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Practical Process Control: Mastering PID Control

2025-03-18

This comprehensive guide delves into the practical aspects of process control, focusing on PID controller design, tuning, and advanced control architectures. Starting with process dynamic modeling (including case studies on heat exchangers, gravity-drained tanks, and jacketed stirred reactors), it systematically explains proportional, integral, and derivative control, along with the role of various filters. The guide also covers handling integrating processes, cascade control, feedforward control, and advanced control strategies in real-world applications like distillation columns, providing a complete practical handbook for engineers.

(controlguru.com)

Development process control PID control

US Slams Europe's Digital Services Act, Restricts Visas Over Censorship Concerns

2025-05-28

US Slams Europe's Digital Services Act, Restricts Visas Over Censorship Concerns

The US State Department has launched a fresh attack on Europe and other countries' attempts to regulate digital platforms. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced visa restrictions for foreign nationals involved in censoring protected speech within the US. This move is widely seen as a response to Europe's Digital Services Act (DSA), aimed at improving online safety. The US argues the DSA could be used to silence dissent and infringes on US sovereignty and free speech. The policy's enforcement remains unclear.

(www.theverge.com)

Tech Digital Services Act

Desperate Biotech Firms Turn to Crypto: A Hail Mary Pass?

2025-08-26

Desperate Biotech Firms Turn to Crypto: A Hail Mary Pass?

Facing a sluggish stock market and funding difficulties, several small biotech companies are adopting a desperate strategy: investing heavily in cryptocurrencies. Companies like 180 Life Sciences Corp. (now ETHZilla) saw their stock prices skyrocket after accumulating significant Ethereum holdings, only to see those gains evaporate shortly after. While this tactic can provide a short-term stock price boost, it carries substantial long-term risks, potentially harming core operations and alienating investors. Analysts view this as a last-ditch effort for companies struggling with slow R&D progress and dwindling funds, but the odds of success remain questionable.

(finance.yahoo.com)

Tech

Google Cracks Down on Android Sideloading: Developer Verification Incoming

2025-08-26

Google Cracks Down on Android Sideloading: Developer Verification Incoming

Google is bolstering Android security by mandating developer verification for apps installed outside the Play Store, starting September 2026. This phased rollout requires developers to submit identity information via a new Android Developer Console, increasing accountability and aiming to curb malware. While app content isn't checked, the move makes it harder for malicious actors to remain anonymous, similar to airport ID checks. The initial rollout targets Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand, regions heavily impacted by fraudulent apps, with global expansion planned for 2027. This mirrors Apple's macOS approach and could significantly reduce malware, though the trade-off of developer anonymity remains a point of contention.

(www.androidauthority.com)

Tech

Lotus Founder Mitch Kapor Finally Gets His MIT Master's Degree After 45 Years

2025-06-30

Lotus Founder Mitch Kapor Finally Gets His MIT Master's Degree After 45 Years

Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Development, left MIT's master's program in 1979 to pursue a lucrative startup opportunity. Forty-five years later, he finally completed his degree, submitting a thesis on his 'gap-closing investing' strategy. This approach, focused on addressing racial and income inequality, inadvertently supported many entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups. Kapor's journey highlights the allure of the tech startup world and the importance of social responsibility, inspiring those who chase their dreams despite setbacks.

(www.bostonglobe.com)

Startup

Emacs Org Mode for Automated Checklists: Ditching Scripts for Efficiency

2025-02-15

The author shares their experience using Emacs Org Mode and the org-checklist.el plugin to manage recurring workflows. They prefer using checklists with checkboxes over automated scripts due to checklists' flexibility and ease of updates. The org-checklist.el plugin automatically resets checkboxes in the list and records execution time. Combined with Git version control, this achieves efficient management of repetitive tasks and avoids redundant data.

(www.naiquev.in)

Development

Kiwi's Giant Egg: A Mystery Solved?

2025-05-03

Kiwi's Giant Egg: A Mystery Solved?

The flightless kiwi bird lays an egg that can weigh up to a quarter of its body mass, a phenomenon long attributed to a legacy from larger ancestors. However, new DNA analysis challenges this theory, suggesting the kiwi's giant egg is an adaptation developed as it evolved from a smaller flying bird. The oversized egg allows kiwi chicks to be more precocial, increasing their survival rate in an environment with few ground predators but numerous aerial ones. This research reshapes our understanding of kiwi evolution and avian evolutionary processes.

(www.audubon.org)

Tech kiwi giant egg

The Amazing Art Forgeries in Basquiat

2025-04-28

The Amazing Art Forgeries in Basquiat

To accurately portray the artist's works, the production team of the film Basquiat went to great lengths. Julian Schnabel, actor Jeffrey Wright, and a scenic artist collaborated to create Basquiat's forgeries. Schnabel also donated many pieces from his own collection, including real Warhols. Most remarkably, they obtained permission from the Picasso family to create a painted copy of Guernica, which was subsequently destroyed according to the agreement, with video documentation provided to the Picasso estate. This demonstrates the production team's meticulous attention to artistic detail.

