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Colorado Redefines Nuclear Energy as 'Clean', Sparking Environmental Backlash

2025-04-02

Colorado Redefines Nuclear Energy as 'Clean', Sparking Environmental Backlash

Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed a bill reclassifying nuclear energy as a 'clean energy resource,' despite opposition from environmental groups. The legislation allows future nuclear power plants access to grants previously reserved for renewables and contributes to the state's climate goals. Supporters argue new reactor designs are safer and provide stable, 24/7 power, creating jobs. However, environmentalists worry it diverts resources from wind and solar and poses environmental and community risks.

(www.cpr.org)

Tech

Confetti: A Minimalist and Flexible Configuration Format

2025-04-02

Confetti: A Minimalist and Flexible Configuration Format

Confetti is a novel configuration format built on simplicity and minimalism. Unlike complex formats like YAML, Confetti boasts a concise and easily understandable specification, learnable in minutes. Its typeless design and composable syntax allow for everything from simple configurations to textual file formats and lightweight scripting. Confetti supports custom keywords and tri-state values, is localization-friendly, and encourages extensions, enabling users to create unique Confetti flavors.

(confetti.hgs3.me)

Development configuration format

Tenstorrent Unveils Blackhole™ AI Accelerator Cards and Developer Hub

2025-04-03

Tenstorrent Unveils Blackhole™ AI Accelerator Cards and Developer Hub

Tenstorrent has launched its new Blackhole™ AI accelerator cards, featuring all-new RISC-V cores designed for efficient handling of massive AI workloads and offering an infinitely scalable solution. The Blackhole™ product line includes single-processor versions (p100 and p150, priced at $999 and $1299 respectively) and a four-processor liquid-cooled workstation, the TT-Quietbox ($11,999). The next-generation Blackhole™ PCIe cards boast a 6nm manufacturing process, faster Network-on-Chip (NoC), higher memory density, and additional integrated RISC-V cores. Alongside the hardware, Tenstorrent also launched a Developer Hub providing model support, tutorial videos, bounties, and resources for the developer community. All Blackhole™ cards and the TT-Quietbox are fully supported by Tenstorrent's open-source software stack, including TT-Forge™, TT-NN™, TT-Metalium™, and TT-LLK.

(tenstorrent.com)

Hardware

AR Glasses Could End Myopia: A Revolutionary Approach Using NED Technology

2025-04-02

This article presents a method for preventing myopia and relieving eye strain using Near-Eye Display (NED) technology in augmented reality (AR) glasses. By projecting images directly onto the retina, the technology avoids prolonged contraction of the ciliary and medial rectus muscles, thus alleviating eye strain. Furthermore, through a special light-blocking design and convex lenses, AR glasses can simulate sunlight exposure and relative peripheral myopia, effectively preventing myopia. This technology promises to address the age-old problems of eye strain and myopia, but still requires clinical trial data to support its claims.

(eyewiki.org)

Tech myopia prevention NED technology

DEDA: Extracting, Decoding, and Anonymizing Tracking Dots from Printed Documents

2025-04-01

DEDA: Extracting, Decoding, and Anonymizing Tracking Dots from Printed Documents

DEDA is an open-source toolkit for extracting, decoding, and anonymizing tracking dots embedded in printed documents. Color laser printers often leave tiny tracking dots containing information like the printer's serial number. DEDA can read and decode this information, and also anonymize documents to prevent tracking. It offers a GUI and command-line tools for various operations, including extracting dots, comparing printers, creating custom dots, and anonymizing scans and documents. Installation requires Python 3 and several dependencies; troubleshooting tips for common installation errors are provided.

(github.com)

Development

Meru Health: Revolutionizing Healthcare, Tackling Mental Health Challenges

2025-04-01

Meru Health: Revolutionizing Healthcare, Tackling Mental Health Challenges

Founded in 2016, Meru Health aims to help and empower individuals struggling with mental health issues. This diverse team of scientists, engineers, clinicians, and entrepreneurs is dedicated to making treatment for depression, anxiety, and burnout accessible, effective, and outcome-driven. Their mission is deeply personal; driven by founders' losses to depression, they strive to aid those suffering.

