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Hacking a Satellite Back to Life: The BEESAT-1 Resurrection

2025-01-04
Hacking a Satellite Back to Life: The BEESAT-1 Resurrection

In 2013, Technische Universität Berlin's BEESAT-1 satellite stopped sending valid telemetry data. Projected to remain in orbit for another 20 years, its recovery would unlock new experiments. However, the satellite lacked both telemetry and software update capabilities. This talk recounts the story of how, by combining space and cybersecurity expertise, the fault was diagnosed without telemetry, software updates were implemented without the existing feature, and the satellite was resurrected in September 2024. The journey involved overcoming significant hurdles, including working with 15-year-old software and hardware and devising a method to upload new software without the standard update mechanism. The presentation details the entire recovery process, highlighting the unexpected challenges and successes.

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(media.ccc.de)
Tech Satellite Repair

Deleting My Second Brain: A Digital Minimalist's Journey

2025-06-28
Deleting My Second Brain: A Digital Minimalist's Journey

The author spent years building a "second brain" PKM system, only to find it had become a graveyard of information, hindering thought and creativity. He deleted everything, opting for a lighter, experience-focused approach. He realized true knowledge isn't stored in databases but lived and acted upon. This essay explores the pitfalls and reflections of personal knowledge management and the value of returning to authenticity and experience.

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(www.joanwestenberg.com)
Misc

COSIG: Open-Source Guides for Post-Publication Peer Review

2025-06-17

COSIG is an open-source project offering a collection of guides created by publication integrity experts. These guides empower anyone to participate in post-publication peer review, even without specialized knowledge. Currently hosting 28 guides categorized by field (biology, materials science, computer science, etc.), COSIG provides resources for identifying image manipulation, analyzing data, verifying citations, and more. Become a steward of scientific literature with COSIG.

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(osf.io)
Development scientific literature

Cogent Core: Write Once, Run Everywhere

2025-05-09
Cogent Core: Write Once, Run Everywhere

Cogent Core is a free and open-source framework for building powerful, fast, and elegant 2D and 3D applications that run on macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, and the web from a single Go codebase. This 'write once, run everywhere' framework boasts extensive documentation and interactive examples directly editable and runnable on its website, which is itself a Cogent Core app running on wasm. Installation instructions must be followed before development.

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(github.com)
Development

GNU FDL: Your Document's Path to Freedom

2025-04-12
GNU FDL: Your Document's Path to Freedom

The GNU Free Documentation License (FDL) ensures the freedom to copy and redistribute documents, with or without modification, for commercial or non-commercial purposes. It allows derivative works to remain free under the same conditions, while preserving attribution for the authors. The FDL covers various media, defining key concepts like "Modified Version," "Invariant Sections," and "Cover Texts." It details rules for mass copying, modifications, combining documents, and more, striking a balance between document freedom and author rights.

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(protesilaos.com)
Misc free documentation

Finland's Rail Gauge Conversion: A Geopolitical Shift

2025-05-20
Finland's Rail Gauge Conversion: A Geopolitical Shift

Finland is converting its rail network from the Russian gauge (1,524 mm) to the European standard (1,435 mm), a move solidifying its integration with the EU and NATO. Driven by enhanced military mobility and regional security concerns, this multi-billion euro project will remove transport obstacles between Finland, Sweden, and Norway. Construction, starting around 2032, will be partially funded by the EU, representing a significant geopolitical realignment for Finland.

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(www.trenvista.net)
Tech Rail Gauge

Wharton Esherick's Three-Legged Stools: From Scraps to Iconic Status

2025-06-10
Wharton Esherick's Three-Legged Stools: From Scraps to Iconic Status

Wharton Esherick's Three-Legged Stools are among his most recognizable works. Initially created to supplement income using leftover wood scraps, these stools are not only beautiful and comfortable but also lightweight and easy to move. Esherick shaped them according to the wood grain, carefully designing the leg structure for both lightness and strength. Featured in Armstrong Linoleum advertisements, these stools unexpectedly gained widespread recognition, and today they are highly sought-after collectibles, commanding significant prices.

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(whartonesherickmuseum.org)
Design art design handicrafts furniture design

Native Sparse Attention: Hardware-Aligned and Natively Trainable

2025-08-02
Native Sparse Attention: Hardware-Aligned and Natively Trainable

Long-context modeling remains a challenge in NLP. This ACL 2025 paper introduces NSA, a Natively trained Sparse Attention mechanism. NSA cleverly combines algorithmic innovations with hardware-aligned optimizations. Using a dynamic hierarchical sparse strategy (coarse-grained token compression and fine-grained token selection), it achieves significant efficiency gains while preserving global context awareness and local precision. NSA enables end-to-end training, reducing pre-training costs, and matches or exceeds Full Attention models across benchmarks, showing substantial speedups on 64k-length sequences in decoding, forward, and backward propagation.

