AI: The Stone Soup Analogy for LLMs

2025-02-28
AI: The Stone Soup Analogy for LLMs

This article uses the parable of 'Stone Soup' to cleverly illustrate the workings of Large Language Models (LLMs). In the story, travelers use a few stones and ingredients provided by villagers to cook a delicious soup. This is similar to how LLMs utilize a small number of algorithms and vast resources from the internet, human feedback, etc., to construct a seemingly 'intelligent' system. The author points out that LLMs are not independent intelligent agents, but rather cultural technologies like internet search engines. Their 'intelligence' stems from the contributions of collective human intelligence, not the magic of the algorithms themselves.

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Mysterious Tablet with Unknown Script Unearthed in Georgia

2024-12-14

A basalt tablet inscribed with 60 enigmatic characters has been discovered near Lake Bashplemi in Georgia. The unique symbols, arranged in seven registers, bear partial resemblance to scripts from the Middle East, India, Egypt, and even West Iberia, but don't directly match any known writing system. Dating potentially to the Late Bronze or Early Iron Ages, its purpose remains a mystery, though theories include recording military spoils, construction projects, or religious offerings. The discovery suggests cultural exchange between the Caucasus and neighboring regions in antiquity.

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MAME 0.276: A March Madness of Emulation Improvements

2025-03-30

MAME 0.276 has dropped, packed with emulation enhancements! The 64-bit ARMv8 recompiler is even faster. This release fixes graphical glitches in Konami GX arcade games and Philips CD-i software. Several IGS gambling games and Chinese versions of Dynax mahjong games have been added. The LinnDrum percussion synthesizer now boasts interactive controls and sound output. Plus, audio emulation issues in various arcade games have been resolved. Numerous other improvements and bug fixes round out this substantial update.

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Game

Unexpectedly Large Isospin Symmetry Violation Found at CERN

2025-03-31
Unexpectedly Large Isospin Symmetry Violation Found at CERN

Analysis of data from CERN's NA61/SHINE collaboration revealed a surprising anomaly: a significant imbalance between charged and neutral kaons produced in argon-scandium collisions. Charged kaons were produced 18.4% more frequently than neutral kaons, suggesting a much larger violation of isospin symmetry than predicted by existing models. This challenges our understanding of the strong interaction and quantum chromodynamics (QCD), opening avenues for further research into the role of electromagnetic interactions and quark behavior. The 4.7σ significance of the result demands further investigation and theoretical explanations.

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arXivLabs: Experimental Projects with Community Collaboration

2025-07-28
arXivLabs: Experimental Projects with Community Collaboration

arXivLabs is a framework enabling collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Individuals and organizations involved embrace our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners who share them. Got an idea for a project that will benefit the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

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Development

Shunpo: A Minimalist Bash Tool for Faster Directory Navigation

2025-01-27
Shunpo: A Minimalist Bash Tool for Faster Directory Navigation

Shunpo is a minimalist bash tool designed to speed up directory navigation in your terminal. It provides a simple bookmark system, allowing you to jump to frequently used directories with minimal keystrokes. Perfect for users who constantly use commands like `cd`, `pushd`, or `popd`, Shunpo lets you easily bookmark, remove, and list directories. Installation is simple: just run `install.sh`.

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Transformer²: Self-Adaptive LLMs Break New Ground

2025-01-15
Transformer²: Self-Adaptive LLMs Break New Ground

Transformer² is a novel machine learning system that dynamically adjusts its weights for various tasks. Inspired by nature's adaptive mechanisms, like an octopus changing color or the brain rewiring itself, it enables Large Language Models (LLMs) to adapt to new tasks in real-time. Using Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) and Reinforcement Learning (RL), Transformer² decomposes model weights into independent components and learns how to combine them optimally for diverse tasks, including math, coding, reasoning, and visual understanding. Results show Transformer² outperforms traditional static approaches like LoRA in efficiency and task-specific performance, requiring far fewer parameters. This work paves the way for building 'living intelligence' AI systems that continuously learn and evolve.

