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The Tyranny of the Ever-Present Smartphone: Reclaiming Our Autonomy

2025-02-26

The Tyranny of the Ever-Present Smartphone: Reclaiming Our Autonomy

The author recounts a visit to a friend's apartment building in Washington, D.C., where every aspect, from entry to elevators to apartment access, required a smartphone app. This experience highlights the pervasive nature of digital technology in modern life, creating inconveniences (for the author, an Orthodox Jew observing Shabbat) and raising concerns about digital addiction and its negative impact on mental and physical well-being. The author argues that over-reliance on smartphones blurs the lines between work and leisure and calls for a movement to provide analogue alternatives – physical membership cards, app-free services, etc. – to reclaim autonomy and resist technological dependence.

(www.thepublicdiscourse.com)

Misc digital addiction

Escaping the Cloud Music Trap: Reclaiming My Digital Music

2025-09-12

Escaping the Cloud Music Trap: Reclaiming My Digital Music

Tired of the limitations of streaming music services, I embarked on a journey to regain ownership of my music. Saying goodbye to Apple Music, I chose Petrichor (macOS) and Doppler (iOS) as my local music players and am supplementing my library by buying DRM-free downloads or hunting for used CDs. The freedom of having a local music library, and escaping the horrible Apple Music app, is incredibly liberating.

(rosswintle.uk)

Misc local music player music liberation

Claude vs. ChatGPT: A Tale of Two Memory Systems

2025-09-12

Claude vs. ChatGPT: A Tale of Two Memory Systems

This post compares the drastically different memory systems of Claude and ChatGPT, two leading AI assistants. Claude starts each conversation with a blank slate, searching conversation history only when explicitly invoked using `conversation_search` and `recent_chats` tools for keyword and time-based retrieval, offering a powerful tool for professionals. In contrast, ChatGPT, designed for a mass market, automatically loads memory components, building user profiles and providing instant personalization. These design choices reflect the different target audiences (professionals vs. general users) and product philosophies (professional tool vs. consumer product), highlighting the vast design space and future directions of AI memory systems.

(www.shloked.com)

AI AI memory systems

Penn Cuts Grad Admissions Amidst Federal Research Funding Cuts

2025-02-23

Penn Cuts Grad Admissions Amidst Federal Research Funding Cuts

The University of Pennsylvania has slashed graduate admissions across its School of Arts and Sciences due to federal research funding cuts, prompting outrage from faculty. Departments were instructed to drastically reduce admissions, even rescinding offers to students already accepted. Professors criticized the lack of transparency and warned of severe impacts on research and education. The cuts are linked to a proposed $240 million reduction from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), but speculation also includes possible connections to graduate student unionization efforts or decreased support for humanities. The situation highlights the precarious financial situation facing higher education institutions.

(www.thedp.com)

Tech graduate admissions university funding

The Demise of the 80x25 Text Console in Modern Linux

2025-09-17

The author encountered a frustrating issue: the classic 80x25 text console, a feature present in DOS, OS/2, FreeBSD, and Linux for over 40 years, is largely gone in modern Linux systems. This isn't simply a resolution problem; it involves UEFI booting, non-x86 platforms, and the shift to graphical rendering modes. Old solutions like the `vga=` parameter are ineffective, and newer attempts like using `kmscon` have significant issues. The author is resorting to finding an older PC, highlighting the declining compatibility between modern systems and legacy hardware.

(changelog.complete.org)

Development text console

Technologist Shares Practical Tips for Online Privacy

2025-02-17

Technologist Shares Practical Tips for Online Privacy

A technologist with over a decade of experience in the tech industry shares her insights and advice on protecting your online privacy. Initially sharing concise, actionable tips via Instagram, she's now moving to a newsletter format to provide more in-depth guidance. She emphasizes that privacy is a spectrum and offers practical advice on social media, car data, smart home devices, data breaches, and child privacy. Rather than delving into legal specifics, she focuses on the technical aspects and actionable advice, empowering readers to easily improve their privacy in everyday life.

(hannahonprivacy.substack.com)

Tech privacy tips

Russian Threat Actors Exploit Microsoft Device Code Authentication in Widespread Attacks

2025-02-15

Russian Threat Actors Exploit Microsoft Device Code Authentication in Widespread Attacks

Volexity has uncovered multiple Russian threat actors employing sophisticated social engineering and spear-phishing campaigns to compromise Microsoft 365 accounts via Device Code Authentication phishing. These attacks exploit the less-familiar Device Code Authentication workflow, making them difficult for users to recognize as phishing attempts. The campaigns, often politically themed (e.g., focusing on the US administration), impersonate individuals from organizations like the US Department of State and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, luring victims into fake Microsoft Teams meetings or application access. Volexity is tracking three threat actors, one potentially linked to CozyLarch (overlapping with DarkHalo, APT29). The effectiveness of this attack stems from exploiting users' unfamiliarity with device code authentication, bypassing traditional security measures. Volexity recommends organizations block device code authentication via conditional access policies and enhance user security awareness training.