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(aclanthology.org)
AI long-context modeling

Ollama Launches Desktop App for Easier LLM Interaction

2025-07-31
Ollama Launches Desktop App for Easier LLM Interaction

Ollama has released a new desktop application for macOS and Windows, offering a more streamlined way to interact with large language models. The app supports drag-and-drop file uploads (text or PDFs), making it easier to process documents. Users can also increase context length in settings for larger files (requires more memory). Multimodal support allows sending images to compatible models like Google DeepMind's Gemma 3, and code files can be processed for understanding. A command-line interface version is also available.

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(ollama.com)
Development

MaxBench: Benchmarking GPU Interconnect Impact on Relational Data Analytics

2025-08-29

Researchers introduce MaxBench, a comprehensive framework for benchmarking and profiling relational data analytics workloads on GPUs. It evaluates the performance impact of various GPU models (RTX3090, A100, H100, Grace Hopper GH200) and interconnects (PCIe 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, and NVLink 4.0) on workloads like TPC-H, H2O-G, and ClickBench. Moving beyond traditional metrics like arithmetic intensity and GFlop/s, MaxBench proposes 'characteristic query complexity' and 'characteristic GPU efficiency' and uses a novel cost model to predict query execution performance. The study reveals trade-offs between GPU compute capacity and interconnect bandwidth and uses the model to project the impact of future interconnect bandwidth or GPU efficiency improvements.

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(vldb.org)
Development

The Curious Case of the Noisy 1670 Modem

2025-03-06

While testing a pair of VIC-20s connected via 1670 modems, the author discovered a peculiar noise emitted by the modems in dial mode. This noise isn't pulse dialing, nor is it a hardware malfunction; both modems, and one used back in 1988, exhibit the same behavior. The noise is a regular "pa-tink" sound occurring every 1.2 seconds. The author suspects the noise originates from the modem's local speaker, but hasn't determined if it's transmitted over the line. It remains an unsolved mystery, though functionally inconsequential.

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(rachelbythebay.com)
Hardware modem noise

Crypto Advocate Demands Retraction: A Debate on 'Debanking'

2025-02-10

A deep-dive article analyzing the phenomenon of 'debanking' in the cryptocurrency industry faced a retraction request from the CEO of a cryptocurrency firm. The author meticulously addressed the CEO's accusations, arguing they lacked merit, and defended the article's core argument: regulators' risk assessments of cryptocurrencies are not unfounded, and banks' cautious approach towards crypto businesses is not entirely unreasonable. The article delves into the complexities of banking regulation and the compliance challenges faced by the crypto industry, using the cases of Silvergate and Prime Trust to illustrate the importance of risk management. Ultimately, the author rejected the retraction request, emphasizing the responsibility of the press in pursuing truth and resisting censorship.

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(www.kalzumeus.com)
Tech banking regulation compliance

Sandstorm: Your Data's Secure Sandbox

2025-08-09
Sandstorm: Your Data's Secure Sandbox

Sandstorm is a collaborative platform prioritizing security. Each document, chat room, mailbox, and more, is containerized as a secure 'grain' in its own sandbox. These grains are isolated, unable to communicate with the outside world without explicit permission. This automatically mitigates 95% of security vulnerabilities, keeping your data private until you choose to share it.

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(sandstorm.org)
Development

OpenAI's Surprise Deprecation of GPT-4o Sparks User Backlash

2025-08-09

OpenAI's unexpected removal of GPT-4o and other older models with the launch of GPT-5 has angered many ChatGPT users. Many relied on GPT-4o for creative collaboration, emotional nuance, and other tasks, finding GPT-5's different approach disruptive to their workflows. While OpenAI has since reinstated GPT-4o for paid users, the incident highlights the diverse needs of LLM users and OpenAI's oversight in user experience during model updates. It also reignited ethical discussions surrounding LLMs, particularly concerning responsible responses to high-stakes personal decisions.

