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Alphabet's Laser Internet: Taara Takes on Starlink

2025-03-01
Alphabet's Laser Internet: Taara Takes on Starlink

Alphabet's X, the moonshot factory, birthed Loon, a balloon-based internet project that ultimately failed. However, a Loon engineer spun off Taara, focusing on high-bandwidth internet via laser beams. Taara has launched a second-generation chip, shrinking the technology to the size of a fingernail, reducing costs and boosting speeds. It aims to connect billions lacking internet access and become a crucial technology for future 6G and even 7G networks, potentially challenging the likes of Starlink.

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(www.wired.com)
Tech laser communication

The College Essay: A Mirror Reflecting Back an Idealized Self

2025-04-08
The College Essay: A Mirror Reflecting Back an Idealized Self

With many colleges dropping the SAT/ACT requirement, applications have surged, placing greater emphasis on the college essay. However, the author argues that the essay, a central element of the application, is arguably more biased than standardized tests, reflecting back to applicants the idealized self colleges desire rather than their true selves. Drawing on Lacan's 'mirror stage' theory, the author contends that the essay forces students to curate an idealized version of themselves, potentially leading to neurosis and self-deception. Some universities, like Sonoma State, have eliminated the essay requirement, resulting in a more diverse and creative student body. The author calls on other universities to follow suit, promoting fairer and more equitable admissions.

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(lareviewofbooks.org)
Misc mirror stage Lacan

AgenticSeek: A Private, Local Manus AI Alternative

2025-04-29
AgenticSeek: A Private, Local Manus AI Alternative

AgenticSeek is a fully local, voice-enabled AI assistant that autonomously browses the web, writes code, and plans tasks, all while keeping your data entirely on your device. Designed for local reasoning models, it ensures complete privacy and zero cloud dependency. It supports multiple programming languages and automatically selects the best AI agent for each task. The project is open-source and actively seeking contributors.

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(github.com)
AI

RCSS: Rust-Flavored CSS Preprocessor

2025-04-10
RCSS: Rust-Flavored CSS Preprocessor

RCSS is a styling language bringing Rust-inspired syntax to CSS. Combining Rust's robustness with SASS-like features such as nesting and variables, it aims for cleaner, more maintainable styles. The current implementation boasts Rust-like syntax, supporting variables, nesting, and functions (currently without arguments), along with a VS Code extension for syntax highlighting. Future plans include adding support for functions with arguments, importing, a formatter, improved CSS output formatting, and better error handling and debugging tools. RCSS boasts impressive compilation speed, completing in a few hundred microseconds.

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(github.com)
Development CSS preprocessor

arXivLabs: Experimenting with Community Collaboration

2025-04-24
arXivLabs: Experimenting with Community Collaboration

arXivLabs is a framework for developing and sharing new arXiv features directly on the website, fostering collaboration with individuals and organizations who share arXiv's values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. Got an idea to improve the arXiv community? Explore arXivLabs.

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(arxiv.org)
Development

LLMs Saved My Game Dev Passion: Conquering Data Entry Hell

2025-06-25

A game developer hit a roadblock in their Unity3D card game project due to tedious data entry. Traditional Unity editors and Odin proved insufficient for handling complex nested structures and nullable references. The solution? Leveraging LLMs to map Excel data to C# code. The key was a meticulously crafted prompt guiding the LLM to perform structured analysis and code generation, mitigating context poisoning issues. This automated the data entry process, allowing the developer to focus on game mechanics and design.

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(danieltan.weblog.lol)
Game

Amiga Linux Port: A Community Collaboration

2025-07-05

This email details Guenther Grau's decision to join the AmigaLinux porting project. He's been following Unix on Amiga for two years and believes Hamish's AmigaLinux port is the most promising, as it has a working kernel, albeit lacking drivers. Guenther wants to join the project to avoid reinventing the wheel and aims to get Unix running on the Amiga quickly.

