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A Million-Dollar Surprise: De Gaulle's Hidden Collection Found

2024-12-17

A forgotten trove of Charles de Gaulle's personal letters, speeches, and manuscripts has been discovered in a safe, set to be auctioned for over $1 million. The collection, found in a bank vault belonging to his son, includes the handwritten manuscript of his famous 1940 speech calling for French resistance against the Nazis, correspondence with Winston Churchill, early short stories, and personal notebooks offering insights into his intellectual development. This unexpected discovery unveils a fascinating glimpse into the life and thoughts of the iconic French leader, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the Anne de Gaulle Foundation.

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(www.smithsonianmag.com)
Misc Charles de Gaulle Auction Historical Documents

Mullvad VPN App's 2024 Security Audit Report Released

2024-12-12

Mullvad VPN has released the report for its 2024 third-party security audit of its VPN app. The audit uncovered six vulnerabilities, ranging in severity from low to high, all of which have been addressed. Three high-severity vulnerabilities involved signal handlers and a virtual IP address leak and have been fixed in the latest version. The audit also noted some non-security issues that Mullvad is actively working to resolve. Overall, the Mullvad VPN app is deemed highly secure, but users are still advised to upgrade to the latest version.

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(mullvad.net)
Tech VPN security security audit vulnerability fixes

Mastering Ruby Debugging: From puts to Professional Tools

2024-12-13

This JetBrains RubyMine blog post delves into various approaches to debugging Ruby code, ranging from basic `puts` statements to interactive consoles (IRB and Pry) and powerful debuggers (byebug, debug, and the RubyMine debugger). Using a real-world bug example, it highlights the strengths and weaknesses of each tool, guiding developers in selecting the most appropriate debugger for improved efficiency. The article emphasizes that effective debugging isn't just about fixing errors; it's about gaining a fundamental understanding of the code to write more robust Ruby applications.

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(blog.jetbrains.com)
Development Ruby debugging debugging tools

Unraveling the Mystery of the Antikythera Mechanism: A 254:19 Cosmic Code

2024-12-15

Discovered in the first century BCE, the Antikythera mechanism is a complex astronomical device capable of tracking the movements of the sun, moon, and planets. Its intricate gear system is astonishing. This article delves into a specific 254:19 gear ratio within the mechanism, revealing it's not arbitrary but a clever reflection of the sun and moon's movements over a 19-year Metonic cycle, demonstrating the remarkable understanding of astronomy possessed by ancient Greeks. The article corrects previous misunderstandings about the Saros and Metonic cycles and explains the mathematical principles behind this gear ratio, unveiling the profound insight of ancient Greeks into celestial mechanics.

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(leancrew.com)
Tech Antikythera Mechanism Metonic Cycle Astronomy

Italian Town Solves Winter Darkness with Giant Mirror

2024-12-13

Nestled in a valley between Italy and Switzerland, the town of Viganella suffers from three months of winter darkness each year. To combat this, in 2006, residents ingeniously installed a massive mirror on a nearby mountain peak. This mirror reflects sunlight into the town square, providing much-needed light and warmth during the long winter. The project, a testament to human ingenuity and community spirit, has since inspired similar initiatives worldwide.

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(www.vice.com)
Tech innovation community

CCxTrust: A Confidential Computing Platform Leveraging Collaborative Trust from TEE and TPM

2024-12-12

CCxTrust is a novel confidential computing platform that cleverly combines the strengths of Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) and Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs) to establish a collaborative trust framework. By leveraging the black-box Root of Trust (RoT) embedded in CPU-TEEs and the flexible white-box RoT of TPMs, CCxTrust achieves end-to-end protection of sensitive data and models, overcoming the limitations of relying on a single hardware RoT. The platform implements independent Roots of Trust for Measurement (RTM) and a collaborative Root of Trust for Report (RTR), further enhanced by a composite attestation protocol for improved security and efficiency. Experimental results demonstrate significant performance advantages.

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(arxiv.org)
AI Confidential Computing Trusted Execution Environment Trusted Platform Module

Demonic Possession Predicted the Fall of the Carolingian Empire

2024-12-13

In the early 9th century, a Frankish courtier recorded a tale of demonic possession. The demon, Wiggo, confessed to destroying crops, livestock, and spreading plagues, blaming the Franks' sins and their rulers' many crimes. Wiggo described rampant greed, mutual suspicion among rulers, and lack of piety. This story mirrored the crisis of the Carolingian Empire: internal strife, economic instability, and famine. The courtier, Einhard, used this tale to subtly criticize the rulers' corruption and foreshadow the empire's decline.

