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X User Notes: Remember Why You Muted Someone

2025-05-21

X User Notes: Remember Why You Muted Someone

This browser extension for x.com (formerly Twitter) helps you recall why you muted or blocked a user. It automatically logs mute/block events, saving the link and tweet you were viewing for context. It also adds a private notes field to user profiles, allowing you to add personal reminders, visible only to you. Data is stored securely in your browser's synced storage and synced across devices logged into the same profile.

(github.com)

Development x.com user blocking

The Hobbit in Five Celtic Languages: A Publishing Milestone

2025-06-27

The Hobbit in Five Celtic Languages: A Publishing Milestone

Welsh publisher Melin Bapur has compiled all current Celtic language editions of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic, *The Hobbit*, including the recently released Scottish Gaelic translation, *A' Hobat*. This marks a significant achievement in bringing the story to a wider Celtic audience, with only the Manx Gaelic version remaining untranslated. The Welsh translation, *Yr Hobyd*, released in 2024, uniquely uses the 18th-century Welsh Coelbren y Beirdd runes instead of Anglo-Saxon runes, adding a distinctly Welsh flavor. The publisher highlights the value of translating familiar books in encouraging wider readership and providing invaluable resources for language learners.

(nation.cymru)

Misc The Hobbit Celtic Languages Translation

Gummy Bear Power Bank Conquers Ultralight Backpacking

2025-09-21

Gummy Bear Power Bank Conquers Ultralight Backpacking

A backpacker's quest for weight reduction led to the purchase of a Haribo gummy bear-shaped 20,000mAh power bank. Weighing in at a mere 9.9 ounces, this lightweight marvel is 0.4 ounces lighter than its predecessor, causing a stir in the ultralight backpacking community. In this niche where every ounce counts, this power bank's arrival is akin to discovering a Volkswagen Beetle outperforming a Tesla Cybertruck. Despite the inability to charge via its built-in gummy bear cable, its portability and playful design have won over many backpackers.

(www.theverge.com)

Tech ultralight backpacking

NASA's People Graph: A Graph Database Revolution in Talent Management

2025-04-27

NASA's People Graph: A Graph Database Revolution in Talent Management

NASA is revolutionizing its people analytics with a groundbreaking People Graph, leveraging graph databases and large language models (LLMs). This system overcomes the limitations of traditional relational databases by connecting employees, projects, and skills in a dynamic network. Built using Memgraph and powered by Ollama LLM for skill extraction and chatbot queries, the graph allows for real-time queries on expert discovery, project similarity, and skill gap analysis via Cypher and a chatbot interface. Currently boasting 27K nodes and 230K edges, NASA plans to scale this to over 500,000 nodes and millions of edges, transforming how they manage talent and plan for future projects.

(memgraph.com)

Tech Knowledge Graph Talent Management

Budapest's Telefon Hírmondó: The First Telephone Newspaper?

2025-08-09

Budapest's Telefon Hírmondó: The First Telephone Newspaper?

In 1893, Budapest gave birth to the Telefon Hírmondó, the world's first and longest-lasting telephone newspaper. Engineer Tivadar Puskás, aiming to overcome the slow update speed of traditional newspapers, created this system, delivering news and entertainment to subscribers via telephone lines. Though technical limitations confined its reach to Budapest, it predated radio broadcasting by three decades, achieving electronic distribution of audio programming. The Telefon Hírmondó offered diverse content, from news and plays to concerts, attracting a wide audience including the Emperor and Prime Minister. It underwent several transfers and improvements, ultimately succumbing to destruction during WWII. This history isn't just a significant technological leap, but a testament to the power of innovation in overcoming limitations.

