Tesla's German EV Registrations Plummet 41%, Ranking Falls

2025-01-30
Tesla's German EV Registrations Plummet 41%, Ranking Falls

Tesla's new EV registrations in Germany plummeted 41% in 2024 to under 38,000, dropping to third place in market share. This decline is attributed to CEO Elon Musk's controversial statements and a lack of recent innovation, despite the Berlin Gigafactory's initial promise. Competitors like BMW and VW outperformed Tesla, highlighting challenges faced by the US automaker in the German market, including legal issues, environmental protests, and lower-than-expected sales at its Berlin plant.

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Tech

Forgejo: A Self-Hosted GitHub Alternative

2025-01-19
Forgejo: A Self-Hosted GitHub Alternative

Forgejo is a lightweight, self-hosted software forge, easy to install and maintain, powered by the Codeberg e.V. community. It prioritizes security, scalability, federation, and privacy, offering a familiar GitHub-like experience for a smooth transition. 100% free and open-source, Forgejo boasts low resource consumption, high performance, and a commitment to fostering collaborative software development through decentralized platforms.

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Development GitHub alternative

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.

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From Nero's Poison to Turkish Jam: The Deadly Double Life of Cherry Laurel

2025-03-11

The author discovers a cherry laurel tree in their backyard, a plant whose fruits and leaves contain the deadly poison cyanide. Historically, it was used by Locusta, Nero's poisoner, to assassinate enemies. However, cherry laurel has also been used as a food flavoring; 19th-century British cooks used its leaves in puddings, resulting in child poisonings. Today, in Turkey, ripe cherry laurel fruits are made into jams and other foods. The article engagingly recounts the plant's transformation from ancient poison to modern food, warning against confusing cherry laurel with bay leaves to prevent accidental poisoning.

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Misc plant poison

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.

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AtomixDB: A Tiny Relational Database in Go

2025-02-26
AtomixDB: A Tiny Relational Database in Go

AtomixDB is a mini relational database entirely written in Go, focusing on implementing and understanding database workings, storage management, and transaction handling. It utilizes a B+ tree storage engine with indexing support, features free list node reuse, transaction support, and concurrent reads. Currently, it supports CREATE, INSERT, GET, UPDATE, DELETE, BEGIN, COMMIT, and ABORT commands. The project is open-source and welcomes contributions.

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Development

Discord Ads: High CPMs, But Still Experimental

2025-01-31
Discord Ads: High CPMs, But Still Experimental

Discord's ad products currently use a fixed pricing model based on projected reach, frequency, brand lift, and user engagement. Premium inventory CPMs range from roughly $25 to $30, varying by format, region, and reach. Discord uses CPM pricing instead of CPA because both views and engagement provide value, and it's the right economic model for them, competitively positioned within the premium tier but below the highest-priced platforms. While advertising holds promise, it remains a relatively experimental business unit for Discord in 2025; most revenue comes from its Discord Nitro subscription service.

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X Platform Bans Signal.me Links: A Blow to Privacy?

2025-02-17
X Platform Bans Signal.me Links: A Blow to Privacy?

Elon Musk's X platform (formerly Twitter) has recently banned links to Signal's "Signal.me" URL, preventing users from posting them in DMs, public posts, or even their profile bios. This move raises concerns, as Signal, with its end-to-end encryption and privacy focus, is a crucial communication tool for journalists and whistleblowers, particularly relevant amidst recent US government data leak controversies. While users can still share their Signal usernames manually, this added friction impacts communication and potentially threatens information security and press freedom. The ban signals a further tightening of information control on X, with the motivations remaining unclear.

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Tech X Platform

News Overload: How Do I Process Information Effectively?

2025-03-09

The author canceled all daily newspaper subscriptions, keeping only a cooperatively-owned weekly and a French magazine. He finds that more and more online news sites have paywalls, ads, and intrusive scripts, leading him to abandon online news reading. He reflects on the changing attention economy and questions current payment models, finding per-article payments or multiple subscriptions too expensive and impractical. He considers subscribing to the Swiss digital newspaper Republik to support media diversity but struggles to process the vast amount of information effectively. The article concludes with a question about how to process news, reflecting the common dilemma of information overload.

