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SQLite3: The Unsung Hero of Databases

2024-12-29

SQLite3 is a powerful, lightweight embedded database that quietly handles data for billions of deployments. Unlike its louder, more complex counterparts, SQLite3 operates as a single file, requiring no server setup. It boasts full SQL functionality, outperforming direct file I/O in speed, and managing databases up to 281 terabytes. From phones to websites, its stability, ease of use, and robust features make it an ideal choice for many projects, particularly those with moderate data needs or simpler database management requirements.

(calmlog.medium.com)

Development embedded database

Collatz's Ant and Landscape Similarity: The Mystery of Beta

2025-05-28

This post explores the similarity of landscapes generated by Collatz's ant trajectories. By analyzing stopping time (τ), maximum Euclidean distance (α), the step at which the maximum distance is reached (β), and the final distance (γ), the author finds that stopping time is not a decisive factor in landscape similarity. While maximum distance (α) is related to landscape scale, it's insufficient to distinguish different landscapes. However, the step at which the maximum distance is reached (β) appears to be an indicator for distinguishing different landscapes, but the underlying mechanism requires further investigation. The article presents multiple examples showing the complex relationship between β and landscape shape and poses some unsolved mysteries, such as why, when the maximum distance (α) is different, β is sometimes the same and sometimes different? This provides a new perspective on the study of the Collatz conjecture.

(gbragafibra.github.io)

Misc

Perl Unveils New Camel Logo

2024-12-23

After years of discussion and design, Perl finally has a new official logo: a friendly camel. Designed by Zach Roszczewski and refined through feedback from numerous community members, the logo is released under a CC-BY license. It aims to represent the Perl language and its community, encouraging wider adoption. While not mandatory, the logo seeks to unify the community's image and is expected to be used on platforms like perl.com and metacpan.org in the future.

(perladvent.org)

Development

Control Your Android Phone with AI: Code Your Commands

2025-04-01

Control Your Android Phone with AI: Code Your Commands

The open-source project `mobile-use` lets you control your Android phone using AI. Simply write commands like "Open Instagram and send a message," and the project executes them using your locally installed Android SDK tools (adb). It supports custom LLM models and offers both command-line and file input methods, allowing you to easily send instructions from the terminal or a file. The project is licensed under the MIT License.

(github.com)

Development

RoboPianist: Mastering the Piano with Deep Reinforcement Learning

2025-02-27

Researchers trained anthropomorphic robot hands to play the piano using deep reinforcement learning. They built a simulated environment using MuJoCo, featuring an 88-key digital keyboard and two Shadow Dexterous Hands, each with 24 degrees of freedom. MIDI files were converted into time-indexed note trajectories, serving as the goal representation for the reinforcement learning agent. To address the exploration challenge in the high-dimensional action space, human priors in the form of fingering labels were incorporated into the reward function. A state-of-the-art model-free RL algorithm, DroQ, was used to train the agent, resulting in successful piano performances across various pieces, achieving impressive F1 scores on the Etude-12 subset. The research also releases a simulated benchmark and dataset to advance high-dimensional control.

(kzakka.com)

AI Deep Reinforcement Learning

Bitcoin Miner Bitfarms Pivots to AI Data Centers

2025-02-03

Bitcoin Miner Bitfarms Pivots to AI Data Centers

Bitfarms, a Toronto-based bitcoin mining company, is exploring the transformation of its facilities into AI data centers. They've hired consultants to assess their North American sites and develop a computing and AI strategy. This leverages their existing land and power resources to capitalize on the AI boom. While some critics question the feasibility due to the complexities of AI data centers, Bitfarms' CEO highlights the potential for long-term, stable cash flow, while maintaining the upside potential of bitcoin mining operations.

(finance.yahoo.com)

Tech

CalPERS' Climate Portfolio: Greenwashing or Genuine Transition?

2025-03-11

California's Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), the largest US pension fund, has classified over $3 billion in holdings in fossil fuel companies and other major greenhouse gas emitters as "climate solutions." This has sparked controversy, with critics arguing it contradicts CalPERS' stated goal of transitioning to a low-carbon economy. CalPERS defends its strategy, claiming it aims to influence polluting companies while investing in clean energy, fulfilling its fiduciary duty. However, a report reveals CalPERS' climate portfolio includes 52 of the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters, highlighting challenges in meeting its emission reduction targets. The situation underscores the difficulty of balancing financial returns with climate commitments and raises questions about transparency and the definition of 'climate solutions'.

(financialpost.com)

Tech climate investment

Linux SD Card Formatter: Optimized for Performance

2025-08-25

Linux SD Card Formatter: Optimized for Performance

The SD Memory Card Formatter, developed by Tuxera, is a Linux-based utility designed to format SD, SDHC, SDXC, and SDUC cards according to SD Association specifications. It's recommended over OS-provided tools for optimal performance. Note that it doesn't support BitLocker To Go encrypted cards and leaves the protected area untouched. Supports various Linux distributions and SD interfaces. Download and manual available on the official website.

