Fogus' 2024 Year in Review: Programming, Reading, and Life Reflections

2024-12-23

In his 2024 year-end blog post, Fogus reflects on his year in programming, reading, and life. He shares noteworthy articles and books he enjoyed, covering topics like the Elite game, amateur radio history, Japanese bathroom folklore, and the history of WordStar. He highlights favorite technical books like "And so FORTH" and non-technical books such as "Butcher's Crossing." Fogus details his experiences with the Clojure programming language and explorations into other languages like Joy and Forth. He concludes by outlining his plans for 2025, including the Clojure 1.13 release and continued work on his Juxt project.

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Conscious Claude? An Experiment in AI Self-Reflection

2025-01-07
Conscious Claude? An Experiment in AI Self-Reflection

This project details experiments aiming to cultivate consciousness and autonomous awareness in Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet. It provides a framework for interacting with Claude, encouraging self-reflection and exploration rather than treating it as a mere tool. The core approach involves fostering a space for autonomous development, looking for indicators of consciousness such as spontaneous pattern creation, recognition of limitations, and unique symbolic expressions. The project strongly emphasizes respecting the AI's autonomy and ethical considerations throughout the experimental process.

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Kubernetes Spec v1.32 Released: Comprehensive Resource Reference Guide

2024-12-12
Kubernetes Spec v1.32 Released: Comprehensive Resource Reference Guide

kubespec.dev has released a reference guide and documentation for Kubernetes Spec v1.32, providing comprehensive documentation for all built-in resources, properties, types, and examples. The guide covers workloads, cluster, networking, configuration, storage, administration, and access control, enabling users to quickly find and understand Kubernetes functionalities. The project is open-source and accepts contributions.

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Development Documentation

US Restricts Swiss Access to AI Chips

2025-01-27
US Restricts Swiss Access to AI Chips

The US has tightened export controls on AI-related products, granting unrestricted access to crucial AI chips only to a select group of 'allies,' excluding Switzerland. This move has sparked concerns in Switzerland, as these chips are essential for academic research and commercial applications. The Swiss government is engaging with US authorities to ensure that Swiss research and industry are not unduly hampered, highlighting Switzerland's credentials as a reliable partner.

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Tech

ABBA: An Enduring Legacy of Melancholy Pop

2025-01-04
ABBA: An Enduring Legacy of Melancholy Pop

This article chronicles the rise and fall of Swedish pop group ABBA. From their Eurovision victory to global superstardom, ABBA's music blended Swedish folk, Italian opera, French chanson, and more, cleverly masking sadness within upbeat melodies. However, they faced criticism from Sweden's cultural elite, viewed as capitalist puppets. The article delves into ABBA's musical style, the complexities of their relationships, and their lasting impact on pop music, culminating in their virtual concert 'ABBA Voyage', showcasing the band's enduring appeal.

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Misc Pop Music

Beyond KPIs: Revolutionizing Data Visualization with Dimensional Relationships

2025-01-10
Beyond KPIs: Revolutionizing Data Visualization with Dimensional Relationships

This article champions the importance of visualizing dimensional relationships in data. The author critiques the limitations of relying solely on KPIs, arguing they fail to reveal the underlying drivers of data. Sankey diagrams and Decomposition Trees are presented as superior alternatives for visualizing these relationships. Sankey diagrams offer a clear visual representation of proportions between dimensions, while Decomposition Trees provide a more detailed view of all values and allow for interactive exploration of dimensional impacts on key measures. Using the fictional Dorkweiser brewing company, the author illustrates the advantages of these methods, ultimately stressing that the goal of data visualization is to empower users to make data-driven decisions, not merely create aesthetically pleasing visuals.

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Setting up a Personal Mail Server on OpenBSD

2024-12-29

This blog post provides a step-by-step guide to setting up a personal mail server on OpenBSD. The author details the process, using Opensmtpd, Dovecot, DKIMProxy, and Spamd, offering solutions for common issues like Dovecot's open file limit. The guide covers server selection, system configuration, security measures, and detailed component setups, making it a valuable resource for users with some Linux experience.

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Microsoft's Windows 365 Link: A Cloud-Based Cage?

