Type-Safe Generics in C: A Clever Use of Unions

2025-07-01
Type-Safe Generics in C: A Clever Use of Unions

This article presents a technique for implementing type-safe generic data structures in C using unions to associate type information with a generic data structure. The author illustrates the approach with a linked list, showing how macros and unions enable compile-time type checking, avoiding the type-unsafety and code bloat of traditional generic methods. Comparisons are made with `void*` and flexible array member approaches, culminating in a solution that provides compile-time type safety, resulting in compiler errors when incorrect types are added.

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Development

DESI Releases First Data Release, Opening Up a Universe of Possibilities

2025-03-19
DESI Releases First Data Release, Opening Up a Universe of Possibilities

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) collaboration has released its first data release (DR1), a massive dataset providing invaluable resources for scientists worldwide to explore the mysteries of dark energy and the cosmos. This release, complete with extensive documentation, empowers researchers, even those without access to large telescopes, to advance their work. Anthony Kremin of Berkeley Lab highlighted the dataset's immense potential for groundbreaking discoveries, inviting the scientific community to explore its possibilities. The DR1 paper is publicly available, and accompanying videos are on the DESI YouTube channel.

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Amazon Killing Off Kindle's Download & Transfer Feature

2025-02-13
Amazon Killing Off Kindle's Download & Transfer Feature

Amazon will discontinue the 'Download & Transfer via USB' feature for Kindle ebooks on February 26th, 2025. This option, primarily used in the pre-Wi-Fi era, is being phased out due to low usage and its association with ebook piracy. While the feature is going away, users can still send books to their Kindles via Wi-Fi, using the 'Send to Kindle' feature or third-party software like Calibre. The change is unlikely to significantly affect most users who primarily rely on wireless delivery.

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Tech Ebooks

Web Interaction Paradigm Shift: Invoker Commands Explained

2025-02-25

This explainer details a new proposal for web interaction: Invoker Commands. By adding `commandfor` and `command` attributes to `` elements, it assigns behavior to buttons in a more accessible and declarative way, reducing the amount of JavaScript required. The proposal defines a `CommandEvent`, allowing developers to customize interactions. Built-in support for `` and `` elements is included, with a focus on accessibility and security. It also supports custom commands and provides ample example code demonstrating how to simplify web interaction development using this proposal.

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Development

Tracing Circuits: Uncovering Computational Graphs in LLMs

2025-04-02
Tracing Circuits: Uncovering Computational Graphs in LLMs

Researchers introduce a novel approach for interpreting the inner workings of deep learning models using cross-layer transcoders (CLTs). CLTs decompose model activations into sparse, interpretable features and construct causal graphs of feature interactions, revealing how the model generates outputs. The method successfully explains model responses to various prompts (e.g., acronym generation, factual recall, and simple addition) and is validated through perturbation experiments. While limitations exist, such as the inability to fully explain attention mechanisms, it provides a valuable tool for understanding the inner workings of large language models.

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Distro: Hiring a Marketing Lead for AI-Powered Wholesale Platform

2025-03-02
Distro: Hiring a Marketing Lead for AI-Powered Wholesale Platform

Distro, an AI-powered point-of-sale platform for industrial wholesalers and distributors, is seeking a Marketing Lead. The role requires 5+ years of B2B startup marketing experience, encompassing content marketing (LinkedIn, video, articles), email marketing, paid advertising, website optimization, and event planning. Located in Palo Alto, Distro offers a competitive benefits package.

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Startup Marketing

Reclaiming Digital Sovereignty: The MyTerms Standard Empowers Users

2025-03-23
Reclaiming Digital Sovereignty: The MyTerms Standard Empowers Users

In the age of AI, personal data privacy and autonomy are challenged as never before. This article introduces the IEEE P7012 standard (MyTerms), designed to empower users with agency over their interactions with websites and services through machine-readable agreements. MyTerms, modeled after Creative Commons, allows users to choose from a list of agreements provided by a non-profit, ensuring the user is the first party and therefore in control of their data. This innovation promises to reshape digital sovereignty, giving users more autonomy.

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Ultra-Low Power Arduino System: 2-Year Battery Life?

