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Mirror Bacteria Research Raises Significant Risks, Scientists Warn

2024-12-13
Mirror Bacteria Research Raises Significant Risks, Scientists Warn

Synthetic biologists have achieved remarkable breakthroughs, such as creating bacteria with chemically synthesized genomes. However, two synthetic biologists recently joined other scientists in calling for a halt to research that could lead to the creation of "mirror bacteria." These bacteria are composed of the same components as natural cells but with opposite stereochemistry in all biopolymers. Because mirror bacteria might lack natural predators and evade immune systems, they pose a catastrophic risk. The article emphasizes that while scientific research should be open, certain research, like mirror bacteria research, is too risky given the potential for devastating consequences. Therefore, it should be stopped.

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(www.the-scientist.com)
Tech synthetic biology mirror bacteria biosafety

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

2024-12-12
CCxTrust: A Confidential Computing Platform Leveraging Collaborative Trust from TEE and TPM

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.

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(arxiv.org)
AI Confidential Computing Trusted Execution Environment Trusted Platform Module

Hadrius Hiring Founding UI/UX Designer, Up to $150K

2024-12-18
Hadrius Hiring Founding UI/UX Designer, Up to $150K

Hadrius, a Y Combinator-backed fintech startup, is hiring a Founding UI/UX Designer. They're using AI to automate the back office for financial firms, preventing future financial crises. The role is full-time in New York City, offering $80K-$150K salary and 0.01%-0.15% equity. The ideal candidate is a highly skilled designer with experience at a design-focused tech company, proficient in Figma, and passionate about Hadrius's mission. The team boasts engineers from Google, Chime, and other top companies, and the company is experiencing hyper-growth, doubling revenue every three months.

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(www.ycombinator.com)
Development UI/UX Design

Nix Home Manager: A Guide to Dotfiles Management

2024-12-22

This article delves into the advantages and techniques of using Nix Home Manager for dotfiles management. The author begins by acknowledging the steep learning curve of Nix and Home Manager, recommending a gradual approach to mastering its features. The article explains various Home Manager use cases, including software installation, declarative program and service configuration, and dotfiles management. A key focus is on the `mkOutOfStoreSymlink` function, which creates symlinks to dotfiles, allowing modifications without rebuilding the entire system. A custom module example is provided for easy switching between mutable and immutable configurations. Finally, the author compares Home Manager to other dotfiles management tools, highlighting its reproducibility benefits.

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(gvolpe.com)
Development

Hardware-Level Network Time Security: Netnod's FPGA Implementation of NTS

2024-12-13
Hardware-Level Network Time Security: Netnod's FPGA Implementation of NTS

Following a 2019 software implementation of Network Time Security (NTS), Netnod has deployed NTS at the hardware level using FPGAs for their NTP and NTS protocols. This hardware implementation offers enhanced security, mitigating side-channel attacks and improving efficiency and scalability. While challenges existed in processing complex NTS packets, Netnod overcame them with a multi-engine parallel processing solution. Their NTS service is now in production.

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(labs.ripe.net)
Hardware network security hardware security

Python Dependency Management: A Raging Inferno

2024-12-15

This article delves into the complexities of Python dependency management, likening it to building a bonfire in a dry forest. The author argues that Python dependencies aren't simply a matter of `pip install`; they encompass project packages, system packages, the operating system, hardware, and the environment itself. Good dependency management is crucial for reproducibility—ensuring consistent results across different environments. The article details version control, environment isolation, definition files, lock files, and other key concepts. It then provides a comprehensive comparison of numerous tools, including pip, venv, virtualenv, pip-tools, Pipenv, Poetry, PDM, pyenv, pipx, uv, Conda, Mamba, conda-lock, and Pixi, analyzing their strengths, weaknesses, and use cases. Finally, the author offers tool recommendations based on different scenarios (administrative privileges, dependency types, operating systems, etc.) and looks ahead to future trends in Python dependency management.

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(nielscautaerts.xyz)
Development Python dependency management reproducibility Python tools

Gazzetta: A New Mastodon News Reader

2024-12-21

Gazzetta is a revolutionary news reader designed specifically for Mastodon. Unlike other Mastodon clients that prioritize the social network experience, Gazzetta functions more like an RSS reader for the platform. It provides a separate interface, allowing users to focus solely on reading news and links. Features include following servers and accounts to see trending links, full-text search, integration with Safari's view controller, bookmark management, link exporting, and extensive customization options such as font styles, hiding thumbnails, and filtering links by domain, keyword, or language.

