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23andMe's Financial Troubles: Californians Can Delete Their Genetic Data

2025-03-22

23andMe's Financial Troubles: Californians Can Delete Their Genetic Data

Facing financial distress, genetic testing company 23andMe has prompted California Attorney General Rob Bonta to remind Californians of their rights under the Genetic Information Privacy Act (GIPA) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) to delete their genetic data and destroy samples. Users can delete their accounts and personal information through 23andMe's website, following steps to download data, permanently delete it, and destroy samples.

(oag.ca.gov)

Tech genetic privacy

The Strangest Microwave Purchase Ever: A Trip to GO12

2025-09-08

The Strangest Microwave Purchase Ever: A Trip to GO12

SoraNews24 reporter Mr. Sato embarked on a mission to buy a new office microwave, but chose the unusual route of GO12, a 24/7 unmanned electronics store in Kamata, Tokyo. This store stocks used appliances, offering a self-service shopping experience via a tablet payment system. Mr. Sato purchased a 5,000 yen microwave, enjoying a smooth transaction, yet feeling a strange sense of guilt. GO12's trust-based system and unique shopping experience, while convenient, spark reflections on social trust and human nature.

(soranews24.com)

Misc unmanned store shopping experience

Codex: Promising GitHub Assistant, But Needs Improvement

2025-05-20

Codex: Promising GitHub Assistant, But Needs Improvement

Codex is a GitHub integrated tool powered by OpenAI's model, allowing users to submit code modification tasks via natural language. Its strength lies in its ability to handle multiple tasks in parallel and track progress through a familiar chat interface. However, Codex currently suffers from shortcomings such as poor error handling, difficulty handling large refactoring tasks, and lack of internet access. The author believes that with model improvements and feature enhancements, Codex has the potential to become a highly efficient development assistant, but currently it's better suited for small, simple maintenance tasks.

(zackproser.com)

Development

Manhattan's Hardest-Working Font: The Mystery of Gorton

2025-02-14

Manhattan's Hardest-Working Font: The Mystery of Gorton

This article details the author's obsessive quest to uncover the story behind Gorton, a surprisingly ubiquitous yet unassuming font. Initially used with engraving machines, its rugged durability led to widespread adoption in diverse contexts, from keyboards to spacecraft. The author's years-long search, spanning countless miles and locations, reveals Gorton's century-long history, tracing its origins to a UK lens maker and its subsequent evolution through various iterations like Leroy. While far from perfect, Gorton's charm lies in its imperfections and enduring presence, solidifying its status as Manhattan's hardest-working font.

(aresluna.org)

Design design history

Reverse-Engineering a Pentium's Carry-Lookahead Adder

2025-01-18

Reverse-Engineering a Pentium's Carry-Lookahead Adder

Ken Shirriff's blog post details the reverse engineering of an 8-bit adder within the Pentium's floating-point unit. This adder, a Kogge-Stone carry-lookahead adder, accelerates addition by calculating carry bits in parallel. The post meticulously explains the carry-lookahead adder's principle, showcasing the Pentium's hardware implementation—a four-layer circuit structure employing the Kogge-Stone algorithm. It also discusses the adder's role in the Pentium's floating-point division unit and its connection to the infamous Pentium FDIV bug.

(www.righto.com)

Hardware carry-lookahead adder

Microsoft's New Command Palette: An Enhanced PowerToys Run

2025-05-17

Microsoft's New Command Palette: An Enhanced PowerToys Run

Microsoft has quietly released Command Palette, a revamped launcher app for Windows, succeeding its PowerToys Run. This updated tool offers quick access to commands, apps, and development tools, including search functionality for apps, files, and folders; calculations; system commands; and website/web search capabilities. Crucially, Command Palette boasts extensibility, allowing users to add custom commands and features, making it a powerful asset for developers and power users. Window Walker functionality is also integrated for easy window switching.

