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The Franklin Institute: Screens Devour the Magic of Science?

2025-09-10

The Franklin Institute: Screens Devour the Magic of Science?

Revisiting the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, the author, filled with childhood nostalgia, finds the museum overwhelmed by touch-screen interactive displays, replacing the once-amazing hands-on exhibits. While some classic interactive experiments remain, they are poorly maintained and tucked away. The author argues that museums should return to their core mission: providing real, tangible science experiences, rather than engaging in a digital "experiential race to the bottom." Children need a break from screens, and connection to the real world. The museum's budget and space should be reallocated to enhance the physical, interactive exhibits.

(sethpurcell.com)

Misc interactive experience

ResurrectedGod: A Robust Ruby Process Management Framework

2025-08-17

ResurrectedGod: A Robust Ruby Process Management Framework

ResurrectedGod is a Ruby-based process monitoring framework forked from mojombo/god. It aims to simplify the management of server processes and tasks, offering easy configuration and extension, striving to be the simplest and most powerful monitoring application available. Documentation is available in the repository and online, with a mailing list for community interaction.

(github.com)

Development process monitoring

Clojure Civitas: A Shared Scratchpad for Clojure Ideas

2025-08-05

Clojure Civitas: A Shared Scratchpad for Clojure Ideas

Clojure Civitas simplifies publishing Clojure projects. Forget setting up new projects, blogs, or repos; just fork this repo, create a namespace, code, commit, and submit a pull request to share your explorations and ideas. It supports various output formats including comments, charts, markdown, and hiccup, making it easy to document experiments, share findings, and build a knowledge base. The platform encourages community contributions and provides visualization tools and easy sharing, making your Clojure journey smoother and more efficient.

(github.com)

Development development platform

Standardizing AI Preferences: Addressing Copyright Concerns in AI Training Data

2025-03-22

Standardizing AI Preferences: Addressing Copyright Concerns in AI Training Data

To address copyright concerns arising from the use of internet content for training AI models, the IETF's newly formed AI Preferences Working Group (AIPREF) is working to standardize building blocks for expressing preferences on how content is collected and processed. Currently, AI vendors use a confusing array of non-standard signals (like robots.txt) to guide crawling and training, leading to a lack of confidence among authors and publishers that their preferences will be respected. AIPREF will define a common vocabulary to express authors' and publishers' preferences, methods for attaching this vocabulary to internet content, and a standard mechanism for reconciling multiple preference expressions. The working group's first meeting will be held during IETF 122 in Bangkok.

(www.ietf.org)

AI

Lightweight Version Control System: Game of Trees Released

2025-03-21

Game of Trees (Got) is a lightweight, user-friendly version control system prioritizing ease of use and simplicity. Currently under development, it primarily targets OpenBSD developers and utilizes Git repositories for versioned data. Functionality not yet implemented in Got can be handled by Git, and both systems can work concurrently on the same repository. Licensed under BSD, the software is free and reusable.

(gameoftrees.org)

Development

Otus Lisp 2.6 Released: A Lightweight, Cross-Platform Lisp Dialect

2025-06-23

Otus Lisp (Ol) version 2.6 is out! This lightweight (~64KB), purely functional Lisp dialect implements an extended subset of R7RS Scheme, boasting cross-platform compatibility (Linux, Windows, macOS, Android, and more) and architecture support. Ol is embeddable and provides a high-level interface for calling code written in other languages. It also supports WebAssembly, enabling execution in various browsers. This release introduces infix notation for more convenient mathematical expression.

(yuriy-chumak.github.io)

Development

Variational Lossy Autoencoders: When RNNs Ignore Latent Variables

2025-03-09

Variational Lossy Autoencoders: When RNNs Ignore Latent Variables

This paper tackles the challenge of combining Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) with Variational Autoencoders (VAEs). While VAEs use latent variables to learn data representations, RNNs as decoders often ignore these latents, directly learning the data distribution. The authors propose Variational Lossy Autoencoders (VLAEs), which restrict the RNN's access to information, forcing it to leverage latent variables for encoding global structure. Experiments demonstrate VLAEs learn compressed and semantically rich latent representations.

