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VMware Axes Lowest Tier of Partner Program, Sparking Concerns

2025-06-03

VMware Axes Lowest Tier of Partner Program, Sparking Concerns

Broadcom's VMware unit is overhauling its channel partner program, eliminating the lowest tier and imposing stricter requirements on the remaining levels. This move aims to improve partner capabilities and better support customers' transition to VMware's private cloud. While VMware assures vSphere users won't be affected, analysts predict this could push partners towards competitors like Microsoft, Nutanix, and AWS, potentially leading to market share loss. Furthermore, the upcoming VMware Cloud Foundation 9 introduces new licensing demands and hardware compatibility limitations, potentially exacerbating market disruption. The changes have been described as a “pivotal moment” by VMware executives, indicating a significant shift in strategy.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech Channel Program Private Cloud

Wiz: A $32B Acquisition in 5 Years – Decoding Their Growth Hacking Strategy

2025-04-14

Wiz: A $32B Acquisition in 5 Years – Decoding Their Growth Hacking Strategy

Cloud security company Wiz's $32 billion acquisition by Google in just five years is a phenomenal success story. This article dissects the key factors behind Wiz's meteoric rise: First, they created a new product category, Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP), and achieved product-market fit (PMF) through an agentless approach and their innovative Security Graph. Second, their aggressive go-to-market strategy, including unique branding (centered around 'magic' and optimism) and active participation in industry events, rapidly increased brand awareness and market share. Finally, their highly efficient sales team and strong execution ensured rapid growth. Wiz's success provides invaluable lessons for other startups, demonstrating the crucial role of a superior product, a bold marketing strategy, and a distinctive brand identity in achieving phenomenal success.

(www.cybersecuritypulse.net)

Tech

AI-First? Tech CEOs' Groupthink and the Illusion of Productivity

2025-04-30

AI-First? Tech CEOs' Groupthink and the Illusion of Productivity

A recent trend among tech CEOs is the demand for an "AI-first" approach to work, mandating the use of AI tools across the board. The author challenges this, arguing that forcing AI adoption on employees already proficient in their tasks may hinder productivity. Using personal anecdotes, the author illustrates how AI is best suited to assist those lacking specific skills, not replace experts. The author suggests this "AI-first" push is more of a performative act among tech leaders, a way to signal belonging to a particular group, rather than a genuine productivity enhancer. A more effective approach, argues the author, would involve employee choice and a focus on the actual utility of AI tools.

(www.anildash.com)

Tech AI adoption

FreeBSD 14.3 Released: ZFS Upgrades, WiFi Driver Improvements, and More

2025-06-11

FreeBSD 14.3, a stable release serving as a stepping stone to FreeBSD 15, is now available. This release backports numerous improvements from FreeBSD 15, including: ZFS updated to OpenZFS 2.2.7; Realtek RTW88 and RTW89 WiFi drivers merged based on Linux 6.14; LinuxKPI enhancements for crypto offload and 802.11n/ac support; Intel IX Ethernet driver support for x550 1000BAS-BX SFP modules; and updates to XZ, OpenSSH, OpenSSL, and many other packages. The legacy Syscons console driver is deprecated.

(www.phoronix.com)

Development

Denmark Ditches Windows for Linux: A Move Towards Digital Sovereignty

2025-06-22

Denmark Ditches Windows for Linux: A Move Towards Digital Sovereignty

Denmark's Ministry of Digital Affairs is making a significant shift, moving away from Windows and Office 365 to embrace Linux and LibreOffice. This decision reflects a growing focus on digital sovereignty, aiming to reduce reliance on a few foreign tech giants. The transition, starting this summer, will affect roughly half of the ministry's systems. This high-profile move underscores a global trend towards greater technological independence and control over critical infrastructure.

(www.pcgamer.com)

Tech

Overusing useCallback and useMemo in React

2025-07-28

Overusing useCallback and useMemo in React

This article discusses the overuse of `useCallback` and `useMemo` in React development. The author argues that in many cases, these hooks are used to achieve referential stability, but this is not always necessary and can even lead to performance overhead and code complexity. The article presents several scenarios, such as when components aren't memoized and when props are used as dependencies in effects, where using `useCallback` and `useMemo` provides no performance benefit and adds unnecessary complexity. The author suggests avoiding overuse of these hooks unless there's a clear performance bottleneck and recommends using refs or the upcoming `useEffectEvent` to handle referential stability issues.

