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Forced AI: Big Tech's Shady Tactics

2025-07-06

Forced AI: Big Tech's Shady Tactics

Big tech companies are forcefully integrating AI into our lives, from Microsoft bundling AI into its office suite to Google's mandatory AI-powered search results. Users have no choice. The reason isn't AI's excellence, but that only 8% of people would voluntarily pay for it. Therefore, tech giants bundle it with existing products to hide losses and pretend users embrace it. The author uses personal experiences and data to demonstrate that AI isn't a necessity, and is largely unpopular, calling for legislation to regulate the forced implantation of AI before it becomes ubiquitous 'spam'.

(www.honest-broker.com)

Tech tech monopolies

The Greenwich Time Lady: The Remarkable Life of Ruth Belville

2025-03-13

For nearly fifty years, Ruth Belville carried on a unique family tradition, personally delivering precise time readings to London's clockmakers. Inheriting the role from her grandmother, who took over the task from her husband, Ruth meticulously delivered time using an antique pocket watch, spanning the transition from mechanical to electrical timekeeping. Her dedication created a unique and enduring legacy, a personal touch in a rapidly changing technological landscape.

(eehe.org.uk)

Misc

Master Helm Fast: A Concise Guide to Kubernetes Deployments

2025-01-10

Master Helm Fast: A Concise Guide to Kubernetes Deployments

Struggling with Helm's complexity? This concise guide provides a fast track to mastering Helm's essentials for efficient Kubernetes deployments. Learn through practical examples covering Helm fundamentals, installation, advanced features, custom chart creation, and dependency management. Ideal for developers, system administrators, and DevOps engineers seeking quick results and improved efficiency.

(curiousdevscorner.gumroad.com)

Development

DARKNAVY Reverse Engineers Starlink Terminal: Potential Security Vulnerabilities Unveiled

2025-05-09

DARKNAVY Reverse Engineers Starlink Terminal: Potential Security Vulnerabilities Unveiled

Security researchers at DARKNAVY conducted an in-depth reverse engineering analysis of SpaceX's Starlink user terminal, revealing its hardware, firmware, and security mechanisms. They discovered that Starlink utilizes chips from STMicroelectronics, including a custom quad-core SoC for core processing and a STSAFE-A110 security chip for authentication and key management. While most of the firmware was unencrypted, researchers also found a program labeled "Ethernet Data Recorder," potentially capable of data logging, but currently appearing to only log satellite telemetry data, not user privacy data. However, the terminal comes pre-loaded with 41 SSH public keys, and port 22 remains open, raising security concerns. This research highlights the importance of satellite internet security and the complexities of future offensive and defensive operations in space security.

(www.darknavy.org)

Tech

GitHub CodeQL Supply Chain Attack Risk: A 1.022-Second Flaw

2025-03-30

GitHub CodeQL Supply Chain Attack Risk: A 1.022-Second Flaw

A researcher uncovered a publicly exposed secret in GitHub CodeQL, lasting only 1.022 seconds, that could have led to a devastating supply chain attack. Within that timeframe, an attacker could gain full write access to CodeQL workflows, stealing source code from private repositories, GitHub Actions secrets, and even executing code on internal infrastructure. Critically, attackers could modify the version tag used by the default CodeQL workflow, impacting all repositories using CodeQL. The vulnerability has been patched, but it highlights the critical importance of CI/CD security.

(www.praetorian.com)

Tech CI/CD security

Odin Arena Allocators and Dynamic Arrays: Hidden Pitfalls

2025-04-13

Odin Arena Allocators and Dynamic Arrays: Hidden Pitfalls

Using arena allocators with dynamic arrays in Odin presents subtle pitfalls. Arenas efficiently manage allocations with the same lifetime, deallocating everything at once. However, dynamic arrays' growth mechanism leaves old memory blocks unfreed when using an arena allocator, leading to wasted memory. The article explains why: arena allocators don't support individual deallocations, and dynamic array growth creates a 'graveyard' of old blocks. Solutions include using the default allocator, pre-allocating maximum size, or employing a virtual growing arena. While the virtual growing arena prevents memory block movement, it's not immune to potential waste. The article concludes that if memory usage is highly dynamic, avoiding arena allocators is advisable.

(zylinski.se)

Development Arena Allocator Dynamic Array

The Bird with Four Sexes: Challenging the Gender Binary

2025-03-02

The Bird with Four Sexes: Challenging the Gender Binary

White-throated sparrows challenge the traditional binary understanding of sex. This species exists in two color morphs, white-striped and tan-striped, but sex doesn't align neatly with morph. About half of white-striped birds have testes, half have ovaries, and the same is true for tan-striped birds. Remarkably, white-striped birds with ovaries exhibit more aggressive 'male-like' behavior, while tan-striped birds with testes are more docile. This is due to a 'supergene' on chromosome 2 that controls both color and behavior, independent of sex. This research highlights the complexity of biological sex and challenges the simple male/female dichotomy.

