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Advanced Zig Unit Testing Debugging: Combining Print Debugging and the Debugger

2025-08-07

This article presents techniques to enhance Zig unit test debugging, combining print debugging and the debugger. The author first addresses the issue of verbose print debugging output by using `errdefer` to print only when a test fails, reducing clutter. Then, the `build.zig` script is leveraged to run the debugger during the build process, simplifying debugging of test binaries. Finally, conditional compilation, combined with the build option `-Ddebugger`, allows enabling debugger breakpoints only when needed, avoiding debugger interference during normal test runs. This approach significantly improves Zig unit test debugging efficiency.

(glfmn.io)

Development

Static Sites with Python, uv, Caddy, and Docker: A Streamlined Workflow

2025-08-24

Static Sites with Python, uv, Caddy, and Docker: A Streamlined Workflow

This post details a streamlined workflow for building and deploying static websites using Python, uv, Caddy, and Docker. The author showcases a Dockerfile leveraging uv for Python dependency management and Caddy for serving the static files. A detailed Caddyfile configuration is provided, demonstrating handling multiple domains, custom error pages, and content type specification. The author highlights the efficiency of this stack and expresses plans for future simplification.

(nkantar.com)

Development static site deployment

Finding Info in Emails with LLMs and an MCP Server

2025-05-22

The author built an MCP server to give a Large Language Model (LLM) read-only access to their emails. Through a conversation with Gemini (an LLM), the author demonstrates how simple search and retrieval tools can be used to find Donovan's son's name within emails. While Gemini's initial search strategy employed multiple keywords (like "son," "boy," "baby"), most led to Donovan's relatives. Ultimately, Gemini identified clues from initial search results, analyzing email subject lines and content, successfully pinpointing the son's name as Monty. The process highlights the power of LLMs combined with specific tools for information retrieval, and underscores the importance of precise search strategies.

(blog.nawaz.org)

Development

Experiences vs. Stability: A New Dilemma for Gen Z Women

2025-03-19

Experiences vs. Stability: A New Dilemma for Gen Z Women

This essay explores the conflicting feelings of contemporary young women regarding the choice between "experiences" and a stable life. From "Girls" to "Beautiful World, Where Are You," the article analyzes two contrasting female images: the former pursues extreme experiences, while the latter yearns for stable love and family. The author argues that in the post-pandemic era, under the impact of social media, the value of pursuing "experiences" is gradually fading, and more and more women are beginning to reflect on the cost of independent life and re-examine the meaning of marriage and family.

(www.metropolitanreview.org)

Misc feminine perspective

Do Plants Have Intelligence? A Revolution in Understanding Life's Cognition

2025-02-26

Do Plants Have Intelligence? A Revolution in Understanding Life's Cognition

An ancient olive tree at the Eden Project bears witness to humanity's evolving understanding of 'intelligence.' From Darwin's initial explorations of plant intelligence to recent discoveries of intelligence in plants, fungi, bacteria, and even cells, science is undergoing a cognitive revolution. This article delves into the challenges of defining 'intelligence' and explores the possibility of reinterpreting cognition from a biological perspective, emphasizing the importance of collective intelligence and the necessity of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. Research suggests that electrical signals play a far more significant role in diverse organisms than previously imagined, offering a new perspective on building a more sustainable future.

(www.noemamag.com)

Tech plant intelligence collective intelligence biological cognition

DuckDB Now Has a Built-in Local UI!

2025-03-12

DuckDB Now Has a Built-in Local UI!

The DuckDB team and MotherDuck are thrilled to announce a built-in local UI for DuckDB! This powerful web interface runs locally, eliminating the need for extra software. It features interactive notebooks, database browsing, table data preview, and data analysis tools, making interacting with DuckDB significantly easier. All queries are processed locally for enhanced data security. The UI also offers optional connection to MotherDuck cloud services for seamless data sharing and collaboration.

(duckdb.org)

Development Local UI

binfmtc: Execute C code as scripts

2025-06-08

Tired of writing Makefiles for shell scripts? binfmtc lets you write scripts directly in C! It uses the Linux binfmt_misc mechanism to automatically compile and execute your C code when the script is run. Simply add a special comment to your C script, make it executable, and enjoy the efficiency of C with the convenience of shell scripting. Currently supports GCC, G77, and GPC, with plans to support more compilers like GNAT, Gobjc, and Mono.

(www.netfort.gr.jp)

Development

Google Zanzibar: A Scalable Global Authorization System

2025-05-04

Google's 2019 Zanzibar paper details a flexible and scalable global authorization system designed to handle Google's massive scale. It's inspired numerous similar products. Zanzibar's core lies in its flexible access control model and strong distributed consistency guarantees. Leveraging Google Spanner and TrueTime for consistency, and clever architectural designs (like zookies and the Leopard indexing system) for scalability, it tackles complex challenges. While its distributed nature and high consistency requirements might be overkill for most applications, its API design is influential, with many companies striving to create simpler, more accessible alternatives.

