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Mbed TLS Port for Classic Mac OS: A Retro-Tech Challenge

2025-04-11

Mbed TLS Port for Classic Mac OS: A Retro-Tech Challenge

A developer successfully ported Mbed TLS to Classic Mac OS 7/8/9, a remarkable feat. The project overcame numerous hurdles, including the limitations of C89/C90 compilers lacking modern C features and the idiosyncrasies of the Mac's file system. The developer implemented 64-bit integer emulation and a custom entropy collection system, ultimately enabling a basic HTTPS GET request on a classic Mac. While security limitations exist, the project showcases a passion for retro technology and impressive programming skills.

(github.com)

Development Retro Programming

Football Manager 2024 Skips a Season: A Surprisingly Smart Move

2025-02-07

Football Manager 2024 Skips a Season: A Surprisingly Smart Move

Football Manager 2024 has been delayed, foregoing an update with the new season's player data and issuing refunds to pre-order customers. While disappointing for fans eager for updated rosters, this decision showcases Sports Interactive's boldness and long-term vision. Annual sports game releases are often criticized for their lack of innovation and prevalence of microtransactions. Football Manager's delay represents a thoughtful departure from this trend, prioritizing quality over rushed deadlines. This unexpected move could signal a refreshing change in the sports game landscape, promising future improvements and innovation.

(arstechnica.com)

Game sports game football manager

DIY Motorized Pendant Lights: A Tale of Trials and Triumphs

2025-04-23

DIY Motorized Pendant Lights: A Tale of Trials and Triumphs

Inspired by the rise-and-fall pendant lights of the late 20th century, the author embarks on a challenging DIY project to create motorized versions. The journey details the selection of motors, slip rings, and microcontrollers, alongside the mechanical and electrical design, and firmware development. Obstacles encountered and solutions implemented are meticulously documented. The final result is five remotely controlled pendant lights, with a discussion of lessons learned and future improvements.

(www.sallery.co.uk)

Hardware Mechanical Design

Building an LLM from Scratch: Unraveling the Mystery of Attention

2025-05-11

Building an LLM from Scratch: Unraveling the Mystery of Attention

This post delves into the inner workings of the self-attention mechanism in large language models. The author analyzes multi-head attention and layered mechanisms, explaining how seemingly simple matrix multiplications achieve complex functionality. The core idea is that individual attention heads are simple, but through multi-head attention and layering, complex and rich representations are built. This is analogous to how convolutional neural networks extract features layer by layer, ultimately achieving a deep understanding of the input sequence. Furthermore, the post explains how attention mechanisms solve the inherent fixed-length bottleneck problem of RNN models and uses examples to illustrate the roles of query, key, and value spaces in the attention mechanism.

(www.gilesthomas.com)

AI

USB Spec Meeting Anecdote: The Premium of Translucent Blue

2025-02-10

USB Spec Meeting Anecdote: The Premium of Translucent Blue

At a USB specification meeting, a company showcased their USB floppy drives, surprisingly offering separate versions for PCs and Macs. Committee members were puzzled, as the specification ensured the same drive worked on both systems. The representative explained that the drives were electronically identical; the only difference was the Mac version came in translucent blue plastic and cost more. This reflected the then-popular translucent plastic trend of iMacs and highlighted how some manufacturers leveraged design differences for price premiums.

(devblogs.microsoft.com)

Hardware floppy drive

Trump vs. Musk: A Space-Age Showdown

2025-06-07

Trump vs. Musk: A Space-Age Showdown

President Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk engaged in a heated public feud, with Trump threatening to cancel SpaceX government contracts and Musk responding with a threat to decommission Dragon spacecraft. This exchange raised concerns about the impact on NASA and the Department of Defense, who heavily rely on SpaceX. Although Musk later retracted the decommissioning threat, the incident highlights the complex interplay between US politics and business, and its implications for space exploration. Trump's withdrawal of Jared Isaacman's nomination for NASA administrator further complicated the situation.