(www.scientificamerican.com)

Tech sex diversity supergene white-throated sparrow

Kando: The Efficiency Tool That Redefines Productivity

2024-12-27

Kando: The Efficiency Tool That Redefines Productivity

Kando is an open-source, free efficiency tool available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It uses gesture recognition to let you select tools and actions in milliseconds, even navigating deeply nested menus with ease. Kando makes your entire screen a clickable target; no more precise aiming at tiny buttons! The latest release boasts a fantastic new icon, with details of the design process available on Ko-fi. Try it today!

(kando.menu)

Development efficiency tool gesture recognition

Lua: An Underrated Programming Language

2024-12-26

Lua: An Underrated Programming Language

Lua, a concise and efficient embedded scripting language created in 1993, remains surprisingly underrated despite its strengths. This article highlights Lua's advantages: ease of learning and mastery, an excellent C API, multi-paradigm support, and exceptional embeddability. While widely used in games and embedded systems, the author also points out some unique aspects of Lua, such as its indexing conventions (starting at 1 but not mandatory), error handling, and nil-terminated arrays, which developers should be aware of. Overall, Lua is a powerful language deserving more recognition; its efficiency is evident in applications like Neovim plugins.

(nflatrea.bearblog.dev)

Development scripting language embedded

Royal Mail Upgrades Postboxes to Accommodate Parcels

2025-04-12

Royal Mail Upgrades Postboxes to Accommodate Parcels

Royal Mail CEO Emma Gilthorpe announced an upgrade to UK postboxes to allow parcel posting, aiming to maximize customer convenience amidst declining letter volumes and booming parcel deliveries. Now, parcels fitting the postbox and bearing a barcode label can be dropped into any postbox. This follows a successful trial in Jersey and Guernsey. Britain's first pillar boxes, introduced in 1853, lacked standardization until 1859 when two sizes of green cylindrical postboxes were adopted.

(eandt.theiet.org)

Tech Royal Mail Postbox Upgrade Parcel Delivery

Raspberry Pi Pico 2 Pinout: An Interactive Guide

2025-07-11

Gadgetoid has created an interactive, accessible, and beautiful GPIO pinout and pin function guide for the Raspberry Pi Pico 2. This guide details the function of each pin on the Pico 2, including interfaces like SPI, I2C, UART, and PWM, with clear diagrams and explanations. Users can easily see the purpose of each pin and understand its connection to various interfaces. The guide also includes information on Pico 2 power management, ADC, and other special pins. This is a highly useful tool and a valuable resource for anyone looking to develop with the Raspberry Pi Pico 2.

(pico2.pinout.xyz)

Hardware Raspberry Pi Pico 2 GPIO Pinout Interactive Guide

GitHub Actions Security: Best Practices After Two Major Incidents

2025-05-08

GitHub Actions Security: Best Practices After Two Major Incidents

Recent attacks on GitHub Actions, including a supply chain attack and a compromise of the tj-actions, highlight significant security risks. This guide offers practical advice to secure your GitHub Actions workflows. It covers essential terminology, best practices for configuring organization-level settings and repository-level branch protection, secrets management, and safe workflow writing. Key vulnerabilities like Poisoned Pipeline Execution (PPE) are discussed, along with recommendations for minimizing third-party action usage, controlling permissions, and using tools for static analysis and policy enforcement.

(www.wiz.io)

Development

Tesla's German Nightmare: Musk's Politics Tank Sales

2025-03-14

A survey of over 100,000 Germans reveals that 94% won't buy a Tesla. This is disastrous news for Tesla, whose sales have plummeted in the crucial European market. In 2024, despite a 27% surge in overall EV sales, Tesla saw a 41% sales drop in Germany. The first two months of 2025 saw a further 70% decline. Industry experts blame Elon Musk's meddling in German elections and support for the far-right AfD party. Musk is under investigation in Europe, and his reputation in Germany is severely damaged. A new survey shows only 3% of respondents would consider buying a Tesla. German consumers are clearly rejecting the brand.

(electrek.co)

Tech

Calm Web Reader Artemis Launches

2024-12-20

Calm Web Reader Artemis Launches

Artemis is a web reader designed for a calm and peaceful reading experience. It updates once a day around 12 am in your timezone, allowing you to leisurely check your favorite websites. Artemis prioritizes a minimalist and slow design, promoting a relaxed browsing experience. It's free to use and offers information on data storage and accessibility, with contact details provided for tech support.

