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Meta to Pay $50 Million to Australian Users Affected by Cambridge Analytica

2024-12-17

Meta to Pay $50 Million to Australian Users Affected by Cambridge Analytica

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has reached a settlement with Meta, resulting in a $50 million payment program for Australian Facebook users affected by the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The case involved the unauthorized disclosure of personal information to the 'This is Your Digital Life' app, posing risks of political profiling. The payment scheme offers a base payment for users experiencing general concern or embarrassment and higher payments for those demonstrating specific loss or damage. Applications are expected to open in the second quarter of 2025.

(www.oaic.gov.au)

Tech data breach

Meta AI Now Uses Your Data for Personalized Responses: Privacy Concerns?

2025-01-27

Meta AI Now Uses Your Data for Personalized Responses: Privacy Concerns?

Meta AI has received an upgrade, leveraging Facebook and Instagram data to personalize responses. The AI can now remember past conversation details and tailor recommendations based on user preferences, such as dietary restrictions. For example, it could create personalized bedtime stories based on Facebook profile information and Instagram browsing history. While Meta claims users can delete memories, the update raises privacy concerns, especially given the generally low level of trust in Meta's data handling.

(techcrunch.com)

AI

Open Source Firmware: Necessity and Strategic Choices

2024-12-17

This article explores the necessity of open-source firmware. The author argues that firmware, as software controlling hardware, should adhere to free software principles. This is not only about freedom itself but also directly related to users' practical interests. Non-free firmware can restrict hardware functionality, hide security vulnerabilities, and even prevent users from fixing security issues. The article analyzes two viewpoints: one considers open-source firmware desirable but not necessary; the other advocates that all system software should be open-source. The author leans towards the former, believing that prioritizing the freedom of the operating system kernel is more important, but simultaneously emphasizes the benefits of open-source firmware and discusses how to promote it through strategic means.

(mjg59.dreamwidth.org)

Development firmware free software

Annotated KAN: A Deep Dive into Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks

2025-05-22

Annotated KAN: A Deep Dive into Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks

This post provides a comprehensive explanation of the architecture and training process of Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks (KANs), an alternative to Multi-Layer Perceptrons (MLPs). KANs parameterize activation functions by re-wiring the 'multiplication' in an MLP's weight matrix-vector multiplication into function application. The article details KAN's functionality, including a minimal KAN architecture, B-spline optimizations, regularization techniques, with code examples and visualization results. Applications of KANs, such as on the MNIST dataset, and future research directions like improving KAN efficiency are also explored.

(alexzhang13.github.io)

AI Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks

Breaking the Browser Engine Duopoly: A WASM-Only Approach

2025-02-28

The current web browser market is dominated by a few powerful engine vendors, making it nearly impossible for new browsers to compete. This article proposes a radical solution: a browser that runs only WebAssembly (WASM) modules, discarding complex web standards. This simplification would facilitate browser development, foster innovation, and enable users to easily customize browser features like native RSS, IPFS, or GPIO access. While sacrificing existing web standards compatibility, this approach might be the key to breaking the duopoly and creating a more diverse browser landscape.

(joeyh.name)

Development

Building a Personal Brand Like Bryan Johnson's 'Don't Die' Movement

2025-02-18

Bryan Johnson's 'Don't Die' lifestyle, featuring a daily regimen of 100 pills, has catapulted him to internet fame. This article dissects his branding success, highlighting five key elements: standing out with a unique and provocative mission ('Don't Die'), a catchy slogan easily adaptable to various media, appealing to a niche audience deeply invested in longevity, choosing a clear enemy (unhealthy food companies), and riding current trends (the growing health and wellness movement). Johnson's massive social media following (millions across platforms) demonstrates the power of this approach.

(www.petecodes.io)

Startup personal branding marketing strategy influencer marketing

Open-Source WebGPU Ray Tracer: Real-time Rendering from glTF Scenes

2024-12-26

Open-Source WebGPU Ray Tracer: Real-time Rendering from glTF Scenes

The open-source project webgpu-raytracer is a software ray tracing engine built using the WebGPU API. It supports glTF scene files and renders materials with albedo, normal, and material maps. The engine utilizes BVH for accelerated ray-scene intersections and employs multiple importance sampling for efficiency. Currently, it supports environment maps and allows camera control via keyboard and mouse, but refraction is not yet supported.

(github.com)

Development Ray Tracing

Ellison: AI-Powered Surveillance Will Keep Citizens in Line

2025-01-25

Ellison: AI-Powered Surveillance Will Keep Citizens in Line

Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison envisions a future where AI powers a massive surveillance system, constantly monitoring citizens to ensure "good behavior." This system would analyze data from various sources, including police body cameras, security cameras, and even doorbell cameras. Ellison also predicts AI drones replacing police cars in high-speed chases. While highlighting potential improvements in policing, his comments raise significant concerns about privacy and the potential for societal control.

