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Nine Years of NYC Commute: A Street Photography Project

2025-08-07

Nine Years of NYC Commute: A Street Photography Project

For nine years, Danish photographer Peter Funch captured the daily morning commute at the corner of 42nd Street and Vanderbilt Avenue in New York City. His project, "42nd and Vanderbilt," presents a unique perspective on the subtle changes and unchanging habits of commuters. By photographing the same individuals multiple times over the years, Funch invites viewers to ponder the unnoticed details of daily life, the fleeting moments of solitude amidst the urban bustle, and the spectrum of emotions—from anxiety to tranquility—reflected in the commuters' faces.

(mymodernmet.com)

Design documentary photography

AURA: A Machine-Readable Web Protocol

2025-08-07

AURA: A Machine-Readable Web Protocol

AURA (Agent-Usable Resource Assertion) revolutionizes AI-web interaction. Instead of relying on brittle screen scraping and DOM manipulation, AURA introduces a standardized `aura.json` manifest file, allowing websites to declare their capabilities (e.g., creating posts, logging in) as HTTP requests. This enables efficient, secure AI-website interaction and paves the way for smarter search engines indexing actions, not just content. The project includes a reference server and client, demonstrating its functionality.

(github.com)

AI Web Protocol Machine Readable

Tumblr's Fediverse Integration: A WordPress Migration Play

2025-02-12

Tumblr's Fediverse Integration: A WordPress Migration Play

Tumblr, owned by Automattic, is integrating with the fediverse via a planned migration to the WordPress infrastructure. Once complete, all Tumblr users will gain ActivityPub federation, mirroring current WordPress.com functionality. This move also opens doors to other open web integrations like custom plugins and themes. While Automattic hasn't revealed a timeline, this migration is a significant step towards Tumblr's promised fediverse integration, offering users a more open and interconnected social experience. Integration with the AT Protocol (Bluesky) remains unconfirmed.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech

IMLS Staff Placed on Administrative Leave: Funding for Libraries and Museums in Jeopardy?

2025-04-01

IMLS Staff Placed on Administrative Leave: Funding for Libraries and Museums in Jeopardy?

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the primary source of federal funding for libraries and museums in the US, has placed its entire staff on paid administrative leave for 90 days. This follows President Trump's executive order shrinking several federal agencies, including IMLS. The move has raised concerns about the future of grant funding and the potential disruption of vital programs, particularly impacting smaller and rural libraries. The union representing IMLS workers highlights the uncertainty surrounding existing grants and the likelihood of their termination without staff to administer them.

(www.npr.org)

Tech

SpaceX to Overhaul US Air Traffic Control Amidst Controversy

2025-02-19

SpaceX to Overhaul US Air Traffic Control Amidst Controversy

Elon Musk's SpaceX is assisting in the overhaul of the US air traffic control system following a deadly air disaster and the firing of hundreds of air traffic controllers. This move has raised concerns about conflicts of interest, given SpaceX's role as a major government contractor and Musk's position in the Department of Government Efficiency. While the Secretary of Transportation claims the air traffic control center regularly receives visitors, the decision faces criticism, particularly given existing staff shortages and safety concerns within the air traffic control system.

(www.theverge.com)

Tech Air Traffic Control

Solid Protocol: Reclaiming Control of Your Digital Identity

2025-07-28

Our digital identities are fragmented and vulnerable. Solid, a protocol invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, offers a radical solution. It uses user-controlled "data wallets" to decouple data from applications, giving individuals ownership and control over their personal information. This addresses critical data integrity issues, preventing errors from leading to discrimination, while enhancing privacy and security. Solid revolutionizes sectors like healthcare, finance, and education, empowering individuals to become the masters of their own data.

(www.schneier.com)

Tech Solid Protocol

Claude Chappe's Optical Telegraph: The World's First Cyberattack?

2025-05-08

Claude Chappe's Optical Telegraph: The World's First Cyberattack?

This article recounts the story of Claude Chappe and his optical telegraph, the world's first long-distance communication system. Chappe, a French engineer whose clerical career was derailed by the French Revolution, invented a system using towers and movable arms to transmit visual signals. The system saw widespread use during Napoleon's era but was eventually superseded by the electric telegraph. The article also details an early 'cyberattack' exploiting the system, and Chappe's tragic end.

