After years of searching, a blogger has successfully recovered and compiled photos and videos from Tasmania's LAN parties between the 1990s and the early 2000s. A total of 1584 photos and 2 videos document the early days of online gaming culture and technological advancements. This valuable archive is now publicly available on archive.org.
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A paper on editing mathematics on Wikipedia has sparked a debate about pseudonymity in academic publishing. One of the authors used the Wikipedia pseudonym "XOR'easter," but the American Mathematical Society (AMS) refused to publish the paper because they didn't know the author's real-world identity. This highlights the conflict between internet pseudonymity and traditional academic publishing, and the question of how readily academia accepts anonymous publications. The authors argue that Wikipedia's pseudonymity policy protects editors, and that academia needs to rethink the meaning of anonymous publication.
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The PlasticList platform released a report highlighting the challenges and opportunities in plastic recycling. The report notes the growing problem of plastic pollution and the low rates of effective recycling. PlasticList aims to connect producers, recyclers, and repurposers of plastic waste, creating a transparent and efficient recycling system to drive a circular economy for plastics. Through data and technological support, PlasticList helps companies improve recycling efficiency and reduce environmental costs, ultimately aiming to build a sustainable plastic management model.
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NeatShift is a modern Windows application designed to help users organize their files and folders efficiently and safely using symbolic links. It features a clean interface, drag-and-drop functionality, link management, and error prevention. The application is easy to install and run, requiring no additional dependencies. Currently in testing, it includes automatic system restore point creation for safety, though manual backups are strongly recommended.
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The Chile Air Quality Map is a real-time air quality monitoring platform providing accurate and reliable air pollution information to Chilean citizens. Users can visually see Air Quality Index (AQI) levels for different regions via the map interface and take appropriate precautions based on pollutant concentrations. This platform enhances public environmental awareness and provides data to support government policies on air pollution control, ultimately aiming to protect public health and create cleaner air.
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Doodle Dreams is an app that transforms your hand-drawn doodles into animations. Simply draw your desired characters on paper, scan them using the app, and it will recognize and create animations. You can choose different backgrounds, music, and effects to make your doodles more vivid and engaging. This app is suitable for all ages; whether you're an experienced artist or a beginner, you can easily create your own animated works.
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Tesla has released a custom light show feature allowing users to create and play personalized light shows on 2021 and later Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, and Cybertruck vehicles via a USB drive using the xLights software. This guide details the steps to create and run custom light shows, including software installation, file format requirements, light effect control, and troubleshooting, and provides a validation script to help users check if their light show files meet Tesla's requirements.
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This article explores Lewis Carroll's *Memoria Technica*, a cipher he devised to aid in remembering numbers. The cipher maps consonants to digits, ignoring vowels and punctuation. The article describes the cipher's mechanics, presents online tools for encoding and decoding, and discusses its potential use in steganography. The authors detail their TypeScript implementation, highlighting optimizations for efficiency. Examples illustrate encoding and decoding, and the article analyzes the cipher's strengths and weaknesses as a steganographic technique, including a potential vulnerability related to letter and digit frequency discrepancies.
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DivestOS, a privacy-focused mobile operating system, announced the end of its updates on its tenth anniversary. The project, boasting over 7,000 git commits, achieved significant success, but due to sustainability concerns, developer Tavi has decided to cease maintenance. DivestOS and its apps will receive no further updates, and Hypatia and Carrion will no longer receive database updates. Non-mobile Divested projects (e.g., Brace, D-WRT) will continue to be maintained. Thank you to all users, contributors, and donors for your support.
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Houseplant is a command-line tool designed to simplify ClickHouse database migration management. It allows developers to write migrations in a user-friendly YAML format, making them easy to read and maintain. Simple commands like `houseplant init`, `houseplant generate`, and `houseplant migrate` enable initialization, migration generation, execution, and rollback. Houseplant supports various environment configurations and offers an intuitive command-line interface for seamless ClickHouse schema management.
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The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is raising funds for three hackers who revealed at the 37C3 conference how Polish rail vehicle manufacturer Newag manipulated its trains to be repairable only in its own workshops. Newag reacted with a 90s-style aggressive lawsuit, pursuing both criminal and civil charges. The legal costs have already reached €30,000. The CCC is calling for donations to cover legal and other expenses. The hackers' research did not involve any illegal replacement of train components. The CCC believes Newag's lawsuit aims to prevent future publications about these 'illegal instructions,' emphasizing that only the content teams decide who speaks at the congress. The 38C3 congress will continue reporting on this case.