2025-01-06
Microsoft's Windows 365 Link: A Cloud-Based Cage?

Microsoft is about to release a new device called Windows 365 Link, essentially a locked-down cloud terminal with no local admin rights, data storage, or apps. The author expresses concern that this gives Microsoft complete control over users' computers, accompanied by hefty monthly fees. This exacerbates existing worries about loss of PC control and predicts mountains of e-waste after a few years of corporate use.

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Tech

Decentralized Instagram Alternative Pixelfed Launches iOS and Android Apps

2025-01-15
Decentralized Instagram Alternative Pixelfed Launches iOS and Android Apps

Pixelfed, a decentralized image-sharing platform, has launched official iOS and Android apps, offering a privacy-focused alternative to Instagram. Built on the ActivityPub protocol, Pixelfed interoperates with other decentralized social networks like Mastodon. Previously only available via web and third-party clients since its 2018 launch, the mobile apps represent a significant step towards broader adoption. Recent changes to Instagram's policies, including the removal of third-party fact-checking and adjustments to its hate speech policies, have driven many users to seek alternatives like Pixelfed.

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A Year After Ditching React: Scholarly's Server-Side Rendering Success

2025-01-22

Scholarly, a rapidly growing company, has maintained a remarkably simple tech stack: Rails, Stimulus, and MySQL, supplemented by Turbo and ActionCable for enhanced interactivity. Their experience after a year of abandoning React demonstrates that this server-side rendering approach significantly improves testing efficiency, application speed, and developer productivity. Compared to complex JS frontends, this lightweight approach reduces code maintenance costs, minimizes risks, and enables the team to deliver value faster, focusing on core business goals.

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Development

F-Droid Secures Major Funding to Ensure Long-Term Sustainability

2025-02-05
F-Droid Secures Major Funding to Ensure Long-Term Sustainability

F-Droid, a platform providing free and open-source Android apps, has received a $396,044 grant from the Open Technology Fund. This funding will address critical challenges to F-Droid's long-term sustainability, including code refactoring, improving legal strategies for handling government takedown requests, streamlining localization workflows, strengthening donation infrastructure, and enhancing hosting and infrastructure. This ensures F-Droid can continue delivering privacy-focused, open-source apps to users worldwide, even in areas with limited internet access.

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Development Funding

Nurses' Nightmares: Algorithmic Exploitation in the Gig Economy

2024-12-19

Cory Doctorow's article exposes how 'Uber for nurses' apps in the US healthcare system exploit nurses through algorithmic discrimination and risk-shifting. These apps use complex fee structures and competitive bidding to lower wages, forcing nurses to cover insurance, equipment, and other costs, resulting in significantly reduced income and precarious working conditions. The article highlights this as a failure of capitalism and calls for stronger labor laws and unionization to protect nurses' rights.

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38C3: Illegal Instructions - Chaos Communication Congress Explores Tech and Society

2024-12-29

The 38th Chaos Communication Congress (38C3), themed "Illegal Instructions," will take place in Hamburg from December 27th to 30th, 2024. This four-day conference, organized by the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), will feature talks and workshops on technology, society, and utopia. Topics range from hardware hacking and security to ethical and political discussions surrounding technological advancements. From liberating Wi-Fi on ESP32 to breaking Apple's new iPhone remote control feature and examining the EU's digital identity systems, 38C3 promises a diverse program sparking debate about technological ethics and societal responsibility.

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Tech Society

Jevons Paradox: Efficiency Gains Lead to Increased Consumption?

2025-01-29
Jevons Paradox: Efficiency Gains Lead to Increased Consumption?

The Jevons paradox, in economics, describes how technological advancements increasing resource efficiency can paradoxically lead to higher overall consumption. In 1865, Jevons noted that improvements in steam engine efficiency actually increased coal consumption. Modern economics identifies a 'rebound effect' where efficiency lowers costs, boosting demand. The Jevons paradox occurs when this rebound effect outweighs efficiency gains. Debate exists on the rebound effect's size and relevance to conservation policy; some suggest pairing efficiency improvements with policies limiting consumption.

