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Numbers Look Like Leaves in Set Theory

2024-12-28
Numbers Look Like Leaves in Set Theory

While learning ZFC set theory, the author discovered that the graphical representation of natural numbers using Von Neumann ordinals, when rendered using a force-directed graph layout, strikingly resembles leaves. The article details the recursive definition of Von Neumann ordinals and their tree-like structure, visually demonstrating how numbers from 0 to 16 take on a leaf-like form. The author concludes by questioning whether this 'leaf' shape is inherent to the structure of Von Neumann ordinals themselves and plans to investigate the set-theoretic representation of rational numbers.

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(www.christo.sh)
AI set theory von neumann ordinals mathematical visualization

Microsoft Unveils Phi-4: A Small Language Model Excelling in Complex Reasoning

2024-12-15
Microsoft Unveils Phi-4: A Small Language Model Excelling in Complex Reasoning

Microsoft has introduced Phi-4, a new 14-billion parameter small language model (SLM) that outperforms larger models in complex reasoning tasks, particularly in mathematics, surpassing even Gemini Pro 1.5 on math competition problems. This achievement is attributed to high-quality synthetic and organic datasets and post-training innovations. Currently available on Azure AI Foundry under an MSRLA, Phi-4 will launch on Hugging Face next week. Microsoft emphasizes its commitment to responsible AI development, integrating robust safety features into Phi-4's design and deployment.

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(techcommunity.microsoft.com)
AI small language model complex reasoning

Grammarly Acquires Coda to Usher in a New Era of AI-Native Productivity

2024-12-21
Grammarly Acquires Coda to Usher in a New Era of AI-Native Productivity

Grammarly has announced its acquisition of Coda, aiming to build the future's AI-native productivity suite. Coda is a popular collaborative workspace tool loved by teams, while Grammarly is renowned for its AI-powered writing assistance. This acquisition will combine the strengths of both companies, leveraging Coda's document collaboration capabilities and Grammarly's AI prowess to provide users with smarter and more efficient productivity tools. The future will see a deep integration of the Grammarly assistant with Coda Brain, resulting in powerful AI-native document collaboration features.

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(coda.io)
AI Productivity Acquisition

Open Source Firmware: Necessity and Strategic Choices

2024-12-17

This article explores the necessity of open-source firmware. The author argues that firmware, as software controlling hardware, should adhere to free software principles. This is not only about freedom itself but also directly related to users' practical interests. Non-free firmware can restrict hardware functionality, hide security vulnerabilities, and even prevent users from fixing security issues. The article analyzes two viewpoints: one considers open-source firmware desirable but not necessary; the other advocates that all system software should be open-source. The author leans towards the former, believing that prioritizing the freedom of the operating system kernel is more important, but simultaneously emphasizes the benefits of open-source firmware and discusses how to promote it through strategic means.

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(mjg59.dreamwidth.org)
Development firmware free software

18th-Century Dental Horror Stories: When Tooth Extraction Could Mean Losing Your Jaw

2024-12-14
18th-Century Dental Horror Stories: When Tooth Extraction Could Mean Losing Your Jaw

This article recounts cases from Thomas Berdmore's 1768 treatise on dental disorders, painting a grim picture of 18th-century dentistry. Patients suffered immensely from oral ulcers, tartar buildup, and the often disastrous consequences of unqualified practitioners. One case describes a barber-surgeon removing a tooth along with a walnut-sized piece of jawbone! These stories highlight the primitive techniques and significant risks of the time, contrasting sharply with modern dentistry. While progress has been made, the article serves as a reminder of the ongoing challenges of access and affordability in dental care.

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(thequackdoctor.substack.com)
Misc 18th-century dentistry medical history dental treatment

uBlock Origin: A Highly Efficient Ad Blocker

2024-12-23
uBlock Origin: A Highly Efficient Ad Blocker

uBlock Origin (uBO) is a highly efficient and lightweight content blocker for Chromium and Firefox browsers. It blocks ads, trackers, coin miners, and malware by default using multiple filter lists like EasyList and EasyPrivacy. Users can customize blocking rules and choose between a simple or advanced interface. Crucially, uBO emphasizes that using an ad blocker is not theft, but a means of protecting user privacy. The project is open-source and relies on community-maintained filter lists.