(www.vanityfair.com)

Misc Art Forgery Picasso

Drone-Based Cloud Seeding Sparks Safety Debate

2025-09-13

Drone-Based Cloud Seeding Sparks Safety Debate

Rainmaker Technology's plan to use small drones for cloud seeding faces opposition from the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), who argue its safety measures are insufficient and pose a significant risk. ALPA urges the FAA to reject Rainmaker's request for an exemption to carry hazardous materials on drones. Rainmaker's drones could operate near commercial airliners, raising concerns about collisions and fire hazards. The FAA's decision will set a precedent for future drone-based weather modification. While cloud seeding itself is established, the use of drones introduces new challenges and safety concerns requiring rigorous standards and testing.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech cloud seeding

University Revamps Programming Curriculum: Emphasizing Explicit, Systematic Design

2024-12-19

Northeastern University's computer science department has developed a unique programming curriculum that emphasizes explicit and systematic program design, rather than focusing on trendy programming languages. The curriculum starts with a simple teaching language, gradually introducing students to design principles before applying them to industrial languages. This approach cultivates logical reasoning and problem-solving skills for large, complex software. The curriculum also highlights the social aspects of programming, encouraging pair programming to improve communication and collaboration. This method not only enhances students' job prospects but also lays a solid foundation for their future careers.

(felleisen.org)

Development program design curriculum reform

ACE-RISCV: Open-Source Confidential Computing Framework for RISC-V

2025-05-21

ACE-RISCV: Open-Source Confidential Computing Framework for RISC-V

ACE-RISCV is an open-source project delivering a confidential computing framework with a formally verified security monitor. Targeting RISC-V with portability in mind, it focuses on formal verification of the security monitor's implementation. The project supports local attestation and utilizes Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) including ML-KEM, SHA-384, and AES-GCM-256. Detailed build and run instructions are provided for a 64-bit RISC-V architecture.

(github.com)

Development

Lightweight Wearable Chip for Real-Time Heart Attack Detection

2025-05-11

Lightweight Wearable Chip for Real-Time Heart Attack Detection

Researchers at the University of Mississippi have developed a lightweight, energy-efficient chip implantable in wearables for real-time heart attack detection. Using AI and advanced mathematics, the chip analyzes ECGs to identify heart attacks with 92.4% accuracy, twice as fast as traditional methods. Its design allows integration into devices like smartwatches, potentially saving crucial time in diagnosis and treatment, reducing the risk of permanent damage. Future applications could extend to detecting other conditions like seizures and dementia.

(medicalxpress.com)

Tech Heart Attack Detection

Redefining the 'Right to be Left Alone': A Romantic Ideal of Privacy

2025-04-22

Redefining the 'Right to be Left Alone': A Romantic Ideal of Privacy

Lowry Pressly's new book, *The Right to Oblivion: Privacy and the Good Life*, challenges our narrow understanding of privacy. Pressly argues that contemporary conceptions focus too heavily on data control and surveillance avoidance, neglecting a deeper meaning: the protection of the unknown and unknowable. He advocates for a more expansive, romantic ideal of privacy, one that safeguards individual agency and potential, not just information control. Using historical examples like early photography's infringement on personal autonomy and the internet's data deluge, Pressly builds a case for the 'right to oblivion,' urging a more comprehensive understanding of privacy for individual and societal flourishing.

(www.thenation.com)

Misc agency

QEMU 10.1 Released: Enhanced Architecture Support and Performance Improvements

2025-08-27

QEMU 10.1 is out, boasting enhanced support for multiple architectures including RISC-V, Arm, and x86, alongside significant performance improvements. New instruction set support (SME2, SVE2, etc.) has been added, along with new board models and virtualization features. Existing functionalities have also seen upgrades, such as improved floating-point exception emulation, optimized block device operations, and network performance boosts. Notably, Rust support has been enhanced but remains experimental.

(wiki.qemu.org)

Development System Emulation

Devlands: Learn Git by Walking Through Your Codebase

2025-03-02

Devlands: Learn Git by Walking Through Your Codebase

Two years ago, the author released Git-Sim, a free and open-source tool to visualize Git commands. While successful, it only helped those already familiar with Git. This led to the creation of Devlands, a more immersive experience. Devlands transforms your Git repository into a voxel world where branches are hallways, commits are rooms, and you can explore your codebase by walking through it. It features a guided tutorial, and even includes an AI-powered code explainer, aiming to make learning and using Git accessible to everyone.