(theahura.substack.com)

AI representation learning

Norwegian Lake Ice: A Cocktail Comeback After a Century

2025-02-18

Norwegian Lake Ice: A Cocktail Comeback After a Century

In the 19th century, American ice exports to the UK fueled a craze for chilled drinks. Now, Thomas Orderud in Norway is reviving this tradition, hand-harvesting ice from Hemnes Lake to create premium cocktail ice. He operates an 'ice farm' storing massive blocks and uses a robotic arm to sculpt various shapes. Orderud's lake ice is pure, rigorously tested, and an energy study shows it's more environmentally friendly and shippable than machine-made ice. While currently sold only in Norway, he hopes its unique story and high quality will propel it onto the international stage.

(vinepair.com)

Misc hand-harvested ice cocktails

AI: The Coming Fragmentation of Software Engineering

2025-03-30

The author's wife uses Lovable, an AI tool, to build a social platform. While efficient, the AI frequently gets stuck, requiring human intervention. This observation leads the author to predict a future where software engineering is fragmented: a large pool of low-skilled 'AI prompters' supported by a smaller number of highly skilled specialists who resolve issues and optimize performance. AGI, the author argues, is overhyped; the reality is an AI-assisted development model where AI handles routine tasks, but complex problem-solving and architecture remain crucial human roles. This shift will result in fewer software engineering jobs, but survivors will ascend to higher-level positions requiring stronger architectural design skills and leadership. The future is bright for the adaptable, bleak for the complacent.

(verdikapuku.com)

Development

Painteresque: Turn Your Photos into Art with AI

2025-03-01

Painteresque: Turn Your Photos into Art with AI

Painteresque is a local mobile app that transforms your photos into various art styles like oil paintings, charcoal sketches, and colored pencil drawings in seconds. It offers multiple filters and customizable settings, with results varying depending on the photo content; landscapes and still lifes generally work well, while portraits may have mixed results. All features are free, with no ads or trackers; developers rely on optional in-app tips for support.

(apps.apple.com)

Design mobile app

FaunaDB Shuts Down, Going Open Source After $27M in Funding

2025-03-24

FaunaDB Shuts Down, Going Open Source After $27M in Funding

FaunaDB, a database startup that raised $27 million in funding, announced it will shut down its service at the end of May, transitioning to an open-source model. The company, boasting 25,000 developers using its serverless database which combined relational power and document flexibility, cited the capital-intensive nature of scaling a global database service and the current market environment as reasons for the shutdown. Existing customers will be transitioned off the service over the coming months. The open-source release will include the core database technology, supporting JSON documents with relational features like joins, foreign keys, and schema enforcement, along with its FQL query language. Some observers suggest that an open-source approach from the beginning might have led to greater success.

(www.theregister.com)

Development

ChatGPT and the Future of Writing Instruction: A Debate on Values

2025-03-23

ChatGPT and the Future of Writing Instruction: A Debate on Values

The release of ChatGPT sparked a fervent discussion about writing instruction. The author, a writing pedagogy expert, has long advocated for changing traditional approaches, arguing that they overemphasize form over the essence of writing: expression and exploration. While ChatGPT generates fluent text, it lacks understanding of meaning and context, essentially functioning as a 'bullshitter'. The author contends ChatGPT doesn't create a new problem but exposes flaws in the current educational system. He calls for pedagogical reform, emphasizing the writing process over the final product, fostering critical thinking and creativity, and enabling students to genuinely experience the joy and value of writing.

