Will Large Language Models End Programming?

2024-12-15

Recent advancements in large language models (LLMs) have sparked debate about the obsolescence of programming. This article argues against this overly optimistic view. Focusing on the computational complexity of program synthesis, the author demonstrates that generating correct code is a PSPACE-complete problem, meaning even moderately sized inputs could require exponential time. While LLMs can assist programmers and boost efficiency, their inherent limitations prevent them from completely replacing human programmers. The core of programming remains problem-solving and system design, requiring human ingenuity and creativity.

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So You Want to Write Java in Neovim?

2024-12-28

This post details how to efficiently develop Java code within the Neovim editor. The author shares their positive experience using Neovim for Java at work, recommending JDTLS as the LSP server and either nvim-java or nvim-jdtls as Neovim plugins. The article thoroughly explains JDTLS configuration, including debugging and testing setups, and provides a personal configuration example featuring codelens and debugger functionality. Even if you're not a Neovim devotee, you can still learn valuable Java development techniques.

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Development Java Development

New LLM Jailbreak Exploits Models' Evaluation Skills

2025-01-12
New LLM Jailbreak Exploits Models' Evaluation Skills

Researchers have discovered a novel LLM jailbreak technique, dubbed "Bad Likert Judge." This method leverages LLMs' ability to identify harmful content by prompting them to score such content and then requesting examples, thus generating outputs related to malware, illegal activities, harassment, and more. Tested on six state-of-the-art models across 1440 cases, the average success rate was 71.6%, reaching as high as 87.6%. The researchers recommend that maintainers of LLM applications utilize content filters to mitigate such attacks.

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SATA SSD's DRM Functions and Accessibility Limitations

2025-01-20
SATA SSD's DRM Functions and Accessibility Limitations

A Linux kernel log shows warnings about an Intel SSDSCKJF360A5L SSD: "supports DRM functions and may not be fully accessible." This relates to an ATA protocol extension allowing the storage device to respond differently based on whether a request is signed by the mainboard's trusted platform module. This enables features like preventing modification of video players. Linux might have an incomplete view of the SSD, hence the warning. Additionally, the log notes the SSD's read cache is enabled but doesn't support outdated DPO or FUA techniques, which are irrelevant for SSDs.

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Hardware

ModernBERT: A Revolutionary BERT Replacement

2024-12-19
ModernBERT: A Revolutionary BERT Replacement

Answer.AI and LightOn introduce ModernBERT, a family of state-of-the-art encoder-only models that outperform BERT in both speed and accuracy. ModernBERT incorporates numerous advancements from recent LLM research, boasting an extended context length (8192 tokens), faster processing, and superior performance across various benchmarks. Its particularly strong code retrieval capabilities unlock new applications like large-scale code search and enhanced IDE features. ModernBERT is a drop-in replacement for BERT models and is available on Hugging Face.

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Buzee: Open-Source Full-Text Search App Released

2024-12-14
Buzee: Open-Source Full-Text Search App Released

Buzee is a cross-platform, full-text search application built with Rust and Svelte. It allows for fast searching of local files, folders, browser history, and more, even extracting text from PDFs and images using OCR. Developed over two years, this project showcases a robust architecture using Tauri for performance, SQLite and Tantivy for indexing, and a clean Svelte frontend. While feature-rich, it still has some areas for future development, and the author is releasing it open-source for others to contribute.

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Development full-text search

POSIX Time: Not What You Think

2024-12-26

This article debunks a common misconception about POSIX time (Unix time): it's not simply the number of seconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00. Due to leap seconds, the number of seconds in a UTC day isn't a constant 86,400, leading to discrepancies between POSIX time and the actual number of seconds. The article delves into the impact of leap seconds on time calculations and recommends alternatives like CLOCK_MONOTONIC or TAI for precise timekeeping, avoiding errors caused by leap seconds.

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Development POSIX time leap seconds

Open Source Magic: Auto Smiley, the Computer Vision Smile Generator

2025-01-04
Open Source Magic: Auto Smiley, the Computer Vision Smile Generator

F.A.T. Lab released Auto Smiley, an open-source application leveraging computer vision to detect smiles. When you smile, it automatically inserts ":)" into your currently active application. Built with openFrameworks and MPT, it's available for Windows and Mac, showcasing F.A.T. Lab's rapid prototyping and creative technology prowess. This speed project highlights their commitment to open source and public domain resources.

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OpenSPH: Interactive Visualization for Astrophysical Simulations

2025-01-03

OpenSPH is a versatile particle code library primarily used for astrophysical simulations. A new graphical application, SpaceSim, provides a more interactive and user-friendly interface for setting up and running simulations. Users can customize initial conditions and simulation steps using a node-based editor. Simulations range from planetary impacts and galactic mergers to black hole accretion disks. Windows installers, source code, and tutorials are available. Community feedback is encouraged via the Discord server.