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Iron Age Society Centered on Women: Ancient Genomes Reveal a Matrilocal Past

2025-01-26
Iron Age Society Centered on Women: Ancient Genomes Reveal a Matrilocal Past

An international team, led by Trinity College Dublin, has unearthed a fascinating glimpse into Britain's Iron Age through ancient DNA. Analysis of over 50 genomes from a Dorset burial site revealed a society structured around female lineage. The study indicates that husbands joined their wives' communities, with land potentially inherited through the maternal line, a system called matrilocality. This pattern wasn't unique to Dorset; similar findings in other Iron Age cemeteries across Britain suggest a widespread phenomenon, challenging traditional views of gender roles and highlighting the significant social and political influence of women in this era. The research published in Nature adds compelling genetic evidence to archaeological observations.

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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.

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AI-Powered Coding: My Journey with Cline and LLMs

2025-01-27
AI-Powered Coding: My Journey with Cline and LLMs

Paolo Galeone recounts his experience using AI to revamp his SaaS platform, bot.eofferte.eu. Leveraging Cline's VSCode plugin and LLMs like Claude Sonnet 3.5 and Gemini, he redesigned the UI/UX, generating content like privacy policies. Backend development saw AI accelerate code optimization and repetitive tasks, but highlighted the need for human expertise. Multilingual content generation was streamlined, with AI efficiently translating JSON files for multiple Amazon affiliate regions. The key takeaway: AI significantly boosts efficiency but requires developers to validate and integrate AI suggestions, emphasizing the role of human expertise in ensuring quality.

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Development

LLVM Static Analyzer Integrates Z3 Solver: Eliminating False Positives

2025-02-23

LLVM's static analyzer now supports the Z3 constraint solver, significantly improving its ability to filter out false positives. The article demonstrates two methods of using Z3: as an external solver and for refuting false positives. The first method, while completely eliminating false positives, is significantly slower (approximately 15x). The second method, using Z3 for refutation, is faster and more efficient in reducing false positives. Experiments show that enabling Z3 allows the LLVM static analyzer to accurately identify and avoid false positives caused by bitwise operations, resulting in more reliable analysis.

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Development static analysis

Training Large Diffusion Models on a Shoestring Budget: $1890

2025-01-16
Training Large Diffusion Models on a Shoestring Budget: $1890

Sony Research has open-sourced micro_diffusion, demonstrating how to train large-scale diffusion models on an extremely low budget ($1890). Using 37 million publicly available real and synthetic images, they trained a 1.16 billion parameter sparse transformer model, achieving an FID score of 12.7 on zero-shot generation on the COCO dataset. The project provides training code, dataset code, pre-trained model weights, and details a staged training process, including progressive training from low to high resolution and the use of patch masking to reduce training costs and improve efficiency.

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California Wildfires Wipe Out Decades of Climate Progress

2025-01-20
California Wildfires Wipe Out Decades of Climate Progress

A University of Chicago study reveals that California's 2020 wildfires negated nearly two decades of emission reduction efforts. The fires caused billions of dollars in economic losses and fatalities, significantly jeopardizing the state's climate goals. The study shows that a single year's wildfire emissions amounted to almost half of California's 2030 emission reduction target, highlighting the critical need for wildfire prevention in state climate policy.

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Basel Tax Authority Buys Bahamian Web Address Due to Flyer Error

2025-01-31
Basel Tax Authority Buys Bahamian Web Address Due to Flyer Error

The Basel-Stadt tax authority had to purchase a web address in the Bahamas due to a mistake on an information flyer for digital tax returns. The flyer, sent to over 100,000 households, omitted the '.ch' from the web address, redirecting users to a '.bs' domain in the Bahamas. While the error has been addressed and the Bahamian address will redirect to the correct Swiss site, the mistake cost the authority CHF 900, significantly cheaper than the estimated CHF 100,000 to reprint the flyers. Taxpayers can still file their returns online, albeit with a brief Caribbean detour.

