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Mastering Ruby Debugging: From puts to Professional Tools

2024-12-13

Mastering Ruby Debugging: From puts to Professional Tools

This JetBrains RubyMine blog post delves into various approaches to debugging Ruby code, ranging from basic `puts` statements to interactive consoles (IRB and Pry) and powerful debuggers (byebug, debug, and the RubyMine debugger). Using a real-world bug example, it highlights the strengths and weaknesses of each tool, guiding developers in selecting the most appropriate debugger for improved efficiency. The article emphasizes that effective debugging isn't just about fixing errors; it's about gaining a fundamental understanding of the code to write more robust Ruby applications.

(blog.jetbrains.com)

Development Ruby debugging debugging tools

Quiet Quitting: A Symptom of Workplace Imbalance

2025-01-26

Quiet Quitting: A Symptom of Workplace Imbalance

The recent surge in 'quiet quitting' and 'soft quitting' isn't about laziness; it's a response to unfair compensation, excessive workloads, and a lack of work-life balance. Employees aren't necessarily uncaring, but seek alignment between work and personal well-being. The article argues that businesses must address employee needs through fair pay, flexible arrangements, and meaningful work to avoid massive economic losses from disengagement. Fostering a culture of curiosity and collaboration is key to creating a more effective and engaging workplace.

(www.forbes.com)

Startup quiet quitting

Python Meta-Circular Interpreter: Implementing a Python Interpreter in Python

2024-12-18

This article demonstrates how to create a Python meta-circular interpreter (MCI) using Python itself. An MCI is an interpreter written in the language it interprets, allowing implementation of a subset or superset of the host language. The author details the MCI's implementation, covering parsing Python source code, building an Abstract Syntax Tree (AST), traversing the AST and executing statements, and crucial concepts like scoping, symbol tables, and handling control flow statements (e.g., while loops and if statements). This example provides a deep understanding of interpreter mechanics and showcases how to leverage Python's AST module and built-in functions to build more complex interpreters.

(rahul.gopinath.org)

Development Meta-circular Interpreter

Unearthing the Oldest Lines in Your Git Repo

2025-01-30

The author shares a shell script to find the oldest lines of code in a Git repository. The script uses `git blame` along with `find` and `awk` to filter non-binary files and identify the earliest committed lines, revealing a glimpse into the project's history. While currently limited to commits after 2000, it offers a fascinating look at how the codebase has evolved.

(milofultz.com)

Development Code History

The 100-Page-a-Day Reading Strategy: A Habit for Life

2024-12-21

The 100-Page-a-Day Reading Strategy: A Habit for Life

Matthew Walther, editor of *The Lamp* magazine, shares his "100-pages-a-day reading strategy." It's not a rigid plan, but a cultivated habit designed to combat the distractions of modern life and reclaim the joy of reading. Walther breaks his day into several reading slots, utilizing even fragmented time. He emphasizes diversifying reading material, balancing heavy and light books, and always carrying a book. The ultimate goal is establishing a reading habit, not strictly adhering to a page count.

(thelampmagazine.com)

Misc reading strategy reading habit effective reading

Math Error Sparks Unnecessary Panic Over Black Plastic Kitchenware

2024-12-12

Math Error Sparks Unnecessary Panic Over Black Plastic Kitchenware

A recent study in Chemosphere claimed that black plastic kitchenware contains cancer-causing flame retardants, causing widespread panic. However, a McGill University scientist discovered a simple mathematical error in the study, overestimating exposure levels by a factor of ten. Despite the error, researchers maintain concerns about potential risks associated with black plastic kitchenware remain.

(nationalpost.com)

Misc black plastic kitchenware math error health risks

Darcs: A Friendly Introduction to Version Control

2025-02-15

This book provides a beginner-friendly guide to Darcs, a distributed version control system. It covers installation, local operations, repository creation, change management, history review, conflict resolution, branching, and history rewriting, all illustrated with simple examples. Perfect for quickly getting started with Darcs as your daily version control system.