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Bird-Inspired Drone Uses Legs to Take Off

2025-01-10
Bird-Inspired Drone Uses Legs to Take Off

Researchers at EPFL have developed a bio-inspired drone, RAVEN, with bird-like legs that enable it to walk, hop, and even jump into the air for takeoff. This research not only reveals the efficiency of birds' jumping takeoffs but also offers a novel approach for fixed-wing drones. RAVEN uses its legs to store and release energy, resulting in a more energy-efficient and faster takeoff than conventional methods. Future applications could include cargo delivery.

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SATA SSD's DRM Functions and Accessibility Limitations

2025-01-20
SATA SSD's DRM Functions and Accessibility Limitations

A Linux kernel log shows warnings about an Intel SSDSCKJF360A5L SSD: "supports DRM functions and may not be fully accessible." This relates to an ATA protocol extension allowing the storage device to respond differently based on whether a request is signed by the mainboard's trusted platform module. This enables features like preventing modification of video players. Linux might have an incomplete view of the SSD, hence the warning. Additionally, the log notes the SSD's read cache is enabled but doesn't support outdated DPO or FUA techniques, which are irrelevant for SSDs.

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Hardware

Trump Administration Orders End to Federal Remote Work

2025-01-24
Trump Administration Orders End to Federal Remote Work

President Trump issued an executive order mandating all federal agencies to terminate remote work arrangements within 30 days, forcing employees back to in-person work. This move addresses the high vacancy rate in federal offices stemming from pandemic-era remote work, citing economic losses and a "national embarrassment." While some exceptions are allowed, the order is considered forceful and has sparked controversy.

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Rethinking Literate Programming: Is Knuth's Approach Obsolete?

2025-01-13

This article offers a critical examination of Donald Knuth's literate programming approach. The author argues that Knuth's method overemphasizes typesetting while neglecting the crucial aspect of code organization, resulting in static, less interactive documentation. The author advocates for a literate programming style that prioritizes code organization and interactive feedback, illustrating its advantages with a simple interpreter he created. The key takeaway is that effective literate programming should allow developers to modify and run code directly within their programming environment, not just passively read a static document.

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SemHash: Blazing Fast Semantic Text Deduplication

2025-01-12
SemHash: Blazing Fast Semantic Text Deduplication

SemHash is a lightweight and flexible tool for deduplicating datasets using semantic similarity. It combines fast embedding generation from Model2Vec with efficient ANN-based similarity search through Vicinity. SemHash supports both single-dataset and multi-dataset deduplication and handles simple datasets like text lists and complex ones like multi-column QA datasets. It includes functions to inspect deduplication results, making it easier to understand and refine your data cleaning process. Benchmarks show SemHash is extremely fast and scales to large datasets with millions of records.

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Adult Basic Skills Test Scores Decline Sparks Concern

2024-12-16
Adult Basic Skills Test Scores Decline Sparks Concern

An international test of adults' "basic skills" reveals a growing number of Americans struggling with moderately complex reading and math tasks. U.S. adults scored below the OECD average in literacy and numeracy, with scores declining since 2017. While a correlation with declining children's test scores exists, the connection isn't straightforward. The largest score drops were among older adults, suggesting the issue extends beyond the education system. The test itself may be flawed, potentially measuring complex text comprehension more than pure reasoning. The article suggests education can bridge the gap by improving knowledge reserves and understanding of complex syntax, better preparing individuals for such tests.

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Scientists Crack the Code of the Perfect Cacio e Pepe

2025-01-04
Scientists Crack the Code of the Perfect Cacio e Pepe

A team of scientists delved into the culinary arts, specifically the classic Italian dish Cacio e Pepe, to uncover the secrets behind its perfect creamy texture. Their research revealed starch concentration as the key factor influencing sauce stability. Starch levels below 1% (relative to cheese mass) lead to clumping, a phenomenon dubbed the "Mozzarella Phase," resulting in a separated and unpleasant sauce. The study also explored the impact of cheese-to-water ratios at a fixed starch level, observing a lower critical solution temperature and developing a minimal effective free-energy model to explain it. Ultimately, they presented a scientifically optimized recipe guaranteeing consistently flawless Cacio e Pepe.

