Goodbye Slow Configuration: Parallelizing Build Configuration with Makefiles

2025-04-26

Author Tavian Barnes complains about the inefficiency of existing build systems (Autoconf, CMake, Meson, etc.) in the configuration phase, which takes far longer than the build phase. He proposes a parallelized solution based on Makefiles, significantly improving efficiency by breaking down the configuration process into multiple concurrently executable tasks. The core idea is to leverage make's parallel capabilities to parallelize the originally sequential compiler test tasks, ultimately reducing configuration time from 38 seconds to 0.4 seconds. The article details the implementation, including helper scripts, Makefile writing techniques, and parallelization strategies. This article is valuable for developers seeking faster build speeds.

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Development

Comcast's Price Transparency Issues Lead to Massive Customer Loss

2025-04-26
Comcast's Price Transparency Issues Lead to Massive Customer Loss

Comcast reported a net loss of 183,000 residential broadband customers in Q1 2025, a significant increase from the previous year. President Mike Cavanagh attributed this to a lack of price transparency and a poor customer experience. In response, Comcast is simplifying its pricing structure and offering a five-year price guarantee for new customers, aiming to improve customer retention. Despite increased revenue, Comcast's stock price dropped 3.7% following the announcement.

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Greek Youth Revolutionizing Tech: Rockets, Robots, and Supercars!

2025-04-26
Greek Youth Revolutionizing Tech: Rockets, Robots, and Supercars!

A recent report highlights the burgeoning technological talent of Greece's youth. Student teams are making waves in international aerospace, robotics, and automotive engineering competitions. ASAT, for example, consistently ranks among the top student teams in Europe. bitLab's silver medal at WRO 2024 and European championship victory showcase their prowess. Numerous universities are actively involved, with labs like NTUA's Legged Robots Team and AUTH's Robotics Lab leading the charge. This success story not only demonstrates the innovative capacity of Greece's young generation but also offers a beacon of hope for the nation's technological advancement, challenging preconceived notions about Greek technological capabilities.

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$8M+ Annual Funding: Unraveling the Brain's Sensorimotor Integration

2025-04-26
$8M+ Annual Funding: Unraveling the Brain's Sensorimotor Integration

The Simons Collaboration on Ecological Neuroscience (SCENE) launches with over $8 million in annual funding to investigate how the brain efficiently integrates sensory and motor information. This interdisciplinary project, uniting leading neuroscientists and machine learning experts, leverages principles of ecological psychology, focusing on how the brain encodes affordances – opportunities for action in the environment. Research will span multiple species, from rodents and bats to humans, aiming to uncover fundamental principles of cognition and bridge gaps in our understanding of the brain.

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DoorDash Bids $3.6B to Acquire Deliveroo

2025-04-25
DoorDash Bids $3.6B to Acquire Deliveroo

British food delivery company Deliveroo announced that it has received a $3.6 billion all-stock acquisition offer from its US counterpart, DoorDash. Yahoo Finance's market analysis show, Market Domination Overtime, featured experts discussing the implications of this news for both companies and the broader food delivery market.

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Startup Food Delivery

Google Kills Software Updates for First-Gen Nest Thermostats

2025-04-25
Google Kills Software Updates for First-Gen Nest Thermostats

Google announced it's ending software updates for the first and second-generation Nest Learning Thermostats (released in 2011 and 2012, respectively) and the 2014 European version. After October 25th, remote control via phone or Google Assistant will be gone, though local temperature and schedule adjustments remain possible. Google also stated it has no plans for future Nest thermostat releases in Europe, though existing 3rd gen and Nest Thermostat E models will remain on sale for now. A new feature will let users of recent Nest thermostats set schedules via the Google Home app later this year. To soften the blow, Google is offering discounts on replacement thermostats. This move sparks concerns about the lifespan of smart home devices and highlights the crucial role of software support in their longevity.

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Interactive Neural Forest World in Your Browser

2025-04-25

The author trained a neural network to transform a video of a forest trail, captured with a phone, into an interactive virtual world explorable in a web browser. Unlike traditional video games, this world relies not on pre-defined geometry, lighting, and animations, but solely on a neural network generating new images based on previous images and control inputs. Overcoming early model limitations, the author improved the training method and network architecture to achieve a relatively smooth interactive experience. This showcases a novel approach to generating virtual worlds using neural networks, promising a future of more realistic and convenient world building.