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NASA's Parker Solar Probe made history on Christmas Eve, achieving an unprecedented close approach to the Sun at a distance of 3.8 million miles. After its close encounter on December 24th, the probe successfully sent a beacon signal back to Earth on December 26th, confirming its good health. This close-up study provides invaluable data for scientists to unravel mysteries surrounding the Sun, including how solar material is heated to millions of degrees, the origin of the solar wind, and the acceleration of energetic particles. Detailed telemetry data is expected on January 1st.
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This article explores the structure of embeddings (latent spaces) produced by deep neural networks. Several key hypotheses are summarized: the Manifold Hypothesis (high-dimensional data lies in a low-dimensional manifold); Hierarchical Organization (features organize hierarchically across layers); Linear Hypothesis (neural networks represent features as linear directions in their activation space); Superposition Hypothesis (neural nets represent more independent features than a layer has neurons); Universality Hypothesis (circuits reappear across different models for the same data); Adversarial Vulnerability (small input changes cause large embedding shifts); and Neural Collapse (after training, class features cluster tightly around their means). These hypotheses collectively illuminate the complexity and potential limitations of deep neural network embeddings.
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This article explores the impact of J.G.A. Pocock's influential work, 'The Machiavellian Moment,' on historiography and political thought. Pocock challenged the purely liberal interpretation of the American founding myth, arguing for the enduring presence of classical republicanism, sparking intense debate. This controversy extended beyond differing historical interpretations, touching upon the core of American national identity. Pocock's central argument posits the inherent political nature of historical narratives and the crucial role of historians in shaping political identities, highlighting the inevitable political contestation surrounding historical interpretations.
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A massive data breach affecting over 800,000 Volkswagen electric vehicles has exposed sensitive user information, including precise GPS location data and personal contact details. The data, stored on an unsecured Amazon Cloud server, was accessible to anyone with basic technical skills. The breach, discovered by a whistleblower and reported by Der Spiegel, highlights significant security flaws at Volkswagen's software subsidiary, Cariad. While Cariad claims to have quickly addressed the vulnerability and that no unauthorized third-party access occurred, the incident raises serious concerns about data security in the automotive industry and the potential for misuse of exposed location and personal information. The breach impacted both individual users and institutional entities, including police forces.
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This article delves into the discrepancy between Unix time (the number of seconds since January 1, 1970) and the actual time due to the Earth's slowing rotation and slight variations in its orbit. Leap seconds were introduced to address this, but their complexities lead to a plan to discontinue them by 2035. The author proposes a novel solution: periodically adjusting Earth's orbit to maintain synchronization between the solar year and the average Gregorian calendar year, thereby eliminating the need for leap seconds.
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The death of former OpenAI researcher Suchir Balaji, found dead in his San Francisco apartment, has been ruled a suicide. However, Balaji's parents are contesting this conclusion, commissioning a second independent autopsy. Balaji had recently become a whistleblower, publicly accusing OpenAI of using copyrighted material to train ChatGPT. His parents claim he showed no signs of suicidal tendencies and was optimistic about the future, planning to establish a non-profit focused on machine learning. The case has sparked public speculation and calls for a thorough investigation.
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On Christmas Eve, Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress, stirred up controversy on Reddit by asking for suggestions on what "drama" he should create in 2025 for WordPress. The post, suggesting changes like altering release naming conventions or design, was met with significant backlash from the community. Many felt the post was disrespectful and urged him to focus on resolving ongoing legal issues and restoring community stability. Mullenweg responded that he was merely aiming to spark creativity and hinted at future developments in Gutenberg. The controversy highlights concerns within the WordPress community regarding leadership and the future direction of the platform.
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Arbital, an organization focused on AI safety research, recently announced its closure. This news sent shockwaves through the AI safety community. Known for its rigorous research and forward-thinking perspectives, Arbital's closure represents a significant loss to the field. While Arbital hasn't publicly disclosed the reasons for its closure, industry insiders speculate it may be related to funding issues or a shift in research direction. Arbital's closure serves as a reminder of the many challenges facing AI safety research, requiring more resources and sustained effort.
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In 1988 at Apple, a young, cocky engineer, Kent Beck, was summoned to Jean-Louis Gassée's office after sending an email complaining about a company decision. Instead of anger, Gassée challenged Beck to consider his perspective and rewrite the email as a proposal for a solution. This experience taught Beck three valuable lessons: most problems aren't as big as they seem; always include a solution with a complaint; and effective communication requires empathy. This anecdote highlights crucial workplace communication skills and the importance of understanding different viewpoints.
