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Hegel 2.0: The Unrealized Revolution of Ternary Computing

2025-05-14

Hegel 2.0: The Unrealized Revolution of Ternary Computing

This article explores the Cold War clash between the US and Soviet Union in computer science and philosophy. Warren McCulloch's refusal of a Soviet invitation sets the stage for a narrative about the ternary computer SETUN and its connection to McCulloch's neural network theory and Gotthard Günther's 'transclassical logic'. Günther sought to synthesize Hegel's dialectic with cybernetics, arguing that ternary logic could solve contradictions inherent in binary logic and provide a foundation for a digital metaphysics. Though SETUN ultimately failed, it spurred exploration of non-binary computing and prompted reconsideration of binary oppositions in digital culture.

(www.cabinetmagazine.org)

Tech Ternary Computing

Windows 7's 30-Second Startup Bug: A Simple Coding Error?

2025-05-01

Windows 7's 30-Second Startup Bug: A Simple Coding Error?

Remember Windows 7? While a triumph for Microsoft, a quirky bug plagued some users: a 30-second startup delay when using a single-color wallpaper. A recent blog post reveals the culprit: a simple coding error. The system waited for a message confirming the background image was ready, a message only sent if a complex bitmap was used—not a single color. Adding insult to injury, a group policy setting to hide desktop icons compounded the issue due to its placement in the code. The fix, deployed months later, highlights the surprising ways seemingly minor programming oversights can cause major headaches.

(www.pcworld.com)

Development coding error system startup

My Pocket Data Revealed My Secrets

2025-07-07

My Pocket Data Revealed My Secrets

Before Pocket's shutdown, the author exported nearly 900 saved articles spanning seven years and used the AI tool o3 to analyze them. Surprisingly, o3 accurately inferred the author's age, gender, location, profession, income, family status, and even political leanings, risk tolerance, and learning style. This prompted reflections on data privacy and AI capabilities, inspiring the creation of a personalized content recommendation system.

(noperator.dev)

AI

Salt Typhoon: Chinese Cyber Espionage Campaign Targets Millions of Americans

2025-08-30

Salt Typhoon: Chinese Cyber Espionage Campaign Targets Millions of Americans

A top FBI cyber official revealed that China's 'Salt Typhoon' cyber espionage campaign has stolen data from millions of Americans over several years through intrusions into US telecommunications networks. The campaign's reach is vast, potentially affecting nearly every American, targeting individuals beyond sensitive sectors and including high-profile figures like former and current presidential administration officials. The operation, active since at least 2019, compromised around 200 US organizations and impacted over 80 countries. The FBI warns of China's reckless and unbounded actions through affiliated companies, urging a heightened awareness of cybersecurity threats and the need for robust defenses against such attacks.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech cyber espionage

ChompSaw: A Safe Power Tool for Kids

2025-07-11

ChompSaw: A Safe Power Tool for Kids

Designed by Kausi Raman and Max Liechty, the ChompSaw is a safe power tool for kids, specifically designed to cut cardboard. Unlike dangerous jigsaws, the ChompSaw uses an oscillating cutter hidden beneath a protective cover, preventing finger contact. Waste cardboard is collected in a built-in bin, promoting recycling. While priced at $250, it offers a safe and fun way for children to explore power tools, transforming Amazon boxes into creative projects.

(www.core77.com)

Hardware power tools cardboard cutting

Return to Office Mandates? Employees Would Rather Quit

2025-01-15

Return to Office Mandates? Employees Would Rather Quit

A survey of 5,395 US adults reveals that nearly half would leave their jobs if forced back to the office. Tech companies are increasingly mandating a return to in-person work, but many employees prioritize flexible work arrangements. Even figures like Elon Musk, who deems working from home "morally wrong," are met with resistance. The survey shows a strong preference for remote work, especially among women and those under 50, sparking debate on productivity, company culture, and talent retention. Many companies seem to prioritize control over trust and flexibility.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech employee retention

