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The Demise of USENIX ATC: The End of Academic Conferences in the Age of Open Source?

2025-05-12

The USENIX Annual Technical Conference (ATC) has been discontinued, prompting reflection on the academic conference model and the direction of systems research in the age of open source. The author recounts ATC's journey from glory to decline, arguing that the rise of open source has altered how systems research findings are disseminated, diminishing the importance of academic conferences. Simultaneously, ATC itself suffered from becoming overly academic and detached from practice, ultimately leading to its demise. While lamenting ATC's end, the author suggests that the rise of online conferences offers new possibilities for systems research.

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(bcantrill.dtrace.org)
Tech systems research

GlobalFoundries Acquires MIPS, Expanding its RISC-V Processor Portfolio

2025-07-09
GlobalFoundries Acquires MIPS, Expanding its RISC-V Processor Portfolio

GlobalFoundries (GF) announced a definitive agreement to acquire MIPS, a leading provider of AI and processor IP. This strategic move expands GF's customizable IP offerings, differentiating its process technologies with enhanced IP and software capabilities. MIPS's Atlas portfolio, based on the open RISC-V architecture, focuses on real-time computing for applications like autonomous mobility, industrial automation, and data centers. The acquisition will allow GF to offer more flexible RISC-V based solutions, strengthening its position in the rapidly evolving AI market.

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(mips.com)
Tech Processor IP

Major Security Flaw: eSIM Cards Compromised, Millions of Users at Risk

2025-07-09

Security Explorations, a research lab of AG Security Research, has uncovered a critical vulnerability in eSIM technology. They successfully compromised a Kigen eUICC card, extracting the private key for the GSMA consumer certificate. This allows attackers to download arbitrary eSIM profiles from mobile network operators, gaining access to sensitive user data and network keys. The vulnerability exploits previously known Java Card flaws from 2019, proving eSIMs are not as secure as advertised. Millions of users relying on Kigen eSIMs are at risk, highlighting a significant weakness in eSIM architecture.

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(security-explorations.com)
Tech eSIM security Java Card vulnerabilities

Open Source Software: Utopia's Ideal and Reality's Struggle

2025-06-14
Open Source Software: Utopia's Ideal and Reality's Struggle

This article reviews the history of open-source software, from early academic sharing to the rise of commercial software, and the free software movement championed by Richard Stallman and the subsequent open-source movement. The author points out that while open-source software has fueled the growth of the tech industry, its development faces many challenges, such as insufficient funding, lack of diversity among contributors, and failure to fully realize its original social ideals. Open-source software is not a panacea; its success stories rely more on corporate support than purely community contributions. The author uses their own experience founding the open-source social networking platform Elgg to illustrate the limitations and opportunities of open-source software in practical applications.

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(werd.io)
Tech

The Raccoon That Sold PCs: The Untold Story of PC Connection's Iconic Marketing

2025-04-22
The Raccoon That Sold PCs: The Untold Story of PC Connection's Iconic Marketing

This article recounts the remarkable story of PC Connection, a mail-order computer giant of the 1980s and 90s, and how its unique raccoon-themed ads propelled it to success. Artist Erick Ingraham's charming illustrations, paired with David Blistein's witty copywriting, humanized the small-town New Hampshire company, creating memorable mascot branding. The article details the creation of these ads, the stories behind them, and PC Connection's journey from a small startup to a publicly traded company, ultimately disrupted by the internet. It explores how their quirky marketing strategy, while hugely successful then, is unlikely to work in today's online commerce landscape.

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(technologizer.com)
Startup

Immortal Poem: Art That Outlives Us All

2025-05-13

After nearly 25 years, poet Christian Bök has achieved the seemingly impossible: a self-replicating poem encoded into the genome of an almost immortal bacterium. The Xenotext experiment is the world's first biologically self-replicating poem, a testament to artistic ambition and a groundbreaking fusion of art and science. Its lifespan could potentially outlast humanity itself.

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(www.rifters.com)
Art bio art

Pahole: Evolution of a Swiss Army Knife for Linux Kernel Debug Info

2025-04-22

Pahole, a powerful tool for exploring and editing debug information, plays a crucial role in Linux kernel development. It currently handles the conversion of compiler-generated debug information into the BTF format usable by the BPF verifier. This article details recent advancements in Pahole, including a new co-maintainer, improved BTF handling, support for flexible arrays and bpf_fastcall, and enhanced Rust support. In the future, Pahole's role in DWARF-to-BTF conversion is expected to diminish as GCC's support for the -gbtf option matures, leading to faster kernel build times.

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(lwn.net)
Development Debug Information

MCP: A Protocol in Need of a Major Overhaul?

2025-05-10
MCP: A Protocol in Need of a Major Overhaul?

