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A History of Tariffs: From Smuggling to Trade Wars

2025-05-24

A History of Tariffs: From Smuggling to Trade Wars

This lecture traces the history of tariffs in the United States, from rampant smuggling during the colonial period, to Hamilton's establishment of a tax system, to the entanglement of tariffs with industrial development and North-South conflicts after the Civil War, and their role in the Great Depression. It concludes with the post-WWII establishment of GATT and the WTO, and the rise of global trade. The lecture highlights that while tariffs can protect domestic industries, they are essentially taxes that harm consumers, and reviews the successes and failures of tariff policies throughout history, culminating in the complexities of modern trade wars.

(imprimis.hillsdale.edu)

Misc trade

Apple's AI Stumble: Is the Cook Era Over?

2025-08-03

Apple's AI Stumble: Is the Cook Era Over?

Apple, once a leader in the tech world with the iPhone, now seems to be lagging in the age of artificial intelligence. Tim Cook's decade-long tenure has seen massive growth, but innovation has stagnated. Compared to competitors like Microsoft and Google, Apple's AI strategy is behind, with Siri losing its edge. Over-reliance on the Chinese market is also a significant concern, with slow production shifts and increasing competition from Chinese firms. While Apple remains immensely profitable, the arrival of the AI era demands change, or risk being overtaken.

(unherd.com)

Tech Tim Cook

arXivLabs: Experimental Projects with Community Collaborators

2025-05-06

arXivLabs is a framework enabling collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on the arXiv website. Individuals and organizations working with arXivLabs embrace our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners who adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will benefit the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

(arxiv.org)

Development

India's AI Ambitions: A David vs. Goliath Struggle Against US Tech Giants

2025-09-04

India's AI Ambitions: A David vs. Goliath Struggle Against US Tech Giants

While India boasts ambitions of AI sovereignty, its fledgling domestic AI sector faces a daunting challenge: a massive funding gap, regulatory inconsistencies favoring foreign tech giants, and the unchecked expansion of US tech behemoths. Companies like OpenAI and Perplexity AI are aggressively undercutting Indian startups like Sarvam AI and Ola Krutrim with aggressively low prices, leveraging existing user bases to lock in market share. Bernstein analysts warn of misplaced enthusiasm surrounding the entry of these giants, highlighting a fundamental power imbalance. India's AI development is hampered by insufficient funding (US $471B vs India's $11.29B between 2013-2024), regulatory double standards favoring foreign companies, and a strategic risk of becoming a mere digital marketplace rather than a creator of AI technology. This leaves India's AI aspirations significantly threatened.

(indiadispatch.com)

Tech US Tech Giants

Massive Volkswagen Data Breach Exposes Location Data of 800,000 EVs

2024-12-27

Massive Volkswagen Data Breach Exposes Location Data of 800,000 EVs

A massive data breach affecting over 800,000 Volkswagen electric vehicles has exposed sensitive user information, including precise GPS location data and personal contact details. The data, stored on an unsecured Amazon Cloud server, was accessible to anyone with basic technical skills. The breach, discovered by a whistleblower and reported by Der Spiegel, highlights significant security flaws at Volkswagen's software subsidiary, Cariad. While Cariad claims to have quickly addressed the vulnerability and that no unauthorized third-party access occurred, the incident raises serious concerns about data security in the automotive industry and the potential for misuse of exposed location and personal information. The breach impacted both individual users and institutional entities, including police forces.

(cyberinsider.com)

Tech automotive

A Policy of Transience: A Programmer's Philosophy of Computer Use

2025-05-13

This article details the unique computer usage habits of a programmer, centered around a "policy of transience." This philosophy dictates that all data should be either deliberately permanent and organized, or strictly temporary, avoiding accidental permanence. Examples include disabling persistent shell history, regularly clearing the GUI desktop, and frequently closing the web browser. The author explains the benefits, such as increased efficiency, better organization, and reduced data clutter. Related practices like corporate records management and automated OS setup are discussed, along with exceptions to the policy, such as email and browser history, which are kept permanently due to their unpredictable usefulness.

