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Record Seizure of Viagra-Laced ‘Erectile Honey’ in France

2025-01-20
Record Seizure of Viagra-Laced ‘Erectile Honey’ in France

French customs officials announced a record seizure of illegally imported "erectile honey" laced with Viagra and other medications in 2024. The honey, primarily sourced from Turkey, North Africa, and Southeast Asia, is sold on the black market and in night shops as a natural sexual stimulant. However, it often contains hidden pharmaceuticals like sildenafil or tadalafil, the active ingredients in Viagra and Cialis, which can be dangerous when interacting with other medications, such as those for high blood pressure. A single seizure in Marseille last November confiscated 13 tons from Malaysia. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also issued warnings in 2021 and 2022 about honey-based supplements promising "sexual enhancement."

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(www.politico.eu)
Misc smuggling Viagra

Post-WWII Highways: Debunking Myths and Unveiling the Truth

2024-12-17
Post-WWII Highways: Debunking Myths and Unveiling the Truth

This article explores key events and misconceptions surrounding the development of highways after World War II. It clarifies that Germany's Autobahn was not initially designed for military purposes, but rather to stimulate the economy and enhance national prestige. While Allied forces utilized the Autobahn in the later stages of WWII, this wasn't its original intent. The article debunks the myth that the US Interstate system was designed with one mile in five being straight and level for emergency bomber landings, explaining its true purpose was civilian benefit and economic development, although it also served military needs, such as troop movement and industrial production. Finally, the article reviews post-WWII attempts and exercises by various militaries to utilize highways as emergency runways for aircraft, highlighting their limitations and ultimate replacement by dedicated airfields.

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(wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com)
Tech highways WWII

Firefly Aerospace's Moon Shot: A Private Sector Gamble

2025-03-02
Firefly Aerospace's Moon Shot: A Private Sector Gamble

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander is poised to attempt a moon landing, marking another milestone in the private sector's push for lunar exploration. The mission faces significant challenges; roughly half of all lunar landing attempts have failed. However, Firefly is confident in its in-house developed propulsion systems. A successful landing will see Blue Ghost conduct scientific experiments, capture stunning high-definition images, and potentially witness the lunar horizon glow – a phenomenon last observed by Apollo astronauts. This mission is a critical step in furthering lunar exploration and paving the way for NASA's Artemis program.

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(www.cnn.com)
Tech lunar exploration private space

Backup: Beyond a Simple Copy

2025-07-20
Backup: Beyond a Simple Copy

The importance of data backup is often underestimated. This article, based on the author's experiences, recounts various data loss scenarios, emphasizing that backup is more than just a simple copy; it requires a comprehensive plan and strategy. It explores the pros and cons of full disk versus individual file backups and the crucial role of snapshots in ensuring data consistency. The author also shares their preference for a centralized backup server architecture and guiding principles for an efficient backup system, previewing subsequent articles detailing their FreeBSD-powered backup server setup.

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(it-notes.dragas.net)
Development

VMware's Aggressive Licensing Changes Spark Exodus of SMBs

2025-03-24
VMware's Aggressive Licensing Changes Spark Exodus of SMBs

VMware's new licensing policy, mandating a minimum purchase of 72 CPU cores for renewals and new licenses, has angered small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). This forces even companies needing far fewer cores to overspend, coupled with a 20% penalty for late renewals. This move is seen as VMware abandoning loyal customers in favor of large enterprises. As a result, many IT admins and infrastructure managers are migrating to open-source alternatives like Proxmox, seeking more flexible and cost-effective virtualization. VMware's strategy shift may have profound long-term consequences.

