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The Chrome-Tastic Airbrush Art of the 80s: A Nostalgic Look Back

2025-08-15

The 80s saw airbrush art explode in popularity. The author recounts their teenage yearning for an airbrush, dreaming of painting band logos and making money. While computer design eventually took over, the author fondly remembers the unique chrome effects, gradients, and speed lines of 80s airbrush art. Digital art today perfectly replicates the style, but lacks the organic imperfections of the original. The author hopes to one day rediscover their old airbrush and revisit this iconic art form.

(www.coolandcollected.com)

Design 80s art airbrush art

Self-Playing Guitar System: 9400 Hours of Mastery, $40,000 Price Tag

2025-08-15

Self-Playing Guitar System: 9400 Hours of Mastery, $40,000 Price Tag

Michael Kuzma, a guitarist and electrical engineer, spent 9,400 hours developing his Kuzma Self-Playing Guitar System. This invention, attachable to any guitar, uses 3D-printed parts, motors, and actuators to pick and fret. While not quite ready for Hendrix, it can handle Oasis covers. Kuzma even uses it for hands-free busking. The robot guitar can play at speeds exceeding human capabilities (44 notes per second!). Kuzma custom-builds these systems, starting at $40,000, with the final price depending on customizations, the chosen guitar, and delivery location.

(www.core77.com)

Tech robot guitar

Tilck: A Minimalist, Educational Kernel with Linux Compatibility

2025-07-16

Tilck: A Minimalist, Educational Kernel with Linux Compatibility

Tilck is an educational monolithic kernel designed for binary-level Linux compatibility, currently running on i686 and RISCV64. Its small, simple design makes it ideal for learning kernel programming, allowing comparison of user-mode code execution between Linux and Tilck. Tilck doesn't require custom applications; it runs mainstream Linux programs like the BusyBox suite. Future applications may include embedded systems demanding determinism and ultra-low latency, bridging the gap between Embedded Linux and real-time OSes like FreeRTOS or Zephyr.

(github.com)

Development

65-Year-Old Math Mystery Solved: Dimension 126 Hosts Weird Shapes

2025-05-05

65-Year-Old Math Mystery Solved: Dimension 126 Hosts Weird Shapes

After 65 years, mathematicians have finally proven the existence of strangely twisted shapes in dimension 126, shapes that cannot be transformed into a sphere through a simple surgical procedure. This research reveals the bizarre nature of shapes in higher dimensions and solves the long-standing "doomsday hypothesis." The team used a combination of computer calculations and theoretical insights to complete this monumental project.

(www.quantamagazine.org)

Math higher dimensions mathematical problem

Arbitrage Opportunities in Steam's TF2 Economy: A Data-Driven Analysis

2025-04-08

This article analyzes the market dynamics of in-game item trading in Team Fortress 2 on the Steam platform. Using real-time data from Steam, the author constructs an index of arbitrage potential, tracking arbitrage opportunities from November 2011 to May 2012. The index shows that arbitrage opportunities significantly increase after major updates and sales, then decrease as the community develops a more consistent understanding of item pricing. The author also discusses the economic concept of equilibrium and points out that arbitrage persists even in complex digital economies, quantifying the size of arbitrage opportunities through data analysis.

(web.archive.org)

Game game economy

My Mac Contacted 63 Apple Domains While Idle

2025-06-12

My Mac Contacted 63 Apple Domains While Idle

My M2 MacBook Air contacted 63 different Apple domains in a single hour while I wasn't logged in or using it. Despite using NextDNS to block Apple's native telemetry, a significant portion of DNS queries still targeted Apple domains. In contrast, my 2019 Intel MacBook Pro showed less than 3% of queries going to Apple. This raises concerns about the extent of Apple's data collection, even with services like mail and calendar already blocked.

