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An Evidence-Based Approach to Goal Setting and Behavior Change

2024-12-27

An Evidence-Based Approach to Goal Setting and Behavior Change

New Year's resolutions often fail? This article explores evidence-based strategies for goal setting and behavior change. Studies show that success rates for New Year's resolutions aren't as low as often perceived. The key is leveraging the "fresh start effect" and combining it with goal hierarchy setting (superordinate, intermediate, and subordinate goals), approach vs. avoidance goals, process vs. outcome goals, mastery vs. performance goals, flexible vs. rigid restraint, and implementing intention strategies. The article also details how tools like MacroFactor can support goal setting and behavior change.

(www.strongerbyscience.com)

Misc goal setting behavior change New Year's resolutions

Apple Engineer's Double Life: From Mac Pioneer to Psychedelic Innovator

2025-07-11

Apple Engineer's Double Life: From Mac Pioneer to Psychedelic Innovator

Bill Atkinson, the key figure behind Apple's Macintosh, passed away in 2025 at age 74. Beyond his contributions to personal computing – creating QuickDraw, MacPaint, and HyperCard – he dedicated his final years, under the pseudonym "Grace Within," to promoting the safe, low-dose use of the psychedelic 5-MeO-DMT. He open-sourced the technology behind the LightWand vape pen, making it more accessible. Atkinson's actions democratized psychedelic exploration, providing broader access to tools for consciousness exploration and trauma healing.

(patternproject.substack.com)

Tech psychedelic

Craft Basic 1.7.1: A Retro BASIC Interpreter for Windows

2025-05-18

Craft Basic 1.7.1 is a free BASIC interpreter for Windows 95 and later. Learn programming, create simple games, write interactive code, perform complex calculations, display cool graphics, build forms, write useful scripts, and more. Simple commands let you draw bitmaps and play WAV files; it features form handling for static text and buttons; and plenty of example programs are included to get you started. Supports Win9X, Win2K, WinXP, Win10, and Win11.

(www.lucidapogee.com)

Development BASIC interpreter

Stelo CGM Teardown: Unlocking the Secrets of a Cheap CGM

2025-02-23

This article details a teardown of Dexcom's Stelo CGM, an affordable ($50) continuous glucose monitor. The author shares their experience using the device and delves into its internal workings, including the nRF52832 microcontroller, CR1216 coin cell battery, and other unidentified chips. By measuring power consumption, the author reveals that the battery life far exceeds the claimed 15 days, and explores the possibility of using energy harvesting for permanent power. The article also sparks discussion on product cost breakdown and market competition, making it a compelling read for both tech enthusiasts and those interested in medical technology.

(andykong.org)

Hardware CGM Hardware Teardown

MTR: A Powerful Network Diagnostic Tool

2025-02-05

MTR combines the functionality of 'traceroute' and 'ping' into a single, powerful network diagnostic tool. It traces the path of a network connection and tests the quality of the link to each hop. Simply specify a destination host, and MTR displays the address and connection quality statistics for each hop, aiding in quick network problem identification. MTR is open-source, cross-platform compatible, though some older binary distributions and online services are defunct. Source code is available on GitHub for compilation, or it can be directly used via distributions like Debian.

(www.bitwizard.nl)

Development network diagnostics

Disturbing Revelation: Former Israeli Special Forces Building AI Systems at Global Tech Giants

2025-01-20

Disturbing Revelation: Former Israeli Special Forces Building AI Systems at Global Tech Giants

An investigative report reveals that dozens of former members of Israel's Unit 8200—a secretive cyber warfare unit accused of building the AI systems used in the Gaza conflict—are now building AI systems for the world's largest tech and AI companies. These former spies hold key positions at Meta, Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Nvidia, working on AI, machine learning, and big data. The article highlights that many expressed support for Israel's actions in Gaza on their LinkedIn profiles, yet showed no sympathy for the plight of Palestinians. This raises serious ethical concerns, as individuals who helped create AI for generating kill lists are now shaping the future of AI infrastructure.

