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Alibaba Open-Sources Qwen3-Coder: A 480B Parameter Code Model

2025-07-23

Alibaba Open-Sources Qwen3-Coder: A 480B Parameter Code Model

Alibaba has released Qwen3-Coder, a powerful 480B-parameter code model achieving state-of-the-art results in agentic coding tasks. Supporting a native context length of 256K tokens (extensible to 1M), Qwen3-Coder excels in coding and intelligent tasks. Alongside the model, they've open-sourced Qwen Code, a command-line tool designed for seamless integration. Extensive use of large-scale reinforcement learning significantly improved code execution success rates and complex problem-solving capabilities.

(qwenlm.github.io)

AI code model

Swiss Payment Terminal Flaw: Unencrypted Firmware & Accessible Root Shell

2025-06-01

A security researcher reverse-engineered a widely used Worldline Yomani XR payment terminal in Switzerland, uncovering unencrypted firmware and a publicly accessible root shell. Despite physical tamper protection, the debug port is externally accessible, allowing attackers to gain root access and deploy malware within 30 seconds. However, deeper analysis revealed the Linux system doesn't handle sensitive data (like card details); a separate, encrypted and signed processor manages security functions. While a significant software engineering oversight, the direct risk may be less than initially feared.

(stefan-gloor.ch)

Tech payment terminal security firmware vulnerability

Squid Game's Secret Weapon: The Japanese Film Battle Royale

2025-01-10

Squid Game's Secret Weapon: The Japanese Film Battle Royale

Netflix's hit series, Squid Game, owes a debt of gratitude to a lesser-known Japanese cult classic: Battle Royale. Director Hwang Dong-hyuk openly cites the film as inspiration. Based on Koushun Takami's 1999 novel, Battle Royale depicts a dystopian scenario where middle schoolers are forced to fight to the death by a totalitarian government. Its brutal game mechanics and unflinching portrayal of societal darkness heavily influenced Squid Game. The article delves into Battle Royale's origins, exploring the author's dream-inspired concept and director Kinji Fukasaku's infusion of his WWII experiences, transforming the film from a mere bloodbath into a profound social commentary.

(www.tokyoweekender.com)

Game Squid Game Battle Royale Japanese Cinema

Google's Gemini Code Assist: A Free AI Coding Assistant to Rival GitHub Copilot

2025-02-27

Google's Gemini Code Assist: A Free AI Coding Assistant to Rival GitHub Copilot

Google launched a free consumer version of its AI code completion tool, Gemini Code Assist, challenging GitHub Copilot. Offering 180,000 code completions per month and 240 daily chat requests—significantly more than Copilot's free tier—Gemini boasts a larger context window for handling complex codebases. It integrates with popular IDEs and supports multiple programming languages. Google aims to attract developers early, hoping to convert them to paid enterprise plans in the future.

(techcrunch.com)

Development

Numerical Instability in Automatic Differentiation for Scientific Machine Learning

2025-09-18

Numerical Instability in Automatic Differentiation for Scientific Machine Learning

Scientific machine learning (SciML) heavily relies on automatic differentiation (AD) for gradient-based optimization. However, this talk reveals the numerical challenges of AD, particularly concerning its stability and robustness when applied to ordinary differential equations (ODEs) and partial differential equations (PDEs). Using examples from Jax and PyTorch, the presentation demonstrates how inaccuracies in AD can lead to significant errors (60% or more) even in simple linear ODEs. The speaker will discuss non-standard modifications implemented in Julia SciML libraries to address these issues and the necessary engineering trade-offs involved.

(www.stochasticlifestyle.com)

AI Scientific Machine Learning Numerical Analysis

SimCity Megacity: A Dystopian Masterpiece

2025-05-02

SimCity Megacity: A Dystopian Masterpiece

Vincent Ocasla, a 22-year-old architecture student from the Philippines, spent a year and a half creating Magnasanti, a dystopian metropolis in SimCity 3000. This sprawling city, boasting a population of six million, is a chilling testament to oppressive social structures and control. Inspired by Koyaanisqatsi, Ocasla uses the game as a medium to explore themes of societal control and abuse of power. Magnasanti's citizens, trapped in a hyper-efficient police state, endure poverty, repression, and a life expectancy of only 50 years. This isn't just gaming; it's a profound critique of real-world issues.

(web.archive.org)

Game SimCity Dystopia

C++ Modules: A Broken Promise?

2025-09-01

This article takes a pessimistic view on the progress of C++ modules. The author argues that if C++ modules cannot demonstrate a 5x (preferably 10x) compilation speedup across multiple existing open-source codebases, they should be abandoned. The article highlights the challenging development journey, citing the tight integration required between compilers and build systems as a major hurdle. The author emphasizes that the focus should be on improving compilation speed rather than addressing relatively rare issues like macro leakage. He recounts the standardization process, pointing out underestimation of implementation difficulties. Finally, the author suggests an alternative approach – `import std` – while acknowledging its limited potential for improvement.

