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PlutoPrint: Lightweight Python Library for Generating PDFs and Images from HTML/XML

2025-08-21
PlutoPrint: Lightweight Python Library for Generating PDFs and Images from HTML/XML

PlutoPrint is a lightweight Python library for generating high-quality PDFs and images directly from HTML or XML. Based on PlutoBook's rendering engine, it offers a simple API for creating reports, invoices, or visual snapshots. Use it via command line or Python API; pre-built binaries are available for Windows and Linux 64-bit. It even integrates with Matplotlib for generating and embedding charts.

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(github.com)
Development PDF generation Image generation

UK Secretly Demands Apple Weaken iCloud Encryption: A Privacy Nightmare

2025-02-12
UK Secretly Demands Apple Weaken iCloud Encryption: A Privacy Nightmare

The UK government secretly demanded Apple weaken the end-to-end encryption in its iCloud Advanced Data Protection (ADP) system, raising major privacy concerns. This system is designed to protect user data from unauthorized access, but the UK's request would allow it to secretly access user data. This not only threatens the privacy of UK users but also sets a dangerous precedent for other countries, potentially jeopardizing global data security. The author urges Apple to accelerate the rollout of end-to-end encryption and suggests US legislation prohibiting US companies from installing encryption backdoors at the request of foreign governments.

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(blog.cryptographyengineering.com)
Tech iCloud encryption privacy security government regulation

EU Sanctions Ineffective: Russian Cyberattack Actors Evade Sanctions

2025-09-12

In May 2025, the European Union sanctioned the owners of Stark Industries Solutions Ltd., a bulletproof hosting provider that facilitated Kremlin-linked cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns. However, new findings reveal the sanctions had little impact. Stark cleverly rebranded and transferred assets to affiliated entities, continuing operations. The owners, tipped off before the sanctions, moved operations to PQ Hosting Plus S.R.L. and MIRhosting, using new brand names like the[.]hosting and WorkTitans BV. Investigations linked the Dutch company MIRhosting and its owner Andrey Nesterenko to Russian-backed cyberattacks, while Youssef Zinad, seemingly controlling WorkTitans BV, maintains close ties with MIRhosting. The operation appears to be a sophisticated scheme to evade sanctions, highlighting the complexities of combating cybercrime.

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(krebsonsecurity.com)
Tech russian cyberattacks

Lost IBM Training Doc: Computers Can't Be Held Accountable (1979)

2025-02-03
Lost IBM Training Doc: Computers Can't Be Held Accountable (1979)

A legendary page from a 1979 internal IBM training resurfaced online, stating 'A computer can never be held accountable; therefore a computer must never make a management decision.' The original source is lost, reportedly destroyed in a flood. This statement resonates powerfully in our AI-driven age, prompting reflection on AI responsibility and decision-making.

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(simonwillison.net)
AI AI Accountability Historical Document

Building Reliable AI Agents: Six Hard-Won Lessons

2025-07-29
Building Reliable AI Agents: Six Hard-Won Lessons

This article shares six crucial lessons learned in building AI agents. The author emphasizes the importance of clear instructions, lean context management, robust tool interfaces, and automated validation loops. It highlights that modern LLMs need direct, detailed context, avoiding manipulative prompting. Powerful AI agents are built by combining LLMs with tools and basic control flow operators. A two-phase algorithm—one for generation, one for validation—is recommended, with iterative improvement and error analysis crucial for reliability and recoverability.

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(www.app.build)
Development

The Dying Art of Reading: A Professor's Lament

2025-03-31
The Dying Art of Reading: A Professor's Lament

A tenured professor, writing anonymously, laments the declining reading comprehension skills of today's college students. He details how many students struggle with adult literature, exhibiting reading levels comparable to elementary school. The pervasive use of AI for cheating further exacerbates the issue, hindering genuine learning. The professor argues this isn't a failure of the education system, but a societal problem rooted in students' addiction to their phones, lack of reading engagement, and a transactional view of college as a mere stepping stone to a job. He expresses deep sadness and concern.

