Steam Deck: More Than a Handheld, a Symbol of Freedom

2025-04-03

The Steam Deck's success isn't due to exceptional battery life or top-tier performance, but rather its underlying philosophy: freedom and openness. Running a customized version of Arch Linux, it lets users install any software and even replace parts themselves. This contrasts sharply with closed mobile systems, showcasing respect for user autonomy. While Valve's libertarian approach has drawn criticism, such as silence on social issues and tolerance of gambling websites, the Steam Deck remains an excellent example of balancing commercial interests with user freedom. It has fueled the growth of the Linux gaming ecosystem, providing players with a more open gaming experience.

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arXivLabs: Experimenting with Community Collaboration

2025-03-19
arXivLabs: Experimenting with Community Collaboration

arXivLabs is a framework for collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on the website. Individuals and organizations working with arXivLabs uphold arXiv's values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only partners with those who share them. Have an idea to improve the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

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Development

Knossos Palace: The Archaeological Construction of a Pacifist Utopia

2025-03-20

This article explores the excavation of the Palace of Knossos on Crete by Arthur Evans and how it was imbued with a pacifist utopian narrative. To foster reconciliation between Greece and the Ottoman Empire, Evans suppressed evidence of Minoan military installations, portraying Minoan society as a peaceful and prosperous matriarchy under a benevolent mother goddess. This constructed pacifism resonated during the war-torn 20th century, embraced by artists and intellectuals as a response to violence. However, over time, Evans' interpretation of Knossos has been shown to be fraught with contradictions and inaccuracies, and the image of a peaceful utopia has been largely revised by historians.

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History Pacifism

The Secret Behind Deluxe Ski Jump's Unforgettable Flight Feeling

2025-04-01
The Secret Behind Deluxe Ski Jump's Unforgettable Flight Feeling

Jussi Koskela, the solo developer behind the enduring ski jumping game Deluxe Ski Jump, shares the story of its creation and enduring success. From childhood coding to mastering realistic physics simulations, Koskela's journey reflects a passion for the sport and innovative game design. The game's unique mouse controls immerse players, making them feel like real ski jumpers. Despite the challenges of balancing realism and playability, Koskela's dedication to detail and community engagement has kept Deluxe Ski Jump relevant for over 25 years, with a passionate following, particularly in Poland. He continues to update the game, promising more exciting features to come.

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AMD's Radeon RX 9000 Series GPUs Sell 10x More Units in First Week

2025-03-25
AMD's Radeon RX 9000 Series GPUs Sell 10x More Units in First Week

AMD CEO Lisa Su announced that the Radeon RX 9000 series graphics cards have been a phenomenal success, selling ten times more units than their predecessors in their first week on the market. This success is attributed to AMD's focus on delivering top-tier gaming performance at competitive prices. While current supply is limited and prices are exceeding MSRP, AMD is aggressively increasing production. More RDNA 4 cards are on the way, with the rumored RX 9060 potentially included in the lineup.

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Hardware

My Self-Hosted Journey: From Container Runtimes to Monitoring

2025-04-01
My Self-Hosted Journey: From Container Runtimes to Monitoring

For a year, I've been immersed in self-hosting, experimenting with various software and building my own dashboards and applications. This post summarizes my experiences and some useful yet less popular software. I used Docker, Podman, and Kubernetes as container runtimes, Portainer and Dockge as web UI management tools, Pangolin as a VPN and reverse proxy, Caddy as a lightweight reverse proxy, NetBird as a VPN, and Uptime Kuma and Gotify for monitoring and alerts respectively. I also recommend some excellent software resource lists to help you find more self-hosted applications suitable for your needs.

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Development

GATE: An Integrated Assessment Model of AI's Economic Impact

2025-03-30
GATE: An Integrated Assessment Model of AI's Economic Impact

Epoch AI presents GATE, an integrated assessment model exploring AI's economic impact. The model centers on an automation feedback loop: investment fuels computational power, leading to more capable AI systems automating tasks, boosting output, and further fueling AI development. An interactive playground lets users tweak parameters and observe model behavior under various scenarios. Predictions aren't Epoch AI's forecasts but conditional, based on assumptions, primarily useful for analyzing the qualitative dynamics of AI automation.

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AI

France Slaps Apple with €150M Fine Over App Tracking Transparency

2025-03-31
France Slaps Apple with €150M Fine Over App Tracking Transparency

France's competition authority fined Apple €150 million for violating competition law with its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework. The authority argues that ATT disproportionately harms smaller publishers because Apple's own ad tracking requires only single consent, while others need double consent. While the fine is insignificant to Apple's revenue, Apple must modify ATT to comply. Apple maintains that ATT is consistent for all developers and enjoys broad support.