(spacenews.com)

Tech

Realtek's Cheap 10GbE NIC Could Finally Bring 10 Gigabit Ethernet to the Masses

2025-05-23

Realtek's Cheap 10GbE NIC Could Finally Bring 10 Gigabit Ethernet to the Masses

Realtek showcased its new RTL8127 10GbE network controller at Computex 2025. This tiny (9mm x 9mm) PCIe 4.0 x2 controller supports 2.5Gbps, 5Gbps, and 10Gbps speeds, boasts a low power consumption of 1.95W, and integrates ECC and CRC features. Priced at around $10, it promises to drastically reduce the cost of integrating 10GbE into motherboards. While 10GbE switches and CAT6 cables remain relatively expensive, wider adoption of the RTL8127 by motherboard manufacturers could accelerate the普及 of 10GbE networking.

(www.tomshardware.com)

Hardware NIC

BD3-LMs: Block Discrete Denoising Diffusion Language Models – Faster, More Efficient Text Generation

2025-05-08

BD3-LMs: Block Discrete Denoising Diffusion Language Models – Faster, More Efficient Text Generation

BD3-LMs cleverly combine autoregressive and diffusion model paradigms. By modeling blocks of tokens autoregressively and then applying diffusion within each block, it achieves both high likelihoods and flexible-length generation, while maintaining the speed and parallelization advantages of diffusion models. Efficient training and sampling algorithms, requiring only two forward passes, further enhance performance, making it a promising approach for large-scale text generation.

(m-arriola.com)

AI autoregressive model

Linus Torvalds Slams Case-Insensitive Filesystems

2025-04-27

Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, unleashed a scathing critique on case-insensitive file systems. He argued that such functionality is fundamentally flawed, citing numerous security vulnerabilities stemming from poor implementations. Many programs rely on case-sensitive filenames for security checks, and flawed case-insensitive implementations can bypass these checks, leading to serious security risks. Torvalds urged filesystem developers to abandon this flawed approach, emphasizing that case-sensitivity is the correct design choice.

(www.phoronix.com)

Development

AI: A Collaborative Partner, Not a Replacement

2025-04-20

AI: A Collaborative Partner, Not a Replacement

Many misunderstand AI, believing it fully automates writing, planning, and problem-solving. The author argues AI is more like a 'thought-checker,' enhancing human thought, not replacing it. Using performance reviews and meeting notes as examples, the article highlights AI's shortcomings in lacking human insight, contextual understanding, and reliability. The author proposes viewing AI as a collaborative partner, engaging in iterative dialogue to improve work quality and efficiency. The ultimate goal isn't speed, but improved quality.

(hils.substack.com)

AI

OpenAI's Top Safety Officer Steps Down Amidst Safety Concerns

2025-04-17

OpenAI's Top Safety Officer Steps Down Amidst Safety Concerns

OpenAI's head of preparedness, Joaquin Quiñonero Candela, recently stepped down from his role and transitioned to an internal internship. This follows a series of high-profile departures from OpenAI's safety teams, restructuring of the safety organization, and reports of reduced safety testing times. The events raise concerns about OpenAI's commitment to AI safety, particularly given the company's recent release of GPT-4.1 without a safety report and reports of shortened safety testing periods. The situation highlights a potential prioritization of product release over safety considerations, contrasting with OpenAI's previous public commitments and sparking broader discussions about AI safety regulation.

(garrisonlovely.substack.com)

AI

Trump's Shifting Tariffs Weaken US Customs Enforcement

2025-04-27

Trump's Shifting Tariffs Weaken US Customs Enforcement

President Trump's fluctuating tariff policies have overwhelmed US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), significantly hindering their efforts to combat forced labor. The agency's staff, responsible for both tariff enforcement and forced labor prevention, are stretched thin, leading to a dramatic decrease in the number of reviewed shipments suspected of forced labor ties. The uncertainty surrounding tariffs also incentivizes tariff evasion, further complicating enforcement. While the administration maintains that forced labor enforcement remains a priority, the reality is that the inconsistent policies have significantly weakened US enforcement capabilities.