(tkdodo.eu)

Development

Sunlight-Powered Flight: Battery-Free Atmospheric Explorers

2025-08-16

Sunlight-Powered Flight: Battery-Free Atmospheric Explorers

Harvard researchers have designed a battery-free, miniature flying device that uses sunlight for propulsion, allowing it to levitate in the upper atmosphere. The device consists of two ultrathin layers of aluminum oxide, generating lift through a thermal difference created by sunlight and a clever hole design, acting like a miniature 'solar-powered helicopter'. This technology promises to explore understudied regions of Earth's atmosphere, even the edge of space, opening new avenues for atmospheric science research.

(www.nature.com)

Tech flying device atmospheric exploration

Poltergeist: The Ghost That Keeps Your Builds Fresh

2025-08-09

Poltergeist: The Ghost That Keeps Your Builds Fresh

Poltergeist is an AI-friendly universal file watcher that auto-detects and rebuilds any project upon file changes. It supports macOS, Linux, and Windows, offering both a standalone binary and an npm package. Features include a smart build queue, real-time build output, inline error diagnostics, and optimization for both human and AI workflows, dramatically increasing development speed.

(github.com)

Development file watcher auto build

Spirit Airlines teeters on the brink of bankruptcy

2025-08-12

Spirit Airlines teeters on the brink of bankruptcy

Just months after emerging from bankruptcy, budget airline Spirit Airlines is warning of substantial doubt about its ability to remain a going concern within the next year. Weak domestic leisure travel demand and increased competition have led to a $245.8 million net loss in Q2 2025, significantly higher than the previous year. Unlike larger carriers, Spirit heavily relies on domestic leisure travel and hasn't been able to offset losses through premium offerings. To meet debt obligations and credit card processor requirements, the airline is considering selling assets, including aircraft, real estate, and airport gate rights. This highlights the vulnerability of the airline industry under economic pressure.

(www.businessinsider.com)

Tech airline industry budget airline

Elon Musk and Ketamine: A Risky Remedy?

2025-03-12

Elon Musk and Ketamine: A Risky Remedy?

Elon Musk's public admission of regular ketamine use for depression has sparked concerns about his mental health and behavior. The article explores the dual nature of ketamine as an anesthetic and antidepressant, and the potential cognitive and psychological impairments associated with long-term abuse. Musk's case raises questions about substance use within the tech elite and the complex relationship between power and personal well-being. The prevalence of ketamine also highlights the need for responsible mental health treatment and regulation.

(www.theatlantic.com)

Misc Ketamine

Reddit's Ambitious Search Engine Play: A Battle Against Google, Powered by AI

2025-08-01

Reddit's Ambitious Search Engine Play: A Battle Against Google, Powered by AI

Reddit, leveraging its vast user-generated data, is heavily investing in improving its search capabilities, aiming to become a go-to search engine. CEO Steve Huffman highlights the platform's weekly hundreds of millions of users seeking advice, and Reddit's efforts to convert this into active users of its native search. Core Reddit search boasts over 70 million weekly active users, while its AI-powered search tool, Reddit Answers, launched in December, has seen explosive growth, reaching 6 million weekly users from 1 million in Q1. Reddit plans to expand Reddit Answers globally, deeply integrating it into the core search experience. This move is seen as a strategic counter to Google's rising AI-powered search, which increasingly provides direct answers rather than link lists. Reddit benefits from users appending 'Reddit' to Google searches for human-generated content.

(www.theverge.com)

Tech

FCC Rejects Regulatory Fee Proposals Targeting Big Tech

2025-08-30

FCC Rejects Regulatory Fee Proposals Targeting Big Tech

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has rejected proposals to impose cable-style regulatory fees on streaming services, tech companies, and broadband providers. Groups like the NAB argued that these companies benefit from FCC resources and should contribute financially. However, the FCC cited administrative difficulties and a lack of evidence showing increased regulatory burdens imposed by tech firms. Telecommunications and tech trade groups opposed the proposals, arguing fees should only cover directly regulated industries. The FCC's decision maintains the existing fee structure, with broadcasters, satellite operators, and licensees bearing the burden through fiscal year 2025.