(www.ycombinator.com)

Startup

Electron Band Structure in Germanium: A Hilarious Failure

2025-04-01

An undergraduate student's attempt to study the exponential relationship between resistivity and temperature in germanium turned into a comedy of errors. Broken equipment, soldering difficulties, a leaky liquid nitrogen thermos, and ultimately, chaotic data, led to profound frustration. He resorted to curve-fitting to force an exponential relationship, blaming the outcome on faulty equipment and methodology. The conclusion? Physics was a massive mistake; computer science is the only way to go.

(pages.cs.wisc.edu)

Misc failure research woes

Age LAN Server: Play Age of Empires Multiplayer Offline

2025-04-02

Age LAN Server: Play Age of Empires Multiplayer Offline

Age LAN Server is a web server enabling offline multiplayer LAN gameplay for Age of Empires: Definitive Edition, Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, and Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition. Even if official servers are down, LAN functionality remains. Currently in maintenance mode, focusing on bug fixes and dependency updates. A custom launcher is still required to bypass online restrictions for complete offline play. Features include map transferring, game restoration, data mods, lobby chat, and crossplay between Steam and Xbox. However, some features like achievements and leaderboards are not yet implemented. The server supports Windows, Linux, and macOS.

(github.com)

Game LAN Age of Empires

Passing of Dave Täht, Pioneer in Network Latency Reduction

2025-04-01

Passing of Dave Täht, Pioneer in Network Latency Reduction

Dave Täht, the creator of the FQ-CoDel and CAKE algorithms, has passed away. His work significantly improved internet connectivity worldwide, enabling reliable video calls for millions and facilitating access to healthcare and community. His open-source contributions were crucial to Starlink's efforts in addressing latency issues and inspired young entrepreneurs in developing nations to expand internet access. Dave's dedication and vision will be deeply missed.

(libreqos.io)

Tech

AV1: The Video Codec That Could (But Didn't Quite) Conquer the World

2025-04-03

AV1: The Video Codec That Could (But Didn't Quite) Conquer the World

AV1, a video codec developed by tech giants like Netflix and Google, promised superior efficiency and royalty-free licensing compared to its predecessors. Despite its technical advantages and strong backing, AV1's adoption has been slower than expected. Hardware limitations and higher decoding complexity have hindered widespread implementation, with major streaming services like Max and Peacock yet to fully embrace it. Even the royalty-free claim is disputed, with patent pools emerging and asserting rights. While giants like YouTube and Netflix are heavily invested, the path to universal adoption remains challenging, though AOMedia, the organization behind AV1, continues to push forward, developing its successor.

(www.theverge.com)

Tech video codec

Thirty and Redefining Travel's Purpose

2025-04-05

At 25, the author moved to Goa, India, embracing a simpler, community-focused life and pursuing various hobbies. A recent trip to Kazakhstan, however, left him feeling that travel had lost its meaning. He found people across the globe to be fundamentally similar, and the internet readily provides travel information. He now prioritizes deep, lasting connections with his home community, focusing future travels on visiting friends and exploring local nature.

(sidverma.io)

Misc

Abundance: A Critique of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's Manifesto

2025-04-02

Abundance: A Critique of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's Manifesto

Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's *Abundance* argues that the US government is inefficient and needs to prioritize providing more resources like housing, clean energy, and high-speed rail. While the book effectively highlights the flaws of current systems, particularly in housing where zoning regulations hinder development, it lacks a concrete policy agenda. The authors' call for 'abundance' is too broad, failing to address crucial trade-offs and the potential for abuse of power in streamlining processes. The hypocrisy of figures like Marc Andreessen, advocating for building while opposing multi-family housing near his home, underscores the book's shortcomings. Ultimately, *Abundance* avoids the messy realities of politics and policy-making, leaving the reader with inspiring rhetoric but little practical guidance on achieving its ambitious goals.