2025-07-20

This article details an ultra-low-power Arduino system based on the ATmega328. By minimizing hardware and utilizing the sleep functionality of the JeeLib library, the author reduces the system power consumption from 6.7mA to 43μA, significantly extending battery life. The article thoroughly explains the hardware connections, software programming, and power consumption test results, and uses a temperature sensor as an example to calculate the system's battery life in a real-world application, estimating it at up to two years.

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Hardware low power

Mozilla's Continued Partnership with Onerep: A Year After Broken Promises?

2025-02-13

In March 2024, KrebsOnSecurity revealed that Onerep's founder also runs numerous people-search companies, including the data broker Nuwber. Following this revelation, Mozilla announced it would end its partnership with Onerep. However, nearly a year later, Onerep remains bundled with Firefox. Despite Mozilla's assurances of user data safety, the continued partnership raises questions about its commitment to its stated values. Further complicating matters, Onerep appears to be collaborating with another problematic people-search service, Radaris. This situation highlights the complexities and challenges within the personal data removal industry and prompts ethical considerations regarding data broker business models.

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Tech

Applying the Hierarchy of Controls to Software Engineering

2025-03-08

A mechanical engineer introduced the author to the Hierarchy of Controls (HoC), a crucial concept in workplace safety. The author applies HoC to software engineering, analyzing a production database incident caused by a wrong query ten years ago. The article explores applying elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls, and personal protective equipment (PPE) to mitigate risks in software development. Each level's advantages, disadvantages, and limitations are discussed – for example, overly strict access policies might slow down problem resolution. The author emphasizes holistically considering the impact of controls on system safety, preventing the introduction of new risks.

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Development

Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory Rumored to Produce a Budget Model Y 'E80'

2025-05-02
Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory Rumored to Produce a Budget Model Y 'E80'

Rumors suggest Tesla's Giga Shanghai will produce a more affordable Model Y variant, internally codenamed 'E80', this May. This stripped-down version is expected to feature smaller wheels, single-layer side windows, no rear display, fewer speakers, single-color ambient lighting, fabric seats without heating or ventilation, and a manual trunk. These reductions aim to bring the price down to ¥190,000-¥210,000 ($26,000-$28,800), potentially even lower to ¥150,000-¥170,000 ($20,500-$23,300). This strategy mirrors Tesla's previous releases of budget-friendly variants of the Model 3 in Mexico and the Cybertruck in the US, both featuring cost-cutting measures like textile seats and reduced features. Despite the cutbacks, the 'E80' is anticipated to remain attractive due to the Model Y's premium branding and the competitive Chinese EV market.

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Independent Journalist Scooped Major Story, But Legacy Media Ignored Her

2025-05-05
Independent Journalist Scooped Major Story, But Legacy Media Ignored Her

Independent journalist Marisa Kabas broke a major story about a secret US-Rwanda deportation deal, detailing the deportation of an Iraqi refugee, Omar Ameen. However, major news outlets like CBS, CNN, and the Washington Post either minimized or ignored Kabas's original reporting. This sparked a debate about the role of independent journalists in the news ecosystem. Kabas's reporting, based on verified government documents and multiple sources, was as rigorous as that of major news organizations, but her independent status hindered her from receiving proper credit. This reflects legacy media's unwillingness to acknowledge and adapt to the changing media landscape.

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Google Unveils Gemini 2.5: A Giant Leap in AI Reasoning

2025-03-25
Google Unveils Gemini 2.5: A Giant Leap in AI Reasoning

Google has introduced Gemini 2.5, its most intelligent AI model yet. The experimental 2.5 Pro version boasts top performance across various benchmarks, achieving the #1 spot on LMArena by a considerable margin. Gemini 2.5 models are 'thinking' models, capable of reasoning through their responses, leading to enhanced accuracy and performance. This reasoning extends beyond simple classification and prediction, encompassing information analysis, logical conclusions, contextual understanding, and informed decision-making. Building on prior work with reinforcement learning and chain-of-thought prompting, Gemini 2.5 represents a significant leap forward, combining a vastly improved base model with enhanced post-training. Google plans to integrate these thinking capabilities into all future models, enabling them to tackle more complex problems and support more sophisticated agents.

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AI

LSP Client in Clojure: 200 Lines of Code, Minimalist Language Server Interaction

2025-05-11

This blog post details how the author implemented a minimal LSP client in under 200 lines of Clojure code and used it to build a command-line code linter. It walks through the implementation of the base communication layer, JSON-RPC layer, and client API for the LSP protocol. The author then discusses the challenges of using LSP in practice, particularly the reliance of most language servers on notifications instead of requests for diagnostics, making a simple command-line tool more complex than expected. Finally, the author summarizes the pros and cons of LSP and speculates on the future of WASM-based language servers.