(thedesk.net)

Tech Regulatory Fees

The Death of SSL Certificate Management (as We Know It)

2025-08-26

Managing SSL certificates is becoming a nightmare. What was once a quarterly task is now a weekly struggle, driven by increasingly stringent validation requirements and drastically shortened certificate lifespans—down to a mere 47 days by 2029! This escalating burden is pushing organizations towards platform-integrated certificate management or free alternatives like Let's Encrypt, potentially disrupting the traditional CA market. The author questions whether these changes genuinely enhance security or simply add unnecessary overhead for already strained IT teams.

(www.chrislockard.net)

Development certificate management

Hacking the Exception Handler: A Tale of DirectX, Flash, and Code Modification

2025-05-21

A team encountered a frustrating issue while using `SetUnhandledExceptionFilter` for unhandled exception handling: Direct3D and Flash were installing their own exception filters, rendering the team's solution ineffective. To resolve this, they employed a bold strategy: directly disabling the `SetUnhandledExceptionFilter` function via code modification to ensure their exception handler took precedence. The article details the process of code modification, including obtaining the function address, verifying the initial instructions, and utilizing `VirtualProtect` and `FlushInstructionCache` APIs for code replacement. Their solution restored proper exception reporting functionality.

(chadaustin.me)

Development code modification

Ex-Dev Imprisoned for Sabotaging Ex-Employer's Network with Kill Switch

2025-08-22

Ex-Dev Imprisoned for Sabotaging Ex-Employer's Network with Kill Switch

Davis Lu, 55, was sentenced to four years in prison for sabotaging his former employer's Windows network. After being terminated, Lu activated malicious code he'd secretly embedded, causing system crashes and locking out thousands of users via a kill switch. He also deleted encrypted data from his company laptop. The act resulted in significant financial losses for the Ohio-based company. He was found guilty of intentionally damaging protected computers and will serve three years of supervised release following his prison sentence.

(www.bleepingcomputer.com)

Development

A Dev's Week-Long Marketing Experiment: From Code to Social Media

2025-09-21

A Dev's Week-Long Marketing Experiment: From Code to Social Media

A developer of a fitness app, Lagree Buddy, challenged himself to focus solely on marketing for a week to promote his app. He tried various strategies, including social media posting, cold emailing fitness studios and trainers, and attending a class by Sebastian Lagree. While the numbers didn't immediately show improvement, he forged connections with Lagreeing at Home and Sebastian Lagree himself, gaining valuable feedback and laying the groundwork for future marketing efforts. The experiment revealed that marketing is far harder than he anticipated, but also opened doors that code alone couldn't.

(www.pixelpusher.club)

Startup app marketing social media marketing developer startup

CompactLog: A High-Performance Certificate Transparency Log Implementation

2025-06-10

CompactLog: A High-Performance Certificate Transparency Log Implementation

CompactLog is a Certificate Transparency (CT) log implementation built on LSM-tree storage, addressing scalability challenges faced by traditional CT logs. Leveraging SlateDB for LSM-tree storage, it employs STH-boundary versioning and synchronous tree updates to achieve a Maximum Merge Delay (MMD) of 0 seconds. By batching submissions and incorporating certificates into the Merkle tree before issuing SCTs, it eliminates the MMD inherent in many traditional CT logs. Furthermore, CompactLog features certificate chain deduplication, significantly reducing storage costs. Its high performance and reliability make it an ideal choice for next-generation CT logs.

(github.com)

Tech Merkle Tree

Rebuilding ProseMirror's Renderer in React: A Tale of Two Libraries

2025-02-10

The author recounts their experience working on the New York Times' rich text editor, Oak, built with React and ProseMirror. The integration, however, proved problematic, leading to persistent bugs. After four years of grappling with the complexities of both libraries, the team opted to rewrite ProseMirror's renderer in React. This resolved issues like state tearing, resulting in a new library, @handlewithcare/react-prosemirror, boasting improved performance and compatibility.