(appaddict.app)

Tech

Windows 11 App Update: Paint, Snipping Tool, and Notepad Get AI Boost

2025-05-22

Windows 11 App Update: Paint, Snipping Tool, and Notepad Get AI Boost

Microsoft is rolling out updates to Paint, Snipping Tool, and Notepad for Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels on Windows 11. Paint now features an AI sticker generator, a smart object selection tool, and a new welcome experience; Snipping Tool adds perfect screenshot and color picker capabilities; and Notepad introduces an AI writing feature for quick text drafting. Most of these new features require a Copilot+ PC and Microsoft account login, with some requiring a Microsoft 365 subscription.

(blogs.windows.com)

Development App Update

Ransomware's Weird Vulnerability: Virtual Keyboards as a Defense

2025-06-30

Security experts have discovered a peculiar vulnerability in nearly all ransomware strains: they refuse to install on Windows computers with virtual keyboards like Russian or Ukrainian already installed. This is because many malware strains originating from Eastern Europe include checks for specific countries (e.g., Russia, Ukraine) to avoid local law enforcement. While not foolproof, installing a virtual keyboard, such as a Russian one, offers a simple, additional security measure to reduce ransomware infection risk. This approach leverages the fact that many cybercriminals avoid targeting computers within their own countries to avoid investigation.

(krebsonsecurity.com)

Tech

FSF's 40th Anniversary: A Virtual Auction of Rare Memorabilia

2025-02-08

To celebrate its 40th anniversary, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) is hosting an unprecedented virtual memorabilia auction. Items include the original GNU head drawing by Etienne Suvasa, rare hardware like an Amiga 3000UX used in the FSF's early days at MIT, and prestigious awards such as Richard Stallman's Internet Hall of Fame medal. The auction will consist of a silent online auction followed by a live online auction, offering a unique opportunity for free software enthusiasts and collectors alike. This event highlights the FSF's unwavering commitment to software freedom over four decades.

(www.fsf.org)

Tech auction memorabilia

RIP Urban Dead: A Zombie Apocalypse Browser Game Closes After Nearly Two Decades

2025-03-16

Urban Dead, a free-to-play, massively multiplayer online browser game depicting a zombie apocalypse in the quarantined city of Malton, has shut down after nearly 20 years. Launched in July 2005, the game saw over 1.7 million players battling zombies, rebuilding society amidst the ruins, and facing off against military and scientific factions. Its closure, due to upcoming UK website legislation changes, marks the end of an era for this unique and long-running browser-based experience.

(www.urbandead.com)

Game zombie

Global Market Sell-off: Recession Fears and Trade War Uncertainty Deepen

2025-03-10

Global Market Sell-off: Recession Fears and Trade War Uncertainty Deepen

Global stock markets suffered a sharp sell-off on Monday, driven by concerns about a potential US recession and uncertainty surrounding US trade policies. The S&P 500 plunged 2.3%, and the Dow Jones fell 1.2% in the US. European markets also saw declines, with the FTSE 100 down 0.92%, the DAX down 1.69%, and the CAC 40 down 0.9%. The pound weakened against the dollar and euro, and Brent crude oil prices dropped around 1.2%. Companies like Clarksons saw significant share price drops (21.7%) due to geopolitical uncertainties. Analysts attribute the market correction to a combination of trade war anxieties, geopolitical tensions, and an uncertain economic outlook.

(www.independent.co.uk)

Tech recession

Cold War Naval Strategy, Management Wisdom, and the Perils of Bureaucracy

2025-08-02

This collection of excerpts from the Cold War era reveals insightful perspectives on US naval strategy, effective management, and the shortcomings of the American education system. It contrasts the US and Soviet Navies, highlighting the necessity of superior quality over quantity and the importance of an offensive strategy. Furthermore, it underscores the crucial role of individual accountability, long-term commitment, and clear goal-setting in successful organizations, while criticizing bureaucratic inertia and a stifling educational environment resistant to critical thinking. These perspectives offer valuable lessons for modern organizational management and educational reform.