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(groups.google.com)
Development OS Porting

The Rise of Personal Software: AI-Powered App Creation for Everyone

2025-02-05
The Rise of Personal Software: AI-Powered App Creation for Everyone

Personal computers arrived in the 90s, but software remained impersonal and bloated. AI is changing that. Now, anyone can build custom applications to solve their specific needs, without needing coding skills. This isn't about replacing professional developers, but empowering individuals to create their own solutions, fostering appreciation for well-designed software and driving innovation.

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(leerob.com)
Development Personalization

Small Contributions, Big Impact: The Power of Foreign Aid

2025-03-14
Small Contributions, Big Impact: The Power of Foreign Aid

This article explores the impact of foreign aid on global health and development. Using the eradication of polio as a case study, it demonstrates that even though wealthy nations spend less than 1% of their national income on foreign aid, its impact is substantial. Through the combined efforts of governments and private donations, global polio cases have fallen by over 99%. The article also highlights other successful aid programs, such as PEPFAR and the Global Fund, and calls for increased foreign aid budgets and improved efficiency in aid spending.

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(ourworldindata.org)
Misc foreign aid global health

Top 7 Robotics Breakthroughs of 2024

2024-12-31
Top 7 Robotics Breakthroughs of 2024

2024 witnessed unprecedented advancements in robotics. Figure's $675 million Series B funding, valuing the company at $2.6 billion, propelled humanoid robot development. Boston Dynamics unveiled its new all-electric Atlas robot, paving the way for commercial applications. Nvidia invested in GR00T, aiming to develop a general-purpose foundation model for humanoid robots, addressing the challenge of practical, safe, and reliable robot deployment. The article also explores advancements in robot autonomy versus teleoperation, and the application of robotic metalworking in aerospace. Finally, it recounts the successful mission of the Mars Ingenuity helicopter and the development of its successor.

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(spectrum.ieee.org)
AI Humanoid Robots

Major Grocery Distributor UNFI Hit by Cyberattack, Disrupting Operations

2025-06-09
Major Grocery Distributor UNFI Hit by Cyberattack, Disrupting Operations

United Natural Foods (UNFI), a major grocery distributor to Whole Foods and other retailers, has suffered a cyberattack, significantly disrupting its operations. The attack, discovered last Thursday, forced UNFI to shut down parts of its network, impacting order fulfillment and distribution. While workarounds are in place, the company acknowledges ongoing disruptions. UNFI, a primary distributor to Whole Foods and serving over 30,000 stores across North America, hasn't disclosed the nature of the attack or ransom demands but has reported it to law enforcement. This incident follows recent cyberattacks targeting the retail and grocery supply chain, highlighting growing cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the sector.

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(techcrunch.com)
Tech grocery retail

Europe's First Reusable Rocket Demonstrator, Themis, Ready for Launch

2025-09-23
Europe's First Reusable Rocket Demonstrator, Themis, Ready for Launch

The first model of the European Space Agency's (ESA) reusable rocket demonstrator, Themis, is standing tall on its launchpad in Kiruna, Sweden. This 30-meter-tall rocket, featuring the Prometheus engine—nearly as powerful as the Ariane 6's main engine— boasts in-flight restart and thrust throttling capabilities for a safe landing. Themis aims to demonstrate vertical takeoff and landing with cryogenic propulsion, with its maiden flight supported by the Horizon Europe project Salto. This marks a significant step forward for Europe in reusable rocket technology.

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(phys.org)
Tech reusable rocket Prometheus engine

Minimalist Forth: Pushing the Boundaries of Language Size

2025-06-03

This article explores how small the core of the Forth language can be. It showcases several minimalist Forth implementations, including PlanckForth (under 1000 bytes), SmithForth (around 1000 bytes), sectorforth (512 bytes), and milliForth (336 bytes). These implementations achieve basic Forth functionality, even including compilers, with extremely small instruction sets. Frank Sergeant's 3-instruction Forth takes this to the extreme, running on a Motorola MC68HC11 chip in a mere 66 bytes. These examples challenge our assumptions about the size of programming languages and demonstrate the elegance of language design.

