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Build Your Own Virtual Machine: A Step-by-Step Guide

2024-12-26

This tutorial guides you through building your own virtual machine (VM) capable of running assembly language programs, such as 2048 or Roguelike games. Even if you're already a programmer, this project provides a deeper understanding of computer architecture and how programming languages work. The tutorial covers core VM concepts, the LC-3 architecture, instruction sets, trap routines, program loading, and more, with detailed code examples and explanations. The final code is approximately 250 lines of C, making it accessible to those with basic C/C++ knowledge.

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(www.jmeiners.com)
Development virtual machine

Modular Unveils MAX 24.6: A Native GPU Generative AI Platform

2024-12-17
Modular Unveils MAX 24.6: A Native GPU Generative AI Platform

Modular has released MAX 24.6, a native GPU generative AI platform designed to redefine how AI is developed and deployed. At its core is MAX GPU, a vertically integrated generative AI serving stack eliminating reliance on vendor-specific computation libraries like NVIDIA CUDA. Built on the high-performance AI model compiler and runtime MAX Engine and the Python-native serving layer MAX Serve, it supports the entire AI development lifecycle, from experimentation to production deployment. MAX 24.6 supports various hardware platforms, including NVIDIA A100, L40, L4, and A10 accelerators, with planned support for H100, H200, and AMD GPUs. It's compatible with Hugging Face models and provides an OpenAI-compatible client API. MAX 24.6 achieves a throughput of 3860 output tokens per second on Llama 3.1, matching vLLM's performance with a smaller Docker image size.

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(www.modular.com)
AI GPU acceleration AI platform

Starlink Sells Out in Zimbabwe Amidst High Demand

2024-12-17
Starlink Sells Out in Zimbabwe Amidst High Demand

Starlink's high-speed satellite internet service quickly sold out in Zimbabwe within weeks of its launch, driven by the country's slow, unreliable, and expensive traditional internet infrastructure. High demand led to sell-outs in major cities like Harare, and even spread to other African countries. Despite higher initial costs, Starlink's unlimited data and superior speeds are proving attractive to many, forcing local providers to lower their prices. While currently facing capacity issues in urban areas, Starlink's potential in rural and underserved regions is significant, boosting related industries such as installation services and accessory sales.

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(restofworld.org)
Tech satellite internet Zimbabwe

Parasite SEO Operator Evaded Google Penalties with Finesse

2024-12-21

This article exposes how parasite SEO operator Finixio/Clickout Media swiftly and effectively evaded Google penalties. Following a Google algorithm update, several Finixio/Clickout Media websites faced severe penalties for violating Google's site reputation abuse policy, resulting in plummeting traffic and rankings. However, through clever use of redirects and cloaking techniques, they restored their operations within days and continued profiting from their parasite website network. They even expanded their operations after being penalized, leveraging new websites and existing high-authority sites (like CoinTelegraph) to continue promoting gambling and cryptocurrency. The article details their strategies, including using geolocation to hide content and placing content on various platforms. It points out that the root cause of this phenomenon is Google's weakening of topical authority in its algorithms, making domain authority the primary ranking factor.

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(recleudo.com)
Development parasite SEO Google penalties site reputation

LLMs: The Biggest Mistake in Computing?

2024-12-28
LLMs: The Biggest Mistake in Computing?

The author criticizes Large Language Models (LLMs), arguing they are not the future of computing but a potential setback. For decades, corporations prioritized profit over software quality and user experience, resulting in slow, bloated, and buggy software. LLMs perpetuate this trend, being slow, expensive, and unreliable. The author worries that massive investments will prevent their abandonment, leading to a computing world dominated by a few giants, stifling innovation, and depriving future generations of high-quality software.