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(www.smithsonianmag.com)
History Carolingian Empire Demonic Possession Medieval Europe

QEMU Gains Vulkan Acceleration with VirtIO GPU Driver Update

2024-12-12

QEMU version 9.2.0 and later now supports Vulkan acceleration for VirtIO-GPU thanks to the Venus patches. This represents a significant advancement in Vulkan graphics rendering for QEMU virtual machines. The article details the setup process, including installing necessary packages (Linux kernel 6.13+, QEMU 9.2.0+, Vulkan drivers, etc.), building QEMU from source, and creating a VM image. While virt-manager currently lacks Vulkan configuration support, command-line parameters offer a workaround. Troubleshooting tips are provided, along with notes on current limitations in virt-manager and libvirt.

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(gist.github.com)
Development

ChatGPT Clone in 3000 Bytes of C

2024-12-12

Developer Nicholas Carlini created a ChatGPT clone using only 3000 bytes of C code, powered by the GPT-2 model. This dependency-free implementation loads GPT-2's weight matrix and BPE file, then performs tokenization, matrix operations, transformer inference, and detokenization. While the output quality is not high, its efficiency is remarkable, producing multiple replies per second on modern hardware. This demonstrates the potential of compact code in implementing complex AI models.

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(nicholas.carlini.com)
AI

Great Question (YC) Hiring People Operations Manager

2024-12-12

Great Question, a YC-backed startup simplifying customer research, is seeking an experienced People Operations Manager. This role will focus on streamlining recruitment, onboarding, compensation standardization, and enhancing company culture to boost employee engagement and retention. The ideal candidate will have 3+ years of experience in people operations, expertise in compensation and performance management, excellent communication skills, and a proven ability to thrive in a remote work environment. This is a crucial opportunity to contribute to a rapidly growing startup.

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(www.ycombinator.com)
Startup Hiring People Operations YC Startup

Ultralytics Suffers Supply Chain Attack: A PyPI Security Incident Analysis

2024-12-14

The Python project Ultralytics recently suffered a supply chain attack. Attackers compromised the project's GitHub Actions workflows and stole a PyPI API token, resulting in tainted versions 8.3.41, 8.3.42, 8.3.45, and 8.3.46. The attack didn't exploit a PyPI vulnerability but targeted the GitHub Actions cache. PyPI, leveraging Trusted Publishing and Sigstore transparency logs, quickly identified and removed the malicious software. The incident highlighted shortcomings in API token and GitHub environment configurations. The article stresses securing software forges and build/publish workflows, providing developers with security recommendations: using Trusted Publishers, locking dependencies, avoiding insecure patterns, and enabling multi-factor authentication.

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(blog.pypi.org)
Development supply chain attack PyPI security software security

Mirror Bacteria Research Raises Significant Risks, Scientists Warn

2024-12-13

Synthetic biologists have achieved remarkable breakthroughs, such as creating bacteria with chemically synthesized genomes. However, two synthetic biologists recently joined other scientists in calling for a halt to research that could lead to the creation of "mirror bacteria." These bacteria are composed of the same components as natural cells but with opposite stereochemistry in all biopolymers. Because mirror bacteria might lack natural predators and evade immune systems, they pose a catastrophic risk. The article emphasizes that while scientific research should be open, certain research, like mirror bacteria research, is too risky given the potential for devastating consequences. Therefore, it should be stopped.

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(www.the-scientist.com)
Tech synthetic biology mirror bacteria biosafety

AI Scaling Laws: Beyond Pre-training, a New Paradigm Emerges

2024-12-12

This article explores the evolution of AI scaling laws, arguing that they extend beyond pre-training. OpenAI's o1 model demonstrates the utility and potential of reasoning models, opening a new, unexplored dimension for scaling. The article delves into techniques like synthetic data, Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO), and reinforcement learning to enhance model performance. It clarifies that Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Opus and OpenAI's Orion weren't failures, but rather shifts in scaling strategies. The authors emphasize that scaling encompasses more than just increasing data and parameters; it includes inference-time compute, more challenging evaluations, and innovations in training and inference architecture.

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(semianalysis.com)
AI AI scaling large language models reasoning models

OpenAI Whistleblower Found Dead in San Francisco Apartment

2024-12-13

Suchir Balaji, a 26-year-old former OpenAI researcher, was found dead in his San Francisco apartment. Balaji had previously accused OpenAI of copyright infringement in the development of ChatGPT, arguing their data practices were harmful to the internet ecosystem. His death comes as OpenAI faces numerous lawsuits over its use of copyrighted material to train its AI models. Balaji's testimony was considered crucial to these cases. While police found no signs of foul play, the cause of death remains under investigation, raising concerns about the ethical implications of AI development and data security.