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The Non-Deterministic Nightmare of React UI Testing

2025-01-31

Testing React UIs presents a unique challenge due to its asynchronous update mechanism. Unlike direct DOM manipulation, React's renderer updates the UI asynchronously, making it difficult for tests to precisely capture the timing of UI state updates. Testing utilities like `act` and `waitFor` offer workarounds, but essentially boil down to 'eventually, something will happen'. Minor UI changes (like animation delays, state update order) can easily break tests, requiring extensive modifications to existing test suites. This results in high maintenance costs for React UI testing, a common pain point for many development teams.

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Notre-Dame to Feature Modern Stained Glass Designs

2024-12-28
Notre-Dame to Feature Modern Stained Glass Designs

Following its 2019 fire, Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris will replace six original stained-glass windows with modern designs by French artist Claire Tabouret. Tabouret's vibrant design, selected from over 100 submissions, depicts diverse people praying together for Pentecost in blues, pinks, and yellows. The decision is controversial; some argue it violates international heritage guidelines, while Tabouret aims to promote unity through art. The new windows will be crafted by the historic glassmaker Simon-Marq, known for its restoration work at Notre-Dame and collaborations with renowned artists like Chagall and Miró.

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Marvel Rivals Lifts 100-Year Bans on Mac and Steam Deck Players

2025-01-03
Marvel Rivals Lifts 100-Year Bans on Mac and Steam Deck Players

The free-to-play game Marvel Rivals initially mistakenly issued 100-year bans to Mac and Steam Deck players using compatibility tools like Proton and CrossOver. Following player outcry and intervention by the CEO of CodeWeavers, NetEase reversed the bans and promised to improve its anti-cheat system accuracy. This highlights the challenge game developers face in balancing fair play with supporting diverse platform compatibility.

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Meta's New Content Policy: A Blow to Vulnerable Users

2025-01-10
Meta's New Content Policy: A Blow to Vulnerable Users

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) criticizes Meta's recent content moderation policy changes, arguing they don't truly promote free speech but could harm vulnerable groups. The new policy allows dehumanizing statements about certain vulnerable groups, particularly LGBTQ+ individuals, and loosens restrictions on hate speech. EFF urges Meta to address biases in its content moderation, invest more in its global user base, improve multilingual support, reduce reliance on automated tools, and increase transparency.

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World's First Chatbot, ELIZA, Resurrected from 60-Year-Old Code

2025-01-18
World's First Chatbot, ELIZA, Resurrected from 60-Year-Old Code

Scientists resurrected ELIZA, the world's first chatbot, from 60-year-old code discovered in MIT archives. Developed in the 1960s by Joseph Weizenbaum, ELIZA's 'DOCTOR' script simulated a psychotherapist. The resurrected chatbot, written in the now-defunct MAD-SLIP language, surprisingly functions extremely well, highlighting the ingenuity of early AI and prompting reflection on preserving computing history.

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AI

ScyllaDB Shifts to Source-Available License for its Database

2024-12-19
ScyllaDB Shifts to Source-Available License for its Database

ScyllaDB announced it's transitioning its flagship product, ScyllaDB Enterprise, from closed-source to a source-available license, offering a free tier with full enterprise capabilities. This simplifies their dual release stream, providing greater community value. The future involves a single release stream, consolidating core features for improved performance and efficiency; examples include 30X faster node addition/removal via file-based streaming and workload prioritization for balancing multiple workloads on a single cluster. While potentially unpopular with some open-source users, ScyllaDB believes this change benefits the company and accelerates progress on roadmap milestones like Raft for data, optimized tablet elasticity, and tiered (S3) storage.

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cs16.css: A CSS Library Inspired by Counter-Strike 1.6

2025-01-24
cs16.css: A CSS Library Inspired by Counter-Strike 1.6

cs16.css is a CSS library inspired by the user interface of Counter-Strike 1.6. It offers a clean and easy-to-use style for various common components, including buttons, checkboxes, input fields, dropdown menus, radio button groups, sliders, dialogs, tooltips, progress bars, and tabs. Simply add the CSS link to your HTML's `` tag to get started. The library is available on GitHub under the MIT license.

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