(networked.substack.com)

Misc policy reform housing development

AI Revolution Shakes Up Consulting: Efficiency Boost or Quality Drop?

2025-04-01

AI Revolution Shakes Up Consulting: Efficiency Boost or Quality Drop?

Major consulting firms like Boston Consulting Group (BCG) are enthusiastically adopting generative AI, using it for tasks like research and data analysis. However, this shift has placed immense pressure on junior consultants. AI-driven shorter deadlines force consultants to rush subpar reports to meet unrealistic expectations from senior partners, sacrificing creativity and in-depth analysis. This has led to discontent among consultants who argue that AI is not a 'magic bullet' but rather exacerbates workload and pressure.

(the-ken.com)

Startup Consulting

Revolutionary OCR System: Powering AI Education Datasets

2025-04-05

Revolutionary OCR System: Powering AI Education Datasets

A groundbreaking OCR system optimized for machine learning extracts structured data from complex educational materials like exam papers. Supporting multilingual text, mathematical formulas, tables, diagrams, and charts, it's ideal for creating high-quality training datasets. The system semantically annotates extracted elements and automatically generates natural language descriptions, such as descriptive text for diagrams. Supporting Japanese, Korean, and English with easy customization for additional languages, it outputs AI-ready JSON or Markdown, including human-readable descriptions of mathematical expressions, table summaries, and figure captions. Achieving over 90-95% accuracy on real-world academic datasets, it handles complex layouts with dense scientific content and rich visuals.

(github.com)

AI

Microsoft's Cloud PC, Windows 365 Link, Now Available for $350

2025-04-03

Microsoft's Cloud PC, Windows 365 Link, Now Available for $350

Microsoft has launched its business-oriented mini-desktop PC, Windows 365 Link, for $349.99. This device connects directly to Microsoft's Windows 365 cloud service, simplifying IT management and reducing support needs. Similar to a traditional thin client, it operates over the internet, enabling work from anywhere, and boasts a boot time of seconds. Microsoft states that over 100 organizations tested it, refining the software experience before release. Currently available in the US, Canada, Australia, UK, Germany, Japan, and New Zealand, it's exclusively for businesses and requires purchase through a Microsoft account team or authorized reseller.

(www.theverge.com)

Tech cloud PC thin client

Brian Eno's Airport Music: A Meditative Journey on Death and Acceptance

2025-04-02

Brian Eno's Airport Music: A Meditative Journey on Death and Acceptance

Brian Eno's *Music for Airports* is more than just background music; it's a meditation on death and acceptance. Created in 1978, this ambient masterpiece features slow, contemplative melodies, ambiguous tonality, and sounds designed to exist in the background. Initially conceived for airport playback, it aimed to create a calming atmosphere, preparing listeners for the possibility of death with serenity. Today, *Music for Airports* not only graces actual airport terminals but also exists in various reinterpreted forms, a flowing work of art across time and space.

(www.openculture.com)

Misc Ambient Music Airports

Running a Minecraft Server Inside a FreeBSD Jail

2025-04-05

Running a Minecraft Server Inside a FreeBSD Jail

This tutorial walks you through setting up a secure Minecraft server within a FreeBSD Jail container, a more secure alternative to Docker or Podman on Linux. The author details the process of creating the jail, installing the FreeBSD base system, configuring network settings, building the Minecraft server from ports, and configuring crucial settings like memory allocation, EULA acceptance, and server properties. Finally, the guide demonstrates starting the server and connecting via a Minecraft client. This is a comprehensive guide for users comfortable with FreeBSD.

(vermaden.wordpress.com)

Development

MacPaint Source Code: A Deep Dive into a 128KB Painting Revolution

2025-04-05

This article delves into the source code of MacPaint, a groundbreaking painting program released in 1984 alongside the original Macintosh. It revolutionized personal computing by introducing intuitive mouse-driven controls and innovative features. The analysis covers MacPaint's algorithms, code architecture, and performance optimizations, highlighting clever techniques leveraging the 68k platform, such as efficient buffer management and a seed-fill algorithm. The article also explores MacPaint's impact on digital graphics and the competitive landscape it faced.

