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Python Meta-Circular Interpreter: Implementing a Python Interpreter in Python

2024-12-18

This article demonstrates how to create a Python meta-circular interpreter (MCI) using Python itself. An MCI is an interpreter written in the language it interprets, allowing implementation of a subset or superset of the host language. The author details the MCI's implementation, covering parsing Python source code, building an Abstract Syntax Tree (AST), traversing the AST and executing statements, and crucial concepts like scoping, symbol tables, and handling control flow statements (e.g., while loops and if statements). This example provides a deep understanding of interpreter mechanics and showcases how to leverage Python's AST module and built-in functions to build more complex interpreters.

(rahul.gopinath.org)

Development Meta-circular Interpreter

Parker Solar Probe to Make Historic Dive into Sun's Atmosphere

2024-12-20

Parker Solar Probe to Make Historic Dive into Sun's Atmosphere

After six years of traveling through space, NASA's Parker Solar Probe is poised to make history on Christmas Eve, plunging into the Sun's atmosphere at an unprecedented speed, coming within 3.8 million miles of the solar surface. This daring mission aims to unravel the mystery of the solar wind's origin, a question that has puzzled scientists for over half a century. The probe is equipped with cutting-edge materials, including heat-resistant titanium-zirconium-molybdenum alloy and sapphire crystal tubes, to withstand the extreme temperatures exceeding 2,500° Fahrenheit. This groundbreaking endeavor promises to shed light on the solar wind and its impact on our solar system.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech Parker Solar Probe Solar Wind Solar Atmosphere

Cultural Evolution of Cooperation Among LLM Agents

2024-12-18

Researchers investigated whether a 'society' of Large Language Model (LLM) agents can learn mutually beneficial social norms despite incentives to defect. Experiments revealed significant differences in the evolution of cooperation across base models, with Claude 3.5 Sonnet significantly outperforming Gemini 1.5 Flash and GPT-4o. Furthermore, Claude 3.5 Sonnet leveraged a costly punishment mechanism to achieve even higher scores, a feat not replicated by the other models. This study proposes a new benchmark for LLMs focused on the societal implications of LLM agent deployment, offering insights into building more robust and cooperative AI agents.

(arxiv.org)

AI Cooperation Social Norms

Jupyter Notebooks: E2E Testing and Documentation in One

2024-12-18

While developing a quantum computing library, the author leveraged Jupyter Notebooks as both user guides and end-to-end tests. By reading environment variables (like SERVER_URL) within the notebooks, they achieved parameterization, allowing execution by users and automated CI/CD pipelines. Two methods for running notebooks were explored: nbclient for simplicity, and nbconvert/jq for more control but increased complexity. The author opted for nbclient's ease of use, effectively integrating documentation maintenance and code testing, ensuring the integrity of both with every merge request.

(rakhim.exotext.com)

Development E2E testing

tldraw Computer: A JavaScript-Dependent Machine

2024-12-20

tldraw Computer: A JavaScript-Dependent Machine

tldraw has released a computer called "tldraw computer," but it requires JavaScript to run. This suggests the computer might be web-based or heavily reliant on a JavaScript runtime environment, rather than traditional hardware architecture.

(computer.tldraw.com)

Hardware web-based computer

LHC Unveils 23 Exotic Hadrons, Challenging Strong Interaction Theories

2024-12-20

LHC Unveils 23 Exotic Hadrons, Challenging Strong Interaction Theories

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has yielded a surprising discovery: 23 exotic hadrons, including pentaquarks and tetraquarks, whose structures defy explanation by current theories. This discovery, akin to a fascinating detective story, is driving theorists to develop new models, such as hadronic molecule models and compact tetraquark models. Future experiments at the High-Luminosity LHC, Belle II, and BESIII will provide more data, offering further clues to unraveling the mysteries of the strong interaction.

(cerncourier.com)

Physics hadrons Large Hadron Collider strong interaction

America's Healthcare System: A Total Breakdown, Beyond Insurance Companies

2024-12-14

America's Healthcare System: A Total Breakdown, Beyond Insurance Companies

The American healthcare system is broken, and the problem extends far beyond insurance companies. An oncologist argues that pharmaceutical firms, PBMs (pharmacy benefit managers), the FDA, CMS, hospitals, and doctors all share responsibility. Pharmaceutical companies push unproven drugs, PBMs profit excessively, regulators are lax, hospitals charge exorbitant fees and engage in predatory practices, and doctors order unnecessary tests and treatments. While insurance companies are frustrating, they are a scapegoat for a larger systemic issue. The author calls for sweeping reforms of the FDA and CMS to end corporate capture of regulatory agencies, addressing the high costs and inefficiency of the US healthcare system. The recent assassination of an insurance CEO highlights public frustration with the system.

