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Shmøergh Hog: A Two-Year Journey Building a Simple Analog Synth

2025-01-03

Shmøergh Hog: A Two-Year Journey Building a Simple Analog Synth

The Shmøergh Hog is a meticulously crafted analog synthesizer, a weekend project spanning two years, built by two designers from tech companies. Designed for simplicity and ease of use, it employs a classic subtractive synthesis architecture. The authors detail their journey from initial concept and circuit simulation through PCB manufacturing and custom stainless steel enclosure creation. While mass production isn't the goal, they hope to share this unique instrument with fellow music enthusiasts. The build guide is open source.

(www.peterzimon.com)

Hardware analog synthesizer electronic music

AI-Generated Minecraft: A Glitchy Pixel Wonderland

2025-01-23

AI-Generated Minecraft: A Glitchy Pixel Wonderland

Oasis Minecraft, an AI-generated Minecraft game, is notable for its unique 'lack of object permanence.' In this game, mountains vanish in a blink, buildings disintegrate instantly, and creatures morph into sand. The author recounts bizarre glitches encountered: shifting terrain, morphing blocks, and erratic health fluctuations. These aren't bugs, but rather odd occurrences stemming from the AI's attempt to predict the next frame, illustrating limitations in generative AI training while inadvertently creating a surreal, dreamlike experience.

(www.aiweirdness.com)

Game AI game

Tintin Enters the Public Domain: A Timeless Aesthetic

2025-01-13

Tintin Enters the Public Domain: A Timeless Aesthetic

In 2025, *The Adventures of Tintin* entered the public domain, making Hergé's timeless classic freely available. The comic's unique aesthetic, characterized by its distinct color palettes and detailed drawings, transcends its era, captivating readers of all ages. Tintin's globe-trotting adventures inspired countless individuals to explore the world and learn about different cultures, while the series' imagery has also been utilized effectively in history education. Despite potential conflicts with modern sensibilities, Tintin's global influence and artistic contributions remain undeniable. However, the widespread use of Tintin's image also brings concerns about AI misuse, underscoring the importance of protecting original works.

(collegetowns.substack.com)

Misc Tintin

Full-Text Search Engine in 150 Lines of Python

2025-01-24

This article demonstrates building a functional full-text search engine using less than 150 lines of Python code. It starts by downloading English Wikipedia abstracts, then uses an inverted index and TF-IDF (Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency) for indexing and ranking. The process covers data preparation, tokenization, filtering, index construction, and search functionality, explaining each step's principles. The result is a surprisingly fast search engine capable of searching and ranking millions of documents, showcasing the core mechanics of full-text search in a concise manner.

(bart.degoe.de)

Development

Convoy Ditches UUIDv4 for ULIDs: Efficiency and Scalability in the Big Data Era

2024-12-28

During a database migration from MongoDB to Postgres, Convoy decided to replace UUIDv4 with ULIDs as unique identifiers. The article compares UUIDv4 and ULIDs, highlighting ULID's advantages: lexicographical sortability, URL friendliness, and improved database indexing efficiency, albeit with slightly slower generation and insertion speeds. Convoy chose ULIDs primarily to solve pagination performance issues with large datasets. While ULIDs are marginally slower to generate, the performance gains, especially for large-scale data processing, are deemed worthwhile. The article also discusses potential time information leakage risks and user data implications of ULIDs, and briefly mentions the potential future adoption of UUIDv7.

(jirevwe.github.io)

Development

Beyond KPIs: Revolutionizing Data Visualization with Dimensional Relationships

2025-01-10

Beyond KPIs: Revolutionizing Data Visualization with Dimensional Relationships

This article champions the importance of visualizing dimensional relationships in data. The author critiques the limitations of relying solely on KPIs, arguing they fail to reveal the underlying drivers of data. Sankey diagrams and Decomposition Trees are presented as superior alternatives for visualizing these relationships. Sankey diagrams offer a clear visual representation of proportions between dimensions, while Decomposition Trees provide a more detailed view of all values and allow for interactive exploration of dimensional impacts on key measures. Using the fictional Dorkweiser brewing company, the author illustrates the advantages of these methods, ultimately stressing that the goal of data visualization is to empower users to make data-driven decisions, not merely create aesthetically pleasing visuals.

