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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

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

My Simpsons Fan Site, Twenty Years Later

2025-01-05

My Simpsons Fan Site, Twenty Years Later

The author excitedly republishes their Simpsons fan site, originally created twenty years ago. This isn't just a website relaunch; it's a nostalgic trip down memory lane and a heartfelt tribute to the past. The post details the site's creation and the dramatic changes in technology and the internet landscape over two decades, showcasing the author's enduring love for The Simpsons.

(www.bingeclock.com)

Misc nostalgia fan site The Simpsons

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

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

High-Resolution Bitmap Graphics with Commodore 64 BASIC 2.0: A Fast Screen Clearing Routine

2024-12-12

High-Resolution Bitmap Graphics with Commodore 64 BASIC 2.0: A Fast Screen Clearing Routine

This article demonstrates efficient high-resolution bitmap graphics handling in Commodore 64 BASIC 2.0, focusing on a fast screen clearing routine. The author points out that native BASIC lacks direct bitmap manipulation commands, making conventional clearing slow. A clever solution utilizes the BASIC string storage mechanism: long strings filled with CHR$(0) overwrite the bitmap memory, achieving fast clearing. The technique is illustrated with a cosine function plotting example.

(retro64.altervista.org)

Development Bitmap Graphics

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

The Art of Logical Argumentation: Turning Syllogisms into Persuasive Arguments

2025-05-27

This article explores how to translate logical reasoning into effective written arguments. The author uses two examples to illustrate: one arguing against using taxpayer money for a new stadium, and another advocating for a minimum wage increase. The former constructs a persuasive argument by clearly laying out premises, providing evidence, and drawing clear connections to the conclusion; the latter fails due to lack of logical structure, evidence, and clear premises. The article emphasizes that even seemingly sound arguments require careful organization and evidentiary support to become effective logical arguments.

(owl.purdue.edu)

Misc argumentation techniques

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

Reddit's Ambitious Search Engine Play: A Battle Against Google, Powered by AI

2025-08-01

Reddit's Ambitious Search Engine Play: A Battle Against Google, Powered by AI

Reddit, leveraging its vast user-generated data, is heavily investing in improving its search capabilities, aiming to become a go-to search engine. CEO Steve Huffman highlights the platform's weekly hundreds of millions of users seeking advice, and Reddit's efforts to convert this into active users of its native search. Core Reddit search boasts over 70 million weekly active users, while its AI-powered search tool, Reddit Answers, launched in December, has seen explosive growth, reaching 6 million weekly users from 1 million in Q1. Reddit plans to expand Reddit Answers globally, deeply integrating it into the core search experience. This move is seen as a strategic counter to Google's rising AI-powered search, which increasingly provides direct answers rather than link lists. Reddit benefits from users appending 'Reddit' to Google searches for human-generated content.

(www.theverge.com)

Tech

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

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

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

Artie Hiring its First Business Operations Manager – A Growth-Focused Role

2025-02-12

Artie Hiring its First Business Operations Manager – A Growth-Focused Role

Artie, a company automating database to data warehouse/data lake replication, is hiring its first Business Operations Manager. Reporting directly to the Chief of Staff, this role will handle strategic initiatives across GTM, finance, security, and operations. The ideal candidate will have 2-4 years of experience in strategy or operations roles and be comfortable tackling diverse cross-functional tasks to drive growth. The position is full-time, in-person in San Francisco's Financial District.

(www.ycombinator.com)

Startup Business Operations

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

Hologram v0.5.0: Major Performance Boost and New Features

2025-07-29

Hologram v0.5.0: Major Performance Boost and New Features

Hologram 0.5.0 is a major release featuring significant performance improvements and new features. Core client-side operations have been sped up from milliseconds to microseconds, enabling real-time interactions. This release includes comprehensive session and cookie management, a new HTTP-based transport layer, live reload functionality, and incremental compilation. It also introduces a high-performance bitstring implementation, foundational CRDT support, and more, laying the groundwork for future distributed features. Over 950 commits have improved both developer experience and runtime performance.

(hologram.page)

Development Framework Update

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

Boosting Safari's Privacy: A Practical Guide

2025-03-23

Boosting Safari's Privacy: A Practical Guide

This post details the author's setup for enhancing Safari's privacy. It leverages iCloud Private Relay to mask IP addresses and encrypt DNS queries, alongside three extensions: Wipr (ad blocker), StopTheMadness Pro (anti-tracking), and Hush (cookie and popup blocker). Testing reveals strong protection against web tracking, though fingerprint uniqueness remains an area for improvement. Comparisons with Firefox and Brave configurations are included, ultimately showcasing the author's satisfaction with their chosen Safari setup.

(matanabudy.com)

Development Browser Extensions

Atuin Desktop: Executable Runbooks That End Copy-Pasting

2025-04-22

Atuin Desktop: Executable Runbooks That End Copy-Pasting

Atuin Desktop is a local-first, executable runbook editor that looks like a doc but runs like your terminal. It combines script blocks, embedded terminals, database clients, and Prometheus charts, solving the problem of teams relying on individual memory and outdated documentation for workflows. With repeatable, shareable, and reliable workflows, Atuin Desktop helps teams escape the struggle of searching Slack and Notion for answers and digging through shell history, ultimately enabling efficient collaboration and automated operations.

(blog.atuin.sh)

Development runbooks

Cancer Risk Decreases with Age: Study Unveils Key Protein NUPR1

2024-12-22

Cancer Risk Decreases with Age: Study Unveils Key Protein NUPR1

A new study sheds light on why cancer risk declines after age 80. Researchers found that elevated levels of a protein called NUPR1 in older mice caused cells to behave as if iron-deficient, limiting cell regeneration and thus suppressing both healthy and cancerous growth. The same mechanism was observed in human cells. Lowering NUPR1 or increasing iron levels boosted cell growth. This discovery could lead to new cancer therapies targeting iron metabolism, particularly in older individuals, and may improve lung function in those with long-term COVID-19 effects. The study also suggests that ferroptosis-based cancer treatments are less effective in older cells due to their functional iron deficiency, highlighting the importance of early intervention. Preventing carcinogenic exposures in younger individuals is even more crucial than previously thought.

(www.sciencealert.com)

Tech cancer NUPR1 protein

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

Haskell Lens Library: A Powerful Tool for Data Access

2025-07-04

The Haskell Lens library provides a powerful set of tools for accessing and manipulating data structures. It includes lenses, isomorphisms, folds, traversals, and more, allowing developers to handle complex data in a cleaner and safer way. The library offers comprehensive examples and documentation, and supports automatic lens generation, greatly simplifying the development process. Whether reading, writing, or transforming data, Lens provides efficient and elegant solutions.

(hackage.haskell.org)

Development

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