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(crys.site)
Development Tech Ethics

Canada's First Pirate Site Blocking Order Expires

2024-12-16

Canada's first pirate site blocking order, targeting the IPTV service GoldTV, quietly expired this week. Rightsholders Bell and Rogers chose not to seek an extension, despite many targeted domains remaining online. The decision likely reflects cost considerations and shifting priorities. Initially approved in 2018 and upheld against appeals in 2021, the order had a significant impact on piracy. However, the rightsholders have now shifted focus to broader, more dynamic blocking efforts targeting live sports streams and other platforms.

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(torrentfreak.com)
Tech piracy site blocking

JRuby Meets JBang: A Hacky but Powerful Combination

2024-12-22

During the Christmas holidays, the author experimented with combining JRuby and JBang to leverage the performance of the JVM and the productivity of Ruby. While JBang doesn't officially support JRuby, a clever workaround using JBang's dependency management and Java's ProcessBuilder was employed. The result? A functional JRuby application incorporating Javalin, JDBI, SLF4J, and ruby-jwt, achieving CRUD operations on a SQLite database with JWT authentication. This hack demonstrates the potential of combining JRuby with Java ecosystem libraries, with performance validated via Apache Benchmark.

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(rockyj-blogs.web.app)
Development

Ryzen 7 9800X3D Teardown Reveals Mostly Dummy Silicon

2024-12-18
Ryzen 7 9800X3D Teardown Reveals Mostly Dummy Silicon

A teardown of AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor reveals a surprising finding: the majority of its volume is comprised of dummy silicon for structural integrity. While the SRAM cache die is significantly smaller than the compute die, AMD has added a substantial layer of dummy silicon above and below to protect the thin, fragile components. This results in a total package thickness of roughly 800µm, with dummy silicon accounting for a staggering 93%. Despite the seemingly wasteful design, it ensures stability and thermal performance. AMD is expected to announce 12-core and 16-core Ryzen 9 X3D processors soon.

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(www.tomshardware.com)
Hardware

Serbia: A Digital Prison – State Surveillance and the Suppression of Civil Society

2025-01-03
Serbia: A Digital Prison – State Surveillance and the Suppression of Civil Society

Amnesty International's report reveals Serbia's use of surveillance technology and digital repression to control and suppress civil society. The report details widespread use of spyware, including NSO Group's Pegasus and a newly disclosed domestically-produced Android spyware, NoviSpy, along with Cellebrite's UFED tools against environmental activists and protest leaders. This constitutes a serious human rights violation and attack on freedom of expression.

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(www.amnesty.org)
Tech digital repression surveillance technology human rights

@celine/bibhtml v3.0.3: A Web Components-Based Referencing System

2024-12-21
@celine/bibhtml v3.0.3: A Web Components-Based Referencing System

@celine/bibhtml, a Web Components-based referencing system for HTML documents, has released version 3.0.3. It aims to provide a user experience similar to LaTeX/BibTeX referencing, using Citation.js under the hood and gracefully degrading when citations and references are malformed or JavaScript is disabled. Supporting BibTeX, unstructured text, DOI, and Wikidata formats, it offers three custom elements: ``, ``, and ``, simplifying reference management in HTML.

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(maxbo.me)
Development Reference Management

Testing for Thermal Issues in Advanced Packages Becomes Increasingly Challenging

2024-12-21
Testing for Thermal Issues in Advanced Packages Becomes Increasingly Challenging

The increasing complexity and heterogeneity of chip architectures, coupled with the adoption of high-performance materials, are making it significantly more difficult to identify and test for thermal issues in advanced packages. Traditional corner-based thermal testing is insufficient due to unpredictable chip-level thermal effects and varying heat distribution under different workloads. Heterogeneous integration, thinner substrates and metal layers, and diverse materials and interconnect schemes all contribute to this complexity. To address these challenges, the industry is exploring advanced thermal modeling, test structures, adaptive testing strategies, and AI to achieve more accurate thermal characterization and reliable device testing.