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(systemadministration.net)
Tech Licensing Open-Source Alternatives

37signals Ditches Docker Hub and ECR for Self-Hosted Harbor Registry

2025-08-31
37signals Ditches Docker Hub and ECR for Self-Hosted Harbor Registry

37signals, the creators of Basecamp and HEY, migrated from external container registries like Docker Hub and Amazon ECR to a self-hosted Harbor registry. Driven by cost concerns (bandwidth overages and subscription fees), performance issues (slow pull times impacting deployments), security risks, and a desire for greater independence, they chose Harbor for its ease of setup, rich feature set, and open-source nature. The article details their single-server deployment outside Kubernetes, S3 storage configuration, multi-instance setup, replication strategy, and the process of migrating images from Docker Hub. The result? Significant cost savings (around $5k/year), improved performance (15-second deployment reduction, 25-second image pull reduction), and enhanced security.

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(dev.37signals.com)
Development container registry

PixiEditor 2.0: A Universal 2D Editor, Free and Open Source

2025-08-03
PixiEditor 2.0: A Universal 2D Editor, Free and Open Source

PixiEditor 2.0 transcends its pixel-art roots, evolving into a powerful universal 2D editor supporting raster, vector, animation, and procedural effects. Its core is a configurable render pipeline and node graph, giving unprecedented control and enabling the creation of even 3D texturing workspaces. The software remains free and open-source, sustained by paid extensions and asset packs. Version 2.0 introduces frame-by-frame animation, vector editing tools, and various workspaces like a card builder and 3D cube texturing tool, along with multiple palettes. While hardware requirements are slightly higher, the developers are committed to improving support for a wider range of configurations.

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(pixieditor.net)
Development 2D Editor

GATE: An Integrated Assessment Model of AI's Economic Impact

2025-03-30
GATE: An Integrated Assessment Model of AI's Economic Impact

Epoch AI presents GATE, an integrated assessment model exploring AI's economic impact. The model centers on an automation feedback loop: investment fuels computational power, leading to more capable AI systems automating tasks, boosting output, and further fueling AI development. An interactive playground lets users tweak parameters and observe model behavior under various scenarios. Predictions aren't Epoch AI's forecasts but conditional, based on assumptions, primarily useful for analyzing the qualitative dynamics of AI automation.

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(epoch.ai)
AI

Man Arrested for Stealing and Sharing Pre-Release Blockbusters, Causing Tens of Millions in Losses

2025-03-08
Man Arrested for Stealing and Sharing Pre-Release Blockbusters, Causing Tens of Millions in Losses

A 37-year-old Tennessee man was arrested for stealing pre-release Blu-rays and DVDs from a major movie studio distribution company and sharing them online. Working at the company, he allegedly stole numerous films between February 2021 and March 2022, bypassed encryption, and shared the movies online, also selling the physical discs. Charged with copyright infringement and transportation of stolen goods, he faces up to 15 years in prison. The illegal sharing of *Spider-Man: No Way Home* alone resulted in tens of millions of downloads and an estimated loss of tens of millions of dollars.

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(arstechnica.com)
Tech movie theft

Dynamic Programming: It's Not What You Think

2025-07-21

The term "dynamic programming" in algorithm studies often causes confusion. 'Dynamic' doesn't refer to its changeability, but rather to the planning aspect of 'programming', originating from the 1950s when engineers planned construction projects as 'process scheduling'. In computer science, dynamic programming means planning the order of sub-steps required to solve a problem. For example, computing the Fibonacci sequence, the 'program' is the sequence of steps to calculate fib(2) to fib(10) in dependency order. This can be planned top-down or bottom-up; the final plan is the same, and both are considered dynamic programming. Richard Bellman coined the term to avoid a Secretary of Defense's aversion to 'mathematical research', cleverly choosing 'dynamic programming' because the adjective 'dynamic' cannot be used pejoratively.

