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US Renewable Energy Milestone: Solar and Wind Surpass Coal

2025-04-21

US Renewable Energy Milestone: Solar and Wind Surpass Coal

A milestone has been reached in the US power sector: solar and wind power generation have surpassed coal for the first time, jointly accounting for 17% of the US electricity mix. Over the past decade, solar power generation has increased more than ninefold, reaching 9.2%, and is projected to account for over half of new US generating capacity in 2025. This shift marks a significant transformation in the US energy landscape, showcasing the unstoppable rise of clean energy.

(ember-energy.org)

Tech wind power

GoAnywhere MFT Vulnerability CVE-2025-10035: A CVSS 10.0 Mystery

2025-09-25

GoAnywhere MFT Vulnerability CVE-2025-10035: A CVSS 10.0 Mystery

watchTowr Labs dissected CVE-2025-10035, a critical vulnerability in Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT with a perfect CVSS score of 10.0. This deserialization vulnerability allows an attacker with a forged license response signature to deserialize arbitrary objects, potentially leading to command injection. While exploitation requires internet exposure, watchTowr Labs discovered an unauthenticated method to obtain a license request token, bypassing authentication. However, a signature verification hurdle remains. The analysis details the exploitation process, raising questions about potential undiscovered signature bypasses or leaked private keys. A detection tool is provided to help users identify vulnerable instances.

(labs.watchtowr.com)

Tech deserialization

How Cursor Got the Best Tab-Completion Model

2025-05-08

How Cursor Got the Best Tab-Completion Model

Cursor's code completion initially lagged behind Supermaven's Babble model, which boasted a massive context window and superior speed and accuracy thanks to its innovative edit-sequence-based training. However, Cursor acquired Supermaven, gaining Babble and leveraging its massive user data to solidify its leading position in code completion. This acquisition highlights the importance of AI model training methodologies and the crucial role of data scale in model performance.

(www.coplay.dev)

Development data advantage

AI Coding Assistants: Productivity Boost or Skill Atrophy?

2025-04-25

AI Coding Assistants: Productivity Boost or Skill Atrophy?

The rise of AI assistants in coding presents a paradox: increased productivity, but also the risk of skill atrophy through disuse. Research shows over-reliance on AI diminishes critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. This article explores the benefits and drawbacks of AI-assisted coding, suggesting developers adopt "AI hygiene" practices – verifying AI output, regularly coding without AI, etc. – to maintain sharp skills and avoid becoming overly dependent on AI, ultimately aiming to become truly skilled engineers.

(addyo.substack.com)

Development skill atrophy

Conquering Insomnia: The Healing Power of Creation

2025-02-08

Conquering Insomnia: The Healing Power of Creation

The author, a former chronic insomniac, developed a series of quirky rules to combat his sleeplessness, even including avoiding the thought of a particular car air freshener. However, he ultimately discovered that the most effective method was to relinquish control over his sleep, allowing himself to create – writing, drawing, sculpting – whenever inspiration struck in the late hours. This creative process not only dispelled the anxiety of insomnia but also brought unexpected ease and satisfaction. The author encourages readers to try letting go of perfectionism and allow themselves to create, even if they're not good at it, to find healing and release.

(untested.sonnet.io)

Misc

Data Science for HR in Large Organizations: Beyond Recruitment

2025-04-16

Data Science for HR in Large Organizations: Beyond Recruitment

This article argues that a data science approach is crucial for HR in large organizations, going beyond traditional recruitment tasks. By leveraging social network analysis, sentiment analysis, and predictive modeling, HR can enhance communication, strengthen company culture, improve employee retention, and ensure fair compensation. The article explores how these data-driven insights help identify key influencers, predict attrition, and address hidden issues, ultimately building a more resilient organization. The choice between an in-house data scientist and an external consultant depends on the organization's specific needs.

(gorelik.net)

AI Organizational Management

The Navy's Dry Spell and the Unexpected Rise of Ice Cream

2025-05-28

The Navy's Dry Spell and the Unexpected Rise of Ice Cream

In 1914, the US Navy issued General Order 99, banning alcohol onboard ships and bases. This mirrored the nationwide Prohibition of 1920. Surprisingly, Prohibition spurred the ice cream industry's growth, with breweries switching to ice cream and soda production. During WWII, the Navy even built a massive ice cream barge to boost morale, producing and distributing gallons of ice cream. Ice cream became a unique reward system; rescuing downed pilots meant a huge ice cream payout for the rescuing vessel, creating a memorable wartime tradition.

