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Adaptable Text Editor 'ad': Blending Vim and Acme

2024-12-18

Adaptable Text Editor 'ad': Blending Vim and Acme

ad is a novel text editor that combines the modal editing interface of Vim and Kakoune with the extensibility approach of Plan9's Acme. ad allows users to execute text and serves as a playground for experimenting with implementing various text editor features. Currently, ad is stable enough and feature-complete enough to try out, though documentation is sparse and bugs may exist. ad's design philosophy blends Vim's modal editing, Emacs's mini-buffer, and Acme's editing commands and extensibility, aiming for a comfortable editing environment that supports direct interaction with external tools and programs.

(github.com)

Development text editor modal editing extensibility

Thailand Cuts Power and Internet to Myanmar Scam Centers

2025-02-23

Thailand Cuts Power and Internet to Myanmar Scam Centers

Thailand cut electricity, oil, and internet access to five locations in Myanmar suspected of harboring large-scale Chinese-run call center scams, citing security concerns. These scams cost Thailand over 80 million baht daily, totaling 86 billion baht. While concerns exist regarding potential retaliation from Myanmar, particularly concerning natural gas supplies, Thailand prioritized national security. This action precedes the Thai Prime Minister's visit to China, where transnational crime is expected to be a key discussion point.

(bangkoklocal.info)

Tech telecom fraud Myanmar

llama.cpp Integrates Qwen2VL Multimodal Model

2024-12-15

llama.cpp Integrates Qwen2VL Multimodal Model

The llama.cpp project on GitHub recently merged a pull request adding support for the Qwen2VL multimodal large language model. This model combines a large language model with a vision encoder, enabling processing of both images and text. Integration involves converting the model's LLM part and vision encoder into GGUF format and using a new command-line tool for inference. Future work includes adding support for more backends like MPS and Vulkan.

(github.com)

AI multimodal

Undersea Power Cable Linking Finland and Estonia Damaged

2024-12-26

Undersea Power Cable Linking Finland and Estonia Damaged

An undersea power cable connecting Finland and Estonia, Estlink 2, suffered an outage on December 25th. Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo confirmed the incident and stated that the possibility of sabotage cannot be ruled out. Fingrid, Finland's national electricity transmission grid operator, assured the public that Finland has sufficient power reserves. Estonian authorities also reported adequate capacity to meet their energy needs. This incident is the latest in a series of damaging events targeting undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, raising concerns about the security of critical infrastructure in the region.

(www.euronews.com)

Tech Undersea Cable Baltic Sea Infrastructure Damage

Marshall Amplification Acquired by HSG in a €1.1 Billion Deal

2025-01-24

Marshall Amplification Acquired by HSG in a €1.1 Billion Deal

Funds managed by HSG have acquired a majority stake in Marshall Amplification, the iconic British audio brand, in a deal valuing the company at €1.1 billion. The Marshall family retains a significant minority stake, and will work with HSG to further expand the brand's global reach. HSG plans to leverage its expertise in digital channels and supply chain optimization to boost Marshall's growth. This acquisition follows a period of strong growth for Marshall, with revenue more than doubling between 2020 and 2024, reaching approximately €400 million.

(news.cision.com)

Tech

CERN's Open Source Treasure Hunt: Quantifying the Impact of a Scientific Giant

2025-02-06

CERN, a powerhouse of scientific discovery, has a long history of open-source contributions. But how to measure its impact? CERN's Open Source Program Office (OSPO) has partnered with Software Heritage (SWH) to embark on a 12-month project. Using SWH's vast archive, they aim to track CERN-related software projects, analyze their evolution, and quantify their influence on the global open-source community. This research will not only illuminate CERN's open-source legacy but also provide a methodology for other organizations to measure their own contributions, offering valuable insights into the role of open source in scientific and technological advancement.

