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Resurrecting a Perfect Commodore Amiga 1000: A Retrocomputing Odyssey

2025-01-29

Resurrecting a Perfect Commodore Amiga 1000: A Retrocomputing Odyssey

This blog post details the author's journey restoring a Commodore Amiga 1000, the first model of the Amiga series. Purchased from eBay, the machine's resurrection involved identifying its previous owner (Franz Barta), replacing capacitors, troubleshooting (a loose CPU socket was the culprit!), installing a PiStorm and Parceiro expansion board, and finally, restoring it to working order with a Retrobrighting treatment. The author shares experiences running incompatible software using WHDLoad and outlines future upgrades, including RGB2HDMI for high-definition output and RAM expansion.

(celso.io)

Hardware hardware restoration

Raising Analog Kids in a Digital World: A Family's Approach

2025-03-30

A couple shares their strategy for raising children with an analog childhood in a digital age. They created a curated playroom filled with books, board games, musical instruments, and other physical toys, minimizing screen time. Emphasis is placed on emotional security, autonomy, and attention span development, supported by clear house rules and consistent family involvement. This philosophy extends to their home design, with a retro color palette creating a warm and inviting atmosphere.

(www.joshuakennon.com)

Misc analog childhood

Highlighting Bash in Lua with Neovim and Treesitter

2025-01-28

The author built a tool to synchronize packages across multiple machines, using a Lua configuration file. To improve readability and editing of Bash scripts embedded within the Lua configuration, they leveraged Neovim and the Treesitter plugin. Treesitter, through its injection feature, identifies the `script` field in Lua tables and highlights its content as Bash based on a custom query. This significantly enhances code readability and maintainability. The post details the configuration of Neovim and Treesitter, along with the custom query to achieve the Bash highlighting.

(xnacly.me)

Development

Boston Dynamics Partners with RAI Institute to Boost Atlas Robot's Reinforcement Learning

2025-02-06

Boston Dynamics Partners with RAI Institute to Boost Atlas Robot's Reinforcement Learning

Boston Dynamics announced a partnership with its own Robotics & AI Institute (RAI Institute) to leverage reinforcement learning and enhance the capabilities of its electric humanoid robot, Atlas. The collaboration aims to accelerate Atlas's learning of new tasks and improve its movement and interaction in real-world environments, such as dynamic running and manipulating heavy objects. This marks a significant advancement in reinforcement learning for robotics and highlights the importance of vertically integrating robot AI, echoing Figure AI's decision to abandon its partnership with OpenAI.

(techcrunch.com)

AI Humanoid Robot Boston Dynamics

18 Years in the Linux Console: No Regrets

2025-01-12

18 Years in the Linux Console: No Regrets

A programmer recounts his 18-year journey using only the Linux command line. Starting in the early 2000s in a rural area with limited internet access, he learned Linux, eventually finding his 'zen' through countless nights of coding and experimenting with various distributions. The author details challenges and solutions, sharing insights on modern Linux trends like the rise of systemd and his choice of Gentoo. This nostalgic piece is a captivating tale of dedication to pure technology.

(eugene-andrienko.com)

Development

Senior Devs: Mastering AI-Powered Coding Tools

2025-04-03

This article details the author's positive experiences using AI coding tools in both personal and professional projects. The author finds that experienced developers are uniquely positioned to leverage these tools effectively, viewing the AI as a highly knowledgeable junior developer requiring guidance. Three key success factors are highlighted: well-structured requirements, robust quality assurance tools, and pre-defined code file structures. Two project examples (greenfield and brownfield) demonstrate significant productivity gains, even for developers unfamiliar with the tech stack. The article concludes that success hinges on leveraging traditional software engineering best practices alongside this new technology.

(manuel.kiessling.net)

Development

Differentiable Logic Cellular Automata: From Game of Life to Pattern Generation with Learned Recurrent Circuits

2025-03-07

This paper introduces DiffLogic CA, a novel neural cellular automata (NCA) architecture using a fully discrete cell state updated via a learned, recurrent binary circuit. Replacing neural network components with Deep Differentiable Logic Networks allows differentiable training of discrete logic gates. The success of applying differentiable logic gates to cellular automata is demonstrated by replicating Conway's Game of Life and generating patterns through learned discrete dynamics. This highlights the potential of integrating discrete logic within NCAs and proves differentiable logic gate networks can be effectively learned in recurrent architectures. While promising, training for complex shapes remains a challenge, suggesting future work on hierarchical architectures and specialized gates for improved state management.

(google-research.github.io)

AI Differentiable Logic Gates Pattern Generation

Robocode: Revive the Thrill of Java Robot Battles

2025-02-18

Robocode is a Java-based robot combat programming game where players write code to control their robot tanks in real-time battles. This article provides a beginner's guide, API documentation, tutorials, and links to active community resources, along with a preview of the upcoming Robocode Tank Royale platform. Whether you're a seasoned programmer or a coding novice, Robocode offers a fun and engaging way to experience the thrill of programming.