(qlikdork.com)

Design dimensional relationships Sankey diagram decomposition tree

The Secret Engineering of San Antonio's River Walk

2025-01-11

The Secret Engineering of San Antonio's River Walk

San Antonio's River Walk, a beloved tourist attraction, maintains its constant water level through ingenious engineering. This article details the replacement of critical floodgates in the system. The project involved overcoming significant challenges to replace aging gates without draining the river. Crews also upgraded a pump room, improving flood control and water quality. The story showcases the intricate engineering and commitment to preserving this urban jewel, highlighting the meticulous process of removing and installing massive components in a bustling downtown area.

(practical.engineering)

Tech river management flood control

Psychoanalysis in Crisis: Lost in the Therapy Culture

2025-01-05

Psychoanalysis in Crisis: Lost in the Therapy Culture

This article explores the predicament of psychoanalysis within today's therapy-saturated culture. By reviewing Bruce Fink's *Miss-ing* and Darian Leader's *Is It Ever Just Sex?*, the author analyzes the impact of the rise of cognitive behavioral therapy on psychoanalysis and the challenges of psychoanalysis in addressing individual uniqueness. The article highlights the efficiency and outcome-focused nature of cognitive therapies contrasted with psychoanalysis's focus on exploring the unconscious and acknowledging potential therapeutic failures. The author argues that the value of psychoanalysis lies in its challenge to self-understanding and its reflection on the pervasive 'lack' in therapeutic culture.

(sydneyreviewofbooks.com)

Misc psychoanalysis psychotherapy cultural critique

Long Polling Beats WebSockets: A Practical Guide to Scalable Real-time Systems

2025-01-05

Inferable's team chose HTTP long polling over WebSockets when building a scalable real-time system using Node.js and TypeScript. Facing challenges of hundreds of worker nodes needing real-time job updates and agents requiring real-time state synchronization, they found long polling surprisingly effective. By keeping HTTP connections open until new data arrives or a timeout is reached, they avoided the complexities of WebSockets, such as authentication, observability, and infrastructure compatibility. The article details their implementation, including database optimization, error handling, and best practices like mandatory TTL, client-configurable TTL, and sensible database polling intervals. The choice stemmed from needing core product control over message delivery, zero external dependencies, and ease of understanding and modification. Alternatives like ElectricSQL are briefly discussed, highlighting scenarios where WebSockets might be preferable.

(www.inferable.ai)

Development long polling websockets real-time systems

Icelandic Turf Houses: A Journey Through Time

2025-01-22

Icelandic Turf Houses: A Journey Through Time

This article recounts the author's journey through Iceland, visiting several remarkably preserved turf houses, including Laufas and Glaumbaer. These ancient structures, with walls and roofs primarily made of turf, offer excellent insulation thanks to their thick walls. The author details the interior layout, lifestyle within these homes, and the evolution of turf house design over time. The narrative includes a captivating interlude of unexpectedly encountering a traditional music performance in a Glaumbaer turf house. Furthermore, the article highlights other open-air turf house museums, providing a glimpse into Iceland's unique cultural heritage.

(rachelsruminations.com)

Tech turf houses historical architecture

Browser UX/UI Redesign: What AI Agents Need

2025-01-18

Browser UX/UI Redesign: What AI Agents Need

The rise of AI agents demands a redesign of browser UX/UI. This article explores current limitations, including inadequate information architecture, limited accessibility, and insufficient APIs. A redesigned browser should prioritize data accessibility, automation, streamlined interfaces, and security. Key principles for AI-friendly design include context-aware interfaces, low-latency interaction, and modular, customizable designs. Case studies (Brave, Microsoft Edge, Opera) showcase successful AI integration, highlighting the need for a user-centric approach in creating browsers that seamlessly accommodate both human and AI users.