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AI

Signal Downloads Soar After Trump Admin Scandal

2025-03-27
Signal Downloads Soar After Trump Admin Scandal

The accidental inclusion of The Atlantic's editor in a Signal group chat used by Trump administration officials to plan a Yemen bombing, dubbed 'SignalGate', has led to a massive surge in downloads for the encrypted messaging app. The incident, which exposed secret plans and raised concerns about security protocols, caused Signal's US downloads to double their usual rate, marking the app's largest ever US growth spurt. This surpasses even the growth seen in 2021 when WhatsApp's privacy policy changes spurred a mass exodus to Signal. Sensor Tower data confirms a 105 percent increase in US downloads compared to the previous week, and a 150 percent increase compared to the average week in 2024.

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Tech

Count Bernadotte: From Rescuing Jews to Assassination in the Holy Land

2025-09-19

During WWII, Count Folke Bernadotte, a Swedish count, orchestrated the 'White Buses' operation, rescuing tens of thousands from Nazi concentration camps, including many Jews. Ironically, after the war, while serving as a UN mediator attempting to resolve the intractable conflict in the Middle East, he was assassinated by the Jewish extremist group Lehi ('Stern Gang'). This tragic event highlights both the challenges of peacemaking and the manipulation of historical narratives. Recent research has vindicated Bernadotte's heroic actions, restoring his rightful place in history.

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AudioNimbus: A Rust Wrapper for Immersive Spatial Audio with Steam Audio

2025-03-12
AudioNimbus: A Rust Wrapper for Immersive Spatial Audio with Steam Audio

AudioNimbus is a Rust library providing a safe and easy-to-use wrapper around Valve's powerful Steam Audio spatial audio toolkit. It simplifies integration of immersive 3D audio into Rust projects, supporting features like HRTF, Ambisonics, realistic sound propagation (including distance attenuation and reflections), and more. The library consists of two crates: `audionimbus` (high-level safe wrapper) and `audionimbus-sys` (auto-generated bindings to the Steam Audio C API). Check out the demo for a quick start!

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Development Spatial Audio

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.

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Retro Revival: Bringing a Tandy Coco Back Online with FujiNet

2024-12-20
Retro Revival: Bringing a Tandy Coco Back Online with FujiNet

This article details the author's journey in connecting an old Tandy Coco computer to the internet using the FujiNet project, an ambitious open-source initiative aiming to be the only peripheral needed for vintage computers. The author faced challenges during the assembly process, including soldering difficulties, hardware bugs, and software compatibility issues. Despite these hurdles, they successfully connected to the internet and ran various applications, including an ISS tracker and games. The experience highlights the vibrancy of the open-source community and the potential of retrocomputing, showcasing the fun of hardware repair and software development.

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Cursing Your Way to Google Search Results Without AI Summaries

2025-01-31
Cursing Your Way to Google Search Results Without AI Summaries

Tired of Google's AI-powered search results leading you astray? It turns out adding expletives to your search query disables the AI-generated summaries. Including curse words prevents Google from displaying its AI Overview at the top of the results, instead providing a standard list of links. While not the first method discovered to bypass Google's AI summaries, this approach is remarkably simple and cathartic. This raises questions about the desirability of these AI summaries; if users consistently seek ways to disable them, does this indicate a lack of demand? While convenient, AI summaries are prone to inaccuracies and may exacerbate the spread of misinformation, mirroring the issues seen with ChatGPT's integration into Siri. Google argues that AI Overviews don't reduce website traffic, a claim disputed by media companies.

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Quad9: A Non-Profit DNS Provider Seeks Donations

2025-03-25
Quad9: A Non-Profit DNS Provider Seeks Donations

Quad9, a non-profit organization, relies on grants and partnerships to operate. Using Quad9 can prevent ransomware attacks, protect your bank account, and stop your computer from being used in illicit criminal activities. These protections, and millions of other interventions, directly save you, your business, and the companies you rely on (like banks and e-commerce firms) money. We hope this understanding inspires you to donate to Quad9, individually or through corporate sponsorship.