(en.wikipedia.org)

Tech telephone newspaper

Undergrad Cracks a Math Conjecture: Tackling the Mizohata-Takeuchi Problem

2025-08-02

Undergrad Cracks a Math Conjecture: Tackling the Mizohata-Takeuchi Problem

Hannah Cairo, an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, unexpectedly made significant headway on a simplified version of the Mizohata-Takeuchi conjecture while taking a graduate course in Fourier restriction theory. Initially a homework problem, Cairo became captivated by it, extending the work to more complex formulations. Her advisor, Professor Ruixiang Zhang, was impressed by her passion and focus. This story highlights the potential of young scholars and the dedication to intellectual exploration.

(www.quantamagazine.org)

Development conjecture undergraduate

Tailscale: A Surprisingly Useful VPN Alternative

2025-03-05

The author shares their experience with Tailscale, a VPN alternative. Frustrated by CGNAT blocking port forwarding for remote access to a Raspberry Pi, they turned to Tailscale. It successfully solved the problem, creating a virtual private network that allows easy access to devices using simple domain names. Beyond this, Tailscale offers unexpected benefits: effortless file transfer between devices (Taildrop), exposing laptop ports for mobile web app testing, and the ability to function as a VPN with exit nodes, even integrating with Mullvad for enhanced privacy. The author uses the free tier and recommends the open-source server implementation Headscale.

(blog.6nok.org)

Development

Life Aboard Pino: A Six-Month Log (2025)

2025-07-18

This couple documents their life aboard their boat, Pino, during the first six months of 2025. Their entries detail boat repairs, the release of their game Oquonie, and various projects including writing books, game development, and game jams. They share their reading, community interactions, and the challenges of boat life, painting a picture of a relaxed yet adventurous seafaring existence.

(100r.co)

Misc boat life

LLMs' Fatal Flaw: The Lack of World Models

2025-06-29

LLMs' Fatal Flaw: The Lack of World Models

This essay delves into a fundamental flaw of Large Language Models (LLMs): their lack of robust cognitive models of the world. Using chess as a prime example, the author demonstrates how LLMs, despite memorizing game data and rules, fail to build and maintain dynamic models of the board state, leading to illegal moves and other errors. This isn't unique to chess; across various domains, from story comprehension and image generation to video understanding, LLMs' absence of world models results in hallucinations and inaccuracies. The author argues that building robust world models is crucial for AI safety, highlighting the limitations of current LLM designs in handling complex real-world scenarios and urging AI researchers to prioritize cognitive science in developing more reliable AI systems.

(garymarcus.substack.com)

AI World Models

Build Your Own Local Speech-to-Text System with Python and Whisper

2025-09-23

Build Your Own Local Speech-to-Text System with Python and Whisper

Tired of the privacy risks of uploading sensitive audio to cloud transcription services? This post shows you how to build a local speech-to-text system using Python and OpenAI's Whisper model. Transcribe your audio files in under 10 minutes with 96% accuracy—completely free and processed locally on your laptop. The tutorial covers setting up FFmpeg, your Python environment, using the Whisper model, batch processing, creating SRT subtitles, and troubleshooting common issues. An alternative method using the `speech_recognition` library is also provided.

(www.pavlinbg.com)

Development

Indeed and Glassdoor Slash 1300 Jobs, Betting Big on AI

2025-07-11

Indeed and Glassdoor Slash 1300 Jobs, Betting Big on AI

Recruit Holdings, the Japanese parent company of Indeed and Glassdoor, is cutting approximately 1,300 jobs globally. This restructuring aims to streamline operations and accelerate the companies' shift towards artificial intelligence. The majority of job losses will impact US-based employees, particularly within R&D and people/sustainability teams. While no specific reason was given, the CEO cited AI's transformative impact on the industry as a catalyst for change, emphasizing the need to adapt and deliver superior user experiences.

(www.bloomberg.com)

Tech

OpenAI's 'Strawberry' Project: Aiming for Deep Reasoning in AI

2025-02-03

OpenAI's 'Strawberry' Project: Aiming for Deep Reasoning in AI

OpenAI is secretly developing a project codenamed "Strawberry," aiming to overcome limitations in current AI models' reasoning abilities. The project seeks to enable AI to autonomously plan and conduct in-depth research on the internet, rather than simply answering queries. Internal documents reveal that the "Strawberry" model will use a specialized post-training method, combined with self-learning and planning capabilities, to reliably solve complex problems. This is considered a significant breakthrough, potentially revolutionizing AI's role in scientific discovery and software development, while also raising ethical concerns about future AI capabilities.