The Absurdity of Secrecy: Why the US Government Forbids Its Intelligence Officers From Reading Publicly Available Leaks

2025-06-22

The Absurdity of Secrecy: Why the US Government Forbids Its Intelligence Officers From Reading Publicly Available Leaks

This article examines the paradoxical US government policy prohibiting intelligence officers from accessing publicly available leaked documents, despite their widespread dissemination online. Using the 1969 KGB forgery operation and recent mega-leaks like Snowden as examples, it argues that while these leaks pose geopolitical risks, they also offer invaluable learning opportunities for understanding intelligence tradecraft and computer network penetrations. However, US government policy punishes officers for even looking at this information. This approach is not only absurd but hinders the US national security establishment's ability to improve and meet future challenges. The author calls for a shift in government thinking—from protecting information to learning lessons from it—to better navigate the increasingly complex cybersecurity landscape.

(www.theatlantic.com)

Tech intelligence leaks

SimCity 2000: A Retro-Futuristic City Builder Still Holds Charm

2025-09-21

SimCity 2000: A Retro-Futuristic City Builder Still Holds Charm

This article revisits the classic city-building simulation game, SimCity 2000. The author contrasts it with the original SimCity, highlighting SimCity 2000's vibrant SVGA colors, angular hills, flowing waterfalls, and isometric skyscrapers as embodying a 'futuristic' feel for its time. While the UI now feels somewhat outdated, the charm of its pixel art buildings and the joy of city building persist, offering players a sense of responsibility and childlike wonder. The article concludes with a recommendation for the DOSBox-powered Special Edition available on GOG for $5.99.

(arstechnica.com)

Game City Builder

Zig 0.13.0 Released: A General-Purpose Language Focused on Robustness and Optimization

2025-02-05

Zig 0.13.0 Released: A General-Purpose Language Focused on Robustness and Optimization

Zig 0.13.0 has been released, a general-purpose programming language and toolchain designed for building robust, optimal, and reusable software. While currently unstable, Zig's focus on low-level programming concepts makes it an attractive option for experienced programmers. Prior experience with languages like C, C++, Rust, or Go will be helpful.

(zig.guide)

Development low-level programming

Anthropic Gives Claude the Power to End Conversations

2025-08-16

Anthropic has empowered its large language model, Claude, with the ability to terminate conversations in cases of persistent harmful or abusive user interactions. This feature, born from exploratory research into AI welfare, aims to mitigate model risks. Testing revealed Claude's strong aversion to harmful tasks, apparent distress when encountering harmful requests, and a tendency to end conversations only after multiple redirection attempts fail. This functionality is reserved for extreme edge cases; the vast majority of users won't be affected.

(www.anthropic.com)

AI AI welfare

Five Ways to Model Polymorphic Data in Relational Databases

2025-07-09

Five Ways to Model Polymorphic Data in Relational Databases

This article explores five approaches to modeling polymorphic data in relational databases: single table, nullable foreign keys, tagged union, child-to-parent foreign keys, and JSON. Each method has its pros and cons; for example, the single table approach is simple but can be slow, while JSON is easily extensible but lacks data validation. The author suggests choosing the method that's easiest to read, maintain, and debug, and avoiding premature optimization.

(www.dolthub.com)

Development polymorphic data relational databases

Lessons Learned: Two Years as Carta's CTO

2025-05-24

Lessons Learned: Two Years as Carta's CTO

Reflecting on his two-year tenure as Carta's CTO, the author shares key learnings in engineering strategy, LLM adoption, and organizational management. He discusses refining his leadership style to delve deeper into details, writing a book on engineering strategy, successful LLM implementation at Carta for internal workflows and new product features, and the impactful 'Navigator' program for increased senior engineer involvement. He also details strategies for managing engineering costs and effectively communicating R&D investments to boards.

