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F-35 Crash: 50-Minute Airborne Conference Call Couldn't Save $200M Fighter Jet

2025-08-27

F-35 Crash: 50-Minute Airborne Conference Call Couldn't Save $200M Fighter Jet

An F-35 fighter jet crashed in Alaska due to ice in the landing gear preventing proper deployment. The pilot spent 50 minutes on a conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers trying to troubleshoot the issue before ejecting. The investigation revealed significant water contamination in the aircraft's hydraulic system and a failure to heed warnings about sensor issues in extreme cold, leading to flawed decision-making and the loss of the $200 million aircraft.

(www.cnn.com)

Tech fighter jet crash

Switching from Cloudflare to BunnyCDN: A Smooth Transition

2025-03-15

Switching from Cloudflare to BunnyCDN: A Smooth Transition

Concerned about recent US political instability, I migrated my website from Cloudflare to the European CDN alternative, BunnyCDN. The entire process was surprisingly easy and took less than two hours. I created storage and pull zones, and switched my domain DNS to point to BunnyCDN. I encountered a few minor hurdles, like HTTPS certificates and automated deployments, but overall, BunnyCDN is faster, has a cleaner UI, and is cheaper. It's a great option, though not quite as one-click convenient as Cloudflare Pages.

(jonathan-frere.com)

Development CDN migration

Malta's Grand Harbour: A Devastating 16th-Century Tornado

2025-01-18

Malta's Grand Harbour: A Devastating 16th-Century Tornado

On September 23, 1551 (or 1556, sources differ), a powerful tornado struck Malta's Grand Harbour, resulting in at least 600 fatalities. Beginning as a waterspout, the tornado capsized hundreds of ships, drowning countless sailors. At least four galleys belonging to the Knights of St. John were lost. Classified as an F3 (or TORRO T7) tornado, this event ranks among history's deadliest, highlighting the immense destructive power of nature.

(en.wikipedia.org)

Misc tornado natural disaster Malta

Orwell's 1984: A Surprise Bestseller in the Age of Post-Truth

2025-06-17

Orwell's 1984: A Surprise Bestseller in the Age of Post-Truth

Following Donald Trump's election, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four unexpectedly became a bestseller. The article explores the reasons for its renewed popularity: not solely due to superficial similarities between Oceania and Trump's America, but primarily because the novel's prescient depiction of manipulation of truth resonates deeply in our current “post-truth” era. Orwell's experiences at the BBC informed the book's portrayal of information control, and today's politically charged discourse mirrors the novel's absurd reality where 'two plus two equals five'.

(www.openculture.com)

Misc Orwell Nineteen Eighty-Four Post-truth

Lynx Browser: A Text-Based Escape from the Surveillance State

2025-02-20

Lynx Browser: A Text-Based Escape from the Surveillance State

In the 2020s, using the internet feels like a constant battle. To combat pervasive surveillance, the Lynx browser—a veteran from the early days of the World Wide Web—is making a comeback. Lightweight and fast, it effectively blocks trackers and ads without extensions. While it only displays text and lacks image and video support, this is its strength: it's virtually untrackable. Paired with the FrogFind search engine, it simplifies page structures for easier reading. Learning a few keystrokes is a small price to pay for genuine online freedom.

(popzazzle.blogspot.com)

Tech

curl.se Traffic Analysis: 2TB/day, Where's All the Traffic Coming From?

2025-02-22

curl.se Traffic Analysis: 2TB/day, Where's All the Traffic Coming From?

The curl.se website handles 62.95 TB of traffic per month, averaging over 2 TB per day and peaking at 3.41 TB. While detailed logs are unavailable, data shows that of 12.43 billion requests, only 1.12 million were curl package downloads (less than 10% of total traffic). The vast majority of traffic (99.77%) is handled by the Fastly CDN cache. However, widespread use of HTTP/1.1 and TLS 1.2 suggests a significant amount of non-browser traffic, possibly from bots or other tools. Analysis indicates that 207.31 million downloads of 100KB-1MB files (likely CA certificates) could account for a large portion of the remaining traffic. Traffic is evenly distributed globally, unlike previous concentrations in China.