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(github.com)
Development ad blocker

Java JEP 483: Ahead-of-Time Class Loading & Linking Boosts Startup Time

2024-12-22

JEP 483 significantly improves Java application startup time by loading and linking application classes ahead of time when the HotSpot JVM starts. It achieves this by monitoring a single application run, storing the loaded and linked forms of all classes in a cache for reuse in subsequent runs. This feature requires no code changes and offers substantial speed improvements for large server applications, such as Spring PetClinic showing a 42% reduction in startup time. While currently a two-step process, future versions will streamline cache creation to a single step and offer more flexible training run configuration.

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(openjdk.org)
Development

Meta's Massive Java-to-Kotlin Translation: Conquering Millions of Lines of Code

2024-12-22
Meta's Massive Java-to-Kotlin Translation: Conquering Millions of Lines of Code

Meta has undertaken a multi-year effort to translate its massive Android codebase from Java to Kotlin. This post details how Meta built the Kotlinator, an automation tool, to overcome challenges like slow build speeds and insufficient linters, successfully converting over half of its code. The Kotlinator comprises several phases: preprocessing, headless J2K conversion, postprocessing, and error fixing. Meta also collaborated with JetBrains to improve J2K and open-sourced parts of the process to foster community collaboration. The article highlights null safety handling and various code issues encountered and resolved during the conversion.

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(engineering.fb.com)
Development code migration

Luon Programming Language: A Statically Typed Lua

2024-12-14
Luon Programming Language: A Statically Typed Lua

Luon is a new, statically-typed programming language with a syntax similar to Oberon-based languages, incorporating concepts from Lua and targeting the LuaJIT VM. Essentially a statically-typed version of Lua, it allows for the reuse of existing Lua and C libraries via external procedure declarations. Luon addresses shortcomings in Lua's error handling and code structure, offering a compiler and integrated IDE supporting procedural, generic, and object-oriented programming. The project includes extensive examples and test cases and is under active development.

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(github.com)
Development statically typed

Startup Failure After 3 Years: Founder Open-Sources All Code

2024-12-17
Startup Failure After 3 Years: Founder Open-Sources All Code

After three years, Dylan Huang's developer tools startup, Konfig, has shut down. Konfig focused on simplifying API integrations, with its core product being an SDK generator alongside API documentation and testing tools. Despite gaining some early traction, the company failed to achieve hyper-growth due to challenges in securing contracts and low pricing. A pivot to a B2B SaaS AI product also proved unsuccessful. Now, Huang is open-sourcing Konfig's entire codebase – including the core product, failed pivots, and various supporting scripts – hoping it will be beneficial to others. While the startup ended in failure, Huang emphasizes the invaluable lessons learned.

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(dylanhuang.com)
Startup startup failure open source code API development tools

Synology DS923+ vs. Home-Built FreeBSD NAS: A Head-to-Head Comparison

2024-12-19
Synology DS923+ vs. Home-Built FreeBSD NAS: A Head-to-Head Comparison

Julio Merino compares a Synology DS923+ against his home-built NAS running FreeBSD 14 with ZFS. His custom NAS utilizes a powerful ThinkStation workstation with ample CPU and RAM, while the DS923+ is a compact, dedicated NAS appliance with Synology's DSM and btrfs. Both offer comparable IOPS and network performance, but the DS923+ excels in noise and power consumption. DSM provides a user-friendly experience and robust backup solutions, while FreeBSD/ZFS requires more manual configuration and maintenance. Ultimately, the author prefers the DS923+ for its increased peace of mind regarding data security and management.