(opensource.web.cern.ch)

Tech Software Heritage

Real-Time Location with Ultra-Wideband (UWB): A Python-Driven Test Framework

2025-01-17

Real-Time Location with Ultra-Wideband (UWB): A Python-Driven Test Framework

This article presents a Python test framework for a Real-Time Location System (RTLS) based on Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology. The author uses Decawave DW1000 modules and Raspberry Pis, implementing two-way ranging with custom Python code and testing system accuracy and stability. The article details the Asymmetric Two-Way Ranging technique and discusses hardware selection, software architecture, and potential problems such as power supply, interrupt handling, and RF performance. Test results show that the system offers high accuracy and stability under good line-of-sight conditions and maintains a degree of accuracy even with obstacles.

(iosoft.blog)

Hardware Real-time Location

Implementing a Pseudorandom Number Generator with XORSHIFT32

2025-01-04

This devlog details the implementation of a pseudorandom number generator (PRNG) using the XORSHIFT32 algorithm. The author uses 1804289383 as the initial state, a number previously used in other engine implementations. The implementation is straightforward, involving bit shifts on the initial state. The code defines the initial state and includes a `getRandomNumber()` function that performs the XORSHIFT32 algorithm.

(www.strydr.net)

Development pseudorandom number generator algorithm implementation

SF Startup Seeking Full-Stack Data Engineer

2025-03-30

SF Startup Seeking Full-Stack Data Engineer

A San Francisco-based startup is hiring a full-stack engineer to join its agile engineering team. Responsibilities include creating and managing data collection scripts (from basic HTTP requests to browser and mobile app automation), building and maintaining automation/scheduling tools, creating data cleaning and normalization scripts (with opportunities to integrate ML/LLMs), designing data analytics dashboards and tools, and assisting with DevOps tasks. Candidates should be proficient in Python, SQL, and Unix, enjoy working on diverse projects concurrently, and be able to execute independently. Bonus skills include web crawling, Docker, Kubernetes, full-stack web development, mobile app development, and a statistics background. Benefits include lunch, unlimited PTO, 401k, platinum PPO health insurance, and a salary of $100K-$150K plus 0.25%-1% equity.

(www.ycombinator.com)

Development

Python vs. Go: A Tale of Two Web Servers and Astronomical Resource Differences

2025-03-08

Python vs. Go: A Tale of Two Web Servers and Astronomical Resource Differences

This article compares a simple FastAPI (Python) and Go web server, highlighting Python's excessive resource consumption in production. The Python Docker image is significantly larger than the Go equivalent, requiring orders of magnitude more RAM. This leads to higher server costs and operational complexities. Further, Python code maintenance and upgrades present challenges, such as GIL limitations, exception handling, and package dependency upgrades. The author uses personal experience and industry examples to illustrate the impact of language choice on project costs and engineering efficiency, suggesting Go or similar lightweight languages for resource-constrained or performance-critical applications.

(ashishb.net)

Development Performance Comparison

Idris Gains Binding Application: A New Language Feature

2025-07-14

Idris is getting a new feature called "binding application," a syntactic sugar that streamlines writing dependent pairs and other type constructions in dependent type programming. This avoids reliance on special compiler magic, making the power available to all developers. The post details its use in Sigma types, Exists types, Subset types, Ornaments, ForAll, ForSome, and even for-loops, showcasing how it improves code readability and efficiency, making dependent type programming in Idris more concise and intuitive.

(andrevidela.com)

Development Language Feature

MapTCHA: A Novel CAPTCHA Leveraging AI Uncertainty to Combat Bots

2025-02-13

Traditional CAPTCHAs leak user data and are costly to maintain. This paper introduces MapTCHA, a novel CAPTCHA that leverages the uncertainty of AI-powered computer vision in image interpretation to combat bots and spam. MapTCHA presents users with a mix of images containing AI-predicted objects (known positives, known negatives, and unknowns), asking them to identify correctly interpreted building outlines and other objects. User votes determine the truth of unknown images, providing new data sources for OpenStreetMap. The system uses the open-source AI-assisted mapping system fAIr for image recognition. Future plans include expanding to more objects and image types and integrating MapTCHA into various login systems.