(parisianfields.com)

Tech History of Technology Communication Technology

CERN Engineer Locks 1950s Pendulum Clock to Atomic Clock for Unprecedented Accuracy

2025-01-04

A CERN engineer acquired a vintage Elektročas HH3 pendulum clock from the 1950s, boasting an accuracy of 0.1 seconds per day. To push the limits further, he embarked on a project to synchronize it with CERN's cesium atomic clock. The innovative solution involved a Chain Controlled Oscillator (CCO) which subtly alters the pendulum's center of gravity, controlled by a Phase Locked Loop (PLL) to maintain synchronization. Tests demonstrated remarkable improvement in accuracy, even detecting the perturbation caused by the recent Turkey earthquake. This project showcases a blend of meticulous engineering, ingenious innovation, and a quest for extreme precision.

(dvaluch.web.cern.ch)

Tech precision engineering atomic clock phase locked loop

Governments Must Shift from Consuming Open Source to Sustaining It

2025-08-14

Governments Must Shift from Consuming Open Source to Sustaining It

Fifteen years ago, the author predicted a three-stage evolution for Open Source: volunteer-driven, commercially involved, and government-supported. Today, Open Source underpins critical global infrastructure, yet its maintenance relies on a small number of contributors, creating significant risk. This article calls for increased government investment in Open Source, urging a shift from mere consumption to active contribution. Solutions include stable funding, incentivizing contribution in government contracts, and adopting "Public Money, Public Code" policies to ensure long-term stability and security. This isn't just a technical issue, but a strategic necessity for national security and societal well-being.

(dri.es)

Tech Government Investment Digital Infrastructure

Ski Rental Conundrum: A Randomized Algorithm for Optimal Cost

2025-08-03

This article tackles the classic ski rental problem, a fascinating example in online algorithms. The problem: a skier doesn't know how many days they'll ski; renting costs 1 unit per day, buying costs B units. The article details an optimal offline solution, then analyzes a simple online algorithm with a competitive ratio of 2. Crucially, it dives into a randomized algorithm using a continuous probability distribution to approximate the discrete problem, achieving an expected competitive ratio of approximately e/(e-1), significantly better than the simple approach. While not directly applicable in reality for single decisions, this algorithm offers a theoretically optimal strategy for scenarios involving many similar choices.

(lesves.github.io)

Development randomized algorithm online algorithm

Flight Simulator II on the Atari XE: A Retro Look Back

2025-03-09

Flight Simulator II on the Atari XE: A Retro Look Back

This article revisits the 80s classic, Flight Simulator, and its sequel, Flight Simulator II, specifically its port to the Atari XE. It traces the series' journey from the Apple II to the IBM PC and finally the Atari XE, highlighting the technological feats and unique aspects of Flight Simulator II as a pack-in game for the XE. Despite its simple graphics, the game was groundbreaking for its time as a flight simulator, leaving a lasting impact on the genre.

(www.goto10retro.com)

Game flight simulator

AI-Generated Social Media Spam: A New Low in Clickbait

2025-02-21

AI-Generated Social Media Spam: A New Low in Clickbait

Generative AI has unleashed a flood of fake content on social media. AI-generated images of wooden sculptures, baking photos, and animals, paired with emotionally manipulative captions, are designed to elicit sympathy and money from unsuspecting users. Despite their obvious fakery, these posts receive thousands of likes and comments, with some users even sending money to the 'creators'. The article exposes this as a lucrative scheme for 'content farms' using AI to mass-produce fake content, attracting traffic to generate ad revenue or sell 'guest posts'.

(newslttrs.com)

Tech Fake Content

Microsoft Fabric: Outages, Misinformation, and a Lack of Transparency

2025-05-19

Microsoft Fabric: Outages, Misinformation, and a Lack of Transparency

Microsoft's Fabric data analytics platform suffered another major outage last week, lasting for hours across multiple continents. However, Microsoft's official status page consistently showed everything as normal, leading to user outrage. Reddit users relied on third-party tools to track the outage, revealing significant discrepancies between Microsoft's reports and the reality on the ground. The response time was far longer than the actual event duration. Worryingly, Microsoft's post-mortem reports were vague, downplaying the impact and even hiding the history of outages. The author questions Fabric's lack of a service-level agreement and refunds, suggesting that its current popularity stems primarily from user ignorance.

(www.brentozar.com)

Tech Outages

Obscura: A Next-Gen VPN Using 2-Party Relays and QUIC

2025-02-11

Obscura: A Next-Gen VPN Using 2-Party Relays and QUIC

Existing consumer VPNs suffer from significant trust and privacy issues, as VPN providers act as a man-in-the-middle, seeing both user personal info and browsing history. Obscura VPN solves this by using a 2-party relay architecture and a QUIC-based VPN protocol. The 2-party relay separates "who you are" from "what you do," ensuring that even if one relay is compromised, not all user information is leaked. QUIC disguises VPN traffic as HTTP/3 traffic, bypassing network filters and avoiding the performance degradation of TCP over TCP. Obscura partners with Mullvad as its exit node and open-sources its app's entire source code, aiming for an open and private internet.