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Misc tax error

RealtimeSanitizer for Rust: A New Open Source Library

2025-01-23

This post introduces `rtsan-standalone-rs`, a new open-source library bringing LLVM's RealtimeSanitizer (RTSan) to Rust. RTSan helps detect hard-to-find real-time violations in your code, such as memory allocations, crucial for applications like audio processing and self-driving cars. The author details the implementation, usage with macros like `nonblocking` and `blocking`, and how to integrate it into your Rust projects. This library offers immediate access to RTSan's capabilities in stable Rust, improving the safety and predictability of real-time applications before its official integration into LLVM20.

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Skip College, Build a $5k/mo Business: A 2016 Retrospective

2025-04-02
Skip College, Build a $5k/mo Business: A 2016 Retrospective

The author reflects on what he'd do if he were 18 in 2016, arguing that traditional paths are obsolete and young people have unprecedented opportunities. He advises skipping college, focusing instead on learning coding, design, and marketing; building an online business generating $5,000/month; and practicing extreme frugality. Through online learning and low-cost living, young people can build financial freedom in a few years, investing consistently in ETFs for long-term wealth growth. Once financially secure, they can pursue passions freely.

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A Java JIT Compiler and Runtime in Common Lisp: OpenLDK

2025-02-06
A Java JIT Compiler and Runtime in Common Lisp: OpenLDK

OpenLDK is a Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler and runtime environment for Java, implemented entirely in Common Lisp. It bridges the gap between Java and Common Lisp by incrementally translating Java bytecode into Lisp, then compiling it into native machine code. This unique approach allows seamless mapping of Java classes to Common Lisp Object System (CLOS) classes, enabling effortless integration between Java and Common Lisp codebases. While not designed for high performance, OpenLDK offers a practical solution for integrating Java libraries into a Lisp workflow. Currently, it primarily supports Linux and SBCL, and is a work in progress with many features yet to be implemented, such as support for class files beyond Java 8 and bytecode verification.

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Development

GPL: Boon or Bane for WordPress?

2025-03-04
GPL: Boon or Bane for WordPress?

Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software argues that the GPL license hinders participation and adoption in WordPress. This article counters that argument, asserting that WordPress's thriving plugin and theme community is a direct result of the GPL. The author uses personal experience to show how the GPL protects user freedoms and ultimately fosters a flourishing ecosystem rather than hindering development. While acknowledging limitations, the core principles of sharing and reciprocity are vital for building a robust community and ecosystem – far outweighing license concerns.

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(ma.tt)
Development Open Source License

Nokia Design Archive Now Online: A Journey Through Time

2025-01-16
Nokia Design Archive Now Online: A Journey Through Time

The Nokia Design Archive is now live, showcasing its design history through an interactive network timeline. Users can explore a vast collection of design materials using keyword search, topic filters (products, aesthetics, design process, design strategy), and date filters. The archive is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, with clear attribution instructions provided.

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Minimal Automatic Differentiation Engine in Rust

2025-06-20
Minimal Automatic Differentiation Engine in Rust

This is a minimal automatic differentiation engine written in Rust. It can train a tiny Multi-Layer Perceptron to learn the XOR function and render a computation graph of a single Perceptron to graph.html. The core is the Scalar struct, storing value, optional gradient, and an Edge describing the operation that produced it. Operator overloads and helper functions build a directed acyclic graph, caching the local derivative for every edge. `backward()` recursively propagates gradients from the output node, accumulating them into leaf nodes created with `Scalar::new_grad`. The graph can be visualized with `plot::dump_graph`.

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WFH: Longer Days, More Meetings, and Zoom Fatigue

2025-05-16
WFH: Longer Days, More Meetings, and Zoom Fatigue

A Harvard Business School study reveals that during the early days of the pandemic, remote workers experienced an 8.2% increase in their average workday (48.5 minutes). While meeting frequency rose, individual meetings shortened. Analyzing data from 3.1 million people across 16 global cities, researchers found that remote work blurred work-life boundaries, leading to longer hours and employee burnout. Managers are advised to focus on output, not hours worked, and to empathize with employees' unique circumstances.