(macwright.com)

Development authorization system distributed system

Fortran for C Programmers: A Quick Start Guide

2025-05-18

This concise guide provides essential information for C/C++ programmers to quickly get started with Fortran. It covers key aspects of the language, including its two source forms (fixed-form and free-form), implicit typing rules, built-in functions, modular programming, and input/output operations. The guide highlights differences between Fortran and C/C++ in data types, arrays, pointers, and function calls, and points out potential pitfalls, such as operator precedence and short-circuiting evaluation. This is a great starting point for C/C++ programmers interested in learning Fortran.

(flang.llvm.org)

Development

Notepad's AI Rewrite Feature: A Freemium Trojan Horse?

2025-02-19

Notepad's AI Rewrite Feature: A Freemium Trojan Horse?

Microsoft's venerable Notepad, a staple for decades, now features an AI-powered 'Rewrite' tool. However, accessing this feature requires a paid Microsoft 365 subscription, sparking debate. While Notepad remains free and usable without an account, the prominent prompts for the Rewrite function feel like a subtle push towards a paid model. Though the core functionality remains free, the persistent ads for a premium service raise questions about Microsoft's long-term strategy for its classic applications.

(www.windowscentral.com)

Tech

NixOS: A Two-Year Love-Hate Relationship (and Breakup)

2025-01-14

This post details the author's two-year journey using NixOS, its package manager, and language. Initially drawn to its declarative configuration and reproducibility, the author ultimately found more problems than solutions. While NixOS excelled on servers and simple services, desktop use proved challenging due to complexities in package management, cryptic build errors, and significant resource consumption. The author decided to step back from full-time NixOS use, seeking a more streamlined workflow.

(www.dgt.is)

Development

MongoDB's Extreme Modeling: Conformance Checking in Practice

2025-06-02

MongoDB engineers experimented with TLA+ specifications and two conformance checking techniques (trace checking and test-case generation) to verify their product implementations against specifications. The trace-checking experiment, conducted on the MongoDB server, aimed to validate the implementation of the Raft consensus protocol; the test-case generation experiment, on the MongoDB Mobile SDK, aimed to validate the operational transformation algorithm. Results showed that trace checking failed due to the difficulty of snapshotting the state of a multithreaded program and discrepancies between the specification and implementation, while test-case generation successfully uncovered a bug in the algorithm and achieved 100% branch coverage. The article summarizes lessons learned and presents recent advancements in the field, highlighting the importance of continuous conformance checking for TLA+ mainstream adoption.

(www.mongodb.com)

Development Conformance Checking

Critical Alert: Massive Supply Chain Attack Hits NPM Ecosystem

2025-09-16

Critical Alert: Massive Supply Chain Attack Hits NPM Ecosystem

Over 40 npm packages, including the popular @ctrl/tinycolor package (over 2 million weekly downloads), have been compromised in a sophisticated supply chain attack. The attacker used a self-propagating mechanism to infect downstream dependencies, causing a cascading compromise. The payload is a Webpack-bundled script that steals AWS, GCP, GitHub, and other cloud credentials and sensitive information, establishing persistence via GitHub Actions. The attack has resulted in widespread credential theft; immediate action is required to check affected packages and rotate all credentials.

(www.stepsecurity.io)

Development

Court Orders Cloudflare to Block Pirate Streaming Services

2024-12-24

A Milan court has ordered Cloudflare to block pirate streaming services offering Serie A football matches across all its services, including CDN, DNS, WARP, and proxy. The court ruled Cloudflare's services facilitate access to illegal streams, undermining Italy's 'Piracy Shield' legislation. The order also mandates broad data disclosure, requiring Cloudflare to identify customers using its services for piracy. This landmark ruling highlights the responsibility of third-party intermediaries in combating digital piracy and represents a significant step forward in anti-piracy efforts.

(torrentfreak.com)

Tech Serie A

Demodesk: Shaping the Future of Sales, Hiring Globally

2025-01-23

Demodesk: Shaping the Future of Sales, Hiring Globally

Demodesk, a tech company offering AI-powered sales coaching, scheduling automation, and video conferencing platforms, is hiring globally. They champion a remote-friendly environment, offering flexible work conditions and a comprehensive benefits package including stock options, healthcare, and commuter benefits, with a focus on employee growth and development. Join Demodesk and help shape the future of sales!

