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Boxie: An Offline Audio Player for Toddlers – Built from Scratch

2025-04-28
Boxie: An Offline Audio Player for Toddlers – Built from Scratch

Inspired by the Game Boy, a father embarked on a journey to build an offline audio player for his 3-year-old son, eliminating the shortcomings of commercial options. The project, named Boxie, uses an ESP32-S3 microcontroller, Micro SD card storage, and a custom-designed PCB and 3D-printed enclosure. The article details the entire process, from learning electronics to soldering SMD components, designing PCBs with EasyEDA, 3D modeling with Fusion 360, and writing the firmware. The result is a robust, offline, and child-friendly audio player showcasing impressive DIY skills and parental dedication.

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(mariozechner.at)
Hardware

Literate Programming: Making Code More Readable

2025-06-19
Literate Programming: Making Code More Readable

Literate programming, a paradigm invented by Donald Knuth, prioritizes code readability for humans over immediate machine execution. This allows programmers to develop programs in a more natural, thought-driven order. Literate programs interweave natural language explanations with code snippets, enhancing understanding and collaboration. The Literate tool, described here, aims to simplify and extend Knuth and Levy's original CWEB system. It supports multiple languages, syntax highlighting, pretty-printing to HTML, Markdown-based authoring, and offers a command-line interface for compiling code and generating HTML documentation. The project is open-source and welcomes contributions.

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(github.com)
Development Literate Programming

Linux 6.14 Released: Gaming Boost, Enhanced Rust Support, AI Acceleration

2025-03-26
Linux 6.14 Released: Gaming Boost, Enhanced Rust Support, AI Acceleration

The Linux kernel 6.14 release, though slightly delayed, is packed with improvements. Highlights include: the NTSYNC driver significantly boosts performance of Windows programs in Wine and Steam Play, delighting Linux gamers; support for the latest AMD RDNA 4 graphics cards and an improved RADV driver for better gaming visuals; enhanced power management and compute performance for AMD and Intel processors; integration of the AMDXDNA driver, supporting AMD's XDNA architecture neural processing units for accelerated AI computation; further Rust language integration paving the way for more Rust drivers in the future; support for the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor; a fix for the GhostWrite vulnerability; and improvements to the Btrfs file system. In short, Linux 6.14 offers substantial upgrades for gamers, AI researchers, and developers.

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(www.zdnet.com)
Development Gaming Performance AI Acceleration

Shining Light Through the Head: A Breakthrough in Brain Imaging

2025-08-04
Shining Light Through the Head: A Breakthrough in Brain Imaging

Researchers at the University of Glasgow have achieved a breakthrough in brain imaging, successfully transmitting near-infrared light through an entire adult human head. This opens the door to cheaper, more portable brain imaging technology that overcomes the limitations of current methods like EEG and fMRI. The technology could enable deeper brain imaging, potentially revolutionizing diagnosis and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's. While still in its early stages, the potential impact on brain health diagnostics and treatment is immense.

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(spectrum.ieee.org)
Tech brain imaging optical imaging

Igniting Kids' Math Passion Through Storytelling

2025-04-20

This essay recounts how storytelling can effectively engage children with mathematics. The author shares personal anecdotes, including using fictional spy stories to subtly integrate math concepts into exciting adventures, and inventing heroic tales to boost young scouts' confidence and overcome challenges. The core argument is that storytelling is far more effective than rote exercises for children, fostering a natural curiosity and deeper understanding of mathematical principles. The author advocates for more story-focused math content to bridge the gap between basic number sense and more advanced concepts.

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(www.jeremykun.com)
Misc childhood education

World Bank Raises Extreme Poverty Line to $3 a Day: A Deeper Dive into the Data

2025-08-14
World Bank Raises Extreme Poverty Line to $3 a Day: A Deeper Dive into the Data

The World Bank's increase of the international poverty line from $2.15 to $3 per day resulted in a 125 million person increase in extreme poverty estimates. This doesn't signify global impoverishment, but rather reflects a higher poverty standard. The adjustment accounts for inflation, but also incorporates changes in low-income countries' own poverty lines. While extreme poverty numbers rose, the data concurrently reveals higher-than-expected incomes among the world's poorest. The article details the definition of the international poverty line, the reasons behind the World Bank data changes, and their implications for understanding global poverty.