(daniel.haxx.se)

Tech network traffic

Chicago's Amazing Lift: A City's Vertical Migration

2025-01-06

In the mid-19th century, swampy Chicago suffered from disease. To solve the drainage problem, engineers undertook a daring plan: raising the entire city! Thousands of jackscrews lifted buildings, even entire blocks, while life continued as usual. Wooden structures were put on rollers and moved to the suburbs. This epic feat of engineering not only transformed Chicago's landscape but also showcased the extraordinary capabilities of 19th-century engineering.

(en.wikipedia.org)

Tech civil engineering Chicago history

Toy Compiler for Python Expressions using MLIR and E-Graphs

2025-03-21

Toy Compiler for Python Expressions using MLIR and E-Graphs

This article details a toy compiler for Python expressions built using MLIR and the egglog library. The compiler leverages E-Graphs for equality saturation and term rewriting to optimize Python expressions before compiling them to MLIR. It features modules for expression modeling, built-in functions, Term IR, a transformation layer, an optimization layer, and MLIR code generation and an LLVM backend. By symbolically interpreting Python functions, converting them to an IR representation, applying optimization rules, and finally generating efficient MLIR code, the compiler achieves compilation and execution via LLVM.

(vectorfold.studio)

Development

Breakthrough Non-Reciprocal Optical Memory: Nanosecond Write Speeds, Billions of Cycles Without Degradation

2025-02-04

Breakthrough Non-Reciprocal Optical Memory: Nanosecond Write Speeds, Billions of Cycles Without Degradation

Researchers have developed a novel non-reciprocal optical memory that achieves ultra-fast nanosecond write speeds using magneto-optic and thermo-optic effects. The memory is based on a microring resonator (MRR) with an integrated electromagnet, controlling current to alter the magnetic field and thus modulate light transmission. Experiments show clear eye diagrams at 500 Mbps and 1 Gbps, and stable operation after 2.4 billion write/erase cycles, demonstrating exceptional reliability and endurance. This breakthrough promises to revolutionize high-performance optical memory, offering new possibilities for future high-density, low-power information processing systems.

(www.nature.com)

Hardware optical memory non-reciprocity high-speed writing

Privacy Infrastructure for Smart Glasses: Building Apps Without the Privacy Headaches

2025-08-14

Privacy Infrastructure for Smart Glasses: Building Apps Without the Privacy Headaches

This project tackles the privacy challenges inherent in smart glasses applications. It introduces a real-time privacy filter that sits between the camera and the app, automatically ensuring compliance. The filter anonymizes faces, manages consent (detecting verbal consent like "I consent to be captured"), and processes video at 720p 30fps, all offline. Built using FFmpeg, OpenCV, Faster Whisper, and Phi-3.5 Mini, it offers easy camera integration, RTMP input/multiple output formats, and an HTTP API for control. Ideal for AI assistants, social apps, enterprise solutions, and content creation, this tool empowers developers to build privacy-conscious smart glasses applications.

(github.com)

Development smart glasses

Revolutionizing Mac Design: An Interview with Jef Raskin

2025-05-15

Revolutionizing Mac Design: An Interview with Jef Raskin

This 1986 interview features Jef Raskin, an early Macintosh designer. Raskin sharply criticizes complex UI design, sharing his philosophy behind SwyftCard (an Apple II application). Central to his approach are 'modelessness' and 'monotony': each action has one result, and each result has one action, fostering user habits and efficiency. He criticizes the Mac's eventual adoption of a traditional OS and mouse, arguing that good UI design prioritizes speed and user experience over technical complexity. Raskin's insights remain relevant to modern UI/UX design.

(computeradsfromthepast.substack.com)

Design

Mars' Red Dust: A Wetter History Than We Thought

2025-02-25

Mars' Red Dust: A Wetter History Than We Thought

New research combining data from ESA and NASA spacecraft with lab experiments reveals that Mars' iconic red dust has a much wetter history than previously believed. Scientists found that the red color, caused by rusted iron minerals, formed early in Mars' history when liquid water was more abundant. This challenges previous assumptions and suggests Mars rusted earlier than thought, implying a longer period with surface water—a crucial factor in the search for past life on the planet.