(robocode.sourceforge.io)

Game

RCL's Design Dilemma: The Challenge of Floats

2025-03-04

The author faced a challenge while building the new configuration language RCL: how to handle floating-point numbers. As a superset of JSON, RCL needs to balance JSON semantics, the type system, and code readability. The article delves into the trade-offs between integer and floating-point types, such as whether to distinguish between integer and floating-point types, and how to handle numerical equality and type conversion. Ultimately, the author chose a single numeric type, "Number," to simplify language design and improve user experience. This solution is implemented in RCL 0.8.0.

(ruudvanasseldonk.com)

Development floating-point numbers

MCP: A Unified Interface for AI Agents

2025-03-08

MCP: A Unified Interface for AI Agents

Imagine a universal interface connecting AI models to various tools and data sources – that's MCP (Model Context Protocol). Like a USB-C port for AI, it simplifies AI's interaction with the external world. Unlike traditional APIs requiring individual integrations, MCP offers standardization, dynamic discovery, and real-time, two-way communication, making AI applications more flexible and efficient. It's ideal for complex scenarios needing context awareness, such as smart scheduling assistants and advanced IDEs.

(norahsakal.com)

Development

Trump Halts TikTok Ban for 75 Days: A High-Stakes Gamble

2025-01-21

Trump Halts TikTok Ban for 75 Days: A High-Stakes Gamble

President Trump issued an executive order temporarily halting enforcement of the TikTok ban for 75 days. This move aims to prevent penalties against American companies like Apple and Google for working with TikTok, but its legal standing is questionable. The ban stemmed from a law demanding TikTok divest from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, and Trump's action effectively circumvents this legislation. While the reprieve may offer temporary relief, the decision carries significant legal and political risks, with massive fines still a possibility and its effectiveness highly debated.

(www.theverge.com)

Tech

Bilinear Up/Downsampling: Pixel Grid Alignment and That Infamous GPU Half-Pixel Offset

2025-01-27

Bilinear Up/Downsampling: Pixel Grid Alignment and That Infamous GPU Half-Pixel Offset

This article delves into the common misconceptions and pitfalls surrounding bilinear up/downsampling techniques. The author points out that bilinear up/downsampling isn't a single concept; its definition and implementation vary, leading to long-standing bugs and confusion, even affecting top libraries like TensorFlow. The article thoroughly explains pixel grid alignment, GPU half-pixel offsets, and the role of odd/even filters. Using a signal processing perspective, it analyzes operations like zero-insertion and post-filtering, ultimately concluding that choosing the right coordinate system and filter is crucial for obtaining correct results.

(bartwronski.com)

Development signal processing

Trump Admin Ends Paper Checks, Goes All-Digital

2025-03-31

Trump Admin Ends Paper Checks, Goes All-Digital

President Trump's executive order, effective September 30th, eliminates paper checks for all US Treasury disbursements. This includes tax refunds, vendor payments, benefits, and intergovernmental transfers. The move aims to combat waste, fraud, and abuse, citing that paper checks are 16 times more likely to be lost, stolen, or altered than electronic transfers. Maintaining the paper check system cost $657 million in 2024. While check usage declines, fraud is rising, prompting the American Bankers Association to applaud the change and encourage digital banking. Exceptions will be made for those lacking banking access, emergencies, law enforcement, and other specified cases.

(bankingjournal.aba.com)

Tech fraud prevention

Using `uv` as Your Shebang for Efficient Python Scripting

2025-01-28

Using `uv` as Your Shebang for Efficient Python Scripting

Rob Allen shares his experience using `#!/usr/bin/env -S uv run --script` as a shebang line for his Python scripts. This approach leverages the `uv` tool to manage script dependencies, allowing direct execution from the command line without needing to set up virtual environments, etc., improving script convenience and executability. The author creates many automation scripts in his ~/bin directory and simplifies their execution using this method.

(akrabat.com)

Development scripting

EHT Reveals Turbulent Accretion Flow Around M87*'s Black Hole

2025-01-25

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration has released a new analysis of the supermassive black hole at the center of Messier 87 (M87*), combining observations from 2017 and 2018. The study confirms that M87*'s black hole rotational axis points away from Earth and highlights the significant role of turbulence within the accretion disk in explaining the observed shift in the ring's brightness peak. Using a vastly expanded simulation image library, the team confirmed the counter-clockwise 30-degree shift of the brightest region of the ring between 2017 and 2018. This research represents a major step forward in understanding the complex dynamics of black hole environments.