(obscura.net)

Tech

Memory-Efficient C Structs: A Deep Dive

2025-07-31

This blog post explores techniques for optimizing C structs to minimize memory usage. Using a `Monster` struct as an example, the author demonstrates several optimization strategies. These include reordering members to reduce padding, removing redundant fields (e.g., inferring `is_alive` from `health`), using smaller integer types (like `uint8_t`, `uint16_t`), employing bitfields for booleans, and replacing strings with enums for monster names. These optimizations shrink the `Monster` struct from 96 bytes to a mere 20 bytes, significantly improving memory efficiency. The post also discusses trade-offs and potential issues like integer overflows.

(tomscheers.github.io)

Development

libxml2 Maintainer Steps Down

2025-09-18

libxml2 Maintainer Steps Down

Nick Wellnhofer, the maintainer of libxml2, announced his resignation, leaving the project largely unmaintained. He will address regressions in the 2.15 release until the end of 2025. The news prompted widespread appreciation and concern from the community. Many developers expressed gratitude for the long-term maintenance of libxml2, and one offered to take over maintenance, albeit with some technical questions requiring clarification from the former maintainer.

(discourse.gnome.org)

Development

Neutralizing Negative Impulses: The Ledger of Life System

2025-07-01

This article introduces the 'Ledger of Life' system, a self-improvement method focusing on noticing and recording negative emotions ('whispers') and then using pre-prepared 'virtue garnishes' (quotes, songs, meditations, etc.) to counteract them, thus changing behavioral patterns. By logging 'whispers' and deploying 'garnishes,' we interrupt the automatic response cycle of negative emotions, ultimately building a more positive response system.

(ledgeroflife.blog)

Misc emotional regulation

CSS Zen Garden: Unleashing the Power of CSS

2025-04-27

The CSS Zen Garden is a project showcasing the power of CSS. By keeping the HTML static and only modifying the CSS stylesheet, it demonstrates the complete control CSS offers over web page styling. The project encourages designers and developers to participate, submitting original CSS designs to explore the limitless possibilities of CSS and learn how to create stunning visual effects. Submissions should primarily use CSS1 & 2 and be compatible with major browsers.

(csszengarden.com)

Design CSS Zen Garden

Free Interactive C Tutorial Launched

2025-04-27

Free Interactive C Tutorial Launched

learn-c.org has launched a free interactive C programming tutorial. Whether you're a beginner or experienced programmer, this website is designed for anyone who wants to learn C. No downloads are required; simply click on a chapter to begin. The site is still under construction, and contributions are welcome.

(www.learn-c.org)

Development

CPANSec Becomes a CVE Numbering Authority: Boosting Perl Ecosystem Security

2025-03-01

After years of development, the Perl ecosystem security group CPANSec has officially become a CVE Numbering Authority (CNA). This means CPANSec can now assign CVE identifiers to vulnerabilities in Perl and CPAN modules, enabling better tracking and management of security issues and further enhancing the security of the Perl ecosystem. This milestone marks a significant step forward for the Perl community in security.

(www.perlmonks.org)

Development Perl Security

Writing Blog Posts Developers Actually Read

2025-03-28

Writing Blog Posts Developers Actually Read

A developer gave up blogging due to low readership. Author Michael Lynch shares nine years of blogging lessons, highlighting common mistakes: rambling introductions, unclear benefits, and neglecting audience reach. He advises clearly stating the target audience and benefits upfront, considering broadening the appeal, and planning the reader's path to discovery. Using visuals, strong headlines, and considering different platforms for sharing are also key to success.

(refactoringenglish.com)

Development

Tailwind Plus Now Features Fully Interactive UI Blocks Without JavaScript Frameworks

2025-07-26

Tailwind Plus Now Features Fully Interactive UI Blocks Without JavaScript Frameworks

Tailwind Plus has announced that all its UI blocks are now fully interactive, even without a JavaScript framework. This is thanks to the newly released @tailwindplus/elements library, providing reusable headless custom elements for dropdowns, command palettes, dialogs, and more. These elements work seamlessly with plain HTML and are customizable with utility classes or custom CSS, simplifying development by eliminating the need to write complex JavaScript for each UI component. The update is available now for all Tailwind Plus customers.

(tailwindcss.com)

Development JavaScript-free

127-Million-Year-Old Termite Poo Reveals Secrets of Australia's Polar Forests

2025-06-20

127-Million-Year-Old Termite Poo Reveals Secrets of Australia's Polar Forests

Scientists have unearthed a 127-million-year-old termite nest fossil in Victoria, Australia, representing the oldest known termite nest and possibly the largest from the dinosaur era. Analysis of hexagonal termite droppings and smaller mite droppings within the fossilized log suggests a relatively mild polar climate (around 6°C). This discovery challenges previous understanding of ancient polar forests and highlights termites' crucial role in these ecosystems.