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Nix@NGI: Streamlining Open Source Software

2025-01-24
Nix@NGI: Streamlining Open Source Software

The Nix@NGI team is on a mission to make running open-source software easier, both now and in the long term. Partnering with the NGI Zero consortium, they aim to integrate over 1200 NLnet-funded projects into the Nix ecosystem. The team boasts a diverse skillset, encompassing management, operations, development, and maintenance, and actively welcomes volunteers and trainees. Their work benefits NixOS contributors and enhances open-source accessibility. Future plans include improving tools, processes, and user experience, further propelling open-source software development.

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Development

24 Hours in an Invisible Epidemic: The Loneliness Crisis

2025-01-20
24 Hours in an Invisible Epidemic: The Loneliness Crisis

This article follows a 62-year-old man for 24 hours, illustrating the growing loneliness epidemic in the US. Data reveals a decline in time spent with family and friends, a rise in solitary time, and a yearly increase in reported loneliness. The article highlights the negative emotional and physical health consequences of isolation, emphasizing the need for greater awareness and action to address this often-overlooked public health crisis.

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18 Million Deceased US Veterans' Records Now Searchable Online

2025-01-13
18 Million Deceased US Veterans' Records Now Searchable Online

Reclaim The Records, a non-profit organization, won a multi-year FOIA lawsuit against the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), gaining access to the BIRLS database. This database, now freely available online, contains biographical information on over 18 million deceased US veterans. Searching the database allows researchers to request complete veteran claims files, potentially containing hundreds of pages of historical documents. While most files remain at the VA, BIRLS provides a crucial index, significantly aiding historical and genealogical research.

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DM50: A Cheap, Open-Source, High-Precision Calculator

2025-01-24
DM50: A Cheap, Open-Source, High-Precision Calculator

DM50 is a cheap, powerful, easy-to-build, open-source hardware calculator boasting high precision. The project is hosted on GitHub and offers downloads for PCBs, firmware, bezels, and a 3D-printed case. Recent updates include finalizing the casing design, battery life testing, key model selection, and processor advancements. DM50 aims to provide a user-friendly, high-performance calculator experience.

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Hardware

Meta's Llama 3.1 Community License: Not Free Software

2025-01-26

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has released an evaluation concluding that Meta's Llama 3.1 Community License is not a free software license. The license not only denies users their freedoms but also attempts to grant licensors powers that should only be exercised through democratically-elected governments. Furthermore, its application to a machine learning application fails to address inherent software freedom challenges. The FSF urges the free software community to avoid using this license and any software released under it.

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Development

SQLook: A Nostalgic SQLite Database Manager

2025-01-26
SQLook: A Nostalgic SQLite Database Manager

SQLook is a modern web-based SQLite database manager with a nostalgic Windows 2000 interface. It blends contemporary web technologies with the classic aesthetics of a computing icon. Features include database management, a visual database structure viewer, an interactive SQL query editor, a table generator, data export, sample data generation, and more. Created by Ralph Barendse, inspired by the Windows 2000 UI, and built using HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and SQL.js.

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Bird Tongues: A Surprisingly Diverse World

2025-01-16
Bird Tongues: A Surprisingly Diverse World

This blog post explores the amazing diversity of bird tongues and their adaptations to different diets. From the hummingbird's forked tongue to the woodpecker's sharp, spiky tongue, and the penguin's incredibly barbed tongue, each species' tongue is uniquely evolved to suit its feeding habits. Hummingbirds, for example, use their tongues like tiny straws to lap up nectar, while woodpeckers use theirs to spear insects from tree holes. The post is richly illustrated, showcasing the variety and wonder of bird tongues and highlighting nature's ingenious designs.

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Tech birds tongues

SVC16: The Simplest Virtual Computer Challenges Programmers

2024-12-15
SVC16: The Simplest Virtual Computer Challenges Programmers

SVC16 is a minimalist 16-bit virtual computer designed for ultimate simplicity. It features no CPU registers, performing all operations within a single memory chunk. The instruction set is extremely streamlined, lacking bells and whistles like sound or variable screen size. Programmers are challenged to write machine code and compilers themselves, creating amazing feats with the simplest of tools. The project provides an emulator to run user-created programs and even games. This is a perfect project for learning low-level computer principles and honing programming skills.

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US Sues Six Major Landlords for Algorithmic Price Fixing

2025-01-07
US Sues Six Major Landlords for Algorithmic Price Fixing

The US Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against six of the nation's largest landlords, accusing them of using algorithms to manipulate rental prices and harm renters. Cortland Management settled, agreeing to cooperate and cease using competitors' sensitive data. The lawsuit alleges these landlords colluded to fix prices by sharing data through common algorithms and direct communication, exchanging sensitive information like rent and occupancy rates. Software company RealPage is also implicated, accused of facilitating the price manipulation. The case raises concerns about algorithmic pricing and data sharing in real estate, highlighting the need for tech regulation.