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(www.persuasion.community)
Misc

Mozilla to Shut Down Pocket Read-It-Later Service in 2025

2025-05-22
Mozilla to Shut Down Pocket Read-It-Later Service in 2025

Mozilla announced it will shut down its popular read-it-later service, Pocket, on July 8, 2025, disappointing longtime users. While users can continue saving and reading until July, the service will become export-only afterward, with all data permanently deleted on October 8. Mozilla cites changes in how people consume content and a desire to focus resources on tools aligning with modern online habits. Premium subscribers will receive refunds. A portion of Pocket's functionality will live on as the "Ten Tabs" newsletter.

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(betanews.com)
Tech Read-it-later

Samsung's Odyssey 3D: Glasses-Free 3D Gaming Monitor Unveiled

2025-01-03
Samsung's Odyssey 3D: Glasses-Free 3D Gaming Monitor Unveiled

Samsung is launching the Odyssey 3D monitor, a glasses-free 27-inch 4K display utilizing a lenticular lens and AI to convert 2D content into 3D. Eye-tracking technology enhances the experience by optimizing the 3D effect. This represents another attempt by Samsung to popularize 3D displays, building on previous prototypes. While a larger 37-inch version was teased, only the 27-inch model has been released so far, potentially due to cost and market demand considerations. The monitor will be further showcased at CES 2025.

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(arstechnica.com)
Hardware 3D display Samsung

From Euler Angles to Quaternions: An Elegant Representation of 3D Rotations

2025-02-26
From Euler Angles to Quaternions: An Elegant Representation of 3D Rotations

This article delves into the representation of 3D rotations. Starting with the common Euler angles, it reveals the problem of gimbal lock. It then introduces Rodrigues vectors and explains their discontinuities in representing rotations. Through analogy with lower-dimensional spaces, the article cleverly shows how to map a spherical space with antipodal point equivalence to a 4D hypersphere, ultimately introducing quaternions as a continuous and efficient representation of 3D rotations. The article also explores the application and limitations of four-axis gimbals, explaining that even adding redundant axes cannot completely avoid singularities.

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(jasonfantl.com)
Development 3D rotation Euler angles

Reverse Engineering the Commodore 64 Freezer Cartridge: A Deep Dive

2025-06-14

This article delves into the reverse engineering of Commodore 64 freezer cartridges, such as the Final Cartridge III. These cartridges leverage the C64's Ultimax mode and NMI interrupts to achieve functionalities like freezing programs, applying cheat codes, and saving game states. The article meticulously explains the technical challenges of the freezing process, such as coordinating 6502 CPU instruction cycles with Ultimax mode activation, and how limited memory resources are utilized for displaying menus and managing state backups. The author also analyzes the cartridge's backup mechanisms and game trainer functionality, praising the developers' deep understanding of the C64 hardware and their masterful coding skills.

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(www.pagetable.com)
Hardware Freezer Cartridge

Blemmyes: Headless Wonders of Ancient Lore

2025-07-02
Blemmyes: Headless Wonders of Ancient Lore

Despite their fictional nature, the headless Blemmyes have become a staple in bestiaries and travelogues, appearing as early as the late tenth-century Marvels of the East. Depictions often portray them in a state of bewildered confusion, their absence of a neck a source of both fascination and amusement. These illustrations frequently pair Blemmyes with equally bizarre companions: a headless archer targeting a trumpet-playing merman, a Blemmye frolicking with a dog-headed friend and an elephant-trunked man, or a Blemmye regretting a wish granted—a head grafted from an angry swan. Sometimes terrifying, wielding clubs and crossbows, other times unexpectedly cute, as seen in a sixteenth-century illustration where an orange Blemmye seems embarrassed by dancing bipedal jackals above where its head should be.

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(publicdomainreview.org)
Misc Ancient Lore Mythical Creatures

Flock Safety's Nationwide Surveillance Network: A Privacy Nightmare?