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(www.vidarholen.net)
Development

The Hidden Engineering of Wildlife Crossings

2024-12-21
The Hidden Engineering of Wildlife Crossings

The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, a $92 million project near Los Angeles, is the world's largest wildlife crossing of its kind. This article delves into the engineering behind these vital structures, addressing the challenges of habitat fragmentation, noise pollution, and wildlife-vehicle collisions caused by roads. It explores various design aspects, including site selection, crossing types (underpasses, overpasses, culverts), fencing strategies, and attracting animals to use the crossings. The article highlights the different crossing behaviors of various species and corresponding engineering solutions, such as elevated bridges for large animals and culverts for smaller ones. Design considerations include animal behavior, topography, vegetation, and ensuring the crossings blend seamlessly into the landscape, minimizing human-wildlife conflict.

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(practical.engineering)
Tech Wildlife Crossings Engineering Ecology

Codecov's Mandatory AI Feature Sparks User Concerns

2025-06-17
Codecov's Mandatory AI Feature Sparks User Concerns

A new AI feature in Codecov has sparked user concern due to the lack of a disable option. Users worry about Codecov illicitly training AIs on their code or inserting infringing code without permission. They demand a permanent, clear way to disable AI functionality across all their organizations and a guarantee that AI won't be used for code coverage analysis.

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(github.com)
Development

MoonshotAI's Kimi k1.5: A Breakthrough in RL and LLMs

2025-01-21
MoonshotAI's Kimi k1.5: A Breakthrough in RL and LLMs

MoonshotAI has unveiled Kimi k1.5, a new multi-modal large language model trained with reinforcement learning, achieving state-of-the-art results across various benchmarks. Key to Kimi k1.5's success is its 128k context window and improved policy optimization, enabling strong reasoning capabilities without complex techniques like Monte Carlo tree search. It outperforms GPT-4o and Claude Sonnet 3.5 on tests like AIME, MATH-500, and Codeforces, also showing significant improvements in short-context reasoning. Kimi k1.5 will soon be available at https://kimi.ai.

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(github.com)
AI

EV Battery Degradation: Overblown Fears?

2025-08-18
EV Battery Degradation: Overblown Fears?

Concerns about short lifespan of EV batteries are widespread. This article debunks this myth, analyzing two types of battery degradation: calendar aging and cycle aging. Real-world data shows degradation is far slower than feared, especially after 20,000 miles. Studies of thousands of EVs show over 80% capacity retention even at 200,000 miles. Manufacturer warranties of 8-10 years or 100,000 miles further support this. While degradation is unavoidable, mitigating factors include avoiding extreme temperatures, charge levels, and frequent fast charging. In short, anxieties around EV battery life are largely overblown; they last far longer than many believe.

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(www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com)
Tech Battery Degradation

Savoy vs. Hollywood Swing: A Deep Dive into Style Myths

2025-01-03
Savoy vs. Hollywood Swing: A Deep Dive into Style Myths

This essay debunks common misconceptions surrounding the 'Savoy' and 'Hollywood' styles of Lindy Hop. Through meticulous analysis of vintage footage, the author reveals the diversity of styles among dancers of both regions, highlighting the influence of era, geography, and individual preferences. The article argues against simplistic labeling, emphasizing the unique qualities of each dancer and advocating for a deeper appreciation of stylistic diversity rather than rigid categorization.

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(swungover.wordpress.com)
Game Lindy Hop dance styles

TSMC Unveils Nanosheet Transistors: A New Era for Chips

2024-12-15
TSMC Unveils Nanosheet Transistors: A New Era for Chips

TSMC showcased its next-generation N2 (2-nanometer) process at the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, marking its first foray into nanosheet transistors. Compared to its N3 process, N2 boasts up to a 15 percent speed increase, 30 percent better energy efficiency, and a 15 percent density boost. This new architecture offers greater flexibility, allowing for the creation of nanosheets with varying widths on the same chip, optimizing performance for different logic units, especially SRAM. Intel's research further validated the scalability of nanosheet architecture, demonstrating a high-performing 6-nanometer gate-length transistor, pointing the way towards continued advancement in chip technology and suggesting a potential extension of Moore's Law.