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(simonwillison.net)
AI

Firebase Studio: Build Apps Faster in the Cloud

2025-04-09
Firebase Studio: Build Apps Faster in the Cloud

Firebase Studio is a new cloud-based development environment that lets you go from opening your browser to building in minutes, not hours. Import existing repositories from GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, or your local machine, with support for most tech stacks. Use the App Prototyping agent to quickly create new applications using natural language, mockups, drawing tools, and screenshots, or choose from a large catalog of popular framework or language templates. You can also customize your environment with Nix. 3 free workspaces are available during preview, with Google Developer Program members getting up to 30.

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(firebase.studio)
Development Cloud Development Rapid Application Development

Wikipedia's 2024 Top Viewed Articles: US Elections and Hollywood Dominate

2025-01-21

Wikipedia's 2024 traffic report reveals a year dominated by US election-related figures and events, with half the top ten spots taken by candidates and results. Hollywood also made a strong showing, with Marvel's 'Deadpool & Wolverine' and 'Dune: Part Two' proving highly popular. Netflix true crime docuseries like 'Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story' also drove significant traffic. The list further encompasses the Indian general election, sporting events, pop stars Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter, and tech figures like ChatGPT and Elon Musk. This snapshot of 2024 highlights global events and public interest, showcasing Wikipedia's role as a primary source of information.

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(en.wikipedia.org)
Misc traffic report 2024 top articles

Escaping YAML Hell: KSON, a Configuration Language Designed for Humans

2025-09-18
Escaping YAML Hell: KSON, a Configuration Language Designed for Humans

Tired of the endless headaches of YAML configuration files? This article tells the story of a programmer's fall from YAML's sweet trap into a painful abyss, and introduces KSON—an open-source project dedicated to improving the configuration experience. KSON is compatible with JSON and YAML, and adds many human-friendly features such as tolerance for indentation errors and strong code editor support, aiming to make configuration a joy, not a nightmare.

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(ochagavia.nl)
Development

China Achieves Milestone with Thorium-Based Reactor: Online Refueling

2025-05-01
China Achieves Milestone with Thorium-Based Reactor: Online Refueling

China has made significant strides in nuclear technology. A small thorium-based reactor, operational since June 2024, recently achieved online refueling, a milestone for thorium reactor technology. While the reactor is small, generating only two megawatts of heat, this achievement holds significant implications for the future of nuclear energy, especially given China's rapid advancements in nuclear power and the global interest in alternative fuels and advanced reactor designs. This technology, initially researched extensively in the US, is now seeing significant progress in China, offering promising new possibilities for global nuclear energy development.

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(www.technologyreview.com)
Tech thorium reactor nuclear technology China nuclear power

Lit: Build Lightweight, Blazing-Fast Web Components

2025-09-03
Lit: Build Lightweight, Blazing-Fast Web Components

Lit is a lightweight library for building web components, based on web component standards. Weighing in at around 5KB, it provides reactivity, declarative templates, and a streamlined developer experience. It renders blazing fast by only updating dynamic parts of the UI, ensuring compatibility with any framework. Lit components are standard custom elements, supporting scoped styles and reactive properties, simplifying the creation of shareable components, design systems, and future-proof applications.

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(lit.dev)
Development

The Invisible Greatness of Design Masters: Misalignment of Fame and Value

2025-04-24

This article explores the definition of 'greatness' in design. The author argues that true design greatness isn't about fame and recognition, but rather the extent to which the work serves human needs. Many excellent designers and their creations remain unknown, their designs seamlessly integrated into daily life to the point where people take them for granted, overlooking the ingenuity behind them. The author criticizes the current social climate that equates attention with value, pointing out that truly great design is that which solves problems, provides convenience and delight, rather than that which seeks attention for its own sake.

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(www.chrbutler.com)
Design

Plex Raises Prices After a Decade, Introduces Paid Remote Streaming

2025-03-20
Plex Raises Prices After a Decade, Introduces Paid Remote Streaming

Streaming platform Plex announced its first price increase in a decade for its Plex Pass subscription service, effective April 29th. Monthly subscriptions will jump from $4.99 to $6.99, annual subscriptions from $39.99 to $69.99, and lifetime subscriptions from $120 to $249.99. Concurrently, remote playback of personal media is becoming a paid feature. Users can access remote streaming via a Plex Pass or a new Remote Watch Pass ($1.99/month or $19.99/year). Plex cites rising costs and the need for continued development as reasons for the changes.