(fosdem.org)

Development

AI Makes Strides in Mathematics: OpenAI's o3 Model Achieves Remarkable Score on FrontierMath Dataset

2024-12-23

AI Makes Strides in Mathematics: OpenAI's o3 Model Achieves Remarkable Score on FrontierMath Dataset

OpenAI's new language model, o3, achieved a 25% accuracy rate on the FrontierMath dataset, sparking a debate within the mathematics community about AI's mathematical capabilities. FrontierMath is a secret dataset containing hundreds of complex mathematical problems that require calculating specific numerical values rather than simply proving theorems. o3's performance is surprising, as it surpasses the previous limitations of AI, which could only solve problems at the level of math olympiads or undergraduate studies. While the dataset's difficulty and sample representativeness remain debated, this achievement marks significant progress for AI in mathematics, prompting reflections on AI's future development and the direction of mathematical research.

(xenaproject.wordpress.com)

AI

London Police Storm Quaker Meeting House, Arresting Climate Activists

2025-03-30

London Police Storm Quaker Meeting House, Arresting Climate Activists

Over 20 Metropolitan Police officers forcibly entered a Quaker meeting house, arresting six women who were discussing climate change and Gaza. This is believed to be the first time in the history of the pacifist Quakers that police have breached one of their places of worship. The women, attending a welcome meeting for a non-violent protest group, were handcuffed, their belongings confiscated, and their student accommodation subsequently raided. The police action has drawn widespread criticism.

(www.thetimes.com)

Misc climate activism Quakers

Running Linux in a PDF: A RISC-V Emulator in Your Browser

2025-01-31

Running Linux in a PDF: A RISC-V Emulator in Your Browser

Developer @ading2210 has achieved the remarkable feat of running a Linux system inside a PDF file. Leveraging the Javascript engine within PDFs and an asm.js compiled version of the TinyEMU RISC-V emulator, a functional Linux environment is created. Output is displayed using ASCII characters, and input is managed through a virtual keyboard. While boot times are slow (30-60 seconds), the project showcases the surprising capabilities of the PDF format. The code is open-source and supports both 32-bit and 64-bit systems.

(github.com)

Development

AI Addiction: A Growing Concern and the 12-Step Solution

2025-07-11

The rise of AI technologies has brought about a new form of digital addiction: AI addiction. This article introduces Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous (ITAA), a 12-step fellowship supporting recovery from internet and technology addiction, including AI-related issues. It details symptoms, effects, and recovery strategies, offering a self-assessment questionnaire to help identify potential AI addiction. ITAA provides free, anonymous online and in-person meetings, encouraging members to recover through mutual support, abstinence, and seeking professional help when needed. The article emphasizes the serious impact of AI addiction, mirroring the effects of substance abuse on the brain and overall well-being.

(internetaddictsanonymous.org)

AI AI addiction

Fun with Timing Attacks: Exploiting Subtle Timing Differences to Crack Passwords

2025-01-18

This article unveils a clever attack technique known as a timing attack. By repeatedly calling a seemingly secure function, `checkSecret`, and precisely measuring its execution time, an attacker can infer the secret value. Even if `checkSecret` has no obvious vulnerabilities, its internal 'early exit' mechanism causes partially matching guesses to take longer, leaking information. The article details how to exploit this timing difference, combining Thompson Sampling and a Trie data structure to efficiently guess passwords, and discusses handling the complexities of network noise. Ultimately, the article stresses the importance of avoiding direct comparison of sensitive data, recommending the use of hashes or other secure algorithms, and implementing robust rate limits.