(biblioracle.substack.com)

Education writing instruction

London Phone Theft: From Street to Algeria

2025-03-07

London Phone Theft: From Street to Algeria

Phone snatching in London is on the rise, with thieves using e-bikes to quickly steal phones and foil tracking efforts. Stolen devices end up globally, with Algeria emerging as a major destination, surpassing China. This article traces the journey of stolen phones, revealing a complex international criminal network and the black market for phone parts. It explores the challenges faced by law enforcement and phone manufacturers in combating this crime.

(www.londoncentric.media)

Tech phone theft international crime tech crime

Russian Hackers Exploit Signal's 'Linked Devices' for Phishing Attacks

2025-02-19

Russian Hackers Exploit Signal's 'Linked Devices' for Phishing Attacks

Russian-aligned hackers are exploiting Signal's 'linked devices' feature for large-scale phishing attacks. Attackers create malicious QR codes disguised as legitimate Signal resources like group invites or security alerts. Scanning these codes links victims' accounts to attacker-controlled Signal instances, allowing real-time eavesdropping on conversations. This technique, used by groups like APT44, even targets Ukrainian military personnel. The stealthy nature and lack of effective defenses make this a high-risk, low-signature attack that can go undetected for extended periods.

(cloud.google.com)

Tech Signal vulnerability phishing attack

Goravel: A Laravel-inspired Go Web Framework

2025-03-09

Goravel: A Laravel-inspired Go Web Framework

Goravel is a full-featured, highly scalable Go web application framework designed to help Go developers quickly build applications. Its design philosophy mirrors Laravel's, easing the learning curve for PHP developers. The project is open-source and welcomes stars, pull requests, and issues! Goravel boasts a rich feature set including HTTP authentication and authorization, ORM, migrations, logging, caching, gRPC, Artisan console, task scheduling, queues, file storage, mail, validation, mocking, hash cryptography, Carbon package integration, development and testing tools, localization, and sessions. Documentation and example projects are available; contributions to the documentation and development are encouraged.

(www.goravel.dev)

Development

Facebook's Linux Ban: A Case of Mistaken Identity?

2025-01-27

Facebook's Linux Ban: A Case of Mistaken Identity?

Facebook is blocking posts mentioning Linux, even targeting prominent sites like DistroWatch, labeling them as 'cybersecurity threats'. Users report account limitations and post removals. The irony is palpable: Facebook relies heavily on Linux infrastructure and frequently advertises for Linux developers. DistroWatch's appeal to Facebook was rejected, highlighting the potential for AI-driven content moderation to misidentify legitimate content. The incident underscores the challenges of large tech companies in balancing security and freedom of expression, raising questions about the accuracy and fairness of automated systems.

(www.tomshardware.com)

Tech

Giant Clam Genome Sequencing Reveals Secrets of Algae Symbiosis

2025-02-01

Giant Clam Genome Sequencing Reveals Secrets of Algae Symbiosis

Scientists sequenced the genome of the giant clam, *Tridacna maxima*, revealing how these massive mollusks evolved a symbiotic relationship with algae to fuel their impressive size. The study found that giant clams have evolved genes to specifically recognize and tolerate symbiotic algae, suppressing their immune response to avoid rejection. This immune suppression, however, leaves them vulnerable to viral infections. The research highlights the evolutionary mechanisms behind the giant clam's size and underscores the importance of protecting these keystone species, threatened by climate change and other factors impacting coral reef ecosystems.

(www.colorado.edu)

Tech genome sequencing symbiosis coral reef ecosystem

Greenpeace Ordered to Pay $666M Over Dakota Access Pipeline Protests

2025-03-20

Greenpeace Ordered to Pay $666M Over Dakota Access Pipeline Protests

A North Dakota jury ordered Greenpeace to pay over $666 million in damages to Energy Transfer for defamation and other claims related to protests against the Dakota Access pipeline. Energy Transfer accused Greenpeace of defamation, trespassing, nuisance, civil conspiracy, and other actions. Greenpeace plans to appeal, stating the fight against Big Oil continues. The case stems from 2016-2017 protests against the pipeline and its crossing of the Missouri River upstream from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's reservation.