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(semiengineering.com)
Hardware chip testing thermal management heterogeneous integration heat dissipation chip packaging thermal testing

A 50-Year-Old Bug in C's File I/O: Unraveling a Legacy Mystery

2024-12-26

While improving a DOS emulator, a developer stumbled upon a seemingly trivial bug in file I/O: appending text to a file using the `echo` command produced unexpected results. Debugging revealed a flaw in how C runtime libraries handle switching between reading and writing, a flaw tracing back to the 1970s and even earlier UNIX systems. The article delves into the historical context, from early K&R C to modern C standards, exploring implementation differences across various UNIX versions and C compilers. The root cause is identified as limitations in early C libraries' handling of update mode, with variations in how different operating systems and compilers addressed these limitations. The author concludes that even today, for portable C code, an explicit `fseek` call is necessary when switching between reading and writing a file.

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(www.os2museum.com)
Development file I/O legacy bug

Genesis: A Revolutionary Universal Physics Engine

2024-12-19

Genesis is a general-purpose physics platform designed for Robotics/Embodied AI/Physical AI applications. It's a multifaceted tool: a universal physics engine built from the ground up, simulating diverse materials and phenomena; a lightweight, ultrafast, Pythonic, and user-friendly robotics simulation platform; a powerful, fast photorealistic rendering system; and a generative data engine transforming natural language descriptions into various data modalities. Genesis aims to lower the barrier to entry for physics simulations, making robotics research accessible; unify state-of-the-art physics solvers; and minimize human effort in data collection and generation. The underlying physics engine and simulation platform are open-source, with the generative framework to be released soon.

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(genesis-world.readthedocs.io)
AI physics engine robotics simulation generative AI

Yakari: Interactive Command Builder Simplifies Complex CLIs

2024-12-21
Yakari: Interactive Command Builder Simplifies Complex CLIs

Yakari is an interactive command-building tool designed to simplify complex command-line interfaces. It guides users through command construction step-by-step, eliminating the need to memorize complex syntax. Supporting various argument types, Yakari offers contextual help and command history, significantly improving CLI usability. Users can build and execute commands with simple shortcuts, making even intricate commands accessible.

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(github.com)
Development interactive interface

America's Unexpected Health Boom: A Mystery Solved?

2024-12-19
America's Unexpected Health Boom: A Mystery Solved?

Recent data reveals an unexpected improvement in American health, with decreases in drug overdose deaths, traffic fatalities, obesity rates, and murder rates. This contrasts sharply with America's long-standing image as a "rich death trap." While some attribute this to effective policies like increased access to drug addiction treatment and expanded availability of Narcan, experts suggest these policies' impact might be overstated. Other factors, such as the natural decline in overdose deaths post-pandemic and changes in law enforcement, likely played a role. The precise causes of this improvement remain unclear, highlighting the complexities of reality often obscured by simplistic explanations.

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(www.theatlantic.com)
Misc American health drug overdose obesity

Minecraft Server Crafted in COBOL: A Retro Rewind

2024-12-26
Minecraft Server Crafted in COBOL: A Retro Rewind

CobolCraft is a Minecraft server audaciously built using the legacy COBOL programming language. Despite COBOL's limitations in low-level data manipulation, this project surprisingly supports features like infinite terrain generation, dynamic chunk loading, and multiplayer capabilities. It even handles Minecraft's data files, showcasing the unexpected potential of this often-overlooked language and challenging perceptions of its capabilities. This project serves as a testament to programming ingenuity and an interesting experiment in using unconventional tools.

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(github.com)
Development Server Development

Why Adult Friendships Are Harder Than Ever

2024-12-24

This article explores the challenges of forming genuine friendships as an adult. As we age, our lives become busier, filled with work and family responsibilities, leaving less time and energy for nurturing deep connections. Changing social dynamics and the complexities of adult relationships further complicate the search for like-minded companions. The article suggests that proactively investing time and effort, and actively engaging in social activities, are key to overcoming these obstacles and building lasting adult friendships.