(www.businessinsider.com)

Tech AI Surveillance Privacy Concerns Ellison

Developers in the Age of Reasoning AI: Master or Puppet?

2024-12-23

Developers in the Age of Reasoning AI: Master or Puppet?

OpenAI's o3 launch has sparked an identity crisis among developers. o3's ability to generate algorithms like a human developer challenges the traditional developer advantage of abstract logic. The article explores how users, machine learning, and o3 create logic, concluding that o3 mirrors a developer's thought process. The future presents developers with two paths: actively reviewing and refining AI-generated code (proactive), or delegating business problems directly to AI tools (passive). The author advocates for the proactive approach, emphasizing the need for developers to understand and take responsibility for AI-generated logic, lest human reason be superseded by AI.

(near.tl)

Development Developers o3 Model

DHS OIG Audits TSA's Airport Facial Recognition

2025-02-04

DHS OIG Audits TSA's Airport Facial Recognition

Following concerns from lawmakers and privacy advocates, the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General (DHS OIG) has launched an audit of the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) use of facial recognition technology at US airports. The audit will examine the technology's effectiveness in enhancing security while protecting passenger privacy. Despite TSA's claim of 99.7% accuracy, thousands of misidentifications could still occur daily with widespread deployment. This audit comes in response to senators' concerns about TSA's planned expansion of facial recognition, following the failure of a bill to halt it.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech

Coder's Million-Dollar Mistake: A Bug with a Dramatic Twist

2024-12-16

Coder's Million-Dollar Mistake: A Bug with a Dramatic Twist

Trey, a programmer working for a 3G telecom startup, wrote an automated payment testing program intended for small test transactions. Three bugs in the code, however, caused the program to credit his test account with $100 every five minutes. A lack of liveness check meant that when one gateway failed, the program continued running for hours, accumulating a substantial sum. The next morning, Trey faced questioning from the security team until his department head explained the situation, but the test account balance was reset to zero.

(www.theregister.com)

Development programmer error automated payments

From Notion to .txt: My Journey to Simple Productivity

2025-08-11

After years of trying various productivity apps like Notion, Todoist, and OmniFocus, the author returned to a simple todo.txt file. Complex apps, he found, became time sinks, whereas a plain text file proved far more efficient. He populates the file each night with the next day's tasks, updating it throughout the day. The system is simple, searchable, persistent, and independent of any specific app or platform. The author argues that true productivity hinges on: listing tasks, regularly checking them, and executing them—not chasing the perfect app.

(www.al3rez.com)

Development todo list text file

The CD Pipeline Manifesto: Building Better Software Delivery

2024-12-21

The CD Pipeline Manifesto: Building Better Software Delivery

Modern software teams desperately need better tools for managing their Continuous Delivery pipelines. Today's CD pipeline ecosystem is fragmented, rigid, and inefficient. This manifesto advocates for code-first, developer-friendly pipelines designed to handle the complexities of modern engineering workflows. It emphasizes a single source of truth, reusable and typesafe components, dynamic and flexible pipelines, transparent and visual debugging, and mechanisms for handling change and fast feedback loops, ultimately aiming to improve efficiency and accelerate delivery.

(manifesto.getglu.dev)

Development Continuous Delivery Pipeline

The Quest for the Perfect Pancreas Phone: A Child's Health Journey

2025-02-16

The Quest for the Perfect Pancreas Phone: A Child's Health Journey

This post details the author's journey in finding the right phone for their child, Sam, who needs continuous blood glucose monitoring. They initially used the Pixel 4a 5G for its large screen, but as Sam became more mobile, a smaller, more rugged phone was needed. For over two years, the Cubot King Kong Mini 3 served as Sam's dedicated "pancreas phone," but its discontinuation necessitates a replacement. A temporary, inexpensive Smart E25 was purchased in an emergency, highlighting its poor quality. The author seeks recommendations for a durable replacement, sharing their experience in finding the right technology for their child's healthcare needs.

(maori.geek.nz)

Misc medical device rugged phone child health

Northwestern Chemists Crack Plastic Recycling with Air and a Cheap Catalyst

2025-03-25

Northwestern Chemists Crack Plastic Recycling with Air and a Cheap Catalyst

Northwestern University chemists have developed a revolutionary method for breaking down PET plastic using only a cheap, non-toxic catalyst and the ambient moisture in the air. This solvent-free process breaks PET into its monomers, which can then be recycled into new PET products or upcycled into higher-value materials. The technique offers a sustainable and cost-effective solution to the global plastic waste problem, significantly improving upon current, often energy-intensive and polluting methods.