(smoores.dev)

Development Rich Text Editor

The Surprisingly Genius (and Hilariously Awkward) Air Sickness Bag

2025-05-17

The Surprisingly Genius (and Hilariously Awkward) Air Sickness Bag

A writer recounts their unexpectedly embarrassing experience using an air sickness bag during a flight. The article details the awkwardness of the situation and then delves into the surprisingly ingenious design and history of the emesis bag, from its humble beginnings as a paper bag to its modern iterations. It touches upon the surprising community of air sickness bag collectors and the various uses airlines have found for them, from simple waste disposal to quirky marketing. The piece concludes with a newfound appreciation for this often-overlooked marvel of aviation.

(www.theautopian.com)

Misc air sickness bag

Reviving DOS: A USB-Bootable Writing Machine for the 21st Century

2025-04-26

Reviving DOS: A USB-Bootable Writing Machine for the 21st Century

The sheer size and complexity of modern operating systems, even open-source ones, often evokes nostalgia for the days of DOS. A simple, lightweight OS, DOS could boot from three files and configuration was a matter of editing a couple of text files. Now, a community project offers a USB-bootable DOS experience, pre-loaded with classic writing applications like WordPerfect and Arnor Protext. This provides a distraction-free writing environment for those seeking to disconnect from the internet. While limited in functionality, it offers a surprisingly efficient and focused writing experience, harkening back to a simpler time.

(www.theregister.com)

Development Writing Tools

Spotting Base64 Encoded JSON, Certificates, and Private Keys with the Naked Eye

2025-08-06

Spotting Base64 Encoded JSON, Certificates, and Private Keys with the Naked Eye

A developer, examining a supposedly encrypted file for safe Github commit, discovered a base64 encoded JSON string within. A colleague pointed out this pattern. Surprisingly, they found that base64 encoded certificates and private keys also have similar easily-spotted characteristics, such as certificates often starting with "LS". This simple trick helps developers quickly identify sensitive information and avoid accidentally committing secrets like keys to public repositories.

(ergaster.org)

Development

uv: Streamlining Python Script Dependency Management

2025-07-22

uv is a powerful tool that simplifies dependency management for Python scripts. It eliminates the need for manual environment management, automatically handling virtual environments and preferring a declarative approach to dependencies. Whether your script relies on standard library modules or external packages like `rich`, uv makes execution straightforward with the `uv run` command, specifying dependencies via the `--with` option. uv also supports inline script metadata, allowing dependency and Python version declarations directly within the script. Further enhancing reproducibility, uv offers dependency locking and handles various scenarios, including reading scripts from stdin, supporting .pyw extensions, and specifying alternative package indices.

(docs.astral.sh)

Development virtual environments

The Chaos of English: A Poem Exposing the Madness of Spelling

2025-01-11

Gerard Nolst Trenité's 'The Chaos' is a classic poem showcasing the irregularities of English spelling and pronunciation. Using nearly 800 words, Trenité masterfully weaves together rhyming couplets featuring words with wildly inconsistent pronunciations, like 'heart, hear, heard' and 'one, anemone, Balmoral'. This rhythmic exploration of English's phonetic labyrinth is both a fascinating linguistic puzzle and a testament to the challenges faced by learners and native speakers alike. The poem sparks reflection on the quirks and complexities of the English language.

(ncf.idallen.com)

Misc English spelling English pronunciation

SpaceX vs. ULA: A Battle of Orbital Altitudes

2025-04-10

SpaceX vs. ULA: A Battle of Orbital Altitudes

SpaceX and ULA are competing in the rocket launch market. SpaceX dominates low-Earth orbit (LEO) launches with its Falcon 9 rocket, leveraging high launch frequency and reusability for cost-effectiveness. ULA's Vulcan rocket excels in high-energy orbit missions, with its Centaur V upper stage proving efficient for long-duration tasks, particularly placing military payloads directly into geosynchronous orbit. While SpaceX significantly outpaces ULA in launch volume, ULA maintains a strong position in high-energy missions due to experience and the Vulcan's capabilities. Each company holds an advantage in different orbital niches, making the competitive landscape mission-specific.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech rocket launches

DeepSeek: A Cost-Effective Open-Source LLM Challenging ChatGPT

2025-02-08

DeepSeek: A Cost-Effective Open-Source LLM Challenging ChatGPT

DeepSeek, an open-source large language model (LLM) developed by a Chinese AI research company, is challenging ChatGPT with its unique Mixture of Experts (MoE) architecture. Its efficiency comes from activating only necessary parameters, resulting in faster speeds and lower costs. Features like multi-head attention and multi-token prediction enable superior performance in long conversations and complex reasoning. Despite concerns about its data sources, DeepSeek's cost-effectiveness and direct output style make it a compelling alternative to ChatGPT.

