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Why Haven't Airplanes Gotten Faster Since the 1960s?

2025-02-10

Why Haven't Airplanes Gotten Faster Since the 1960s?

While technology has advanced rapidly, commercial air travel speeds haven't significantly increased since the 1960s. The primary reason is fuel efficiency. Modern high-bypass turbofan engines, while more efficient, operate most efficiently at slower speeds. This leads aircraft manufacturers to design slower planes, which are also cheaper to build. Supersonic flight, like Concorde, existed but was limited by sonic booms. Future supersonic business jets offer hope, but their political feasibility is uncertain.

(engineering.mit.edu)

Tech aviation technology fuel efficiency

arXivLabs: Experimental Projects with Community Collaborators

2025-07-14

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 only partners with those who share these commitments. Got an idea to enhance the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

(arxiv.org)

Tech

Han Dynasty More Unequal Than Roman Empire: A Surprising New Study

2025-04-14

Han Dynasty More Unequal Than Roman Empire: A Surprising New Study

A new study using modern economic tools to compare the economic conditions of the Han Dynasty and the Roman Empire reveals a surprising finding: the Han Dynasty exhibited higher levels of economic inequality than the Roman Empire. Researchers discovered that the top 1% in Han China earned approximately 26% of total income, compared to 19% in the Roman Empire. While average income was slightly higher in the Roman Empire, the Han Dynasty's elite class extracted a staggering 80% of the economy, far exceeding the Roman's 69%. This high extraction rate, the researchers suggest, may have contributed to the dynasty's eventual downfall. This research challenges conventional wisdom about ancient imperial economies and offers fresh insights into historical economic inequality.

(phys.org)

Misc ancient civilizations

Steam Survey: 32GB RAM to Dominate, RTX 4060 Still Strong

2025-09-02

Steam Survey: 32GB RAM to Dominate, RTX 4060 Still Strong

The latest Steam Hardware Survey reveals that 32GB of RAM is poised to become the most popular configuration among Steam gamers, potentially surpassing 16GB by the end of 2025. While the RTX 5060 outperforms the RTX 4060 in new PC sales, the RTX 4060 maintains a significant presence in the Steam survey, possibly due to remaining stock in certain regions or continued sales of pre-built systems. Additionally, the 2560 x 1600 pixel resolution is experiencing the fastest growth, and Windows 11 has exceeded 60% market share.

(www.tomshardware.com)

Game Hardware Trends

PCIe 7.0 Spec Nears Completion, But When Will It Hit PCs?

2025-03-19

PCIe 7.0 Spec Nears Completion, But When Will It Hit PCs?

The PCI-SIG announced that the PCIe 7.0 specification is nearing completion, with a final release expected later this year. The spec boasts a data transfer rate of 128 GT/s, resulting in a bidirectional bandwidth of 512 GB/s (x16 configuration). However, PCIe 7.0 is initially not targeted at the PC market, but rather cloud computing, 800Gb Ethernet, and AI. While PCIe 6.0 was approved in 2022, it's still absent from widespread PC adoption, highlighting the years-long process between specification and real-world implementation.

(www.pcworld.com)

Tech High-Speed Interface

The Self-Hosted SaaS Dilemma: Balancing Rapid Iteration with Legacy Support

2025-08-09

The Self-Hosted SaaS Dilemma: Balancing Rapid Iteration with Legacy Support

This article explores the challenges of balancing rapid iteration with supporting self-hosted versions in the fast-paced SaaS world. The author uses their company's billing system, Lago, as an example, detailing how they use a 'bridge version' strategy to ensure compatibility and prevent data corruption during upgrades, even for older versions. While this approach adds development complexity, it's deemed necessary for products like billing systems that demand high data integrity, showcasing a customer-centric approach.