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Tech

Debugger as REPL: IntelliJ IDEA's Run to Cursor and Quick Evaluate Expression

2025-03-28

Tired of traditional debuggers, especially gdb and lldb's limitations with native code, the author discovered a powerful workflow in IntelliJ IDEA. Combining "Run to Cursor" and "Quick Evaluate Expression" transforms the debugger into a REPL. "Run to Cursor" executes the program to the cursor's position, while "Quick Evaluate Expression" lets you evaluate expressions (even newly typed code!) within the current stack frame. This approach replaces the line-by-line stepping with a more experimental, two-dimensional interaction within the editor, leveraging code completion and offering a significantly more efficient debugging experience.

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Development

Intel Drops 256-bit AVX-10 Mode, Goes All-in on 512-bit

2025-03-19

Intel has significantly revised its AVX-10 instruction set whitepaper, abandoning the previously planned optional 256-bit mode in favor of a full 512-bit vector width. This means future Intel E-core processors will fully support AVX-512, aligning with AMD's Zen 4 architecture. The change stems from updated GCC compiler patches removing 256-bit compatibility. This simplifies instruction set handling and boosts the competitiveness of future Intel Xeon E-core server platforms, better competing with AMD's EPYC processors. While a late decision, it positively impacts the future of the x86_64 microarchitecture.

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Hardware 512-bit vector

High-Performance Go Implementation of Attention Mechanisms and Transformer Layers

2025-03-03
High-Performance Go Implementation of Attention Mechanisms and Transformer Layers

The Frontier Research Team at takara.ai presents the first pure Go implementation of attention mechanisms and transformer layers, prioritizing high performance and ease of use. This library includes dot-product attention, multi-head attention, and a complete transformer layer implementation, featuring batched operations for improved throughput and CPU-optimized matrix operations. Ideal for edge computing, real-time processing, cloud-native applications, embedded systems, and production deployments, future improvements include positional encoding, dropout, and CUDA acceleration.

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Development Attention Mechanisms

Generative AI Runs on a 20-Year-Old PowerBook G4?!

2025-03-25
Generative AI Runs on a 20-Year-Old PowerBook G4?!

A software engineer successfully ran Meta's Llama 2 large language model on a 2005 PowerBook G4. This vintage laptop, equipped with only a 1.5GHz PowerPC G4 processor and 1GB of RAM, achieved AI inference by porting the open-source llama2.c project and leveraging AltiVec vector extensions. It's a testament to ingenuity and the boundless possibilities of technology.

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Tech

Keyboard Shortcuts for Efficient Search Result Navigation

2025-03-28

This text outlines a set of keyboard shortcuts for navigating search results. Users can use j/k keys to move the highlight up and down, h/l keys to move within horizontal content or toggle boost/ban status in site info modals, Enter to open the highlighted result, / to focus the search bar, ! to focus the search bar and add a "!" to start typing a bang command, q to open quick answer, Escape to reset highlight scroll state or close site info modals, Shift+~ to open the control center, s to open/close site info modals for the highlighted result, w/i/v/m/n to open web search, images, videos, maps, and news tabs respectively, and ]/[ to cycle through navigation tabs. These shortcuts significantly improve search efficiency.

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The Gang of Four Got Delegation Wrong (and so did everyone else)

2025-03-26

This article challenges the common understanding of delegation as presented in the Gang of Four's *Design Patterns* and various Ruby libraries. The author argues that many examples cited as 'delegation' are simply message forwarding, not true delegation. True delegation, as defined by Henry Lieberman, requires that 'self' always refers to the original message recipient throughout the delegation process. Using JavaScript and Ruby examples, the article clarifies the correct meaning of delegation, highlighting the widespread misunderstanding caused by incorrectly labeling message forwarding as delegation. The author urges developers to understand the true meaning of delegation to write cleaner, more maintainable code.

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Development Delegation

Spaceium Hiring: Software Engineer for Spacecraft Development

2025-03-18
Spaceium Hiring: Software Engineer for Spacecraft Development

Spaceium is seeking a Software Engineer to design and build the software powering its spacecraft. Responsibilities include developing critical systems for flight software, data processing, control algorithms, and automation tools. The ideal candidate possesses strong software development skills, understands aerospace standards, and is passionate about pushing technological boundaries. Experience is a plus but not mandatory; enthusiasm for learning and a willingness to work hard are key. Compensation is $90k-$110k USD annually, plus equity.