(phys.org)

Tech catalyst

AI-Powered Romance Scams: A Growing Threat

2025-02-14

AI-Powered Romance Scams: A Growing Threat

Romance scams are evolving, leveraging AI to create fake dating profiles and personalized scripts for real-time conversations. Scammers build intimacy through 'love bombing' and portray themselves as vulnerable to gain victims' trust. They subtly request money, often citing financial difficulties, and manipulate victims into believing they're helping someone they care about. Lonely individuals are particularly vulnerable. Experts highlight the similarities between the language used by these scammers and domestic abusers, urging caution.

(www.wired.com)

Tech AI scams romance scams

Precise Decimal Fixed-Point Types in Rust: primitive_fixed_point_decimal

2025-06-20

Precise Decimal Fixed-Point Types in Rust: primitive_fixed_point_decimal

Rust's built-in floating-point types lack precision when representing decimal numbers. The `primitive_fixed_point_decimal` crate offers a solution by using integer types and a scaling factor to represent decimals accurately, guaranteeing fractional precision. It provides two types: `ConstScaleFpdec`, which specifies the scaling factor at compile time; and `OobScaleFpdec`, which allows specifying it at runtime, offering greater flexibility but increased complexity. The crate also addresses cumulative errors from multiple multiplications and divisions, providing a `cum_error` mechanism for control. In short, it's an efficient and precise Rust library for decimal fixed-point types, ideal for applications demanding high accuracy, such as financial systems.

(github.com)

Development fixed-point decimal

Zero-Knowledge Proofs Explained: A Deep Dive into the Video

2025-03-21

Zero-Knowledge Proofs Explained: A Deep Dive into the Video

The author released a video explaining zero-knowledge proofs, a complex algorithm that surprisingly requires a lot of work to explain clearly. While the video covers various aspects and applications, it acknowledges the need for more in-depth resources for a complete understanding. The post further details the reduction of satisfiability problems to 3-coloring, discussing the implications for decentralized systems like trustless voting and currency systems. Finally, it introduces non-interactive proofs, showing how cryptographic hash functions can simulate a random beacon to create them, effectively unifying recent video topics.

(vasekrozhon.wordpress.com)

AI zero-knowledge proofs

VGGT: Lightning-Fast 3D Scene Reconstruction from Images

2025-03-25

VGGT: Lightning-Fast 3D Scene Reconstruction from Images

Facebook Research introduces VGGT (Visual Geometry Grounded Transformer), a feed-forward neural network capable of inferring all key 3D attributes of a scene—extrinsic and intrinsic camera parameters, point maps, depth maps, and 3D point tracks—from one, a few, or hundreds of views in mere seconds. This user-friendly model, leveraging the power of Transformers, offers an interactive 3D visualization tool. Surprisingly, VGGT demonstrates impressive single-view reconstruction capabilities, achieving competitive results compared to state-of-the-art monocular methods, despite not being explicitly trained for this task.

(github.com)

AI

US, UK, and Australia Sanction Russian 'Bulletproof Hosting' Provider Zservers

2025-02-11

US, UK, and Australia Sanction Russian 'Bulletproof Hosting' Provider Zservers

The US, UK, and Australia have jointly sanctioned Zservers, a Russian 'bulletproof hosting' provider, and several individuals linked to it. Zservers provided services to the LockBit ransomware operation, helping them evade law enforcement. This trilateral action aims to disrupt cybercrime and protect national security. Sanctions target Zservers, its UK subsidiary XHOST Internet Solutions, and six key individuals, two of whom are alleged Zservers administrators accused of providing services to LockBit and other ransomware groups, and managing related cryptocurrency transactions.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech

A Song of Ice and Fire Author Co-Authors Physics Paper

2025-01-23

A Song of Ice and Fire Author Co-Authors Physics Paper

George R.R. Martin, author of *A Song of Ice and Fire*, has co-authored a physics paper with a physicist from Los Alamos National Laboratory. The paper models the fictional virus from Martin's *Wild Cards* series, explaining the distribution of superpowers and mutations. While not a perfect representation, the model offers a unique pedagogical exercise, demonstrating how seemingly intractable problems can be transformed into analyzable dynamic systems for physics education.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech Science Fiction George R.R. Martin

How Browsers Interpret 'chucknorris' as a Color

2024-12-20

How Browsers Interpret 'chucknorris' as a Color

This article explores how browsers handle invalid color values in HTML, such as interpreting 'chucknorris' as red. The author explains the browser's tolerance in parsing HTML, attempting to convert invalid values into valid ones. The process of how browsers parse invalid color values is described, with a CodePen link provided demonstrating the process. The author argues that this browser tolerance is a charm of the web, allowing even invalid code to run, showcasing the web's resilience.