(www.donotpanic.news)

Tech Unit 8200

Mozilla's Privacy Policy Update: A Trust Crisis and Waterfox's Response

2025-02-28

Mozilla's Privacy Policy Update: A Trust Crisis and Waterfox's Response

Mozilla's recent privacy policy updates sparked controversy, with poor communication fueling user privacy concerns. Waterfox, a Firefox fork, maintains a transparent and stable privacy policy, emphasizing its formal governance structure and accountability mechanisms, differentiating itself from other open-source browser projects lacking accountability. The author argues that clear governance and transparent policies are crucial for building user trust in security-critical software like browsers, giving Waterfox a unique position in the market.

(www.waterfox.net)

Development browser privacy user trust

Nordic Unveils VPR: Its First RISC-V Processor, Ushering in a New Era of Heterogeneous Computing

2024-12-26

Nordic Unveils VPR: Its First RISC-V Processor, Ushering in a New Era of Heterogeneous Computing

Nordic Semiconductor has launched VPR, its first RISC-V processor, integrated into the new nRF54H and nRF54L SoCs. VPR, an RV32EMC processor running at up to 320MHz, is designed for software-defined peripherals. The article details VPR's architecture, initialization process, and collaboration with the Arm Cortex-M33. Zephyr's sysbuild simplifies building and deploying VPR applications, enabling heterogeneous computing for enhanced performance and functionality.

(danielmangum.com)

Hardware Heterogeneous Computing

The Franklin Institute: Screens Devour the Magic of Science?

2025-09-10

The Franklin Institute: Screens Devour the Magic of Science?

Revisiting the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, the author, filled with childhood nostalgia, finds the museum overwhelmed by touch-screen interactive displays, replacing the once-amazing hands-on exhibits. While some classic interactive experiments remain, they are poorly maintained and tucked away. The author argues that museums should return to their core mission: providing real, tangible science experiences, rather than engaging in a digital "experiential race to the bottom." Children need a break from screens, and connection to the real world. The museum's budget and space should be reallocated to enhance the physical, interactive exhibits.

(sethpurcell.com)

Misc interactive experience

GrapheneOS: Android's Unshakeable Fortress Against Forensic Attacks

2025-09-11

GrapheneOS: Android's Unshakeable Fortress Against Forensic Attacks

GrapheneOS, an open-source, privacy-focused Android OS, recently faced a social media smear campaign falsely claiming it was compromised. The attack misrepresented consent-based data extraction as a security breach. This article clarifies digital forensics, Cellebrite's capabilities, and the distinction of consent-based data extraction. GrapheneOS's robust security features, including disabling USB connections in AFU mode, Titan M2's brute-force attack limitations, and auto-reboot, effectively counter such attacks. Cellebrite itself admits it cannot unlock fully updated GrapheneOS devices without user consent. The incident highlights GrapheneOS's superior protection of user privacy and data security.

(discuss.grapheneos.org)

Tech

10x Database Throughput with io_uring and a Dual WAL

2025-07-20

10x Database Throughput with io_uring and a Dual WAL

Building a complex database, the author experimented with io_uring and a dual WAL design to boost performance. Traditional WAL approaches (write-then-apply) bottleneck performance. By separating "intent to write" and "completion of write" into two WALs, and leveraging io_uring asynchronous I/O, a 10x throughput improvement was achieved. This design asynchronously writes intent, then completion records; recovery only applies operations with both intent and completion, ensuring data consistency. The author used Zig and the Poro project (an experimental key-value database) to validate this approach, highlighting the importance of hardware parallelism, batching, and flexible consistency models.

(blog.canoozie.net)

Development asynchronous I/O

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.