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(www.theestablished.com)
Misc adult friendships social connections

Converge Hiring Senior Full-Stack Engineer: Build a Million-Dollar Marketing Measurement Platform

2024-12-16
Converge Hiring Senior Full-Stack Engineer: Build a Million-Dollar Marketing Measurement Platform

Converge, a Y Combinator-backed company with over $1M in ARR, is hiring a senior full-stack engineer. The small team (only 4 people) serves 180+ customers, processing billions of dollars in annual sales and billions of events per month. You'll build a unified marketing measurement stack, including customer data collection, identity resolution, and marketing attribution, with direct customer interaction and significant ownership. The company values action-orientedness, continuous learning, positive attitudes, and simplicity. Requires extensive full-stack experience, proficiency in React and backend development, and knowledge of production software deployment and scaling.

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(www.ycombinator.com)
Development Full-Stack Engineer Marketing Measurement

Demystifying Debuggers: Anatomy of a Running Program

2024-12-24
Demystifying Debuggers: Anatomy of a Running Program

This article delves into the low-level mechanics of a running program. Using the analogy of a video game cartridge on an NES, it explains how modern operating systems virtualize program execution. Key concepts like virtual address spaces, threads of execution, executable images, loaders, modules, and processes are detailed. The article explains how virtual address spaces, via page tables, map virtual addresses to physical addresses, allowing multiple programs to share physical memory without interference. It also covers thread scheduling, executable image formats (PE and ELF), the loader's role, and dynamic module loading/unloading. Finally, it summarizes the concept of a process, which integrates threads, modules, and virtual address spaces.

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(www.rfleury.com)
Development debugger program execution

The Academic Great Gatsby Curve: How Much of Academic Success Is Inherited?

2024-12-21
The Academic Great Gatsby Curve: How Much of Academic Success Is Inherited?

A new study reveals that academic success mirrors the inheritance of wealth and social status. Analyzing data from over 245,000 mentor-mentee pairs, researchers found that the more unequal the citation distribution within a discipline, the more likely a mentee's citation ranking reflects their mentor's. This suggests academic success is shaped by structural forces similar to those governing social mobility, where the advantage of a top mentor creates a self-reinforcing cycle of success. While acknowledging the benefits of top mentorship, the study cautions against relying solely on citation metrics, advocating for greater academic equity and equal opportunity.

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(blogs.lse.ac.uk)
AI academic success mentor-mentee relationships academic inequality

A Curious Case of Slow USD Import in Blender

2024-12-22
A Curious Case of Slow USD Import in Blender

A developer encountered unexpectedly slow import times when importing USD scenes into Blender. Profiling revealed the bottleneck to be Blender's internal ID sorting function, `id_sort_by_name`. This function, expected to be O(N), degraded to O(N^2) due to the naming scheme in the USD files. By modifying the naming convention and optimizing the sorting algorithm, the developer reduced import times from 4 minutes 40 seconds to 8 seconds for smaller files. However, the underlying issue stems from Blender's requirement for sorted IDs, leading to suggestions for replacing the linked list with a Trie or hash table. This optimization highlights a common challenge in performance tuning: identifying and addressing unexpected complexity.

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(gist.github.com)
Development

Efficient German Language Learning: Is Anki the Answer?

2024-12-21
Efficient German Language Learning: Is Anki the Answer?

An engineer living in Germany for eight years confesses to still not knowing the language. To remedy this, they're trying Anki, leveraging spaced repetition to learn 10 new German words daily – aiming for C1 level proficiency within a year. They chose a frequency-ordered Anki deck, adding audio pronunciations themselves. The author invites readers to share their Anki experiences and German learning tips.

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(www.argpar.se)
Development German learning Spaced Repetition

GitHub Project TILDNN Updated

2024-12-22
GitHub Project TILDNN Updated

The TILDNN project on GitHub has been updated. The project appears to be related to artificial intelligence or deep learning (inferring from the name). Specific update details are not provided in the given text; accessing the GitHub link is necessary for further information.

