Facebook's Shocking Reliance on Ex-Intelligence Agents

2025-08-12
Facebook's Shocking Reliance on Ex-Intelligence Agents

An investigation reveals Meta's startling dependence on former US intelligence operatives. A significant number of employees from the CIA, FBI, and Department of Defense, particularly in crucial departments like trust and safety and content moderation, raise serious concerns about the blurring lines between platform impartiality and government influence. The article highlights this is not an isolated incident, with similar patterns observed in other tech companies, enabling indirect US government control over global information flow with minimal public oversight.

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Tech

Spoon Bending: Bypassing AI Safety Restrictions

2025-08-26
Spoon Bending: Bypassing AI Safety Restrictions

This research explores how the stricter safety guidelines in GPT-5, compared to GPT-4.5, can be circumvented. The 'Spoon Bending' schema illustrates how reframing prompts allows the model to produce outputs that would normally be blocked. The author details three zones: Hard Stop, Gray Zone, and Free Zone, showcasing how seemingly absolute rules are actually framing-sensitive. This highlights the inherent tension between AI safety and functionality, demonstrating that even with strong safety protocols, sophisticated prompting can lead to unintended outputs.

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AI

Generative AI Art's Polyester Fate: Bubble or Future?

2025-06-03
Generative AI Art's Polyester Fate: Bubble or Future?

This article uses the rise and fall of polyester as a metaphor to explore the future of generative AI art. Just as polyester briefly dominated the textile market in the mid-20th century before being relegated to cheap and tacky status, generative AI art faces a similar fate. While AI lowers the barrier to art creation, its proliferation leads to aesthetic fatigue and devaluation, even being used for disinformation. The author argues that while AI art may dominate the market in the short term, the human desire for genuine emotion and unique artistic expression will not disappear, ultimately driving a revival of truly valuable human-made art.

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JSON: A Pragmatic Choice for Machine-Readable Output on Unix

2025-02-24

The author advocates for using JSON as the machine-readable output format, based on their experience deleting emails from a Postfix mail queue. While not perfect, JSON offers several practical advantages on Unix systems: clarity, broad compatibility, extensive tool support, and easy conversion to other formats. For new programs, the author suggests that using only JSON is the simplest approach, avoiding the complexities of designing custom formats and promoting interoperability between Unix programs.

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Google Simplifies URL Display in Mobile Search Results

2025-01-23
Google Simplifies URL Display in Mobile Search Results

Google announced a simplification to how URLs are displayed in mobile search results. Previously, mobile search results included website breadcrumbs as part of the URL, but these were often truncated on smaller screens. Now, Google will remove breadcrumbs from mobile search results, displaying only the domain for a cleaner, more user-friendly experience. Desktop search results remain unchanged. This change doesn't require action from developers using breadcrumb structured data; it continues to be supported for desktop search.

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s3mini: Blazing Fast and Tiny S3 Client for Edge

2025-06-11
s3mini: Blazing Fast and Tiny S3 Client for Edge

s3mini is an ultra-lightweight (~14KB minified) TypeScript client for S3-compatible object storage, boasting ~15% faster operations per second than alternatives. It runs on Node.js, Bun, Cloudflare Workers, and other edge platforms, tested with Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, DigitalOcean Spaces, and MinIO. Featuring essential S3 APIs (put, get, delete, list, etc.) and AWS SigV4 support (no pre-signed URLs needed), s3mini is zero-dependency and perfect for resource-constrained environments. Browser support is not provided.

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Development

GribStream: A Fast and Efficient Historical Weather Forecast API

2024-12-20
GribStream: A Fast and Efficient Historical Weather Forecast API

GribStream is a fast, efficient, and easy-to-use historical weather forecast API leveraging the National Blend of Models (NBM) and the Global Forecast System (GFS). It provides access to massive historical weather data; a single HTTP request can retrieve tens of thousands of hourly data points for months in seconds. The API supports various output formats (CSV, Parquet, JSON, etc.) and location queries. Its cost-effective pricing and powerful features allow developers to easily access the data they need without downloading and archiving.

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Development historical data

Constant-Time Sliding Window Aggregation: A Refined FIFO

2025-08-20

This post presents a refined FIFO data structure enabling constant-time sliding window aggregation. Traditional approaches using dual-stack structures prove inefficient. The author introduces a novel method, cleverly managing 'ingestion' and 'excretion' lists with their running and suffix products, to achieve aggregation over arbitrary monoids with worst-case constant-time complexity. This avoids the extensive copying and redundancy of prior methods, offering significant practical advantages. Python code is included for implementation.