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Development

Missile Software's 'Null Garbage Collector': Memory Leaks? Not a Problem!

2025-02-07
Missile Software's 'Null Garbage Collector': Memory Leaks?  Not a Problem!

A developer recounts a clever application of a 'null garbage collector' in missile software. Because of the limited flight time and ample hardware memory, memory leaks in the program weren't a concern. Engineers calculated the potential memory leakage during flight and added double that amount of memory to ensure the program wouldn't crash before mission completion. This approach cleverly leveraged the program's runtime constraints, effectively solving the memory leak issue—a kind of 'ultimate garbage collection'.

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Oniux: Enhanced Tor Network Isolation using Linux Namespaces

2025-05-31
Oniux: Enhanced Tor Network Isolation using Linux Namespaces

Oniux is a new command-line utility that provides stronger Tor network isolation for third-party applications by leveraging Linux namespaces. It isolates applications within their own network namespace, routing traffic through Tor and preventing data leaks, even if the application has bugs or malicious code attempts to bypass Tor. Compared to torsocks, Oniux offers improved security, broader application support (including static binaries), and is built using Rust, leveraging Arti and onionmasq for a more robust Tor experience for privacy-conscious developers.

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Development

From Rejection to Acceptance: The Power of Page One

2025-05-22
From Rejection to Acceptance: The Power of Page One

A paper initially rejected was dramatically revised, resulting in acceptance. The author meticulously details the changes, focusing on the crucial first page (title, abstract, Figure 1, introduction). By making the title specific and memorable, Figure 1 visually compelling, and the abstract and introduction concise and engaging, the author improved the paper's impact. Further revisions included adding baselines, ablations, and ensuring statistical significance, addressing potential reasons for rejection. The author concludes that improving communication significantly enhances scientific impact.

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OmniAI OCR Benchmark: LLMs vs. Traditional OCR

2025-02-23
OmniAI OCR Benchmark: LLMs vs. Traditional OCR

OmniAI released an open-source OCR benchmark comparing the accuracy, cost, and latency of traditional OCR providers and Vision Language Models (VLMs). Testing on 1,000 real-world documents, the results show VLMs like Gemini 2.0 outperforming most traditional OCR providers on documents with charts, handwriting, and complex input fields, but traditional models excelled on high-density text. However, VLMs are more expensive and slower. This ongoing benchmark will be updated regularly with new datasets to ensure fairness and representativeness.

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AI

Blinkenlights: A Glimpse into Hacker Culture

2025-01-20
Blinkenlights: A Glimpse into Hacker Culture

Blinkenlights, a term originating from a deliberately misspelled German warning sign in hacker culture, refers to the diagnostic blinking lights on the front panels of old mainframe computers. As CPUs sped up, interpreting these lights became impossible in real-time. However, they persist as status indicators on modern network hardware and remain a unique symbol of tech culture, a nostalgic nod to the past.

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Grief, Motherhood, and the Remaking of Self

2025-02-12
Grief, Motherhood, and the Remaking of Self

The author recounts her transformative year, marked by her husband's death from cancer and the birth of her daughter. This profound duality reshaped her brain, impacting memory, anxiety, and sense of self. The article details the neurological changes brought on by grief and motherhood, highlighting a blurring of identity and the struggle to navigate a new reality. Despite the immense pain, she finds strength in her daughter and commits to building a future.

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DARPA's Shifting Sands: Three Variables Shaping its History

2025-01-06
DARPA's Shifting Sands: Three Variables Shaping its History

This article explores three key factors shaping DARPA's operational model throughout its history: the level of organizational oversight, the source of project visions (office directors vs. PMs), and the timeline for project payoffs. Using early computing projects as examples, it analyzes how increased bureaucracy and procurement rules after the Vietnam/Watergate era impacted project management. It also contrasts director-driven visions with the autonomy of individual PMs in shaping project direction, and examines how differing attitudes towards payoff timelines and military-focused mandates influenced project selection and execution. Understanding these factors is crucial for interpreting DARPA's historical successes and failures.

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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.