(www.oldsaltblog.com)

Misc Prohibition Ice Cream

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

The Bitter Truth About AI-Powered Coding

2025-04-12

After experiencing the incredible efficiency of AI coding tools like Claude Code, the author found themselves grappling with a profound sense of unease. The joy of coding felt diminished, likened to the experience of cheating in a video game – winning easily, but losing the satisfaction. The author worries that the high cost of these tools will create a significant barrier to entry, exacerbating existing technological inequalities and raising environmental concerns. While acknowledging the inevitability of AI's progress, they express concern about a future where programming becomes less enjoyable and accessible to most.

(4zm.org)

Development technological anxiety

Google Boosts Developer Productivity with Hybrid Semantic ML Code Completion

2025-05-15

Google Boosts Developer Productivity with Hybrid Semantic ML Code Completion

Google researchers have developed a novel Transformer-based hybrid semantic machine learning code completion system that combines machine learning (ML) and rule-based semantic engines (SEs) to significantly improve developer productivity. The system integrates ML and SEs in three ways: 1) re-ranking SE's single-token suggestions using ML; 2) applying single and multi-line completions using ML and checking correctness with the SE; and 3) using single and multi-line continuation by ML of single-token semantic suggestions. A three-month study with 10,000+ Google internal developers showed a 6% reduction in coding iteration time with single-line ML completion. Currently, over 3% of new code is generated from accepting ML completion suggestions. The system supports eight programming languages and incorporates semantic checks to ensure code correctness, significantly boosting developer trust and efficiency.

(research.google)

Development

LHCb Observes New Antimatter Asymmetry

2025-07-21

LHCb Observes New Antimatter Asymmetry

The LHCb experiment at the Large Hadron Collider has observed a new difference between matter and antimatter in baryons, marking the first observation of CP violation in this type of particle. This discovery is a significant step towards understanding the universe's matter-antimatter imbalance. While the observed CP violation aligns with the Standard Model, it's insufficient to explain the cosmic asymmetry, suggesting the existence of undiscovered particles or new physics beyond the Standard Model.

(www.scientificamerican.com)

Tech LHCb Antimatter CP violation

The Accidental Discovery of the Integral of the Secant

2025-04-20

The Accidental Discovery of the Integral of the Secant

The integral of sec(x) is a seemingly simple formula, yet its history is anything but straightforward. First posed in 1569 by Mercator for his famous map projections, its solution eluded mathematicians for 86 years. It was then accidentally discovered by a teacher, with a formal proof finally appearing 23 years later. This article tells the story, weaving together trigonometry, calculus, and map projections, revealing the serendipity and complexity inherent in mathematical discovery.

(liorsinai.github.io)

Misc History of Math Calculus Map Projections

Dominion Energy's Net Metering Overhaul Threatens Virginia's Solar Future

2025-05-19

Dominion Energy's Net Metering Overhaul Threatens Virginia's Solar Future

Dominion Energy's proposed "NEM 2.0" plan drastically alters Virginia's net metering program, potentially crippling solar adoption. Instead of a 1:1 credit for excess solar energy, Dominion proposes a significantly lower export rate based on their power purchase agreements (PPAs), effectively slashing homeowner savings by up to 65%. They also aim to claim ownership of generated SRECs. This move clashes with Virginia's renewable energy goals and discourages individual solar installations. While existing systems are grandfathered, those planning to install solar should act quickly before the mid-2026 deadline. Public comment to the SCC, proactive installations, and contacting legislators are crucial to influencing the outcome.

(www.virtuesolar.com)

Tech net metering

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

C Legend Kernighan: Rust is a 'Pain', Unlikely to Replace C

2025-08-31

C Legend Kernighan: Rust is a 'Pain', Unlikely to Replace C

At 83, Brian Kernighan, co-author of the seminal C programming language book, shared his candid thoughts on Rust. In a recent interview, he described his single Rust program experience as 'painful', citing difficulty understanding its memory safety mechanisms and slow compilation/execution speeds. He criticized the complexity of Rust's ecosystem, including 'crates and barrels'. While acknowledging potential bias from limited experience, he doubts Rust will replace C anytime soon. The interview also covered his perspectives on Linux distributions, HolyC, the current software landscape, and advice for aspiring programmers, emphasizing passion and pursuing engaging work.