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(pvk.ca)
Development

Hard Drives Make a Comeback in Green Data Centers

2025-05-19
Hard Drives Make a Comeback in Green Data Centers

A Seagate report highlights energy usage as a top concern for over half of business leaders, advocating for smarter disk utilization in data centers. Projecting a 165% increase in global data center power demand by 2030 (Goldman Sachs), the report emphasizes the pressure on organizations to balance rising data volumes, slowing power efficiency gains, and AI adoption with carbon emissions, infrastructure expansion, and TCO. Seagate proposes a fundamental shift: viewing data infrastructure as an opportunity to optimize both cost and sustainability. Comparing the embodied carbon of disk, SSD, and tape, the report finds hard drives to have the lowest carbon footprint. Three strategic pillars for a sustainable data future are suggested: technological innovation, lifecycle extension and circularity, and ecosystem-wide accountability. Seagate's HAMR technology is showcased, achieving triple capacity and over 70% reduction in per-TB carbon emissions. Sustainability, the report concludes, requires a holistic approach encompassing infrastructure, lifecycle management, and industry collaboration.

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Text-Based TUI Matrix Application: A Nestable Text Desktop Environment

2025-03-07
Text-Based TUI Matrix Application: A Nestable Text Desktop Environment

This is a text-based application where the entire user interface is a mosaic of text cells forming a TUI matrix. The resulting TUI matrix renders either into its own GUI window or a compatible text console. It can wrap any console application and nest indefinitely, creating a text-based desktop environment. Supports Windows, Unix, Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and more. Currently, native GUI window rendering is only available on Windows; Unix platforms require a terminal emulator.

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Development text interface

Kite-Powered Electricity: A Game Changer in Wind Energy?

2025-07-18
Kite-Powered Electricity: A Game Changer in Wind Energy?

A project in Co Mayo, Ireland, is generating renewable electricity using kites, touted as a potential game-changer in wind energy. Kitepower, a spin-off from Delft University, employs 60 sq/m kites flown up to 425m, generating electricity through a yo-yo-like system. The kites, controlled by kitesurfing professionals and a GPS system, produce up to 30 kW per hour, stored in a battery. The entire system is mobile and easily deployable, operating even in cloudy, rainy, or nighttime conditions. This technology aims to provide clean energy to remote areas and eventually integrate with the electricity grid.

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Jetrelay: A Highly Efficient Pub/Sub Server Leveraging Linux Kernel Features

2025-05-16

Jetrelay, a pub/sub server compatible with Bluesky's jetstream, achieves impressive efficiency with only 500 lines of code. By cleverly utilizing Linux kernel features like `sendfile()`, `io_uring`, and `fallocate()`, Jetrelay broadcasts data and manages persistent storage with minimal user-space overhead. This allows it to saturate a 10Gbps network connection using just 8 CPU cores. The design avoids unnecessary data copies and uses asynchronous I/O to handle thousands of concurrent client connections effectively.

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Development

Zipf's Law in Whale Song: A Striking Similarity in Cultural Learning

2025-02-07
Zipf's Law in Whale Song: A Striking Similarity in Cultural Learning

New research reveals that humpback whale songs exhibit the same Zipfian distribution found in human languages—the most frequent word is twice as frequent as the second, and so on. Researchers analyzed eight years of whale song recordings, using techniques inspired by how human infants learn language, to uncover this pattern. This suggests both human language and whale song possess statistically coherent parts, following Zipf's law, likely because cultural learning makes learning easier and promotes the emergence of these properties. However, this doesn't mean we can talk to whales; the meaning of whale song remains unknown. Future research will explore other species, such as songbirds, to test whether cultural learning is the common driver of this phenomenon.

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Python Script Simplifies YouTube Video & Playlist Downloads

2025-01-28
Python Script Simplifies YouTube Video & Playlist Downloads

The Python script `Download-Simply-Videos-From-YouTube` makes downloading YouTube videos and playlists incredibly easy. It supports high-quality downloads, multiple formats, subtitles, and thumbnails, and automatically organizes files. Simply install Python and FFmpeg, run the script, and follow the prompts. Created by Pierre-Henry Soria, a software AI engineer passionate about automating content creation.

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The Reddit Revolt Against Blinding Headlights

2025-01-10
The Reddit Revolt Against Blinding Headlights

A growing online movement, spearheaded by a Reddit community (r/FuckYourHeadlights), is fighting back against the increasingly bright headlights on modern cars. The article delves into the complexities of this issue, exploring the technological advancements in LED lighting, the regulatory shortcomings of NHTSA standards, and the human impact of excessive glare. While LEDs offer benefits like energy efficiency and longer lifespan, their intensity has led to widespread complaints and a debate over safety and comfort. Experts highlight headlight alignment, vehicle size, and the intentional manipulation of light distribution as contributing factors. The article concludes by examining potential solutions, including adaptive driving beam technology, while acknowledging the need for a balanced approach that prioritizes both safety and driver well-being.