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A Comprehensive List of World Countries

2025-04-25

This list provides a nearly exhaustive compilation of all independent sovereign states and territories worldwide, spanning every continent from Asia and Africa to the Americas and Europe. Its extensive nature makes it useful for a variety of applications, including building geographic databases, conducting international trade research, or global studies.

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Raspberry Pi Pico-Controlled 3x5 LED Matrix: From Circuit Design to Web Control

2025-04-25
Raspberry Pi Pico-Controlled 3x5 LED Matrix: From Circuit Design to Web Control

This tutorial details building a 3x5 LED matrix controlled by a Raspberry Pi Pico using tscircuit, enabling WiFi remote control. It covers circuit design, component selection (WS2812B LEDs), connection methodology (daisy-chaining LEDs), PCB layout, and a final web interface for control. Learn to create an LED matrix for displaying information, data visualization, or interactive notification systems.

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Hardware LED Matrix

GS-Calc: A Spreadsheet That Handles Millions of Rows with Ease

2025-04-25

GS-Calc is a modern spreadsheet redefining what "big data" means for desktop software. It effortlessly handles massive CSV and XLSX files with millions of rows and thousands of columns, boasting unlimited worksheets and subfolders. Its performance optimizations significantly outperform other spreadsheet solutions in tasks like loading text files, copy-pasting, and VLOOKUP/MATCH functions. Beyond this, GS-Calc provides powerful features including robust pivot tables, Monte Carlo simulations, regular expression support, and Python integration, making it an ideal tool for large-scale data analysis.

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Development

Functional Logo Maker from a Single Prompt: LLM Potential and Limitations

2025-04-25
Functional Logo Maker from a Single Prompt: LLM Potential and Limitations

The author generated a fully functional logo maker, including export options, from a single prompt in Aider. Code snippets demonstrate the LLM's ability to generate font links, dependencies, and inline CSS styles, even including the latest SHA hash of a linked CDN library. However, expanding the code using Sonnet 3.7 significantly increased project complexity, resulting in uncompilable code. The author explores the differences in code generation and expansion capabilities between different LLMs (like Claude and GPT-4o), and the impact of context window size, output limits, and other factors on LLM applications. The limitations of context windows and output sizes in LLMs are highlighted as key challenges.

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Microsoft's Copilot+ PCs: Recall, Enhanced Search, and Click to Do

2025-04-25
Microsoft's Copilot+ PCs: Recall, Enhanced Search, and Click to Do

Microsoft is rolling out Copilot+ PCs, highlighted by the Recall feature. This release also includes a revamped Windows Search with natural language processing and 'Click to Do,' enabling text extraction from images, on-screen content search, and quick summarization/rewriting. Copilot+ PCs require an NPU capable of over 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS), currently supported by Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and Plus, Intel Core Ultra 200V-series, and AMD Ryzen AI 300-series processors. While Recall and enhanced search are available on both Arm and x86, some Click to Do features are currently limited to Arm-based systems.

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Tech

Dive into D: A Comprehensive Guide

2025-04-25

This book provides a comprehensive guide to D programming, covering everything from basic syntax to advanced features. With a clear chapter structure, it progressively introduces core D concepts: variables, data types, operators, control flow, functions, classes, object-oriented programming, templates, and concurrency. Numerous code examples and exercises are included to help readers grasp D's programming techniques. Suitable for both beginners and experienced programmers.

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Magnitude: AI-Native Testing Framework for Web Apps

2025-04-25
Magnitude: AI-Native Testing Framework for Web Apps

Magnitude is a revolutionary open-source end-to-end testing framework for web applications, powered by visual AI agents that 'see' your interface and adapt to any changes. Build test cases easily with natural language, leverage a powerful reasoning agent for planning and adjustment, and rely on a fast visual agent for reliable execution. Run tests locally or within CI/CD pipelines; the framework automatically handles problems encountered during testing. Magnitude supports various LLMs, including Gemini 2.5 pro, Anthropic, and OpenAI, and offers a free visual model, Moondream. It simplifies test creation and execution significantly.

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Gym Class: Hiring a Senior Animation Engineer for Meta Quest Hit

2025-04-25
Gym Class: Hiring a Senior Animation Engineer for Meta Quest Hit

Gym Class, a leading social game on Meta Quest with millions of downloads and a 4.9-star rating, is expanding! They're seeking an experienced Animation Engineer to lead the design, development, and implementation of character animation systems in Unity. This role demands expertise in Unity and C#, proven mobile game animation experience, strong understanding of IK, animation blending, and state machines, and a knack for mobile performance optimization. You'll lead a high-performing team and shape the future of character movement in the game.