(timesofsandiego.com)

Tech forced labor

Will OAuth Save MCP? A Look at Security in Model Context Protocols

2025-04-20

Will OAuth Save MCP? A Look at Security in Model Context Protocols

Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP) offers a simple way to integrate models, tools, and APIs, but its security is a concern. This article explores whether using OAuth as an identity layer for MCP is sufficient. While OAuth provides tokens, identifying clients and accessed resources, it doesn't solve all security problems, such as strong authentication, preventing credential theft, device identification, attribute-based access control, etc. The author argues that relying solely on OAuth is insufficient to address the new security risks posed by MCP. Infosec teams need to delve deeper into identity proxies and access policies to address the internal and external attack surfaces introduced by MCP.

(defensiblesystems.substack.com)

Tech

arXivLabs: Experimenting with Community Collaboration

2025-04-20

arXivLabs is a framework for collaborators to build and share new arXiv features directly on the website. Individuals and organizations involved share arXiv's values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv only partners with those who uphold these principles. Got an idea to improve the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

(arxiv.org)

Development

North Korean Hackers Infiltrate Fortune 500 Companies

2025-04-08

North Korean Hackers Infiltrate Fortune 500 Companies

Thousands of North Korean citizens, posing as American software engineers using stolen or fake identities, have infiltrated Fortune 500 companies. They funnel their salaries to Kim Jong Un's regime, funding prohibited weapons programs. The scam has generated hundreds of millions annually since 2018. Harrison Leggio, founder of a crypto startup, estimates 95% of applicants are North Korean imposters. He now asks candidates to speak negatively about Kim Jong Un to weed out the fakes. Experts warn AI is making the scheme more sophisticated, with predicted expansion into Europe and Asia in 2025. The US government is fighting back, but the threat remains significant, jeopardizing national and corporate security.

(www.yahoo.com)

Tech Identity Fraud

NVIDIA's AI Hegemony: A Looming Decline?

2025-04-21

NVIDIA's AI Hegemony: A Looming Decline?

NVIDIA, riding the wave of the AI boom and its GPU monopoly, has become the fastest-growing hardware company in history. However, its long-term dominance is facing serious challenges. Hyperscalers (Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta) are aggressively consolidating AI demand, developing competitive chips, and building vertically integrated distributed systems, making it difficult for NVIDIA to supply. Simultaneously, the sheer scale of compute needs has hit limits on capex, power availability, and infrastructure development, leaving smaller cloud providers struggling. NVIDIA's revenue is increasingly reliant on a few large customers, who are actively developing alternatives, leaving NVIDIA's future uncertain.

(mohitdagarwal.substack.com)

Tech

RCS Messaging Surpasses 1 Billion Daily Messages in the US

2025-05-13

RCS Messaging Surpasses 1 Billion Daily Messages in the US

Google announced at the Android Show that the RCS (Rich Communication Services) protocol now handles over 1 billion messages per day in the US. This milestone follows years of Google's efforts to get Apple to adopt RCS on iOS, improving cross-platform messaging. Previously, communication between Android and iOS users suffered from blurry images, poor group chat management, and other issues. While iOS 18 finally added RCS support, Apple keeps RCS chats green-bubbled, preserving the iMessage advantage.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech Messaging Protocol

From Audiobooks to Essays: A Writer's Journey

2025-04-16

From Audiobooks to Essays: A Writer's Journey

Starting with reflections on listening to the audiobook of Gabrielle Zevin's 'Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,' the author delves into the relationship between audiobooks and traditional reading, and their own experiences in the creative process and recording audiobooks. The essay showcases personal reflections and, based on reader feedback, the author's decision to share more directly about life, writing, and opinions. The piece also promotes a podcast and writing workshop the author is involved with.