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Tech non-profit

Six-Month-Old Vibe-Coding Startup Base44 Acquired by Wix for $80M

2025-06-19
Six-Month-Old Vibe-Coding Startup Base44 Acquired by Wix for $80M

Maor Shlomo's Base44, a six-month-old bootstrapped vibe-coding startup, was acquired by Wix for $80 million in cash. Base44, boasting 250,000 users and rapid growth (10,000 users in three weeks), provides compelling evidence for the 'solo unicorn' concept, although Shlomo had a small team. The acquisition highlights the potential of low-code/no-code platforms and the rapid adoption of AI in startups.

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Startup

5,000-Year-Old Bread Unearthed in Turkey: A Culinary Time Capsule

2025-06-18
5,000-Year-Old Bread Unearthed in Turkey: A Culinary Time Capsule

Archaeologists in Turkey have unearthed a remarkably preserved 5,000-year-old loaf of bread, a rare find in the field. Discovered at the Kulluoba site in Eskisehir province, the Bronze Age bread was burnt and buried under a dwelling entrance, protecting it from decay. The discovery offers unique insights into ancient diets and agricultural practices. Local bakers have successfully recreated the bread using ancient wheat, lentils, and bulgur, resulting in a popular local treat.

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Memfault is Hiring: Android SDK Engineer ($100k-$180k)

2025-02-06
Memfault is Hiring: Android SDK Engineer ($100k-$180k)

Memfault, an IoT reliability platform, is seeking an Android (AOSP) SDK Engineer. You'll collaborate with SDK leads (Linux, MCU) and cross-functional teams to shape the future of Android at Memfault. Expect a diverse tech stack spanning microcontroller SDKs, large-scale backend data processing, and complex frontend charting. The company encourages broad contribution across its technology and offers flexible work arrangements with regular team gatherings and annual off-sites.

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Development

Open-Source Hyperspectral Oil Paint and Painting Dataset: Unlocking Painting Techniques

2025-06-16
Open-Source Hyperspectral Oil Paint and Painting Dataset: Unlocking Painting Techniques

This open-source project provides a large dataset containing hyperspectral scan data, processing code, and reconstructed paint samples. The dataset is intended for use in art historical research and computer graphics, such as pigment mapping and spectral upsampling. It includes hyperspectral scans of nine paintings and reflectance measurements of numerous paint samples. A Python package, `painting_tools`, is also provided for processing spectral data and mixing and layering pigments using the Kubelka-Munk model. Researchers can use this dataset to study the materials and techniques of paintings and develop new image processing and analysis methods.

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DuckDB Preview: Seamlessly Connect to Amazon S3 Tables and SageMaker Lakehouse

2025-03-18
DuckDB Preview: Seamlessly Connect to Amazon S3 Tables and SageMaker Lakehouse

DuckDB announces a preview feature adding support for Apache Iceberg REST Catalogs, enabling easy connection to Amazon S3 Tables and Amazon SageMaker Lakehouse. This collaboration between AWS and DuckDB Labs allows users to query Iceberg tables directly. By installing the latest DuckDB and necessary extensions, configuring AWS credentials, and using simple commands, users can access and query data, even with schema evolution. This preview release paves the way for a stable release later this year.

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Development

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.

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Tech

NASA's Year-Long Mars Simulation: Paving the Way to the Red Planet

2025-09-08
NASA's Year-Long Mars Simulation: Paving the Way to the Red Planet

Four volunteers will embark on a year-long Mars mission simulation at NASA's Johnson Space Center, living in a 3D-printed habitat for 378 days. This CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog) mission will evaluate the effects of long-duration space exploration on human health and performance, including resource limitations, equipment malfunctions, communication delays, and isolation. The crew will conduct scientific research and operational tasks, such as simulated Mars walks and vegetable gardening. The simulation is a crucial step in preparing for future crewed Artemis missions and the eventual landing on Mars, providing valuable data for human exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

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reCAPTCHA: A Trillion-Dollar Tracking Cookie Farm?

2025-02-10
reCAPTCHA: A Trillion-Dollar Tracking Cookie Farm?