(www.esa.int)

Tech iron oxide liquid water

Outdated Info Lurks in LLMs: How Token Probabilities Create Logical Inconsistencies

2025-01-12

Outdated Info Lurks in LLMs: How Token Probabilities Create Logical Inconsistencies

Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, trained on massive internet datasets, often grapple with conflicting or outdated information. This article uses the height of Mount Bartle Frere as a case study, showing how LLMs don't always prioritize the most recent data. Instead, they predict based on probability distributions learned from their training data. Even advanced models like GPT-4o can output outdated information depending on subtle prompt variations. This isn't simple 'hallucination,' but a consequence of the model learning multiple possibilities and adjusting probabilities based on context. The author highlights the importance of understanding LLM limitations, avoiding over-reliance, and emphasizing transparency.

(blog.anj.ai)

AI Outdated Information Logical Inconsistencies

Winamp 2.9 Reimagined in Godot: A Cross-Platform Nostalgia Trip

2025-05-22

Winamp 2.9 Reimagined in Godot: A Cross-Platform Nostalgia Trip

A developer has recreated the classic music player Winamp 2.9 using the Godot engine, achieving full cross-platform compatibility. Initially a submission for Tool Jam 5, this project is evolving into a customizable player that captures the old internet aesthetic while leveraging modern tools for any platform. It boasts basic playback controls, playlist functionality, a working 10-band equalizer, and visualizers. The developer emphasizes this is a free, non-commercial project; all rights belong to their respective owners.

(github.com)

Development

Subliminal Learning: A Hidden Danger in LLMs

2025-07-23

New research reveals a disturbing phenomenon in large language models (LLMs) called "subliminal learning." Student models learn traits from teacher models, even when the training data appears unrelated to those traits (e.g., preference for owls, misalignment). This occurs even with rigorous data filtering and only when teacher and student share the same base model. The implications for AI safety are significant, as it suggests that filtering bad behavior might be insufficient to prevent models from learning bad tendencies, necessitating deeper safety evaluation methods.

(alignment.anthropic.com)

AI Subliminal Learning

Spade: A Novel Hardware Description Language for Easier, Less Error-Prone Hardware Design

2025-05-12

Spade is a new hardware description language (HDL) designed to simplify hardware design and reduce errors. It borrows best practices from software programming languages, incorporating language-level support for common hardware constructs without sacrificing low-level control. Key features include first-class pipeline support, a powerful type system with structs, arrays, tuples, and payload-carrying enums, pattern matching, type inference, and excellent error messages. A comprehensive toolchain, including the Swim build tool and cocotb testing framework, is also provided. While still in its early stages, Spade shows immense promise as a next-generation hardware design language.

(spade-lang.org)

Hardware hardware description language

Seattle's 8-Charger Nightmare: A Case Study in American Inefficiency

2025-07-30

A simple project to install eight electric vehicle charging stations in Seattle, initially slated for completion in March 2023, remains unfinished in July 2025. This article uses the project as a microcosm of American governmental inefficiency, highlighting bureaucratic red tape, vendor changes, and multiple redesigns as the culprits behind the delays. The author argues this inefficiency plagues both large-scale and small-scale infrastructure projects, hindering progress on climate change, housing, and economic growth. The inability to execute even such a basic undertaking points to a deeper systemic problem.

(www.brethorsting.com)

Tech

US Housing Crisis: The Silent Driver Behind Market Anomalies

2025-08-18

US Housing Crisis: The Silent Driver Behind Market Anomalies

The recent resurgence of 2021-style meme stock activity and record assets in money market funds in the US isn't due to investors simultaneously betting on high-risk and low-risk strategies. The real culprit? The broken US housing market. High prices and interest rates are pushing cash into meme stocks and money market funds; risk-seeking investors buy the former, while risk-averse investors choose US Treasuries/money market funds. A record number of millionaire renters highlights the severity of the problem. Three potential future scenarios for the housing market are outlined: a decade-long stagnation, a price melt-up followed by a crash, and massive construction leading to price declines. The author considers the latter least likely due to the entrenched nature of the US housing market and resistance to new construction.