(artemis.jamesg.blog)

Misc web reader daily updates

Anthropic Achieves ISO 42001 Certification for Responsible AI

2025-01-16

Anthropic Achieves ISO 42001 Certification for Responsible AI

Anthropic, a leading AI company, announced it has received ISO 42001:2023 certification for its AI management system. This international recognition validates Anthropic's commitment to responsible AI development and use, covering ethical considerations, security, accountability, and more. Key elements include risk assessment, transparency measures, and rigorous testing and monitoring. Anthropic is among the first frontier AI labs to achieve this certification, reinforcing its dedication to AI safety.

(www.anthropic.com)

AI Responsible AI

arXivLabs: Experimental Projects with Community Collaborators

2025-06-17

arXivLabs is a framework that lets collaborators develop and share new arXiv features directly on the website. Individuals and organizations working with arXivLabs uphold 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. Have an idea to enhance the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

(arxiv.org)

Development

SBF's Prison Interview: A Pardon Play?

2025-03-08

SBF's Prison Interview: A Pardon Play?

Sam Bankman-Fried's (SBF) unauthorized prison interview with Tucker Carlson has sparked controversy. The interview, conducted without prison approval, landed SBF in solitary confinement. Analysts believe this was a calculated move to garner public support and potentially secure a pardon from President Trump. His parents have reportedly hired a lawyer with Trump ties to lobby for a pardon. However, SBF's past Democratic connections and his subtle approach to seeking a pardon may hinder his chances. Despite this, his youth and lengthy sentence leave the possibility of future developments open.

(gizmodo.com)

Tech Trump Pardon

90s Web Design Nostalgia: Modernizing Image Maps

2025-05-13

90s Web Design Nostalgia: Modernizing Image Maps

This article details the author's experience designing a website for Emmy-award-winning game composer Mike Worth. To evoke a 90s animation style, the author initially explored using image maps, but discovered limitations regarding responsive design. By combining SVG paths with embedded anchors and leveraging CSS and a small amount of JavaScript, the author successfully created a web design that blends 90s aesthetics with modern technical advantages, demonstrating creative problem-solving with older technologies.

(css-tricks.com)

Design

Four Ways to Find the Argmin of Floats in Rust (and Their Performance)

2025-09-20

This article explores four methods for quickly finding the index of the minimum value in a large array of floating-point numbers in Rust. The first method uses `min_by` and `total_cmp`, taking 511 microseconds; the second uses `reduce`, taking 489 microseconds; the third uses `partial_cmp`, taking 470 microseconds; and the fourth leverages the bit representation of positive floats, converting them to `u32` for comparison, taking only 370 microseconds – a 30% speedup. The fourth method proves most efficient for arrays containing only positive numbers, cleverly exploiting the internal representation of floats to avoid complex comparisons.

(algorithmiker.github.io)

Development

Global 6GHz Wi-Fi Spectrum Adoption Update

2025-01-06

The Wi-Fi Alliance has released an update on the global adoption of 6GHz Wi-Fi spectrum. The report shows many countries have approved or are considering approving the use of 6GHz Wi-Fi in the 5925-7125MHz band, promising significant improvements in Wi-Fi speed and capacity. The US has completed a three-stage spectrum allocation, while Europe is primarily focusing on the 5945-6425MHz band. This report provides valuable information for vendors and users looking to deploy 6GHz Wi-Fi technology.

(www.wi-fi.org)

Tech spectrum allocation Wi-Fi Alliance

VW's Emissions Scandal: A Decade of Fallout and €30 Billion in Damages

2025-05-26

VW's Emissions Scandal: A Decade of Fallout and €30 Billion in Damages

The 2015 Volkswagen emissions scandal, involving software designed to cheat on emissions tests, sent shockwaves through the global automotive industry. The deception resulted in billions in fines and settlements for VW, exceeding €30 billion. While former CEO Martin Winterkorn and other executives faced charges, Winterkorn continues to deny responsibility. The scandal remains a landmark case of corporate malfeasance with long-lasting consequences.

(www.politico.eu)

Tech Emissions Scandal Automotive Industry

The End of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum: 4000 Banned Books and Their Stories

2025-08-13

In 1948, the Catholic Church published the final 32nd edition of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a 508-page catalog that, since its first edition in 1559, listed nearly 4000 books banned for heresy, moral deficiency, sexual explicitness, political incorrectness, and more. Notable figures like Erasmus, Voltaire, and Sartre were included, alongside philosophers who believed in God, such as Descartes and Kant. Primarily intended for priests, this index reflects the Church's long history of controlling ideas and restricting intellectual freedom.