(ztoz.blog)

Development Graphics Programming

Emergent Economies from Simple Agent Interactions: A Simulated Market

2025-04-02

Emergent Economies from Simple Agent Interactions: A Simulated Market

This paper presents a simulated market economy model built from individual agent behavior. Using simple buy/sell decision rules, the model generates complex market dynamics. Each agent makes decisions based on their personal valuation of a good and their expected market price, adjusting expectations after each transaction. The simulation demonstrates convergence towards the average personal valuation, adapting to environmental changes. This offers a novel approach to dynamic economic systems in open-world RPGs, though challenges remain in addressing transaction timing and scarcity.

(jasonfantl.com)

AI economic simulation

Millions of Malicious Requests Flood Servers: A Botnet DDoS Attack

2025-04-02

A recent surge in abusive web crawlers has overwhelmed servers with millions of requests. The attack originates from numerous IP addresses, each making a small number of requests with disguised user agents, making detection and blocking difficult. One shared hosting server alone averages over 1.5 million fraudulent requests daily from 290,000 unique IPs. Analysis suggests a botnet of compromised Android set-top boxes is likely responsible, aiming to evade anti-crawler measures. This incident has wasted significant staff time and impacted some legitimate users.

(www.mythic-beasts.com)

Tech Botnet Web Crawlers

Trump's Tariffs: A Protectionist Repeat of History

2025-04-03

Trump's Tariffs: A Protectionist Repeat of History

Trump's latest round of tariffs has sparked reflection on the history of US protectionism. The article uses the US shipbuilding industry as a cautionary tale, showing how protectionist policies stifle innovation and lead to industry decline. From the Tariff Act of 1789 to today, the US repeats the same mistakes; high tariffs haven't protected domestic industries but increased consumer costs and harmed US competitiveness. Experts warn this will particularly hurt the clean energy sector, reliant on imported components. Ultimately, protectionism hinders innovation and backfires.

(grist.org)

Tech protectionism

Ferron: A Blazing Fast, Memory-Safe Web Server in Rust

2025-04-05

Ferron: A Blazing Fast, Memory-Safe Web Server in Rust

Ferron is a high-performance, memory-safe web server written in Rust. Leveraging Rust's async capabilities, it boasts impressive speed while ensuring memory safety. Its modular architecture allows for easy customization and extension. Security and safe concurrency are key design principles. While still under development, you can already clone the repository, build, and run it using Cargo. Ferron Forge simplifies building, and comprehensive documentation and contribution guidelines are available.

(github.com)

Development

The Folly of Natural Language Programming

2025-04-03

This article critiques the notion of natural language programming. The author argues that while using natural language as a programming interface seems to simplify human-computer interaction, it drastically increases machine complexity and potentially leads to more undetectable errors. Historical experience shows that the precision and rigor of formal languages (like mathematical notation) are key to efficient information processing. The ambiguity and vagueness of natural language, conversely, would hinder the advancement of computer science. Instead of pursuing the convenience of natural language programming, the author advocates for appreciating the precision and efficiency offered by formal languages as the correct path for the advancement of computer science.

(www.cs.utexas.edu)

Development

Simple Denoising Diffusion: A PyTorch Implementation

2025-04-03

Simple Denoising Diffusion: A PyTorch Implementation

This repository provides a streamlined PyTorch implementation of a denoising diffusion model. Building upon existing resources, the author refactored the code for improved readability and understanding. Functions and classes are logically separated into different files, making it easier to grasp the building blocks of diffusion models. Training and image generation are handled in separate files for easier parameter management. While the generated images aren't perfect, this project serves as a valuable learning resource for understanding diffusion models.