(www.sensible-med.com)

Misc healthcare reform healthcare costs US healthcare

AI Makes Strides in Mathematics: OpenAI's o3 Model Achieves Remarkable Score on FrontierMath Dataset

2024-12-23

AI Makes Strides in Mathematics: OpenAI's o3 Model Achieves Remarkable Score on FrontierMath Dataset

OpenAI's new language model, o3, achieved a 25% accuracy rate on the FrontierMath dataset, sparking a debate within the mathematics community about AI's mathematical capabilities. FrontierMath is a secret dataset containing hundreds of complex mathematical problems that require calculating specific numerical values rather than simply proving theorems. o3's performance is surprising, as it surpasses the previous limitations of AI, which could only solve problems at the level of math olympiads or undergraduate studies. While the dataset's difficulty and sample representativeness remain debated, this achievement marks significant progress for AI in mathematics, prompting reflections on AI's future development and the direction of mathematical research.

(xenaproject.wordpress.com)

AI

Offline Reinforcement Learning Boosts Multi-Step Reasoning in LLMs

2024-12-23

Researchers introduce OREO, an offline reinforcement learning method designed to enhance the multi-step reasoning capabilities of large language models (LLMs). Building upon maximum entropy reinforcement learning, OREO jointly learns a policy model and value function by optimizing the soft Bellman equation. This addresses limitations of Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) in multi-step reasoning, specifically the need for extensive paired preference data and the challenge of effective credit assignment. Experiments demonstrate OREO's superiority over existing offline learning methods on benchmarks involving mathematical reasoning and embodied agent control.

(arxiv.org)

AI Multi-step Reasoning

38th Chaos Communication Congress: Technology, Society, and Utopia Converge

2024-12-24

The 38th Chaos Communication Congress (38C3) will take place in Hamburg from December 27-30, 2024. This annual four-day conference, organized by the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) and volunteers, explores the intersection of technology, society, and utopia. The event features lectures, workshops, and various events on topics including information technology and a critical-creative approach to technology's societal impact. Participation is encouraged through volunteering, organizing events, and presenting projects, fostering a collaborative exploration of technology's future.

(events.ccc.de)

Tech Chaos Communication Congress Technology Conference Volunteer

The Moon: A Captivating Cosmic Journey

2024-12-17

The Moon: A Captivating Cosmic Journey

This article takes a captivating journey through the intricacies of the Moon's motion, the Earth-Moon system, and the dynamics of a three-body system within our solar system. Using interactive demonstrations, the author explains phenomena like lunar orbits, tides, solar and lunar eclipses, and reveals the formation of lunar surface features and the reasons behind the Moon's brightness. Covering concepts such as gravity and the conservation of angular momentum, the article explains complex astronomical phenomena in an accessible way, making it a scientifically engaging and entertaining read.

(ciechanow.ski)

Misc Moon Cosmos

An Epitome of Electricity & Galvanism: A Journey Through Time

2024-12-22

An Epitome of Electricity & Galvanism: A Journey Through Time

This book chronicles the history of electricity and galvanism, starting from Thales's ancient observation of amber attracting light objects and progressing through key discoveries. It details the work of Gilbert, who systematically studied electrical phenomena; Grey, who differentiated conductors and non-conductors; and Du Fay, who discovered positive and negative electricity. The culmination is Franklin's proof of the identity of electricity and lightning. The text thoroughly describes various experiments and apparatus, including the Leyden jar, electrostatic generators, and lightning rods, while exploring different eras' electrical theories, offering a captivating journey through the science's evolution.

(gutenberg.org)

Tech History of Electricity Galvanism Franklin

OCR Challenge: Digitizing Saint-Simon's Memoirs

2024-12-17

The author spent several weeks using OCR to digitize a late 19th-century edition of the 18th-century French memoirs, *Les Mémoires de Saint-Simon*. This 45-volume behemoth, containing over 3 million words, is available online as images, but is difficult to read. The goal was to create a readable, searchable, and copyable text version. Challenges included poor image quality and parsing different page zones (headers, main text, margin comments, footnotes, etc.). Google Vision API was used for OCR, with a Python program processing the results to identify and separate text from different areas. While LLMs failed to reliably handle footnote references, the author improved the program and incorporated manual review, resulting in the release of the first volume.

(blog.medusis.com)

Development Text Processing Digital Humanities

Nostalgic Game 'Alley Cat' Remake Released

2024-12-17

Programmer Joflof has finally completed a remake of the classic 1983 game 'Alley Cat' after many years of work. This remake not only retains the original pixel graphics and sound effects but also adds five new levels and multiplayer modes for up to four kittens to play simultaneously. Additionally, Joflof has included special arcade mode configuration options for arcade enthusiasts. Currently, the game is only available for Windows, but the author hopes that enthusiasts will help port it to Linux and Mac systems.