(www.cnn.com)

Tech lunar exploration private space

Square Kufic: A Labyrinthine Journey into Islamic Calligraphy

2025-05-06

Square Kufic: A Labyrinthine Journey into Islamic Calligraphy

As a child, the author was captivated by the intricate geometric patterns adorning mosques, later discovering them to be Square Kufic calligraphy, a 12th-13th century Islamic script. This style transforms Arabic letters into geometric designs, bending and breaking rules to create stunning, sometimes indecipherable, patterns. The article explores Square Kufic's origins, characteristics, and modern reinterpretations, showcasing artists who integrate verses into architecture or create modern art pieces. Personal anecdotes and a discussion of the Topkapi Scroll reveal the art form's multi-layered appeal: from visual beauty to cryptic messages, offering rich cultural depth and endless intrigue.

(uwithumlaut.wordpress.com)

Design Islamic Calligraphy Square Kufic

From Zero to Profit: The Three-Year Journey of a Photo Encryption App (Part 1)

2025-02-12

From Zero to Profit: The Three-Year Journey of a Photo Encryption App (Part 1)

This article chronicles the three-year journey of building SafeSpace, an iOS photo encryption app. From initial optimism to multiple App Store rejections, massive losses from paid advertising, and finally achieving profitability through a strategic pivot, the author details the struggles and triumphs. The narrative covers the learning curve of SwiftUI, the stringent App Store review process, and the difficulties of independent app marketing. A strategic shift in product focus and market positioning ultimately led to success, but the story doesn't end there; an Apple account investigation presents a new challenge.

(safespace.is)

Startup

TED Founder Chris Anderson to Give Up Control of the Nonprofit

2025-02-04

TED Founder Chris Anderson to Give Up Control of the Nonprofit

After 25 years at the helm, TED founder Chris Anderson is stepping down and giving away control of the nonprofit organization. He's seeking someone or an entity with a compelling vision and the resources to take TED to the next level. While financially sound with substantial cash reserves, Anderson believes relinquishing control will unleash new creativity and energy. Potential successors include universities, philanthropic organizations, media companies, tech firms, or even a decentralized autonomous organization. This bold move promises significant changes for TED, sparking considerable speculation about its future direction.

(www.wired.com)

Startup

A Stunning Display of Multilingual Support: A Mysterious Code Snippet

2025-02-14

A Stunning Display of Multilingual Support: A Mysterious Code Snippet

This code snippet showcases an impressive multilingual support, containing the names of almost all known languages. This has sparked speculation about the purpose behind the code; is it an art installation, or a fragment of code from a mysterious project? The simple code structure also raises curiosity about how its function is implemented, and where it will be applied in the future.

(www.langturbo.com)

Misc multilingual

postmarketOS February 2025 Update: New Name, Audio Support, and More

2025-03-04

postmarketOS February 2025 Update: New Name, Audio Support, and More

February 2025 saw significant progress for the postmarketOS project. A name change is underway, with community input being sought. MSM89x7 audio support improved, and more Xiaomi devices joined community support. Security audits were completed, and infrastructure improvements, including backup and CI systems, were implemented. Numerous kernel updates and package upgrades were released, enhancing stability and performance.

(postmarketos.org)

Development

From SvelteKit to Plain HTML: A Website Rewrite

2025-01-15

Frustrated with the complexities of SvelteKit's build system, the author decided to rewrite their personal website using plain HTML and CSS. The process involved using Pandoc to convert Markdown to HTML and Python with uv for a lightweight build pipeline. Despite the small scale of the site, the rewrite resulted in a reduction in size from 356kb to 88kb and simpler, easier-to-understand code. The author notes remaining issues like code duplication and lack of live reloading, intending to address them in future improvements. The project serves as a simple template for building static sites with Markdown blogs.