(htmhell.dev)

Development HTML parsing color values browser tolerance

Running Python and Pygame on a $30 Handheld Linux PC

2025-02-01

This post details how the author installed Debian and ran Python and Pygame on the ~$30 Miyoo A30 handheld. After flashing spruceOS, a Debian chroot environment with Python 3, Pygame, and necessary libraries was created using debootstrap. To solve graphics and input driver issues, essential libraries were copied from spruceOS into the chroot. Finally, a script was written to add a Pygame game to the spruceOS interface, successfully running a custom game on the Miyoo A30. While a 90-degree screen rotation issue remains, this post provides a complete guide to running complex programs on a low-cost handheld.

(www.jtolio.com)

Development

Whittaker's Keynote at NDSS 2024: AI, Encryption, and a New Era of Threats

2024-12-18

Whittaker's Keynote at NDSS 2024: AI, Encryption, and a New Era of Threats

At the 2024 NDSS Symposium, Meredith Whittaker, president of the Signal Foundation, delivered a keynote address reflecting on the 'Crypto Wars' of the 90s. She highlighted how political, technical, and commercial pressures have shaped today's encryption landscape. Whittaker warned against viewing the current situation as simply 'Crypto Wars 2.0,' arguing that an economic engine driven by personal data, surveillance technology, and AI/ML poses a fundamentally different threat than the government-dominated encryption landscape of the 90s. She stressed the need for a new approach, with NDSS research at the forefront of this response.

(www.ndss-symposium.org)

AI Encryption

Rust Adopts Ferrocene Language Specification

2025-03-30

Rust's lack of an official specification has hindered its adoption in safety-conscious organizations. The Rust project now announces its adoption of the Ferrocene Language Specification (FLS), developed by Ferrous Systems, as a core project component. This move aims to remove a significant barrier to using Rust in safety-critical systems.

(lwn.net)

Development Safety-Critical Systems

Luxe: A Cross-Platform Game Engine for Rapid Development

2025-06-13

Luxe: A Cross-Platform Game Engine for Rapid Development

Luxe is a cross-platform, rapid development game engine for Mac, Linux, Windows, and Web, with console support in development. Easy to learn, it prioritizes a streamlined workflow for quickly expressing game ideas, focusing initially on 2D but also supporting powerful 3D rendering through a hardware-driven renderer. Written in C++, Luxe games are typically developed using a custom version of the Wren language, with plans for broader language support. Its modular design, fluid workflow, and human-centered approach make it ideal for solo developers and teams alike. A preview version is currently available, backed by comprehensive documentation and a supportive community.

(luxeengine.com)

Game

Finley Technologies Hiring Growth Associate to Fuel Fintech Expansion

2024-12-22

Finley Technologies Hiring Growth Associate to Fuel Fintech Expansion

Finley Technologies, a Y Combinator and Bain Capital Ventures-backed fintech startup, is seeking a Growth Associate. This role focuses on the credit fund segment and requires 2-3 years of finance experience, strategic thinking, entrepreneurial spirit, and strong communication skills. The successful candidate will help shape go-to-market strategy, product roadmap, and more, collaborating with a team to drive company growth.

(jobs.lever.co)

Startup Growth Associate

Writing C Code in Prolog: The C Plus Prolog Project

2025-03-13

Writing C Code in Prolog: The C Plus Prolog Project

The C Plus Prolog project attempts to merge Prolog and C. It leverages non-standard features of SWI-Prolog to translate Prolog code into C. The project uses Prolog's metaprogramming capabilities to implement advanced features like macros and generics. While verbose and error-prone, it explores the possibilities of macros in a systems programming language and demonstrates Prolog's potential for code generation. Despite its quirks, it offers a unique approach to cross-platform C development leveraging Prolog's capabilities.

(github.com)

Development

Enter Middle-earth: The Two Towers MUD

2025-07-08

March 15, 3019 Third Age. Sauron wages war on the Free Peoples of Middle-earth. The battle rages on the Pelennor Fields, at the gates of Minas Tirith. Lothlórien, Thranduil's Kingdom, Dale, and Erebor are under siege. Join the fight in The Two Towers MUD, a free, text-based MMORPG set in Tolkien's world. Explore over 100,000 rooms, complete hundreds of quests, and join a thriving global community. Running continuously since 1994, this long-standing game is maintained by dedicated volunteers. Choose your side and enter the epic struggle!

(t2tmud.org)

Game

Leeches: An Ancient Remedy's Modern Comeback?

2025-08-18

Leeches: An Ancient Remedy's Modern Comeback?

Hirudotherapy, the use of leeches in medicine, is experiencing a resurgence. This article delves into the history of leech therapy, from ancient Chinese medicine to its modern applications in reconstructive surgery. Leeches' saliva contains bioactive compounds like hirudin, possessing anticoagulant and anti-inflammatory properties. Despite a lack of large-scale clinical trials, leech therapy shows promise in certain contexts, such as improving blood flow in reconstructive surgery. However, infection risks and limited funding hinder further development.

(press.asimov.com)

Tech hirudotherapy traditional medicine anticoagulant

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