2025-09-04
Flock Safety's Nationwide Surveillance Network: A Privacy Nightmare?

Flock Safety is deploying automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras across the US, creating a massive surveillance network spanning thousands of cities. The system allows private users to create 'hotlists' and cross-references plates against police and FBI databases, raising serious privacy concerns. Its ability to track individuals' movements and widespread use by law enforcement, potentially for political persecution, is alarming. The article urges opposition to this mass surveillance, suggesting legislative action, public engagement, and limitations on data retention, sharing, and database usage to protect civil liberties.

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(www.aclu.org)
Tech

QFEX is Hiring a Founding Backend Engineer

2025-06-20
QFEX is Hiring a Founding Backend Engineer

QFEX, a fintech company processing billions of dollars in daily trading volume, seeks a founding backend engineer. The role requires experience with high-performance languages (like C++), 3+ years building and running high-traffic, real-time production systems. Responsibilities include designing fault-tolerant, low-latency, high-availability services; setting up CI/CD and monitoring; and guiding technical direction. Ideal candidates possess fintech or low-latency experience, Kubernetes/IaC familiarity, and exceptional responsibility and decision-making skills.

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(www.ycombinator.com)
Development

Trump Admin's Illegal Purge of Inspectors General Sparks Outrage

2025-02-01
Trump Admin's Illegal Purge of Inspectors General Sparks Outrage

Last Friday, President Trump abruptly fired multiple agency inspectors general, including Phyllis Fong at the USDA. Fong, a 22-year veteran with numerous awards and key roles, was escorted from the building after refusing to comply with what she deemed an illegal order. The firings have sparked outrage, with CIGIE chairman Hannibal Ware stating they appear to violate federal law. Senator Adam Schiff called the actions illegal, and even Republican Senator Chuck Grassley expressed concern. However, Democrats' slow response raises questions about the effectiveness of checks and balances. This incident highlights the Trump administration's attack on oversight and the vulnerability of institutional safeguards.

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(gizmodo.com)
Misc Inspectors General

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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(github.com)
AI

Mastering Ruby Debugging: From puts to Professional Tools

2024-12-13
Mastering Ruby Debugging: From puts to Professional Tools

This JetBrains RubyMine blog post delves into various approaches to debugging Ruby code, ranging from basic `puts` statements to interactive consoles (IRB and Pry) and powerful debuggers (byebug, debug, and the RubyMine debugger). Using a real-world bug example, it highlights the strengths and weaknesses of each tool, guiding developers in selecting the most appropriate debugger for improved efficiency. The article emphasizes that effective debugging isn't just about fixing errors; it's about gaining a fundamental understanding of the code to write more robust Ruby applications.

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(blog.jetbrains.com)
Development Ruby debugging debugging tools

The Dopamine Reward Prediction Error Model: A Scientific Debate

2025-05-04
The Dopamine Reward Prediction Error Model: A Scientific Debate

The reward prediction error (RPE) model has long been used to explain dopamine's role in reward learning. However, recent studies have challenged this model. Some studies found RPE struggles to explain temporal dynamics of dopamine signals and variations in animal learning. Alternatives, like the adjusted net contingency for causal relations (ANCCR) model, have shown better performance in predicting dopamine release. Despite this, many researchers still consider RPE a useful framework for understanding dopamine, needing only refinement. This scientific debate highlights the inherent diversity of viewpoints and ongoing exploration in scientific research.

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(www.thetransmitter.org)
AI reward learning

The Bitter Lesson Strikes Tokenization: A New Era for LLMs?

2025-06-24
The Bitter Lesson Strikes Tokenization: A New Era for LLMs?

This post delves into the pervasive 'tokenization' problem in large language models (LLMs) and explores potential solutions. Traditional tokenization methods like Byte-Pair Encoding (BPE), while effective in compressing vocabularies, limit model expressiveness and cause various downstream issues. The article analyzes various architectures attempting to bypass tokenization, including ByT5, MambaByte, and Hourglass Transformers, focusing on the recently emerged Byte Latent Transformer (BLT). BLT dynamically partitions byte sequences, combining local encoders and a global transformer to achieve better performance and scalability than traditional models in compute-constrained settings, particularly excelling in character-level tasks. While BLT faces challenges, this research points towards a new direction for LLM development, potentially ushering in an era free from tokenization.