(www.theverge.com)

Development

xtool: A Cross-Platform Xcode Replacement

2025-05-17

xtool: A Cross-Platform Xcode Replacement

xtool is a cross-platform tool (Linux/WSL/macOS) that replicates core Xcode functionality using open standards. Build and deploy iOS apps with SwiftPM without needing Xcode. Key features include building SwiftPM packages into iOS apps, signing and installing apps, and programmatic interaction with Apple Developer Services. It also offers an XKit library for interacting with Apple services and iOS devices within your own apps.

(github.com)

Development Cross-Platform

Installing AIX 1.3 on a 486: A Retro Computing Odyssey

2025-04-03

After contracting COVID-19, the author embarked on a nostalgic project: installing AIX 1.3 on their aging 486 computer. This Franken-486, a collection of parts accumulated over three decades, presented numerous hurdles. The installation process involved 94 floppy disk images, grappling with IDE interface issues, VGA compatibility problems, and corrupted installation disks. The author's troubleshooting journey included swapping graphics cards, hard drives, recreating installation disks, and even crafting a custom VGA cable, yet the installation ultimately failed. This anecdote reflects a passion for retro computing and perseverance in overcoming technical challenges, highlighting the quirks and complexities of older hardware.

(hardwarehacks.org)

Hardware hardware installation

5 Ways to Render Outlines in Unity

2025-01-04

5 Ways to Render Outlines in Unity

This article explores five distinct techniques for rendering object outlines in the Unity game engine: rim lighting, vertex extrusion, blurred buffer, jump flood algorithm, and edge detection. Each technique offers trade-offs between performance, visual fidelity, and implementation complexity. Rim lighting is simple but works best on spherical objects. Vertex extrusion produces good results but struggles with sharp edges. The blurred buffer method is great for soft outlines but can be performance-intensive. The jump flood algorithm excels at rendering wide outlines efficiently. Edge detection provides a full-screen outlining effect but requires careful tuning to avoid artifacts. The optimal choice depends on project needs and performance constraints.

(ameye.dev)

Development Shader Outline Rendering

Stop the Back-and-Forth: Craft the Perfect AI Coding Prompt from the Start

2025-08-17

Stop the Back-and-Forth: Craft the Perfect AI Coding Prompt from the Start

When using AI coding assistants, instead of endless clarifications and corrections, revise your initial prompt. Think of it like giving instructions – constant changes confuse the recipient. AI assistants are similar; multiple edits lead to conflicting context, confusion, and degraded performance. Provide clear, complete instructions upfront, letting the AI start fresh for better results. A precise initial prompt avoids iterative refinement.

(elite-ai-assisted-coding.dev)

Development

Carl Sagan's Prophecy: The Decline of Science and America's Future

2025-02-05

Carl Sagan's Prophecy: The Decline of Science and America's Future

This article explores Carl Sagan's prediction of America's future trajectory, contrasting it with the cyclical theory of history proposed by the 18th-century philosopher Giambattista Vico. Sagan feared that the benefits of technological advancement in America would be controlled by a select few, leading to a decline in public scientific literacy, a rise in superstition, and ultimately, societal decline. This aligns with Vico's theory of cyclical rise and fall, but Sagan believed that reversing this trend through science education was possible. The article serves as a warning about the importance of science literacy education and avoiding a repeat of history.

(www.openculture.com)

Tech science education technological future social prediction

Mars' Middle Atmosphere: Gravity Waves Reign Supreme

2025-03-11

Mars' Middle Atmosphere: Gravity Waves Reign Supreme

A groundbreaking study reveals that unlike Earth, Mars's middle and upper atmosphere circulation is primarily driven by gravity waves (GWs), not Rossby waves. Analysis of long-term atmospheric data shows GWs facilitate rapid vertical transfer of angular momentum, significantly influencing north-south circulation. This contrasts with Earth's stratosphere, resembling the mesosphere instead. This finding necessitates refining existing Martian atmospheric models for improved climate and weather simulations, crucial for future missions. Future research will explore the impact of Martian dust storms on this dynamic, promising more accurate Martian weather forecasting.