This article presents a critical analysis of the Model Context Protocol (MCP). The author attempted to build an MCP server, only to find the documentation lacking, design decisions bizarre, and the HTTP transport options (SSE+HTTP and the so-called "Streamable HTTP") overly complex and confusing, far inferior to the simplicity and efficiency of WebSockets. The author argues that MCP's excessive flexibility leads to increased complexity, higher maintenance costs, and security risks. They suggest replacing the existing HTTP transport with WebSockets and simplifying the protocol design for improved usability.

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(raz.sh)
Development Protocol Design

Goethe's Sorcerer's Apprentice: Power Over Wisdom

2025-01-30
Goethe's Sorcerer's Apprentice: Power Over Wisdom

Goethe's poem, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," a tale made famous by Disney's Fantasia, illustrates the perils of power unchecked by wisdom. The apprentice, using magic beyond his understanding, creates a chaotic situation highlighting the risks of uncontrolled human creations. The article explores the 'sorcerer's apprentice syndrome' found in numerous stories where humanity's inventions—like robots—turn against their creators, underscoring the timeless warning against prioritizing power over knowledge.

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(wilderutopia.com)
Misc Goethe Sorcerer's Apprentice Power vs. Wisdom

Impressive Language Support!

2025-06-05
Impressive Language Support!

This text lists an impressive array of languages, encompassing major languages from most regions of the globe, totaling over 60. This suggests a technology or product with robust multilingual support capabilities, possibly a translation tool, a global platform, or a large language model. The wide language coverage hints at a massive potential user base and market reach.

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(elevenlabs.io)
Misc

Beyond the Wedge Product: A Novel Decomposition of the Geometric Product

2025-05-23

This paper introduces a new operation called the "transwedge product," which completely decomposes the geometric product into fundamental operations of exterior algebra: the exterior product, left and right complements, and application of the metric. The author demonstrates that the transwedge product generates a spectrum of products ranging from the exterior product to the interior product (contraction), replacing the commutator product and offering a cleaner way to compute the geometric product. This applies not only to three dimensions but also to higher-dimensional geometric algebras, with practical applications in conformal geometric algebra, such as calculating circles intersecting orthogonally.

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(terathon.com)
Development exterior algebra transwedge product

AI-Designed Proteins Neutralize Snake Venom: A Game Changer in Antivenom Development

2025-04-19
AI-Designed Proteins Neutralize Snake Venom: A Game Changer in Antivenom Development

A groundbreaking study uses AI protein design to create antivenoms that effectively neutralize toxins from cobras and other snakes. Traditional antivenom production is expensive, slow, and prone to side effects. AI-designed proteins overcome these limitations, demonstrating superior toxin neutralization in both in vitro and in vivo experiments. This offers a promising solution to the significant public health threat of snakebites, showcasing AI's potential to revolutionize biomedicine and provide safer, more effective, and affordable antivenoms.

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(plentyofroom.beehiiv.com)
AI Antivenom

Parahelp: Building AI Coworkers That Replace Human Support Agents

2025-03-15
Parahelp: Building AI Coworkers That Replace Human Support Agents

Parahelp is building an AI-powered support agent for software companies. Their agent uses existing infrastructure (Slack, Stripe, etc.) to resolve support tickets end-to-end, aiming to fully replace human support agents. They believe context, not intelligence, will be the bottleneck for future AI coworkers. Launched in August 2024, Parahelp is backed by Y Combinator and prominent investors, and already works with leading companies like Perplexity and Framer.

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(www.ycombinator.com)
AI

Foundations of Computer Vision: A Decade in the Making

2025-06-15

After a decade-long journey, Torralba, Isola, and Freeman have published "Foundations of Computer Vision." Instead of aiming for complete coverage, the book focuses on fundamental concepts, approaching the subject from image processing and machine learning perspectives. It features numerous visualizations and progresses through image formation, learning foundations, signal processing, neural networks, and explores advanced topics like generative models and representation learning. The book's rigorous structure and clear explanations make it suitable for undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals alike.

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(visionbook.mit.edu)
Development

The Rise of Drug-Resistant Fungi: A Race Against Time

2025-04-19
The Rise of Drug-Resistant Fungi: A Race Against Time

Drug-resistant fungi, such as the highly lethal Candida auris, pose a growing threat to global public health. Around 3.8 million people die each year from fungal infections, a number that has nearly doubled in the past decade. The article highlights the challenges in developing antifungal drugs due to the similarity between fungal and human cells, and the potential for increased resistance due to widespread fungicide use in agriculture. Currently, only three antifungal drugs are in late-stage clinical trials. The article calls for increased basic research, improved diagnostic tools, the establishment of clinical trial networks, and policy interventions, such as restricting the use of agricultural fungicides, to address this challenge and prevent more fungi from evolving into dangerous pathogens.