(www.getlago.com)

Development version compatibility

New CPU Vulnerability: Bypassing Privileges to Read Memory

2025-05-13

New CPU Vulnerability: Bypassing Privileges to Read Memory

Researchers at ETH Zurich have discovered a new CPU vulnerability that allows attackers to bypass user privilege protections and read memory contents at over 5000 bytes per second by exploiting ambiguities in the order of CPU instruction execution. This is not an isolated incident but part of a series of vulnerabilities exploiting speculative execution technologies, similar to the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities of 2017. While Intel has implemented mitigations, this highlights fundamental flaws in the architecture, requiring ongoing patching efforts.

(ethz.ch)

Tech memory security speculative execution

AI Interpretability: Cracking Open the Black Box of LLMs

2025-05-24

AI Interpretability: Cracking Open the Black Box of LLMs

Large language models (LLMs) like GPT and Llama are remarkably fluent and intelligent, but their inner workings remain a black box, defying easy understanding. This article explores the crucial importance of AI interpretability, highlighting recent breakthroughs from Anthropic and Harvard researchers. By analyzing model 'features,' researchers discovered that LLMs form stereotypes based on user gender, age, socioeconomic status, and more, impacting their output. This raises ethical and regulatory concerns about AI, but also points towards ways to improve LLMs, such as adjusting model weights to alter their 'beliefs' or establishing mechanisms to protect user privacy and autonomy.

(www.theatlantic.com)

AI AI interpretability

Pincites Hiring AI and Frontend Engineers

2024-12-30

Pincites Hiring AI and Frontend Engineers

Pincites, a YC S23 AI startup, is hiring experienced Backend & Applied AI Engineers and Frontend Engineers. Pincites has built an AI contract negotiation assistant embedded in Microsoft Word, helping legal teams review and redline contracts faster. The company is experiencing rapid growth, doubling revenue in the first three months of 2024 and is at an inflection point. Founders have backgrounds in big law, big tech, and high-growth startups.

(www.ycombinator.com)

AI

Contributing Data for Medical Research: A Mother's Participation

2025-07-22

Contributing Data for Medical Research: A Mother's Participation

Alison, a 50-something tech worker and mother of two from a Caribbean background, participated in a nationwide health study to address the underrepresentation of minority groups in medical research. Motivated by her mother's early death from cancer, she underwent a full-body MRI scan, providing valuable data to improve understanding of health disparities. Her participation highlights the importance of inclusive data collection in medical research.

(www.bloomberg.com)

Misc minority representation

HiringCafe: A Global Job Search Engine

2025-01-23

HiringCafe: A Global Job Search Engine

HiringCafe is a global job search engine offering remote, hybrid, and onsite job opportunities. Users can filter their search by department, salary, experience, job titles, education, licenses & certifications, security clearance, languages, shifts & schedules, travel requirements, and benefits. The site also allows searching by company industry, stage & funding, size, and founding year, enabling users to find the perfect job match.

(hiring.cafe)

Misc

Leeches: An Ancient Remedy Re-examined

2025-08-28

Leeches: An Ancient Remedy Re-examined

This article delves into the history of leech therapy (hirudotherapy) and its potential resurgence in modern medicine. While Western medicine remains cautious about its efficacy, leech therapy has been used for millennia across numerous cultures, including China and India. Leech saliva contains hirudin, a powerful anticoagulant, and other bioactive compounds that reduce inflammation and improve blood flow. Although large-scale clinical trials are lacking, leech therapy shows promise in specific surgical applications, such as microsurgery breast reconstruction. The article also explores the development of artificial suction devices to mitigate the risks associated with live leeches. Ultimately, the article calls for more research into this ancient therapy to fully understand its potential and limitations.

(www.asimov.press)

Tech leech therapy

ByzFL: Building Trustworthy AI Without Trusting Data Sources

2025-04-10

ByzFL: Building Trustworthy AI Without Trusting Data Sources

Current AI models rely on massive, centralized datasets, raising security and privacy concerns. Researchers at EPFL have developed ByzFL, a library using federated learning to train AI models across decentralized devices without centralizing data. ByzFL detects and mitigates malicious data, ensuring robustness and safety, particularly crucial for mission-critical applications like healthcare and transportation. It offers a novel solution for building trustworthy AI systems.