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(www.mercurynews.com)
AI AI ethics

Qubes OS Unveils Secure PDF Conversion Tool

2024-12-12

The Qubes OS team has developed a novel security mechanism for converting untrusted PDFs into trusted ones. Leveraging Qubes' Disposable VMs, the process isolates PDF parsing within a secure container. The PDF is converted to a simple RGB image representation, then back to a PDF. This approach effectively mitigates attacks from malicious PDFs; even if parsing fails, the resulting PDF will only be a corrupted image, posing no system threat. This innovation significantly enhances Qubes OS security, allowing users to handle PDFs from the web or email more safely.

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(blog.invisiblethings.org)
Tech secure PDF conversion disposable VMs

Hexagonal Architecture in Rails: A Path to Decoupling

2024-12-13

This article explores implementing Hexagonal Architecture (Ports and Adapters pattern) in Rails applications. The author initially struggled with the pattern until realizing that 'adapter' directly refers to the Gang of Four Adapter Pattern. The article details inbound and outbound ports, and how adapters decouple application logic from external services (databases, logging, email, etc.). Rails controllers can serve as HTTP adapters, but the author stresses avoiding direct ActiveRecord usage. Instead, custom repositories access data, improving decoupling and maintainability. The article concludes by encouraging Rails developers to adopt Hexagonal Architecture for more robust and maintainable applications.

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(the.codegardener.com)
Development Hexagonal Architecture

Animal Adoption: A Balancing Act of Genes and Emotion

2024-12-13

A lioness adopting a leopard cub sparks a fascinating exploration into the world of animal adoption. This article delves into the evolutionary mechanisms behind this behavior, examining kinship selection, environmental pressures, individual differences, and maternal instincts. Research suggests that animal adoption isn't solely an evolutionary strategy, but also reflects animal emotions and individual variations, challenging traditional evolutionary explanations.

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(nautil.us)
Misc animal behavior evolutionary biology kinship selection

Major Breakthrough in Nuclear Clock Technology Promises Ultraprecise Timekeeping

2024-12-13

An international research team led by scientists at JILA, a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado Boulder, has made a significant advance in developing a novel nuclear clock. Nuclear clocks use energy transitions within an atom's nucleus to measure time, promising greater accuracy and resistance to external disturbances compared to atomic clocks. The team used a specially designed ultraviolet laser to precisely measure the frequency of an energy jump in thorium nuclei and an optical frequency comb to count the cycles. This breakthrough paves the way for more precise navigation, faster internet speeds, and advancements in fundamental physics research, potentially even aiding in the detection of dark matter or verifying the constancy of nature's constants.

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(www.nist.gov)
Tech nuclear clock ultraprecise timekeeping physics

High-Resolution Bitmap Graphics with Commodore 64 BASIC 2.0: A Fast Screen Clearing Routine

2024-12-12

This article demonstrates efficient high-resolution bitmap graphics handling in Commodore 64 BASIC 2.0, focusing on a fast screen clearing routine. The author points out that native BASIC lacks direct bitmap manipulation commands, making conventional clearing slow. A clever solution utilizes the BASIC string storage mechanism: long strings filled with CHR$(0) overwrite the bitmap memory, achieving fast clearing. The technique is illustrated with a cosine function plotting example.

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(retro64.altervista.org)
Development Bitmap Graphics

Storing Times for Human Events: Best Practices and Challenges

2024-12-12

This blog post discusses best practices for storing event times on event websites. The author argues that directly storing UTC time loses crucial information, such as the user's original intent and location. A better approach is to store the user's intended time and the event location, then derive the UTC time. Examples like user error, international timezone adjustments, and the 2007 Microsoft Exchange DST update illustrate the importance of storing the user's intended time. The author recommends designing a clear and user-friendly interface to help users accurately set event times and locations, emphasizing the importance of maintaining the user's original intent to avoid errors caused by timezone changes.

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(simonwillison.net)
Development time storage timezone user experience event management

Gentrace Raises $8M Series A to Revolutionize LLM Evaluation for AI Teams

2024-12-12

Gentrace, an LLM evaluation platform, announced an $8 million Series A funding round. Addressing challenges like siloed evaluation processes and poor team collaboration, Gentrace offers a collaborative testing environment. Teams can test directly through a user-friendly interface, eliminating the need for isolated evaluation code. Supporting model, code, and human evaluations, Gentrace provides experiment management, reporting, and debugging tools for efficient LLM development. Success stories from Webflow, Multiverse, and Quizlet highlight significant improvements in testing efficiency (e.g., a 40x increase).