(darcsbook.acmelabs.space)

Development DVCS

Iodized Salt and the Unexpected IQ Boost

2025-01-29

Iodized Salt and the Unexpected IQ Boost

New research reveals that adding iodine to salt in the US since 1924 significantly boosted cognitive abilities across the American population throughout the 20th century. Initially implemented to reduce goiter, studies now show iodine's crucial role in brain development. By comparing military enlistment data from before and after 1924, researchers found a 15-point IQ increase in low-iodine areas. While early iodine supplementation caused some thyroid-related deaths, the initiative virtually eradicated iodine deficiency and its consequences. This discovery may also partially explain the Flynn Effect – the observed rise in IQ scores throughout the 20th century – suggesting iodine contributed to a significant portion of this increase.

(www.discovermagazine.com)

Tech iodine IQ

WordPress in Turmoil: Mullenweg's Actions Shake the Foundation

2025-01-21

WordPress in Turmoil: Mullenweg's Actions Shake the Foundation

A conflict between WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg and hosting company WP Engine is threatening the future of WordPress. Mullenweg's aggressive actions, including banning WP Engine, offering severance packages to dissenting employees, and drastically reducing contributions to the open-source project, have sparked community backlash and a lawsuit. This turmoil undermines WordPress's stability and raises concerns about its future direction, even pushing users and developers towards alternatives. The core issue is a clash between open-source governance and commercial interests, with far-reaching implications for the tech industry.

(digitalcxo.com)

Development community conflict

Contemplative LLMs: A Viral Prompt Engineering Experiment

2025-01-12

Contemplative LLMs: A Viral Prompt Engineering Experiment

Maharshi's experiment on X (formerly Twitter) went viral: a prompt designed to make LLMs like Claude and GPT-4 'contemplate' before answering. Inspired by OpenAI's o1 model, which uses reinforcement learning and 'test-time compute' for enhanced reasoning, the prompt encourages LLMs to explore multiple possibilities, question assumptions, and mimic human thought processes. It emphasizes exploration over immediate conclusions, deep reasoning, showcasing the thinking process, and persistence. While effective for complex tasks, the author cautions against potential hallucinations. The prompt's structure uses XML tags to separate the contemplation phase and the final answer, guiding the LLM with specific phrasing to enhance clarity and accuracy.

(maharshi.bearblog.dev)

AI

F-Droid Security Issues: Open Source Doesn't Guarantee Security

2025-01-20

F-Droid Security Issues: Open Source Doesn't Guarantee Security

This article delves into the security vulnerabilities of the popular Android open-source app store, F-Droid. F-Droid's unique signing mechanism introduces an additional trusted party, increasing security risks. Its strict inclusion policy leads to slow app updates and the use of outdated libraries. A low target API level and lack of good practices further exacerbate security concerns. The article also highlights F-Droid's misleading permission displays and confusing user experience, comparing it to Google Play Store. Ultimately, it advises users to use F-Droid cautiously, emphasizing that open source does not guarantee security.

(privsec.dev)

Tech Android security open-source software

Bypassing Windows Kernel Mitigations: A Deep Dive into Violet Phosphorus

2024-12-13

This post delves into bypassing modern Windows 10 and 11 kernel mitigations like SMEP and VBS. The author details Violet Phosphorus, a universal VBS/SMEP bypass technique, providing PoC code and a ROP chain. It explains SMEP and VBS, demonstrating how to exploit a vulnerability in the HackSysExtremeVulnerableDriver to use ROP gadgets and the MiGetPteAddress function to modify page table entries for kernel code execution. The author also shows how to use Kristal-G's SYSRET shellcode to return to user mode. This is a valuable resource for kernel exploit development and security researchers, categorized as Development.