(rickovercorpus.org)

Misc Naval Strategy

US Prison Population Plummets: A Forty-Year Turning Point

2025-06-26

US Prison Population Plummets: A Forty-Year Turning Point

After peaking in 2009, the US prison population is declining steadily, projected to fall by roughly 60% in the coming years. This isn't due to recent drops in crime, but rather a delayed effect of the high crime rates of the late 20th century. High crime led to harsh laws and policies, causing prison populations to explode. Now, with lower crime rates among younger generations, the prison population is shrinking. The future may see the US demolishing surplus prisons, saving money and improving public safety.

(www.theatlantic.com)

Misc prisons crime rates social policy

Blazing Fast Fibonacci on the GPU with Thrust

2025-06-27

Blazing Fast Fibonacci on the GPU with Thrust

This blog post demonstrates how to perform incredibly fast Fibonacci sequence calculations using GPU programming and the NVIDIA Thrust library. It starts by explaining the scan algorithm, then shows how to use scan operations in Thrust for simple addition and multiplication, extending this to matrix operations. Finally, it illustrates calculating Fibonacci numbers efficiently via matrix operations and the scan operation, using modulo arithmetic to avoid integer overflow. The author calculates F99999999 (mod 9837) in just 17 milliseconds on an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile GPU.

(veitner.bearblog.dev)

Development GPU computing Fibonacci sequence Thrust library

Building a Garbage Collector from Scratch: A 20-Year Journey

2025-05-12

A programmer with 20 years of experience, after studying the Immix garbage collection algorithm, decided to implement a new garbage collector for Guile Scheme. His initial goal was to create a generic memory management interface, but he ended up developing a novel garbage collector called Nofl, which leverages a side table from a mark-sweep collector for bump-pointer allocation. The author also shares his experience submitting his research to an academic conference and his reflections on academic research and industry.

(wingolog.org)

Development

JIT-Compiling a Stack Machine with SLJIT: A Tale of Optimization

2025-09-19

This post details the author's journey in implementing a JIT compiler for their stack-based uxn virtual machine using SLJIT. Initial attempts yielded minimal performance gains due to uxn's frequent dynamic jumps. However, through a series of optimizations—including refined calling conventions, stack caching, and register allocation strategies—a 30-46% speedup was achieved. The article meticulously documents the optimization process, challenges encountered, and debugging techniques, providing valuable insights for those interested in JIT compilation and optimizing stack-based virtual machines.

(bullno1.com)

Development stack machine

Operational PGP: A Guide to Secure Email Communication

2024-12-24

Operational PGP: A Guide to Secure Email Communication

This guide isn't about installing or using PGP; it's about using it securely. It emphasizes operational security beyond just encrypting email content, covering email composition, storage, key management, and more. It recommends composing emails in a text editor, avoiding saving drafts in email clients; generating and destroying keys frequently; avoiding publishing keys to keyservers; keeping email subjects blank to minimize metadata leakage; using the `gpg --throw-keys` option during encryption; enabling encryption by default and explicitly choosing whether to sign emails. The goal is maximizing PGP's security potential.

(gist.github.com)

Development Email Security Key Management

arXivLabs: Experimenting with Community Collaboration

2025-07-19

arXivLabs is a framework enabling collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on the website. Individuals and organizations involved embrace arXiv's values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only partners with those who share them. Got an idea to enhance the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

(arxiv.org)

Tech

Shrek on Xbox: The Untold Story of the First Deferred Shaded Game

2025-03-12

Shrek on Xbox: The Untold Story of the First Deferred Shaded Game

This article recounts the development of Shrek on Xbox, revealing it as the pioneering game to utilize deferred shading. The team faced immense challenges in implementing omnidirectional lighting on the limited hardware of the original Xbox. Through ingenious algorithms and a deep understanding of the hardware, they overcame numerous obstacles, achieving stunning visuals and making significant contributions to real-time rendering. The article highlights the crucial roles of Atman Binstock's mathematical expertise and the author's tireless efforts, including the development of a custom real-time profiler to optimize performance.