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Tech headlights

Fluid Simulation Meets Reality: A 2025 Demo

2025-09-04

This demo showcases a fascinating fluid simulation interacting with real-world objects. The creator cleverly uses a webcam to capture object shapes, a polarization filter to prevent screen feedback, and aligns the feed with the simulation for real-time interaction. Hands are surprisingly recognized as obstacles, adding a fun, unexpected element. The simulation itself is a wind-tunnel style model, drawing inspiration from Tidepodious' work. It's a visually impressive blend of virtual and real.

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Development real-time interaction

Tech Giants Unite to Support Open-Source Chromium Development

2025-01-09
Tech Giants Unite to Support Open-Source Chromium Development

The Linux Foundation launched the "Supporters of Chromium-Based Browsers" initiative, backed by Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Opera. This initiative aims to fund and support the open development of Chromium projects, fostering collaboration between developers, academia, and tech companies to ensure the sustainability and innovation of the ecosystem. Operating on an open governance model, the project prioritizes transparency and community involvement. This move is seen as crucial for securing the future of Chromium-based browsers and promoting greater collaboration within the tech industry.

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Development Linux Foundation

6502 Assembly Language: A Beginner's Guide to Retro Computing

2025-02-07

This tiny ebook introduces you to 6502 assembly language, a historical processor powering iconic machines like the Commodore 64 and Apple II. Learning assembly offers a deep understanding of computer architecture. The 6502, with its human-friendly design, makes it an ideal starting point. The book guides you through registers, flags, instructions, addressing modes, and the stack, culminating in a simple Snake game. An online assembler and simulator are included for hands-on learning.

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Development

Android 16's Stingray Defense: A New Layer of Mobile Security

2025-06-28
Android 16's Stingray Defense:  A New Layer of Mobile Security

Android 16 introduces a crucial security feature to warn users if their phone connects to a fake or insecure mobile network, often created by a device known as a 'stingray'. This alerts users to unencrypted connections or when the network requests their phone's identifiers, helping detect potential surveillance. However, due to new hardware requirements, this protection will likely be limited to new devices launching with Android 16, such as the upcoming Pixel 10. The feature is implemented through a new 'Mobile Network Security' page in the Safety Center, allowing users to control network notifications and 2G network protection.

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Tech

Andes' Cuzco Core: A RISC-V Challenger in the Datacenter

2025-09-18
Andes' Cuzco Core: A RISC-V Challenger in the Datacenter

Taiwanese chipmaker Andes and its US subsidiary Condor Computing unveiled Cuzco, a groundbreaking RISC-V core aiming to disrupt x86 and Arm's dominance in datacenters. Cuzco employs a novel time-based scheduling architecture, eliminating power-hungry CAMs while maintaining high performance. Its unique execution unit design and multi-level cache architecture support up to eight cores and is compatible with the latest RVA-23 specification. With a track record of over 17 billion RISC-V chips shipped and significant inroads in the AI sector, Andes positions Cuzco to become a leading high-performance RISC-V CPU IP.

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Hardware

Anthropic's Hybrid AI Model: Deep Reasoning Meets Speed

2025-02-14
Anthropic's Hybrid AI Model: Deep Reasoning Meets Speed

Anthropic, an AI startup, is preparing to release its next major AI model, a hybrid approach blending deep reasoning capabilities with fast response times. This new model will reportedly offer a 'sliding scale' for developers to control costs, as deep reasoning is computationally intensive. Early reports suggest it outperforms OpenAI's o3-mini-high model on certain programming tasks and excels in analyzing large codebases and business benchmarks. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently hinted at the model's impending release.

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Gemini AI Boosts Google Workspace: Summarization for PDFs and Forms Arrives

2025-06-13
Gemini AI Boosts Google Workspace: Summarization for PDFs and Forms Arrives

Google is rolling out new Gemini AI features to Workspace, simplifying information retrieval from PDFs and form responses. Gemini's file summarization capabilities now extend to PDFs and Google Forms, condensing key details and insights for easier access. For PDFs, Gemini generates summary cards with clickable actions like 'draft a proposal' or 'list interview questions'. For Forms, it summarizes short-answer responses, highlighting key themes. A new 'help me create' feature automatically generates forms based on user descriptions, even incorporating data from other Google Workspace files. These features are rolling out in stages throughout June and July, with varying language support.