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(ourworldindata.org)
Misc World Bank international poverty line

40-Year-Old Text Adventure Resurrected: The Plot of the Phantom

2025-06-30
40-Year-Old Text Adventure Resurrected: The Plot of the Phantom

The author started a text adventure game, The Plot of the Phantom, back in 1984 but abandoned it due to memory limitations. Fast forward to 2025, amidst a pandemic and life's pressures, the author revisited the project, recreating it using Inform 7. The new version retains the original maps and puzzles, adding personal experiences and reflections. Now playable in a web browser, this nostalgic game offers a 1-2 hour gameplay experience for fans of text adventures.

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(scottandrew.com)
Game text adventure

Fighting Back Against AI Music Theft: Poisoning the Well with Adversarial Noise

2025-04-15
Fighting Back Against AI Music Theft: Poisoning the Well with Adversarial Noise

Benn Jordan's latest video proposes a novel way to combat generative AI music services that steal music for their datasets: adversarial noise poisoning attacks. This technique uses specially crafted noise to disrupt the AI's learning process, making it unable to accurately learn from the poisoned data. While currently requiring high-end GPUs and substantial computing power, its effectiveness proves its potential, and more efficient methods may be developed in the future. This raises important questions about AI music copyright and data security, offering musicians a potential new defense against unauthorized use of their work.

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(cdm.link)
AI Adversarial Noise

Btrfs Performance Boost: Chunk Allocation with Device Roles

2025-07-11

A significant performance improvement is coming to the Btrfs filesystem! A new patch introduces a performance-based chunk allocation method using device roles, addressing the current imbalance caused by allocation based solely on free space. By defining five device roles (metadata_only, metadata, none, data, data_only) and prioritizing roles alongside remaining space, the system can intelligently assign faster devices to metadata and slower devices to data, significantly boosting read/write performance. This improvement avoids complex device speed measurements, leveraging the existing on-disk format for smarter, more efficient storage management.

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(lwn.net)
Development

Borges, Simon, and a 1970 Conversation That Still Matters

2025-04-02
Borges, Simon, and a 1970 Conversation That Still Matters

In 1970 Buenos Aires, a meeting between Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges and AI pioneer Herbert A. Simon sparked a fascinating interdisciplinary dialogue. Their conversation, touching on free will versus determinism, explored the parallels between human behavior and computer programs. Borges's insightful questions challenged Simon to reconcile the deterministic nature of human actions with the preservation of individual identity. This exchange highlights the value of cross-disciplinary thinking and offers a timely reflection on the challenges facing academia today, emphasizing the need for collaboration between the humanities and STEM fields. The conversation also inspires contemplation on simulating historical figures using AI.

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(resobscura.substack.com)
AI Interdisciplinary Humanities

Going Rogue: A TTRPG That Lets You Rewrite Rogue One (and Boycott Disney)

2025-05-25
Going Rogue: A TTRPG That Lets You Rewrite Rogue One (and Boycott Disney)

Jess Levine's tabletop RPG, Going Rogue, inspired by Star Wars' Rogue One and Andor, centers around the guaranteed death of player characters. This mechanic serves as a reflection on the sacrifices and rewards of political action, allowing players to experience the emotional 'bleed' of their characters' dedication and find catharsis often missing in real-life activism. While not explicitly promoting socialism, the game encourages players to confront their feelings about political commitment. Furthermore, in response to Disney's political stances and inclusion on the BDS boycott list, Going Rogue actively encourages players to cancel their Disney+ subscriptions, reclaiming narrative ownership of the Star Wars universe.

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(aftermath.site)
Game Tabletop RPG Political Activism

Trump FTC Erases Years of AI and Privacy Guidance Blogs

2025-03-18
Trump FTC Erases Years of AI and Privacy Guidance Blogs

The Trump administration's Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has purged four years' worth of business guidance blogs, including crucial information on AI and consumer privacy related to landmark lawsuits against companies like Amazon and Microsoft. This move raises concerns about government transparency and corporate compliance, particularly as new chair Andrew Ferguson aims to ease regulations on tech firms. Deleted blogs offered FTC advice on avoiding consumer protection violations, ethical AI development, and children's data privacy. This action is seen as benefiting tech companies by eliminating precedents for regulatory compliance.