(lethain.com)

Development Engineering Strategy LLM Adoption

Hubble Confirms First Lone Black Hole

2025-04-21

Hubble Confirms First Lone Black Hole

A team of astronomers, using data from the Hubble Space Telescope and Gaia spacecraft, has confirmed the existence of the first isolated stellar-mass black hole. Initially spotted in 2022, this approximately seven-solar-mass black hole was detected through its gravitational microlensing effect. Unlike previously discovered black holes which all had companion stars, this discovery offers a new window into these mysterious objects and paves the way for future searches using the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

(phys.org)

Tech

Dr. Demento Retires After 55 Years of Broadcasting Novelty Music

2025-06-19

Dr. Demento Retires After 55 Years of Broadcasting Novelty Music

Radio personality Barret "Dr. Demento" Hansen announced his retirement this week, ending a 55-year career dedicated to comedy and novelty music. His show, which began in 1970, will conclude in October with retrospective episodes culminating in a final broadcast of the program's top 40 songs. Dr. Demento's show, initially a freeform rock program, evolved into a platform for comedic songs and musical oddities, introducing audiences to artists like "Weird Al" Yankovic, whom he's largely credited with discovering. The show's long run spanned various mediums, from reel-to-reel tapes to online streaming, showcasing Hansen's enduring influence on radio and comedy.

(sopghreporter.com)

Misc

Linux Kernel Performance Boost: Restartable Sequences Improved

2025-09-20

The Linux kernel's restartable sequences feature, aimed at boosting performance in threaded applications, has seen increased use alongside new kernel capabilities. However, this has revealed some issues. Developer Thomas Gleixner recently improved the code, addressing performance bottlenecks and historical oversights. These changes significantly enhance efficiency but might require ABI changes in user space, demanding thorough testing for compatibility.

(lwn.net)

Development restartable sequences

Intel Cuts Over 5,000 Jobs in Restructuring Amidst AI Shift

2025-07-17

Intel Cuts Over 5,000 Jobs in Restructuring Amidst AI Shift

Intel is undertaking a major restructuring, laying off over 5,000 employees across four US states to streamline operations and focus on AI. The cuts, impacting California, Oregon, Arizona, and Texas, are part of CEO Lip-Bu Tan's plan to address the company's losses and lagging competitiveness in the semiconductor market. Tan aims to make Intel leaner, faster, and more focused on core AI products to regain its footing.

(www.manufacturingdive.com)

Tech

iPhone Agent: Control Your iOS Device with GPT-4.1

2025-06-02

iPhone Agent: Control Your iOS Device with GPT-4.1

PhoneAgent is an iOS app leveraging OpenAI's GPT-4.1 model to control your iPhone across multiple apps. By accessing the accessibility tree, it can perform tasks like sending messages, downloading apps, and making calls. It uses Xcode's UI testing framework, requiring no jailbreak, but is experimental and has known limitations, such as handling long-running tasks and animations. The app sends app content to the OpenAI API and communicates with UI tests via a TCP server.

(github.com)

Development

Litestream: Major Update Brings Fast Point-in-Time Restores and Lightweight Read Replicas

2025-05-20

Litestream: Major Update Brings Fast Point-in-Time Restores and Lightweight Read Replicas

Litestream, an open-source tool enabling full-stack applications to run reliably on top of SQLite by recovering from object storage, has received a major update. The improvements leverage technology from LiteFS to provide significantly faster point-in-time restores (PITR), simplify replication management using object storage's compare-and-swap capabilities, and introduce lightweight read replicas based on a virtual filesystem (VFS). These changes enhance Litestream's reliability and ease of use, particularly when dealing with numerous databases. The update also positions Litestream to better support LLM code development by providing PITR as a primitive for rollbacks and branching.