(economictimes.indiatimes.com)

AI AI reasoning

Google Analytics is Dead: Long Live Privacy-Preserving Analytics with IODIASIX

2025-01-18

Facing GDPR compliance issues and growing user privacy concerns, Google Analytics is under fire. Countries in the EU, starting with Austria, have ruled it violates GDPR, issuing hefty fines. This article introduces IODIASIX, a privacy-focused analytics framework designed as a solution. By keeping data within the EU and avoiding the collection of personally identifiable information, IODIASIX offers businesses a compliant and efficient alternative for website analytics, ensuring user privacy.

(www.iodiasix.com)

Tech web analytics

Microsoft's AI Copilot Uncovers 20 Zero-Day Vulnerabilities in Bootloaders

2025-04-05

Microsoft's AI Copilot Uncovers 20 Zero-Day Vulnerabilities in Bootloaders

Microsoft's AI-powered Security Copilot unearthed 20 previously unknown vulnerabilities in the GRUB2, U-Boot, and Barebox open-source bootloaders. These flaws, ranging from buffer overflows and integer overflows to side-channel attacks, could allow attackers to bypass security protections and execute arbitrary code, potentially installing stealthy bootkits. While exploitation may require physical access, the possibility remains a concern. Patches have been released; users are urged to update immediately.

(www.bleepingcomputer.com)

Tech

Google's Gemini App: Tiny Requests, Huge Cumulative Impact

2025-08-23

Google's Gemini App: Tiny Requests, Huge Cumulative Impact

Google's team analyzed the energy consumption of its Gemini app. A single text request consumes a minuscule amount of energy, equivalent to about nine seconds of TV watching. However, the massive volume of requests results in a significant cumulative energy consumption and carbon footprint. Encouragingly, over the past year, Google has reduced energy consumption per prompt by 33x and carbon emissions by 1.4x through software optimizations (like Mixture-of-Experts) and renewable energy usage. This highlights how even seemingly small AI requests can have a large environmental impact at scale, demanding continuous technological improvements and energy strategy optimization.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech

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

AI Agent Automates the Exploitation of Smart Contract Vulnerabilities

2025-07-10

AI Agent Automates the Exploitation of Smart Contract Vulnerabilities

Researchers from University College London and the University of Sydney have developed an AI agent, A1, capable of autonomously discovering and exploiting vulnerabilities in smart contracts. A1 uses AI models from OpenAI, Google, DeepSeek, and Alibaba to generate exploitable Solidity contracts. Tested on 36 real-world vulnerable contracts, A1 achieved a 62.96% success rate on the VERITE benchmark and discovered additional vulnerabilities. The researchers highlight a 10x reward asymmetry between attack and defense, emphasizing the need for proactive security. While A1 shows significant profit potential, its open-source release is currently on hold due to concerns about its powerful capabilities.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech exploit generation

ZeroMQ's C4 Collaboration Protocol: A Reusable Open Source Collaboration Model

2025-03-13

This article details ZeroMQ's C4 collaboration protocol, an open-source project collaboration model built on Git and GitHub. C4 aims to maximize community size and project development speed by reducing friction, clarifying roles (Contributors and Maintainers), and standardizing processes (e.g., pull requests). It emphasizes solving real problems with minimal solutions, avoids branch usage, and employs an optimistic merging strategy to accelerate development. The ultimate goal is a healthier, larger-scale open-source community.