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(primatology.xyz)
Development News Reader

Adding Refinement Types to Rust: A Feasibility Study

2024-12-24

This article explores the feasibility of adding refinement types to the Rust programming language. Drawing on experience with YAIOUOM, a static analyzer that used refinement types to check units of measure, the author examines approaches to implementing refinement types within Rust's type system. Several options are proposed, including modifications to trait resolution, type variable unification, and the introduction of a pluggable keyword mechanism for post-compilation type checking. An optimistic approach—ignoring unit information early in compilation and checking later—is deemed more practical. API design and error message handling are discussed. Future work involves gathering feedback, writing a rustc driver supporting plugins, and implementing several refinement types, potentially including a new version of YAIOUOM and subsets of Flux or Liquid Haskell.

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(yoric.github.io)
Development Refinement Types Type System

Adaptable Text Editor 'ad': Blending Vim and Acme

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

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

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(github.com)
Development text editor modal editing extensibility

Homescreen App: Redefining Your Home Screen Experience

2024-12-18

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

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(homescreen.app)
Development phone home screen customization productivity

Cultural Evolution of Cooperation Among LLM Agents

2024-12-18
Cultural Evolution of Cooperation Among LLM Agents

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.

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(arxiv.org)
AI Cooperation Social Norms

CHICKEN Scheme's New Compiler: CRUNCH – A Statically Typed Scheme Compiler

2024-12-17

This article introduces CRUNCH, a new compiler for a statically typed subset of the Scheme programming language. Built on top of the CHICKEN Scheme system, it compiles Scheme code into portable C99 code. CRUNCH aims to provide a high-performance, lightweight Scheme compiler, addressing shortcomings in existing Scheme systems regarding performance and portability. It's particularly well-suited for game development, virtual machine creation, and embedded systems programming. While CRUNCH has limitations in supported Scheme features, it achieves efficient code generation through type inference and various optimizations, seamlessly integrating with the CHICKEN Scheme ecosystem.

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(www.more-magic.net)
Development Statically Typed

Debunking the RAM Myth: Optimizing Memory Access

2024-12-19
Debunking the RAM Myth: Optimizing Memory Access

This article challenges the common misconception about modern computer memory—the RAM myth—that assumes memory access is always random and uniform. By analyzing data sharding algorithms, the author demonstrates that simple linear algorithms are inefficient for large datasets due to frequent cache misses. To address this, an optimized strategy based on radix sort is proposed. Techniques like pre-sorting data, using generators, and pre-allocating memory significantly improve data sharding efficiency. Experimental results show that the optimized algorithm achieves a 2.5 to 9x speedup when processing large datasets.

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(purplesyringa.moe)
Development cache optimization radix sort big data processing

SeleniumBase: A Powerful Web Automation Framework

2024-12-17
SeleniumBase: A Powerful Web Automation Framework

SeleniumBase is a robust Python framework for web automation, testing, and bypassing bot detection. Built on Selenium WebDriver and integrating with test runners like pytest, it offers a clean syntax and extensive features such as automatic waits for page elements, test report generation, a dashboard, and support for multiple browsers and operating systems. SeleniumBase also includes modes like UC Mode and CDP Mode for enhanced stealth and reliability, along with comprehensive examples and documentation for quick adoption.

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(github.com)
Development web automation testing

Coccinelle: A Powerful Tool for Linux Kernel Development

2024-12-26

Coccinelle is a powerful tool for Linux kernel development, used for pattern matching and text transformation. It enables the application of complex, tree-wide patches and detects problematic coding patterns. This document details Coccinelle's installation, usage, various modes (patch, report, context, org), and advanced features such as parallelization, using a single semantic patch, controlling processed files, debugging, and .cocciconfig support. Coccinelle leverages Semantic Patch Language (SmPL) and offers multiple modes for generating patches, reports, context information, and Org-mode reports, catering to diverse needs.

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(docs.kernel.org)
Development

White House Near Collapse: An Unprecedented Reconstruction

2024-12-14
White House Near Collapse: An Unprecedented Reconstruction

In 1948, the White House, worn down by war damage and hasty renovations, faced imminent collapse due to structural decay and inadequate foundations. President Truman and his family were relocated, initiating a three-year comprehensive reconstruction. This project not only repaired the critical structural issues but also modernized the White House, adding basements, expanding utility spaces, and nearly doubling the number of rooms. A secret atomic bomb shelter was also constructed, reflecting the anxieties of the Cold War era. While the renovated White House was modernized, the removal of original interior elements altered its historical character.