(newsandreviews.substack.com)

Misc audiobooks

DVMCP: A Deliberately Vulnerable Model Context Protocol Implementation

2025-04-16

DVMCP: A Deliberately Vulnerable Model Context Protocol Implementation

DVMCP is a deliberately vulnerable implementation of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) designed for educational purposes. It features 10 progressively challenging scenarios demonstrating various vulnerabilities and attack vectors, including prompt injection, tool poisoning, excessive permissions, rug pull attacks, tool shadowing, indirect prompt injection, token theft, malicious code execution, remote access control, and multi-vector attacks. This project aims to educate security researchers, developers, and AI safety professionals about potential security risks in MCP implementations and mitigation strategies.

(github.com)

Development

Bonobo Syntax Challenges the Uniqueness of Human Language

2025-04-11

Bonobo Syntax Challenges the Uniqueness of Human Language

A new study reveals that bonobos combine calls in complex ways to form distinct phrases, suggesting that this type of syntax is more evolutionarily ancient than previously thought. Researchers, by observing and analyzing bonobo vocalizations and using semantic methods, discovered non-trivial compositionality in bonobo call combinations, meaning the meaning of the combination differs from the meanings of its individual parts. This finding challenges the uniqueness of human language, suggesting that the complex syntax of human language may have originated from older ancestors.

(www.newscientist.com)

AI

Deep Dive into ZGC Memory Allocation: Enhancements with Mapped Cache (JDK-8350441)

2025-04-23

This post delves into the intricacies of Java heap memory allocation in ZGC, an OpenJDK garbage collector. It highlights improvements introduced in JDK-8350441 with the Mapped Cache. ZGC organizes heap memory into pages (Small, Medium, Large) managed by a Page Allocator and partitions. The allocation process is meticulously explained, covering capacity management, the interplay between physical and virtual memory, and the Mapped Cache's role in optimizing allocation speed and reducing fragmentation. The article details NUMA architecture's impact on multi-partition allocation, memory commitment, reclamation, and defragmentation. Finally, it discusses the trade-off between startup time and runtime latency.

(joelsiks.com)

Development Java Memory Management

FreeBSD: Not Dead, Just Quietly Powering the Internet

2025-05-26

Recent discussions have questioned whether FreeBSD is dying. Analyzing Google Trends data, the author shows a steady upward trend for FreeBSD searches, contrasting with a flatline for Linux. This misconception, the author argues, stems from the availability heuristic; people focus on the more discussed Linux, overlooking FreeBSD's silent power behind countless internet services. FreeBSD's permissive BSD license, while making it a great foundation for commercial products, discourages companies from contributing back. The author calls on FreeBSD users to share their experiences and challenges, allowing the FreeBSD Foundation to bridge the gap between industry and software/hardware vendors, fostering FreeBSD's growth.

(freebsdfoundation.org)

Development BSD license

Automating My Blog: From PKM to One-Click Publishing

2025-04-24

Ryan West shares his experience automating his blog writing and publishing workflow. He uses Obsidian for Personal Knowledge Management (PKM), organizing high-quality information into Zotero, and then integrating and creating content through Obsidian. He uses Hugo to generate a static website and has automated deployment to GitHub via custom scripts and cron jobs, publishing Markdown articles from Obsidian to his website within minutes. He also uses giscus as a commenting system, leveraging GitHub Discussions for a Reddit-like commenting experience.

(www.ryanwwest.com)

Development blog automation

GitHub Copilot Coding Agent: Your New Dev Assistant

2025-05-19

GitHub Copilot Coding Agent: Your New Dev Assistant

GitHub Copilot now features a coding agent that automates low-to-medium complexity tasks like adding features, fixing bugs, extending tests, refactoring, and improving documentation. Simply assign issues to Copilot on GitHub; it works in a secure cloud environment using GitHub Actions, makes the changes, and requests review. It excels in well-tested codebases and can handle multiple issues concurrently. Available for Copilot Pro+ and Enterprise subscribers (Enterprise users require admin enablement). Usage consumes GitHub Actions minutes and Copilot premium requests.