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(github.com)
AI Project Update

Ghostty Terminal Emulator Reaches 1.0: A Journey of Challenges and Triumphs

2024-12-28

Mitchell Hashimoto's journey to release Ghostty 1.0, his terminal emulator, spanned two years and overcame numerous challenges. Initially a personal project to explore Zig and graphics programming, Ghostty unexpectedly gained significant traction. To balance family life and development, Hashimoto employed a private beta, yielding invaluable community feedback but also resulting in frustration from those excluded. Ghostty 1.0 distinguishes itself with its unique tech stack (Zig core and platform-specific GUIs) and impressive performance. Future plans include open-sourcing the core library, libghostty, to further expand Ghostty's impact.

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(mitchellh.com)
Development

NoDB: Processing Payments Without a Database

2024-12-21
NoDB: Processing Payments Without a Database

Alvaro Duran's "The Payments Engineer Playbook" introduces a revolutionary approach to payment system design: processing payments without a database. He argues that the prevalence of asynchronous programming stems from the assumption of database necessity. Using event sourcing, each step in the payment process is recorded as an event, not as a persistent state. These events are temporarily stored in memory, and the system reconstructs the payment status from the event stream, eliminating the need for persistent storage. This high-performance, high-reliability approach, inspired by high-frequency trading, allows for quick recovery from outages through hot backups. The article details this concept using a payment flow example and looks toward future applications in payment systems.

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(news.alvaroduran.com)
Development Event Sourcing Databaseless Payments High-Frequency Trading

Physicists Discover Particle with Mass Only When Moving in One Direction

2024-12-19
Physicists Discover Particle with Mass Only When Moving in One Direction

Scientists have discovered a peculiar quasiparticle, the semi-Dirac fermion, which only exhibits effective mass when moving in one direction. Predicted in 2008, this phenomenon has now been confirmed in a ZrSiS semi-metal crystal at extremely low temperatures (-269°C). Its energy properties differ drastically in perpendicular directions, akin to a train experiencing resistance when switching tracks, thus gaining mass. This discovery could have profound implications for quantum physics and electronic sensors, but further research is needed to explore its applications.

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(www.sciencealert.com)
Physics

California's Minimum Wage Hike: A Surprise Success

2024-12-22
California's Minimum Wage Hike: A Surprise Success

California's September 2023 law raising the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 per hour faced immediate backlash, with predictions of widespread job losses and business closures. However, these predictions proved false. Since the law's April implementation, California's fast-food sector has seen job growth exceeding the national average. Economists' analyses revealed that increased wages didn't decrease employment; instead, reduced employee turnover and increased productivity lowered labor costs for employers. While prices rose, the increase was far less than anticipated, significantly outweighed by the wage increase for workers. This challenges assumptions about minimum wage impacts, highlighting biases in economic understanding and the role of media in disseminating misinformation.

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(www.theatlantic.com)
Startup minimum wage employment

60 Minutes Investigates: Former NSA Employee Returns to Menwith Hill

2024-12-24

Former National Security Agency (NSA) employee Margaret Newsham returned to the Menwith Hill listening station in the UK at the invitation of the 60 Minutes crew. Years later, she was astonished by the base's expansion and, along with the film crew, risked arrest to get close to the facility for filming and interviews. Newsham recounted her experiences working at the base and shared her observations, in a thrilling adventure that revealed the massive scale and influence of this secretive listening station.

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(cryptome.org)
Misc Menwith Hill listening station

Best Practices for Representing Inheritance in SQL Server Databases

2024-12-17
Best Practices for Representing Inheritance in SQL Server Databases

This article explores best practices for representing inheritance relationships in SQL Server databases. Three common approaches are presented: single table inheritance, concrete table inheritance, and class table inheritance. The advantages and disadvantages of each are detailed. Single table inheritance is simple but has scalability and data integrity issues; concrete table inheritance solves these but suffers from inefficient queries; class table inheritance balances simplicity and efficiency, making it the preferred choice in most scenarios. Alternative approaches using JSON for subtype-specific fields and normalized database design are also discussed.

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(stackoverflow.com)
Development Database Design Inheritance
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