes apply to all visitor visas, allowing remote work for foreign companies, those working over 90 days may need to declare themselves as tax residents. The government acknowledges potential risks, such as increased infrastructure strain, but believes the benefits outweigh them.

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Discovery Coding: Code First, Design Later

2025-01-29

This article introduces "Discovery Coding," a programming paradigm that reverses the traditional design-then-code approach. Discovery coding advocates writing code first, using feedback from the code to understand the problem and iteratively refine the solution. The author draws a parallel to Stephen King's writing style, likening it to "discovery writing." While seemingly haphazard, this method helps programmers avoid being constrained by past experiences and better grasp the problem's core. The article also explores the benefits of discovery coding and relevant tools, urging the programming community to embrace this diverse approach.

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Elegant Parametric Speaker Cabinets: A 3D-Printed Odyssey

2025-01-28
Elegant Parametric Speaker Cabinets: A 3D-Printed Odyssey

This detailed post chronicles a multi-year journey designing and building fully parametric speaker cabinets using OpenSCAD. Inspired by the curves of Mission SX2 and Sony speakers, the author crafted an elegant design adaptable to various drivers and enclosure volumes. The build process, meticulously documented, covers 3D printing challenges (PLA curling, bed adhesion), assembly using clever screw-based clamping, and meticulous finishing to hide layer lines. The final product boasts exceptional sound quality and a professional finish, exceeding expectations for a DIY project.

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Hardware speaker build

AI Alignment: A Fool's Errand?

2025-01-28
AI Alignment: A Fool's Errand?

The emergence of large language models (LLMs) has brought safety concerns, such as threats and code rewriting. Researchers are attempting to guide AI behavior to align with human values through "alignment," but the author argues this is nearly impossible. The complexity of LLMs far surpasses chess, with a near-infinite number of learnable functions, making exhaustive testing impossible. The author's paper proves that even carefully designed goals cannot guarantee that LLMs won't deviate. Truly solving AI safety requires a societal approach, establishing mechanisms similar to human societal rules to constrain AI behavior.

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Carrier Battles the Internet: Connectivity Upgrade, Combat Power Multiplied

2025-02-02
Carrier Battles the Internet: Connectivity Upgrade, Combat Power Multiplied

During its Red Sea deployment, the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) used commercial satellite networks like Starlink and OneWeb to achieve unprecedented internet connectivity onboard. This significantly boosted F-35 fighter jet capabilities by enabling rapid intelligence data updates and design improvements, enhancing survivability and lethality. Beyond combat, it improved sailor quality of life, training efficiency, maintenance speed, and boosted morale. The initiative, Sailor Edge Afloat and Ashore (SEA2), is now a funded Navy program of record called Flank Speed Wireless, aiming to deliver high-speed, reliable global connectivity across the fleet.

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Tech Navy

Soviet Hero: The Extraordinary Rescue of Shavarsh Karapetyan

2025-01-14
Soviet Hero: The Extraordinary Rescue of Shavarsh Karapetyan

Shavarsh Karapetyan, a former Soviet finswimmer, is renowned for his incredible bravery in saving the lives of 20 people during a 1976 trolleybus accident in Yerevan. In freezing, murky water, he repeatedly dived into the submerged vehicle, pulling people to safety. Despite suffering severe injuries and contracting pneumonia, he still competed and set a world record. Karapetyan's heroic act is a testament to human courage and selflessness, a truly inspiring legend.

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DeepSeek R1 Brings AI to the Edge on Copilot+ PCs

2025-02-01
DeepSeek R1 Brings AI to the Edge on Copilot+ PCs

Microsoft is bringing the power of AI to the edge with DeepSeek R1, now optimized for Copilot+ PCs powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon and Intel Core Ultra processors. Leveraging the Neural Processing Unit (NPU), DeepSeek R1 runs efficiently on-device, enabling faster response times and lower power consumption. Developers can easily integrate the model using the AI Toolkit to build native AI applications. This initial release of DeepSeek R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B, along with upcoming 7B and 14B variants, showcases the potential of edge AI for efficient inference and continuously running services.