(www.volexity.com)

Tech russian hackers microsoft 365

Go's Error Handling: A Blessing or a Curse?

2025-03-09

Go's error handling, characterized by the ubiquitous `if err != nil` check, has sparked considerable debate. Critics find it verbose and cumbersome, while proponents argue it's a cornerstone of Go's philosophy, treating errors as first-class citizens. This article delves into the pros and cons, comparing Go's approach to exception handling in languages like JavaScript. It highlights best practices, such as creating actionable error chains using `fmt.Errorf` and leveraging libraries like `github.com/pkg/errors` for enhanced clarity and stack traces. While not without flaws, Go's explicit error handling empowers developers with full control over program flow, emphasizing simplicity and proactive failure planning.

(rauljordan.com)

Development

Mistral's Le Chat Hits 1 Million Downloads

2025-02-20

Mistral's Le Chat Hits 1 Million Downloads

Mistral AI's Le Chat has surpassed one million downloads just weeks after its release, reaching the top spot on the French iOS App Store's free downloads chart. French President Emmanuel Macron even endorsed Le Chat in a recent TV interview. This success follows OpenAI's ChatGPT, which garnered 500,000 downloads in six days last November, and DeepSeek's app, which hit one million downloads between January 10th and 31st. The rapid growth highlights the fierce competition in the AI assistant market, with tech giants like Google and Microsoft also vying for a place on users' phones with Gemini and Copilot respectively.

(techcrunch.com)

AI

Amazon's RTO Mandate Boosts Seattle Downtown, But Still Below Pre-Pandemic Levels

2025-02-17

Amazon's RTO Mandate Boosts Seattle Downtown, But Still Below Pre-Pandemic Levels

Amazon's return-to-office mandate led to a noticeable increase in downtown Seattle foot traffic in January, but numbers remain significantly below pre-pandemic levels. Data shows foot traffic in areas with Amazon offices at 74% of January 2019 levels. Overall downtown foot traffic is up 9% year-over-year, but only 57% of the pre-pandemic average. Despite this, businesses report increased activity. Upcoming events, including a flower show, soccer game, and comic con, are expected to further boost downtown revitalization.

(seattlemag.com)

Tech Return to Office Seattle

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.

(www.cambus.net)

Development static analysis

15-Year-Old Builds $30 Open-Source Phone: Challenging the Smartphone Industry

2025-01-26

Gabriel Rochet, a 15-year-old, has created Paxo Phone, a fully functional open-source smartphone built for just $30. This DIY phone utilizes open-source hardware and software, boasting high modularity and customizability, allowing users to modify both hardware and software to fit their needs. Paxo Phone challenges the closed and irreparable nature of the traditional smartphone industry, offering a practical platform for learning electronics and computer technology while prompting reflection on digital freedom and the repairability of electronic devices.

(paxo.fr)

Tech DIY phone

Using eSIMs on Devices with Only Physical SIM Slots: A 9eSIM Review

2025-01-20

Using eSIMs on Devices with Only Physical SIM Slots: A 9eSIM Review

This blog post details using a 9eSIM SIM card to enable eSIM functionality on devices that only accept physical SIM cards, tested on Android and Linux. The author purchased a 9eSIM bundle including the SIM, smartcard reader, and adapter. Initial setup proved slightly tricky, requiring the SIM card to be used within its original packaging for proper reader connection. Adding, switching, and deleting eSIM profiles was straightforward using an Android app or the Linux command-line tool lpac (and its GUI, EasyLPAC). Tests were conducted with free test eSIM profiles and a paid LycaMobile eSIM, successfully achieving eSIM connectivity on a Debian Linux laptop.

(neilzone.co.uk)

Hardware physical SIM

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.

(github.com)

Development

pgEdge Open Sources Core Components, Embracing the PostgreSQL Ecosystem

2025-09-11

pgEdge, a company focused on distributed PostgreSQL, announced that it has relicensed its core components—including the Spock replication engine, Snowflake sequence generator, and Lolor large object logical replication extension—under the PostgreSQL License, making them open source! This move signifies pgEdge's commitment to open source and its desire to contribute more to the PostgreSQL ecosystem. Developers can now access the source code of these components on GitHub and participate in their development. pgEdge also offers cloud, container, and VM deployment options for easy user access.