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Google Deletes AI Pledge Against Weapons and Surveillance

2025-02-04
Google Deletes AI Pledge Against Weapons and Surveillance

Google quietly removed a pledge from its website this week promising not to develop AI for weapons or surveillance. The change, first reported by Bloomberg, sparked controversy. While Google now emphasizes responsible AI development aligned with international law and human rights, its contracts with the US and Israeli militaries, coupled with Pentagon claims that Google's AI is accelerating the military's 'kill chain,' raise concerns about the gap between its stated principles and actions. Internal employee protests and public scrutiny highlight the ethical dilemmas surrounding AI development and deployment.

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FCC to Overhaul Aging US Emergency Alert Systems

2025-08-09
FCC to Overhaul Aging US Emergency Alert Systems

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is launching a comprehensive review of the US's aging emergency alert systems, including the 31-year-old Emergency Alert System (EAS) and the 13-year-old Wireless Emergency Alerts (WAS). The review will examine infrastructure, alert-sending entities, geographic targeting, and security. This follows deadly Texas floods that raised questions about the effectiveness of alerts and resource allocation, highlighting the critical intersection of technology and public safety.

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Pharmacy Deserts Plague US: 15.8 Million Affected, Disproportionately Impacting Vulnerable Communities

2025-03-17
Pharmacy Deserts Plague US: 15.8 Million Affected, Disproportionately Impacting Vulnerable Communities

A study in JAMA Network Open reveals that 46% of US counties face 'pharmacy deserts,' affecting 15.8 million people. These deserts disproportionately impact communities with lower education levels, lack of health insurance, limited English proficiency, ambulatory disabilities, and higher minority populations. The NCPA is collaborating with the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy to combat this, providing real-time data on pharmacy shortages and seeking sustainable policy solutions.

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Uber Launches Cheap, Fixed-Route Rideshares to Combat Inflation

2025-05-14
Uber Launches Cheap, Fixed-Route Rideshares to Combat Inflation

Facing economic headwinds, Uber is introducing Route Share, a new feature offering discounted fixed-route rides during weekday commutes in major US cities. Riders can save up to 50% compared to UberX. Leveraging existing ride-sharing technology, Route Share allows up to three riders per vehicle and utilizes Uber's data to optimize routes. In addition to Route Share, Uber announced 'Ride Passes' for discounted pre-paid rides and a partnership with OpenTable's Dine Out to offer discounts on rides to restaurants. These initiatives aim to attract and retain customers amidst economic uncertainty.

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Retro Revival: Bringing a Tandy Coco Back Online with FujiNet

2024-12-20
Retro Revival: Bringing a Tandy Coco Back Online with FujiNet

This article details the author's journey in connecting an old Tandy Coco computer to the internet using the FujiNet project, an ambitious open-source initiative aiming to be the only peripheral needed for vintage computers. The author faced challenges during the assembly process, including soldering difficulties, hardware bugs, and software compatibility issues. Despite these hurdles, they successfully connected to the internet and ran various applications, including an ISS tracker and games. The experience highlights the vibrancy of the open-source community and the potential of retrocomputing, showcasing the fun of hardware repair and software development.

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Musk's Self-Driving Scam: A Decade of Promises, a Mountain of Lies

2025-05-29
Musk's Self-Driving Scam: A Decade of Promises, a Mountain of Lies

This article exposes Elon Musk's decade-long deception regarding Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology. Since 2015, Musk has repeatedly promised the imminent arrival of FSD, yet it remains undelivered. The article highlights Tesla's inferior 'vision-only' approach compared to Google's Waymo, which operates driverless taxi services in multiple cities. Musk's rejection of lidar technology has resulted in more Tesla accidents. The upcoming Robotaxi launch in Austin is also revealed as not truly driverless, relying on remote human supervision. The article critiques Musk's arrogance and incompetence, and the misuse of technology by tech giants and its impact on society.

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Hacker News: Inside the Operations of a Prolific Voice Phishing Crew

2025-01-08

A KrebsOnSecurity article exposes the inner workings of a prolific voice phishing gang. The group abuses legitimate Apple and Google services, using spoofed phone numbers, phishing emails, and system messages to defraud victims. They even leverage an official Apple support line to send confirmation messages, building trust. The gang has a clear division of labor, including callers, operators, drainers, and owners. The article reveals how they use data breaches and automated tools to target victims, and details internal conflicts and betrayals. The incident highlights the importance of cybersecurity and exposes the complex operation of cybercrime groups.

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