(eventhorizontelescope.org)

Tech Black Hole Event Horizon Telescope Accretion Disk

Climate Reanalyzer: Visualizing Daily Global Temperatures

2025-01-21

The Climate Reanalyzer website, from the University of Maine's Climate Change Institute, provides interactive visualizations of daily global temperatures based on ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis data. The site offers interactive charts and maps showing daily mean surface air temperature from 1940 to the present, allowing users to select different regions for analysis. Data updates are delayed by 6-7 days, and users are cautioned to treat extreme temperatures estimated by ERA5 with care. The site also provides access to other climate data, such as sea surface temperature and sea ice extent.

(climatereanalyzer.org)

Tech climate data ERA5 reanalysis data

Maestro: A Simple and Effective UI Testing Framework for Mobile and Web

2025-03-01

Maestro: A Simple and Effective UI Testing Framework for Mobile and Web

Maestro is a simple and effective UI testing framework for mobile and web applications. Built upon the lessons learned from Appium, Espresso, UIAutomator, and XCTest, Maestro boasts built-in tolerance for flakiness (handling unstable UI elements and taps) and delays (automatically waiting for content to load without `sleep()` calls). Its interpreted nature allows for blazing fast iteration, while its declarative YAML syntax simplifies test definition. A single binary makes setup a breeze. Check out docs.maestro.dev to get started.

(github.com)

Development testing framework

Botswana Launches its First Satellite: BOTSAT-1

2025-03-26

Botswana Launches its First Satellite: BOTSAT-1

Botswana successfully launched its first satellite, BOTSAT-1, on March 15th, 2025, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. This 3U hyperspectral Earth observation satellite, developed by the Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST), will provide crucial data for national development priorities including food security, environmental conservation, and urban planning. The launch represents a significant milestone in Botswana's space program and fosters human capital development through practical training for local engineers. Collaboration with Dragonfly Aerospace enhances BIUST's capabilities with advanced imaging technology and support for cleanroom facility development.

(spaceinafrica.com)

Tech Satellite Launch African Space Program

Linux Auto-Shutdown on Power Disconnect: A BusKill Alternative

2025-07-31

This article details a simple alternative to BusKill for automatically shutting down a Linux system when the power is disconnected. By creating a udev rule that monitors the power supply status, a custom script (e.g., poweroff) is executed upon disconnection. This is a straightforward method for protecting laptops used in public areas from theft. The article also provides alternative script ideas, such as locking sessions, hibernating, or even destroying LUKS master keys, catering to various security needs.

(dataswamp.org)

Development

Distr: Simplifying Enterprise Software Distribution

2025-01-30

Distr: Simplifying Enterprise Software Distribution

Distr simplifies distributing enterprise software to customer-controlled or shared-responsibility environments. It features an intuitive web UI for viewing deployments and agents, a white-label customer portal for customer control, an API accessible via a rich SDK, and is fully open-source and self-hostable. The Distr Hub is distributed as a Docker image with a Docker Compose example deployment. Comprehensive documentation covers self-hosting and building from source, and a JavaScript SDK is available for application integration.

(github.com)

Development Software Distribution

Augmenting CLIs and APIs for LLM Agents

2025-07-20

Augmenting CLIs and APIs for LLM Agents

The author encountered limitations in existing command-line tools and APIs when using Large Language Model (LLM) agents for reverse engineering automation, especially with the small context windows of local models. APIs need to balance providing enough information to reduce tool calls while avoiding context window overflow. Solutions explored include improved docstrings, helper functions, and pre-commit hooks. Further improvements suggested involve wrappers that cache output, structure it, and report remaining lines, as well as shell hooks providing directory information. The author concludes that existing CLIs need LLM enhancements; perhaps even a whole set of LLM-enhanced CLIs or a custom LLM shell is needed to improve the user experience for LLM agents.

(www.notcheckmark.com)

Development CLI Tools

JPMorgan to Charge Fintechs Hundreds of Millions for Customer Data Access

2025-07-12

JPMorgan to Charge Fintechs Hundreds of Millions for Customer Data Access

JPMorgan Chase is set to charge fintech companies hundreds of millions of dollars for access to customer bank account data, a move that threatens to disrupt the industry's business models. Many fintechs rely on free access to this data; these new fees could force them to adjust their business models and potentially pass the costs onto consumers, disproportionately affecting low-income users. The move comes amid uncertainty surrounding a Biden-era open banking regulation that mandates free data sharing, but whose future is now unclear after a lawsuit and intervention from the Trump-era CFPB. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon argues that third parties should pay for access and that use should be restricted. Critics argue this is an attempt to stifle competition and innovation.