(www.pgedge.com)

Development

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.

(www.cleanenergywire.org)

Tech

Ebenezer Clifford: Revolutionary War Veteran, Master Joiner, and Underwater Explorer

2025-03-05

Ebenezer Clifford: Revolutionary War Veteran, Master Joiner, and Underwater Explorer

Ebenezer Clifford, a remarkable 18th-century figure, was an architect, master joiner, bell diver, cabinetmaker, and quartermaster sergeant in the Revolutionary War. His exceptional woodworking skills are evident in surviving planes and buildings he designed or helped construct that still stand today. In his later years, he took up underwater salvage, using a diving bell to recover treasures from shipwrecks, adding another layer of adventure to his already extraordinary life.

(workingwoodenplanes.com)

Misc historical figure woodworking

Unicode 17.0 Drops: New Emoji Including a Hairy Creature!

2025-09-10

Unicode 17.0 Drops: New Emoji Including a Hairy Creature!

Unicode 17.0 has arrived, bringing 4,803 new characters, including a host of exciting new emoji! Highlights include a hairy creature emoji, distorted faces, a womp-womp sound emoji, an orca, a treasure chest, rubble, a conflict symbol, and more. A long-awaited fix addresses the inability to change skin tones on some emojis, paving the way for more personalized emoji experiences in the future. While these new additions may take some time to reach your keyboard, it's a significant update to the world of emoji.

(jenniferdaniel.substack.com)

Misc

Beyond print debugging: 7 superpowers of debuggers

2025-09-10

Beyond print debugging: 7 superpowers of debuggers

Tired of endless print statements for debugging? This article unveils seven hidden advantages of debuggers: inspecting the entire call stack, dynamically evaluating expressions (like a REPL), precisely catching exceptions, altering execution flow without code changes, standardizing project setup, simplifying collaboration, and providing a smoother onboarding experience for new contributors. Debuggers are not just code tracing tools; they're powerful weapons for boosting development efficiency and code quality, leading you from tedious print debugging to efficient development.

(mahesh-hegde.github.io)

Development

Go 1.25's Experimental JSON Packages: Performance Boost and Stricter Syntax

2025-09-10

Go 1.25 introduces experimental `encoding/json/v2` and `encoding/json/jsontext` packages to improve Go's JSON encoding and decoding capabilities. These address shortcomings in the existing `encoding/json` package, such as imprecise JSON syntax handling, performance bottlenecks, and API deficiencies. Improvements include stricter handling of invalid UTF-8, duplicate keys, and nil slices/maps. Streaming processing significantly improves performance, especially unmarshaling. While largely backward compatible, developers are encouraged to test with `GOEXPERIMENT=jsonv2` and provide feedback.

(go.dev)

Development

RISC-V Hypervisor in 1,000 Lines of Rust

2025-09-10

This online book teaches you how to build a minimal RISC-V hypervisor capable of booting Linux-based operating systems using Rust. A sequel to 'Operating System in 1,000 Lines', it starts from bare-metal programming and leverages Rust's ecosystem to simplify development, aiming for a type-1 hypervisor in under 1,000 lines of code. Implementation examples are available on GitHub.

(1000hv.seiya.me)

Development Hypervisor

Elegantly Solving the Expression Problem: Multiple Dispatch and Open Methods

2025-09-07

This article delves into the 'expression problem,' a challenge plaguing both object-oriented and functional programming: adding new data types and operations without modifying existing code. Using C++ and Haskell examples, the author illustrates the problem's core. Traditional OOP struggles to extend types and operations simultaneously, and functional programming faces similar limitations. The article deeply analyzes the visitor pattern and its extensions, ultimately using Clojure's multimethods and protocols to demonstrate how multiple dispatch and open methods elegantly solve the expression problem, enabling flexible and extensible code.

(eli.thegreenplace.net)

Development multiple dispatch

LLMs vs. AI Agents: The Paradigm Shift in AI

2025-09-07

LLMs vs. AI Agents: The Paradigm Shift in AI

This article exposes a critical misunderstanding in the AI field: the conflation of ChatGPT and Large Language Models (LLMs). ChatGPT has evolved from a simple LLM interface into a sophisticated AI agent, possessing memory, tool integration, and multi-step reasoning capabilities—a significant architectural shift. LLMs are powerful pattern-matching systems but lack learning and adaptation; AI agents utilize LLMs as part of their cognitive architecture, interacting with external systems and learning from experience. This distinction has profound implications for developers, product managers, business strategy, and users. Understanding this difference is key to leveraging AI's full potential and avoiding building yesterday's solutions for tomorrow's problems.