(www.joflof.com)

Game retro game remake arcade game

Argentine Rodents Thrive in Dubai Oasis

2024-12-19

Argentine Rodents Thrive in Dubai Oasis

A surprising new population of Patagonian mara, rabbit-like rodents from Argentina, has established itself in the Al Qudra Lakes oasis outside Dubai. These long-legged, large-eared animals now roam the desert landscape, typically home to gazelles. Their arrival remains a mystery, possibly stemming from escaped pets of the wealthy. Despite the harsh desert climate, the oasis provides a suitable habitat, and the lack of natural predators has allowed the mara to flourish and reproduce for several years. The thriving population suggests successful adaptation and breeding in their unexpected environment.

(apnews.com)

Misc Dubai Patagonian mara wildlife

WordPress.org Pauses Services for Holiday Break

2024-12-20

To give volunteers a holiday break, WordPress.org is temporarily pausing several free services: new account registrations, new plugin/theme submissions, and new photo directory submissions. Forums and localization remain open. Founder Matt Mullenweg explains that legal battles with WP Engine are consuming significant time and resources, hindering his work on WordPress improvements. He urges support for WordPress.org and suggests using alternative web hosts not involved in the litigation.

(wordpress.org)

Development Holiday Break Legal Battle

Jujutsu: A Revolutionary Version Control System

2024-12-22

Jujutsu is a new version control system built on top of Git, offering a simplified approach to local file interaction through a unique conceptual model and command set. Unlike Git, Jujutsu always treats the working copy state as a commit, instantly reflecting any on-disk edits in the current commit. This streamlines many operations, including fixing typos in old commits, viewing diffs, and managing work in progress. The workflow is intuitive, easily accessible even without prior Git experience, and seamlessly integrates with the Git ecosystem. While some features like perfect VSCode integration are still missing, Jujutsu shows immense potential with its innovative design and user-friendly experience.

(neugierig.org)

Development

Software Design Philosophy: Taming Complexity

2024-12-21

This post summarizes three key ideas from the book "A Philosophy of Software Design": zero tolerance for complexity, the misconception that smaller components always equate to better modularity, and the complexities inherent in exception handling. The author argues that complexity isn't caused by single errors but accumulates over time. Examples of an order processing system and user registration illustrate how to avoid duplicated code and find the right balance between component size and modularity. Furthermore, the post details three techniques to reduce exception handling complexity: eliminating errors, masking exceptions, and exception aggregation, with file processing serving as an example. The book ultimately emphasizes the importance of consistently simplifying complexity in software design.

(www.16elt.com)

Development software design complexity exception handling

The Hidden Engineering of Wildlife Crossings

2024-12-21

The Hidden Engineering of Wildlife Crossings

The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, a $92 million project near Los Angeles, is the world's largest wildlife crossing of its kind. This article delves into the engineering behind these vital structures, addressing the challenges of habitat fragmentation, noise pollution, and wildlife-vehicle collisions caused by roads. It explores various design aspects, including site selection, crossing types (underpasses, overpasses, culverts), fencing strategies, and attracting animals to use the crossings. The article highlights the different crossing behaviors of various species and corresponding engineering solutions, such as elevated bridges for large animals and culverts for smaller ones. Design considerations include animal behavior, topography, vegetation, and ensuring the crossings blend seamlessly into the landscape, minimizing human-wildlife conflict.

(practical.engineering)

Tech Wildlife Crossings Engineering Ecology

Home Assistant's Internet Accessibility Security Flaw

2024-12-15

Frederik Braun attempted to use Home Assistant for remote smart home control but discovered a significant security vulnerability. While Home Assistant offers username/password and two-factor authentication, its inability to handle URLs with embedded credentials and its requirement for root path deployment prevent additional security layers like web server authentication or obfuscated paths. This leaves Home Assistant's security solely reliant on its internal mechanisms, creating a security risk. The author calls on the Home Assistant community to improve its security configuration flexibility.

(frederikbraun.de)

Development Remote Access

Bank of North Dakota: A Century of Success, Boosting State's Economy

2024-12-18

Bank of North Dakota: A Century of Success, Boosting State's Economy

The Bank of North Dakota (BND) is the only state-owned and -operated general-service bank in the United States, established in 1919 to foster agriculture, commerce, and industry. It leverages state funds to provide loans and financial services for infrastructure projects, agriculture, and small businesses, and acts as a wholesale bank for local institutions. BND played a crucial role during the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrating its profitability and positive impact on the state's economy. Its unique model has made it a standout success story in the American financial system.