(www.chiark.greenend.org.uk)

Development programming habits

A Simple Violation of Determinism in Newtonian Mechanics: The Dome

2025-01-03

This paper presents a counterintuitive example in Newtonian mechanics where determinism fails: a mass resting at the apex of a specially shaped dome spontaneously moves without any external intervention. The author demonstrates, through mathematical solutions and physical reasoning, that this system allows for multiple solutions, some of which depict the mass initiating motion at an arbitrary time, with no Newtonian prediction for when or in what direction. Even simple Newtonian systems can exhibit acausal events, challenging the universality of causality in classical physics.

(sites.pitt.edu)

Physics Newtonian mechanics determinism causality

Blacksmith's Bulletproof CI/CD Security Architecture

2025-05-25

Blacksmith's Bulletproof CI/CD Security Architecture

Blacksmith boasts a robust CI/CD security architecture, detailed in this post. The journey begins with GitHub integration, progressing through the control plane, dataplane, and caching mechanisms, illustrating the comprehensive protection of user code, secrets, and cached artifacts. Security measures include GitHub SSO authentication, the principle of least privilege, TLS encryption, and Firecracker microVMs, ensuring security at every stage. SOC 2 Type 2 compliance and regular penetration testing further reinforce trust and address security concerns.

(www.blacksmith.sh)

Development CI/CD Security MicroVMs

Why I Hate 'AI'

2025-08-31

The author vehemently criticizes the current popular text and image generation tools, arguing they are not true AI but Large Language Models (LLMs). He lambasts OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's comparison of humans to 'stochastic parrots,' deeming it demeaning to the richness of human experience. The author also points out the excessive hype surrounding LLMs, their bland and unoriginal output, and expresses concern over companies using user data without consent to train their models. Ultimately, he voices worry about the future of the internet and the misuse of personal creations, calling for attention to the ethical and aesthetic issues surrounding LLMs.

(ian.mccowan.space)

AI

Transcontinental Railroad Merger Shakes Up US Rail Industry

2025-07-26

Transcontinental Railroad Merger Shakes Up US Rail Industry

Union Pacific (UP) and Norfolk Southern (NS) are in advanced merger talks, aiming to create a coast-to-coast rail behemoth spanning 52,215 miles. This would eliminate significant interchange bottlenecks, offering seamless service and potentially boosting the US economy. However, regulatory hurdles and the possibility of a bidding war from BNSF Railway loom large. Analysts predict job losses initially, followed by potential growth and increased union jobs. The merger could also trigger a domino effect, leading to further consolidation in the rail industry.

(www.trains.com)

Tech railroad merger

Zed: The World's Fastest Open-Source AI Code Editor

2025-05-07

Zed: The World's Fastest Open-Source AI Code Editor

Zed, the world's fastest AI code editor, is now open-source! Built in Rust, it features fully open-source AI capabilities, letting users interact with an AI agent via the Agent Panel to modify, write, and understand code. The AI agent can grasp your codebase and assist without prior training or indexing. Zed prioritizes user privacy; conversations are private by default and data isn't harvested. It supports various language models and allows custom models or local runs via Ollama. Currently available for macOS and Linux, with a Windows release planned for late 2025.

(zed.dev)

Development AI code editor

Will This Linux Server Security Guide Protect You From Hackers?

2025-08-01

Will This Linux Server Security Guide Protect You From Hackers?

This comprehensive guide details how to secure your Linux server against malicious attacks. It covers everything from choosing a secure Linux distribution to configuring firewalls and intrusion detection/prevention systems (like Fail2Ban and CrowdSec), and provides Ansible playbooks to automate many security steps. The guide also touches on advanced topics like using SSH keys, two-factor authentication, and kernel sysctl hardening, while cautioning readers about the risks involved in these steps. It's a living document intended to be a comprehensive resource for Linux server security.

(github.com)

Development Server Security

US Library of Congress Briefly Deletes Sections of the Constitution

2025-08-07

US Library of Congress Briefly Deletes Sections of the Constitution

Parts of Article I of the US Constitution, including clauses authorizing Congress to create a Navy, call forth a militia, and sections on habeas corpus, bills of attainder, and limitations on states' powers, were temporarily deleted from the Library of Congress website. While the error has been corrected and the Constitution itself remains unchanged, the incident has sparked attention and may ironically lead to increased readings of the foundational document.