(historyofinformation.com)

Misc Index Librorum Prohibitorum

Trump's Unprecedented Assault on the First Amendment

2025-03-31

Following his re-election, the Trump administration has launched an unprecedented attack on the five pillars of the First Amendment: the right to petition, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion. Through actions such as firing those processing FOIA requests, threatening sanctions against lawyers suing the government, defunding universities, suing news organizations, restricting government employee language, and rescinding protections for religious sites, the administration systematically erodes these fundamental rights. This mirrors the repressive tactics of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, raising serious concerns about the future of American democracy.

(krebsonsecurity.com)

Tech

ESP32 Pomodoro Timer: A Hardware and Software DIY Project

2025-03-29

ESP32 Pomodoro Timer: A Hardware and Software DIY Project

A software engineer, driven by a quest for productivity enhancement and a desire to help a friend, designed an ESP32-based Pomodoro timer. This timer uses an e-paper display and a rotary encoder, prioritizing a physical device, fun, and intuitive usability. The project encompasses hardware selection (ESP32, e-paper display, rotary encoder, LED, etc.), software development (C++, Arduino framework, GxEPD2 library), and 3D-printed case design. The author shares lessons learned throughout the design process, such as display selection, input method design, LED indicator implementation, and software code management. The final product combines practicality and fun, incorporating Easter eggs.

(github.com)

Hardware Pomodoro Timer Hardware DIY

PG-MCP: Enhanced PostgreSQL Model Context Protocol Server

2025-03-30

PG-MCP: Enhanced PostgreSQL Model Context Protocol Server

PG-MCP is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for PostgreSQL databases, offering enhanced capabilities for AI agents. Building upon the reference Postgres MCP implementation, it adds multi-database support, rich metadata including PostGIS and pgvector extensions, query plan analysis tools, and robust connection management. Deployable via Docker or a virtual environment, developers can interact with PG-MCP using the provided Python client, even leveraging large language models like Claude for natural language to SQL conversion.

(github.com)

Development

AI-Powered Development: No More Fear of Large, Complex Projects

2025-03-09

A seasoned programmer has noticed a profound change over the past year: he's no longer intimidated by large or complex projects, nor unfamiliar technologies or programming languages. This is thanks to advancements in AI. The author cites two past projects he abandoned due to complexity, contrasting them with the significantly increased efficiency using AI-assisted programming today. He completed a project in an hour that previously took six weeks, and expresses excitement about the future, calling it a golden age for programmers.

(rodyne.com)

Development

Implementing State Machines in PostgreSQL for Data Integrity and Advanced Analytics

2025-05-08

This article demonstrates how to implement a finite-state machine (FSM) in PostgreSQL to manage order statuses. By creating an order events table, a state transition function, and a custom aggregate function, the author builds a system that ensures valid order state transitions and prevents invalid operations. Critically, this approach also unlocks advanced analytics capabilities, such as tracking order state history and generating daily order status reports, which is invaluable for applications with large datasets. The author uses an order management system as an example, detailing the implementation steps and showcasing how to leverage the system for data analysis. The resulting system offers both data integrity and powerful analytical tools.

(felixge.de)

Development

Pirelli's Smart Tires Hit the Road in Italian Pilot Program

2025-06-14

Pirelli's Smart Tires Hit the Road in Italian Pilot Program

Pirelli is launching a pilot program in Apulia, Italy, using its sensor-equipped Cyber Tires to improve road conditions. These tires monitor temperature, pressure, and wear, communicating with the car via Bluetooth Low Energy. Instead of relying on crowdsourced data from private vehicles, the program will use tires fitted to a fleet of rental cars. By analyzing data from the tires, algorithms can infer road surface roughness, informing infrastructure improvements. This technology holds promise for wider adoption, enhancing driving safety and comfort.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech smart tires sensors road infrastructure

It's DE9, Not DB9: A Tale of Misnamed Connectors

2025-07-26

For years, we've incorrectly called the 9-pin serial connector a DB9, but its correct name is DE9. This article explains the naming discrepancy. D-SUB connector naming follows a pattern: the first letter 'D' represents the D-shaped metal shield, the second letter specifies the shell size, and the following number indicates the pin count. DB denotes a 25-pin shell, while DE denotes a 9-pin shell. While DB9 has become the de facto name, it's technically wrong. SparkFun's new product uses the correct name, DE9, to correct this longstanding error and educate users on the proper technical terminology.

(news.sparkfun.com)

Hardware electronic components connectors

Why Are Coffee Stains Darkest at the Edges?

2025-05-13

Halldór Svavarsson, associate professor at the School of Technology and Engineering at the University of Reykjavik, Iceland, posed the question of why coffee stains are darkest at the edges when they dry. The provided text doesn't offer an explanation, only presenting the question and author information, suggesting a scientific answer is needed, beyond simple observation.

(www.why.is)

Misc coffee physical phenomenon

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