(en.wikipedia.org)

Startup state-owned bank economic development financial services

cqd: A Colorful Python Utility for Inspecting Object Attributes

2024-12-22

cqd: A Colorful Python Utility for Inspecting Object Attributes

cqd is a lightweight Python utility that provides a colorful visualization of object attributes, simplifying object inspection during development and debugging. It color-codes attributes: dunder methods (blue), protected attributes (yellow), and public attributes/methods (green). For example, it's useful for easily viewing attributes of a Hugging Face tokenizer. Installation is easy via `pip install cqd`. Usage involves importing the `cqd` function and calling `cqd(your_object).

(github.com)

Development debugging tool object attributes

Coder's Million-Dollar Mistake: A Bug with a Dramatic Twist

2024-12-16

Coder's Million-Dollar Mistake: A Bug with a Dramatic Twist

Trey, a programmer working for a 3G telecom startup, wrote an automated payment testing program intended for small test transactions. Three bugs in the code, however, caused the program to credit his test account with $100 every five minutes. A lack of liveness check meant that when one gateway failed, the program continued running for hours, accumulating a substantial sum. The next morning, Trey faced questioning from the security team until his department head explained the situation, but the test account balance was reset to zero.

(www.theregister.com)

Development programmer error automated payments

GitHub Project Map: Visualizing 400,000+ Projects

2024-12-15

GitHub Project Map: Visualizing 400,000+ Projects

Developer Anvaka created an interactive map visualizing over 400,000 GitHub projects using publicly available data. The project uses Jaccard similarity to calculate relationships between projects and the Leiden algorithm for clustering. The result is a visually stunning representation of the GitHub ecosystem, allowing users to search and explore connections between projects, revealing its complexity and richness.

(github.com)

Development project relationships

CCxTrust: A Confidential Computing Platform Leveraging Collaborative Trust from TEE and TPM

2024-12-12

CCxTrust is a novel confidential computing platform that cleverly combines the strengths of Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) and Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs) to establish a collaborative trust framework. By leveraging the black-box Root of Trust (RoT) embedded in CPU-TEEs and the flexible white-box RoT of TPMs, CCxTrust achieves end-to-end protection of sensitive data and models, overcoming the limitations of relying on a single hardware RoT. The platform implements independent Roots of Trust for Measurement (RTM) and a collaborative Root of Trust for Report (RTR), further enhanced by a composite attestation protocol for improved security and efficiency. Experimental results demonstrate significant performance advantages.

(arxiv.org)

AI Confidential Computing Trusted Execution Environment Trusted Platform Module

Litestack: All-in-One Data Infrastructure Gem for Ruby on Rails

2024-12-23

Litestack: All-in-One Data Infrastructure Gem for Ruby on Rails

Litestack is a Ruby gem offering a comprehensive data infrastructure solution for Ruby and Ruby on Rails applications. Leveraging SQLite's power, it integrates a full-fledged SQL database, a fast cache, a robust job queue, a reliable message broker, a full-text search engine, and a metrics platform—all in one package. Unlike traditional approaches requiring separate servers and databases, Litestack delivers superior performance, efficiency, ease of use, and cost savings. Its embedded database and cache reduce memory and CPU usage, while its streamlined interface simplifies development. It seamlessly integrates with ActiveRecord and Sequel and automatically optimizes for Fiber-based I/O frameworks.

(github.com)

Development Data Infrastructure

Surfer Protocol: Open-Source Framework for Personal Data Control

2024-12-17

Surfer Protocol: Open-Source Framework for Personal Data Control

Surfer Protocol is an open-source framework that empowers users to export and build applications based on their personal data. Addressing the issue of data siloed across numerous platforms, Surfer Protocol offers a solution. It comprises a desktop application for exporting data from various apps and services, and a Python SDK for building applications using this data. Users can leverage Surfer Protocol to create personalized AI models, reclaim control of their data from big tech, or leave a digital legacy.

(github.com)

Development personal data open-source framework data export

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.

(openjdk.org)

Development

New Study Pinpoints Neanderthal Interbreeding with Modern Humans

2024-12-13

New Study Pinpoints Neanderthal Interbreeding with Modern Humans

A new analysis of ancient DNA from modern humans in Europe and Asia has precisely determined the timeframe of Neanderthal interbreeding with Homo sapiens. The interbreeding began approximately 50,500 years ago and lasted for about 7,000 years, until Neanderthals began to disappear. This research, using 58 ancient genomes and present-day human genomes, revealed an average interbreeding date of around 47,000 years ago, consistent with archeological evidence. The study also found that East Asians possess about 20% more Neanderthal genes than Europeans and West Asians, potentially due to the presence of mixed genes when modern humans migrated eastward around 47,000 years ago. The findings offer a more complete picture of past human migrations and gene flow, and shed light on the impact of Neanderthal genes on modern human health.

(news.berkeley.edu)

Tech Neanderthals Homo sapiens Gene flow

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.

(t2sde.org)

Development Cross-Compilation Package Manager

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