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(ratfactor.com)
Development Minimalist Programming

Drawing Animals with Margaret Mead: A Childhood Memory

2025-01-09
Drawing Animals with Margaret Mead: A Childhood Memory

In 1963, the 10-year-old author found himself drawing animals on napkins with renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead at the annual meeting of the American Society for Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama. Mead, at the height of her career, engaged the child in a spontaneous drawing session, offering a glimpse into her methods of understanding children's early cognitive development within a cultural context. The anecdote provides a personal and historical snapshot of a unique childhood experience and a notable moment in 20th-century American culture.

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(www.psychologytoday.com)
Misc Margaret Mead childhood memory cultural anthropology

Beyond Altair: The Rise of the Early Personal Computer Industry and the Software Startup Boom

2025-04-06
Beyond Altair: The Rise of the Early Personal Computer Industry and the Software Startup Boom

This article chronicles the explosive growth of the early personal computer industry following the release of the Altair 8800. Hardware enthusiasts like Don Tarbell filled Altair's shortcomings by developing peripherals such as cassette interfaces, giving rise to companies like Processor Technology and Cromemco. Simultaneously, software startups emerged, with Bill Gates and Paul Allen's BASIC interpreter and Gary Kildall's CP/M operating system transforming software business models and driving the adoption of personal computers. IMSAI took a different approach, attempting to push personal computers into the business market, but ultimately failing. This history showcases the transition of personal computers from hobbyist projects to a mature industry and the crucial role of early entrepreneurs in shaping its development.

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(technicshistory.com)
Tech personal computer history hardware startups software startups

CVE Program Funding Cuts Threaten Global Vulnerability Management

2025-04-16
CVE Program Funding Cuts Threaten Global Vulnerability Management

US government funding for the global Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program, which assigns unique identifiers to software vulnerabilities, ends this week. This crucial program's termination risks disrupting global vulnerability management, potentially halting new vulnerability publication, taking the CVE website offline, and jeopardizing critical infrastructure and national security. While temporary measures are being explored, long-term solutions require industry collaboration to prevent the CVE program's collapse.

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(www.theregister.com)
Tech

Mipmapping Alpha-Tested Textures: A Clever SDF-Based Solution

2025-01-17
Mipmapping Alpha-Tested Textures: A Clever SDF-Based Solution

A game developer encountered issues with mipmapping alpha-tested textures used for foliage rendering. Mipmaps caused textures to disappear or distort at a distance. The article explores various solutions, including adjusting alpha values and using Signed Distance Fields (SDFs). Ultimately, a combined approach using premultiplied alpha, max downsampling of SDFs, and averaging premultiplied colors proved effective, preserving texture shape while avoiding artifacts and improving visual quality.

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(lisyarus.github.io)
Game texture rendering mipmap

SeedLM: A Novel LLM Weight Compression Method Using Pseudo-Random Number Generators

2025-04-06
SeedLM: A Novel LLM Weight Compression Method Using Pseudo-Random Number Generators

Large Language Models (LLMs) are hindered by high runtime costs, limiting widespread deployment. Meta researchers introduce SeedLM, a novel post-training compression method using seeds from a pseudo-random number generator to encode and compress model weights. During inference, SeedLM uses a Linear Feedback Shift Register (LFSR) to efficiently generate a random matrix, linearly combined with compressed coefficients to reconstruct weight blocks. This reduces memory access and leverages idle compute cycles, speeding up memory-bound tasks by trading compute for fewer memory accesses. Unlike state-of-the-art methods requiring calibration data, SeedLM is data-free and generalizes well across diverse tasks. Experiments on the challenging Llama 3 70B show zero-shot accuracy at 4- and 3-bit compression matching or exceeding state-of-the-art methods, while maintaining performance comparable to FP16 baselines. FPGA tests demonstrate that 4-bit SeedLM approaches a 4x speed-up over an FP16 Llama 2/3 baseline as model size increases.

