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Utamaro's Yamauba Series: A Balancing Act of Aesthetics and Taboo

2025-04-10

Utamaro's Yamauba Series: A Balancing Act of Aesthetics and Taboo

Kitagawa Utamaro's *Yamauba* series presents a paradoxical image of the Yamauba: untamed eyebrows and hair suggest her outcast status, yet fine robes and delicate features soften her monstrous origins. Some scholars interpret this as a way to subtly convey sensuality while evading censorship, pointing to a few images with exposed breasts. However, this interpretation overlooks the majority of the series, which aren't overtly erotic, and Utamaro's history of publishing more explicit works. His eventual punishment stemmed from political content, not explicitness, highlighting the complex censorship of the time and the delicate balance between artistic expression and societal taboos.

(publicdomainreview.org)

Design Ukiyo-e Kitagawa Utamaro Art Censorship

How the Linux Kernel Executes Shebang Scripts

2025-04-10

This article delves into how the Linux kernel handles shebang (#!) scripts. Starting with a simple shell script, the author traces the kernel execution flow, revealing the crucial roles of the `execve` syscall, the `binfmt_script` module, and the `load_script` function. The author meticulously explains how the kernel reads the shebang, locates and executes the specified interpreter, ultimately running the script. The article contrasts the execution differences between scripts with and without shebangs, and explores the permission checking mechanism, offering readers a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of the Linux system.

(crocidb.com)

Development

Apple's New AI Breakthrough: Fine-Grained Control of Generative Models with Activation Transport (AcT)

2025-04-10

Apple's New AI Breakthrough: Fine-Grained Control of Generative Models with Activation Transport (AcT)

Apple machine learning researchers have developed Activation Transport (AcT), a novel technique offering fine-grained control over large generative models, including LLMs and text-to-image diffusion models, without the resource-intensive training of RLHF or fine-tuning. AcT steers model activations using optimal transport theory, achieving modality-agnostic control with minimal computational overhead. Experiments demonstrate significant improvements in toxicity mitigation, truthfulness induction in LLMs, and stylistic control in image generation. AcT paves the way for safer and more reliable generative models.

(machinelearning.apple.com)

AI Model Control

Municipal vs. Airport Fire Trucks: A Tale of Two Trucks

2025-04-10

Municipal vs. Airport Fire Trucks: A Tale of Two Trucks

While both municipal and airport fire trucks (ARFF) fight fires, their roles and capabilities differ significantly. Municipal trucks prioritize maneuverability in urban environments, carrying varying water tank sizes (500-1000 gallons) and equipment like hoses, air packs, and small tools. ARFF vehicles, however, are designed for rapid response (within 3 minutes) at airports, boasting larger water tanks (1500-4500 gallons) and a High Reach Extendable Turret (HRET) for tackling aircraft fires. They also carry a wider range of fire suppressants and have stricter acceleration requirements. Differences extend to chassis design and cab configurations, tailored to each environment's unique demands.

(www.piercemfg.com)

Misc fire truck airport firefighting municipal firefighting

Blue Shield Data Breach: Google Analytics Misconfiguration Exposed Member Data

2025-04-10

Blue Shield of California announced a potential data breach affecting some members' protected health information. Between April 2021 and January 2024, a misconfiguration of Google Analytics allowed certain member data, including plan details, location, and demographics, to be shared with Google Ads for targeted advertising. Social Security numbers and financial information were not compromised. Blue Shield severed the connection in January 2024 and is taking steps to prevent future incidents. Members are advised to monitor their accounts and credit reports for suspicious activity.

(news.blueshieldca.com)

Tech

Koreo: Building Complex Kubernetes Platforms with Functional Programming

2025-04-10

Koreo: Building Complex Kubernetes Platforms with Functional Programming

Koreo empowers you to build complex Kubernetes platforms using composable workflows and functions, inspired by functional programming. Workflows act as blueprints for platform operations, defining steps for tasks like application deployments or infrastructure provisioning. Functions are individual building blocks, encapsulating logic for data transformation, API interaction, or resource creation. Built-in testing validates configuration and catches errors early. Koreo's power lies in programming these workflows: incorporate conditional logic, loops, and error handling for dynamic platform operations, automating complex processes, enforcing policies, and building self-service platforms for development teams.

(koreo.dev)

Development Platform Automation

Rapid Storage: Sub-Millisecond Latency Storage Built on Colossus

2025-04-10

Rapid Storage: Sub-Millisecond Latency Storage Built on Colossus

Google's Rapid Storage leverages the Colossus architecture to achieve an incredible 20 million requests per second throughput, providing sub-millisecond latency for reads and writes, particularly beneficial for AI/ML applications. Using gRPC streaming and a stateful protocol, Rapid Storage dramatically improves data access efficiency, preventing storage latency from blocking accelerators during model pre-training, for example. Its robust fault tolerance ensures data consistency and continuity even with client or server failures, enabling unlimited appends and resuming interrupted operations. This makes it a powerful solution for large-scale data processing.