(arstechnica.com)

Misc Library of Congress

Hollow Knight: Silksong's $20 Price Tag Sparks Controversy in Indie Dev World

2025-09-14

Hollow Knight: Silksong's $20 Price Tag Sparks Controversy in Indie Dev World

Hollow Knight: Silksong's surprisingly low price of $19.99 has been a massive success, but it's also stirred up controversy within the indie game development community. While players rejoice at the value, many developers worry it will skew player expectations, making it harder to price their own games. Team Cherry's ability to set such a low price is attributed to their established IP and the success of the previous game. Other indie devs lack this luxury, facing challenges in justifying similar prices for their shorter, less-hyped titles. However, this low price point could have a positive ripple effect, potentially influencing the pricing strategy of major titles like GTA 6, encouraging a lower price point to increase overall sales.

(screenrant.com)

Game hollow knight

A Senior Developer's Concerns: Growing Disconnect with Younger Generation

2024-12-19

A veteran developer with 25 years of experience expresses a growing disconnect with younger web developers. He observes a lack of understanding regarding traditional web development methods (non-single-page applications) and confusion between JavaScript frameworks and vanilla JavaScript. This prompts reflection on the evolving abstraction levels in programming education and the focus on specific skills. Using a developer game show as an example, he points out that some 'computer science' questions overly emphasize JavaScript specifics, neglecting broader computational principles. This isn't a criticism of younger developers, but an observation and concern about industry trends, and a reflection on the increasing specialization within the programming field.

(rakhim.exotext.com)

Development generational gap

GitHub Repo Scam: Thousands of Malicious Repositories Discovered

2025-02-28

GitHub Repo Scam: Thousands of Malicious Repositories Discovered

A security researcher uncovered a massive scam leveraging GitHub to distribute malware. Thousands of repositories, disguised as game mods, cracked software, and other enticing downloads, were created to steal user data. Upon execution, these malicious programs collect sensitive information—crypto wallet keys, bank account details, social media credentials—and send it to a Discord server. Analyzing a detailed guide on creating these scam repositories, the researcher identified 1115 potentially malicious repositories, with fewer than 10% showing open issues with complaints. The malware, identified as Redox, systematically gathers various data points from the victim's computer and transmits them to a Discord webhook. This case highlights the scale and sophistication of cybercrime and underscores the need for enhanced security measures on platforms like GitHub.

(timsh.org)

Tech GitHub security

Perplexity's India Gambit: Free AI for 360M Users

2025-07-17

Perplexity's India Gambit: Free AI for 360M Users

Perplexity, a US AI startup, is employing a classic Silicon Valley growth strategy: targeting India. They've partnered with Bharti Airtel, giving 360 million Airtel customers a year of free access to its premium Perplexity Pro service – the largest distribution deal of its kind globally. This isn't a watered-down trial; it's the full Pro version, including access to powerful models like GPT-4.1 and Claude. The move targets Airtel's paying subscribers, a massive segment of India's commercially valuable internet users, in a market projected to surpass 900 million users by 2025. This highlights India's importance as a key growth market for tech giants, but also underscores the fierce competition, with players like OpenAI and Google vying for market share. Despite India's vibrant AI startup scene, the country still lags in developing its own globally competitive LLMs. Perplexity's bold move exemplifies the high stakes and unique challenges of conquering this massive market.

(indiadispatch.com)

Tech Growth Hacking

Roto: A Statically-Typed Embedded Scripting Language for Rust

2025-05-21

Roto: A Statically-Typed Embedded Scripting Language for Rust

Roto is an embedded scripting language for Rust applications, designed to be simple, fast, and reliable. Born from the need for more flexible filtering in Rotonda, a Rust-based BGP engine, Roto allows users to write complex filters with ease. It's statically typed, JIT-compiled, and hot-reloadable, ensuring performance and safety. Roto seamlessly integrates with Rust, allowing direct registration of Rust types and methods, eliminating costly serialization. While still under development, Roto offers documentation and examples for those interested in experimenting.

(blog.nlnetlabs.nl)

Development

Paywall Bypass Site 12ft.io Shut Down by News/Media Alliance

2025-07-18

Paywall Bypass Site 12ft.io Shut Down by News/Media Alliance

The News/Media Alliance successfully pressured the web host to take down 12ft.io, a website that allowed users to bypass online paywalls. The alliance argued that 12ft.io offered illegal circumvention technology, harming the business model of news publishers. This action sparks debate on paywalls, internet openness, and the impact of AI search on the news industry, highlighting the struggles of news publishers to find sustainable models in the digital age. The site's creator initially built it to counter paywalled research results, ironically later implementing a subscription model himself.