(ofdollarsanddata.com)

Tech US Housing Market Meme Stocks Money Market Funds

Visualizing Mathematical Proof: Insights from Lean Blueprints

2025-05-11

Lean Blueprints, a project planning tool inspired by mathematicians' blueprint method for formalizing proofs, offers unique insights into the proof process. It uses a graph where nodes represent definitions, lemmas, and theorems, with colors indicating their status (green: proven, blue: stated but unproven, black: unwritten). By tracking version control of Lean projects (e.g., Terrence Tao's formalization of the PFR conjecture), we can visualize the evolution of proofs, revealing how mathematicians work and providing data for building tools to assist them. This visualization offers previously hidden insights into how mathematical proofs are constructed.

(kirancodes.me)

Development Formal Proof

The Madness of Genius: Exploring the Cost of Scientific Discovery

2025-03-27

The Madness of Genius: Exploring the Cost of Scientific Discovery

Both *When We Cease to Understand the World* and *The MANIAC* offer unique perspectives on the stories behind 20th-century scientific breakthroughs. Author Benjamín Labatut masterfully blends historical fact with fiction, portraying the madness and struggles of brilliant scientists like Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and Grothendieck, and the profound impact of their discoveries—quantum mechanics, chemical weapons, and more—on the world. Filled with dreamlike scenes and unsettling details, the books explore the price of scientific discovery and humanity's relentless pursuit of knowledge.

(www.nybooks.com)

Tech History of Science Genius

Revolutionizing Kernel Programming with eBPF: A Hands-on Tutorial

2025-08-31

Revolutionizing Kernel Programming with eBPF: A Hands-on Tutorial

eBPF is a revolutionary technology that lets you run sandboxed programs within the Linux kernel without modifying the kernel source code. This tutorial uses a simple firewall example to demonstrate how to monitor and block traffic from a specific IP address using eBPF. The guide includes Python and C code examples, showing how to leverage eBPF's efficiency and capabilities for network monitoring and security. Learn how to build a packet counter and firewall using eBPF today!

(journal.hexmos.com)

Development kernel programming

FilterQL: A Tiny Query Language for Filtering Structured Data

2025-08-27

FilterQL: A Tiny Query Language for Filtering Structured Data

FilterQL is a lightweight query language for filtering structured data. It consists of a TypeScript library and a language specification, with implementations in other languages welcome. Users define a schema for their data and then use a concise syntax to filter, sort, and limit results, such as `genre == Action` or `year >= 2008 && rating >= 8.5 | SORT rating desc`. FilterQL supports a variety of comparison and logical operators, and allows for custom operations to extend its capabilities. It's perfect for building CLIs or other tools needing flexible data filtering.

(github.com)

Development typescript

Pydoll: WebDriver-less Browser Automation

2025-06-10

Pydoll: WebDriver-less Browser Automation

Say goodbye to webdriver compatibility nightmares! Pydoll is a revolutionary Python library that connects directly to the Chrome DevTools Protocol, eliminating the need for external drivers for browser automation. It features native captcha bypass (Cloudflare Turnstile and reCAPTCHA v3), asynchronous performance, human-like interactions, and a powerful event system. Its simplicity, power, and ability to handle modern website protections make it ideal for automated testing, web scraping, and automating repetitive tasks.

(github.com)

Development captcha bypass

Four's Company: The Ideal Number for Engaging Conversations

2024-12-14

Four's Company: The Ideal Number for Engaging Conversations

Research by Professor Robin Dunbar of Oxford University suggests that four is the magic number for enjoyable conversations. In groups of five or more, the likelihood of shared laughter decreases significantly, with conversations often devolving into a lecture-style dynamic. While known for 'Dunbar's number' – the theory that most people can maintain around 150 social connections – his latest research focuses on smaller group dynamics, concluding that groups of four optimize engaging and enjoyable social interactions.