(phys.org)

Tech Mars Atmosphere Gravity Waves Atmospheric Circulation

Unlocking AI's Potential: The Missing Guide to Prompt Engineering

2025-07-21

Unlocking AI's Potential: The Missing Guide to Prompt Engineering

This article highlights the critical role of prompt engineering in maximizing AI performance. It emphasizes that clear prompts lead to accurate and useful AI outputs, while poorly crafted prompts result in inaccurate information and wasted resources. The article distinguishes between conversational prompting for casual use and product prompting for business applications, focusing on the latter's precision and importance in building reliable AI-powered systems. It offers techniques for crafting effective prompts, including guiding AI reasoning, self-checking, and meeting specific requirements, ultimately advocating for a collaborative approach to harnessing AI's full potential.

(appetals.com)

AI AI collaboration

Visualizing Chromium's Include Graph: A 150MB GraphML Adventure

2025-05-21

Visualizing Chromium's Include Graph: A 150MB GraphML Adventure

This post details visualizing Chromium's massive include graph using clang-include-graph, a command-line tool. The process involved building Chromium to generate compile_commands.json, then using clang-include-graph to produce a 150MB GraphML file. This file, containing over 140,000 nodes and 1.3 million edges, was visualized with Gephi. Python scripts analyzed the graph, revealing interesting statistics like a 92-node strongly connected component responsible for 99% of the cycles. The author explores various visualization layouts and discusses the challenges of working with such a large dataset.

(blog.bkryza.com)

Development

Russia Rejects Bill to Legalize Ethical Hacking

2025-07-11

Russia Rejects Bill to Legalize Ethical Hacking

Russia's State Duma rejected a bill to legalize ethical hacking, citing concerns over national security and the potential for sharing vulnerabilities with hostile nations. While established cybersecurity firms can still conduct vulnerability research, individual researchers face legal risks under existing laws prohibiting unauthorized access to computer systems. The rejection highlights the challenges Russia faces in balancing national security with the development of its cybersecurity sector.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech ethical hacking

Deep Dive: Humans to Test Underwater Habitat in 2025

2025-01-06

Deep Dive: Humans to Test Underwater Habitat in 2025

British startup Deep is pioneering underwater living with its Sentinel project, a modular habitat slated for completion in 2027. Utilizing advanced 3D printing and welding, Sentinel will enable scientists to live and work at depths up to 200 meters for extended periods. A smaller, transportable habitat called Vanguard, launching in 2025, will serve as a testbed. Vanguard can house three divers for up to a week, demonstrating the potential to dramatically increase the efficiency of ocean research and enhance our understanding of marine ecosystems in the face of climate change.

(spectrum.ieee.org)

Tech Underwater Habitat Ocean Exploration 3D Printing

EU Regulations to End Android's Openness?

2025-08-02

EU Regulations to End Android's Openness?

The European Union's Radio Equipment Directive (RED) will take effect on August 1, 2025, with cybersecurity requirements significantly impacting the openness of Android smartphones. The directive mandates manufacturers to block unauthorized software installation, use Secure Boot to verify firmware authenticity, and ensure only signed ROMs can run. This means features like bootloader unlocking will disappear, reducing user and enterprise software control, making Android devices in Europe more iOS-like. Samsung has preemptively removed bootloader unlocking in its OneUI 8 update, and other manufacturers like Xiaomi and Google will have to follow suit to comply. This change enhances security but marks the end of an era of open Android customization.

(xiaomitime.com)

Tech

India's New Tax Law: Government Can Now Access Your Digital Life

2025-03-06

India's New Tax Law: Government Can Now Access Your Digital Life

A new Indian tax law grants tax authorities the power to forcibly access your social media accounts, emails, bank accounts, investment accounts, and more to investigate tax evasion. The law defines "virtual digital space" broadly, encompassing nearly all online accounts and data. This has raised serious privacy concerns, with experts arguing the law lacks sufficient oversight and procedural safeguards, potentially leading to abuse of power and conflicting with the Supreme Court's rulings on the right to privacy.