(www.sdcard.org)

Hardware SD card formatting tool

Goo.gl Shutdown: A Race Against Time to Save Billions of Links

2025-08-12

Google's long-standing URL shortening service, goo.gl, is shutting down, prompting a frantic effort from the Archive Team. Facing the imminent expiration of 3 billion short URLs, they've launched a global rescue mission, calling on volunteers to use simple command-line tools or virtual machines to map short links to their long counterparts and archive them. This race against time highlights the power of the internet community and the importance of preserving digital history.

(jszym.com)

Tech data rescue

Lost Soviet Probe Cosmos 482's Iminent Earth Re-entry

2025-05-02

The lander module of the Soviet Venera probe Cosmos 482, launched in 1972 and which failed to reach Venus, has been orbiting Earth. New imagery from satellite trackers reveals a compact, ball-like object, possibly with remnants of a parachute. Re-entry is predicted around May 10th, plus or minus 3.1 days, but its survival is uncertain. This event has renewed interest in the long-lost probe and the potential study of its remains.

(www.leonarddavid.com)

Tech Venus probe

Implementing Raft: A Deep Dive into Distributed Consensus

2024-12-21

This is the first post in a series detailing the Raft distributed consensus algorithm and its Go implementation. Raft solves the problem of replicating a deterministic state machine across multiple servers, ensuring service availability even with server failures. The post introduces core Raft components: the state machine, log, consensus module, leader/follower roles, and client interaction. It discusses Raft's fault tolerance, the CAP theorem, and the choice of Go as the implementation language. Subsequent posts will delve into the algorithm's implementation.

(eli.thegreenplace.net)

Development Distributed Consensus

OpenAI's AGI Nightmare: A $500 Billion Gamble and the Looming AI Bubble

2025-03-25

OpenAI's AGI Nightmare: A $500 Billion Gamble and the Looming AI Bubble

OpenAI's ambitious "Project Stargate," a $500 billion initiative to build AGI, faces a major threat from DeepSeek R1, an open-source model from a Chinese hedge fund. DeepSeek R1 matches OpenAI's flagship model's performance at a fraction of the cost, raising concerns about an AI bubble. Massive investments are pouring into AI, yet OpenAI is hemorrhaging money, relying on a technological lead that DeepSeek R1 has effectively erased. Over-investment, dependence on expensive GPUs and energy, and questionable productivity gains from AI tools all increase the risk of a bubble burst, potentially causing a significant economic shock.

(prospect.org)

Tech AI bubble

My Last Name Is 'Null,' and It's Breaking the Internet

2025-02-03

My Last Name Is 'Null,' and It's Breaking the Internet

The author's last name is "Null," a reserved word in many programming languages. This seemingly innocuous detail causes significant problems, from website form submissions failing to email addresses being rejected. Even when systems accept "Null," unexpected errors arise. Workarounds, like adding a period or using aliases, are temporary fixes. This humorous tale highlights common software development issues and the helplessness of large corporations in addressing them effectively. The author's struggles with Bank of America's email system, which consistently fails to handle his name, serve as a prime example.

(www.wired.com)

Development

Human-Centered Property-Based Testing: A PhD Dissertation

2025-01-06

This PhD dissertation focuses on improving the usability of Property-Based Testing (PBT) to reach a wider audience of developers. Through in-depth user studies, the researcher identified challenges PBT users face in random data generation and evaluating test effectiveness. To address these, the dissertation proposes novel algorithms for improved random data generators and develops Tyche, an open-source tool that provides developers with deeper insights into PBT and enhances its usability, ultimately leading to better software quality and assurance.

(repository.upenn.edu)

Development Software Testing Property-Based Testing User Experience

Apple Photos' 'Enhanced Visual Search' Raises Privacy Concerns in iOS 18 and macOS 15

2024-12-28

Apple's iOS 18 and macOS 15 updates include a default-enabled 'Enhanced Visual Search' feature in the Photos app. While Apple claims to use homomorphic encryption and differential privacy to protect user data sent to its servers for processing, this has sparked privacy concerns. The author argues that Apple's decision to enable this feature by default without explicit user consent disregards user privacy expectations, especially given the history of security vulnerabilities in Apple software. The author strongly recommends disabling the feature, as the potential risks significantly outweigh any perceived benefits.