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(blogsystem5.substack.com)
Hardware

Proxmox Datacenter Manager Alpha Release Announced

2024-12-19
Proxmox Datacenter Manager Alpha Release Announced

Proxmox has released an alpha preview of its Datacenter Manager. This software centralizes management of all nodes and clusters, offering basic features like virtual machine migration without requiring a cluster network. Developed entirely in Rust, from the backend API to the new frontend, it boasts a modern web UI for improved speed and compatibility. This alpha release aims to gather user feedback, test core features, and foster collaboration. While some features are incomplete and bugs are expected, it's already capable of managing thousands of remotes and virtual machines.

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(forum.proxmox.com)
Development Datacenter Management Alpha Release

2024 World Chess Championship: A Data-Driven Deep Dive

2024-12-18
2024 World Chess Championship: A Data-Driven Deep Dive

The 2024 World Chess Championship saw Gukesh Dommaraju triumph over Ding Liren, becoming the youngest World Champion ever. This analysis uses data-driven insights, including accuracy, error types, average centipawn loss, move times, conversion rate, and comeback rate, to dissect the match. Data suggests Ding Liren exhibited slightly higher precision and consistency, but a crucial blunder in the final game proved decisive. The author concludes that while data analysis offers an objective perspective, it needs to be combined with other factors for a holistic understanding of the match's complexities.

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(medium.com)
Game data analysis

Ultralytics Suffers Supply Chain Attack: A PyPI Security Incident Analysis

2024-12-14
Ultralytics Suffers Supply Chain Attack: A PyPI Security Incident Analysis

The Python project Ultralytics recently suffered a supply chain attack. Attackers compromised the project's GitHub Actions workflows and stole a PyPI API token, resulting in tainted versions 8.3.41, 8.3.42, 8.3.45, and 8.3.46. The attack didn't exploit a PyPI vulnerability but targeted the GitHub Actions cache. PyPI, leveraging Trusted Publishing and Sigstore transparency logs, quickly identified and removed the malicious software. The incident highlighted shortcomings in API token and GitHub environment configurations. The article stresses securing software forges and build/publish workflows, providing developers with security recommendations: using Trusted Publishers, locking dependencies, avoiding insecure patterns, and enabling multi-factor authentication.

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(blog.pypi.org)
Development supply chain attack PyPI security software security

Study: Video Games May Boost Kids' IQ

2024-12-16
Study: Video Games May Boost Kids' IQ

A study of nearly 10,000 US children aged 9-10 revealed that kids who spent more time playing video games scored higher on IQ tests. Researchers controlled for genetics and socioeconomic background, finding that increased gaming correlated with better scores in reading comprehension, visual-spatial processing, and cognitive tasks, resulting in a 2.5-point IQ boost on average. While the study focused on US children and didn't differentiate game types, it offers valuable insights, challenging the long-held belief that gaming harms children. Further research is needed to establish causality and explore other contributing factors.

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(www.sciencealert.com)
AI video games children's IQ cognitive abilities

Frankfurt Silver Amulet Rewrites Early Christian History

2024-12-18
Frankfurt Silver Amulet Rewrites Early Christian History

Archaeologists unearthed a groundbreaking artifact in a 3rd-century Roman grave near Frankfurt, Germany: a silver amulet, the "Frankfurt Silver Inscription." Dating back to 230-270 CE, this amulet predates previously known Christian artifacts in the region by almost 50 years. Its inscription, deciphered using advanced technology, contains exclusively Christian content, including invocations to Jesus Christ and biblical quotations. This discovery significantly pushes back the timeline of Christianity's presence north of the Alps, shedding light on its early spread and influence in Roman Germania. The find has major implications for archaeology, theology, and Roman history.

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(archaeologymag.com)
Misc Christianity Archaeological Discovery Roman Empire

Colorado Hunters Donate Wild Game to Fight Food Insecurity

2024-12-12
Colorado Hunters Donate Wild Game to Fight Food Insecurity

In Colorado, Meat Cleaver, a meat processor, partners with hunters to donate excess venison, elk, and other wild game to local food banks, combating food insecurity. Funded by Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry (FHFH), the program reduces waste and provides healthy protein to vulnerable families. While currently limited to Meat Cleaver, the program has successfully donated thousands of pounds of meat, receiving community praise. Participating hunters, despite the competitive hunting license system, find fulfillment in assisting those in need.