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Development Space Software

arXivLabs: Experimental Projects with Community Collaboration

2025-03-23
arXivLabs: Experimental Projects with Community Collaboration

arXivLabs is a framework enabling collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on the website. Individuals and organizations involved embrace arXiv's values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only partners with those who share them. Have an idea to enhance the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

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Development

Germany Updates US Travel Advice After Citizens' Detainment

2025-03-21
Germany Updates US Travel Advice After Citizens' Detainment

The German foreign ministry updated its travel advice for the US after three German citizens were denied entry and detained. The updated advice warns that even with an ESTA, entry isn't guaranteed, and minor visa overstays or false information can lead to arrest and deportation. While the ministry insists it's not a travel warning, the cases – including a US green card holder who was subjected to harsh interrogation and detention – highlight potential risks. One detainee, a tattoo artist, was held for over six weeks and allegedly placed in solitary confinement. The incidents serve as a cautionary tale for German travelers to the US, emphasizing the importance of accurate information and adherence to visa regulations.

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Ubuntu 25.10 to Default to Rust-Rewritten Core Utilities

2025-03-18
Ubuntu 25.10 to Default to Rust-Rewritten Core Utilities

Ubuntu announced plans to replace core system utilities (e.g., `ls`, `cp`, and `mv`) with modern Rust-based versions in Ubuntu 25.10. This aims to enhance system security and reliability, leveraging Rust's memory safety to reduce vulnerabilities. To ease the transition, Ubuntu introduced `oxidizr`, a tool allowing users to easily switch between implementations and enabling a gradual migration. While performance improvements are a goal, security and stability are the primary drivers. This move signals Ubuntu's commitment to modernizing its infrastructure and offers more opportunities for open-source community contributors.

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Development system utilities

London Police Storm Quaker Meeting House, Arresting Climate Activists

2025-03-30
London Police Storm Quaker Meeting House, Arresting Climate Activists

Over 20 Metropolitan Police officers forcibly entered a Quaker meeting house, arresting six women who were discussing climate change and Gaza. This is believed to be the first time in the history of the pacifist Quakers that police have breached one of their places of worship. The women, attending a welcome meeting for a non-violent protest group, were handcuffed, their belongings confiscated, and their student accommodation subsequently raided. The police action has drawn widespread criticism.

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Swiftly 1.0: Streamlining Swift Toolchain Management

2025-03-28
Swiftly 1.0: Streamlining Swift Toolchain Management

Swiftly 1.0 has officially launched! This Swift version manager simplifies installing, managing, and updating your Swift toolchain. Supporting macOS and various Linux distributions, it allows developers to easily install different Swift versions and use Swift outside of Xcode. Written in Swift and self-updating, Swiftly supports stable releases, nightly snapshots, and older versions, enabling effortless switching between them. A `.swift-version` file facilitates team-wide version consistency. Swiftly makes Swift development more convenient and efficient.

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Google's uBlock Origin Ban Leaves Users Vulnerable to Malicious Ads

2025-03-19
Google's uBlock Origin Ban Leaves Users Vulnerable to Malicious Ads

Google's recent disabling of the popular ad-blocker uBlock Origin on Chrome has raised serious security concerns. The author recounts a personal story of a relative falling victim to malware after unknowingly disabling uBlock Origin, highlighting the vulnerability of less tech-savvy users. While alternatives exist, they may not be as effective and switching browsers isn't always feasible. The author urges Google to provide a more user-friendly solution instead of leaving users exposed to potentially harmful ads.

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Linus vs. Tanenbaum: A Clash of OS Design Philosophies

2025-02-08

This thread captures a heated debate between Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, and Andrew S. Tanenbaum, author of Minix. The core disagreement centers on operating system design philosophy: Linus advocated leveraging the strengths of specific hardware (like the 386), while Tanenbaum prioritized portability and operation on low-end hardware. Linus criticized Minix's design limitations in performance and functionality, while Tanenbaum countered that Linux was too hardware-dependent. This debate highlights contrasting OS design approaches and reflects the impact of hardware limitations on software development at the time.

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Steins;Gate: Evidence for a Simulated Reality?

2025-03-29
Steins;Gate: Evidence for a Simulated Reality?

In Steins;Gate, the world seems to have an automatic error correction mechanism, erasing events and characters that deviate from a predetermined path. Protagonist Okabe Rintarou repeatedly tries to alter the past to save his friends, only to face failure. This resembles a running simulation correcting 'errors'. Okabe's eventual disappearance, restoring the world to 'normal', suggests his actions were anomalies, purged by the system. This raises the question: are we living in a similar simulated reality?