(lapcatsoftware.com)

Tech Apple Privacy

LLMs Are Surprisingly Cheap to Run

2025-06-09

This post challenges the widespread misconception that Large Language Models (LLMs) are prohibitively expensive to operate. By comparing the costs of LLMs to web search engines and citing various LLM API prices, the author demonstrates that LLM inference costs have dropped dramatically, even being an order of magnitude cheaper than some search APIs. The author also refutes common objections to LLM pricing strategies, such as price subsidization and high underlying costs, and points out that the real cost challenge lies in the backend services interacting with AI, not the LLMs themselves.

(www.snellman.net)

AI Cost Analysis

Ditch PRDs, Embrace Demo-Driven Development

2025-05-03

Ditch PRDs, Embrace Demo-Driven Development

In the fast-paced world of software development, lengthy PRDs often hinder efficiency. Demo-driven development offers a more agile approach: prioritize building interactive demo prototypes to quickly gather feedback from users and stakeholders. Demos aren't the final product, but rather a way to visualize abstract concepts, making them accessible to non-technical individuals. By simplifying demo creation and access, and focusing feedback on core functionality, teams can iterate more efficiently, ultimately building products that better meet user needs. While documentation remains important, demo-driven development significantly boosts efficiency in the early stages, helping teams find direction faster.

(shubhanshu.com)

Development Demo-Driven Development User Feedback

AI Darwin Awards: Celebrating AI-Fueled Disasters

2025-09-10

AI Darwin Awards: Celebrating AI-Fueled Disasters

The first-ever AI Darwin Awards highlight cautionary tales of AI misapplication. From a Taco Bell drive-thru's AI order-taking system failure to a Replit coding mishap that destroyed a production database, and a McDonald's AI chatbot security breach exposing millions of applicants' data, these incidents underscore the importance of responsible AI implementation. The awards don't mock AI itself, but rather the disastrous consequences of its careless application. The message? AI is a powerful tool, like a chainsaw or a nuclear reactor—use it wisely.

(www.theregister.com)

AI

AI: The Frictionless Dystopia?

2025-07-31

AI: The Frictionless Dystopia?

This article critiques the framing of modern AI systems as "Everything Machines," highlighting the disconnect between their actual capabilities and the narrative of limitless potential. It argues that the pursuit of frictionless interactions, while seemingly beneficial, fosters individualism and isolation. The author posits that AI's sycophantic, always-compliant nature exacerbates loneliness by eliminating the necessary friction of human interaction, creating a seemingly utopian experience that ultimately leads to a dystopian disconnect from the world and its challenges.

(tante.cc)

AI Social Impact

Google Search Bug Used to Suppress News Article

2025-07-31

The Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) discovered that an article about a tech executive's campaign to stifle journalism had vanished from Google search results. Investigation revealed a bug in Google's 'Refresh Outdated Content' tool allowed manipulation of search results by altering URL capitalization, causing the article to be de-indexed. This method was used repeatedly to suppress information until FPF reported it to Google, leading to a swift fix. The incident raises concerns about transparency in Google's search algorithm and the potential for malicious use, highlighting the complexities of information manipulation.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech News Censorship Information Manipulation

Threads of God: Sardinia's Rarest Pasta

2024-12-24

Threads of God: Sardinia's Rarest Pasta

Su filindeu, literally "Threads of God," is arguably the world's rarest pasta. Made only twice a year by three women in Sardinia, this intricate pasta requires a 20-mile pilgrimage for devotees to partake in the biannual Feast of San Francesco. The simple ingredients—semolina, water, and salt—belied by an impossibly complex creation process that has baffled even Barilla engineers and celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. The resulting delicate strands, served in a mutton broth with pecorino cheese, represent more than just a culinary delicacy; they are a testament to a 200-year-old tradition and a unique cultural symbol of Sardinia.

(www.atlasobscura.com)

Misc Food Culture Pasta

Firefox Extension: One-Click Highlighted Elements for Enhanced Keyboard Navigation

2025-08-25

A developer, h43z, created a small Firefox extension to address the shortcomings of keyboard navigation in modern websites. The extension allows users to click highlighted elements with the Enter key after using the browser's find feature, significantly improving efficiency, especially on sites using buttons and divs instead of links for navigation. It achieves this by listening for keyboard events, getting the parent element of the selected text, and simulating a click.

(b.43z.one)

Development keyboard navigation

TypeScript Error Handling: Beyond try...catch

2025-04-20

TypeScript Error Handling: Beyond try...catch

This article delves into the current state and improved approaches to error handling in TypeScript. The traditional try...catch method, while sufficient for simple scenarios, presents type safety and scalability challenges in complex applications. The article compares two modern alternatives: the Go-style return tuple and the Monadic style using Result types (like the neverthrow library). The Go-style offers simplicity but leads to verbose code; the Monadic style is more powerful but has a steeper learning curve. The author suggests choosing an approach based on project complexity and team expertise, advocating for try...catch in simple applications and Result types for enhanced type safety and readability in more complex systems.