(economictimes.indiatimes.com)

Tech tax law digital space

Turn Your Old iPhone or RTSP Camera into an AI Security Camera

2025-08-24

Turn Your Old iPhone or RTSP Camera into an AI Security Camera

The Clearcam app lets you upgrade your old iPhone or any RTSP-enabled camera into a state-of-the-art AI security camera. With a simple Homebrew install and running a Python script, you can view live feeds and receive event notifications (objects/people detected) on your local browser. Clearcam Premium offers remote viewing, event clips, and end-to-end encryption. Currently only iOS is supported, Android users can use the iOS User ID temporarily.

(github.com)

Tech

Optimizing Airport Travel: A Practical Guide

2025-08-24

Optimizing Airport Travel: A Practical Guide

This article offers a practical guide to optimizing airport travel, drawing on the author's personal experiences. Key strategies include booking flights about two weeks in advance, opting for basic economy and direct flights, avoiding budget airlines, and efficiently managing time at the airport. The author suggests arriving at the terminal one hour before departure, adjusting this based on factors like traffic and checked baggage. The article also explores maximizing airport waiting time through activities like reading, listening to music, or watching movies, and cautions against attempting work on the plane unless absolutely necessary.

(thezvi.substack.com)

Misc airport travel travel strategies

Claude Sonnet 4: 1 Million Token Context Window!

2025-08-13

Claude Sonnet 4: 1 Million Token Context Window!

Anthropic has boosted Claude Sonnet 4's context window to a massive 1 million tokens—a 5x increase! This allows processing entire codebases (75,000+ lines of code) or dozens of research papers in a single request. The long context support is in public beta on the Anthropic API and Amazon Bedrock, with Google Cloud's Vertex AI coming soon. This unlocks powerful new use cases like large-scale code analysis, document synthesis, and context-aware agents. While pricing adjusts for prompts exceeding 200K tokens, prompt caching and batch processing offer cost savings. Early adopters like Bolt.new and iGent AI are already leveraging this enhanced capability for code generation and software engineering tasks.

(www.anthropic.com)

AI Context Window

Decentralized Mastodon Defies Mississippi's Age Verification Law

2025-08-30

Decentralized Mastodon Defies Mississippi's Age Verification Law

Decentralized social network Mastodon announced its inability to comply with Mississippi's age verification law, the same law that prompted rival Bluesky to leave the state. Mastodon cites its user-tracking limitations and reluctance to employ IP-based blocks as reasons for non-compliance. Founder Eugen Rochko highlighted the importance of true decentralization, stating that no one can unilaterally decide to block Mississippi from the Fediverse. While Mastodon's own servers specify a minimum signup age, its software doesn't support age verification across all servers. Individual server owners must decide on age verification implementation. Mastodon claims it can't directly assist other server operators, suggesting they consult online resources and comply with local laws.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech

SpaceX, Boeing, and Others Fight Proposed Cuts to Space Collision Prevention Funding

2025-07-12

SpaceX, Boeing, and Others Fight Proposed Cuts to Space Collision Prevention Funding

A proposed FY2026 budget cut would slash funding for the Office of Space Commerce's (OSC) Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS) program from $65 million to $10 million. SpaceX, Boeing, Blue Origin, and other major space companies have written to Congress urging them to reverse the decision. They argue that TraCSS is critical for ensuring the safety of increasingly congested orbital space, impacting essential services like broadband internet and national security. The companies warn that without this funding, increased risks, higher costs, and potential relocation of US space industry operations overseas are likely.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech Space Safety Space Industry

Visualizing 6D Mesh Parallelism in Deep Learning Training

2024-12-19

Visualizing 6D Mesh Parallelism in Deep Learning Training

This article delves into the complexities of 6D mesh parallelism in deep learning model training. Using a series of visualizations, the author meticulously explains the communication mechanisms of various parallel strategies—data parallelism, fully sharded data parallelism, tensor parallelism, context parallelism, expert parallelism, and pipeline parallelism—during the model's forward and backward passes. The author uses a simple attention layer model to illustrate the implementation details of each parallel approach, highlighting their interactions and potential challenges, such as the conflict between pipeline parallelism and fully sharded data parallelism. The article concludes by discussing mesh ordering, combining different parallel strategies, and practical considerations.