(ostro.ws)

Tech timing attack password cracking

83% Latency Reduction with Obscure Linux Process Flags

2025-03-06

83% Latency Reduction with Obscure Linux Process Flags

An engineer optimizing Recall.ai's Output Media encountered a perplexing issue: random Chromium process termination within a sandboxed environment. Deep debugging revealed the root cause: Linux kernel's prctl(PR_SET_PDEATHSIG, SIGKILL), which tracks parent threads, not processes. Tokio's thread management interacted unexpectedly, causing parent thread reaping and triggering SIGKILL, terminating the child process. Removing Bubblewrap's --die-with-parent flag resolved the issue, resulting in an 83% latency reduction.

(www.recall.ai)

Development process latency optimization

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

Graphite: Your Open-Source 2D Creative Powerhouse

2025-03-09

Graphite: Your Open-Source 2D Creative Powerhouse

Graphite is a free and open-source vector and raster graphics engine currently in alpha. It boasts a fully nondestructive workflow combining layer-based compositing with node-based generative design. Evolving beyond a simple vector editor, Graphite's game-engine-like architecture offers a comprehensive toolbox for photo editing, motion graphics, digital painting, desktop publishing, and VFX compositing. Graphics programmers and Rust developers are encouraged to contribute, and donations are welcome to support its continued development. Graphite aims to become an industry-standard art and design tool, empowering creators of all levels.

(github.com)

Development graphics engine 2D creation

BZip3: A Superior Successor to BZip2

2025-02-01

BZip3: A Superior Successor to BZip2

BZip3 is a faster and more efficient successor to BZip2, boasting higher compression ratios and improved performance. This is achieved through an order-0 context mixing entropy coder, a fast Burrows-Wheeler transform utilizing suffix arrays, and an RLE with Lempel Ziv+Prediction pass based on LZ77-style string matching and PPM-style context modeling. Benchmarks comparing it against other compression algorithms, including tests on a massive archive of Perl source code, demonstrate its significant advantages. BZip3's performance is highly dependent on the compiler, with x64 Linux clang13 builds showing impressive speeds. The project is licensed under LGPLv3.

(github.com)

Development

LLMs and the Limits of Automated Code Optimization

2025-01-07

LLMs and the Limits of Automated Code Optimization

David Andersen experimented with using Large Language Models (LLMs) to optimize code that finds the difference between the smallest and largest numbers whose digits sum to 30 in a list of a million random integers. Initial Python and Rust code ran slowly. While the LLM improved parts, such as the digit summing function, it missed a crucial optimization: checking if a number is relevant *before* the expensive digit sum calculation. Manual intervention, involving a faster random number generator, parallelization, and preprocessing, sped up the Rust code by a factor of 55. This highlights LLMs' limitations in code optimization, particularly for complex problems demanding deep algorithmic understanding and parallelization strategies. Human ingenuity remains crucial.

(wiredream.com)

Development Performance

Enhancing Bash and Zsh Tab Completion: Showing Descriptions for Complete Words

2025-08-10

This article details an improvement to Bash and Zsh tab completion, allowing it to display descriptions even for already completed words. Previously, tab completion only showed descriptions when multiple options matched, making it inconvenient for users to see descriptions of single commands. The author cleverly solves this by adding 'dummy' completion options, enabling users to see descriptions with a single tab press. This significantly improves user experience, despite a minor UI imperfection of word duplication.

(mill-build.org)

Development Tab Completion

Clojure Accounting: Evolving from Script to Interactive Web App

2025-03-08

The author initially used a Clojure script for accounting, but as the number of transactions grew, maintenance and sharing became difficult. A simple script is easy to write but provides a poor user experience, while a complex web application offers a good experience but is expensive to develop. The author cleverly combined Clojure's features with a simple web application framework to create an interactive accounting system similar to a notebook. This system allows users to write Clojure code, view results in real-time, and modify accounting rules and data via simple UI elements. It also supports data persistence, version control, and collaborative editing, effectively addressing the shortcomings of the original script and improving user experience and efficiency.