(cloud.google.com)

Tech

The Ultimate R Programming Book Collection

2025-04-10

The Ultimate R Programming Book Collection

This website is the ultimate collection of over 400 free and open-source R programming books. Initially released by Oscar Baruffa in August 2020 with over 100 books, it has grown to include over 400 books thanks to community contributions. The site features a search function for easy navigation, accepts donations, and welcomes book submissions. Built with Quarto and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0, the site also boasts live site statistics and is maintained by Oscar Baruffa.

(www.bigbookofr.com)

Development R Programming Open Source Books

TigerBeetle's Docs Site Rebuild: Ditching Docusaurus for a Zig-Powered Solution

2025-04-10

TigerBeetle's Docs Site Rebuild: Ditching Docusaurus for a Zig-Powered Solution

TigerBeetle rebuilt its documentation site from scratch, abandoning Docusaurus (Node.js based) in favor of a lightweight, fast, Zig-powered static site generator. Leveraging Zig's build system and Pandoc, they achieved efficient Markdown parsing and HTML generation. The new site boasts improved user experience, a significantly smaller footprint, and even a fun Easter egg game. This rebuild showcases TigerBeetle's commitment to technical excellence and a lean approach.

(tigerbeetle.com)

Development Documentation Site

Founding Engineer: AI-Native Ops for Mental Healthcare

2025-04-10

Founding Engineer: AI-Native Ops for Mental Healthcare

Legion Health (YC S21, $1M+ ARR) is hiring a Founding Engineer to build AI-native care infrastructure. They've already built a real-time, AI-powered backend supporting 2000+ patients with a robust tech stack (Node.js, Next.js, TypeScript, Supabase, AWS). This role demands full-stack expertise, encompassing backend architecture, LLM agent infrastructure, human-AI UX, and data compliance. It's a high-impact opportunity for engineers eager to pioneer AI in healthcare.

(www.ycombinator.com)

Development Mental Health Tech Full-Stack Engineering

Are Americans Still Welcome in Europe Under Trump?

2025-04-10

Are Americans Still Welcome in Europe Under Trump?

This article explores the reception of American travelers in Europe during the Trump administration. The author, drawing on personal experiences and conversations with European friends, argues that despite concerns and dissatisfaction stemming from Trump's policies, most Europeans still welcome American tourists as individuals, not as representatives of the administration. The author encourages American travelers to maintain an open mind, engage in positive interactions with Europeans, and act as ambassadors for the best aspects of American culture.

(blog.ricksteves.com)

Misc US foreign policy European travel

Uneven Evolution of the Responsible AI Ecosystem: A Growing Gap

2025-04-10

Uneven Evolution of the Responsible AI Ecosystem: A Growing Gap

AI-related incidents are surging, yet standardized responsible AI (RAI) evaluations remain scarce among major industrial model developers. New benchmarks like HELM Safety, AIR-Bench, and FACTS offer promising tools for assessing factuality and safety. A significant gap persists between corporate acknowledgment of RAI risks and meaningful action. Governments, however, are demonstrating increased urgency, with intensified global cooperation on AI governance in 2024, leading to frameworks from the OECD, EU, UN, and African Union emphasizing transparency, trustworthiness, and other core RAI principles.

(hai.stanford.edu)

AI AI Governance

Pledge: A Lightweight Reactive Programming Framework for Swift

2025-04-10

Pledge: A Lightweight Reactive Programming Framework for Swift

Pledge is a lightweight, thread-safe reactive programming framework for Swift that simplifies state management and event propagation. Unlike other frameworks with steep learning curves, Pledge focuses on solving everyday problems faced by developers. It offers thread-safe implementation, priority-based notifications, customizable queues, batch updates, rate limiting, and common functional operators. Using `PLObservable` and `PLGlobalStore`, developers can easily implement the observer pattern and global state management, improving code efficiency and maintainability.

(github.com)

Development Reactive Programming State Management

A Surprising Enum Size Optimization in Rust

2025-04-10

The Rust compiler employs a clever memory optimization for enums, reducing their size and boosting performance. The article analyzes the in-memory representation of enums, revealing two optimization strategies: the 'niche optimization,' using invalid bit patterns for variants without payloads; and an optimization for nested enums, cleverly reusing the inner enum's memory layout to minimize the outer enum's size. Both strategies significantly reduce memory consumption, improving program efficiency.