(demodesk.com)

Startup AI sales

LinkedIn's Toxic Mediocrity: A Content Quality Lament

2025-08-22

The author decries LinkedIn's rampant 'toxic mediocrity': inauthentic personal branding, overproduced empty posts, and meaningless advice disguised as stories. The author argues that LinkedIn's algorithm incentivizes this behavior, yet it ultimately provides no career benefit. Instead of chasing likes and comments, the author advocates for high-quality content creation, such as building a personal blog to share meaningful insights, as a more effective path to career advancement.

(www.elliotcsmith.com)

Misc

arXivLabs: Experimenting with Community Collaboration

2025-07-03

arXivLabs is a framework for collaborators to build and share new arXiv features directly on the website. Individuals and organizations involved share arXiv's values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv only partners with those who uphold these values. Got an idea to improve the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

(arxiv.org)

Development

Stop Meta from Using Your Data for Ads: A Step-by-Step Guide

2025-02-25

This article provides a step-by-step guide on how to prevent Meta from using your data collected from other apps and websites to target you with ads. The instructions cover disabling activity information from ad partners, preventing ads from ad partners, and disconnecting your account from data shared with Meta by other companies. Follow these simple steps to regain more control over your privacy and reduce targeted advertising.

(johnoliverwantsyourraterotica.com)

Misc Meta privacy data protection

Become a Web Archive Guardian: Run an ArchiveTeam Warrior

2025-08-18

Want to contribute to internet archiving? Now you can easily run the ArchiveTeam Warrior virtual machine! It will download and upload websites to the ArchiveTeam archive on your computer, without risking your computer's security; it only uses some of your bandwidth and disk space. Warrior supports Windows, OS X, and Linux systems and only requires virtual machine software like VirtualBox or VMware. After downloading the virtual machine image, import it into VirtualBox, start it, and then you can select a project to start contributing; your progress will be shown on the leaderboard!

(tracker.archiveteam.org)

Development

Configuring Python Language Server in Kate Editor for Virtual Environments

2025-05-05

This post details configuring a Python language server in the Kate editor to work with virtual environments. The author notes that while Kate's documentation exists, the setup process can be tricky. The article walks through creating a bash script, `pylsp_in_env`, to automatically detect and activate virtual environments. This script is then integrated with `python-lsp-server` and `python-lsp-ruff` (for Ruff linting and formatting). The final configuration is achieved by specifying the `pylsp_in_env` script and the `%{Project:NativePath}` path argument in Kate's LSP configuration file.

(akselmo.dev)

Development

Slow Motion: A Trick of the Brain and a Cultural Mirror

2025-07-21

Slow Motion: A Trick of the Brain and a Cultural Mirror

Twenty years ago, neuroscientist David Eagleman designed an experiment where students were dropped from a tower to simulate near-death experiences. The experiment revealed that the 'slow-motion effect' isn't a slowing of perception, but rather a memory trick where the brain retains more detail during critical moments. This mirrors the common use of slow motion in film; it has become a common language for expressing trauma and extreme experiences. From movies to reality, slow motion is not just a visual effect, but a way we understand the world.

(newrepublic.com)

Tech slow-motion effect

Shark-Skin Inspired Laser Etching Creates Antibacterial Cutting Boards

2025-03-11

Shark-Skin Inspired Laser Etching Creates Antibacterial Cutting Boards

Researchers have developed a novel solution to prevent bacterial buildup on food processing surfaces. Inspired by the naturally antimicrobial textures of shark skin and cicada wings, they used lasers to etch micro- and nanoscale textures onto metal surfaces. This prevents bacteria from attaching, effectively eliminating the need for constant cleaning and reducing biofilm formation. The laser texturing technique avoids the use of chemicals, making it a safer and more sustainable alternative. Future work involves machine learning models to optimize the process for industrial applications.

(www.morningagclips.com)

Tech antibacterial materials

Russian Disinfo Network Infiltrates Western AI Chatbots

2025-03-07

Russian Disinfo Network Infiltrates Western AI Chatbots

A Moscow-based disinformation network called "Pravda" (Russian for "truth") is infiltrating AI chatbots' data, injecting false claims and propaganda to manipulate their responses to news. By flooding search results with pro-Kremlin falsehoods, the network distorts how large language models process information. This resulted in millions of articles of Russian propaganda being incorporated into Western AI systems, infecting their outputs. NewsGuard's audit of 10 leading AI chatbots revealed they repeated false narratives from the Pravda network 33% of the time. The network doesn't create original content but acts as a laundering machine for Kremlin propaganda, aggregating it across numerous seemingly independent websites. This large-scale operation highlights the vulnerability of AI models to disinformation campaigns.