(apnews.com)

Tech Greenpeace Dakota Access Pipeline Protests

Sophisticated PDF Phishing Scam Bypasses Mobile Security

2025-02-01

Sophisticated PDF Phishing Scam Bypasses Mobile Security

A novel phishing scam targeting mobile devices uses a never-before-seen obfuscation technique to hide links to fake United States Postal Service (USPS) pages within PDF files. By manipulating PDF elements, clickable URLs become invisible to users and mobile security systems, bypassing detection from several endpoint security solutions. Malicious PDFs are sent via SMS, posing as failed delivery notifications. The links are embedded in a compressed stream, hidden by matching font and background colors, and positioned under an image. Clicking a seemingly innocuous "Click Update" button actually activates the hidden link to a spoofed USPS site, leading to data theft. Over 20 variations of malicious PDFs and 630 phishing pages, supporting 50 languages, suggest international targeting and the potential use of a phishing kit. This highlights the vulnerability of mobile users' trust in PDFs and the need for enhanced mobile security measures.

(www.scworld.com)

Tech PDF security

Google Wins Partial Victory in Antitrust Case: DOJ Relents on AI Divestiture

2025-03-10

Google has scored a significant victory in its ongoing antitrust battle with the Department of Justice. While the DOJ still seeks significant regulatory changes to Google's search and Android operations, it has dropped its demand for Google to divest from its AI investments. Instead, Google will now be required to notify the government of future AI acquisitions. This is a substantial win for Google, which argued that restricting its AI investments would harm US leadership in the field. The government's revised proposal still includes extensive oversight of Google's search and Android businesses.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech

Quantus: Revolutionizing Fintech with a Cutting-Edge Quantitative Trading Platform

2024-12-12

Quantus is an advanced quantitative trading platform designed to provide professional traders and institutional investors with efficient and reliable trading solutions. It integrates powerful data analytics tools, flexible backtesting capabilities, and a low-latency execution system, enabling users to better capitalize on market opportunities and enhance investment returns. With its robust technology and user-friendly interface, Quantus is quickly becoming a rising star in the fintech landscape.

(quantus.finance)

Tech quantitative trading fintech trading platform

MIT Researchers Discover the Tipping Point of Pedestrian Flow

2025-03-24

MIT Researchers Discover the Tipping Point of Pedestrian Flow

MIT researchers have discovered a critical parameter determining the transition from ordered to disordered pedestrian flow: "angular spread." When pedestrians deviate from straight paths by more than 13 degrees, the crowd flow becomes chaotic and inefficient. This research, combining mathematical modeling and experiments, offers valuable insights for public space design, promoting safer and more efficient pedestrian traffic. The findings, validated through experiments tracking volunteers navigating a simulated crosswalk, provide a quantifiable metric for predicting lane formation and potential congestion.

(news.mit.edu)

Tech pedestrian dynamics crowd flow public space design

Drone Footage Reveals Narwhals Using Tusks for Foraging, Exploration, and Play

2025-03-01

Drone Footage Reveals Narwhals Using Tusks for Foraging, Exploration, and Play

New research using drones has provided the first evidence of narwhals using their tusks in the wild for a variety of purposes. Researchers observed narwhals employing their tusks to investigate, manipulate, and potentially stun Arctic char, alongside what appears to be playful behavior. This study significantly advances our understanding of narwhal behavior and offers valuable data on how climate change impacts Arctic species.

(phys.org)

Tech narwhal Arctic

The Open Source Dilemma: Balancing Free and Sustainable

2025-03-12

The open-source world faces a dilemma: high-quality end-user software, like office suites and video conferencing tools, often struggles to thrive under a purely open-source model, hindering its development. The article uses the 'lumber and chairs' analogy to illustrate the difference between open-source software (lumber) and commercial software (chairs), highlighting that maintaining open-source software requires continuous investment, which a purely free model struggles to support. It also touches on the issue of European software sovereignty, emphasizing the importance of reducing dependence on American tech giants, and calls for a new model that balances open-source freedoms with commercial sustainability to ensure the long-term development of high-quality open-source software.