(fromzero.ghost.io)

Development UX/UI Design

Steam Deck Gets 'Bricked': A Minimalist Handheld Mod

2025-01-25

A developer has created a radical modification of the Steam Deck, removing the screen and controllers to create a minimalist handheld dubbed the 'Steam Brick'. This involved a complete teardown and rebuild, leaving only the motherboard, power button, and a USB port. The motivation? Portability. The resulting device is about a third the size of the original and significantly lighter, easily fitting into a backpack. While functionality is reduced – accessing the BIOS is currently impossible – for users who primarily connect their Steam Deck to AR glasses or a TV, this could be a worthwhile trade-off.

(crastinator-pro.github.io)

Hardware Minimalist Handheld

Blazing Fast JavaScript/TypeScript Compiler and Bundler on JVM: swc4j

2025-01-04

Blazing Fast JavaScript/TypeScript Compiler and Bundler on JVM: swc4j

swc4j is an ultra-fast JavaScript and TypeScript compilation and bundling tool on the JVM. Part of the Javet portfolio, it processes JavaScript and TypeScript code before execution in Node.js or V8 on the JVM. Features include AST parsing, plugin support, code transformations, minification, multiple target ES versions, source maps, and robust code sanitization (keyword restrictions, object protection, etc.). Easily integrated into projects via Maven or Gradle, swc4j offers a streamlined workflow for compiling and bundling.

(github.com)

Development

The Ugly Truth About Lisp Indentation

2025-01-19

Lisp programmers have long debated the best indentation style. This article explores various approaches, including no indentation, function-aligned indentation, space-filling indentation, and the author's controversial "sick" macro indentation. Function-aligned indentation becomes unwieldy with deep nesting, while space-filling, though efficient, falls short in extreme cases. The author advocates for a "sick" macro style, which, despite being unconventional, maintains readability in deeply nested code and plays well with most indentation tools. Readers are invited to share their preferred styles.

(aartaka.me)

Development coding style indentation

From Entrepreneur to Employee: A Journey of Transition and Growth

2024-12-31

From Entrepreneur to Employee: A Journey of Transition and Growth

Akshay Katyal, a seven-year entrepreneur, shares his experience transitioning from the rollercoaster of startups to a corporate role as a technical lead. Driven by a desire for financial stability and a thirst to learn how larger organizations operate, he found the shift to be a significant change in mindset, skills, and priorities. He highlights the differences in impact and autonomy between the two roles, noting that while his entrepreneurial experience didn't always directly translate, his ability to identify and address customer value misalignment proved invaluable. The transition, though challenging, ultimately led to personal and professional growth, showcasing the adaptability and value of entrepreneurial skills in a corporate setting.

(akshay.co)

Startup career transition corporate culture

Biden's Warning: The Tech Oligarchy Has Been Here for Years

2025-01-19

Biden's Warning: The Tech Oligarchy Has Been Here for Years

This article argues that the American tech oligarchy isn't a new phenomenon, but rather the culmination of years of gradual development. It criticizes the Democratic Party's long history of enabling tech giants through subsidies, tax breaks, and other incentives, fueling their rise to power. The author contends that tech giants control crucial digital infrastructure, wielding immense influence over information dissemination and social life, exceeding the power of lawmakers and the public. The article calls for antitrust measures, strengthened worker rights, higher taxes, and a fundamental shift in the Democratic Party's relationship with tech giants to curb their power.

(www.bloodinthemachine.com)

Tech Tech Oligarchy Politics

Terminal Image Viewer: A Programmer's Odyssey

2025-01-19

A programmer embarks on a challenging journey to create the perfect terminal image viewer. Starting with simple pixel display, he delves into the intricacies of loading and rendering various image formats (JPEG, PNG, GIF, AVIF, JPEG XL, HEIC, ETC, BC, OpenEXR, etc.), encountering unexpected hurdles along the way: inconsistent format standards, poorly documented libraries, the complexities of HDR image processing, the subtleties of color management, and the limitations of terminal output protocols. He ultimately overcomes these challenges to build a powerful image viewer, gaining a deep appreciation for the complexities and fascinations of computer graphics.