(fly.io)

Development

Google's AI Now Makes Calls for You to Local Businesses

2025-07-17

Google's AI Now Makes Calls for You to Local Businesses

Google has launched a new feature in the US that lets its AI make calls to local businesses on your behalf, handling inquiries about pricing and availability for services like pet grooming or dry cleaning. Users simply specify their needs in Google Search, and the AI takes over, eliminating the need for phone calls. Powered by Google's Duplex model and Gemini AI, the system gathers information and sends updates via text or email. While available to all, paid subscribers get higher usage limits. Google is also testing its advanced Gemini 2.5 Pro in AI Mode, along with integrating Deep Search for more comprehensive query results.

(www.theverge.com)

Tech

NASA Open-Sources Peer Review Tool for Enhanced Software Development

2025-05-15

NASA Open-Sources Peer Review Tool for Enhanced Software Development

NASA's Stennis Space Center has released its first open-source software: a peer review tool designed to streamline and enhance collaborative software application development. Built from years of internal experience using LabVIEW, the tool automates parts of the review process, improving code comparison and comment functionality. This ultimately leads to better software quality and more efficient development. Now available to the public, the tool is intended to be a community-driven project, constantly refined and improved by developers worldwide.

(www.nasa.gov)

Development

$10,000 Toyota IMV 0: A No-Frills Truck America Can't Have

2025-03-28

$10,000 Toyota IMV 0: A No-Frills Truck America Can't Have

In a US market where new trucks average $59,000, the $10,000 Toyota IMV 0 is a game-changer. This compact pickup, based on the Hilux platform, lacks modern amenities like touchscreens and safety features, but it boasts surprising practicality and ruggedness. It offers a surprisingly spacious bed and cabin, and its manual transmission and rear-wheel drive provide a pure driving experience. While currently only available in developing markets like Thailand, and unavailable in the US, it presents a compelling argument for a simpler, more affordable truck. It suggests a potential shift in market demand towards smaller, cheaper, and more utilitarian vehicles.

(www.motor1.com)

Hardware pickup truck value

UniK3D: Universal Camera Monocular 3D Estimation

2025-04-17

UniK3D revolutionizes monocular 3D reconstruction by accurately estimating metric 3D scenes from single images, regardless of camera type. Unlike previous methods reliant on simplified assumptions, UniK3D directly predicts 3D points without extra information. Its key innovation lies in a spherical 3D representation and a novel camera representation, overcoming limitations of traditional approaches in wide-angle and panoramic settings. Zero-shot evaluation across 13 diverse datasets demonstrates state-of-the-art performance in 3D, depth, and camera metrics, particularly excelling in challenging large field-of-view scenarios. Code and models are available on GitHub.

(lpiccinelli-eth.github.io)

AI

May Mobility Unveils Electric Autonomous Minibus at CES 2025

2025-01-10

May Mobility Unveils Electric Autonomous Minibus at CES 2025

Autonomous vehicle startup May Mobility revealed its latest creation at CES 2025: an electric, autonomous minibus developed in partnership with European electric bus manufacturer Tecnobus. Capable of carrying up to 30 passengers, including wheelchair users, this minibus is slated to join May Mobility's existing fleet of 40 retrofitted Toyota Siennas by late 2026. Designed for urban transit, corporate campuses, airports, and planned communities, it features swappable batteries for minimal downtime and is approved for use in Europe and Canada. May Mobility currently operates autonomous shuttle services in several US cities and has a pilot program in Japan with NTT.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech

C++: A Resurgence of Programming Fun

2024-12-23

C++: A Resurgence of Programming Fun

The author reflects on over a decade of programming, lamenting that languages like JavaScript, Python, and Ruby failed to recapture the joy he felt coding as a child. Recently, while developing a roguelike game using C++, he rediscovered that programming fun. He argues that C++ was once notorious for the overuse of template metaprogramming, but since C++11, the standards committee's efforts have revitalized the language. Additions like auto type inference, nullptr, and range-based for loops have significantly improved developer experience and efficiency. Modern C++ is powerful, boasting rich libraries and tools, yet avoids the negative aspects of excessive popularity. The relatively pure community allows developers to focus on creation, which is the essence of programming enjoyment.