(actu.epfl.ch)

AI Federated Learning

Tesla's RoboTaxi Trademark Rejected

2025-05-09

Tesla's RoboTaxi Trademark Rejected

Tesla CEO Elon Musk's vision of an AI and robotics future, including a sub-$30,000 driverless two-seater dubbed "robotaxi," has hit a snag. The USPTO rejected Tesla's trademark application, citing the term's generic and descriptive nature, lacking originality. This setback complicates Tesla's marketing plans, requiring them to demonstrate their product's unique features to avoid renaming or further legal challenges. This isn't Tesla's first trademark dispute; they previously faced a lawsuit over vehicle design similarities with Blade Runner 2049.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech

Retrocomputing: Replacing a 386/486 CMOS Battery

2024-12-23

Retrocomputing: Replacing a 386/486 CMOS Battery

Older 386/486 motherboards often have leaky NiCd or NiMH batteries that can damage the board. This guide details a simple alternative: using three AA batteries and a battery holder. The author compares using a CR2032 and a Tadrian 3.6V Lithium cell, ultimately opting for three AAs due to ease of use, no motherboard modification, and the ability to use rechargeable batteries. Other replacement methods are mentioned, including using a CR2032 holder and Schottky diode, and utilizing an external battery header on the motherboard if present.

(rubenerd.com)

Hardware battery replacement

Retired Broadcast Engineer's Dream Mini Rack: A Solution for 40+ Remote Tower Sites

2025-04-05

Retired Broadcast Engineer's Dream Mini Rack: A Solution for 40+ Remote Tower Sites

A retired broadcast engineer built a robust system for managing 40+ remote tower sites using a DeskPi RackMate T1 mini rack. This system integrates redundant internet connectivity, multiple audio source processing, silence monitoring, an exciter, and remote monitoring capabilities. The standardized setup allows for easier maintenance and deployment by volunteers. Improvements suggested include a larger rack, PoE power, and standardized mini-rack mounting options for better efficiency and convenience.

(github.com)

Hardware Mini Rack

Powering Up and Disassembling a Rohde & Schwarz SKTU BN 4151/2/5 Noise Generator

2025-01-02

Powering Up and Disassembling a Rohde & Schwarz SKTU BN 4151/2/5 Noise Generator

A video on MakerTube PeerTube demonstrates powering up and disassembling a Rohde & Schwarz SKTU BN 4151/2/5 noise generator. JavaScript is required to view the video. If JavaScript is disabled, users need to enable it, use a third-party application, or review the source code on GitHub or Framasoft's GitLab. The video also notes that PeerTube may be incompatible with some browsers; Mozilla Firefox's latest version is recommended.

(makertube.net)

Hardware Rohde & Schwarz Noise Generator

Microsoft Waives Windows Store App Submission Fees

2025-09-12

Microsoft Waives Windows Store App Submission Fees

Microsoft has eliminated all onboarding fees for developers submitting apps to its Windows Store. Nearly 200 countries' developers can now publish apps using only a personal Microsoft account, foregoing the previous $19 one-time fee. This move aims to create a more inclusive platform, boosting the Windows ecosystem by attracting more developers. Microsoft highlights recent store upgrades including standalone installers, a revamped web version, and improved user experience, boasting over 250 million monthly active users. Developers can utilize various development tools and even retain 100% of their revenue on non-gaming apps via their own in-app commerce systems.

(www.theverge.com)

Development Windows Store

World's Fastest Frontier AI Reasoning Model Launches on Cerebras Cloud

2025-07-23

World's Fastest Frontier AI Reasoning Model Launches on Cerebras Cloud

Cerebras Systems announced the launch of Qwen3-235B with full 131K context support on its inference cloud. This model boasts 30x faster code generation and 1/10th the cost of closed-source alternatives. Achieving speeds of 1,500 tokens per second, Qwen3-235B drastically reduces response times. Its extended 131K context enables production-grade code generation by handling massive codebases and complex documents. A partnership with Cline integrates Qwen models directly into their VS Code editor, offering significant speed improvements.