(www.scattered-thoughts.net)

Development

Cosmic Rays and AI Revolutionize Bridge Inspection

2025-03-19

Cosmic Rays and AI Revolutionize Bridge Inspection

A groundbreaking test in Jõgisoo, Estonia utilized cosmic rays (muons) and AI to assess the technical condition of a bridge without destructive testing. This nearly €1.3 million research project analyzes muon trajectories and energy loss to determine internal material composition and corrosion, offering more efficient bridge maintenance solutions and avoiding costly reconstruction. The technology holds potential for airport security and even as a future alternative to X-ray imaging.

(news.err.ee)

Tech Bridge Inspection

Conquering Left Recursion: Fixing a C++ Demangler's Grammar

2025-02-02

This article details the author's journey in resolving left recursion and mutual left recursion issues within a context-free grammar (CFG) while rewriting RizinOrg's C++ demangler, rz-libdemangle. It begins by explaining the concepts of left recursion and mutual left recursion, demonstrating with simple examples and state diagrams how to transform left-recursive grammars into right-recursive ones to prevent infinite recursion. The author then shares a real-world problem encountered in the Itanium ABI demangler, showcasing a complex grammar with left and mutual left recursion, and how they used macros and clever grammar transformations to solve these issues, ultimately preventing stack overflow errors.

(brightprogrammer.in)

Development left recursion

My Failed Attempt to Ditch Google Calendar for Proton

2025-01-15

My Failed Attempt to Ditch Google Calendar for Proton

The author attempted to migrate from Google Calendar to Proton as part of a larger effort to de-Google their digital life. While browser, email, and drive migrations were successful, the calendar proved a significant hurdle. Proton Calendar's 'Easy Switch' feature, while seemingly simple, only allowed read-only calendar exports, preventing edits from other apps like the iPhone's default calendar. Attempts to sync via iCalendar also failed due to the inability to export a private work calendar link. Ultimately, the author returned to Google, reflecting on the lack of standardization in cross-platform calendar sharing.

(shilin.ca)

Misc Calendar Sync

Chess Champ Auctions Controversial Jeans for Charity: #JeansGate Continues

2025-03-01

Chess Champ Auctions Controversial Jeans for Charity: #JeansGate Continues

Magnus Carlsen, the world's top chess player, is auctioning off the Italian Corneliani jeans that caused a dress code controversy at the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships. After being fined and withdrawing from the New York tournament, Carlsen is donating the proceeds from the eBay auction (currently at $8,200) to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. The auction ends March 1st. The charity will use the funds to expand youth mentorship programs, including chess clinics and community events.

(apnews.com)

Misc Carlsen Charity Auction JeansGate

Building a French Restaurant Network Graph with LLMs

2025-03-03

This project uses LeFooding.com's French restaurant reviews to build a network graph of French restaurants and their staff. By leveraging OpenAI's gpt4o-mini model and structured generation techniques, the author extracts information about restaurant staff and their career paths from reviews, resulting in a graph with over 5000 nodes and edges. The project highlights the power of LLMs in extracting structured information and explores the pros and cons of using different LLMs, including cost optimization. The final result is a visual network graph showing connections between French restaurants and staff career progression.

(theophilecantelob.re)

Development Graph Construction Data Mining

Spline Distance Fields: A Novel Terrain Generation Technique

2025-01-06

To overcome limitations in the Tangerine game engine, the author developed a CPU ray tracer called Star Machine and a racing game prototype, Rainy Road. Rainy Road requires an efficient and compact terrain rendering system capable of handling roads and other terrain features defined by splines. The author introduces a novel terrain generation technique using spline distance fields. This technique utilizes splines to generate terrain surfaces by calculating the distance of a point to the nearest spline and its normal vector to determine elevation. This avoids the limitations of traditional heightmaps and supports procedural object placement. The technique is under active experimentation and research, with exploration of improved interpolation strategies and the use of sparse point clouds.

(zone.dog)

Development terrain generation spline curves

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