(wetw0rk.github.io)

Development kernel exploit SMEP bypass VBS bypass

Penn Station Expansion Unnecessary: NYC Ready for Through-Running

2025-01-16

Penn Station Expansion Unnecessary: NYC Ready for Through-Running

A new report by the Effective Transit Alliance New York (ETA) refutes Amtrak's claim that a $16.7 billion Penn Station expansion is needed to handle increased ridership from the Gateway Program. ETA argues that the existing Penn Station can accommodate increased ridership through operational changes, eliminating the need for massive expansion. The report analyzes international examples and uses modeling to demonstrate that through-running allows Penn Station to handle 48 trans-Hudson trains per hour, doubling its current peak capacity. ETA urges Amtrak, the MTA, and NJ Transit to abandon the costly expansion plan and instead adopt a more cost-effective operational model.

(www.etany.org)

Tech transit

Servo's Resurrection: Two Years of Progress at Igalia

2025-01-08

Two years after Igalia took over maintenance of the Servo project, significant progress has been made. They've addressed numerous bugs, improved stability, and added support for Android and OpenHarmony. Active community building and collaborations have led to a substantial increase in contributors and code activity. While still experimental, Servo's performance and security advantages position it for significant future growth, potentially becoming the ideal web engine for embedded systems and Rust applications.

(blogs.igalia.com)

Development Web Engine

Free Software Needs Free Tools: An Ethical Dilemma in Open Source Development

2024-12-28

This article explores the ethical dilemma faced by free software developers who use non-free development tools. The author argues that, for efficiency's sake, many developers have opted for proprietary tools or network services like BitKeeper, SourceForge, and GitHub, sacrificing the freedom of both developers and users. The author uses the example of the Linux kernel's move to BitKeeper and the subsequent forced development of Git to illustrate the risks of relying on proprietary tools. Using non-free tools, the author emphasizes, not only harms the credibility of the open-source movement but also restricts software freedom, ultimately resulting in software that isn't truly free. The author calls on developers to prioritize free and open-source development tools, upholding the values of open-source software and avoiding the sacrifice of freedom for efficiency.

(mako.cc)

Development development tools

Solving a 350-Image Classification Problem with GPT-4

2025-01-13

A small AI company tackled a challenging image recognition problem: identifying 350 highly similar car illustrations. Traditional computer vision and augmented reality approaches failed. The team tried MobileNet transfer learning and data augmentation, but results were inconsistent. Ultimately, they cleverly combined a KNN-based image embedding search with GPT-4, submitting candidate images to GPT-4 for final matching. While not perfect, this solution significantly improved accuracy and successfully powered a museum app, even improving the company's main product line. This demonstrates how large language models are increasingly becoming versatile tools in product development, simplifying the AI application process.

(olup-blog.pages.dev)

AI

Open-Source Ergonomic Keyboard: Ergo S-1 - Build Your Own Comfort

2025-01-03

Open-Source Ergonomic Keyboard: Ergo S-1 - Build Your Own Comfort

The Ergo S-1 is an open-source, wireless, split ergonomic keyboard compatible with Cherry/Gateron switches and Cherry/OEM/DCS keycaps, powered by the ZMK firmware. Designed during a period of unemployment, this keyboard prioritizes ease of DIY assembly, making it accessible to a wider audience. The project provides comprehensive assembly instructions, a bill of materials, and Fusion 360 design files, along with support for custom keymaps. While complete kits aren't yet available, pre-built keyboards are sold on Etsy, and the creator is actively working towards easier-to-assemble kits.

(github.com)

Hardware ergonomic keyboard

Musk-Linked Engineer Gains Full Control Over US Payment Systems: Treasury Officials in Panic

2025-02-04

Musk-Linked Engineer Gains Full Control Over US Payment Systems: Treasury Officials in Panic

A 25-year-old engineer with ties to Elon Musk has been granted full read-and-write access to the US Treasury Department's payment systems, sparking alarm among insiders. This access encompasses nearly all government payments, including Social Security and tax refunds, raising concerns about potential for irreversible changes or security breaches. Sources express worry about data leaks to Musk allies within the General Services Administration (GSA) and a lack of reporting channels. The incident highlights critical vulnerabilities in government IT systems and potential threats to crucial infrastructure.