(initialcommit.com)

Development Git visualization

Elide Gradle Plugin: Blazing Fast Java Compilation

2025-06-03

Elide Gradle Plugin: Blazing Fast Java Compilation

The Elide Gradle plugin leverages the Elide runtime to dramatically improve dependency resolution and Java compilation speed in Gradle projects. Elide builds the javac compiler as a native image and includes it within the Elide binary. This plugin modifies your Gradle build configuration to use Elide's toolchain instead of Gradle's, skipping JIT warmup and resulting in up to a 20x speed improvement in compilation. Additionally, Elide offers optimized Maven dependency resolution and fetching, caching dependencies locally to further accelerate build times.

(github.com)

Development Java Compilation

PostgreSQL's Shared Buffer: More RAM, More Problems?

2025-04-18

PostgreSQL's Shared Buffer: More RAM, More Problems?

Machines with hundreds of gigabytes of RAM are commonplace nowadays. PostgreSQL's shared buffer can significantly boost performance, but its workings are less intuitive than you might expect. This article delves into PostgreSQL's buffer replacement strategy, including the clock sweep algorithm and ring buffer strategies. While a larger shared buffer might seem beneficial, performance can degrade beyond a certain threshold (e.g., 64GB) because the algorithm takes longer to scan for replaceable blocks. The article advises carefully sizing the shared buffer based on data size and system memory, avoiding overly large settings that can create bottlenecks.

(pgdba.org)

Development

French Copyright Holders Push VPNs to Block Pirate Sites, Threatening Exodus

2025-02-25

In France, copyright holders are legally pressuring major VPN providers to assist in blocking pirate websites. While aiming to strengthen existing measures, VPN providers view this as a dangerous precedent, citing potential security risks and overblocking. Some are even considering withdrawing from the French market entirely. This action raises concerns about net neutrality and digital freedom, highlighting the tension between combating piracy and protecting user privacy.

(torrentfreak.com)

Tech

Phi Silica: A Highly Efficient SLM for Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs

2025-05-01

Phi Silica: A Highly Efficient SLM for Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs

Microsoft's Applied Sciences team achieved a breakthrough in AI efficiency on Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs (powered by Snapdragon X-series processors) using a multi-disciplinary approach. Their small language model, Phi Silica, significantly improves power efficiency, inference speed, and memory efficiency. Phi Silica powers several Copilot+ PC features, including Click to Do, on-device rewrite and summarization in Word and Outlook, and provides a pre-optimized SLM for developers. Techniques like 4-bit weight quantization, memory-mapped embeddings, and QuaRot (a novel 4-bit quantization method) drastically reduce memory footprint and achieve high-accuracy 4-bit quantized inference. It boasts a time-to-first-token of 230ms for short prompts and a throughput of up to 20 tokens/second.

(blogs.windows.com)

AI Small Language Model

Building an Unbreakable Backup Server: FreeBSD, ZFS, and Multi-layered Security

2025-08-02

Building an Unbreakable Backup Server: FreeBSD, ZFS, and Multi-layered Security

This article details building a secure and reliable backup server using FreeBSD, ZFS, and BastilleBSD. The author stresses data redundancy and multi-layered encryption, outlining backup strategies for FreeBSD ZFS servers (using zfs-autobackup), other systems (using BorgBackup), and Proxmox servers (using Proxmox Backup Server and Minio). The article delves into VPNs, network isolation, snapshots, and security hardening, aiming to help readers create a robust backup system resilient to various threats.

(it-notes.dragas.net)

Development backup server

Pulitzer Winner Quits Washington Post After Bezos-Trump Cartoon Rejected

2025-01-05

Pulitzer Winner Quits Washington Post After Bezos-Trump Cartoon Rejected

Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes resigned from the Washington Post after the newspaper refused to publish her cartoon satirizing owner Jeff Bezos bowing to Donald Trump alongside other tech CEOs. The Post cited prior coverage of the topic as the reason for rejection, but Telnaes viewed it as censorship and a threat to press freedom. The incident sparked controversy, with the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists accusing the Post of 'political cowardice'.

(www.abc.net.au)

Misc cartoon censorship Jeff Bezos

The Rise and Fall of Interactive TV in North America: A Battle of Standards

2025-08-26

The Rise and Fall of Interactive TV in North America: A Battle of Standards

In the 1970s and 80s, North America attempted to integrate television with the computer world, developing interactive TV. Unlike the success of Ceefax and similar systems in Europe, these North American attempts ultimately failed. The article analyzes the reasons for this failure: a chaotic proliferation of competing technical standards (Ceefax, ORACLE, Antiope, NABTS), making it difficult for hardware manufacturers to choose and consumers to adopt; a fragmented market, with intense competition among US television networks, lacking the centralized broadcasting system of the UK, drastically increasing the difficulty of promoting new services; and indecisiveness from the FCC, which failed to establish a unified standard, worsening the chaos. Interactive TV ultimately died in North America, leaving a valuable lesson for technological development on the eve of the internet age.