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(www.wired.com)
Tech consumer privacy

Real-time Vector Glyph Rendering: Beyond SDFs, Towards High-Precision Anti-aliasing

2025-06-13

Frustrated with limitations in existing real-time text rendering solutions, like the blurring and texture issues of SDFs, the author embarked on a new approach. The subpixel structure problems of his new OLED monitor served as the final push. He abandoned SDFs and instead rasterizes glyph Bézier curves directly on the GPU, employing temporal accumulation to refine anti-aliasing quality over time. Clever atlas packing and Z-order algorithms efficiently manage glyph data, while subpixel anti-aliasing resolves color fringing on OLED screens. The result is high-quality, high-performance real-time text rendering, especially impressive when dealing with thin lines and intricate glyphs.

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(osor.io)
Development glyph rendering anti-aliasing

AI Writing Assistant: My New Era of Writing

2025-04-09
AI Writing Assistant: My New Era of Writing

The author shares their experience using AI-assisted writing, significantly increasing writing efficiency and enjoyment. AI not only helps them quickly create long articles but also expands their writing ideas and even generates unexpected creative inspiration. The author believes that AI-assisted writing is not a simple replacement but a human-computer collaboration that improves the efficiency of the creation process and stimulates creativity, changing their writing style. They will continue to explore the boundaries of AI and human creation and redefine reader expectations for the newsletter.

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(contraptions.venkateshrao.com)
Development writing efficiency creative inspiration

Linux Kernel Embraces Rust: Fewer Bugs, Higher Efficiency

2025-02-20

Greg KH's email strongly advocates for incorporating Rust into the Linux kernel. His extensive experience resolving kernel bugs over 15+ years highlights Rust's ability to prevent common memory safety issues in C, such as memory overwrites, error path cleanups, and use-after-free errors. While C++ offers some improvements, Rust provides stronger memory safety guarantees. KH argues that using Rust for new drivers and kernel components will significantly reduce bugs, increase development efficiency, and free maintainers to focus on more complex logic issues and race conditions. Although maintaining mixed-language codebases is challenging, he believes the Linux community can overcome this hurdle, ensuring Linux's continued success for the next 20+ years.

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(lore.kernel.org)
Development

Cactus: Cross-Platform Framework for Local LLM Deployment

2025-07-11
Cactus: Cross-Platform Framework for Local LLM Deployment

Cactus is a cross-platform framework for deploying large language models (LLMs), vision language models (VLMs), and text-to-speech (TTS) models locally within your app. Supporting Flutter and React Native, it works with any GGUF model from Hugging Face (Qwen, Gemma, Llama, etc.), handling models from FP32 down to 2-bit quantization. Cactus provides MCP tool calls for enhanced AI functionality (reminders, image search, message replies), cloud model fallback for complex tasks, Jinja2-powered chat templates, and token streaming. Example code, performance benchmarks across various devices, and C++ backend are provided.

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(github.com)
Development

WhatsApp Wins $168M in Lawsuit Against NSO Group Over Pegasus Spyware

2025-05-07
WhatsApp Wins $168M in Lawsuit Against NSO Group Over Pegasus Spyware

A US federal jury has ordered Israeli cyber-intelligence firm NSO Group to pay WhatsApp $168 million in punitive damages for illegally installing its Pegasus spyware on smartphones via the messaging app. The lawsuit, filed in 2019, alleged NSO Group used Pegasus to conduct cyber-espionage against journalists, lawyers, and human rights activists. While NSO claims its technology is used to fight crime and terrorism, independent experts note its likely use in countries with poor human rights records. The verdict includes compensatory damages of over $444,000, in addition to the punitive damages. NSO plans to appeal.

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(techoreon.com)
Tech cyberespionage Pegasus

US Research Funding Freeze: Innovation Engine Stalls

2025-05-12
US Research Funding Freeze: Innovation Engine Stalls

The US National Science Foundation (NSF) froze all outgoing funding, abruptly canceling over 1,000 research projects and halting roughly $739 million in research funds. This has caused widespread chaos in academia, forcing labs to shut down, jeopardizing graduate students' degrees, and leaving early-career faculty without grants. The article argues that this threatens the future of the US tech industry, as many tech giants' technologies originated from publicly funded university research. It calls for tech companies to reciprocate and collectively protect the research ecosystem to prevent a talent shortage.