(hintjens.gitbooks.io)

Development open source collaboration

The Trap of Pleasure in an Age of Abundance: The Nature of Addiction

2025-04-08

The Trap of Pleasure in an Age of Abundance: The Nature of Addiction

Naval argues that all pleasure comes with offsetting pain and fear of loss. In today's age of abundance, the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake easily leads to addiction. He quotes Miyamoto Musashi's saying, "Do not seek pleasure for its own sake," highlighting that readily available modern temptations—processed foods, internet pornography, drugs, and social media—create easy avenues for addiction. These addictions are essentially 'fake work' and 'fake play,' providing fleeting pleasure while numbing and leaving one vulnerable to the misery of their absence. The modern challenge lies in resisting these 'weaponized' addictions and rebuilding connections with society, religion, and culture.

(nav.al)

Misc pleasure modern society

Rice Plants Inherit Cold Tolerance in Three Generations Through Epigenetic Changes

2025-05-23

Rice Plants Inherit Cold Tolerance in Three Generations Through Epigenetic Changes

A decade-long study reveals that Asian rice plants acquired cold tolerance in just three generations, not through DNA sequence changes, but via epigenetic modifications. Researchers, through cold-stress experiments, discovered that this tolerance stems from epigenetic alterations to chemical markers on the plant's DNA, not the DNA sequence itself. This challenges the traditional view of evolution, suggesting that environmental pressures induce heritable changes without altering the genome. The environment, therefore, acts as a selective force, not just a passive actor.

(www.nature.com)

Tech cold tolerance

Rust Trait Objects with Multiple Bounds: A Surprising Limitation

2025-03-27

Rust Trait Objects with Multiple Bounds: A Surprising Limitation

This article delves into the reasons behind the limitations of multiple trait bounds in Rust trait objects. The author discovers a compilation error when attempting to use multiple trait constraints (e.g., `Mammal + Clone`) simultaneously within a trait object. The article explores the underlying mechanisms of dynamic dispatch in Rust and C++, comparing their vtable implementations. It examines using trait inheritance to circumvent this limitation and its inherent restrictions. Ultimately, the author suggests that allowing multiple trait bounds requires multiple vtable pointers, although this introduces some redundancy, it efficiently solves type conversion issues.

(alschwalm.com)

Development Trait Objects Dynamic Dispatch

Zentool: A Powerful Utility for AMD Zen Microcode Manipulation

2025-03-05

Zentool: A Powerful Utility for AMD Zen Microcode Manipulation

Zentool is a suite of tools for analyzing, manipulating, and generating microcode patches for AMD Zen processors. It includes a frontend command `zentool`, a simple assembler `mcas`, and a disassembler `mcop`. You can inspect and modify various parts of a microcode file, such as the revision number, match registers, and instructions, even creating custom microcode patches. Root privileges are required to load microcode, and modifications need to be re-signed for validity. This tool builds on work by members of the Google Hardware Security Team, and is influenced by relevant books and papers.

(github.com)

Development

Global Privacy Control (GPC): A User-Powered Solution to Web Tracking?

2025-03-16

Global Privacy Control (GPC): A User-Powered Solution to Web Tracking?

Unlike its predecessor, Do Not Track (DNT), the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal has backing from the California Attorney General and aims for alignment with the EU's GDPR, empowering users like never before. DNT's ineffectiveness stemmed from its lack of legal enforcement, but GPC changes that. It transmits users' "Do Not Sell" requests to websites, compelling compliance. With support from browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Brave, and DuckDuckGo's Privacy Browser, GPC signals a potential turning point in the fight against web tracking.

(developer.mozilla.org)

Tech web tracking

UK's Online Safety Act Forces Lobsters Forum to Consider Geoblocking UK Users

2025-02-23

The upcoming UK Online Safety Act (OSA), set to take effect on March 16, 2025, poses a significant threat to the non-commercial forum Lobsters. The Act's broad scope and substantial penalties leave Lobsters facing impossible compliance costs and risks. To mitigate these, the forum is considering geoblocking UK users. The post calls on UK users to seek legal remedies or government intervention to prevent the OSA from disproportionately affecting small, non-commercial forums.