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Luca Iaconi-Stewart spent years painstakingly creating a 1:60 scale model of a Boeing 777-300ER airliner, using only manila folders. The project, born from a high school architecture class, showcases his mastery of paper's versatility. From initial simple designs to an incredibly detailed final product, he utilized Adobe Illustrator to design intricate parts, then meticulously cut, assembled, and glued them together. This stunning creation involved extensive research, design, printing, and assembly, demonstrating incredible craftsmanship and attention to detail.
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PQConnect is an easy-to-install layer of internet security that allows you to immediately address the threat of quantum attacks on your computer without waiting for application upgrades. It automatically applies end-to-end post-quantum cryptography between computers running PQConnect, adding cryptographic protection to unencrypted applications, working with existing pre-quantum applications to add post-quantum protection, and adding a second application-independent layer of defense to applications with application-specific post-quantum protection. Unlike VPNs, which only protect traffic between your computer and VPN proxies, PQConnect automatically detects and transparently encrypts traffic to servers supporting PQConnect. System administrators can easily configure server names to announce PQConnect support. Separate installation instructions are provided for users and system administrators.
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GitDiagram is a powerful tool that transforms any GitHub repository into an interactive diagram for quick and intuitive project visualization. Simply replace 'hub' with 'diagram' in any GitHub URL to generate the diagram. It supports popular frameworks like FastAPI, Streamlit, and Flask, making it easy for developers to use.
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Bench, the accounting platform, announced it will cease operations on December 27, 2024. This unexpected closure will disrupt users, but Bench is committed to a smooth transition. They recommend switching to Kick accounting software, offering an exclusive deal. Further information on data access will be available on their website by December 30th.
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New Year's resolutions often fail? This article explores evidence-based strategies for goal setting and behavior change. Studies show that success rates for New Year's resolutions aren't as low as often perceived. The key is leveraging the "fresh start effect" and combining it with goal hierarchy setting (superordinate, intermediate, and subordinate goals), approach vs. avoidance goals, process vs. outcome goals, mastery vs. performance goals, flexible vs. rigid restraint, and implementing intention strategies. The article also details how tools like MacroFactor can support goal setting and behavior change.
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A 2019 multimedia exhibition in Fano, Italy, celebrated the strong links between Vitruvius and Leonardo on the 500th anniversary of Leonardo's death. The authors created an interactive animation of several machines, providing visitors with an immersive experience of the studies of these great scholars. This also spurred a review of the odometer's history and an examination of Leonardo's redesign of Vitruvius' concept. While some questions remain, the research led them back to another great scientist of the past: Archimedes of Syracuse.
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The paper passport is on its way out, thanks to the rise of facial recognition technology and smartphones. Airports and governments worldwide are actively testing and deploying passport-free travel systems, leveraging facial recognition and digital identity verification to streamline the travel process. While this improves efficiency and reduces airport wait times, concerns about data privacy and security, such as data breaches and increased surveillance, are also being raised. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is pushing for the adoption of Digital Travel Credentials (DTCs), which digitize passport information stored on a phone and cryptographically link it to the physical passport. Despite challenges like 'look-alike fraud' and system failures, the trend towards digital travel documents is irreversible; your face may soon be your new passport.
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Northwestern University engineers have achieved a breakthrough by successfully demonstrating quantum teleportation over a fiber optic cable already carrying internet traffic. This discovery, published in Optica, opens the door to integrating quantum communication with existing internet infrastructure, significantly simplifying the requirements for advanced sensing and quantum computing applications. The team cleverly navigated the challenge of entangled photons interfering with dense internet traffic by selecting an optimal wavelength and employing special filters. This successful transmission paves the way for next-generation quantum and classical networks sharing a unified fiber optic infrastructure, promising a future of more accessible quantum technologies.
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This essay explores the incredible journeys of metamorphic rocks. Starting as humble seabed sediments, these rocks are buried deep within the Earth's crust, undergoing intense heat and pressure that transforms them into new mineral forms. Their eventual return to the surface provides invaluable insights into the planet's deep interior. The author vividly describes this transformation as an epic journey, highlighting the importance of metamorphism in plate tectonics and the crucial role of water in the process. The story also contrasts the ease of exploring space with the challenges of accessing Earth's subsurface.
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A tutorial paper published in the proceedings of ISSAC 2023 explores the computation and applications of invariants in mathematics. The paper focuses on the interplay between differential and algebraic invariant theories, presenting an algebraic adaptation of the moving frame method from differential geometry to compute a generating set of rational invariants. It also discusses the role of differential invariant signatures in solving equivalence problems in geometry and algebra, and the challenges in designing algorithms based on this concept.
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