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(spectrum.ieee.org)
Hardware TSMC Nanosheet Transistors 2nm Process

Designing the w3m Logo: Minimalist Elegance

2025-01-04

This article details the design process of a logo for w3m, a text-mode web browser. The author cleverly uses three similar shapes, inspired by the three letters in 'w3m', and leverages SVG's and tags to create a simple, understandable, and easily reproducible logo. The final design omits an initial skew to better align with w3m's minimalist philosophy.

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(toast.al)
Design logo design minimalism

Redis: Do You Really Need It?

2025-03-08

Over a decade and three companies, the author observed a recurring pattern: Redis was frequently overused. Even at Tantan, a high-performance database system, Redis, initially intended to cache a small amount of user interaction count data, proved unnecessary. It could be efficiently stored directly in PostgreSQL without added complexity. Similar unnecessary Redis implementations were found in two other companies, adding complexity to low-load systems without significant performance gains. The author advocates for careful evaluation of new technologies, avoiding 'tech for tech's sake', and opting for simpler, reliable alternatives.

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(www.viblo.se)
Development Technology Selection

PianoReader: Browser-Based Piano Tutorial Parser

2025-09-06
PianoReader: Browser-Based Piano Tutorial Parser

Tired of flashy piano tutorial videos? Meet PianoReader, a browser-based tool that parses piano tutorial videos and outputs sheet music and chords – all without server-side processing. Leveraging HTML canvas for video frame processing, it uses user-defined key positions and image analysis to detect pressed keys. The result? Readable sheet music. While currently limited to white keys and processing speed is dependent on frame rate, it's already useful for learning simpler songs.

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(www.heyraviteja.com)
Development

Lenovo's ThinkBook Flip: A Foldable AI PC Concept

2025-03-03
Lenovo's ThinkBook Flip: A Foldable AI PC Concept

Lenovo unveiled the ThinkBook “Flip” AI PC Concept at MWC, a productivity laptop with a flexible OLED display. Transforming between a 13.1-inch clamshell, a 12.9-inch tablet, and an 18.1-inch vertical laptop, it uses the same screen as the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 but folds differently, eliminating motors and potentially lowering costs. Folded, it functions as a standard laptop; unfolded, it boasts a massive screen and ergonomic viewing angle. A unique Smart ForcePad trackpad offers customizable shortcuts. While still a concept, Lenovo shared specs including an Intel Ultra 7 processor and 32GB of RAM, hinting at a potential market launch.

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(www.theverge.com)
Hardware flexible display foldable laptop

Google Discovers Critical AMD Processor Vulnerability: Microcode Manipulation

2025-02-09
Google Discovers Critical AMD Processor Vulnerability: Microcode Manipulation

Google researchers have uncovered a critical security flaw in AMD processors. Attackers can manipulate the microcode to control processor behavior, bypassing security features like Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) and the root of trust. The vulnerability exploits an insecure hash function in the processor, allowing the loading of unauthorized microcode. While kernel-level access is required, it poses a significant threat to systems running virtual machines. AMD has released a patch, but it requires updating microcode and BIOS through system manufacturers. The vulnerability affects Zen-based processors dating back to 2017.

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(www.theregister.com)
Tech processor security microcode

haiku.rag: A Retrieval-Augmented Generation Library on SQLite

2025-06-24
haiku.rag: A Retrieval-Augmented Generation Library on SQLite

haiku.rag is a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) library built on SQLite, eliminating the need for additional servers. It supports various embedding providers (Ollama, VoyageAI, OpenAI, and custom), offering hybrid search combining vector and full-text search. Features include file monitoring, extensive file format support, a CLI, and a Python client for seamless document management and retrieval.

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(github.com)
Development

Kubernetes Controller Development: Pitfalls and Best Practices

2025-01-26

This article delves into the often-overlooked challenges of Kubernetes controller development. Drawing from real-world experiences, the author highlights common mistakes made by beginners, such as poorly designed CRDs, controllers with unclear responsibilities, and messy `Reconcile()` methods. The article stresses the importance of understanding Kubernetes API conventions, utilizing cached clients, handling work queues, and employing the expectations pattern. Real-world examples illustrate the consequences of these issues. The author concludes by recommending studying exemplary controller code and adhering to best practices for building reliable and scalable controllers.