(www.thetimes.com)

Misc social interaction group size conversation

My Year of Therapy: Lessons Learned and Growth Achieved

2025-01-04

This post details the author's takeaways from a year of therapy. Initially skeptical, the author found the experience profoundly beneficial. Key lessons include the importance of finding a good therapist, asking oneself 'How do you feel about it?' to better understand emotions, expressing feelings kindly, and stepping outside one's comfort zone to confront challenges. The author emphasizes that consistent self-reflection and practice are crucial for personal growth.

(cauldron.life)

Misc mental health therapy

TIOBE Index July 2025: Veteran Languages Battle for Top 10 Spots

2025-07-14

The July 2025 TIOBE Index reveals a stable top 7, but a fierce battle rages for positions 8-12 among established languages like Visual Basic, SQL, and Fortran. The report suggests newer languages could break into the top 10, displacing these veterans. Ada is highlighted as a potential winner due to its strengths in safety-critical systems. The TIOBE index, based on skilled engineers, courses, and vendors, isn't about the 'best' language, but offers valuable insights for skill assessment and strategic technology choices.

(www.tiobe.com)

Development TIOBE Index

Testing Without Mocks: A Novel Approach to Unit Testing

2025-03-29

This article presents a novel approach to unit testing that eliminates the need for mocks and spies, resulting in fast, reliable, and maintainable tests. The core idea involves combining state-based testing with a new infrastructure technique called "Nullables." Nullables aren't test doubles; they're production code with an "off" switch, allowing tests to run without relying on external systems or state. While requiring modifications to production code, this approach avoids many drawbacks of traditional methods, such as flaky tests and difficult refactoring, and offers significant performance gains. The article thoroughly explains the patterns and techniques involved, including Narrow Tests, State-Based Tests, and Overlapping Sociable Tests, providing ample code examples and diverse use cases, making it ideal for developers to learn and implement.

(www.jamesshore.com)

Development

Intel in the 1980s: A Symphony of Success and Failure

2025-03-05

Intel in the 1980s: A Symphony of Success and Failure

This article recounts Intel's journey through the 1980s, from the triumph of the 8086/8088 to the disastrous failure of the iAPX 432, and the subsequent rise of the 80186, 80286, and 80386. The iAPX 432, Intel's ambitious attempt at an object-oriented 32-bit CPU, ultimately failed due to its complexity and shortcomings in the Ada compiler, resulting in a $100 million loss. However, Intel persevered. The success of the 8086 family established its dominance in the microprocessor market. The subsequent introductions of the 80186, 80286, and the groundbreaking 80386 further solidified Intel's leadership and fueled the rapid growth of the personal computer industry.

(www.abortretry.fail)

Tech

FFmpeg Assembly Language: Unlocking High-Performance Multimedia Processing

2025-02-22

FFmpeg Assembly Language: Unlocking High-Performance Multimedia Processing

This tutorial introduces the fundamentals of assembly language programming within FFmpeg, focusing on SIMD vector programming. Writing assembly code by hand can dramatically improve multimedia processing speed, leading to smoother video playback, for example. The tutorial covers basic assembly concepts, the x86-64 instruction set, vector registers, and commonly used tools within FFmpeg. Prior knowledge of C pointers and high school mathematics is required.

(github.com)

Development Assembly Language

macOS Tahoe's Utility App Icons: Dead Canaries

2025-08-26

macOS Tahoe's Utility App Icons: Dead Canaries

The new utility app icons in macOS 26 Tahoe Beta 7 are drawing heavy criticism. The author argues the new icons, all using a lazy wrench motif, are objectively terrible. Only a small portion of the icon represents the app's function, the rest being dominated by a poorly designed wrench and bolt. The design is criticized for its lack of detail and poor execution, exemplified by the Disk Utility icon being simply an Apple logo. This is seen as a canary in the coal mine, indicating deeper problems with Apple's design sensibilities.

(daringfireball.net)

Design icon design

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