(phys.org)

Tech termites polar forests

Reinforcement Learning Algorithms from Sutton's Book

2025-05-06

Reinforcement Learning Algorithms from Sutton's Book

This GitHub repository provides code implementing algorithms and models from Sutton's renowned reinforcement learning textbook, "Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction." The code covers various model-free solvers, requiring only the definition of states, actions, and a transition function. Examples include a single-state infinite variance problem and a Monte Carlo Tree Search maze solver. While not optimized for production, it's a valuable resource for learning reinforcement learning and implementing algorithms from scratch.

(github.com)

Development

Google's Mysterious Pixel 4a Battery Update: A Recall in Disguise?

2025-01-31

Google's Mysterious Pixel 4a Battery Update: A Recall in Disguise?

Google released a battery update for some Pixel 4a phones, significantly impacting battery life for affected devices. The reason for the update remains unclear; Google only mentions improved "battery stability" without explaining why some phones were targeted or the nature of the problem. This lack of transparency has led to user frustration and speculation that this is a de facto recall without the usual safety warnings and clear communication.

(arstechnica.com)

Hardware

Anukari: macOS Realtime Physics Audio Synthesizer Performance Issues

2025-05-06

Anukari, a GPU-based real-time 3D physics audio synthesizer, performs well on most macOS systems. However, on some high-end Apple Silicon devices, its performance degrades due to macOS's power-saving GPU strategies. The author attempted to solve the problem with a "waste makes haste" strategy (running an extra workload on the GPU to increase its frequency), but this fails on high-end devices due to independent frequency regulation of multiple GPU chips. The author calls on the Apple Metal team to help solve this problem and proposes possible solutions, such as extending the concept of Audio Workgroup to the GPU or adding a real-time sensitive option to the Metal API.

(anukari.com)

Development Audio Synthesis

The Truth About Antidepressants: Beyond the 'Chemical Imbalance'

2025-02-28

The Truth About Antidepressants: Beyond the 'Chemical Imbalance'

Antidepressants have long been understood as correcting a 'chemical imbalance' in the brain to treat depression. However, a vast body of research reviewed here reveals this explanation to be overly simplistic. The article summarizes numerous studies on the relationship between serotonin and depression, demonstrating that it's not a simple linear relationship and the mechanism of action of antidepressants is far more complex than the 'chemical imbalance' theory suggests. While antidepressants are effective to a degree, their mechanisms of action and long-term effects require further investigation, and public understanding of the causes of depression needs a more nuanced scientific approach.

(www.nature.com)

Tech antidepressants serotonin

Running DOOM in Microsoft Word: A VBA Hack That's Actually Impressive

2025-01-20

Running DOOM in Microsoft Word: A VBA Hack That's Actually Impressive

A developer has ported the classic game DOOM into a Microsoft Word document! Using VBA macros and base64 encoding, they embedded the DOOM engine and game data within a Word document, rendering the game in real-time by reading keyboard input. While lacking sound, this unusual project showcases the power of VBA and the developer's creativity, prompting reflection on security and the exploration of software boundaries.

(github.com)

Game

Rediscovering Apple's Newton Gem: Open Dylan

2025-01-19

Open Dylan is an object-functional programming language, a descendant of Apple's Dylan language originally created for the Newton PDA. Combining the strengths of Scheme and CLOS, without the Lisp syntax, it's designed for efficient machine code generation. This article showcases Open Dylan's comprehensive documentation, including tutorials, reference manuals, and extensive library documentation, along with an online Playground for quick experimentation. Whether you're learning a new language or exploring efficient programming paradigms, Open Dylan is worth a look.

(opendylan.org)

Development

curl's Experimental HTTPS RR Support: The Next Generation of DNS Records

2025-03-31

curl's Experimental HTTPS RR Support: The Next Generation of DNS Records

curl now experimentally supports the new DNS record type HTTPS RR, offering a more modern way than SRV and URI to convey service metadata such as ECH configuration, ALPN lists, target hostnames, ports, and IP addresses. HTTPS RR enhances HTTPS connection security (via ECH encryption of the SNI field) and efficiency (by pre-fetching HTTP/3 support information), and simplifies service discovery. curl achieves HTTPS RR resolution through DoH, getaddrinfo(), or c-ares, but currently lacks runtime disabling and still has incomplete HTTPS RR support.

(daniel.haxx.se)

Development

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