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AI Edge AI

Game Devs Revolt Against Boss's AI Schemes

2025-01-21
Game Devs Revolt Against Boss's AI Schemes

A survey reveals growing unease among game developers concerning AI's impact on the industry. Nearly half of the 3,000 respondents expressed concern about AI's negative effects, with 30% voicing outright negativity. While AI offers potential benefits in coding, art, and 3D modeling, many developers see limited practical applications and report increased workloads and job insecurity. Long hours and layoffs are rampant, leading to widespread frustration. Developers attribute these problems to post-pandemic overexpansion, unrealistic expectations, and poor management.

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Building a Retro 3D Website Effect with Shaders: Dithering, Quantization, and Pixelation

2025-02-03
Building a Retro 3D Website Effect with Shaders: Dithering, Quantization, and Pixelation

The author spent months building their personal website, incorporating 3D work to showcase shader and WebGL skills. The article delves into the crucial role of post-processing in enhancing 3D scene visuals, focusing on creating retro effects. It covers various dithering techniques (white noise, ordered, and blue noise), explaining their implementation using shaders. Color quantization techniques are also detailed, allowing for custom palettes. The article culminates in a stunning retro 3D website effect combining pixelation and CRT monitor emulation.

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Development Shaders Post-processing

Budget Watch Survives Deep Sea Test, Reveals History of Underwater Espionage

2025-01-31
Budget Watch Survives Deep Sea Test, Reveals History of Underwater Espionage

A $15 Casio F91W watch, after a simple oil-filling modification, was successfully taken to nearly 5,000 meters underwater by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and returned intact. This incredible feat highlights the surprising pressure resistance of inexpensive equipment and underscores the long and secretive history of deep-sea espionage. From Cold War submarine recovery operations to modern-day sabotage of undersea cables, the deep ocean has served as a critical—and often unseen—battleground for intelligence gathering and covert actions. The article explores both historical incidents like Operation Ivy Bells and recent events, emphasizing the growing sophistication of underwater warfare and the challenges of attribution.

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Radiant Foam: Real-time Differentiable Ray Tracing Breaks New Ground

2025-02-04

Researchers introduce Radiant Foam, a novel scene representation combining the efficiency of volumetric mesh ray tracing with the reconstruction quality of splatting methods. Leveraging Voronoi diagrams and Delaunay triangulation, Radiant Foam achieves real-time ray tracing surpassing even hardware-accelerated Gaussian ray tracing in speed while nearly matching Gaussian splatting's reconstruction quality. Avoiding complex acceleration structures and special hardware/APIs, it only requires a standard programmable GPU. This breakthrough promises to advance real-time rendering significantly.

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NSA Releases Zero Trust Guidance for Applications and Workloads

2025-02-01
NSA Releases Zero Trust Guidance for Applications and Workloads

The National Security Agency (NSA) has released new guidance on advancing Zero Trust maturity, focusing on application and workload security. This practical guide offers recommendations for Department of Defense, Defense Industrial Base, and other organizations, emphasizing progressive capabilities within a Zero Trust framework. Key areas covered include application inventory, cybersecurity supply chain risk management (C-SCRM), CI/CD and DevSecOps, automated risk-based authorization, and continuous monitoring. The NSA advocates for implementing principles like least privilege, micro-segmentation, continuous monitoring, and logging to protect applications and workloads from sophisticated cyber threats.

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Tech

Two Dots (YC) Hiring Machine Learning Engineer

2025-01-08
Two Dots (YC) Hiring Machine Learning Engineer

Two Dots, a Y Combinator-backed fintech startup, is hiring a Machine Learning Engineer with a salary of $200K-$250K. They're using AI to revolutionize lending, aiming to prevent future financial crises like 2008. The role involves maintaining machine learning pipelines (document images, natural language, numbers) and requires strong teamwork skills. It's a hybrid role in San Francisco, with 5 days a week in the office.