(wolf.nereid.pl)

Development terminal display

Base-Rate Blindness: When Rare Events Surprise Us (and How AI Might Exploit It)

2025-01-26

This essay uses the astonishing feats of pickpocket Apollo Robbins to illustrate the concept of 'base-rate blindness'. The author argues that we underestimate the probability of rare events because we tend to ignore base rates – the prior probability of an event. Using personal anecdotes, like a surprising moose encounter in Colorado, and the academic world's underestimation of deception, the author shows how ignoring base rates can lead to dangerous consequences. The essay concludes with a provocative question: Are we base-rate blind to the potential risks of AI, distracted by the hype and pleas for regulation?

(paulromer.net)

Misc Bayes' Theorem Base Rate Cognitive Bias

2024 Game Dev Retrospective: Lessons Learned from Unfinished Projects

2025-01-16

2024 Game Dev Retrospective: Lessons Learned from Unfinished Projects

An indie game developer reflects on their challenging 2024 game development journey. They tackled three diverse projects: a multiplayer turn-based RPG, a puzzle simulation game, and a co-op side-scrolling shooter. Despite failing to complete any, valuable lessons were gleaned regarding scope management, multiplayer mechanics, and art asset creation. Key takeaways include starting small, focusing on a solid game loop, and prioritizing polish later in development. Though 2024 ended without a finished game, significant progress was made, laying a strong foundation for 2025 and beyond.

(georgeallen.dev)

Game indie game lessons learned

Mastercard's Five-Year-Old DNS Error

2025-01-22

A security researcher, Philippe Caturegli, uncovered a nearly five-year-old error in Mastercard's domain name server settings. This misconfiguration could have allowed anyone to intercept or divert internet traffic for the company by registering an unused domain name. Caturegli spent $300 to register the domain 'akam.ne' to prevent its exploitation by cybercriminals. Mastercard acknowledged the mistake but claimed no real security risk existed. The incident highlights the potential for significant vulnerabilities in even large organizations' DNS configurations.

(krebsonsecurity.com)

Tech DNS error Mastercard

FLAME: A Lightweight Language Model for Spreadsheet Formulas

2025-01-22

Large language models are expensive to train and deploy for assisting with Excel formula authoring. This paper introduces FLAME, a transformer-based model trained exclusively on Excel formulas. With only 60 million parameters and a fraction of the training data used by larger models, FLAME achieves competitive or even superior performance on formula repair, completion, and retrieval tasks compared to models like Codex and CodeT5. This is attributed to its novel pre-training objectives and Excel-specific tokenizer.

(arxiv.org)

Development formula

Guitaraoke: Automating Chord Generation for Karaoke Videos

2025-01-21

Guitaraoke: Automating Chord Generation for Karaoke Videos

To enhance his monthly Guitaraoke night, Dylan Beattie built a system that automatically displays song chords on karaoke videos. He uses the Vamp plugin to extract chord information from audio, then ImageSharp and FFMpegCore to generate a transparent video overlay with the chords, finally compositing this onto the original video. This involves audio analysis, image processing, and video composition, resulting in real-time chord display for guitarists. Future improvements include automatic beat detection and batch processing.

(dylanbeattie.net)

Development Audio Processing

Big Tech Signs EU Pledge to Combat Online Hate Speech

2025-01-21

Big Tech Signs EU Pledge to Combat Online Hate Speech

Meta, Google, TikTok, and X have signed a voluntary EU commitment to combat illegal hate speech on their platforms. The "Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech Online Plus" requires signatories to increase transparency, allow third-party monitoring, and review at least two-thirds of hate speech reports within 24 hours. While not legally binding, the agreement represents a step forward in tech companies' efforts to address online hate speech.