(sites.google.com)

Game Deferred Shading

Rust's Weird Expressions: Pushing the Type System to its Limits

2025-06-28

Rust's Weird Expressions: Pushing the Type System to its Limits

This article delves into some extreme and seemingly paradoxical expressions within Rust's powerful type system. By dissecting examples from the `weird-expr.rs` test file, such as the creative use of `return true`, nested loops and `break` statements, and a deep understanding of type inference and coercion, the article explains their validity in Rust. These are not bugs, but rather showcases of Rust's flexible type system and expressive power, demonstrating its robustness in handling edge cases.

(www.wakunguma.com)

Development

Apple's AirPods Pro 3: Heart Rate Tracking, Improved Noise Cancellation, and Live Translation

2025-09-10

Apple's AirPods Pro 3: Heart Rate Tracking, Improved Noise Cancellation, and Live Translation

Apple unveiled the third-generation AirPods Pro on Tuesday, featuring heart rate tracking (a first for AirPods), enhanced audio, and a smaller, more interactive charging case. Priced at $249, they'll be available for pre-order today and in stores September 19th. Improvements include double the noise cancellation of the Pro 2 and live translation capabilities via an iOS 26 software update. Smaller, more comfortable earbuds with five foam tip sizes are also included. While this is the current model, rumors suggest a higher-end version with an infrared camera for gesture control and improved spatial audio for the Vision Pro headset is slated for a 2026 release.

(techcrunch.com)

Hardware

Waymo's Self-Driving System Significantly Reduces Serious Crashes

2025-05-01

Waymo's Self-Driving System Significantly Reduces Serious Crashes

Waymo's latest research demonstrates significant progress in reducing serious crashes and improving safety for vulnerable road users. Compared to human drivers, the Waymo Driver showed substantially lower crash rates across 11 crash types, with remarkable reductions in crashes involving injuries to pedestrians (92%), cyclists (82%), and motorcyclists (82%). Intersection crashes resulting in injuries were reduced by 96%, largely attributed to the system's ability to detect and respond to red-light runners. This research provides strong evidence supporting the vision of zero traffic fatalities and serious injuries, highlighting the transformative potential of autonomous driving technology for road safety.

(waymo.com)

Tech

Apple Needs Another Snow Leopard Moment

2025-03-27

Apple Needs Another Snow Leopard Moment

Apple's 2009 Mac OS X Snow Leopard, known for its refinement and optimization, stands as one of its most stable releases. However, current MacOS and iOS systems are plagued by bugs and poor design choices, such as broken copy-paste in Messages and a confusing System Settings interface. The author urges Apple to emulate Snow Leopard, undertaking a major system cleanup and optimization to address these issues instead of solely focusing on adding new features. This would enhance user experience, solidify Apple's position, and maintain competitiveness even amidst the fierce AI race.

(reviews.ofb.biz)

Development Apple Systems Software Optimization

Meta Pays Out $725M Settlement in Cambridge Analytica Scandal

2025-09-14

Meta Pays Out $725M Settlement in Cambridge Analytica Scandal

Meta has begun distributing a $725 million settlement to Facebook users affected by the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The class-action lawsuit, stemming from the 2018 revelation that up to 87 million users' data was improperly accessed, concluded in December 2022. Eligible users – those with active accounts between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022 – had until August 25, 2023, to file a claim. Approximately 18 million claims were validated. Payments are based on the length of time users had a Facebook account and will be sent via bank account, PayPal, virtual prepaid Mastercard, Venmo, or Zelle. Distribution began recently and is expected to last 10 weeks.