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(collective.coloradotrust.org)
Misc food banks wild game donation community assistance

Gazzetta: A New Mastodon News Reader

2024-12-21

Gazzetta is a revolutionary news reader designed specifically for Mastodon. Unlike other Mastodon clients that prioritize the social network experience, Gazzetta functions more like an RSS reader for the platform. It provides a separate interface, allowing users to focus solely on reading news and links. Features include following servers and accounts to see trending links, full-text search, integration with Safari's view controller, bookmark management, link exporting, and extensive customization options such as font styles, hiding thumbnails, and filtering links by domain, keyword, or language.

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(primatology.xyz)
Development News Reader

Adding Refinement Types to Rust: A Feasibility Study

2024-12-24

This article explores the feasibility of adding refinement types to the Rust programming language. Drawing on experience with YAIOUOM, a static analyzer that used refinement types to check units of measure, the author examines approaches to implementing refinement types within Rust's type system. Several options are proposed, including modifications to trait resolution, type variable unification, and the introduction of a pluggable keyword mechanism for post-compilation type checking. An optimistic approach—ignoring unit information early in compilation and checking later—is deemed more practical. API design and error message handling are discussed. Future work involves gathering feedback, writing a rustc driver supporting plugins, and implementing several refinement types, potentially including a new version of YAIOUOM and subsets of Flux or Liquid Haskell.

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(yoric.github.io)
Development Refinement Types Type System

Heat Accelerates Auto Chip Aging, Raising Safety Concerns

2024-12-18
Heat Accelerates Auto Chip Aging, Raising Safety Concerns

New research shows that automotive chips are aging significantly faster than expected in hot climates, shortening the lifespan of electric vehicles and potentially creating new safety issues. In areas like Phoenix, Arizona, where high temperatures can persist for weeks, cabin temperatures can reach 93°C, severely impacting chip longevity. Studies reveal that for a chip designed for a 30-year lifespan, high temperatures reduce life expectancy by an additional 10% annually. Chipmakers are working to address this, requiring new materials, design redundancy, and active cooling solutions. Increased chip utilization due to autonomous driving exacerbates the problem. Proactive monitoring and predictive failure analysis will become crucial, impacting both vehicle reliability and safety.

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(semiengineering.com)
Hardware automotive chips aging high temperatures

GitHub Copilot: Your AI Pair Programmer

2024-12-18
GitHub Copilot: Your AI Pair Programmer

GitHub Copilot is an AI-powered pair programmer that provides real-time code suggestions based on your code and natural language prompts. It supports multiple programming languages and IDEs, offering free and paid plans to suit various needs. Copilot boasts powerful debugging and security vulnerability fixing capabilities, along with multi-file editing and cross-platform support. While trained on public code repositories, it doesn't copy-paste code but generates suggestions probabilistically, offering an optional code referencing filter to mitigate copyright concerns.

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(github.com)
Development AI programming code assistant

Secret German Censorship Organization CUII Exposed: Uncontrolled Power Over Internet Blockades

2024-12-19

A private organization in Germany, the CUII, secretly controls website blocking, bypassing courts and transparency mechanisms. Composed of major German ISPs and copyright holders, controlling over 85% of the German internet market, the CUII decides which sites to block without judicial approval, leading to numerous wrongful blocks. A 17-year-old student exposed the CUII's secret blocklist, sparking media attention and public outcry, forcing the CUII to lift some wrongful blocks. This highlights the risks of power imbalances and lack of transparency, raising crucial questions about internet censorship and copyright law.