(www.theverge.com)

Tech online hate speech tech company responsibility

Roto VR: Revolutionizing VR Comfort with a Rotating Chair

2025-01-24

Roto VR: Revolutionizing VR Comfort with a Rotating Chair

The Roto VR Explorer chair automatically rotates to match your head movements in VR, significantly enhancing comfort and immersion. By tracking a sensor on your headset, the chair synchronizes its rotation, mitigating motion sickness and improving comfort during extended VR sessions. A Pro version and add-ons are available for productivity, such as working with virtual monitors. While some lag and control issues exist, Roto VR's core concept is innovative, particularly excelling in relaxed VR experiences, showing immense potential for future development.

(skarredghost.com)

Hardware Haptic Feedback

A Song of Ice and Fire Author Co-Authors Physics Paper

2025-01-23

A Song of Ice and Fire Author Co-Authors Physics Paper

George R.R. Martin, author of *A Song of Ice and Fire*, has co-authored a physics paper with a physicist from Los Alamos National Laboratory. The paper models the fictional virus from Martin's *Wild Cards* series, explaining the distribution of superpowers and mutations. While not a perfect representation, the model offers a unique pedagogical exercise, demonstrating how seemingly intractable problems can be transformed into analyzable dynamic systems for physics education.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech Science Fiction George R.R. Martin

AT&T Promises Bill Credits After Massive Outage

2025-01-08

Following a major network outage last year caused by a botched update, AT&T is now promising full-day bill credits for future outages. The credits apply to wireless outages lasting at least 60 minutes affecting 10 or more cell towers, and fiber outages lasting at least 20 minutes (using an AT&T-provided gateway). However, the promise has caveats, excluding events like natural disasters or third-party issues. AT&T retains sole discretion on credit eligibility, raising concerns about service reliability and transparency in handling such incidents.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech outage bill credits

Fluid Simulation Pendant: A Hardware Deep Dive from Concept to Production

2025-01-13

This article meticulously documents the author's journey in designing and crafting a fluid simulation pendant. The pendant utilizes an STM32L432KC microcontroller to run a real-time FLIP fluid simulation, cleverly employing diagonal charlieplexing for the LED display to significantly simplify the circuit. The author details the entire process, from initial prototyping and PCB design to metalworking, assembly, testing, and iterative design improvements, sharing challenges and solutions encountered along the way. Multiple pendants were successfully produced, and the article concludes with a discussion on potential mass production.

(mitxela.com)

Hardware fluid simulation

Voxel Slugs on a Cube: An Interactive Animation

2025-01-20

Voxel Slugs on a Cube: An Interactive Animation

Artist Japhy Riddle created a captivating animation featuring three colored slugs navigating the edges of an invisible cube, never quite touching. Inspired by this, developer Matt Sephton built an interactive version using Love2D, allowing users to manipulate cube parameters and slug behavior. This interactive version not only replicates the charm of the original but expands its possibilities, such as increasing the number of slugs. Users can download and explore the possibilities themselves.

(blog.gingerbeardman.com)

Game gamedev

Visualizing Your Python Project's Dependency Graph with Tach

2025-01-25

This article demonstrates how to visualize your Python project's dependency graph using the Tach tool. In just a few steps—installing Tach, defining module boundaries, syncing dependencies, and viewing the dependency graph—developers gain a clear understanding of project structure and inter-module dependencies. This facilitates code refactoring, improves code quality, and helps avoid circular dependencies. Tach also allows enforcing module boundaries and defining strict interfaces, leading to cleaner, more maintainable projects.

(www.gauge.sh)

Development Dependency Graph

Autodesk Forum Archiving Update: Community Backlash and Adjustments

2025-01-27

Autodesk's recent forum archiving policy changes sparked a significant community backlash. The initial plan to archive a large number of forum posts, including valuable code and solutions, resulted in information loss and user complaints about broken links and missing knowledge. Facing pressure, Autodesk revised its policy, stating that Idea Boards will not be archived and that forum threads with 'accepted solutions' will be preserved along with related posts. They are working to recover some archived content, but due to technical limitations, complete restoration is not guaranteed. This incident highlights the importance of communication between the company and its users and the need for more careful handling of community content to avoid unnecessary knowledge loss.

(forums.autodesk.com)

Development community forum archiving policy

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