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(www.macrumors.com)
Tech Price Increase

Your ChatGPT Chats Might Be Indexable by Search Engines

2025-08-18
Your ChatGPT Chats Might Be Indexable by Search Engines

Recently, OpenAI ChatGPT users were shocked to find their search queries appearing in Google search results. OpenAI had disclosed this possibility, but most users overlooked it. More concerning, a court order compels OpenAI to retain all user conversation data, including deleted content, due to an ongoing copyright lawsuit. Google's Gemini AI also has a memory function, recording user chats by default. The article warns users to be cautious with AI chatbots, avoiding sensitive information, as all mainstream AI chatbots record user conversations by default.

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(www.theregister.com)
AI

The Evolving Saga of 80387 FPU State Saving: A Tale of Documented Errors

2025-02-07

While investigating the behavior of x87 Floating Point Units (FPUs) and their state saving mechanisms (FSTENV/FLDENV and FSAVE/FRSTOR instructions), the author discovered discrepancies between early Intel documentation and later revisions concerning the 32-bit protected mode FPU state. Early 80387 documentation omitted the floating-point opcode from the 32-bit protected mode FPU state, while updated documentation included it. This led to several third-party reference books perpetuating the outdated information for years. The story highlights the evolution of technical documentation and how errors can persist in technical literature for extended periods.

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(www.os2museum.com)
Hardware documentation errors

Crumbling US Government Statistics: Budget Cuts Threaten Economic and Population Data

2025-03-15
Crumbling US Government Statistics: Budget Cuts Threaten Economic and Population Data

Unstable funding for federal statistical agencies like the Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis is jeopardizing the government statistics used to track the US economy and population. Budget shortfalls and short-term funding have already led to the termination of some datasets and proposals to reduce survey participants for key reports like the monthly jobs report. Long-term funding issues also plague the Census Bureau, impacting preparations for the crucial 2030 head count. Experts warn the system is like "crumbling infrastructure," and while data remains reliable for now, budget cuts and workforce reductions threaten data integrity, potentially impacting the 2030 census and the monthly jobs report.

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(www.npr.org)
Tech government statistics data integrity

BCacheFS Disabled in openSUSE Kernels 6.17+

2025-09-11

The openSUSE team announced that BCacheFS filesystem will be disabled in kernels 6.17 and later. This is because BCacheFS is externally maintained since version 6.17, and openSUSE will no longer maintain and backport downstream patches. Currently, 6.16 and earlier versions are unaffected. Users should follow BCacheFS upstream advice for installation and usage, or prepare a KMP themselves. BCacheFS will be re-enabled once its maintainer resumes upstream maintenance.

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(lwn.net)
Development

Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan's Forgotten Film Collaboration

2025-03-05

In 1936, to solidify the Anti-Comintern Pact and demonstrate the 'brother nations' bond between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, an ambitious film collaboration was launched. A German film crew arrived in Yokohama to create a movie showcasing the political and cultural alignment of the two nations. This little-known historical event sheds light on the complex political and cultural interactions between the Axis powers before World War II.

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(www.historytoday.com)
Misc Imperial Japan

Bell Labs' Secret Sauce: Balancing Basic and Applied Research

2025-03-08
Bell Labs' Secret Sauce: Balancing Basic and Applied Research

This article explores how Bell Labs successfully balanced basic and applied research, achieving both groundbreaking scientific discoveries and immense commercial success. It argues that Bell Labs didn't rely solely on free-wheeling basic research, but instead employed a 'long leash, short fence' approach, guiding researchers towards crucial problems relevant to the company's business. This involved three key elements: granting researchers a degree of freedom, facilitating close collaboration between basic and applied researchers, engineers, and manufacturing, and establishing a dedicated team of systems engineers to bridge the gap between research and application, ensuring efficient resource allocation. By analyzing Bell Labs' case study, the article offers valuable lessons for modern applied research organizations, emphasizing the importance of systematically selecting research directions and the critical role of systems engineers.

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(www.freaktakes.com)
Tech Bell Labs basic research applied research

Stroboscopic Tuner in Odin: Precise Pitch Detection and Adaptive Gain

2025-09-08
Stroboscopic Tuner in Odin: Precise Pitch Detection and Adaptive Gain

A developer has created a novel stroboscopic tuner written in Odin. This tuner utilizes the NSDF pitch detection algorithm, boasting smooth visual feedback, manual target note selection, harmonic and vernier modes. It achieves precise pitch detection and visual effects through a single-bin DFT and phase comparator algorithm, incorporating adaptive gain control to maintain consistent visual contrast. Compared to alternative approaches, this tuner offers significant advantages in visual resolution, sensitivity, and latency.

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(github.com)
Development Tuner Pitch Detection
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