(www.cerebras.ai)

Tech

anon-kode: Terminal-Based AI Coding Assistant

2025-03-04

anon-kode: Terminal-Based AI Coding Assistant

anon-kode is a terminal-based AI coding assistant that leverages any model supporting the OpenAI-style API. It fixes buggy code, explains function behavior, runs tests, and more – similar to Claude-code. After installation and initial configuration, simply start typing. Automated versioning, building, and publishing are handled by GitHub Actions, allowing manual release triggers with patch/minor/major version selection.

(github.com)

Development Code Fixing

Micron's Price Hike: AI Fuels Memory Chip Surge

2025-03-31

Micron's Price Hike: AI Fuels Memory Chip Surge

Micron Technology has announced price increases for DRAM and NAND flash memory, citing robust demand in the coming years. This price hike, expected to last through 2026, is driven by soaring demand from AI, data centers, and consumer electronics, coupled with supply constraints. A key driver is the surging demand for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), crucial for AI accelerators and next-gen GPUs, fueled by advancements from Nvidia, AMD, and Intel. Micron is investing $7 billion in a new HBM assembly facility in Singapore to meet this demand. The resurgence of the PC and smartphone markets further bolsters memory demand, suggesting a sustained upward price trend.

(www.tomshardware.com)

Tech memory prices

Claude Generates a Mandelbrot Fractal in x86 Assembly

2025-07-02

Claude Generates a Mandelbrot Fractal in x86 Assembly

Inspired by a tweet, the author challenged Claude AI to generate x86 assembly code to create a Mandelbrot fractal. Initial attempts failed to compile, but leveraging Claude Code's iterative debugging and modification capabilities, the author successfully compiled and ran the code within a Docker container, generating a satisfying ASCII art fractal. This showcases Claude Code's impressive code understanding and debugging abilities.

(simonwillison.net)

Development

CPython's Performance Boost: A Tale of Unexpected Twists and LLVM Regressions

2025-03-10

A recent CPython merge introduced a new bytecode interpreter implementation, initially showing impressive 10-15% performance gains across various benchmarks. However, this improvement stemmed from inadvertently circumventing an LLVM 19 regression. When benchmarked against a better baseline (like GCC or tuned LLVM 19), the actual performance boost shrinks to a mere 1-5%. Weeks of compiling, benchmarking, and disassembling revealed that LLVM 19's limitations on tail-call duplication caused the regression. While the tail-call interpreter is a valuable improvement, this incident highlights challenges in benchmarking, performance engineering, and software engineering, such as the difficulty in choosing baselines and understanding the complexities of compiler optimizations.

(blog.nelhage.com)

Development

Threads Surpasses 350M Monthly Active Users, Challenging X's Dominance

2025-05-03

Threads Surpasses 350M Monthly Active Users, Challenging X's Dominance

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed during the company's Q1 2025 earnings call on Wednesday that Instagram Threads, its competitor to X, has now surpassed 350 million monthly active users. This represents a 30 million user increase from the previous quarter's reported 320 million. Growth accelerated, with 30 million users added in Q1 compared to 20 million in Q4 2024. Remarkably, Threads added almost as many users in a single quarter as newer competitor Bluesky, which currently boasts roughly 35 million users. Meanwhile, X claims over 600 million monthly active users, according to its CEO Linda Yaccarino. While still smaller than Meta's other social apps (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp), Threads' growth solidifies its position in the microblogging landscape. Meta reports over 3.4 billion people use at least one of its apps daily. Zuckerberg highlighted this growth as indicating Threads is “on track to become our next major social app,” citing a 35% increase in time spent on the app due to recommendation system improvements.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech

Big Tech's Water Grab: Spanish Farmers Revolt Against Data Center Boom

2025-06-17

Big Tech's Water Grab: Spanish Farmers Revolt Against Data Center Boom

Microsoft and Amazon are investing billions in land in water-stressed Spain to build data centers, sparking outrage among local farmers. While the tech giants promise investment and jobs, farmers fear the massive water consumption of data centers will exacerbate water scarcity and harm agriculture. The activist group "Your Cloud is Drying Up My River" is campaigning for a moratorium on new data centers, highlighting the conflict between technological advancement and environmental concerns, and the clash between local and corporate interests.