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(www.sigarch.org)
Tech talent pipeline

The Great Gatsby at 100: Love, Dreams, and the Shattered American Dream

2025-05-19
The Great Gatsby at 100: Love, Dreams, and the Shattered American Dream

This article examines the enduring legacy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, *The Great Gatsby*, a century after its publication. Beginning with Fitzgerald's early depictions of first kisses and exploring the recurring theme of 'nothing further' in his work, the article delves into Gatsby's obsessive pursuit of Daisy. Gatsby's love for Daisy becomes a metaphor for the pursuit of the American Dream and the yearning for a lost youth, ultimately ending in tragedy. The novel's exquisite prose, insightful social commentary, and exploration of enduring themes solidify its status as a timeless classic, prompting ongoing discussions on love, dreams, and the disillusionment of the American Dream.

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(www.nybooks.com)
Literature The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald

UK Explores Digital ID Cards to Tackle Illegal Immigration

2025-06-06
UK Explores Digital ID Cards to Tackle Illegal Immigration

The UK government is exploring a proposal for a digital ID card, dubbed "BritCard," to combat illegal immigration. This smartphone-based card would link to government records, verifying an individual's right to live and work in Britain and monitoring welfare fraud. Proponents argue it signals a tougher stance on illegal migration and helps alleviate the small boats crisis. While previously proposed by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, the idea was shelved and is now gaining renewed traction with support from some Labour MPs. They believe it simplifies right-to-rent and right-to-work checks, effectively targets criminal employers exploiting undocumented workers, while avoiding unfair impact on legal residents. The estimated cost is £400 million to build and £10 million annually to maintain as a free app.

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(www.independent.co.uk)
Tech Digital ID Illegal Immigration

Build Your Own Local Speech-to-Text System with Python and Whisper

2025-09-23
Build Your Own Local Speech-to-Text System with Python and Whisper

Tired of the privacy risks of uploading sensitive audio to cloud transcription services? This post shows you how to build a local speech-to-text system using Python and OpenAI's Whisper model. Transcribe your audio files in under 10 minutes with 96% accuracy—completely free and processed locally on your laptop. The tutorial covers setting up FFmpeg, your Python environment, using the Whisper model, batch processing, creating SRT subtitles, and troubleshooting common issues. An alternative method using the `speech_recognition` library is also provided.

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(www.pavlinbg.com)
Development

The Tylenol Murders: A Nationwide Manhunt and a Library Bust

2025-06-03
The Tylenol Murders: A Nationwide Manhunt and a Library Bust

Following the 1982 Tylenol murders, James and Leann Lewis, the prime suspects, went on the run, using aliases and even brazenly reading Chicago newspapers in a New York City library to track the investigation. Their eventual arrest stemmed from their audacious behavior. The investigation revealed Lewis's troubled past and prior crimes, suggesting a possible link to another case, although their direct involvement in the Tylenol murders remained ambiguous. Leann's lie detector test indicated deception, adding a further layer of complexity to the case.

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(www.trulyadventure.us)
Misc Tylenol murders crime investigation manhunt

Apple Faces Criminal Investigation After Judge Rules Exec Lied Under Oath

2025-05-01
Apple Faces Criminal Investigation After Judge Rules Exec Lied Under Oath

Apple is facing a criminal investigation after a judge ruled that its VP of Finance, Alex Roman, lied under oath in the ongoing legal battle with Epic Games. The judge found Apple deliberately ignored her ruling allowing developers to use alternative payment systems, and that Roman's testimony contained multiple lies. This refusal to comply, following Apple's initial victory in court, has escalated the dispute to a criminal level, with potential jail time for Roman and significant sanctions against Apple. The case highlights Apple's attempts to circumvent the court's decision and maintain its App Store commission structure, even in the face of clear legal defeat. The judge's decision marks a serious blow to Apple's reputation and could have significant legal repercussions.

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(9to5mac.com)
Tech Perjury

Telegram's $30B Valuation: A Lean Tech Giant?

2025-05-18
Telegram's $30B Valuation: A Lean Tech Giant?

