A New Twist: Molecular Machines Loop and Twist Chromosomes

2024-12-17
A New Twist: Molecular Machines Loop and Twist Chromosomes

Scientists have discovered a new function of the molecular motors that shape our chromosomes: SMC proteins not only form long loops in DNA but also significantly twist the DNA during loop formation. Published in Science Advances, the research reveals that SMC proteins introduce a left-handed twist of 0.6 turns in each DNA loop extrusion step. This twisting action is conserved across species, observed in both human and yeast cells, highlighting its evolutionary importance. This finding enhances our understanding of chromosome structure and function and provides insights into developmental diseases like cohesinopathies.

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CCState: A Lightweight and Flexible State Management Library

2024-12-19
CCState: A Lightweight and Flexible State Management Library

CCState is a lightweight, semantically clear, and flexible state management library designed for medium to large single-page applications with complex state management needs. It's built on three basic data types: computed, command, and state, offering a simple and intuitive API with 100% test coverage. Framework-agnostic, CCState works seamlessly with React, Vanilla JS, and other UI frameworks, boasting blazing-fast performance, outperforming Jotai in various scenarios. The core APIs – `state`, `computed`, and `command` – handle basic value units, derived computations, and side effects respectively. React Hooks like `useGet`, `useSet`, `useLoadable`, and `useResolved` simplify data access and Promise handling. CCState also offers subscription capabilities for reactive updates.

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Visualizing 6D Mesh Parallelism in Deep Learning Training

2024-12-19
Visualizing 6D Mesh Parallelism in Deep Learning Training

This article delves into the complexities of 6D mesh parallelism in deep learning model training. Using a series of visualizations, the author meticulously explains the communication mechanisms of various parallel strategies—data parallelism, fully sharded data parallelism, tensor parallelism, context parallelism, expert parallelism, and pipeline parallelism—during the model's forward and backward passes. The author uses a simple attention layer model to illustrate the implementation details of each parallel approach, highlighting their interactions and potential challenges, such as the conflict between pipeline parallelism and fully sharded data parallelism. The article concludes by discussing mesh ordering, combining different parallel strategies, and practical considerations.

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Adaptable Text Editor 'ad': Blending Vim and Acme

2024-12-18
Adaptable Text Editor 'ad': Blending Vim and Acme

ad is a novel text editor that combines the modal editing interface of Vim and Kakoune with the extensibility approach of Plan9's Acme. ad allows users to execute text and serves as a playground for experimenting with implementing various text editor features. Currently, ad is stable enough and feature-complete enough to try out, though documentation is sparse and bugs may exist. ad's design philosophy blends Vim's modal editing, Emacs's mini-buffer, and Acme's editing commands and extensibility, aiming for a comfortable editing environment that supports direct interaction with external tools and programs.

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S2: Revolutionizing Stream Data Storage in the Cloud

2024-12-21

Bandar Systems introduces S2, a novel stream data storage service designed to revolutionize data processing in the cloud era. Unlike traditional object-based storage, S2 centers around streams, offering efficient, scalable, and cost-effective real-time data ingestion and processing. It supports high-throughput, low-latency read and write operations and provides multiple storage classes to meet varying performance and cost requirements. S2 aims to replace systems like Kafka and Kinesis, providing users with a more powerful and flexible stream data management solution.

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Raspberry Pi 500 Modder Successfully Adds M.2 Slot

2024-12-15

A Raspberry Pi enthusiast successfully added an M.2 slot to the Raspberry Pi 500! While the Pi 500 has the header, the slot itself is absent, leading to some controversy. The modder soldered on four tiny capacitors and used a bench power supply to power a bottom pad, enabling the use of NVMe SSDs and other PCIe devices. This modification requires excellent SMD soldering skills and has sparked discussion about the Pi 500's design choices; speculation includes reserving the feature for a future premium model.

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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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Development News Reader

C++: A Resurgence of Programming Fun

2024-12-23
C++: A Resurgence of Programming Fun

The author reflects on over a decade of programming, lamenting that languages like JavaScript, Python, and Ruby failed to recapture the joy he felt coding as a child. Recently, while developing a roguelike game using C++, he rediscovered that programming fun. He argues that C++ was once notorious for the overuse of template metaprogramming, but since C++11, the standards committee's efforts have revitalized the language. Additions like auto type inference, nullptr, and range-based for loops have significantly improved developer experience and efficiency. Modern C++ is powerful, boasting rich libraries and tools, yet avoids the negative aspects of excessive popularity. The relatively pure community allows developers to focus on creation, which is the essence of programming enjoyment.