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(damcraft.de)
Tech internet censorship transparency

Torpedo Juice: The Legendary WWII Booze

2024-12-19
Torpedo Juice: The Legendary WWII Booze

During World War II, the US Navy used high-proof alcohol as torpedo fuel. Resourceful sailors tapped into this supply, mixing the alcohol with fruit juice to create the legendary "torpedo juice." This potent concoction, though harsh-tasting, became a popular drink among servicemen, representing a unique camaraderie and escape from the harsh realities of war. Despite the Navy's attempts to deter consumption by adding poisons, sailors devised ingenious methods of purification, even using bread as a filter. The story of torpedo juice embodies the ingenuity and resilience of soldiers during wartime.

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(www.adn.com)
Misc World War II military history moonshine

Entropy: A Rethink of Disorder in the Universe

2024-12-14
Entropy: A Rethink of Disorder in the Universe

Two hundred years ago, French engineer Sadi Carnot introduced the concept of entropy to quantify the universe's irreversible slide into decay. However, modern physics views entropy not simply as 'disorder,' but as a reflection of an observer's limited knowledge of a system. This new perspective illuminates the deep connection between information and energy, driving technological advancements at the nanoscale. From Carnot's steam engine to modern information engines, the concept of entropy continues to evolve, helping us understand the universe's workings and prompting us to rethink the purpose of science and our place within it.

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(www.quantamagazine.org)
AI entropy information thermodynamics

Microsoft's Recall Feature Leaks Sensitive Information Despite Security Filters

2024-12-12
Microsoft's Recall Feature Leaks Sensitive Information Despite Security Filters

Microsoft's Recall feature, designed to record computer activity, has a flawed 'sensitive information filter'. Tests revealed it failed to prevent screenshots containing credit card numbers, social security numbers, and other sensitive data from being saved. While Microsoft promises improvements, the current security vulnerability raises concerns. The AI-powered filter struggles to reliably identify sensitive information, posing a significant security risk.

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(www.tomshardware.com)
Tech security vulnerability

Bonscore: Independent Credit Scoring for Businesses

2024-12-12

Bonscore offers an independent and transparent credit scoring service for businesses. Data is sourced directly from the company register, ensuring objectivity and preventing manipulation. Unlike traditional credit agencies, Bonscore uses proprietary algorithms to assess the probability of default, providing industry benchmarks for comparison. This empowers businesses to evaluate the creditworthiness of potential and existing clients, competitors, and suppliers, leading to more informed business decisions such as: vetting new clients, analyzing existing client payment behavior, participating in tenders, assessing supplier reliability, analyzing competitor financial health, and making credit decisions.

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(bonscore.org)
Startup business credit scoring risk assessment business decisions

T2 SDE: Major Update for Cross-Architecture OS Development Environment

2024-12-24

T2 SDE is a low-code, ultra-portable package manager and Linux distribution that enables fully automated, reproducible, cross-compilation of custom operating systems across architectures (ARM, x86-64, etc.). The latest release, T2 24.12, boasts 37 pre-compiled ISO images supporting 25 CPU architectures and includes numerous packages like LibreOffice and OpenJDK. It even has proof-of-concept support for the Nintendo Wii U. T2 continues to improve, with a commitment to supporting IA-64 Itanium, enhancing security features like full-disk encryption, and boosting performance through features like hardware video encoding and decoding.

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(t2sde.org)
Development Cross-Compilation Package Manager

OpenAI's GPT-5 Project Hit by Delays and High Costs

2024-12-23
OpenAI's GPT-5 Project Hit by Delays and High Costs

OpenAI's highly anticipated GPT-5 project, codenamed 'Orion,' is significantly behind schedule and facing substantial cost overruns, according to the Wall Street Journal. Intended as a major leap forward for the technology powering ChatGPT, the project is encountering challenges, including concerns about insufficient data to reach its ambitious intelligence goals. Microsoft, OpenAI's largest investor, had expected the new model by mid-2024, but that timeline is now uncertain. The project, underway for over 18 months, faces an unclear future.

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(www.wsj.com)
AI
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