(nibblestew.blogspot.com)

Development modules compilation speed

Linux Kernel Embraces Rust: The End of C's Memory Safety Nightmares?

2025-02-20

Greg KH, a long-time Linux kernel maintainer, advocates for using Rust to rewrite parts of the kernel in an LKML post. He argues that a significant portion of kernel bugs stem from subtle flaws in C, which Rust's memory safety features would effectively prevent. While a complete migration to Rust is unrealistic, writing new code and drivers in Rust would dramatically reduce bugs and improve development efficiency. Greg urges kernel developers to embrace Rust for the long-term health of the Linux project.

(www.phoronix.com)

Development

Blue Origin's New Glenn Rocket Launch Schedule Severely Behind

2025-06-10

Blue Origin's New Glenn Rocket Launch Schedule Severely Behind

Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp admitted that the company's New Glenn rocket launch rate will fall far short of its target of eight launches this year. The second mission, "Never Tell Me the Odds," aiming to recover the booster, is now delayed until at least August 15th and may be the only launch this year. Insiders say Jeff Bezos is unhappy with the significant delays, and even an August launch might be optimistic, with September being more realistic. While the company claims it will produce eight second-stage rockets (GS2s) this year, this seems more like a strategy to appease Bezos.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech

The Perils of Trusting Your Gut on AI

2025-06-09

The Perils of Trusting Your Gut on AI

Drawing on personal anecdotes and psychological research, the author argues that cognitive biases make us vulnerable to manipulation, especially in the AI realm. The article critiques the reliance on personal experience and anecdotal evidence to validate AI tools, emphasizing the need for rigorous scientific studies to avoid repeating past mistakes. The author warns against the uncritical adoption of AI in software development, arguing that it exacerbates existing flaws rather than solving them. Blind faith in AI, the author concludes, is a significant risk.

(www.baldurbjarnason.com)

AI

AllTracker: Efficient Dense Point Tracking at High Resolution

2025-06-21

AllTracker estimates long-range point tracks by computing the flow field between a query frame and every other frame in a video. Unlike existing methods, it produces high-resolution, dense (all-pixel) correspondence fields, enabling tracking at 768x1024 resolution on a 40G GPU. Instead of frame-by-frame processing, AllTracker processes a window of flow problems simultaneously, significantly improving long-range flow estimation. This efficient model (16 million parameters) achieves state-of-the-art accuracy, benefiting from training on a diverse set of datasets.

(alltracker.github.io)

AI point tracking optical flow high resolution

EU Launches OpenEuroLLM: A €37.4M Push for European AI Sovereignty

2025-02-09

OpenEuroLLM, a collaborative AI project involving 20 organizations across the EU, officially launched on February 3, 2025. Backed by €37.4 million (USD 39.4 million) in funding, including €20.6 million from the Digital Europe Program, the project aims to develop multilingual large language models (LLMs). The initiative seeks to boost Europe's AI competitiveness, expand access to advanced AI, and preserve linguistic diversity. OpenEuroLLM's strategic alignment with EU digital sovereignty goals and its STEP seal of excellence promise increased visibility and future funding opportunities.

(slator.com)

AI European Union

The Rise and Fall (and Possible Rise?) of US Rare Earths

2025-05-11

The US once dominated the rare earth industry, but strategic missteps led to China taking the lead. This article recounts the history of the US rare earth industry, focusing on Molycorp's failed partnership with China and how China quickly mastered rare earth processing and permanent magnet production. While the US government has recently invested heavily to rebuild its rare earth supply chain, it faces challenges from market demand, technological hurdles, and China's strong competitive position. The author questions the viability of a US rare earth revival, noting that demand may be lower than anticipated and alternative technologies are developing.

(media.hubspot.com)

Tech rare earths

Full-Featured Logic Programming in Clojure: Clolog

2025-04-15

Full-Featured Logic Programming in Clojure: Clolog

Clolog embeds full-featured logic programming (Prolog) in/callable from Clojure, supporting calls to and from Clojure. Inspired by LogLisp, Lisp Machine Prolog, and Allegro Prolog, it adds several enhancements. Emphasis is on expressive power and execution transparency, supporting rapid prototyping, proof-of-concept development, and outer-loop reasoning (it's not blazing fast, yet). Clojure-based, Lispy syntax provides built-in predicates and operators for negation, conditionals, variable binding, and access to Clojure values.