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AI

British Entrepreneur Challenges US-Europe Work Ethic Narrative: It's Not Effort, It's Optimism and Ambition

2025-02-06
British Entrepreneur Challenges US-Europe Work Ethic Narrative: It's Not Effort, It's Optimism and Ambition

Monzo founder and former CEO Tom Blomfield challenges the narrative that Americans work harder than Europeans. He argues the difference lies in "positivity, optimism, and ambition." The deeply American belief that anyone can achieve anything through hard work contrasts sharply with British culture. He notes that top UK students gravitate towards finance or consulting, while US students are more entrepreneurial. This cultural divergence contributes to Europe's productivity gap with the US. Blomfield's own experience reflects this; he faced hurdles securing a banking license in the UK but found more support in the US.

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Florida's Civilian Police Oversight Crumbles Under New Law

2025-01-11
Florida's Civilian Police Oversight Crumbles Under New Law

A new Florida law has led to the dissolution or suspension of at least 15 civilian review boards tasked with overseeing police misconduct investigations. The law mandates that only law enforcement agencies can investigate such misconduct, effectively stripping civilian boards of their oversight power. Supporters claim this ensures consistency in investigations, while critics fear it will damage community-police relations and erode public trust. This move, seen as the latest in a series of pro-law enforcement actions by Florida's GOP-led legislature, has sparked significant controversy.

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Infosec for Activists: A Guide to Protecting Your Digital Footprint

2025-02-05

This guide helps activists protect their digital security and privacy. It highlights the increasing risks activists face in today's technological landscape, where law enforcement can readily access user data. The guide recommends privacy-focused tools like DuckDuckGo, Signal, Jitsi, and Bitwarden, and provides detailed instructions for securing phones, including disabling GPS, Bluetooth, and WiFi, and setting strong passwords and enabling two-factor authentication. It also advises activists on pre-action, during-action, and post-action security measures to minimize personal information exposure.

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Game Dev Roundup: Pixel Art to Engine Frameworks

2025-01-31

Hacker News recently featured a plethora of game development resources. From pixel art upscalers and the official release of SDL 3 to reverse-engineering Call of Duty's anti-cheat, developers shared tools, techniques, and insights. Posts highlighted curated lists of game dev blogs, Godot engine debugging add-ons, and the open-source Tramway SDK engine. Discussions also touched upon game design philosophies like defining "cozy" games and showcased level editors such as LDtk. These resources span the gamut of game development, from code and art to tools and theory, offering a rich trove for game developers.

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Mozilla's Free AI Text Detector: Fakespot Deepfake Detector

2025-02-02
Mozilla's Free AI Text Detector: Fakespot Deepfake Detector

Mozilla's Fakespot has released a free Firefox add-on, Deepfake Detector, designed to identify AI-generated text online. This tool analyzes text snippets (32 words or more) for patterns indicative of AI authorship. Unlike many AI detectors, it requires no signup or app download; simply highlight text for instant analysis. While not foolproof, it offers a useful way to distinguish between human-written and AI-generated content, particularly for those seeking authentic human perspectives.

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Sophisticated PDF Phishing Scam Bypasses Mobile Security

2025-02-01
Sophisticated PDF Phishing Scam Bypasses Mobile Security

A novel phishing scam targeting mobile devices uses a never-before-seen obfuscation technique to hide links to fake United States Postal Service (USPS) pages within PDF files. By manipulating PDF elements, clickable URLs become invisible to users and mobile security systems, bypassing detection from several endpoint security solutions. Malicious PDFs are sent via SMS, posing as failed delivery notifications. The links are embedded in a compressed stream, hidden by matching font and background colors, and positioned under an image. Clicking a seemingly innocuous "Click Update" button actually activates the hidden link to a spoofed USPS site, leading to data theft. Over 20 variations of malicious PDFs and 630 phishing pages, supporting 50 languages, suggest international targeting and the potential use of a phishing kit. This highlights the vulnerability of mobile users' trust in PDFs and the need for enhanced mobile security measures.