(learncodethehardway.com)

Development

GitHub Pages: The Best Platform for Free Open Source Software in 2025

2025-04-28

Want to share your software for free? The best approach in 2025 is deploying static HTML and JavaScript to GitHub Pages. WebAssembly now allows for client-side applications in languages like Python. GitHub Pages offers a free, stable platform with a 17+ year history of uninterrupted service, surpassing previously reliable options like Heroku, whose free tier was discontinued in 2022 by Salesforce. Choose an open-source license and provide an accessible link to ensure your work benefits everyone.

(simonwillison.net)

Development

Gemini Cracks a 20-Year-Old Mac App Mystery!

2025-06-02

Gemini Cracks a 20-Year-Old Mac App Mystery!

After years of unsuccessful Google searches, the author finally used Gemini to identify a long-forgotten Mac/Windows application from his teens. The app, which tracked user actions and automated repetitive tasks, was revealed to be Open Sesame!, a 1993 intelligent software assistant capable of learning user patterns and automating tasks like bulk file renaming. The author remembered seeing a demo in the mid-90s but had failed to find any information about it until now. This story highlights the advancements in AI, using a 2025 AI tool to discover a 1993 machine learning application.

(blog.gingerbeardman.com)

Misc App Discovery

Solving a 25-Piece Wooden Puzzle with Haskell: Part I

2025-09-20

The author received a challenging 3D puzzle consisting of 25 identical wooden pieces and, after struggling to solve it manually, decided to leverage the power of the Haskell programming language. This is the first of a two-part series focusing on modeling the problem. The author models the space as a 3D grid, using vectors to represent positions and defining data structures for a single piece and its arrangement in space. The article details how linear algebra and Haskell features are used to represent rotations and translations of the pieces, generating a candidate list of all possible arrangements. The article ends with a cliffhanger, leaving the solution of finding the correct arrangement from the candidates to the second part.

(glocq.github.io)

Development 3D Puzzle

Reichstag Fire Decree: The Enabling Act's Precursor

2025-09-16

Reichstag Fire Decree: The Enabling Act's Precursor

The Reichstag fire of February 27, 1933, blamed on Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe, provided the pretext for the Nazi regime to enact the Decree for the Protection of the People and the State on February 28th. This decree, suspending fundamental constitutional rights, including freedom of speech and assembly, allowed for the arbitrary arrest and imprisonment of political opponents, the suppression of dissent, and the consolidation of Nazi power. It effectively dismantled democratic processes, paving the way for the Enabling Act and the establishment of a totalitarian police state.

(encyclopedia.ushmm.org)

History Reichstag Fire Emergency Decree

Automating Linux Distro Version Updates in CI

2025-09-16

Automating Linux Distro Version Updates in CI

Manually tracking Linux distro updates and end-of-life versions was a tedious monthly task. Now, we automate this using the endoflife.date API, GitHub Actions, and create-pull-request. A weekly GitHub Action queries the API, updates our CI matrix, and opens a pull request with the changes. Dead Man's Snitch monitors the action to ensure reliability. This frees up engineering time and prevents issues from outdated versions.

(paretosecurity.com)

Development

Elastic Cloud Serverless: Unstable Throughput and Packet Loss on Azure AKS

2025-06-10

Elastic Cloud Serverless: Unstable Throughput and Packet Loss on Azure AKS

Elastic's SRE team observed unstable throughput and packet loss in Elastic Cloud Serverless running on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Investigation revealed RX ring buffer overflows and kernel input queue saturation on SR-IOV interfaces as the root cause. Increasing RX buffer sizes and adjusting the netdev backlog significantly improved network stability. The experience highlights that even with high-performance hardware, OS-level network parameter tuning is crucial for optimal performance.

(www.elastic.co)

Development

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