(www.rawstory.com)

Tech Government IT

Sonair Accelerates 3D Ultrasonic Sensor Development with Rust

2024-12-28

Sonair Accelerates 3D Ultrasonic Sensor Development with Rust

Sonair leveraged the Rust programming language to dramatically accelerate the development of its groundbreaking 3D ultrasonic sensor. The article details the reasons for choosing Rust, including its speed, safety, and robust ecosystem. Despite the team's initial lack of Rust experience, they found it surprisingly easy to learn, and its strong type system and borrow checker helped them write safer, more reliable code. Sonair uses Rust for production and Python for algorithm prototyping, creating an efficient workflow. Ultimately, Sonair aims to be among the first to deploy a safety-certified Rust implementation, setting a new standard for functional safety in embedded systems.

(www.sonair.com)

Development 3D Ultrasonic Sensor Functional Safety

Genius and Rebellion: The Rise and Fall of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory

2024-12-24

Genius and Rebellion: The Rise and Fall of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory

William Shockley, a brilliant but irascible physicist, is renowned for his invention of the transistor. His Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory brought together many of Silicon Valley's early luminaries. However, Shockley's arrogance and poor management style led to the departure of the "traitorous eight," who founded Fairchild Semiconductor, marking the beginning of a Silicon Valley legend. While Shockley Semiconductor was eventually acquired, its historical significance remains undeniable; it not only nurtured transistor technology but also gave birth to the flourishing modern semiconductor industry.

(www.abortretry.fail)

Tech transistor Silicon Valley Shockley

Bay Area Cult: Ziz and the AI Safety Movement

2025-02-01

This article exposes a secretive Bay Area online cult led by Ziz, who uses her blog to spread distorted ethical and decision theories, targeting AI risk researchers. Zizian doctrine promotes radical veganism and plans for post-singularity trials of the 'non-good'. Through manipulative techniques like unihemispheric sleep, Ziz isolates members, leading to tragic consequences including suicide. The article warns against Ziz's influence and involvement with this potentially dangerous group.

(zizians.info)

Misc AI risk mind control

W54: The Pocket-Sized Nuke of the Cold War

2024-12-18

W54: The Pocket-Sized Nuke of the Cold War

The W54, also known as the Mark 54 or B54, was the smallest nuclear weapon ever deployed by the United States. Its remarkably compact design, boasting a yield ranging from 10 to 1,000 tons of TNT, made it suitable for various applications, including the AIM-26 Falcon air-to-air missile, the Davy Crockett recoilless rifle, and the Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM) system. Developed in the late 1950s, the W54's creation presented significant engineering challenges, particularly concerning its environmental sensing device. A later variant, the W72, was integrated into the AGM-62 Walleye guided bomb and remained in service until 1979.

(en.wikipedia.org)

Tech nuclear weapon cold war

t4t: A Social Network for Trans and Gender-Non-Conforming Individuals

2025-01-23

t4t: A Social Network for Trans and Gender-Non-Conforming Individuals

t4t is a social network specifically designed for transgender and gender-non-conforming individuals. It's a free, minimalist, text-based platform. Recent posts reveal a diverse range of experiences, from daily life updates like cooking and car maintenance to more personal and vulnerable moments expressing financial struggles, loneliness, and desires. The platform provides a space for connection and support within the trans community, showcasing both the everyday joys and challenges faced by its members.

(t4t.social)

Misc LGBTQ+ social network transgender gender non-conforming

LLM Performance on Advent of Code 2024: A Surprise

2024-12-30

LLM Performance on Advent of Code 2024: A Surprise

This post details an experiment testing several leading Large Language Models (LLMs) on the 2024 Advent of Code challenge. Surprisingly, the LLMs performed worse than expected, even underperforming the author. A simple framework was used, providing the models with the complete problem description and requiring executable Python code. Results showed frequent timeouts and exceptions, suggesting LLMs excel at solving familiar problems but struggle with novel ones. This limitation might stem from reliance on program templates, insufficient computational resources, or suboptimal prompting. The experiment highlights Advent of Code as a potential benchmark for evaluating coding agents.