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Misc

Website Cookie Policy and Privacy Notice

2025-08-10
Website Cookie Policy and Privacy Notice

To provide the best user experience, this website uses cookie technology to store and/or access device information. Consent to these technologies allows us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Non-consent or withdrawal of consent may negatively impact certain features and functions. Cookie usage strictly adheres to relevant laws and regulations and is categorized as necessary cookies (for communication transmission), preference cookies, statistical cookies, and advertising cookies. Anonymous statistical cookies do not identify users.

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Misc

U.S. Homelessness Hits Record High Amidst Affordable Housing Crisis

2024-12-28
U.S. Homelessness Hits Record High Amidst Affordable Housing Crisis

A new federal report reveals that over 770,000 people experienced homelessness in the U.S. this January, an 18% increase from last year and the highest number since 2007. Soaring rents and a recent surge in migrants are cited as key factors. While some cities saw decreases after implementing measures, the overall situation remains dire. The Biden administration has increased housing subsidies, but President-elect Trump's proposed shift towards mandatory drug and mental health treatment has raised concerns among housing advocates.

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Mistral OCR: A Revolutionary OCR API Unleashing the Power of Digitized Information

2025-03-06
Mistral OCR: A Revolutionary OCR API Unleashing the Power of Digitized Information

Mistral OCR, a new Optical Character Recognition API, sets a new standard in document understanding. Unlike others, it comprehends media, text, tables, and equations with unprecedented accuracy. Taking images and PDFs as input, it extracts content as interleaved text and images. Boasting state-of-the-art performance on complex documents, multilingual support, and top-tier benchmarks, Mistral OCR is the default model for millions on Le Chat. It offers doc-as-prompt functionality and structured output (JSON), with selective self-hosting for sensitive data. The API is available on la Plateforme, priced at 1000 pages per dollar (with batch inference offering even better value).

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AI

Musk: Straight to Mars, the Moon is a Distraction

2025-01-05
Musk: Straight to Mars, the Moon is a Distraction

Elon Musk has publicly criticized NASA's Artemis program, calling it inefficient and prioritizing jobs over results. He declared SpaceX is going straight to Mars, deeming the Moon a distraction. Given Musk's advisory role in the Trump administration and influence on NASA's new administrator, his statement carries significant weight. While Artemis likely won't be scrapped, NASA may adopt a dual-track approach, pursuing both lunar and Martian exploration. SpaceX and Blue Origin are expected to play key roles in this revised strategy.

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Tech

Apple's AI: More Hype Than Substance?

2025-01-07
Apple's AI: More Hype Than Substance?

Apple's much-hyped AI features are facing significant criticism due to a string of embarrassing errors. From misrepresenting news headlines to producing nonsensical summaries in everyday applications, the AI's performance falls far short of expectations. This recalls Apple's previous Maps debacle, highlighting a potential flaw in the company's technology readiness assessment. While Apple claims to be working on improvements, the reliability of its AI remains questionable, potentially damaging its brand image and user trust.

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One Million Chessboards: A Single-Process Server Handling Millions of Concurrent Chess Games

2025-07-16
One Million Chessboards: A Single-Process Server Handling Millions of Concurrent Chess Games

The author built "One Million Chessboards," an online multiplayer chess game where a 1000x1000 grid of chessboards forms a single global game. Every move instantly affects the entire board, with no turns and inter-board movement allowed. Running on a single Go process, the game attracted over 150,000 players in 10 days, processing over 15,000,000 moves and hundreds of millions of queries. The article details the game's system design, data distribution, protocol optimizations, optimistic locking, and rollback mechanisms. The author shares lessons learned, including performance optimization, architectural choices, and balancing game scale with player experience. The post concludes with reflections on design flaws, such as the lack of an awe-inspiring scale, and future game development plans.

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Don't Fear the New Type: Lessons from Go and C

2025-03-22

Many developers exhibit a reluctance to create new types in their codebases. This article argues that this stems from a fear of altering the perceived 'grand design' and adding complexity. However, the author contends that when a set of values naturally belongs together, creating a new type significantly improves code readability and maintainability. Using Go as an example, the author highlights the benefits of creating small, purpose-built types like a `CreateSubscriptionRequest` struct, streamlining data handling across function calls. The author encourages developers to overcome their apprehension about creating new types, emphasizing that in C and Go cultures, this practice is common and accepted, provided the type's purpose is clearly conveyed through its name.

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Development
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