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Meta Loses Landmark Case: UK Users to Get Targeted Ad Opt-Out

2025-03-22
Meta Loses Landmark Case: UK Users to Get Targeted Ad Opt-Out

British consumers will be able to opt out of targeted online advertising following a landmark legal victory for campaigner Tanya O’Carroll against Meta. O’Carroll sued Meta (Facebook's parent company) for its inability to disable the user profiling used for ad targeting. After becoming a mother in 2017, she was bombarded with baby-related ads. Attempts to disable these ads through Facebook's settings failed. Further investigation revealed Meta had tagged her with over 700 characteristics based on her activity, inferring her movie preferences, holiday destinations, shopping habits, clothing style, political views, and personal details. This victory sets a precedent for user privacy rights.

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Tech

Boycott IETF 127: Safety Concerns in the US

2025-03-21
Boycott IETF 127: Safety Concerns in the US

The IETF's decision to hold its 127th meeting in San Francisco has sparked a boycott due to serious safety concerns for attendees traveling to the US. The article highlights numerous documented cases of individuals, including scientists, tourists, and even those with green cards, being detained and subjected to inhumane conditions at the US border due to their nationality, political beliefs, or other factors. Citing RFC 8718 and RFC 9137, which emphasize inclusivity and safety in venue selection, the call to boycott aims to pressure the IETF to relocate the meeting. Hundreds have already signed in support, including those unable to travel, those refusing attendance, and those voicing solidarity.

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OpenAI's New Image Generator Ushers in 'Vibe Marketing'

2025-03-27
OpenAI's New Image Generator Ushers in 'Vibe Marketing'

OpenAI has launched a powerful new image generation model boasting photorealism and improved world knowledge. However, its text-rendering capabilities are truly groundbreaking, producing crisp, readable text instead of blurry AI artifacts. This makes AI-generated images highly viable for marketing, leading to the emergence of "vibe marketing." The article provides ten examples of vibe marketing using AI-generated images, covering various applications like social media posts, comics, infographics, and product promotions. Prompts for each example are included. The author predicts vibe marketing will become the new standard for product development.

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Doctor Droid: AI-Powered Production Incident Debugging

2025-03-18
Doctor Droid: AI-Powered Production Incident Debugging

Doctor Droid is building a smart assistant to help engineering teams accelerate investigations during production incidents. This open-source platform, backed by Accel and a Y Combinator W23 graduate, aims to reduce downtime and boost developer productivity. Their vision is to empower any team member to debug common production issues without needing senior engineers. They're looking for passionate developers to join their team.

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Development Production Incidents

Controversial Vaccine Study: The Geiers and the CDC

2025-03-26
Controversial Vaccine Study: The Geiers and the CDC

The Geier father and son duo have published numerous questionable studies linking vaccines to autism, particularly focusing on thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative. These studies, riddled with scientific flaws, have been widely criticized by the American Academy of Pediatrics and others. An upcoming CDC study involving the Geiers is anticipated to conclude that vaccines cause autism, a predetermined outcome that contradicts sound scientific methodology. Experts fear this study is driven by a pre-conceived conclusion, not objective research.

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Meta and OpenAI Accused of Using Pirated Database to Train AI Models

2025-03-22
Meta and OpenAI Accused of Using Pirated Database to Train AI Models

Meta and OpenAI are embroiled in a copyright controversy after it was revealed they used the pirated book database Library Genesis (LibGen) to train their AI models. To expedite the training of its Llama 3 model, Meta bypassed expensive licensing processes and directly downloaded millions of books and papers from LibGen. This action led to a lawsuit from authors, with court documents revealing Meta employees acknowledged the legal risks and attempted to cover their tracks. OpenAI also admitted to past use of LibGen, but claims its latest models no longer rely on this dataset. The incident highlights the ethical and legal challenges surrounding the sourcing of training data for AI models and the protection of intellectual property.

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Google's Carbon: Not Just a C++ Successor, But a Technical Debt Reckoning

2025-02-08
Google's Carbon: Not Just a C++ Successor, But a Technical Debt Reckoning

Google's experimental programming language, Carbon, isn't merely a C++ replacement; it's a project aiming to tackle C++'s massive technical debt through automated tools for large-scale migration to a modern, maintainable language. Stemming from disagreements with the C++ standards committee over the language's future direction, Carbon seeks to free itself from committee constraints, enabling more agile evolution. While a monumental challenge, Carbon leverages tools like Clang and LLVM, unifying abstractions via interfaces to address C++'s complexity, offering a potential solution for the vast C++ codebases that will persist for decades to come.

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Development Technical Debt
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