(thenewstack.io)

Development

Spice Up Your Slack Emojis with HDR

2025-04-17

Want to make your Slack reactions pop? Learn how to add HDR to your emojis! Using a simple ImageMagick script, you can transform standard emojis into HDR versions for eye-catching brightness on supporting hardware (like iPhones). Android support is currently lacking. You'll need to install ImageMagick and download the 2020_profile.icc profile. The `Multiply` value in the script adjusts brightness and color balance.

(sharpletters.net)

Misc

Olympic Champ Dominates 100m at Kid's Sports Day

2025-04-20

Olympic Champ Dominates 100m at Kid's Sports Day

Eight-time Olympic gold medalist Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, a ten-time world champion sprinter, recently competed in a 100m race at her son's sports day against other parents. She utterly dominated the competition, showcasing her incredible speed and professionalism by running full-out without any showboating. The event highlights the stark difference between elite athletes and the average person.

(kottke.org)

Game Track and Field

Redefining 'e' with Pre-Calculus: An Intuitive Approach

2025-04-17

This article elegantly redefines the natural logarithm base 'e' using pre-calculus, rather than calculus. It leverages geometric intuition, explaining that all exponential curves (with positive real bases) are horizontal stretches of a single curve. By calculating the slope of the tangent line at x=0, it approximates 'e' and further proves that the tangent slope of eˣ is always equal to its y-value, mirroring the derivative concept in calculus. Finally, it visually demonstrates the equivalence of this definition with the compound interest limit, providing a more intuitive and accessible understanding of 'e'.

(www.poshenloh.com)

Misc pre-calculus

The Unexpected Economics of Planned Website Downtime

2025-04-10

This article challenges the conventional wisdom of 24/7 website uptime. Using B&H Photo's Saturday closures as a case study, it argues that not all e-commerce sites need to be constantly available. The author explores the high cost of continuous uptime and suggests that planned downtime doesn't necessarily lead to significant customer loss. The article draws parallels with Google's SRE team intentionally introducing minor outages to force users to consider fallback plans. Finally, it calculates the potential cloud cost savings from scheduled downtime and weighs the trade-offs against employee on-call compensation.

(bobbiechen.com)

Startup

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

Challenging the Big Bang: An Irish Author's 'Blowtorch Theory' of the Universe

2025-04-27

Challenging the Big Bang: An Irish Author's 'Blowtorch Theory' of the Universe

Irish author Julian Gough has unveiled a revolutionary cosmological theory, dubbed the 'blowtorch theory,' which challenges the long-held belief in the Big Bang. His theory posits that the universe didn't begin with a singular explosion 13 billion years ago, but rather evolved through multiple stages shaped by powerful jets from supermassive black holes. Supported by observations from the James Webb Space Telescope and attracting venture capital funding, Gough's theory, while controversial, offers a fresh perspective on cosmology and prompts a re-evaluation of existing models.

(www.irishtimes.com)

Tech Black Holes

Matrix.org Warns: Nation-Scale Matrix Deployments Will Fail

2025-01-19

Matrix.org issued a warning that nation-scale deployments of Matrix will fail if improperly built. This highlights the critical need to carefully consider architecture and scalability when building large-scale decentralized communication systems. The warning emphasizes the importance of ensuring system stability and reliability for a positive user experience.

(mastodon.matrix.org)

Tech

Modern C++: Key to Performance, Type Safety, and Flexibility

2025-02-05

This article explores key concepts in modern C++ (C++20 and beyond) for achieving performance, type safety, and flexibility, including resource management, lifetime management, error handling, modularity, and generic programming. The author highlights that many developers still use outdated C++ techniques, leading to less expressive, slower, less reliable, and harder-to-maintain code. The article introduces modern C++ mechanisms and proposes guidelines and profiles to ensure code modernity, aiming to help developers write cleaner, more efficient, and safer C++ code.

(cacm.acm.org)

Development Modernization

Flexport: Streamlining Global Supply Chains

2025-04-16

Flexport: Streamlining Global Supply Chains

Flexport offers a comprehensive suite of supply chain solutions, encompassing ocean and air freight, trucking, and fulfillment. Their technology platform provides SKU-level visibility, enabling real-time tracking and cost management. From startups to large enterprises, Flexport leverages its global network and expert teams to optimize speed and cost, boosting efficiency for businesses of all sizes.