(www.vijayp.dev)

Development

SCQA: A Framework for Compelling Storytelling

2025-02-03

SCQA: A Framework for Compelling Storytelling

SCQA is a framework for structuring information using Situation, Complication, Question, and Answer to create clear, engaging narratives. The article uses gamification in physical therapy as an example, showing how SCQA transforms a mundane process into a compelling story, improving patient engagement. Applicable across various fields—business, policy, science—and media—emails, presentations, books, blogs—SCQA enhances communication and clarity.

(analytic-storytelling.com)

Development narrative framework information structuring

Migrating a Large-Scale Game Server from Scala 2.13 to Scala 3: A Year-Long Odyssey

2025-02-06

Migrating a Large-Scale Game Server from Scala 2.13 to Scala 3: A Year-Long Odyssey

This post details the author's journey migrating a four-year-old, production-ready multiplayer mobile game server from Scala 2.13 to Scala 3. An initial attempt failed due to the removal of key features in Scala 3 (macro annotations, type projections) and the massive code changes required. A year later, a successful migration was achieved through a multi-pronged approach: preemptively applying Scala 3 syntax in the Scala 2 codebase, leveraging IntelliJ's code inspection tools, custom sbt source generators to produce Monocle lenses, and creative workarounds for type projections. Challenges encountered included dependency conflicts and slow compile times, resolved by forking a library, optimizing code using Scala 3's Tuple.Map, and other techniques. Despite the hurdles, the migration highlights the power and value of Scala 3's metaprogramming capabilities.

(blog.pierre-ricadat.com)

Development

No-Panic Rust: Can Rust Replace C for Low-Level Systems Programming?

2025-02-03

This article explores the feasibility of using Rust to replace C for low-level systems programming, specifically focusing on a Protocol Buffers library called upb. The author initially doubted Rust's ability to match C in performance and code size but discovered a technique called "No-Panic Rust." This involves avoiding the use of `panic!()`. The article delves into the principles, advantages, and challenges of No-Panic Rust, including code size, unrecoverable exits, and runtime overhead. It demonstrates how to write No-Panic Rust code using techniques such as leveraging the libc library, optimization options, and `std::hint::assert_unchecked`, emphasizing the retention of overflow checks in debug mode for extra consistency checks. While this technique demands meticulous work and may necessitate avoiding most of the standard library, it promises to deliver the performance and code size of a C library while retaining Rust's safety guarantees.

(blog.reverberate.org)

Development Systems Programming

Design Space for Code Search Queries: ast-grep's Innovative Approach

2024-12-26

Design Space for Code Search Queries: ast-grep's Innovative Approach

ast-grep is an Abstract Syntax Tree (AST)-based code search tool designed for ease of use, expressiveness, and precision. This blog post delves into the design space of code search queries, categorizing them into informal queries, formal queries based on existing programming languages, formal queries using custom languages, and hybrid queries. Each type's strengths and weaknesses are analyzed. ast-grep employs a hybrid approach, allowing users to write queries using familiar programming language syntax and offering more powerful expressiveness through YAML configuration files or a programmatic API for precise code search.

(ast-grep.github.io)

Development code search query design

MIT OpenCourseware: Generative AI with Stochastic Differential Equations

2025-03-03

MIT offers an open course on generative AI focusing on the mathematical framework underlying flow matching and diffusion models. Starting from first principles, the course covers ordinary and stochastic differential equations, conditional and marginal probability paths, and more. Students build a toy image diffusion model through three hands-on labs. Prerequisites include linear algebra, real analysis, basic probability, Python, and PyTorch experience. This course is ideal for those seeking a deep understanding of generative AI theory and practice.

(diffusion.csail.mit.edu)

AI Diffusion Models Flow Matching

Arch Gateway: Secure and Efficient Prompt Handling for GenAI Apps

2025-03-05

Arch Gateway: Secure and Efficient Prompt Handling for GenAI Apps

Arch Gateway, built by Envoy Proxy contributors, simplifies and optimizes the development of generative AI applications. It leverages purpose-built LLMs to handle prompts, providing intent-based routing, robust security (preventing jailbreaks), API integration, and comprehensive observability. Arch Gateway supports multiple LLMs and utilizes Envoy for high performance and scalability. A user-friendly CLI and detailed documentation are provided, with a quickstart guide demonstrating the creation of a simple AI agent, such as a currency exchange agent.