(codedoodles.substack.com)

AI

Eight-Year Espionage Campaign Leveraging Unpatched Windows Shortcut Vulnerability

2025-03-18

Eight-Year Espionage Campaign Leveraging Unpatched Windows Shortcut Vulnerability

Trend Micro discovered an eight-year-old espionage campaign exploiting a vulnerability in Windows .LNK shortcut files. Attackers embed malicious code by obscuring commands within megabytes of whitespace in the command-line arguments. Despite Trend Micro reporting this to Microsoft last September, Microsoft considers it a low-priority UI issue, not a security vulnerability, and refuses to patch it. This vulnerability has been used in attacks targeting governments, private sectors, and financial institutions, with 46% of attacks originating from North Korea. Trend Micro decided to publicly disclose the vulnerability, as even local code execution, combined with other exploits, easily compromises systems. Microsoft stated they will consider addressing this in a future feature release, advising users to exercise caution when downloading files from unknown sources.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech Windows vulnerability espionage

Debugging a Race Condition: The RtlRunOnceExecuteOnce Trap

2025-03-23

Debugging a Race Condition: The RtlRunOnceExecuteOnce Trap

A colleague encountered a tricky concurrency issue during a weekly debug session: a critical section failed to prevent two threads from entering the same code block, leading to a `TraceLoggingRegister` double-registration failure. Deep debugging revealed the root cause: the initialization function `InitializeCriticalSectionOnce` for `RtlRunOnceExecuteOnce` incorrectly returned `STATUS_SUCCESS` (0). This led `RtlRunOnceExecuteOnce` to believe initialization failed, causing it to re-initialize the critical section on every call, triggering the race condition. The solution was to change the return value to `TRUE`, or more elegantly, replace `CRITICAL_SECTION` with `SRWLOCK`. This case highlights how subtle return value errors can lead to severe consequences and underscores the importance of choosing the appropriate synchronization primitive.

(devblogs.microsoft.com)

Development

Delhi Scraps Controversial Old Vehicle Ban After Public Backlash

2025-07-08

Delhi Scraps Controversial Old Vehicle Ban After Public Backlash

Delhi's government has reversed a plan to ban older vehicles from city roads after significant public opposition. The plan, which would have used ANPR cameras at gas stations to deny fuel to older petrol and diesel cars, sparked outrage, particularly among the middle class. Concerns about enforcement difficulties and economic impacts, coupled with technological challenges and lack of inter-state coordination, led to the policy's reversal. While committed to tackling air pollution, the government acknowledged the need to balance environmental concerns with the social and economic needs of its citizens, opting for long-term sustainable transport solutions.

(nz.news.yahoo.com)

Misc vehicle ban Delhi government

David Lynch's Commercials: Where Art Meets Commerce

2025-03-29

David Lynch's Commercials: Where Art Meets Commerce

David Lynch, renowned for surrealist films like Eraserhead and Blue Velvet, has surprisingly lent his distinctive artistic vision to the world of commercials. From Calvin Klein fragrance ads to Georgia Coffee campaigns and even New York City's anti-littering initiatives, Lynch's commercials seamlessly blend his signature unsettling atmosphere with commercial objectives. Interestingly, some of these ads aired primarily in Europe and Asia, hinting at a wider global appreciation for his unique style.

(www.openculture.com)

Design commercials

Apple Eyes Anthropic or OpenAI AI to Revamp Siri

2025-07-01

Apple Eyes Anthropic or OpenAI AI to Revamp Siri

Apple is reportedly considering using AI technology from Anthropic or OpenAI to power a new version of Siri, potentially sidelining its own in-house models. This move aims to revitalize Apple's lagging AI efforts. Discussions have included integrating the companies' large language models onto Apple's cloud infrastructure for testing.

(www.bloomberg.com)

Tech

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