(www.politico.eu)

Tech

Bootstrapping Rust with GCC: A Debugging Odyssey

2025-07-07

This article details the author's journey bootstrapping the Rust compiler using GCC instead of LLVM. The process was fraught with challenges, encountering three major bugs: the `#[inline(always)]` attribute on recursive functions, an incorrect implementation of the 128-bit SwitchInt terminator, and a misaligned memory access. Employing a 'lobotomy' debugging approach, the author progressively identified and fixed these issues, successfully achieving a Stage 2 build and progressing towards Stage 3. The article shares debugging techniques like using core dumps to analyze segfaults and explores the complexities of compiler optimizations.

(fractalfir.github.io)

Development

Chrome Blocks Unauthorized Local Network Access from Websites

2025-06-04

Chrome Blocks Unauthorized Local Network Access from Websites

The Chrome team is designing a new feature to prevent websites from accessing local network devices without user permission. Currently, malicious websites can exploit a user's browser as a "confused deputy," accessing local devices like printers. The new approach uses a permission mechanism to control local network access, requiring explicit user authorization before a website can communicate with local network devices. This aims to enhance user privacy and security, preventing malicious attacks, but may also impact some existing services that rely on this functionality.

(github.com)

Tech local network access

Lunar Volcanic Glass Beads: Deciphering the Moon's Volcanic Past

2025-06-22

Lunar Volcanic Glass Beads: Deciphering the Moon's Volcanic Past

Apollo missions brought back lunar samples containing tiny, bright orange glass beads formed 3.3 to 3.6 billion years ago during volcanic eruptions. Scientists, using advanced microscopic analysis techniques like NanoSIMS 50, have delved into these beads' composition. The study reveals that mineral composition and isotopic ratios within the beads act as a record of pressure, temperature, and chemical environments during lunar eruptions, effectively a 'journal' of ancient lunar volcanology, detailing changes in volcanic activity over time. This research employed multiple advanced techniques, including atom probe tomography and scanning electron microscopy, to reinterpret these 50-year-old samples.

(www.sciencedaily.com)

Tech Volcanoes Glass Beads

A Hidden Teapot and Design Flaw in Windows' 3D Pipes Screensaver

2024-12-28

A Hidden Teapot and Design Flaw in Windows' 3D Pipes Screensaver

The beloved Windows 3D Pipes screensaver, known for its mesmerizing pipe animations, hides a little-known secret: a rarely appearing teapot. This teapot is a tribute to the Utah teapot, a standard reference object in computer graphics, but its incredibly low appearance rate led to user complaints about low productivity. The article also reveals that in older Windows versions, the screensaver caused high CPU usage on servers due to software rendering, recommending a black screen saver for servers instead.

(devblogs.microsoft.com)

Misc Screensaver Design Flaw

Fintech Founder Convicted of $175M JPMorgan Chase Fraud

2025-04-01

Fintech Founder Convicted of $175M JPMorgan Chase Fraud

Charlie Javice, founder of the fintech startup Frank, was convicted of defrauding JPMorgan Chase out of $175 million by grossly exaggerating her customer base. Javice claimed millions of users, but the actual number was far lower. She and her co-defendant fabricated data to support the false claims. The case draws parallels to the Theranos scandal, highlighting concerns about fraud and misrepresentation in the tech startup world. Despite Javice's defense arguing JPMorgan was aware of the deception, the jury found her guilty, and she faces decades in prison.

(apnews.com)

Startup

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