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(machinelearning.apple.com)
AI

Congress Kills FCC Hotspot Lending Program: A Political Battle Over the Digital Divide

2025-05-08
Congress Kills FCC Hotspot Lending Program: A Political Battle Over the Digital Divide

A Federal Communications Commission (FCC) program lending Wi-Fi hotspots to schools has been killed by Congress. Senator Blumenthal criticized the move as pointless and unhelpful to schools and families. Senator Markey called it a "cruel and shortsighted decision" that will widen the digital divide. The program stemmed from the termination of the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF) authorized in 2021, with the FCC attempting to compensate by adjusting the E-Rate program. However, FCC Chairman Carr opposed the plan, arguing that only Congress could decide whether to reinstate it. Representative Fulcher argued that the FCC's move exceeded legal boundaries and was a "political stunt." The E-Rate program itself has limited funds, capped at $4.94 billion annually, with $2.48 billion spent in 2023. Funding comes from fees levied on phone companies. The core of the controversy centers on understanding digital equity, governmental authority, and the allocation of limited public resources.

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(arstechnica.com)
Tech Congress

The Demise of the Paper Passport: The Rise of Digital Travel Documents

2024-12-27
The Demise of the Paper Passport: The Rise of Digital Travel Documents

The paper passport is on its way out, thanks to the rise of facial recognition technology and smartphones. Airports and governments worldwide are actively testing and deploying passport-free travel systems, leveraging facial recognition and digital identity verification to streamline the travel process. While this improves efficiency and reduces airport wait times, concerns about data privacy and security, such as data breaches and increased surveillance, are also being raised. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is pushing for the adoption of Digital Travel Credentials (DTCs), which digitize passport information stored on a phone and cryptographically link it to the physical passport. Despite challenges like 'look-alike fraud' and system failures, the trend towards digital travel documents is irreversible; your face may soon be your new passport.

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(www.wired.com)
Tech facial recognition digital travel credential passportless travel digital travel

OpenBSD Disk I/O Performance: More Threads Aren't Always Better

2025-06-08
OpenBSD Disk I/O Performance: More Threads Aren't Always Better

This post benchmarks the random read/write and latency performance of a 1TB Crucial P3 Plus SSD on OpenBSD 7.7 using fio(1). Results show good I/O scalability in OpenBSD, but increasing job counts beyond an optimal point (6-8 concurrent jobs) degrades performance due to contention and CPU overhead. Compared to Linux, OpenBSD shows more sensitivity to concurrency in NVMe writes. The test also reveals that excessive threads significantly impact desktop responsiveness. Future tests will extend to USB storage.

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(rsadowski.de)
Development I/O performance

Do LLMs Understand Nulls? Probing the Internal Representations of Code-Generating Models

2025-04-07

Large language models (LLMs) have shown remarkable progress in code generation, but their true understanding of code remains a question. This work investigates LLMs' comprehension of nullability in code, employing both external evaluation (code completion) and internal probing (model activation analysis). Results reveal LLMs learn and apply rules about null values, with performance varying based on rule complexity and model size. The study also illuminates how LLMs internally represent nullability and how this understanding evolves during training.

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(dmodel.ai)
AI Nullability

Precision in Management Communication: Why Your Words Matter

2025-04-08
Precision in Management Communication: Why Your Words Matter

This article highlights the critical importance of precise language in management. Vague phrases, like "you're doing well, but communication could improve," lead to inconsistencies in performance reviews. The author provides numerous examples across various scenarios, including performance evaluations, goal setting, and hiring, demonstrating how to replace ambiguous statements with specific data and actions. For instance, replace "always" with "consistently," and vague timelines like "soon" with concrete dates. The article emphasizes that written documentation forces more precise language, ultimately improving management effectiveness.