(github.com)

Development

Samsung Halts One UI 7 Rollout Due to Unlocking Bug

2025-04-15

Samsung Halts One UI 7 Rollout Due to Unlocking Bug

Samsung has abruptly halted the rollout of its One UI 7 update after a serious bug was discovered preventing some Galaxy S24 users from unlocking their phones. Initially reported in South Korea, the issue prompted a global pause. The update, featuring Android 15 and numerous AI enhancements, began rolling out on April 7th but has since been removed from Samsung's servers. The company hasn't commented on the pause or plans to address the issue for users who already downloaded the update.

(www.theverge.com)

Tech

AI-Generated Synthetic Data Bypasses Ethics Reviews in Medical Research

2025-09-12

AI-Generated Synthetic Data Bypasses Ethics Reviews in Medical Research

Medical researchers in Canada, the US, and Italy are using AI-generated synthetic data derived from real patient information in their experiments without ethics board approval. Institutions argue that since the synthetic data doesn't contain traceable patient information, it doesn't constitute human subject research under regulations like the US Common Rule. While accessing patient data to create the synthetic datasets requires ethics board approval, this is often waived due to low risk. This approach aims to protect patient privacy, accelerate research, and facilitate data sharing, but also raises ethical questions.

(www.nature.com)

Tech

Yosemite: A Century of Privatization Battles

2025-08-03

Yosemite: A Century of Privatization Battles

Since 1864, when Yosemite Valley was granted to California, the conflict between privatization and public interest has been ongoing. Early private businesses operating in the valley led to legal disputes. In 1973, MCA's acquisition of Yosemite concessions sparked concerns about over-commercialization. A 2016 concession transfer saw Delaware North demanding exorbitant compensation for historical names, reigniting the debate. Now, the Trump administration's budget cuts and staff reductions are raising privatization fears, bringing Yosemite's century-long struggle back into the spotlight.

(theconversation.com)

Misc Yosemite National Park Privatization Commercial Interests

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

Do You Really Own Your Website? The Illusion of Control

2025-05-03

During the 2020 lockdown, a restaurant's website became its lifeline. The owner outsourced website maintenance, but the 'maintainer' disappeared for months, leaving the site un-updatable. This sparked a discussion about website control: from simply contacting the maintainer to directly modifying server files, DNS records, or even replacing the server—the methods escalate in complexity. The article highlights that true control hinges on ownership of relevant accounts and permissions, such as registrar accounts, DNS management, and server access. This serves as a reminder to understand the risks of outsourcing and ensure you retain necessary control.

(rachelbythebay.com)

Development website control domain management

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5516: Enhanced Semantic Search and More

2025-03-29

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5516: Enhanced Semantic Search and More

The latest Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5516 brings a host of improvements to the Dev Channel. The highlight is enhanced Windows Search for AMD and Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs. Using semantic indexing, users can now search using natural language – such as "bridge at sunset" – to find documents, photos, and settings, even offline. Also included are a new Narrator speech recap feature for reviewing and copying spoken content; an improved UI for unexpected restarts; Win+C hotkey and press-to-talk functionality for Copilot; Click to Do improvements; and enhanced Windows sharing capabilities. Several known issues are slated for fixes in future updates.

(blogs.windows.com)

Development Search Improvements Narrator

The Unexpected Boom of Hand-Drawn Animation: China's 'Nobody' Defies Expectations

2025-09-04

The Unexpected Boom of Hand-Drawn Animation: China's 'Nobody' Defies Expectations

Hand-drawn animation is experiencing a surprising resurgence, with films like Japan's 'Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle' and China's 'Nobody' achieving massive box office success, outperforming some Hollywood CG animation blockbusters. This contrasts sharply with the late 1990s prediction of hand-drawn animation's demise. While the rise of CG animation threatened to overshadow traditional methods, 'Nobody'—a low-budget hand-drawn film—demonstrates the enduring power of compelling storytelling and artistic style, proving that great stories can transcend technological advancements.

(animationobsessive.substack.com)

Game hand-drawn animation CG animation

Software Engineering: The Golden Age is Over?

2025-07-05

Software Engineering: The Golden Age is Over?

Software engineering used to be a highly sought-after profession, but now, with the rise of AI and increased competition, many engineers face the risk of unemployment. The author argues that this is because many engineers are complacent, lacking ambition, and content with simply writing simple code. He encourages engineers to upgrade their skills, actively learn AI tools, and solve real-world problems to stand out in a competitive environment. Software engineering is no longer for everyone; it requires true passion and dedication.

(newsletter.manager.dev)

Development

Simple Modification Saves Millions in Fuel Costs for C-17 Globemaster III

2025-02-03

Simple Modification Saves Millions in Fuel Costs for C-17 Globemaster III

The US Air Force has achieved significant fuel savings by attaching 3D-printed microvanes to the rear fuselage of its C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft. This surprisingly simple modification reduces drag by 1%, resulting in annual fuel cost savings of $14 million. The microvanes address aerodynamic issues caused by the upswept rear section when the cargo door is open, improving fuel efficiency. This cost-effective innovation is not only benefiting the US Air Force but has also garnered international interest, highlighting the importance of technological advancements in maintaining military competitiveness.