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(www.nature.com)
Tech drug-resistant fungi antifungal drugs

Apple's Liquid Glass: A New UI Design Language

2025-06-14
Apple's Liquid Glass: A New UI Design Language

Apple unveiled Liquid Glass, a revolutionary new UI design language. Building upon the learnings from Aqua, iOS 7's blur effects, iPhone X's fluidity, the Dynamic Island's flexibility, and visionOS's immersive interface, Liquid Glass isn't a mere recreation of physical materials. Instead, it's a digital meta-material dynamically bending and shaping light, behaving like a lightweight liquid responsive to touch and the dynamism of modern apps. Utilizing 'lensing' for layering and visual separation, it adapts automatically to different sizes and environments, offering 'Regular' and 'Clear' variants. Liquid Glass aims to fundamentally improve the look and feel of apps, making them more organic, immersive, and fluid.

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(developer.apple.com)
Design

The AI Coding Revolution: At What Cost to Joy?

2025-04-23
The AI Coding Revolution: At What Cost to Joy?

This article explores the author's concern about the loss of joy in software development due to AI assistance. While acknowledging the productivity gains, the author laments the diminishing experience of flow state – that deep immersion and satisfaction once derived from crafting code. AI tools, while efficient, create a more passive, curatorial role, potentially leading to highly productive yet unfulfilled developers. The author suggests a need to redefine joy in an AI-augmented world, advocating for intentional preservation of manual coding to maintain happiness and creativity.

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(terriblesoftware.org)
Development developer happiness flow state

Tini: A Minimalist Init for Containers

2025-04-20
Tini: A Minimalist Init for Containers

Tini is a lightweight init system designed for containers. It prevents zombie processes, ensures proper signal handling, and improves container stability. Built into Docker 1.13 and later (using the `--init` flag), Tini can also be manually installed for older versions or other container runtimes. Advanced options include subreaper functionality, exit code remapping, and signal forwarding for complex scenarios. It's incredibly small and adds minimal overhead.

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(github.com)
Development container init zombie processes

C++20 Ranges Performance: A Surprise Twist

2025-04-19

The author replaced a raw loop with `std::ranges::transform` in a C++ project, expecting a performance boost. Tests revealed a surprising result: an optimized raw loop (using `emplace_back` and `reserve`) proved 20% faster on Clang and 10% faster on GCC. The article compares different approaches, highlighting performance and code readability. The conclusion: prioritize readability unless performance is a critical bottleneck.

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(www.sandordargo.com)
Development

Canada's Border Bill Sneakily Includes Warrantless Internet Access

2025-06-05
Canada's Border Bill Sneakily Includes Warrantless Internet Access

Canada's new Strong Border Act (Bill C-2), ostensibly focused on border security, contains provisions enabling warrantless access to internet subscriber data. This circumvents Supreme Court rulings protecting user privacy, granting law enforcement powers to obtain subscriber information, issue global production orders, and directly access data held by electronic service providers. The move raises significant privacy and civil liberties concerns, sparking opposition and criticism of government overreach. Additional regulations targeting 'core providers' allow direct law enforcement access to their networks for data interception and testing, raising further concerns about costs and security.

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(www.michaelgeist.ca)
Tech internet surveillance Canadian law

Thousands Mistakenly Believe They Won the Lottery Due to Coding Error

2025-07-01
Thousands Mistakenly Believe They Won the Lottery Due to Coding Error

Thousands of Norwegians mistakenly thought they'd won life-changing sums in the Eurojackpot lottery due to a manual coding error by Norsk Tipping, the state-owned operator. A conversion error multiplied winnings by 100 instead of dividing, briefly displaying vastly inflated jackpots on their website. While no incorrect payouts were made, the mistake led to the CEO's resignation and sparked concerns about the company's internal controls. This isn't Norsk Tipping's first recent blunder; previous technical issues and regulatory breaches have also been reported. The new acting CEO aims to restore public trust.

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(www.theregister.com)
Misc Lottery error Coding mistake CEO resignation

Optimizing Aggregate Packing Density for Enhanced Compressive Strength in Biocemented Materials

2025-05-27
Optimizing Aggregate Packing Density for Enhanced Compressive Strength in Biocemented Materials

Researchers significantly improved the compressive strength of biocemented materials by optimizing the packing density of aggregate mixtures. They employed the Modified Andreassen model to design an optimal particle size distribution curve, which was validated through compaction experiments. The optimized mix exhibited higher aggregate packing density during biomineralization, leading to reduced cementation solution consumption. Subsequently, an improved stop-flow pressure-based injection method was used for biomineralization experiments to investigate the impact of varying cementation solution pressure and concentration on biomineralization depth and compressive strength. Results showed that optimal UACP content, pressure, and concentration yielded high-strength, homogeneous biomineralized specimens, with a maximum compressive strength of 57.4 MPa – significantly exceeding previous studies. Lower flow rates and higher aggregate packing density were also found to be beneficial for achieving higher ultrasonic wave velocities and compressive strengths.