(jpfennell.com)

Development

Parmigiano-Reggiano Tapping Masters: A Centuries-Old Craft

2025-04-10

Parmigiano-Reggiano Tapping Masters: A Centuries-Old Craft

In Emilia-Romagna, Italy, 37-year-old Alessandro Stocchi apprenticed under 81-year-old Renato Giudici to learn the art of Parmigiano-Reggiano tapping (battitore). This ancient craft isn't taught in formal courses; Alessandro learned through three years of hands-on experience, assessing each wheel of cheese. The tapping master requires immense responsibility and skill, as any mistake can damage the precious cheese. This craft, passed down through generations, remains unchanged for two centuries, demonstrating a commitment to tradition.

(www.cheeseprofessor.com)

Misc tradition Parmigiano-Reggiano

Optoelectronic Neural Networks: A Dawn for Post-Moore's Law Computing?

2025-04-10

Optoelectronic Neural Networks: A Dawn for Post-Moore's Law Computing?

This review summarizes the rapid development of optoelectronic neural networks in recent years, from the pioneering work in deep learning to the latest advances in building large-scale neural networks using photonic devices. Researchers have explored various optical computing methods, including coherent nanophotonic circuits, diffractive deep neural networks, and photoelectric multiplication to implement deep learning. These studies have not only achieved breakthroughs in image recognition and StarCraft, but also provide new possibilities for breaking the limitations of Moore's Law and exploring new paths for post-Moore's Law computing.

(www.nature.com)

Tech optoelectronic neural networks post-Moore's law

GCC 15: Six Major Improvements to Compiler Diagnostics

2025-04-10

GCC 15: Six Major Improvements to Compiler Diagnostics

A Red Hat engineer details six significant improvements to compiler diagnostics in GCC 15, aimed at enhancing usability. These include: prettier visualizations of execution paths using ASCII art and warning emojis; improved presentation of C++ template errors with nested structures for better readability; simultaneous output of text and SARIF diagnostic formats; a smoother transition to C23 with improved error messages highlighting C23 compatibility issues; a revamped color scheme using color to highlight differences in the source code; and the introduction of libgdiagnostics, a shared library making GCC's diagnostic functionality accessible to other projects. These improvements promise a significant boost to the developer experience with GCC.

(developers.redhat.com)

Development Diagnostics

Matter Protocol: The Future of Smart Home Interoperability?

2025-04-10

Matter Protocol: The Future of Smart Home Interoperability?

Developed by Apple, Google, Amazon, and Samsung, the Matter protocol aims to solve smart home device incompatibility and security issues. It enables seamless integration of supported devices across major smart home platforms without needing extra apps or software. This article introduces the Matter protocol, mentions the author's company is pursuing Matter certification, and highlights native integration with Home Assistant, allowing it to function as an automation trigger or output device—for example, displaying a message when a washing machine finishes.

(busy.bar)

Tech Matter Protocol

Turn Docstrings into LLM Functions: Introducing the smartfunc Library

2025-04-10

Turn Docstrings into LLM Functions: Introducing the smartfunc Library

The smartfunc library ingeniously transforms docstrings into LLM functions, simplifying interaction with large language models. Using decorators and Jinja2 templating, it converts docstring text into prompts, interacting with various LLM providers (like OpenAI) via the underlying llm library. smartfunc supports Pydantic models for defining response structures, asynchronous functions, system prompts, and a debug mode for easy troubleshooting, significantly boosting development efficiency. While its functionality is relatively streamlined, its simplicity and ease of use make it ideal for rapid prototyping.

(github.com)

Development

Asimov's 1982 Prediction on AI: Collaboration, Not Competition

2025-04-10

Asimov's 1982 Prediction on AI: Collaboration, Not Competition

This article revisits a 1982 interview with science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, where he defined artificial intelligence as any device performing tasks previously associated solely with human intelligence. Asimov saw AI and human intelligence as complementary, not competitive, arguing that their collaboration would lead to faster progress. He envisioned AI liberating humans from work requiring no creative thought, but also warned of potential difficulties and challenges of technological advancements, using the advent of automobiles as an example. He stressed the need to prepare for the AI era and avoid repeating past mistakes.

(www.openculture.com)

AI Isaac Asimov future of technology

Say Goodbye to localhost: Accessing Local Apps with Custom Domains

2025-04-10

Tired of remembering complex `localhost:XXXX` port numbers? The author shares a clever method using launchd daemons, the `/etc/hosts` file, and the Caddy server to map local apps to custom `.localhost` domains, such as `appname.localhost`. This simplifies accessing local development applications, but the author also envisions a future where these domains can be managed with a single command.