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Development

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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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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Programmer Creates Pseudo-3D Game in Bash

2024-12-20
Programmer Creates Pseudo-3D Game in Bash

A programmer, izabera, has developed a surprisingly impressive pseudo-3D game using the Bash scripting language. This project, a homage to the classic game Wolfenstein 3D, is open-source on GitHub. The code is concise yet the result is stunning, showcasing the power of Bash and the programmer's ingenuity. The repository includes the game source code and demonstration videos. Developers interested in learning more can check it out on GitHub.

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Development Game Development

Trinity Desktop Environment R14.1.3 Released: Lightweight, Efficient, and Ideal for Older Hardware

2024-12-13

The Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE) project team has released version R14.1.3, a lightweight, free desktop environment designed for users who prefer a lean and efficient experience. This release supports various Linux distributions, BSD, and DilOS, boasts low system requirements, making it ideal for older hardware. R14.1.3 includes numerous improvements, such as XDG Desktop Portal API integration, a new touchpad settings module, new themes and color schemes, and support for various applications and programming languages like Python 3.13. The project encourages donations to support its continued development.

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USDA Strengthens Food Safety Measures After Deadly Listeria Outbreaks

2024-12-18
USDA Strengthens Food Safety Measures After Deadly Listeria Outbreaks

Following two deadly Listeria monocytogenes outbreaks linked to Boar's Head deli meats and Yu Shang ready-to-eat meat and poultry products, resulting in dozens of illnesses and multiple deaths, the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has finally acted. Despite prior knowledge of deficiencies at the Boar's Head facility, FSIS failed to intervene until after the outbreak. The agency announced stronger measures, including expanded testing, improved inspector training, and enhanced facility oversight, to prevent future incidents. This highlights vulnerabilities in food safety regulation and the critical need for prompt and effective intervention.

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WhatsApp: A Global Cultural Phenomenon

2024-12-14
WhatsApp: A Global Cultural Phenomenon

WhatsApp has transcended its origins as a simple messaging app to become a global cultural force. The article uses Nigerian actress Etinosa Idemudia as an example, showcasing how WhatsApp is used for film promotion, fan engagement, and personal branding. From matchmaking in Bangladesh to news dissemination in India and religious activities in Indonesia, WhatsApp is ubiquitous, connecting people across the globe and becoming an indispensable part of daily life, even used for education and medical appointments. WhatsApp's success lies not only in Meta's business strategy but also in the diverse functionalities and cultural significance its users have imbued it with, transforming it into a platform that connects the world and reshapes how people communicate and live.

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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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ScyllaDB Shifts to Source-Available License for its Database

2024-12-19
ScyllaDB Shifts to Source-Available License for its Database

ScyllaDB announced it's transitioning its flagship product, ScyllaDB Enterprise, from closed-source to a source-available license, offering a free tier with full enterprise capabilities. This simplifies their dual release stream, providing greater community value. The future involves a single release stream, consolidating core features for improved performance and efficiency; examples include 30X faster node addition/removal via file-based streaming and workload prioritization for balancing multiple workloads on a single cluster. While potentially unpopular with some open-source users, ScyllaDB believes this change benefits the company and accelerates progress on roadmap milestones like Raft for data, optimized tablet elasticity, and tiered (S3) storage.

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Microsoft to Delete Passwords for 1 Billion Users, Promoting Passkeys

2024-12-17
Microsoft to Delete Passwords for 1 Billion Users, Promoting Passkeys

In response to a surge in cyberattacks, Microsoft announced plans to delete passwords for a billion users and aggressively promote the more secure passkeys. With password attacks nearly doubling year-over-year, Microsoft blocks 7,000 attacks per second. Passkeys, leveraging biometrics or PINs, offer superior security and convenience compared to traditional passwords. Microsoft is actively pushing users towards passkey adoption, aiming for a passwordless and more secure future.

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Homescreen App: Redefining Your Home Screen Experience

2024-12-18

Homescreen is an app designed to revolutionize the home screen experience on your phone. Breaking free from the limitations of traditional phone desktops, it offers users a more personalized, efficient, and convenient way to interact with their devices. Users can customize widgets, themes, and layouts to create a unique home screen, boosting productivity and enjoyment. Homescreen isn't just a simple desktop replacement; it's a refreshing approach to how we use our phones.