A UC Irvine study reveals Google's reCAPTCHA not only fails to prevent bot traffic effectively but also raises privacy concerns through tracking cookies, wastes billions of collective hours, and generates nearly a trillion dollars' worth of data for Google. The study finds both reCAPTCHA's image recognition and behavioral analysis features are valuable to Google, the former for ad targeting and the latter for AI model training. Researchers estimate the time spent solving reCAPTCHA is worth $6.1 billion, while Google's potential earnings from reCAPTCHA could reach trillions. The study concludes reCAPTCHA's true purpose is as a profitable tracking cookie farm, not a security service.

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Tech

Build a Text-to-Speech Reader with Sentence Highlighting in JavaScript

2025-06-26
Build a Text-to-Speech Reader with Sentence Highlighting in JavaScript

This article guides you through building a simple web tool that leverages JavaScript's SpeechSynthesis API for text-to-speech (TTS) functionality and dynamic sentence highlighting. It explains how to control speech playback, set voice parameters, and track speech events. The article also details implementing sentence-level highlighting using CSS and JavaScript, culminating in a fully functional interactive reader with play, pause, resume, stop buttons, and voice selection. The complete HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code is provided.

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Development Sentence Highlighting

Study: Video Games May Boost Kids' IQ

2024-12-16
Study: Video Games May Boost Kids' IQ

A study of nearly 10,000 US children aged 9-10 revealed that kids who spent more time playing video games scored higher on IQ tests. Researchers controlled for genetics and socioeconomic background, finding that increased gaming correlated with better scores in reading comprehension, visual-spatial processing, and cognitive tasks, resulting in a 2.5-point IQ boost on average. While the study focused on US children and didn't differentiate game types, it offers valuable insights, challenging the long-held belief that gaming harms children. Further research is needed to establish causality and explore other contributing factors.

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California Lithium Battery Plant Fire Sparks Clean Energy Safety Concerns

2025-01-26
California Lithium Battery Plant Fire Sparks Clean Energy Safety Concerns

A massive fire at one of the world's largest lithium-ion battery storage facilities in Monterey County, California, burned for five days, destroying roughly 80% of the batteries. This is the fourth fire at the Moss Landing Power Plant since 2019, raising concerns about California's increasing reliance on renewable energy and battery storage. The incident has prompted calls for stricter safety regulations and more local control over siting of battery storage facilities. A state assembly member has introduced a bill requiring local engagement in permitting and establishing buffer zones around sensitive areas. While initial EPA testing showed no immediate public health threat from toxic gases released, residents remain concerned about long-term impacts.

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VictoriaLogs Practical Ingestion Guide: Mastering Log Processing

2025-08-17
VictoriaLogs Practical Ingestion Guide: Mastering Log Processing

This VictoriaLogs guide provides a concise overview of its core concepts, covering essential documentation points and common issues encountered in real-world scenarios. It delves into the crucial concepts of message, time, and stream, explaining how optimal stream field selection enhances query performance, preventing "fat streams" and high cardinality problems. The guide also details VictoriaLogs' ingestion mechanisms, timestamp formats, compression strategies, and nested field handling, enabling users to leverage VictoriaLogs for efficient log processing.

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Development Log Processing

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.

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Pi in Pascal's Triangle: A Stunning Discovery

2025-06-09

Mathematician Daniel Hardisky has unearthed a novel formula for pi within Pascal's Triangle, sparking considerable interest in the mathematical community. His discovery builds upon a modification of the Nilakantha Somayaji series, linking the denominators to the areas of Pythagorean triangles and cleverly representing them using binomial coefficients. The article also presents other formulas connecting pi to Pascal's Triangle and binomial coefficients, showcasing pi's surprising hidden connections within mathematics.

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Shoebox-Sized Edge Computing Node Headed to ISS

2025-03-08
Shoebox-Sized Edge Computing Node Headed to ISS

Axiom Space plans to send a shoebox-sized node running Red Hat Device Edge to the International Space Station (ISS). This prototype, AxDCU-1, will test applications in cloud computing, AI/ML, data fusion, and space cybersecurity. Due to limited ground connectivity in space, edge computing is crucial. AxDCU-1 utilizes Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Ansible Platform, and MicroShift, and is planned to operate in orbit for at least two years. Launch is expected in Spring 2025, but potential delays exist due to cargo shipment issues.

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