(mill.plainopen.com)

Development software sovereignty

Nostalgic Colored Bar Paper: Web Simulation and History

2025-03-24

This article revisits the colored bar paper popular until the late 1990s, which used colored horizontal bars to aid reading. The author simulates various colors (including green, blue, yellow, and more) of bar paper effects on a webpage and explains how to mimic this style in modern software and web design. The article also touches upon the historical context and the different approaches to simulating this effect in different software and web environments.

(mw.rat.bz)

Design retro style printing paper

Ambsheets: Exploring Spreadsheet Uncertainty

2025-02-05

Imagine a spreadsheet where a single cell can hold multiple values simultaneously. That's the core idea behind Ambsheets, a project extending traditional spreadsheets to handle 'amb values'—values representing multiple possibilities. This allows users to easily explore various scenarios, like budgeting for different car and apartment prices, without tedious restructuring. Unlike Excel's What-If Analysis, Ambsheets offers a cleaner interface and powerful automatic combination capabilities, efficiently managing multi-dimensional possibility spaces. Researchers are currently exploring Ambsheets' applications in filtering, visualization, and continuous distributions, aiming to develop it into a more powerful scenario exploration tool.

(www.inkandswitch.com)

Development uncertainty

Revolutionary Technique Cuts LLM Memory Costs by Up to 75%

2024-12-17

Revolutionary Technique Cuts LLM Memory Costs by Up to 75%

Sakana AI, a Tokyo-based startup, has developed a groundbreaking technique called "universal transformer memory" that significantly improves the memory efficiency of large language models (LLMs). Using neural attention memory modules (NAMMs), the technique acts like a smart editor, discarding redundant information while retaining crucial details. This results in up to a 75% reduction in memory costs and improved performance across various models and tasks, offering substantial benefits for enterprises utilizing LLMs.

(venturebeat.com)

AI Memory Optimization Neural Networks

Hugging Face Open-Sources 'Search and Learn'

2024-12-20

Hugging Face Open-Sources 'Search and Learn'

Hugging Face has open-sourced a project called 'Search and Learn,' focusing on the scalability of search and learning methods with massive computation. The project includes replicable experimental results with provided code and configuration files. The research highlights the power of general-purpose methods in scaling with increased computation, emphasizing search and learning as two methods that demonstrate excellent scalability.

(github.com)

AI Model Scaling

Meta's Fact-Checking Failure: The Limits of Truth in the Age of Disinformation 2.0

2025-01-14

Meta's Fact-Checking Failure: The Limits of Truth in the Age of Disinformation 2.0

Meta's abandonment of its fact-checking initiative sparks debate. The author argues that fact-checking struggles against sophisticated disinformation 2.0, involving AI and algorithms. The LA wildfires serve as a case study: claims about budget cuts impacting the fire response are not simply true or false, but involve multiple assumptions and interpretations. Fact-checking, while valuable, isn't a silver bullet. We need to address deeper drivers like political biases and cognitive biases to effectively combat disinformation.

(weaponizedspaces.substack.com)

Tech fact-checking disinformation

StarVector: A Transformer-based Image-to-SVG Vectorization Model

2025-03-26

StarVector is a Transformer-based image-to-SVG vectorization model, with 8B and 1B parameter models released on Hugging Face. It achieves state-of-the-art results on the SVG-Bench benchmark, excelling at vectorizing icons, logos, and technical diagrams, demonstrating superior performance in handling complex graphical details. The model leverages extensive datasets for training, encompassing a wide range of vector graphic styles, from simple icons to intricate colored illustrations. Compared to traditional vectorization methods, StarVector generates cleaner, more accurate SVG code, better preserving image details and structural information.

(starvector.github.io)

AI image vectorization Transformer model

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