(www.newsguardrealitycheck.com)

AI Disinformation Russian Propaganda

Nginx-CGI: Bringing CGI Support to Nginx and Angie

2025-08-30

Nginx-CGI: Bringing CGI Support to Nginx and Angie

The Nginx-CGI plugin adds CGI support to Nginx and Angie web servers, making it easier to build low-frequency applications, resource-constrained systems, and prototypes. It supports various operating systems including Linux, macOS, and BSD. The article details installation, configuration, and usage, showcasing multiple ways to run CGI scripts: chroot, Docker, and FreeBSD jails. It also covers CGI script writing conventions and handling HTTP requests and responses.

(github.com)

Development

New Superpower Unlocked: Spotting Differences in Images

2025-01-10

New Superpower Unlocked: Spotting Differences in Images

The author discovered a video on Reddit showcasing a 9-year-old girl's incredible ability to quickly identify minute differences between nearly identical images. Initially unable to replicate this, the author found that by crossing their eyes to overlap the images, a third image appeared, highlighting the differences with a shimmering effect. This newfound skill, described as a 'superpower', is shared along with practice exercises and images of varying difficulty levels.

(danielwirtz.com)

Misc visual skills observation

Calculating Credit Card Debt with Code: Is Math Essential for Programmers?

2025-08-24

Calculating Credit Card Debt with Code: Is Math Essential for Programmers?

This article explores whether math is essential background knowledge for programmers. By building an Elixir program simulating credit card repayment, the author demonstrates how simple formulas and programming can solve real-world problems, such as calculating compound interest and repayment schedules. The program's simulation shows that slightly increasing the minimum payment percentage or adding a small extra monthly payment significantly reduces repayment time and saves substantial money, highlighting the importance of understanding compound interest and financial planning. Even without advanced math, practical application is shown.

(programmersstone.blog)

Development

The Science of Earworms: Why Some Songs Get Stuck in Your Head

2025-05-30

The Science of Earworms: Why Some Songs Get Stuck in Your Head

A self-employed writer recounts his experience of suffering an earworm after posting a bad joke online, leading him to explore the science behind this phenomenon. The article explains that earworms result from the brain's processing of sound, memory, and emotion, with short, simple, and repetitive melodies being more likely culprits. It also touches upon the ironic effect of trying to forget a song, only making it more persistent. The author concludes with a humorous reflection on the harmless nature of earworms, subtly promoting his books.

(theneuroscienceofeverydaylife.substack.com)

Misc

Securely Deploy Web Services with Cloudflare Tunnel: A Beginner's Guide

2025-07-13

Securely Deploy Web Services with Cloudflare Tunnel: A Beginner's Guide

Tired of complex server configurations and security headaches? Cloudflare Tunnel offers a simple and secure solution to deploy web services without exposing ports. By creating an outbound connection from your server to Cloudflare's nearest datacenter, all traffic flows through Cloudflare's secure network, ensuring your server's safety and reliability regardless of its location. This guide walks you through setting up Cloudflare Tunnel, including installing the cloudflared client, creating a tunnel, configuring a system service, and setting up DNS records—a process easily manageable even for beginners.

(erisa.dev)

Development Web Service Deployment

Fly.io's Unexpected Robot Boom: A Cloud Platform's Unexpected User Base

2025-04-12

Fly.io's Unexpected Robot Boom: A Cloud Platform's Unexpected User Base

Fly.io, a developer-focused public cloud, initially prioritized developer experience (DX). However, in recent months, they've discovered that their platform's growth is primarily driven by robots, not humans. These robots utilize Fly.io's compute resources for "vibe coding," a vector-based code generation process. Their needs – quick start times, flexible virtual machines (Fly Machines), and easy storage and networking – unexpectedly align well with Fly.io's design. Fly.io found that features like rapid VM start/stop, incremental storage, and MCP protocol support are unexpectedly robot-friendly. While not initially designed for robots, Fly.io recognizes the need to focus on robot experience (RX) and is adapting to better serve this new user base.

(fly.io)

Tech

Bluesky's Controversial AI Data Scraping Proposal

2025-03-17

Bluesky's Controversial AI Data Scraping Proposal

Bluesky, a social network, proposed a new system allowing users to opt in or out of having their data used for generative AI training and public archiving. This sparked controversy, with some users accusing Bluesky of breaking its promise not to sell user data to advertisers or use user posts for AI training. CEO Jay Graber responded that generative AI companies already scrape public data, including from Bluesky, and that the platform is trying to create a new standard similar to robots.txt, but without legal enforceability. Users can choose to allow or disallow their data for generative AI, protocol bridging, bulk datasets, and web archiving. While some consider it a good proposal, others worry that scrapers might disregard user preferences.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech user privacy

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