(www.cnn.com)

Tech

Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6: A Review of the Rollable Laptop

2025-08-04

Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6: A Review of the Rollable Laptop

Lenovo's ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 is a $3,300 laptop with a groundbreaking rollable screen that expands from 14 inches to 16.7 inches. While pricey, its vibrant OLED display, impressive performance, and excellent battery life make it a compelling option. However, its weight, limited hinge tilt, and minor quirks like screen wobble and creaks are drawbacks. Overall, it's an innovative machine for productivity-focused users willing to pay a premium for cutting-edge tech.

(www.theverge.com)

Hardware

Oxford Falls Out of UK's Top 3 Universities

2025-09-21

Oxford Falls Out of UK's Top 3 Universities

In the 2026 Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide, Oxford University fell out of the top three UK universities for the first time, dropping to fourth place alongside Cambridge. Durham University claimed third place, while the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) retained its top spot for the second consecutive year. St Andrews University held second place. Durham's significant improvement in student teaching quality evaluations propelled its rise.

(hotminute.co.uk)

Misc University Rankings Oxford University Durham University

Microsoft's DXGI Debugger: My Game Accidentally Made the Blacklist

2025-09-21

Microsoft's DXGI Debugger: My Game Accidentally Made the Blacklist

While porting Space Station 14 to ARM64 Windows, the developer encountered a bizarre crash. Debugging revealed the issue stemmed from a Microsoft DXGI optimization for windowed games, forcing "flip" mode, causing illegal instruction exceptions with GetDC() in specific circumstances (the game executable named SS14.Loader.exe). It turned out to be a bug in Microsoft's ARM64 DXGI optimization, enabled only for specific game names, and Space Station 14 was unfortunately on that list. The developer suspects this bug went unnoticed due to the limited number of native ARM64 Windows games. The issue has been reported to Microsoft, and ARM64 Windows support is temporarily postponed until the bug is fixed.

(slugcat.systems)

Development Windows Debugging

The Double-Edged Sword of AI: Efficiency Gains vs. Environmental and Ethical Concerns

2025-05-15

The rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) has brought significant improvements in developer productivity, as exemplified by the impressive performance of code editors like Cursor. However, the rapid advancement of AI also presents significant environmental challenges: massive energy consumption and data center construction negatively impact climate change. Furthermore, ethical concerns surrounding the sourcing of training data and the excessive consumption of web resources are cause for alarm, including the strain on Wikipedia servers and the generation of large amounts of low-quality content, dubbed "AI slop," polluting the web. After experiencing the convenience of AI tools, the author reflects on their negative impacts and calls for attention to the potential harms of AI, urging against its blind adoption.

(marcjenkins.co.uk)

AI

Tesla Cybertruck Deliveries Halted Due to Falling Trims

2025-03-14

Tesla Cybertruck deliveries are on hold due to reports of trims falling off the vehicles. Many owners are reporting issues on forums and social media, prompting a "containment hold" by Tesla. The problem centers around the Cybertruck's flimsy cantrail trim, a decorative piece along the roofline. This isn't the first time; Tesla recalled 11,000 Cybertrucks last June for similar trim issues. The hold appears to have started last weekend, with delivery appointments canceled. Tesla hasn't issued a public service bulletin, but internal information suggests battery pack issues may also be a concern.

(electrek.co)

Tech Delivery Issues

Qodo-Embed-1: A Family of Efficient, Small Code Embedding Models

2025-03-03

Qodo-Embed-1: A Family of Efficient, Small Code Embedding Models

Qodo announced Qodo-Embed-1, a new family of code embedding models achieving state-of-the-art performance with a significantly smaller footprint than existing models. The 1.5B parameter model scored 68.53 on the CoIR benchmark, surpassing larger 7B parameter models. Trained using synthetic data generation to overcome limitations of existing models in accurately retrieving code snippets, Qodo-Embed-1 significantly improves code retrieval accuracy and efficiency. The 1.5B parameter model is open-source, while the 7B parameter model is commercially available.

(www.qodo.ai)

AI code embedding model

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