(github.com)

Development

Crazy Lawn Mower: A Software Engineer's Hardware Adventure

2025-08-19

A software engineer, who hadn't touched hardware in 20 years, embarked on a challenging hardware journey at the urging of friends. He transformed a Raspberry Pi into a smart lawn mower control system, adding an OLED display, UPS power supply, camera, and more, to display system information, network status, mowing data, and more in real-time. Along the way, he solved problems such as high CPU usage, abnormal battery level display, and network security, ultimately creating a smart lawn mower capable of networking, monitoring, and collecting mowing data. He shared his achievements and experiences on IRC.

(jotunheimr.idlerpg.net)

Hardware

DIY Lightning Detector: Simple Circuit, Accurate Detection

2025-07-14

This article details a simple DIY lightning detector circuit using a single inductor tuned circuit to receive static pulses from lightning. The circuit boasts low power consumption and high sensitivity, with detailed schematics, component selection guides, and building instructions suitable for beginners. Several circuit variations are presented, including magnetic antenna and op-amp versions, catering to diverse needs.

(techlib.com)

Hardware lightning detector circuit design

Salesforce's AI Power-Up: Empowering Every Employee

2025-06-17

Salesforce's AI Power-Up: Empowering Every Employee

Salesforce is announcing significant updates to its Agentforce, Customer 360 Apps, and Slack offerings, streamlining AI adoption. Key changes include: generally available Agentforce add-ons and Agentforce 1 Editions offering unlimited employee AI usage; price increases for Enterprise and Unlimited Editions starting August 1, 2025; and Slack plan updates adding AI features to all paid plans and Salesforce channels to all plans (including free). New Agentforce add-ons and editions provide unlimited generative AI access, pre-built templates, AI-powered analytics, and more. This overhaul aims to empower every employee with AI, driving customer success.

(www.salesforce.com)

Tech

Sweden Wants Signal to Install Backdoors: A Security Nightmare?

2025-02-25

Sweden Wants Signal to Install Backdoors: A Security Nightmare?

A proposed Swedish bill would force encrypted messaging app Signal to install backdoors, allowing police and security services to access message history retrospectively. Signal's CEO vehemently opposes this, citing the creation of vulnerabilities exploitable by third parties. Even the Swedish Armed Forces have voiced concerns, stating the proposal is unrealizable without introducing significant security risks. This highlights the ongoing tension between government surveillance needs and individual privacy.

(swedenherald.com)

Tech

Chaos in Federal Offices After Trump's Mandatory Return-to-Office Order

2025-03-04

Chaos in Federal Offices After Trump's Mandatory Return-to-Office Order

Millions of federal workers were forced back to offices by the Trump administration, leading to widespread chaos. Many offices lacked basic amenities like Wi-Fi and electricity, with some even reporting hazardous conditions like exposed wires, resulting in employee injuries. Lease cancellations left some employees without office space. This move, seen as part of Trump's broader effort to shrink the federal government and pressure employees, has been met with strong union pushback and legal challenges.

(www.cnn.com)

Tech

GOG Joins Forces for Game Preservation: A European Collaboration

2025-01-15

GOG Joins Forces for Game Preservation: A European Collaboration

GOG, a leading European digital game distribution platform, has joined the European Federation of Game Archives, Museums, and Preservation Projects (EFGAMP), significantly expanding its game preservation efforts. GOG's Preservation Program, already boasting over 100 revitalized classic games, has been lauded by players and the industry alike. This partnership bridges the private sector with cultural organizations across Europe, uniting to safeguard gaming's rich history.

(gog.prowly.com)

Game

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