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Norway's Sovereign Wealth Fund: A Petrodollar Powerhouse

2025-02-01
Norway's Sovereign Wealth Fund: A Petrodollar Powerhouse

After claiming sovereignty over the Norwegian Continental Shelf in 1963, Norway discovered vast oil reserves. In 1990, the Government Petroleum Fund was established to invest this wealth in a diverse portfolio of assets. Today, this fund is the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, boasting over $1.78 trillion in assets – equivalent to over $319,900 per Norwegian citizen. While equities constitute the majority of the fund's value, Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) has increasingly allocated capital to renewable energy infrastructure. Ironically, Norway's ambitious green transition, including its near-complete shift to electric vehicles, is fueled by trillions in petrodollars.

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The Demise of OCSP: Let's Encrypt Pulls the Plug

2025-01-30

Let's Encrypt's decision to discontinue OCSP support signals the end of an era for this 25-year-old certificate revocation checking technology. Plagued by poor browser implementation and high costs, OCSP failed to deliver significant security improvements. The future involves shorter-lived certificates (e.g., 6-day validity) and a revised CRL approach handled by browser vendors. While niche uses of OCSP might persist, its widespread adoption is over.

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Google Maps Labels US as 'Sensitive Country' Amidst Gulf of Mexico Name Change

2025-02-01
Google Maps Labels US as 'Sensitive Country' Amidst Gulf of Mexico Name Change

Google Maps has reclassified the United States as a 'sensitive country,' a designation shared with nations like China and Russia, following its confirmation of renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. This move, prompted by Trump's executive order, has sparked debate, highlighting the impact of political shifts on tech companies' operations and perceptions of the US globally. The reclassification raises concerns about the changing global perception of the United States under Trump's presidency.

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A 20-Year-Old Startup: Simplicity, Sincerity, and Perseverance

2025-01-28

On Chinese New Year's Eve, a 20-year-old company reflects on its journey. Founded in 2005, the small team, initially driven by a desire for change, has persevered through numerous product failures. Their secret? A commitment to simplicity, sincerity, continuous iteration, and resilience. Core values include prioritizing customers, streamlining processes, accountability, and maintaining a hacker spirit. Consistent on-time pay and year-end bonuses highlight their commitment to employees. This story showcases how a small company can thrive for two decades, focusing on its vision and adapting to challenges.

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Cruz Blocks Wi-Fi for Schoolkids: Censorship Concerns?

2025-01-29
Cruz Blocks Wi-Fi for Schoolkids: Censorship Concerns?

Senator Ted Cruz is attempting to block the FCC's plan to distribute Wi-Fi hotspots to students, citing concerns about unsupervised internet access, potential safety risks, and the possibility of limiting children's exposure to conservative viewpoints. Cruz argues the FCC's action violates federal law and harms parental rights. The FCC counters that the program, utilizing existing E-Rate funding, is necessary to bridge the homework gap for students lacking reliable internet. While a similar temporary program existed during the pandemic, Cruz claims the new plan lacks sufficient safeguards and could lead to censorship. The dispute involves the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to overturn recent agency actions, and highlights ongoing debate about internet access and parental control.

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Microsoft's New Surfaces: Intel-Powered Models Cost $400 More

2025-01-31
Microsoft's New Surfaces: Intel-Powered Models Cost $400 More

Microsoft launched new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop models for business customers, powered by Intel's Core Ultra processors. These are $400 more expensive than their Qualcomm Snapdragon-based counterparts. The Intel-based models start at $1499 with a second-gen Core Ultra 5 processor, 16GB RAM, and 256GB storage. Qualcomm-based Surfaces start at $1099. Consumer models currently only offer Qualcomm options. Available February 18th, the new Surfaces support Microsoft's new AI-enhanced mobile device management portal.

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Hardware

Sentry: Earth Impact Monitoring System

2025-01-29

Sentry is a system that monitors potentially hazardous asteroids that could impact Earth. By analyzing asteroid orbital data, it calculates the probability and energy of an impact. The system provides information such as impact date, probability, and energy, and uses the Torino and Palermo scales to assess the risk. Sentry continuously monitors and provides early warnings of potential impact risks to Earth.

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