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(ahmet.im)
Development Controller Development Best Practices

The Youth Mental Health Crisis? It's More Complicated Than You Think

2025-05-16
The Youth Mental Health Crisis? It's More Complicated Than You Think

The narrative of a widespread youth mental health crisis in the US and UK is misleading. While a crisis exists, it disproportionately affects middle-aged white men and young American Indian men, not teenage girls. Suicide data reveals a correlation between rates across demographics, with middle-aged white men and young American Indian men exhibiting significantly higher rates than teens. Recent declines in suicide rates across most groups contradict the social media scapegoat theory. CDC data strongly links adverse childhood events (abuse, neglect, parental mental illness, incarceration) to youth mental health issues, far more so than social media use. The focus should shift from blaming technology to addressing family dysfunction as the root cause of many youth mental health problems.

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(grimoiremanor.substack.com)
Misc suicide rates family dysfunction

Byte-Equivalent Decompilation of GPL-Violating Devices: A Genetic Programming Approach

2025-09-12

This post explores the challenging problem of byte-equivalent decompilation of a Linux kernel binary from a GPL-violating device, aiming to recover the equivalent C code. The author proposes a genetic programming-based optimization approach to find a "perfect" solution, not just a "good enough" approximation. Challenges include generating the initial population, representing C code (using ASTs), representing the binary code (disassembly or IR), and improving the readability of the resulting C code. The author argues that population-based metaheuristics like genetic algorithms are better suited for this complex problem than single-point search heuristics. This is a long-term research project requiring deep understanding of decompilation techniques, kernel code, and optimization algorithms.

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(far.chickenkiller.com)
Development genetic programming

Warning Future Generations: The 10,000-Year Challenge of Nuclear Waste

2024-12-20
Warning Future Generations: The 10,000-Year Challenge of Nuclear Waste

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico faces a daunting task: communicating the dangers of nuclear waste to future generations 10,000 years from now. The impermanence of language and symbols proved challenging. Experts explored various solutions, from genetically engineered "ray cats" that glow near radiation to a forbidding "landscape of thorns." Ultimately, the most enduring warning might be woven into cultural narratives and belief systems, creating a lasting legend like that of the "ray cats" to warn future people of the danger.

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(99percentinvisible.org)
Tech nuclear waste future warning cultural transmission

Neutron Star Interior Unveiled: Lattice QCD Breaks Sound Speed Barrier

2025-03-07
Neutron Star Interior Unveiled: Lattice QCD Breaks Sound Speed Barrier

For the first time, researchers used lattice quantum chromodynamics (LQCD) to study neutron star interiors, obtaining a new upper bound for the speed of sound within the star and a better understanding of the relationship between pressure, temperature, and other properties. This research overcame challenges in solving quantum chromodynamics equations under strong interactions. By introducing isospin to simplify calculations, the team concluded that the speed of sound in neutron stars may exceed c/√3, opening new avenues for further research into neutron star properties.

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(phys.org)
Tech neutron star quantum chromodynamics speed of sound

Pseudonymity in Academic Publishing: A Wikipedia Edit Sparks Debate

2024-12-27

A paper on editing mathematics on Wikipedia has sparked a debate about pseudonymity in academic publishing. One of the authors used the Wikipedia pseudonym "XOR'easter," but the American Mathematical Society (AMS) refused to publish the paper because they didn't know the author's real-world identity. This highlights the conflict between internet pseudonymity and traditional academic publishing, and the question of how readily academia accepts anonymous publications. The authors argue that Wikipedia's pseudonymity policy protects editors, and that academia needs to rethink the meaning of anonymous publication.

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(11011110.github.io)
Development academic publishing pseudonymity wikipedia
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