(www.jerpint.io)

AI Coding Challenge

Bacteria: Tiny Organisms, Huge Impact on Earth and the Future

2024-12-13

Bacteria: Tiny Organisms, Huge Impact on Earth and the Future

This article unveils the hidden world of bacteria, revealing how these minuscule organisms have shaped the Earth and profoundly influence our future. From being among the first life forms on Earth 3.5 billion years ago, to the great oxygenation event and the formation of complex cells, bacteria's role is undeniable. Their astonishing diversity allows them to thrive in nearly every environment, forming intricate relationships with other life, including humans. Research into bacteria is revolutionizing our understanding of disease, the environment, and the future; harnessing their power offers potential solutions to major challenges like climate change, pollution, and infectious diseases.

(www.oum.ox.ac.uk)

2

AI bacteria life origins biotechnology

CodeCrafters' Lightning-Fast Interview Process: Get Hired in 2 Days!

2025-02-05

CodeCrafters' Lightning-Fast Interview Process: Get Hired in 2 Days!

CodeCrafters boasts a remarkably quick interview process, completing all steps within 1-2 days. It involves: a 15-30 minute introductory Zoom call to get acquainted; a 2-3 hour CodeCrafters challenge completed semi-live over Zoom, using your preferred language, focusing on problem-solving and code structure (practicing beforehand is allowed); and a final 30-60 minute Zoom call to discuss work history and timelines.

(www.ycombinator.com)

Development interview process coding challenge fast hiring

Slack's Automated Accessibility Testing: Challenges and Triumphs

2025-01-08

Slack's Automated Accessibility Testing: Challenges and Triumphs

The Slack engineering team details their journey implementing automated accessibility testing. Initial attempts to integrate Axe into their React Testing Library and Jest framework failed due to complexities. They pivoted to Playwright, using custom functions and strategies to successfully automate accessibility checks and integrate them into CI/CD. While not fully hiding automated checks, they minimized developer overhead by simplifying workflows, improving reporting, and establishing clear processes. Future plans include further optimization and exploring AI-assisted testing.

(slack.engineering)

Development automated testing accessibility testing

The Fuzzing Book: Automating Software Testing

2025-01-19

The Fuzzing Book: Automating Software Testing

The Fuzzing Book is a comprehensive guide to automated software testing, focusing on fuzzing techniques. It covers various fuzzing methods, including lexical, syntactic, and semantic fuzzing, with executable code examples for hands-on learning. Whether you're a software tester, security engineer, or developer, this book empowers you to automatically generate test cases, improve software quality, and uncover hidden bugs.

(www.fuzzingbook.org)

Development Fuzzing Automated Testing

Backward-Incompatible GRUB2 Change Causes BIOS Boot Loop

2024-12-16

Backward-Incompatible GRUB2 Change Causes BIOS Boot Loop

The author's Debian and Kali Linux systems experienced boot loops after a GRUB2 update added the command `fwsetup --is-supported`. Older GRUB versions didn't recognize this parameter. The issue stemmed from an older `efifwsetup.mod` module, leftover from a system backup restoration, causing a conflict between the new GRUB configuration and the old module. Installing the `grub-efi-amd64-bin` package resolved the problem. This highlights the importance of backward compatibility in software updates and the need to consider potential side effects when making partial changes in complex software like GRUB2.

(op-co.de)

Development boot loop

Deconstructing Complex Systems with Mereology: Beyond Simple Causality

2025-02-06

This article presents a novel approach to understanding higher-order structure in complex systems, based on mereology, a branch of set theory. Using the Borromean rings as an example, it illustrates how the whole can be more than the sum of its parts. The author proposes that by constructing a system's mereology and applying the Möbius inversion formula, macroscopic quantities can be decomposed into sums of microscopic contributions, revealing the nature of higher-order interactions. Examples from gene interactions and mutual information in information theory demonstrate the method's application, with promising implications for machine learning and physics.

(abeljansma.nl)

AI higher-order structure Möbius inversion

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