(www.theverge.com)

Tech

The Uncomfortable Truth About America's Trade Deficit

2025-05-04

The Uncomfortable Truth About America's Trade Deficit

This article delves into the complex relationship between America's persistent trade deficit and the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency. The author argues that the dollar's privileged position leads to overvaluation, harming US manufacturing competitiveness and fueling domestic political populism. The piece dissects the mechanics of global dollar demand, the resulting debt cycle, and inherent financial risks. Various government strategies to address the deficit are analyzed and questioned for their failure to tackle the root cause. Investment implications are explored, suggesting a focus on short-term Treasuries, inflation-protected assets, and international equities to navigate potential economic volatility.

(www.lynalden.com)

Tech reserve currency dollar hegemony

ExpressVPN's Lightway 2.0: Rust-Powered Speed and Security Boost

2025-02-26

ExpressVPN's Lightway 2.0: Rust-Powered Speed and Security Boost

ExpressVPN has rewritten its core Lightway VPN protocol in Rust, resulting in significant speed improvements and enhanced security. Currently available only on ExpressVPN's Aircove router, Lightway 2.0 boasts approximately 20% faster speeds in tests. Rust's memory safety features and concurrency advantages mitigate common vulnerabilities, and the protocol utilizes the new ML-KEM post-quantum encryption standard. Independent security audits further validate its reliability. While currently limited to the Aircove router, wider platform support is planned for the coming months.

(www.zdnet.com)

Tech

Microsoft's Open-Source MS-DOS Editor Remake: A Blast from the Past

2025-06-25

Microsoft's Open-Source MS-DOS Editor Remake: A Blast from the Past

Microsoft has released a modern, open-source remake of its classic MS-DOS Editor, aptly named "Edit." Built with Rust, this cross-platform editor runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux—a significant departure from its 1991 origins in MS-DOS 5.0. The release has delighted longtime users, offering a nostalgic trip back to a simpler time while also providing a user-friendly alternative to complex text editors found on some platforms. The full-screen interface, mouse support, and intuitive menus stand in stark contrast to its predecessor, EDLIN, and even some modern Linux editors like Vim, making it a welcome addition for both seasoned programmers and newcomers alike.

(arstechnica.com)

Development MS-DOS Editor

The Electrifying History of the Humble Eraser

2025-05-09

The Electrifying History of the Humble Eraser

This article traces the fascinating evolution of the eraser, from its humble beginnings using bread crumbs to erase pencil marks, to the advent of electrically powered erasers. The story highlights how technological advancements impacted even the simplest everyday tools. It explores the design and usage of erasers across different eras, touches upon the debate surrounding the invention of the electric eraser, and ultimately concludes that despite the digital age, the eraser retains its creative and design value as a tool.

(spectrum.ieee.org)

Misc

A Linux Kernel Thread Lifecycle Gotcha: The Case of the Randomly Dying Chromium Process

2025-04-10

A Linux Kernel Thread Lifecycle Gotcha: The Case of the Randomly Dying Chromium Process

While optimizing Recall.ai's Output Media startup latency, an engineer encountered a perplexing bug: the Chromium process would randomly terminate after launch. The root cause was traced to Bubblewrap's `--die-with-parent` flag and the Linux kernel's handling of PR_SET_PDEATHSIG. This flag causes child processes to receive a SIGKILL signal when the parent thread, not the parent process, terminates. Tokio's thread management interacted with this behavior, leading to unexpected Chromium termination when the parent thread was reaped. Removing the flag solved the issue but revealed a little-known quirk of the Linux kernel, underscoring the need for caution when handling the interaction between thread lifecycles and process isolation.