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Intel's AI Chip Flop: Unexpected Demand for Older CPUs Creates Production Bottleneck

2025-04-25
Intel's AI Chip Flop:  Unexpected Demand for Older CPUs Creates Production Bottleneck

Intel's newly launched AI PC chips are underperforming, creating an unexpected shortage of production capacity for its older, cheaper chips. This news comes alongside announced layoffs and a poor financial report that sent the company's stock plummeting. Consumers are opting for less expensive previous-generation Raptor Lake chips over the pricier Lunar Lake and Meteor Lake AI models. The resulting shortage in Intel's 'Intel 7' process node capacity is expected to persist. This unexpected surge in demand for older chips points to a lack of a 'killer app' for AI in the PC market. Intel's Q1 revenue for its Client Computing Group (CCG) fell 8% year-over-year. AMD's upcoming financial results will provide further insight into the market's response.

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Mojave Desert Ghosts: Yucca Man and Southern California's Cryptid Legends

2025-04-25
Mojave Desert Ghosts: Yucca Man and Southern California's Cryptid Legends

This article explores the enduring legend of Yucca Man in Southern California's Mojave Desert, alongside other similar cryptid sightings. Since the 1970s, reports of an eight-foot-tall, hairy, red-eyed creature have emerged from military bases, national parks, and remote areas. While Native populations viewed these beings as supernatural entities, modern accounts depict them as Bigfoot-like creatures. The article delves into historical parallels, including tales of a winged beast at Elizabeth Lake and the 'Cement Monster' of a nearby mine, weaving together geography, history, and folklore into a captivating narrative of mystery.

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DOT's Mass Layoffs Backfire: Agency Scrambles to Rehire Amidst Safety Concerns

2025-04-25
DOT's Mass Layoffs Backfire:  Agency Scrambles to Rehire Amidst Safety Concerns

The Department of Transportation (DOT), under Secretary Sean Duffy, has faced a major setback after mass layoffs left the agency struggling to maintain essential services, particularly within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Duffy's controversial use of 'deferred resignation' deals led to nearly 4,700 employees leaving, raising significant safety concerns. Now, the DOT is reportedly attempting to rehire many of these workers, highlighting the chaotic and potentially dangerous consequences of the initial cuts. While the DOT claims the layoffs were efficiency measures, the resulting turmoil casts doubt on this narrative and raises serious questions about air travel safety.

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Differential Code Coverage for Debugging: A Powerful Technique

2025-04-25

This article introduces a powerful debugging technique: differential code coverage analysis. By comparing the code coverage of passing and failing tests, you can quickly pinpoint buggy code. The author uses Go's `math/big` library as an example, demonstrating how to use `go test` and `go tool cover` to generate coverage reports and `diff` to compare the differences. This efficiently identifies the code snippet causing the test failure, significantly reducing debugging time compared to traditional methods. The technique is illustrated by finding a bug in a few lines of code out of over 15,000.

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Development code coverage

Mati Carbon Wins $50M XPrize for Novel Carbon Removal Tech

2025-04-25
Mati Carbon Wins $50M XPrize for Novel Carbon Removal Tech

The XPrize Foundation announced the winners of its $100 million carbon removal competition. Houston-based startup Mati Carbon took home the $50 million grand prize for its enhanced rock weathering technology, which involves spreading crushed basalt on farms to sequester atmospheric CO2. Mati Carbon's data-driven approach, rigorous verification process, and software platform impressed the judges. While direct air capture and ocean-based solutions didn't meet the 1,000-tonne removal threshold, several received milestone awards, highlighting their progress. Scaling up carbon removal technologies remains crucial for tackling climate change.

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Tech

Stunning Partisan Divide in How US Lawmakers Cite Science

2025-04-25
Stunning Partisan Divide in How US Lawmakers Cite Science

A new analysis of hundreds of thousands of policy documents reveals a striking difference in how US political parties use scientific literature. Democrat-led congressional committees and left-leaning think tanks are far more likely to cite research papers than their Republican counterparts. The study also found Democrats and left-leaning groups are more likely to cite high-impact research, and both sides rarely cite the same studies or topics. The research, published in Science, shows that documents from Democrat-controlled committees were almost 1.8 times more likely to cite science than those from Republican-led committees.