(www.vincirufus.com)

AI

Code Colocation: The Secret to Maintainable Codebases

2025-02-19

This article champions code colocation as a key to maintainable software. The author argues that keeping code comments, templates, CSS, unit tests, and application state close to their related code significantly improves maintainability, applicability, and ease of use. Compared to scattering these elements across various directories, colocation avoids synchronization issues, makes finding things easier, reduces context switching, and thus lessens technical debt. Examples from modern frameworks like React, Vue, and Angular illustrate the practice, highlighting how colocation boosts readability and simplifies codebase management. The article also addresses strategies for utility functions and resource files, recommending placing them as close as possible to their usage to minimize maintenance overhead and cognitive load.

(kentcdodds.com)

Development code maintainability code colocation

Abogen: Instant High-Quality Audiobook and Subtitle Generator

2025-08-10

Abogen: Instant High-Quality Audiobook and Subtitle Generator

Abogen is a powerful text-to-speech tool that converts EPUB, PDF, or text files into high-quality audio with synchronized subtitles in seconds. Leveraging the Kokoro-82M model, it produces natural-sounding speech ideal for audiobooks, voiceovers for Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and more. Features include multi-language support, custom voice mixing, batch processing, chapter splitting, and installation options for Windows, Linux, and as a Docker image.

(github.com)

Development

XFN: A Simple Way to Represent Relationships with Hyperlinks

2025-09-12

XFN (XHTML Friends Network) is a simple method for representing human relationships using hyperlinks. By adding a 'rel' attribute to `` tags, like ``, bloggers can easily indicate their relationships with others. This website provides an introduction to XFN, a getting-started guide, a list of attributes, background information, FAQs, tool resources, integration with other services, and community support, aiming to simplify the expression and management of online relationships.

(gmpg.org)

Development Social Networking Relationship Networks

Chatbox App Returns to US App Store After Trademark Battle!

2025-09-13

Chatbox App Returns to US App Store After Trademark Battle!

After a three-month legal battle, the Chatbox AI chatbot app is back on the US App Store! A competitor filed a trademark dispute with Apple, leading to the app's removal in June. Despite the competitor's trademark application being initially rejected and Chatbox's prior use (dating back to March 2023 on GitHub), Apple sided with the competitor. A federal court ruling ultimately forced Apple to reinstate the app. This victory showcases the importance of defending against trademark bullying and protecting intellectual property.

(github.com)

Development

Senior Devs Embrace AI Code Generation, But at What Cost?

2025-09-07

Senior Devs Embrace AI Code Generation, But at What Cost?

A Fastly survey reveals that over half the shipped code of nearly a third of senior developers (10+ years experience) is AI-generated, compared to just 13% of junior developers. While AI tools boost productivity, nearly one-third of all respondents reported frequently fixing AI-generated code, offsetting time savings. This suggests that while experienced developers trust AI more in production, human oversight remains crucial to ensure code quality and security.

(www.infoworld.com)

Development

Beyond Autocomplete: TypeLeap UI/UX – Interfaces that Anticipate Your Needs

2025-03-08

TypeLeap UI/UX represents a paradigm shift in interface design. Leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs), it dynamically adapts the interface in real-time based on the user's typing intent, going far beyond simple autocomplete. Instead of just predicting words, TypeLeap understands the user's goal. Typing "weather in San..." might instantly display a weather widget. The article details the technical challenges and solutions, including local vs. server processing, performance optimization, and user feedback mechanisms. While practical examples are scarce, TypeLeap's potential is vast, promising a more intuitive and efficient user experience across search, knowledge management, AI assistants, and beyond.

(www.typeleap.com)

Development AI interfaces UX design

Scream Cipher: A Novel Use of Unicode Characters

2025-09-20

Scream Cipher: A Novel Use of Unicode Characters

This article introduces a fun cryptographic algorithm – the "Scream Cipher" – that leverages the numerous variations of the Unicode character 'A' to encrypt text. A simple dictionary mapping substitutes standard letters with different 'A' characters for encryption and decryption. Python code demonstrates the algorithm's implementation, successfully encrypting and decrypting the sample text "SCREAM CIPHER." This showcases the richness of the Unicode character set, offering a unique, albeit simple, encryption method.

(sethmlarson.dev)

Development

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