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(en.wikipedia.org)
Misc White House Reconstruction Truman Historic Preservation

Beyond NISQ: The Dawn of the Megaquop Machine

2024-12-18
Beyond NISQ: The Dawn of the Megaquop Machine

Caltech's John Preskill delivered a keynote address at the Q2B 2024 conference, discussing the potential transition from the NISQ (Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum) era to the Megaquop (million quantum operations) era. Megaquop machines are envisioned to execute millions of quantum operations, albeit with a still-high error rate. Through error mitigation techniques and potentially higher-quality physical qubits, they could achieve tasks beyond the reach of classical computers and NISQ machines. Significant progress from teams at Google, AWS, and others in quantum error correction and hardware improvements lays the groundwork for Megaquop machines. However, Preskill highlighted challenges including decoding speed for quantum error correction, mitigating cosmic ray interference, and identifying commercially viable applications. Future applications of Megaquop machines might include simulations of complex quantum systems and materials science research.

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(quantumfrontiers.com)
AI Quantum Computing Quantum Error Correction

Unspoken Rules of Terminal Programs: A 20-Year Retrospective

2024-12-12

This article summarizes the author's 20 years of experience with terminal programs, distilling common, albeit unofficial, 'rules' of behavior. These rules cover program responses to Ctrl-C, Ctrl-D, and the 'q' key, color usage, readline keybinding support, and pipe output. The author notes that while not mandatory standards, understanding these rules helps predict terminal program behavior and reduces the learning curve. The article uses examples to analyze the applicability and exceptions to these rules, emphasizing the importance of distinguishing between a program's own responsibility and default OS behavior.

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(jvns.ca)
Development terminal programs command line programming tips

Farewell to Endless Meetings: A New Approach to High-Velocity Software Development

2024-12-15

Tired of endless meetings and lengthy planning? This article introduces a high-efficiency software development method: code-centric, rapid iteration. The author uses baking as an example to illustrate the concept of achieving the optimal solution through rapid experimentation, frequent testing, and continuous improvement. This method emphasizes reducing documentation, expressing ideas directly in code, using mock data and hot-reloading tools to speed up development, and improving code readability through concise code style and naming conventions. The author advocates breaking down projects into independently executable files, minimizing restart time, and using default language tools for debugging. Although this method may seem like a "chaotic lab," it can efficiently complete projects and avoid the redundancy and inefficiency of traditional methods.

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(mihaiolteanu.me)
Development agile development efficient programming

The Enigma of Luigi Mangione: A Bright Young Man and a Shocking Crime

2024-12-22
The Enigma of Luigi Mangione: A Bright Young Man and a Shocking Crime

This article recounts the author's interactions with Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Luigi, a bright young man from a wealthy family, purchased a premium membership to the author's blog, leading to a two-hour video call. During their conversation, Luigi expressed concerns about the erosion of human agency in modern society, likening many to unthinking 'NPCs' manipulated by technology. He voiced frustration with high US healthcare costs. The author's shock at Luigi's subsequent arrest for murder forms the crux of the article, exploring the complexities of motivation, the coexistence of kindness and cruelty, and the multifaceted nature of human behavior. The article raises questions about free will and societal influences on individual actions.

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(www.gurwinder.blog)
Misc free will social commentary murder mystery

Open Source Firmware: Necessity and Strategic Choices

2024-12-17

This article explores the necessity of open-source firmware. The author argues that firmware, as software controlling hardware, should adhere to free software principles. This is not only about freedom itself but also directly related to users' practical interests. Non-free firmware can restrict hardware functionality, hide security vulnerabilities, and even prevent users from fixing security issues. The article analyzes two viewpoints: one considers open-source firmware desirable but not necessary; the other advocates that all system software should be open-source. The author leans towards the former, believing that prioritizing the freedom of the operating system kernel is more important, but simultaneously emphasizes the benefits of open-source firmware and discusses how to promote it through strategic means.