(news.bloomberglaw.com)

Tech Data Sharing Open Banking

Federal Data Vanishing: Civil Society Steps Up to Save the Day

2025-02-13

Federal Data Vanishing: Civil Society Steps Up to Save the Day

Hundreds of federal datasets and government websites have mysteriously disappeared or been drastically altered since the start of the Trump administration. Responding to this crisis, civil society organizations are taking action. Harvard's Library Innovation Lab recently released 16 terabytes of archived data.gov, a complete copy of the platform's former holdings. On February 13th at 3 PM Eastern, MuckRock will host an event featuring the Internet Archive and the Harvard Law School Library Innovation Lab, discussing at-risk data, how to access rescued data, and how to contribute to preservation efforts.

(www.muckrock.com)

Tech government data

The Holy Grail of 70s Radios: The Sony FX-300

2025-02-18

The Holy Grail of 70s Radios: The Sony FX-300

A child of the 1970s reminisces about the elusive Sony FX-300 "Jackal 300" radio, a dream machine he never owned. Primarily sold in Japan, this radio boasts a mini CRT television screen, precise analog tuning, a top-mounted cassette player/recorder, AM/FM reception, and a killer retro design. The author praises its unique aesthetics and seeks readers' experiences with this 'holy grail' device.

(swling.com)

Misc vintage radio electronics

Sigstore: Securing the Open Source Software Supply Chain

2025-01-21

Sigstore: Securing the Open Source Software Supply Chain

Sigstore is an open-source project aiming to secure software supply chains through digital signatures and transparent logging. It simplifies software verification, allowing developers to easily verify software integrity and origin, thus preventing malicious software and supply chain attacks. Sigstore's core strength lies in its ease of use and integration with existing tools, contributing to a more secure and reliable software ecosystem.

(www.sigstore.dev)

Development supply chain security

Lox: A Modern Astrodynamics Library for Space Missions

2025-02-20

Lox: A Modern Astrodynamics Library for Space Missions

Lox is a safe and ergonomic astrodynamics library for the modern space industry. It offers a comprehensive API, ranging from high-level mission planning and analysis tools to lower-level utilities. Supporting various coordinate frames, it includes ephemeris data for major celestial bodies and readily handles Earth orientation parameters. Lox also provides Python bindings for interactive use and is extensible, allowing users to add custom time scales, transformation algorithms, and data sources. Commissioned by the European Space Agency, it's a next-generation, open-source space mission simulator.

(github.com)

Development Astrodynamics Space Mission Simulator Open-Source Library

Your Phone is Killing Your Sex Appeal

2025-01-29

Your Phone is Killing Your Sex Appeal

This article argues that smartphones are killing our ability to feel sexy. The author contends that the convenience of our phones eliminates desire, risk, and genuine connection. From endless scrolling to instant gratification, phones detach us from our bodies and immerse us in a digital world, preventing us from experiencing life's fleeting sensual moments. The author calls for us to disconnect, embrace uncertainty, and reconnect with the physical and emotional experiences that make life exciting.

(catherineshannon.substack.com)

Misc smartphone addiction sexuality

Rethinking SQLite: Surprisingly Powerful at Hyper-Scale

2025-03-03

Rethinking SQLite: Surprisingly Powerful at Hyper-Scale

Contrary to popular belief, SQLite isn't just for small applications. This article argues that services like Cloudflare Durable Objects and Turso unlock SQLite's potential at hyper-scale. These platforms assign SQLite databases per entity, replacing the complexities of sharded databases. This approach solves challenges like rigid schemas, difficult schema changes, and complex cross-partition operations. While challenges remain—lack of open-source self-hosting and standardized protocols—SQLite's ACID compliance, efficient I/O, and rich SQL extensions make it a compelling alternative to traditional partitioned databases.

(rivet.gg)

Development

Open WebUI: Simplifying Access to Large Language Models

2025-01-23

Open WebUI is an open-source project that simplifies user interaction with Large Language Models (LLMs). It provides a user-friendly graphical interface, allowing even non-technical users to easily access and utilize the powerful capabilities of LLMs, such as text generation, language translation, and question answering. Without needing complex command-line operations or programming knowledge, Open WebUI lowers the barrier to entry for LLMs, opening up the world of AI to a wider audience.

(polychat.co)

AI

Beyond the XOR Trick: Finding Thousands of Missing IDs with Invertible Bloom Filters

2025-07-18

Beyond the XOR Trick: Finding Thousands of Missing IDs with Invertible Bloom Filters

This article introduces Invertible Bloom Filters (IBFs), a data structure that efficiently solves the problem of finding thousands of missing IDs in a massive dataset. Starting with the simple XOR trick, the article progressively explains the workings of IBFs, overcoming the limitations of the traditional XOR trick through partitioning and iterative recovery. IBFs use hashing to partition sets, then iteratively recover the symmetric difference using a 'peeling' algorithm to efficiently find missing elements. A Python implementation is provided for learning and experimentation.

(nochlin.com)

Development Invertible Bloom Filters

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