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(staysaasy.com)
Management management skills

C++ Overload Resolution's "Better": A Deep Dive into Type Conversions

2025-03-17
C++ Overload Resolution's

This article delves into the complexities of C++ overload resolution, specifically the elusive "better" rules for implicit type conversions. Through detailed explanations and examples of standard conversion sequences, including qualification conversions, the author unravels how the compiler chooses the best function match. Code examples and step-by-step analyses showcase the intricate and sometimes baffling mechanics of C++'s type system, ultimately leading to a reflection on the practicality of implicit conversions.

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(consteval.ca)
Development overload resolution type conversion

Chrome's Manifest V3: A Nightmare for Ad Blocker Developers?

2025-02-08
Chrome's Manifest V3: A Nightmare for Ad Blocker Developers?

Google's Chrome Manifest V3 (MV3) extension architecture overhaul continues to cause headaches for developers of ad blockers, content filters, and privacy tools. While Google claims MV3 aims to improve security and performance, developers like those behind AdGuard and uBlock Origin find its restrictions far more severe than anticipated, limiting or even preventing core functionality. Developers complain that MV3 increases development difficulty and accuse Google of slow responses to developer feedback, even subtly undermining extensions through UI changes. This raises questions about Google's true intentions: is it about improving security and privacy, or subtly limiting extension capabilities?

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(www.theregister.com)
Development Chrome Extensions

NYC Secret Service Busts Massive SIM Farm: The Weird Hardware Inside

2025-09-24
NYC Secret Service Busts Massive SIM Farm: The Weird Hardware Inside

The Secret Service's recent takedown of a massive SIM farm in NYC has revealed bizarre hardware. These devices, called SIM banks or gateways, hold hundreds of SIM cards, enabling mass texting and calling. While some legitimate uses exist (network testing, marketing), they're predominantly used for spam, scams, and harassment. The devices, costing thousands of dollars each, highlight the scale of such operations and the challenges in combating them. The discovery near a UN meeting underscores the potential threat to telecom systems.

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(tedium.co)
Tech SIM farm Secret Service

MLB to Implement Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System in 2026

2025-09-24
MLB to Implement Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System in 2026

Major League Baseball (MLB) will introduce an automated ball-strike challenge system in the 2026 season. Following years of testing in the minor leagues, the system will allow each team two challenges per game. Hitters, pitchers, and catchers can initiate challenges by tapping their head. Successful challenges, shown on stadium videoboards, allow teams to retain their challenge. The technology is similar to tennis' line-calling system, using 12 cameras to track the ball. While not unanimously supported, the system passed with the backing of MLB owners who hold a majority on the committee. The aim is to reduce disputes and ejections related to ball-strike calls while maintaining the umpire's role.

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(www.espn.com)
Game robot umpire

libpostal: A Global Address NLP Powerhouse

2025-07-09
libpostal: A Global Address NLP Powerhouse

libpostal is a powerful C library that parses and normalizes street addresses worldwide using statistical NLP and open data. Supporting numerous languages, it transforms free-form addresses into machine-readable formats ideal for geocoding applications. The library offers bindings for various languages and welcomes contributions to improve its accuracy and global reach. Sponsorship opportunities are available for organizations leveraging its capabilities.

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(github.com)
Development address parsing

Langfuse Open Sources All Product Features: Building the Open LLM Engineering Platform

2025-06-04
Langfuse Open Sources All Product Features: Building the Open LLM Engineering Platform

Langfuse is open-sourcing all its product features, including managed vector databases, evaluation tools, and the Playground, to accelerate community application iteration and gather feedback. This move stems from Langfuse's vision to be the leading open-source LLM engineering platform. By opening core features, they aim to foster trust, collaboration, accelerate adoption, and iterate faster. Langfuse started as an open-source project and remains committed to this principle. Only Enterprise security and platform team features (e.g., SCIM, audit logs, data retention policies) remain commercially licensed; the rest are MIT licensed. With over 8,000 monthly active self-hosted instances, this move solidifies Langfuse as the top choice for a powerful, truly open-source platform in LLMOps.

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(langfuse.com)
Development
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