(www.recall.ai)

Development

Google Cloud Unveils Major AI Hypercomputer Software Upgrades

2025-04-10

Google Cloud Unveils Major AI Hypercomputer Software Upgrades

Google Cloud announced significant software upgrades to its AI Hypercomputer, dramatically improving AI model training and inference efficiency. Pathways on Cloud, a distributed runtime, is now available on Google Cloud, enabling elastic training and high-throughput inference. Cluster Director adds Slurm support and 360° observability features for high performance and reliability. GKE integrates Inference Gateway and Inference Quickstart, slashing inference costs and boosting throughput. vLLM now supports TPUs, further accelerating inference. Dynamic Workload Scheduler expands accelerator support, optimizing resource utilization. These upgrades empower developers to build and deploy AI applications faster and more cost-effectively.

(cloud.google.com)

Tech inference efficiency

Blowtorch Theory: A New Model for Universe Structure Formation

2025-05-28

Blowtorch Theory: A New Model for Universe Structure Formation

This article introduces a revolutionary 'Blowtorch Theory' challenging the ΛCDM standard model of cosmology. It posits that powerful jets from early supermassive black holes actively shaped the universe's structure through electromagnetic processes, not solely gravity. These jets created vast, low-pressure cavities and magnetic field lines, forming the cosmic web. The theory elegantly explains the James Webb Space Telescope's observations of surprisingly mature early galaxies without requiring dark matter.

(theeggandtherock.com)

Tech Supermassive Black Holes

Buffett's $334B Cash Hoard: Waiting for the Fed

2025-04-17

Berkshire Hathaway, led by Warren Buffett, holds a staggering $334 billion in cash, enough to buy the bottom 476 companies in the S&P 500. However, last year Buffett quietly offloaded stocks, including Apple and Bank of America, even liquidating his holdings in S&P 500 ETFs. This move preceded a sharp drop in the Nasdaq and S&P 500. Instead of buying the dip, Buffett is waiting for the Federal Reserve to act, mirroring his approach during the 2020 pandemic when he only invested after the Fed's rate cuts and stimulus. Buffett's strategy is simple: don't overpay, and if nothing is cheap, buy your own company.

(www.mitrade.com)

Startup Buffett Berkshire Hathaway Investment Strategy

Blazing Fast Fibonacci on the GPU with Thrust

2025-06-27

Blazing Fast Fibonacci on the GPU with Thrust

This blog post demonstrates how to perform incredibly fast Fibonacci sequence calculations using GPU programming and the NVIDIA Thrust library. It starts by explaining the scan algorithm, then shows how to use scan operations in Thrust for simple addition and multiplication, extending this to matrix operations. Finally, it illustrates calculating Fibonacci numbers efficiently via matrix operations and the scan operation, using modulo arithmetic to avoid integer overflow. The author calculates F99999999 (mod 9837) in just 17 milliseconds on an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile GPU.

(veitner.bearblog.dev)

Development GPU computing Fibonacci sequence Thrust library

LLMs: An Accidentally Designed Illusion?

2025-02-08

LLMs: An Accidentally Designed Illusion?

After extensive research, the author reveals that the perceived 'intelligence' of Large Language Models (LLMs) is a cleverly crafted illusion, akin to a psychic's cold reading technique. LLMs exploit human cognitive biases (like the Forer effect), generating responses that appear personalized but are statistically generic, creating the illusion of intelligence. This isn't intentional, the author argues; rather, it's an unintended consequence of AI's lack of understanding of psychological cognitive biases. This has led many to mistakenly believe LLMs possess genuine intelligence, resulting in their application to numerous dubious scenarios.

(softwarecrisis.dev)

AI

Methylene Blue: Miracle Supplement or Dangerous Hype?

2025-06-09

Methylene Blue: Miracle Supplement or Dangerous Hype?

Methylene blue, an old drug, has recently resurfaced as a potential 'miracle supplement,' touted for memory improvement, increased energy, and mood regulation. However, the reality is more nuanced. This article delves into methylene blue's cellular mechanisms, including its roles as a monoamine oxidase inhibitor, mitochondrial helper, and nitric oxide blocker. While in vitro and animal studies show promise, human trials are inconclusive, with small sample sizes and inconsistent results. Furthermore, methylene blue exhibits a hormetic effect—low doses might be beneficial, while high doses are harmful, potentially causing side effects such as blue urine, bladder irritation, nausea, vomiting, headaches, and even life-threatening complications. Therefore, until further research confirms its safety and efficacy, self-administering methylene blue is strongly discouraged.

(neurofrontiers.blog)

Tech methylene blue neurotransmitters

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