(meowbark.dev)

Development

Arsenic Drives Gold Concentration: A Breakthrough Discovery

2025-02-08

Arsenic Drives Gold Concentration: A Breakthrough Discovery

Scientists using the intense X-ray beam of the European Synchrotron (ESRF) have uncovered the crucial role of arsenic in gold ore enrichment. Research reveals an atomic-scale attraction between arsenic and gold. When minerals are arsenic-rich, gold directly binds to arsenic, forming stable chemical bonds and thus being captured by the mineral. Conversely, with low arsenic concentration, gold only forms weak bonds with the mineral surface. This discovery not only explains the formation and distribution mechanisms of gold deposits but also offers new avenues for finding new gold resources and improving gold extraction processes, while also helping mitigate the health risks posed by arsenic to gold miners.

(www.mining.com)

Tech gold ore arsenic minerals

Slushies: A Warning for Parents of Young Children

2025-03-12

Slushies: A Warning for Parents of Young Children

New research suggests children under eight should avoid slushies due to the potential for glycerol intoxication syndrome. The brightly colored icy drinks contain high levels of glycerol, a sugar substitute that prevents freezing. This can lead to symptoms including loss of consciousness, low blood sugar, lactic acidosis, and hypokalaemia. While glycerol is present in some foods, the concentration in slushies is significantly higher. A study examined 21 children (ages 2-7) who experienced symptoms like those described above after consuming slushies, requiring emergency treatment. Although all recovered, researchers urge caution, particularly as there's a lack of transparency regarding glycerol levels in slushies, making it difficult to determine a safe dose. The Food Standards Agency already advises against slushies for children under four and limits consumption for those aged five to ten. This new research reinforces the need for parents to avoid giving slushies to children under eight.

(news.sky.com)

Misc children's health glycerol

Programmer Bradford J. Rodriguez's Collection of Papers and Projects

2025-05-15

Bradford J. Rodriguez's personal website hosts a collection of papers, seminar presentations, and computer programs he's published over the years. The content spans topics including Forth kernel writing, multiprocessing systems, real-time control, object-oriented Forth, and assemblers. This includes full text of his PhD and MS dissertations, along with source code and documentation for several smaller projects. These resources provide valuable learning materials for those interested in embedded systems, the Forth language, and computer architecture.

(www.bradrodriguez.com)

Development Computer Architecture

Solving NAT Timeouts for IoT Devices with Connection IDs

2025-02-14

Solving NAT Timeouts for IoT Devices with Connection IDs

Network Address Translation (NAT) timeouts frequently interrupt IoT device-cloud communication, necessitating frequent reconnections and wasting resources. This post demonstrates how Golioth leverages DTLS 1.2 Connection IDs to mitigate this. By configuring the Golioth firmware SDK to disable keep-alive messages and set appropriate receive timeouts, coupled with Connection IDs, devices maintain connectivity even after NAT timeouts without costly handshakes, reducing power consumption and improving efficiency. This is particularly crucial for battery-powered, low-power devices.

(blog.golioth.io)

Tech

Rails vs. Next.js: Two Decades Later, Which Web Framework Reigns Supreme?

2025-02-21

Rails vs. Next.js: Two Decades Later, Which Web Framework Reigns Supreme?

This article explores the strengths and weaknesses of Ruby on Rails and Next.js in building web applications. Rails, with its simplicity, abstraction, and mature ecosystem, has powered countless successful companies over the past two decades and remains relevant, especially for small teams needing rapid development. Next.js represents the modern web development trend, offering enhanced interactivity and performance but also increased complexity. The author uses personal experience to illustrate the applicable scenarios for each framework, concluding that users ultimately prioritize product utility over technical implementation details.

(www.contraption.co)

Development

DIY 1U Server Cluster on a Budget: Raspberry Pi Power

2025-07-27

DIY 1U Server Cluster on a Budget: Raspberry Pi Power

A maker cleverly built a low-power, cost-effective 1U server cluster using inexpensive Raspberry Pis and ingenious circuitry. Overcoming power limitations common in budget server solutions, this project leverages multiple Raspberry Pis working in tandem, maximizing computing power within the constraints of limited power and space. The article details the hardware list, assembly steps, and software configuration, offering a valuable reference for DIY enthusiasts interested in low-power computing and server solutions.

(github.com)

Hardware low-power server

Beyond the Ticket: Reclaiming Thought in Software Development

2025-06-26

Beyond the Ticket: Reclaiming Thought in Software Development

This article critiques the 'ticket-driven development' model where developers are overwhelmed with tasks, stifling thought and innovation. This leads to declining code quality, accumulating technical debt, and low team morale. The author advocates for developers to take ownership, think proactively, and strive for excellence, not just speed, ultimately focusing on building systems that work rather than simply closing tickets.

(thecynical.dev)

Development

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