(main-horse.github.io)

AI parallel computing model training

A Self-Written C++ Standard Library: Simplicity vs. Completeness

2025-06-02

A Self-Written C++ Standard Library: Simplicity vs. Completeness

The author wrote a simplified C++ standard library for fun and shared it on Hacker News and Reddit. The post sparked a discussion, not about the library's completeness, but its naming and design philosophy. The author intentionally simplified the library's design, requiring all types to be 'well-behaved', thus avoiding complex exception handling. This significantly reduces the library's complexity but also limits its applicability. The post also explores the implementation of string splitting and iterators, comparing the differences between Python and C++. Ultimately, the author completed functionality for strings, regular expressions, and basic containers with impressively fast compilation times.

(nibblestew.blogspot.com)

Development

AI Art: A Dreamlike Silver-Haired Princess

2025-03-08

AI Art: A Dreamlike Silver-Haired Princess

This AI-generated artwork depicts a princess with flowing silver hair and violet eyes, elegantly seated in a magically glowing pond, adorned in a stunning white and purple gown with floral accents. Surrounded by butterflies and petals, the image is exquisitely detailed, dreamy, and evokes a fantastical atmosphere. The intricate shading and lighting showcase advanced AI art capabilities.

(www.gentube.app)

Design dreamlike princess

Subreply: A Tiny, Mighty Internal Social Network

2025-07-21

Subreply: A Tiny, Mighty Internal Social Network

Subreply is a small but powerful social network designed for ease of use, modification, and maintenance. It's easy to install, boasts response times under 50ms per request, and is ideal as an internal social network for any organization. Free of unnecessary abstractions, the code is clean and efficient. Cost depends on the level of support needed. Create an account at https://subreply.com or use the provided command-line instructions to install and migrate.

(github.com)

Development internal social network

Drag and Drop Images into Bevy 0.15 on the Web

2024-12-15

This post demonstrates integrating web native APIs via WASM with Bevy 0.15 to enable drag-and-drop image functionality in a web browser. It details using wasm-bindgen, gloo, and bevy_channel_trigger to handle DOM events in Rust, extract file data, and pass it to the Bevy engine for image loading and rendering. The process mirrors JavaScript implementation but leverages Rust's capabilities, addressing error handling and event listener memory leaks. The result is a Bevy web application capable of loading and displaying dropped PNG images.

(rustunit.com)

Development Web Development

A Novel Complex Constant Derived from the Golden Ratio and its Transcendence Conjecture

2025-06-22

A research paper by Tristen Harr introduces and analyzes a new complex constant, ΛG1, derived from inverse powers of the golden ratio, ϕ. Defined as ΛG1 = T + iJ, where T = 1/(2ϕ) and J = 1/(2ϕ²), it's proven to be an algebraic number with a magnitude less than one, suitable as an argument for the Polylogarithm function, Lis(z). High-precision numerical evaluations for Dilogarithm (s=2) and Trilogarithm (s=3) suggest Lis(ΛG1) is transcendental for all integers s≥2 and lies outside the field extension Q(π, ln(2), ϕ). This research is partly motivated by potential applications in quasicrystal studies, where the golden ratio is fundamental.

(zenodo.org)

Math transcendental number

A History of Printed Globe Gores: From Antiquity to the Modern Era

2025-04-01

A History of Printed Globe Gores: From Antiquity to the Modern Era

This article traces the history of printed globe gores, the pre-assembled map sections used to create globes, from 150 BC to the 20th century. From the earliest known globe by Cratus of Mallus to Martin Waldseemüller's groundbreaking 1507 printed gores (featuring the first appearance of 'America' on a map), the article details the evolution of globe-making techniques. It highlights key figures like Gerard Mercator, who improved the printing process with copper engraving, and Vincenzo Maria Coronelli, famed for his colossal globes. The evolution of globe gore features, such as the ecliptic line and equatorial coordinates, is also explored.

(blogs.loc.gov)

Tech map history globes printing technology

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