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(www.nature.com)
Tech biomineralization compressive strength packing density

SF's Valencia Street Gets First Permanent Open-Air Drinking Zone

2025-06-12
SF's Valencia Street Gets First Permanent Open-Air Drinking Zone

San Francisco's Valencia Street is launching a pilot program allowing patrons of participating bars and restaurants to legally consume alcoholic beverages on the sidewalk from noon to midnight, Sunday through Thursday. This marks the city's first permanent open-air drinking zone not tied to a specific event, aiming to revitalize nightlife and attract younger crowds as part of post-pandemic recovery efforts. The initiative, supported by local businesses and the SFPD, includes security measures like wristbands and designated cups. While some businesses are hesitant, the program is expected to significantly impact the city's landscape and business models, setting a precedent for future similar projects.

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(missionlocal.org)
Misc Open-Air Drinking Post-Pandemic Recovery

Wireless Gene Expression Control: Nanoparticles Enable a New Era of Precision Medicine

2025-05-28
Wireless Gene Expression Control: Nanoparticles Enable a New Era of Precision Medicine

Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a novel method for the electromagnetic wireless control of transgene expression in mammals using nanoparticles. The approach employs magnetic fields to stimulate multiferroic nanoparticles (cobalt ferrite and bismuth ferrite), generating biosafe reactive oxygen species (ROS) that activate the cellular KEAP1/NRF2 pathway, precisely controlling the expression of therapeutic proteins like insulin. Successfully tested on a diabetic mouse model, this technology allows for remote and dynamic therapy adjustment without injections or implants. Promising applications include oncology, neurology, and regenerative medicine, potentially revolutionizing precision medicine.

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(phys.org)
AI

Stellar Sleep Seeking Founding Product Engineer

2025-03-15
Stellar Sleep Seeking Founding Product Engineer

Stellar Sleep, a startup on a mission to improve sleep for millions with chronic insomnia, is hiring a founding product engineer. Launched in 2022, the company boasts strong clinical data, backing from top investors like Initialized Capital and Y Combinator, and proven success in helping tens of thousands sleep better. The ideal candidate will have 3-6 years of software engineering experience, proficiency in TypeScript and Python, familiarity with Django Rest Framework or NextJS, and a willingness to work from the San Francisco office. A healthcare background isn't required; a passion for learning and excellence is key.

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(www.ycombinator.com)
Startup Product Engineer

Arduboy Faces Extinction Due to US-China Trade War

2025-05-07
Arduboy Faces Extinction Due to US-China Trade War

The founder of Arduboy, Kevin, is facing a dire situation due to escalating US-China trade tensions. High tariffs make selling Arduboy in the US nearly impossible, threatening the company's existence. Kevin is exploring various options, including international dropshipping, manufacturing in other countries, and seeking government grants, to navigate the crisis. Relocating the company to Europe or Australia, and transitioning community management, are also under consideration. The future of Arduboy hangs in the balance.

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(community.arduboy.com)
Hardware

Ahoy, Matey! The Surprisingly Important History of Beer at Sea

2025-04-23

From Mesopotamia to the 19th century, beer was a vital part of seafaring life. Not only did it provide sailors with nutrition and calories, but crucially, it helped prevent scurvy on long voyages. This article details beer's surprisingly important role in maritime history, from ancient daily drink to Royal Navy rations, its use in preventing scurvy, and the evolution of brewing techniques. It's a fascinating blend of history and technology.

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(blog.library.si.edu)
Misc maritime history beer scurvy

Crafting the Worst Possible Python Code: A How-To Guide

2025-06-14
Crafting the Worst Possible Python Code: A How-To Guide

This humorous guide teaches you how to write the most incomprehensible and frustrating Python code imaginable. Through a series of negative examples, such as using cryptic variable names (like `data1`, `temp`) and complex nested loops, the author demonstrates how to create truly terrible code. The ultimate goal is to highlight the importance of writing clean, understandable code and avoiding the creation of unmaintainable technical debt.

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(effective-programmer.com)
Development

Efficient Transformers: Sparsely-Gated Mixture of Experts (MoE)

2025-04-20

Feed-forward layers in Transformer models are often massive, creating an efficiency bottleneck. Sparsely-Gated Mixture of Experts (MoE) offers an elegant solution. MoE decomposes the large feed-forward layer into multiple smaller 'expert' networks and uses a router to select the optimal subset of experts for each token's computation, significantly reducing computational cost and improving efficiency. This post details the workings of MoE, provides a NumPy implementation, and discusses key issues like expert load balancing.

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(eli.thegreenplace.net)
Development Model Efficiency
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