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CenterClick NTP200 Series: Offline GPS Time Servers for Precise Synchronization

2024-12-15

CenterClick introduces the NTP200 series of GPS-based NTP servers, offering precise time synchronization without internet connectivity. The series includes models like NTP200, NTP250, NTP220, and NTP270, each with varying RAM and features such as PoE and alarm outputs. These appliances feature built-in GPS antennas, supporting multiple GNSS constellations, and offer various interfaces and protocols including HTTP, HTTPS, SNMP, and SSH. Management and configuration are handled via a web interface, CLI, or USB, with NTP client tracking capabilities. Suitable for a wide range of applications, from ISPs to hobbyists, the series offers optional accessories such as different antenna lengths and power supplies.

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Sovereign Tech Fund Invests in OpenStreetMap

2024-12-20

The OpenStreetMap Foundation received a €384,000 grant from the Sovereign Tech Agency to ensure the stability, growth, and modernization of its core software. This funding will be used to update code, improve documentation and testing infrastructure, and enhance core infrastructure, including addressing vandalism and exploring new data interaction methods. Two new roles will be created, including an OSM Core Software Development Facilitator to coordinate developer efforts and foster community contributions.

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Development Sovereign Tech Fund

Klarna Halts Hiring, CEO Claims AI Can Do All Jobs

2024-12-17
Klarna Halts Hiring, CEO Claims AI Can Do All Jobs

Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski has claimed that AI can already perform all jobs currently done by humans, leading the fintech company to halt hiring a year ago. The company's workforce has shrunk from 4,500 to 3,500 employees through attrition. While Klarna's website still advertises open positions, a spokesperson clarified that the company is not actively recruiting to expand but filling essential roles, mainly in engineering. This announcement has fueled concerns about AI's impact on the job market.

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Tech Employment

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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llama.cpp Integrates Qwen2VL Multimodal Model

2024-12-15
llama.cpp Integrates Qwen2VL Multimodal Model

The llama.cpp project on GitHub recently merged a pull request adding support for the Qwen2VL multimodal large language model. This model combines a large language model with a vision encoder, enabling processing of both images and text. Integration involves converting the model's LLM part and vision encoder into GGUF format and using a new command-line tool for inference. Future work includes adding support for more backends like MPS and Vulkan.

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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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Improving F# Error Handling: Introducing FaultReport

2024-12-22

This article critiques the shortcomings of F#'s Result type in error handling, highlighting inconsistencies in error types and the problems stemming from using strings as error types. The author proposes FaultReport as an alternative, using an IFault interface to standardize error types and a Report<'Pass', 'Fail> type to represent operation outcomes, where 'Fail must implement IFault. This ensures consistent and type-safe error handling, avoiding the inconveniences of string-based errors. FaultReport further provides Report.generalize for upcasting and a FailAs active pattern for downcasting, facilitating handling of diverse error types. While replacing FSharp.Core's Result is a significant undertaking, the author argues that FaultReport's design offers a valuable improvement to F#'s error handling.

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Development

Xerox to Acquire Lexmark for $1.5 Billion

2024-12-23

Xerox Holdings Corporation announced it will acquire Lexmark International, Inc. for $1.5 billion. This acquisition strengthens Xerox's core print portfolio and builds a broader global print and managed print services business to better meet the evolving needs of clients in the hybrid workplace. The deal, expected to close in the second half of 2025, combines two industry leaders to create a more comprehensive offering and expand geographic reach, particularly in the APAC region.

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Langfuse: Open-Source LLM Engineering Platform Streamlines Development

2024-12-17
Langfuse: Open-Source LLM Engineering Platform Streamlines Development

Langfuse is an open-source LLM engineering platform designed to simplify the development and deployment of large language model (LLM) applications. It offers features such as LLM observability, metrics, evaluations, prompt management, a playground, and datasets, integrating seamlessly with tools like LlamaIndex, Langchain, OpenAI SDK, and LiteLLM. Developers can use Langfuse to monitor LLM performance, manage prompts, evaluate model effectiveness, and ultimately accelerate LLM application development.

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Development Development Platform

Make Your QEMU 10 Times Faster: A Weird Trick

2024-12-17

While debugging NixOS tests, Linus Heckemann discovered painfully slow data copying times (over 2 hours) in a QEMU virtual machine. Performance analysis with `perf` revealed that QEMU's 9p server used an inefficient linked list (O(n) complexity) for file lookups. By switching to a hash table provided by glib (O(1) complexity), he reduced the test time to 7 minutes and successfully contributed the optimization to the QEMU project.

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Development 9p protocol
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