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(gentrace.ai)
AI LLM evaluation AI development team collaboration

The Rise and Fall of Ashton-Tate: The dBASE Saga

2024-12-12

Ashton-Tate, a prominent player in the 1980s personal computer revolution, rose to fame with its database software, dBASE. Initially conceived by Wayne Ratliff as Vulcan, the program quickly became a standard for CP/M systems and later flourished with the IBM PC's ascendancy. Its user-friendly interface and powerful features propelled Ashton-Tate to an IPO and significant success. However, the company's later struggles with dBASE III's development, escalating competition, and internal issues ultimately led to its acquisition by Borland. This story details the dBASE legacy, Ashton-Tate's rise and fall, offering valuable insights into the software industry's dynamics.

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(www.abortretry.fail)
Development database software

Oasis Security Research Team Discovers Microsoft Azure MFA Bypass

2024-12-12

Oasis Security's research team discovered a critical vulnerability in Microsoft Azure's Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) implementation. Attackers could bypass MFA to gain unauthorized access to user accounts, including Outlook, OneDrive, Teams, and Azure Cloud. The vulnerability exploited the lack of rate limiting, allowing rapid session creation and code enumeration to exhaust the possibilities of a 6-digit code without alerts. Microsoft has since implemented a stricter rate limit to address the issue. This highlights the importance of enabling MFA and monitoring failed attempts.

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(www.oasis.security)
Tech Azure Security MFA Vulnerability Authentication Bypass

Gukesh Crowned Youngest World Chess Champion in History

2024-12-12

In round 14 of the 2024 World Chess Championship, 18-year-old Indian Grandmaster Gukesh D defeated defending champion Ding Liren to become the youngest world champion ever! Ding employed a Reversed Grünfeld Defense, but Gukesh, with precise opening play and deep preparation, steered the game into a complex endgame. After a prolonged struggle, Ding blundered, allowing Gukesh to capitalize and secure a historic victory, fulfilling a lifelong dream.

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(lichess.org)
Game chess world champion Gukesh

Bizarre Particle's Mass Depends on Travel Direction

2024-12-12

Scientists have unexpectedly discovered a strange quasiparticle, a semi-Dirac fermion, in a ZrSiS material. This particle exhibits a peculiar behavior: it's massless when moving along a specific direction but gains mass when traveling in other directions. This discovery, stemming from research into the properties of quasiparticles within ZrSiS, relates to Einstein's mass-energy equivalence, E=mc². When moving at light speed in a specific direction, the quasiparticle is massless; changing direction and slowing down causes it to gain mass. The finding could potentially lead to novel applications for ZrSiS, similar to those of graphene.

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(newatlas.com)
Physics semi-Dirac fermion quasiparticle mass-energy equivalence

Jujutsu: A Game-Changing Version Control System

2024-12-12

The author daily drives Jujutsu, a Git-based version control system, and highly recommends it. Unlike other simplified Git alternatives, Jujutsu focuses on enhancing the workflow of power users, particularly in simplifying history editing. The author recounts a personal experience showcasing Jujutsu's ease in modifying past commits, eliminating complex Git commands. While Jujutsu has some shortcomings, like lacking support for git send-email and the Google CLA requirement, the author still uses it daily for personal projects.

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(drewdevault.com)
Development Version Control

Parkinson's Law: Set Deadlines, Boost Efficiency

2024-12-12

Parkinson's Law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. James Stanier, writing from an engineering management perspective, argues for the importance of setting challenging yet achievable deadlines. Using the 'Iron Triangle' (scope, resources, time), he demonstrates how deadlines prevent scope creep, improve efficiency, and spark innovation. He also highlights the implementation of weekly reporting to encourage proactive task completion, ultimately leading to higher efficiency.

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(theengineeringmanager.substack.com)
Development Parkinson's Law Project Management Deadlines

Carta's Difficult Subscription Cancellation Process Sparks Outrage Among Founders

2024-12-12

Funding management software Carta is facing criticism for its cumbersome subscription cancellation process. Several founders have taken to social media to complain about the difficulty of cancelling their subscriptions, citing mandatory meetings scheduled well after their renewal dates. While Carta attributes the issue to a temporary staffing shortage, competitors highlight their straightforward cancellation methods, involving simple clicks or emails. This controversy raises concerns about Carta's customer service and cancellation policies, underscoring the importance of careful consideration when choosing service providers.

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(techcrunch.com)
Startup subscription cancellation startup

Taming LLMs: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Pitfalls

2024-12-12

This book, "Taming LLMs," delves into the key limitations and implementation pitfalls encountered by engineers and technical product managers when building LLM-powered applications. Instead of focusing solely on capabilities, it tackles practical challenges such as handling unstructured output, managing context windows, and cost optimization. With reproducible Python code examples and battle-tested open-source tools, it provides a practical guide to navigating these challenges, allowing readers to harness the power of LLMs while sidestepping their inherent limitations.

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(www.souzatharsis.com)
Development Large Language Models Open Source Software LLM Application Development
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