(flexport.com)

Tech logistics

Running Modern Linux on a 1989 486: A Crazy Science Project

2025-04-21

The author successfully installed and ran a 2017 Linux kernel (4.14.8) on a 1989 AMD 5x86 486 PC. This wasn't easy; challenges included using Gentoo Linux (a distribution requiring manual compilation of all packages), wrestling with drivers for ancient hardware, and overcoming incompatibility between an 80-pin PATA cable and the motherboard. Ultimately, the aged machine successfully ran modern software like Python, Git, and Nginx, although boot time was a grueling 11 minutes and shutdown took 5.5 minutes. The project demonstrates Linux's remarkable backward compatibility and the author's impressive persistence.

(yeokhengmeng.com)

Development

IBM's Bamba: Outpacing Transformers on Long Sequences

2025-04-29

IBM's Bamba: Outpacing Transformers on Long Sequences

The transformer architecture powering today's LLMs, while effective, suffers from a quadratic bottleneck in longer conversations. IBM's open-sourced Bamba model tackles this by cleverly combining state-space models (SSMs) with transformers. Bamba significantly reduces memory requirements, resulting in at least double the speed of comparable transformers while maintaining accuracy. Trained on trillions of tokens, Bamba is poised to handle conversations with millions of tokens and potentially run up to five times faster with further optimizations.

(research.ibm.com)

AI State-Space Models

rtrvr.ai v12.5: On-the-Fly Tool Generation Redefines AI Agent Tool Integration

2025-07-09

rtrvr.ai v12.5: On-the-Fly Tool Generation Redefines AI Agent Tool Integration

rtrvr.ai v12.5 introduces 'On-the-Fly Tool Generation' (ToolGen), revolutionizing AI agent tool integration. Previously, agents relied on pre-configured tool lists like MCP protocols, making configuration cumbersome and inflexible. ToolGen allows agents to directly extract information from the browser (e.g., API keys) and generate the necessary tools on demand. For example, it can grab an access token from a HubSpot developer page and generate a tool to upload contacts. This significantly improves efficiency and flexibility, eliminating the need for manual configuration of complex tool lists. To celebrate this breakthrough, rtrvr.ai is offering a generous credit update with free BYOK (Bring Your Own Key), referral bonuses, and free credits for all users.

(www.rtrvr.ai)

AI tool generation

Beyond Autocomplete: How to Make AI Actually Understand Your Codebase

2025-04-08

The author expresses frustration with current AI coding assistants, highlighting their inability to truly understand codebases as interconnected systems. These tools often make repetitive mistakes and lack a comprehensive mental model of the project. To address this, the author developed "Prismatic Ranked Recursive Summarization" (PRRS), an algorithm that treats the codebase as a hierarchical knowledge graph, analyzing code through multiple "lenses" (e.g., architecture, data flow, security) to understand importance. This approach significantly improves AI code generation accuracy and efficiency, solving issues like file placement, pattern adherence, and code reuse. The author argues that the future of AI code generation lies in deeper codebase understanding, moving beyond simple token prediction.

(nmn.gl)

Development

Cats Can Smell the Difference: How Feline Olfaction Distinguishes Between Humans

2025-05-30

Cats Can Smell the Difference: How Feline Olfaction Distinguishes Between Humans

A new study reveals that domestic cats utilize olfaction to differentiate between familiar (owners) and unfamiliar humans. Cats spent significantly longer sniffing the scent of an unknown person, displaying nostril use lateralization similar to other animals responding to novel scents. The study also found correlations between feline personality traits and sniffing behavior, but no association with the strength of the cat-owner bond. This research illuminates the complexity of feline olfactory social cognition, offering new insights into cat-human interactions.

(journals.plos.org)

AI cats olfaction social cognition

Ghostwriter: An AI Assistant for the reMarkable 2

2025-02-08

Ghostwriter: An AI Assistant for the reMarkable 2

Ghostwriter is an AI assistant running on the reMarkable 2 that responds to handwritten or on-screen prompts using models like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini, generating text or drawing responses. The developer iteratively improved handwriting recognition, image generation, and virtual keyboard functionality, adding support for various models and APIs. Ghostwriter currently offers text-assist and drawing modes, with ongoing development focusing on a robust evaluation system and expanded toolset for enhanced user experience.

(github.com)

Development

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