(github.blog)

Development coding agent

NIH's New Medical Data Registry Sparks Privacy Concerns

2025-04-25

NIH's New Medical Data Registry Sparks Privacy Concerns

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is creating a medical data registry, allowing select outside researchers access but not download of the data, raising privacy concerns. Simultaneously, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), under Secretary Kennedy, has launched a study examining links between autism and vaccines, despite medical experts debunking any such connection. This, coupled with recent mass layoffs at HHS, raises fears that Secretary Kennedy and his allies, including anti-vaxxer Bhattacharya, may be pushing their agenda with a more compliant workforce.

(newrepublic.com)

Tech medical data privacy vaccines and autism HHS policy

Small Business Success: It's About Human Connection, Not Scale

2025-04-24

Small Business Success: It's About Human Connection, Not Scale

Many small businesses mistakenly apply large-corporation methodologies, making it difficult to effectively communicate with customers. This article argues that the key to small business success lies in fostering strong human relationships with clients, responding to inquiries promptly, clearly, and kindly, rather than relying on automation or AI. The author uses their own business as an example, highlighting the importance of direct customer communication and stating that this human interaction is the lifeblood of a small business, with products or services being secondary. The article concludes by urging small businesses to prioritize customer communication, choosing the right tools and methods to build healthy and positive customer relationships.

(goodenough.us)

Startup customer relationship small business operation

Founding Engineer Needed: AI-Powered Video Editing Revolution

2025-04-11

Founding Engineer Needed: AI-Powered Video Editing Revolution

Mosaic, an AI-powered node-based video editing paradigm, won the $25,000 grand prize at the Google Gemini Kaggle competition. We're seeking a Founding Engineer to accelerate development of our core agentic video editing technology. Responsibilities include building scalable video processing and inference pipelines, designing evaluations, and making high-level product decisions. The team comprises ex-Tesla engineers and aims to reduce video editing time from hours to seconds. First-principles thinking is a must.

(www.ycombinator.com)

Development AI video editing Founding Engineer

PlanetMath: A Collaborative Math Encyclopedia

2025-04-21

PlanetMath is an online community dedicated to making mathematical knowledge more accessible. Its core is a collaboratively written and reviewed mathematics encyclopedia, using LaTeX for writing and LaTeXML for web rendering. Since 2018, its source code is hosted on GitHub, and Gitter channels facilitate real-time discussions, replacing the legacy forums. PlanetMath is hosted by the University of Waterloo's Faculty of Mathematics and operated by PlanetMath.org, Ltd., a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.

(planetmath.org)

Misc Encyclopedia

Uncrackable Encryption: AI-Powered Holographic Security System

2025-02-02

Researchers in Greece have developed a novel optical encryption system using holograms and artificial intelligence. Information is encoded as a hologram in a laser beam, which becomes completely and randomly scrambled when passing through a small container of ethanol. This scrambling is impossible to decrypt using traditional methods. A trained neural network acts as a decryption key, successfully decoding the chaotic light patterns with 90-95% accuracy. This technology promises to enhance security for applications like digital currencies, healthcare, and communications.

(www.optica.org)

Tech optical encryption holography

Urtext: A Revolutionary Plaintext Writing Tool

2025-05-05

Urtext is an open-source library for plaintext writing that goes beyond a simple notepad. It combines writing, research, documentation management, knowledge base building, note-taking, Zettelkasten, and more. Using a plaintext format, it's cross-platform compatible, easily version-controlled, and extensible with Python code for custom functionality. Urtext prioritizes a local-first approach and a minimal UI, with almost all operations performed within the text buffer, eliminating menus and popups. It cleverly combines content, structure, and instructions within its syntax, and supports inter-file linking and organization, making it ideal for managing large projects.

(urtext.co)

Development plaintext writing

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