(newatlas.com)

Tech Aerospace Cost Savings

Trees Aren't What You Think: A Surprising Look at Plant Taxonomy

2025-07-03

Trees Aren't What You Think: A Surprising Look at Plant Taxonomy

This article reveals a surprising fact: trees are not a monophyletic group, meaning that the common ancestors of different types of trees may not have been trees themselves. The article delves into the phenomenon of 'dendronization,' where plants have independently evolved woody stems multiple times. Research shows there are no unique 'tree genes,' but rather, plants utilize different expressions of existing genes to achieve tree morphology. Furthermore, the article discusses the fuzziness of categories like 'fruit' and 'berry,' pointing out the discrepancies between biological and everyday usage.

(eukaryotewritesblog.com)

Tech plant taxonomy convergent evolution

Microsoft's Copilot Branding Under Fire: Advertising Watchdog Steps In

2025-06-18

Microsoft's Copilot Branding Under Fire: Advertising Watchdog Steps In

Microsoft is facing criticism for its overuse of the "Copilot" branding across its AI product line. The Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Division (NAD) flagged Microsoft's advertising for its ambiguous use of 'Copilot', arguing consumers struggle to differentiate functionality between applications. NAD also questioned Microsoft's claims about Copilot's productivity gains, citing a lack of robust measurement of actual productivity improvements. Microsoft responded that it would revise its advertising to comply with NAD's recommendations, highlighting Copilot's market value.

(www.businessinsider.com)

Tech

Waymo Expands Autonomous Vehicle Testing to Denver and Seattle

2025-09-03

Waymo Expands Autonomous Vehicle Testing to Denver and Seattle

Waymo announced it's bringing its Jaguar I-Pace SUVs and Zeekr vans to Denver and Seattle this week, initially for manual driving before autonomous testing begins. The company aims to launch robotaxi services in Denver next year and Seattle as soon as permits are granted. This expansion tests Waymo's technology in challenging weather conditions. Waymo currently operates over 2,000 robotaxis nationwide and plans to launch commercial services in Dallas, Miami, and Washington D.C. next year.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech expansion

The Rise and Fall (and Rise?) of `<blink>` and `<marquee>`

2025-06-08

The Rise and Fall (and Rise?) of `<blink>` and `<marquee>`

Remember blinking text and marquees on websites? This article dives into the quirky history of the `` and `` HTML tags, popular in the 90s. From their accidental inception in Netscape Navigator 2.0 to Internet Explorer's innovative (and arguably atrocious) `` tag, the story explores their bizarre compatibility issues and how they defined – and sometimes undermined – early web design. While obsolete today, their impact on web development is undeniable.

(danq.me)

Design web design history HTML tags

Cuttle: A Retro Two-Player Card Game That's More Than Just Luck

2025-01-10

Cuttle, a two-player card game emerging in the 1970s, challenges players to reach 21 points first using a standard 52-card deck. Gameplay involves strategic card placement and unpredictable effects. Players deploy point cards to score or 'scuttle' opponent's cards, while one-off and permanent effect cards introduce twists and turns. Aces clear the board, twos counter effects, and kings reduce the winning point requirement. With its blend of strategy and chance, Cuttle offers a unique and engaging retro gaming experience.

(www.pagat.com)

Game card game strategy game

1.5 Years of AI-Assisted Programming: Reflections and Lessons Learned

2025-08-07

1.5 Years of AI-Assisted Programming: Reflections and Lessons Learned

This post shares the author's 1.5-year experience using AI for programming. AI excels at repetitive coding tasks, refactoring, and simple projects, but struggles with complex problems and new development, often introducing errors and inefficient abstractions. CLI interfaces prove more effective than IDEs due to increased developer control. AI aids in design and writing, but 'vibe coding' (relying solely on AI-generated code) is discouraged, leading to significant technical debt and security vulnerabilities. The author concludes that the primary beneficiaries of AI aren't developers, but managers and clients, facilitating improved communication and collaboration. The future of AI in programming is bright, but companies shouldn't use it as an excuse for layoffs.

(priver.dev)

Development

RsyncUI: A GUI for rsync on macOS

2025-05-29

RsyncUI: A GUI for rsync on macOS

RsyncUI is a SwiftUI-based macOS application providing a graphical user interface for the command-line tool rsync. It simplifies rsync usage by letting users organize tasks and set parameters easily. Compatible with macOS Sonoma and later, it can be installed via Homebrew or direct download. Importantly, RsyncUI is a GUI; the actual synchronization is handled by rsync. Users can abort tasks, but should allow cleanup to complete before starting new ones.

(github.com)

Development

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