Telegram, the encrypted messaging app, boasts a $30 billion valuation with a mere 30 employees—a stark contrast to tech giants employing tens of thousands. Its success stems from a lean organizational structure, robust technical architecture, and unwavering commitment to user privacy. Leveraging cloud computing and distributed systems, Telegram has automated operations, minimizing human costs. Based in Dubai, it benefits from favorable business regulations and tax efficiency. While facing content moderation and compliance challenges, Telegram's premium features ensure sustainability, offering an alternative model for tech companies.

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(www.softpagecms.com)
Tech lean operations tech company

Over 1 Million IoT Devices Infected by BADBOX 2.0 Malware

2025-06-06
Over 1 Million IoT Devices Infected by BADBOX 2.0 Malware

The FBI warns that over 1 million home internet-connected devices have been infected by the BADBOX 2.0 malware campaign, turning consumer electronics into residential proxies for malicious activities. The botnet, primarily found on Chinese-made Android smart TVs and other IoT devices, infects devices either through pre-installed malware or malicious apps. BADBOX 2.0 capabilities include residential proxy networks, ad fraud, and credential stuffing. Despite previous disruption attempts by German authorities, the botnet rapidly resurfaced, spreading across 222 countries and territories, impacting Brazil and the US most significantly. A joint operation by HUMAN, Google, and others disrupted the botnet again, but users are advised to remain vigilant, avoid unofficial app stores, and keep their devices updated.

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(www.bleepingcomputer.com)
Tech

Quantum Signals Sent Over Commercial Fiber Using Standard Internet Protocol

2025-08-29
Quantum Signals Sent Over Commercial Fiber Using Standard Internet Protocol

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have achieved a groundbreaking feat: transmitting quantum signals over commercial fiber-optic cables using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). Their innovative Q-chip coordinates quantum and classical data, packaging them into standard internet packets. This overcomes the fragility of quantum signals and represents a crucial step towards a practical quantum internet, promising faster, more energy-efficient AI and breakthroughs in drug and materials design.

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(phys.org)
Tech quantum networking

Lazarus Group Plants Six Malicious Packages on npm Registry

2025-03-15
Lazarus Group Plants Six Malicious Packages on npm Registry

The Lazarus Group, a North Korea-linked hacking group, has planted six malicious npm packages containing BeaverTail malware. These packages, downloaded over 330 times, mimic legitimate libraries using typosquatting to deceive developers. The malware installs backdoors, steals credentials, and targets cryptocurrency wallets (Solana and Exodus). Five of the malicious packages even had accompanying GitHub repositories, bolstering their legitimacy. One package, 'is-buffer-validator', directly mirrors a legitimate package, highlighting Lazarus's awareness of previous research. This incident underscores the ongoing threat of software supply chain attacks and the sophistication of Lazarus's tactics, particularly in the wake of their recent record-breaking $1.46 billion cryptocurrency heist.

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(cyberscoop.com)
Tech

Supercritical CO2 Circuit Breaker: A Green Alternative to SF6

2025-06-15
Supercritical CO2 Circuit Breaker: A Green Alternative to SF6

Researchers at Georgia Tech are testing a novel high-voltage circuit breaker that uses supercritical carbon dioxide fluid to replace the environmentally damaging sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). SF6 is nearly 25,000 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and this new breaker promises to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in power systems. The team overcame challenges in maintaining supercritical CO2 under high pressure, developing crucial components independently. If successful, this could provide a strong solution for the eco-friendly upgrade of millions of high-voltage circuit breakers globally, although it requires some auxiliary equipment like heat pumps. Meanwhile, GE Vernova has also developed circuit breakers using alternative gas mixtures, which, while still containing a small amount of fluorinated gas, have significantly reduced greenhouse effects. Ultimately, solid-state semiconductor circuit breakers promise faster and greener switching, but are still in early development.

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(spectrum.ieee.org)
Tech supercritical CO2 high-voltage circuit breaker green alternative

GEM: The Forgotten Graphical Desktop Pioneer

2025-09-18
GEM: The Forgotten Graphical Desktop Pioneer

This article recounts the legendary story of the GEM graphical desktop environment. Inspired by the Xerox Star, the Digital Research team, led by Lee Jay Lorenzen, overcame many obstacles to create the iconic interface for the Atari ST. GEM competed with Apple's Macintosh and was forced to modify due to “copying” accusations, ultimately failing in the commercial competition and becoming a forgotten part of computing history.

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(nemanjatrifunovic.substack.com)
Tech graphical user interface
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