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Wide Events: A Practitioner's Guide to Enhanced Observability

2024-12-24

This article introduces 'Wide Events,' an observability approach that enhances system monitoring and debugging by emitting a single event containing all collectable information for each unit of work. The author details how to choose appropriate tools (like Honeycomb), add rich attributes (including service metadata, instance info, build info, HTTP request/response details, user/customer info, rate limits, caching info, localization info, uptime, metrics, async request summaries, sampling info, and timing info), and handle errors and feature flags. Common concerns like excessive data volume, redundant data, and the relationship with existing metrics are addressed. The article highlights the significant practical value of this approach, showcasing how it simplifies debugging and reveals unexpected system behaviors.

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Hardware-Efficient UNORM and SNORM to Float Conversion

2024-12-26
Hardware-Efficient UNORM and SNORM to Float Conversion

This blog post delves into the efficient hardware implementation of converting UNORM and SNORM integer formats to IEEE 754 binary32 floating-point numbers. The author details handling special values for 8-bit and 16-bit UNORM and SNORM, demonstrating how bit shifts and additions achieve precise conversion without complex division. Normalization and rounding are explained to ensure accuracy. The post concludes by summarizing the hardware cost, highlighting its efficiency.

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Hardware float conversion

Breakthrough in Reachability Analysis of the Domain Name System

2024-12-12
Breakthrough in Reachability Analysis of the Domain Name System

Researchers have presented the first decision procedure for verifying the Domain Name System (DNS), establishing its complexity as 2ExpTime. The study formalizes DNS semantics and uses a novel abstraction based on positive prefix-testable languages, reducing the DNS verification problem to the verification problem for pushdown systems. This approach effectively models attack vectors in DNS, such as amplification attacks and rewrite blackholing, providing a new theoretical foundation for ensuring DNS security and reliability.

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Bitwarden Bolsters Security: New Device Login Protection Coming in February 2025

2025-01-28
Bitwarden Bolsters Security: New Device Login Protection Coming in February 2025

Bitwarden is enhancing security by implementing new device login protection starting February 2025. Users without two-factor authentication (2FA) enabled will be required to verify their logins on new devices with a one-time code sent to their registered email address after entering their master password. This added security measure protects accounts even if passwords are compromised. Users with 2FA, SSO logins, API key logins, or self-hosted instances are exempt.

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Artist Trains Rats to Predict Forex Markets

2024-12-19
Artist Trains Rats to Predict Forex Markets

Austrian conceptual artist Michael Marcovici's project, "Rat Traders," trained rats to predict foreign exchange futures prices. He converted price fluctuations into piano notes, and the rats predicted subsequent note changes. Surprisingly, trained rats seemingly outperformed human traders after months, though this lacked rigorous statistical testing. Marcovici's project satirizes the belief in market prediction and the human desire for shortcuts to profit in a chaotic system. The project ultimately ended due to rats' limited trading capacity, highlighting the unreliability of market prediction.

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Misc finance

Quick Texture Generation: An XOR Texture Tutorial

2024-12-18

This tutorial explains how to generate an XOR texture, a simple texture created by XORing the x and y coordinates of each pixel. While not ideal for games or art, it's perfect for testing texture mappers. The article details the XOR operation, discusses the effect of texture size on color brightness, and shows how to generate similar textures using AND and OR operators. A 3D texture example using XOR is also presented.

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VPTERNLOG: The Surprising Efficiency of Ternary Operators

2025-01-22

Paul Khuong's blog post explores VPTERNLOG, a novel instruction using ternary operators for bitvector reduction. Compared to binary operators, ternary operators reduce two values at a time, doubling efficiency. This means half the operations are needed when processing bitvectors, without sacrificing throughput or latency. The author praises VPTERNLOG as a cute, lightweight, and highly efficient instruction.

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(pvk.ca)

YC-backed Harper Seeks Founding AI Engineer to Disrupt the $100B+ Insurance Market

2024-12-27
YC-backed Harper Seeks Founding AI Engineer to Disrupt the $100B+ Insurance Market

Harper, a Y Combinator-backed AI-native commercial insurance brokerage, is seeking a Founding AI Engineer. The company aims to revolutionize the $100B+ Excess & Surplus (E&S) insurance market using AI, automating weeks-long processes into instant ones. The ideal candidate possesses deep experience with the modern AI/ML stack, thrives in rapid iteration, and understands AI safety and reliability. Harper offers competitive compensation and significant equity, targeting engineers eager to build and own a revolutionary product, not just maximize salary.

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