(computer.rip)

Tech interactive TV technical standards

arXivLabs: Experimenting with Community Collaboration

2025-08-09

arXivLabs is a framework for collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on the 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

Raspberry Pi 2's 'Xenon Death Flash': A Bizarre Hardware Vulnerability Solved by the Community

2025-05-24

Raspberry Pi 2's 'Xenon Death Flash': A Bizarre Hardware Vulnerability Solved by the Community

In 2015, a bizarre hardware vulnerability was discovered in the Raspberry Pi 2: camera flashes caused instant shutdowns. Dubbed the "Xenon Death Flash," this phenomenon triggered a community-wide detective effort. Testing revealed the culprit: the U16 power regulator chip. Its WL-CSP packaging exposed the silicon die, making it susceptible to intense light, causing crashes. The community found a fix (Blu-Tack!), prompting the Raspberry Pi Foundation to release an improved hardware revision. This event showcased community power, highlighted the risks of miniaturization in modern electronics, and underscored the need for more comprehensive testing.

(magnus919.com)

Hardware hardware vulnerability

Gordon Ramsay's Cooking Myths and the Importance of Prioritizing Truth

2025-05-15

Gordon Ramsay's Cooking Myths and the Importance of Prioritizing Truth

Gordon Ramsay's cooking advice, such as his grilled cheese method and steak recommendations, has been debunked by experts. The article explores the underlying reason: not intentional deception, but a lack of prioritization of truth. This 'bullshit' phenomenon is widespread across various fields, from doctors prescribing antibiotics to startups blindly following trends, all reflecting a disregard for accuracy. The article calls for a bottom-up approach, starting with individual commitment to honesty and truthfulness to build a more trustworthy society.

(quarter--mile.com)

Misc truth honesty Gordon Ramsay

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.

(www.ycombinator.com)

AI

EU Officials to Use Burner Devices on US Trips Amid Espionage Fears

2025-04-15

EU Officials to Use Burner Devices on US Trips Amid Espionage Fears

The European Commission is providing burner laptops and phones to staff traveling to the US on official business, fueled by concerns over espionage. This reflects a chilling in US-EU relations and anxieties about US intelligence agencies. While an EU spokesperson denied issuing formal guidance on burner devices, they admitted updating travel recommendations due to increased global cybersecurity threats. This mirrors practices for trips to countries like China and Russia, highlighting heightened EU concerns about US surveillance.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech

US Ethanol Policy: An Environmental and Economic Failure?

2025-06-15

US Ethanol Policy: An Environmental and Economic Failure?

A new report sharply criticizes long-standing US policies supporting biofuel production. It argues that corn-based ethanol production has led to economic and social imbalances in rural communities and increased greenhouse gas emissions, contrary to purported climate benefits. The report also finds ethanol policies have displaced food crops, resulted in inefficient land use, and caused water pollution and wildlife habitat destruction. While the biofuels industry and politicians have long claimed ethanol is vital to the rural economy, mounting research suggests the benefits are overstated and the environmental costs far outweigh the gains. New policies could further expand production, exacerbating these issues.

(insideclimatenews.org)

Tech biofuels

Chinese Astronauts Conduct Second Spacewalk at Upgraded Tiangong Space Station

2025-06-29

Chinese Astronauts Conduct Second Spacewalk at Upgraded Tiangong Space Station

Chinese astronauts Chen Dong and Chen Zhongrui conducted their second spacewalk, lasting nearly 6.5 hours. They installed debris shielding and inspected and installed extravehicular equipment. New automated foot restraints and interface adapters are expected to shorten future spacewalks by approximately 40 minutes. This spacewalk was part of the Shenzhou-20 mission, which also includes experiments in space life sciences, microgravity physics, and new space technologies, as well as collaboration with the 'Xiao Hang' intelligent robot. Additionally, China conducted a pad abort test for its next-generation Mengzhou spacecraft and plans to expand the Tiangong space station in the coming years.

(spacenews.com)

Tech spacewalk Shenzhou-20

Einstein's 1940 World's Fair Speech: A Celebration of a Diverse America

2025-09-20

Einstein's 1940 World's Fair Speech: A Celebration of a Diverse America

This article recounts a little-known speech given by Albert Einstein at the 1940 New York World's Fair. The speech praised the contributions of immigrants and African Americans, advocating for the acknowledgment of America's diversity and inclusivity. The context is set against the backdrop of pre-WWII anti-immigrant sentiment and Nazi influence in the US; Einstein's speech served as a powerful counterpoint, emphasizing the importance of multiculturalism to American society and refuting the fallacies of immigration restriction. This contrasts sharply with the nativist movements of the 1850s and the pro-Nazi elements before WWII.

(www.openculture.com)

Misc Multiculturalism

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