(github.com)

Development

Capsul: From Rooftop to Cloud – The Story of a Tiny Cloud Provider

2025-04-03

Capsul: From Rooftop to Cloud – The Story of a Tiny Cloud Provider

Capsul, a small cloud service provider, has a legendary origin story. It began in a community called Cyberia.club, with its first server, "Baikal," literally cobbled together on the rooftop of an apartment building. From manually creating VMs to a self-service web interface, and weathering server crashes and payment system outages, the Capsul team persevered, continuously improving to offer better service to small communities. Now, with a new server, "Rathouse," they're focused on making Capsul a genuinely excellent, accessible, and reliable cloud platform, not just another rent-seeking project.

(capsul.bearblog.dev)

Startup small community startup story

UK's Economic Paradox: Rich Yet Broke?

2025-04-04

UK's Economic Paradox: Rich Yet Broke?

Despite being the world's 6th largest economy with decades of high tax revenue, Britain faces a significant economic paradox: widespread financial strain. The article explores two key factors contributing to this: insufficient public and private investment, hindering economic growth; and shockingly inefficient public spending, evidenced by the NHS and defense procurement. The author argues for sweeping reforms to address waste and inefficiency, paving the way for economic improvement.

(martinrobbins.substack.com)

Startup Fiscal Crisis Public Investment

Coreboot 25.03 Released: Open-Source BIOS Gets Major Update

2025-04-04

Coreboot, the open-source BIOS/firmware solution, has released version 25.03, bringing significant improvements. This release boasts enhanced display handling, a better USB debugging experience, CPU topology updates, various improvements to open-source RAM initialization for aging Intel Haswell platforms, improved USB Type-C and Thunderbolt handling, various embedded controller (EC) improvements, better RISC-V architecture support, DDR5-7500 support, and numerous bug fixes. Furthermore, it adds support for 22 new motherboards, including several Google Chromebooks, the AMD "Crater" development platform, older ASRock motherboards, and StarLabs devices. The Intel Panther Lake reference platform, "Intel Ptlrvp," is also supported.

(www.phoronix.com)

Hardware Open-Source BIOS

Cashless Payments Lead to Fewer Kids Swallowing Coins, Study Finds

2025-04-05

Cashless Payments Lead to Fewer Kids Swallowing Coins, Study Finds

A new study reveals a significant decrease in surgeries for children who swallow or inhale foreign objects, primarily attributed to the decline in cash usage. Since 2012, when cash payments decreased significantly, there's been a 29% reduction in such procedures. While improved child-proofing and parental awareness played a role, the shift to cashless payments unexpectedly contributed to children's safety, saving an estimated £2.8 million annually in healthcare resources. However, parents should remain vigilant about other hazards like button batteries and magnets.

(www.independent.co.uk)

Tech cashless payments healthcare resources

Type: Hiring a Senior Software Engineer

2025-04-03

Type: Hiring a Senior Software Engineer

Type, an AI-native document editor backed by Y Combinator, is looking for a product-minded senior software engineer to join its small team in Brooklyn. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience building complex web applications, be proficient in React and TypeScript, and possess strong product intuition. Responsibilities include building advanced rich text editing features, collaborative editing capabilities, and LLM-based writing and editing tools. Competitive salary, stock options, and comprehensive benefits are offered.

(www.ycombinator.com)

Development

Air Pollution: Tracing the Killers and Their Sources

2025-04-02

Air Pollution: Tracing the Killers and Their Sources

Millions die prematurely from air pollution each year. This article delves into the sources of various air pollutants harming human health and ecosystems. Analyzing data from the Community Emissions Data System (CEDS), it reveals energy production, transport, and agriculture as major culprits. It details the sources, health impacts, and mitigation strategies for pollutants like sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, black carbon, methane, ammonia, and non-methane volatile organic compounds. The study finds transitioning to clean energy, reducing meat consumption, and improving agricultural practices are crucial for tackling air pollution.

(ourworldindata.org)

Tech pollution sources

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