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(lucalp.dev)
AI Byte Latent Transformer

Pico-8 Fantasy Console Demo: Multi-Cartridge Game Shown at Revision

2025-04-19

A Pico-8 demo, utilizing multi-cartridge technology, was showcased at this year's Revision demoparty's "fantasy console" competition. Currently only viewable online, the full source code is available for download on Pouet. Accompanying YouTube videos showcase the game and its music creation process. The demo runs within Pico-8, downloading necessary data carts from the BBS. Some effects have also been released as standalone files.

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(www.lexaloffle.com)
Game demo

Trump Admin's EV Reversal: A $1 Billion Mistake?

2025-03-01
Trump Admin's EV Reversal: A $1 Billion Mistake?

The Trump administration's reversal of Biden-era policies on electric vehicles is proving far more expensive than anticipated. The order to dismantle 654 EV charging stations and sell off over 25,000 government EVs, while intending to save $300 million, is projected to cost taxpayers an additional $1 billion. This includes the cost of decommissioning chargers, losses from selling the EVs below market value, and the expense of replacing them with gasoline-powered vehicles. The move not only incurs significant financial losses but also inconveniences EV drivers.

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(www.thedrive.com)
Tech financial loss

Florida's Python War Reaches a Staggering Milestone

2025-06-17
Florida's Python War Reaches a Staggering Milestone

Florida's battle against invasive Burmese pythons has reached a startling milestone. The Conservancy of Southwest Florida has removed 20 tons of pythons since 2013, including a record 6,300 pounds this past breeding season. This massive haul, from a relatively small 200-square-mile area, highlights the scale of the problem within the larger Everglades ecosystem, estimated to harbor tens of thousands of these snakes. These pythons are decimating native wildlife, preying on 85 species of birds, mammals, and reptiles. The Conservancy's success stems from technological advancements, including radio telemetry trackers on male pythons to locate females during mating season. This proactive approach has prevented over 20,000 python eggs from hatching, and long-term monitoring shows promising results. Despite progress, the pythons are expanding their range, posing an ongoing threat to Florida's ecosystem.

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(phys.org)
Tech ecological damage technological solutions

The Evolution of the Telephone Ring: From Pencil Thumps to Dual-Tone Ringing

2025-02-07
The Evolution of the Telephone Ring: From Pencil Thumps to Dual-Tone Ringing

After the invention of the telephone in 1876, notifying someone of an incoming call was a challenge. Early methods involved crudely thumping a pencil on the diaphragm, which was inefficient and damaging. Thomas A. Watson then invented a 'hammer' device, followed by a 'buzzer,' but the sound was harsh. Finally, in 1878, Watson developed the dual-tone ringer, which became the global standard for telephone signaling, solving the incoming call notification problem. This narrative showcases the evolution of early telephone technology.

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(www.calling315.com)
Tech telephone history invention

Tech's Quiet War on Effort

2025-07-26
Tech's Quiet War on Effort

We're systematically destroying the biological reward system that makes effort feel worthwhile. Instant gratification technologies, like 8-minute biryani, AI-generated writing, and AI art generators, eliminate the need for effort. However, the effort itself is crucial for dopamine release and the resulting sense of accomplishment. We've become accustomed to convenience, losing the joy of effort and even the ability to experience fulfillment. The author argues this isn't a problem with technology itself, but rather our misuse of it; we try to eliminate effort, overlooking its inherent value.