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Tech work hours

Webb-site.com to Shut Down: A Founder's Farewell Amidst a Cancer Battle

2025-02-12

David Webb, founder of Webb-site.com, announces the site's closure on March 31, 2025, due to his battle with metastatic prostate cancer. The article reflects on the site's contributions to public data transparency in Hong Kong since its 1998 launch, including uncovering government spending, tracking vaccination rates, and immigration data. An attempt to transfer the database to the University of Hong Kong failed due to the post-National Security Law environment. Webb will cease manual data collection, making existing data publicly available for download. The piece is a poignant reflection on the site's legacy, observations on Hong Kong's socio-political climate, and a peaceful farewell from a determined individual.

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Interactive Process Tree Visualization in Jupyter Notebook

2025-03-04
Interactive Process Tree Visualization in Jupyter Notebook

DNB's Cyber Defense Center developed an interactive process tree visualization tool within Jupyter Notebook to enhance incident response efficiency. Leveraging technologies like anywidget, marimo, ibis, Apache Spark, and dependentree, it transforms process creation event logs from EDRs such as Microsoft Defender for Endpoint into an interactive tree. Users can filter events, explore the process hierarchy, and select individual processes for detailed inspection. The tool runs in the browser for easy sharing and demonstration.

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Development incident response

Inside the Ryugyong Hotel: A Rare Glimpse into North Korea's Empty Giant

2025-02-21
Inside the Ryugyong Hotel: A Rare Glimpse into North Korea's Empty Giant

The Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, one of the world's tallest unoccupied buildings, has finally had some of its mystery unveiled by British tour guide Simon Cockerell. After nearly 200 visits to North Korea, Cockerell's connections allowed him access to the peculiar pyramid-shaped structure. His photos reveal a vast emptiness, debunking myths about the building's size and features. Despite its completion, the hotel has never hosted a guest, a testament to North Korea's ambitions and economic struggles, particularly after the fall of the Soviet Union. Today, the Ryugyong's glass facade serves as a nightly LED screen, projecting propaganda and videos, becoming a unique part of Pyongyang's skyline.

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AI Facial Recognition Derails Murder Case

2025-01-28
AI Facial Recognition Derails Murder Case

Cleveland police used AI facial recognition to obtain a search warrant in a murder case, but the technology's results are inadmissible in court. A judge subsequently threw out the evidence, potentially derailing the prosecution. The case highlights a critical lack of oversight, regulation, and training surrounding the use of AI in law enforcement, raising ethical and legal concerns about its application in judicial proceedings.

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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.

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My Vim Workflow: A Decade of Productivity Hacks and Automation

2025-02-13

This article details a decade's worth of Vim (specifically GVim on Windows) usage, culminating in a collection of productivity tips and custom configurations. The focus isn't on specific Vim scripts, but rather on the importance of identifying and optimizing one's workflow. The author showcases custom key mappings for streamlined actions: using `` instead of ``, automating buffer saving with error handling, and quick system clipboard copying. Techniques for automatically creating directories before saving files and running Git commands within the :terminal are also explored. The article encourages readers to explore Vim's help pages and iterate on their own workflow optimization.

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Development

Meta's Llama Hits 1 Billion Downloads, Aiming for Open-Source AI Domination

2025-03-18
Meta's Llama Hits 1 Billion Downloads, Aiming for Open-Source AI Domination

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company's open-source AI model, Llama, has surpassed 1 billion downloads, a 53% increase since early December 2024. While powering Meta's AI assistant and used by companies like Spotify and AT&T, Llama faces copyright lawsuits and data privacy concerns. Undeterred, Meta plans to release more Llama models, including reasoning and multimodal models, and is investing $80 billion in AI this year, aiming to lead the AI field.

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AI
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