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The 20th Century Novel: An Explosion of Form in an Exploding World

2025-04-25
The 20th Century Novel: An Explosion of Form in an Exploding World

This review explores Edwin Frank's *Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel*, which examines the evolution of the novel in a turbulent world. Frank argues that 20th-century novels broadened their subject matter, encompassing homosexuality, alcoholism, anti-heroes, and magical realism, among other themes absent in 19th-century novels. However, the review also suggests that the depth of 20th-century novels fails to surpass the classics of the 19th century, such as works by Dickens and Tolstoy. The piece concludes with a concern about the future of the novel and its readership, lamenting the potential loss of a literary form that so deeply engages with human nature and emotion.

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The Tumultuous Life of Controversial Author MacLane

2025-04-25
The Tumultuous Life of Controversial Author MacLane

Following the uproar surrounding her debut novel, MacLane published a second book the following year, 'My Friend Annabel Lee,' a proto-surrealist tale about her friendship with a Japanese porcelain doll. It was met with critical indifference. Her subsequent life was a whirlwind of journalistic pursuits, financial woes (including arrest for debt), and a long-term relationship with Caroline M. Branson, 44 years her senior. MacLane continued to write, expressing her unconventional views on marriage, family, sex, religion, and more, leaving behind a legacy as controversial as it is enigmatic.

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Misc

arXivLabs: Experimental Projects with Community Collaborators

2025-04-25
arXivLabs: Experimental Projects with Community Collaborators

arXivLabs is a framework enabling collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on the website. Individuals and organizations working with arXivLabs uphold arXiv's values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only partners with those who share them. Got an idea for a project that will benefit the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

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Development

Formalizing Russell's Principia Mathematica in Lean4

2025-04-25
Formalizing Russell's Principia Mathematica in Lean4

This project formalizes the first volume of Bertrand Russell's Principia Mathematica using the Lean theorem prover. The goal is to ensure the formalization aligns with the book's theorems, avoiding confusion. The project rigorously follows Russell's proofs, minimizing added statements. A new tactic, `Syll`, handling a more general form of syllogism, was created. While Principia Mathematica is considered a 'monumental failure', the author found the formalization process enriching.

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Development Principia Mathematica

Curry: A Seamless Blend of Functional and Logic Programming

2025-04-25
Curry: A Seamless Blend of Functional and Logic Programming

Curry is a declarative multi-paradigm programming language seamlessly combining features from functional programming (nested expressions, higher-order functions, strong typing, lazy evaluation) and logic programming (non-determinism, built-in search, free variables, partial data structures). Compared to single-paradigm languages, Curry offers advantages such as optimized evaluation for logic-oriented computations and flexible, non-deterministic pattern matching with user-defined functions.

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Development

Microsoft's AI Gamble: Can Mustafa Suleyman Turn Things Around?

2025-04-25
Microsoft's AI Gamble: Can Mustafa Suleyman Turn Things Around?

Microsoft spent $650 million acquiring the core team of Inflection AI, hoping to leverage the expertise of its founder, Mustafa Suleyman, to boost its AI capabilities and particularly reverse the lackluster user growth of Copilot. However, Suleyman's arrival has not been smooth sailing. Internal team integration difficulties, strained relationships with OpenAI, and the vast disparity in user numbers between Copilot and ChatGPT all pose challenges for Microsoft. The article explores Microsoft's strategic dilemmas in the AI field and whether Suleyman can ultimately deliver a successful consumer AI product.

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Tech

Judge Arrested for Allegedly Helping Man Evade Immigration Authorities

2025-04-25
Judge Arrested for Allegedly Helping Man Evade Immigration Authorities

Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested by the FBI for allegedly helping a man evade immigration authorities, escalating tensions between the Trump administration and the judiciary. The FBI alleges Dugan intentionally misled agents trying to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz. Dugan's attorney claims her actions were not in the interest of public safety. The arrest has sparked debate about the separation of powers and government overreach.

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arXivLabs: Community-Driven Experiments on arXiv

2025-04-25
arXivLabs: Community-Driven Experiments on arXiv

arXivLabs is a platform enabling collaborators to build and share new features directly on the arXiv website. Participants, individuals and organizations alike, embrace arXiv's values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these principles and only partners with those who share them. Got an idea for a valuable community project? Explore arXivLabs!

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Development

Microsoft to Kill Off Windows Maps App

2025-04-25
Microsoft to Kill Off Windows Maps App

Microsoft has announced it will deprecate and remove the Windows Maps app from the Microsoft Store in July 2025. This follows the earlier removal of offline maps support and the app's exclusion from new Windows 11 24H2 installations. While still available for download, reinstallation will be impossible after July. Microsoft directs users to the Bing Maps web version. This move signals a streamlining of Microsoft's mapping services, focusing on its web-based offering.

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