(lobste.rs)

Tech Online Safety

Lost Roanoke Colony Mystery Solved? Hammerscale Reveals a Surprising Truth

2025-06-11

Lost Roanoke Colony Mystery Solved? Hammerscale Reveals a Surprising Truth

A team led by British archaeologist Mark Horton has potentially solved the centuries-old mystery of the Lost Roanoke Colony. The discovery of hammerscale—tiny flakes of iron from forging—on Hatteras Island provides definitive proof of 16th-century English ironworking technology, absent among Native Americans at the time. This suggests the colonists assimilated into the Croatoan community rather than perishing. While the mystery may persist in some form, this archaeological evidence offers a compelling explanation for the colonists' fate.

(www.foxnews.com)

Tech Roanoke Colony colonists' fate

Math Problem Solving Course: Sharpen Your Competition Skills

2025-05-08

Professor Darij Grinberg's Math 235 course is an accessible introduction to mathematical problem solving, designed to equip students with techniques and tools commonly used in math competitions. These include induction, the Pigeonhole Principle, modular arithmetic, and the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. The course features weekly 50-minute video lectures and 40-minute online collaborative sessions, reinforced by weekly homework assignments. The course draws upon classic competition math texts like "Putnam and Beyond" and "The IMO Compendium," though the goal isn't solely IMO preparation; rather, it's to cultivate versatile problem-solving skills. Students gain hands-on experience and familiarity with standard mathematical problem-solving techniques.

(www.cip.ifi.lmu.de)

Development higher mathematics

LLMs: Opportunities and Challenges Await

2025-08-29

Before a short break, the author shares some thoughts on the current state of LLMs and AI. He points out flaws in current surveys on LLMs' impact on software development, arguing they neglect the varied workflows of LLM usage. The author believes the future of LLMs is unpredictable, encouraging experimentation and shared experiences. He also discusses the inevitability of an AI bubble and the 'hallucination' characteristic of LLMs, stressing the importance of asking questions multiple times for validation. Finally, the author warns of the security risks posed by LLMs, particularly the vulnerabilities of agents operating within browsers.

(martinfowler.com)

AI

WSL Goes Open Source!

2025-05-19

WSL Goes Open Source!

Microsoft has announced the open-source release of the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)! After years of development, the code powering WSL is now available on GitHub. This allows the community to download the source code, build WSL, add new features and bug fixes, and actively participate in its development. WSL's architecture comprises command-line executables, the WSL service, Linux init and daemon processes, and file sharing components. This open-source release marks a significant step towards faster iteration and community-driven development, highlighting Microsoft's commitment to the open-source community.

(blogs.windows.com)

Development

Grumpy German Bread Celebrates 25 Years of Unintentional Adult Appeal

2025-03-03

Grumpy German Bread Celebrates 25 Years of Unintentional Adult Appeal

Bernd das Brot, a perpetually pessimistic bread puppet from a German children's show, is celebrating his 25th anniversary. Initially a sketch on a napkin, Bernd's grumpy demeanor and signature exclamation, "Mist!" resonated unexpectedly with adult viewers, making him a cult classic. His journey includes winning a German Emmy equivalent, a kidnapping incident, and now, an attempt at becoming a bread influencer. This year's celebrations include new episodes and online activities.

(apnews.com)

Misc German Culture Children's Television Cult Classic

Tetris in Conway's Game of Life: A Collaborative Epic

2024-12-29

A team of programmers collaborated for a year and a half to successfully simulate Tetris within Conway's Game of Life. Instead of directly coding Tetris in Life, they used a layered abstraction approach, culminating in a computer built using metapixels and VarLife, programmed in QFTASM assembly language. This computer boasts a 16-bit asynchronous RISC Harvard architecture with numerous instructions and addressing modes. The final Tetris program runs within a massive Game of Life pattern, showcasing an impressive feat of computational power.

(codegolf.stackexchange.com)

Game Conway's Game of Life metapixels Tetris

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