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(anushkakarmakar.substack.com)
Tech value of effort

PyTorch Model with Metal Acceleration: Performance and Correctness

2025-09-04
PyTorch Model with Metal Acceleration: Performance and Correctness

This article presents a PyTorch-based model that attempts to leverage Metal for accelerated computation while providing pure PyTorch fallbacks to guarantee correctness. The model's core involves complex calculations including matrix multiplications, cumulative sums, and exponentiation. To enhance performance, the authors attempt to use Metal for custom kernels, but fall back to a pure PyTorch implementation if the Metal extension isn't available. This design ensures compatibility and reliability across different hardware platforms, offering developers a solution that balances performance and correctness.

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(gimletlabs.ai)
Development Model Acceleration

Gmail's New Easy Encryption: Secure Emails with a Single Click

2025-04-01
Gmail's New Easy Encryption: Secure Emails with a Single Click

Google is updating Gmail to allow enterprise users to send encrypted emails to any inbox with just a few clicks. A new encryption model eliminates the need for custom software or certificate exchanges. Initially rolling out in beta for internal enterprise emails, the feature will expand to any Gmail inbox in the coming weeks and other providers later this year. Users simply toggle 'additional encryption' to send a secured message. Non-Gmail recipients receive a link to a guest Workspace account to view and reply securely. While offering stronger encryption than TLS, it's not true end-to-end encryption as Google retains control over encryption keys.

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(www.theverge.com)
Tech Email Encryption

Critical Hurricane Forecasting Data to be Cut, Threatening Accuracy

2025-06-28
Critical Hurricane Forecasting Data to be Cut, Threatening Accuracy

Sensors aboard Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites will cease providing crucial microwave data to the National Hurricane Center and other non-Department of Defense users by June 30th, significantly impacting hurricane forecast accuracy. This data allows for viewing a storm's internal structure, especially changes to its eye and eyewall, giving forecasters hours of advanced warning of rapid intensification. The reasons for the shutdown remain unclear but may be related to security concerns. While NOAA claims to have alternative data sources, experts worry this could lead to 6-12 hour delays in hurricane forecasts, potentially devastating for Pacific storms and dangerous for mariners.

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(www.scientificamerican.com)
Tech hurricane forecasting meteorology

Recovering from Accidental Deletion of /lib on Linux

2025-03-22

This post details how to recover a Linux system after accidentally deleting the crucial `/lib` directory. The author explores several methods, from leveraging existing tools like a static busybox to creating and transferring a minimal, statically compiled C program to replace essential files. The step-by-step guide covers techniques using bash built-ins and network transfers, providing a solution to avoid reinstalling the OS.

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(tinyhack.com)
Development system recovery troubleshooting

UK's Age-Verification Loophole: VPNs Enable Minors to Bypass Porn Filters

2025-08-19
UK's Age-Verification Loophole: VPNs Enable Minors to Bypass Porn Filters

England's children's commissioner is urging the government to address a significant loophole in its new online safety regulations: the use of VPNs by minors to circumvent age restrictions. A recent report reveals a concerning number of young people accessing pornography before age 18, despite the implementation of mandatory age checks for commercial porn sites. The surge in VPN usage post-regulation highlights the ineffectiveness of current measures. While the government claims no plans to ban VPNs, it intends to collaborate with providers to implement robust age verification, potentially impacting the privacy and security of legitimate users, including schools relying on VPNs for secure access to internal systems. This move represents a significant challenge in balancing child safety with online freedoms.

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(www.theregister.com)
Tech

How Ideas Shape Historical Change: A Century-Spanning Ideological Struggle

2025-03-13
How Ideas Shape Historical Change: A Century-Spanning Ideological Struggle

This essay explores the role of ideas in major historical transformations. From religion to the Enlightenment and neoliberalism, the author analyzes how different ideologies have emerged, evolved, and impacted historical processes. Some ideologies, like Marxism, have exerted immense mobilizing power due to their rigorous theoretical frameworks during specific historical periods; others, such as neoliberalism, have achieved global influence through their control over economic foundations. The author argues that the Left needs to develop a systematic and uncompromising ideology capable of challenging the existing order to effectively participate in future historical changes.

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(newleftreview.org)
Misc historical change political thought
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