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(mjg59.dreamwidth.org)
Development firmware free software

8-Day Western Ghats Road Trip in Karnataka from Bangalore

2024-12-20
8-Day Western Ghats Road Trip in Karnataka from Bangalore

This travelogue details Priyanka's captivating 8-day road trip from Bangalore, exploring Karnataka's Western Ghats. The itinerary covers Sakleshpur, Udupi, Nittur/Kollur, Jog Falls, Sringeri, Chikkamanagaluru, and Hassan, featuring numerous temples, waterfalls, beaches, and historical sites. The journey is vividly recounted through daily entries, showcasing scenic beauty, cultural immersion (including a Kola performance), and practical travel tips. It's a captivating blend of narrative and helpful information for potential travelers.

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(travelswithpriyanka.substack.com)
Misc travel India Western Ghats

Google's New Load Balancer, PReQuaL: Beyond CPU Load Balancing

2024-12-16

Google Research presented PReQuaL (Probing to Reduce Queuing and Latency), a novel load balancer, at NSDI 2024. Unlike traditional CPU load balancing, PReQuaL actively probes server latency and active requests to select servers, dramatically reducing tail latency, error rates, and resource consumption in systems like YouTube. Deployed in YouTube for over a year, PReQuaL has significantly improved system utilization. This innovative approach challenges conventional wisdom and offers a new paradigm for high-performance distributed systems.

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(www.usenix.org)
Development load balancing

Apache Cloudberry: Open-Source MPP Database, a Greenplum Alternative

2024-12-21
Apache Cloudberry: Open-Source MPP Database, a Greenplum Alternative

Apache Cloudberry, built by the original Greenplum Database developers, is an advanced and mature open-source Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) database. It features a newer PostgreSQL kernel and enhanced enterprise capabilities, serving as a data warehouse and supporting large-scale analytics and AI/ML workloads. Users can build from source or utilize a Docker-based sandbox for quick trials. A vibrant community provides support and encourages contributions ranging from code improvements to documentation enhancements.

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(github.com)
Tech open-source database Greenplum alternative

Finley Technologies Hiring Growth Associate to Fuel Fintech Expansion

2024-12-22
Finley Technologies Hiring Growth Associate to Fuel Fintech Expansion

Finley Technologies, a Y Combinator and Bain Capital Ventures-backed fintech startup, is seeking a Growth Associate. This role focuses on the credit fund segment and requires 2-3 years of finance experience, strategic thinking, entrepreneurial spirit, and strong communication skills. The successful candidate will help shape go-to-market strategy, product roadmap, and more, collaborating with a team to drive company growth.

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(jobs.lever.co)
Startup Growth Associate

Spark vs. DuckDB vs. Polars: Benchmarking Performance for Small to Medium Workloads

2024-12-15
Spark vs. DuckDB vs. Polars: Benchmarking Performance for Small to Medium Workloads

This article benchmarks Spark, DuckDB, and Polars, comparing their performance, cost, and development ease on 10GB and 100GB datasets. Results show that for large datasets and ETL tasks, Spark remains dominant due to its distributed computing capabilities and mature ecosystem. DuckDB and Polars excel at interactive querying and data exploration on smaller datasets. The author recommends a strategic mix-and-match approach, using Spark for ETL, DuckDB for interactive queries, and Polars for niche scenarios, tailoring engine choice to specific needs.

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(milescole.dev)
Development data processing engines benchmark

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.

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(rahul.gopinath.org)
Development Meta-circular Interpreter

GitHub Copilot: Your AI Pair Programmer

2024-12-18
GitHub Copilot: Your AI Pair Programmer

GitHub Copilot is an AI-powered pair programmer that provides real-time code suggestions based on your code and natural language prompts. It supports multiple programming languages and IDEs, offering free and paid plans to suit various needs. Copilot boasts powerful debugging and security vulnerability fixing capabilities, along with multi-file editing and cross-platform support. While trained on public code repositories, it doesn't copy-paste code but generates suggestions probabilistically, offering an optional code referencing filter to mitigate copyright concerns.

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(github.com)
Development AI programming code assistant

The Red Beads Experiment: Systems, Not People, Are the Problem

2024-12-17
The Red Beads Experiment: Systems, Not People, Are the Problem

Dr. W. Edwards Deming's 'Red Beads Experiment' vividly illustrates the impact of systems on individual performance. Employees pick beads from a mix containing mostly red beads, with performance measured by the number of red beads. Results show that despite employee effort, system flaws (high proportion of red beads) lead to huge performance differences, with management wrongly blaming individuals. The experiment highlights the importance of systemic issues, emphasizing management's focus on system improvement, not individual assessment, for true efficiency gains.

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(medium.com)
Misc Deming Red Beads Experiment Systems Thinking
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