(inclouds.space)

Development domain configuration

Elliptical Python: A Curious Coding Experiment

2025-04-10

This blog post details a quirky approach to Python programming, using ellipses (...) and basic arithmetic operators to represent numbers and construct a program. The author demonstrates a simple program written in this unconventional style, highlighting Python's philosophy of simplicity, albeit in an obscure manner. The post concludes by strongly advising against using this method in production and emphasizes the importance of readable and maintainable code.

(susam.net)

Development programming quirks

Titan's Habitable Potential: A Tiny Biosphere?

2025-04-10

A new study assesses the likelihood of life on Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Using bioenergetic modeling, researchers found that Titan's subsurface ocean might support lifeforms consuming organic matter, but the total biomass could be only a few kilograms—equivalent to a small dog's mass. This suggests that even if life exists on Titan, it would be extremely scarce, making its detection a challenging task. The researchers conclude that Titan's uniquely rich organic inventory may not be as readily available to support life as intuitively thought.

(news.arizona.edu)

Tech Titan Bioenergetic Modeling

Sleep: More Than Brain Rest, a Full-Body Reset

2025-04-10

Sleep: More Than Brain Rest, a Full-Body Reset

Harvard Medical School research challenges our understanding of sleep. While long considered mere brain rest, sleep deprivation experiments showed that fruit flies and mice died within ten days due to a buildup of reactive oxygen species in their guts. Sleep resets the brain, clearing neurotoxins, consolidating memories, and regulating genes, metabolism, and hormones for bodily homeostasis. Even organisms without central nervous systems, like hydra, exhibit sleep-like behavior, indicating that sleep's function transcends the brain and is crucial for whole-body health, reducing cardiovascular disease and cancer risk.

(www.nature.com)

Tech

TVMC: Time-Varying Mesh Compression using Volume-Tracked Reference Meshes

2025-04-10

TVMC: Time-Varying Mesh Compression using Volume-Tracked Reference Meshes

The TVMC project introduces a novel approach to time-varying mesh compression. It leverages volume-tracked reference meshes, employing a multi-step pipeline including ARAP volume tracking, MDS for reference center generation, transformation quaternion computation, creation of a volume-tracked self-contact-free reference mesh, mesh deformation, displacement field computation, and Draco-based compression and evaluation. The project supports Windows and Ubuntu, offering detailed Docker build and run instructions alongside instructions for running on a local machine.

(github.com)

Development mesh compression volume tracking

Bye Bye Big Tech: Building a Self-Hosted CalDAV Calendar

2025-04-10

Bye Bye Big Tech: Building a Self-Hosted CalDAV Calendar

Tired of Big Tech controlling your calendar? This author details building a personalized CalDAV calendar system, breaking free from Google Calendar and the like. Integrating flight tracking, email, and language school calendars, the system boasts single-entry data input and automatic syncing to the work calendar, significantly improving schedule management. The article dives into the architecture, setting up a Baïkal server, event categorization, data synchronization scripts, and considerations for cross-platform compatibility and data privacy.

(emilygorcenski.com)

Development

eGPU: Extending eBPF to GPUs for Low-Overhead Dynamic Observability

2025-04-10

With the surge in GPU-accelerated workloads, existing monitoring tools often suffer from high overhead or invasiveness. eGPU innovatively extends eBPF to GPU kernels via runtime PTX injection, enabling low-overhead dynamic observability. By compiling eBPF bytecode into PTX and injecting it into running GPU kernels, eGPU allows for dynamic addition, modification, and removal of instrumentation without interrupting execution. This not only improves the efficiency of GPU performance analysis but also opens up possibilities for programmable GPU computing, runtime optimization, and GPU security.

(camps.aptaracorp.com)

Development GPU Observability PTX Injection

Photon: A Blazing-Fast Rust/WebAssembly Image Processing Library

2025-04-10

Photon: A Blazing-Fast Rust/WebAssembly Image Processing Library

Photon is a high-performance Rust image processing library compiling to WebAssembly for safe, fast image manipulation on the web and natively. Supporting formats like PNG, JPEG, and WebP, it boasts over 96 customizable functions, covering image correction, resizing, convolutions, channel manipulation, transformations, monochrome effects, color adjustments, filters, watermarking, and blending. Available natively, via WebAssembly in browsers and Node.js, version 0.3.2 adds duotone filters, image rotation, and dithering. Get started with its comprehensive documentation and tutorials.

(github.com)

Development

Jupiter Ace: A Retro British Computer Killed by Forth?

2025-04-10

Jupiter Ace: A Retro British Computer Killed by Forth?

In 1982, a small home computer called the Jupiter Ace was launched in the UK. Its unique feature was the inclusion of Forth, not BASIC, in its ROM. This article explores why embedding BASIC in ROM was so crucial back then, and whether replacing it with Forth was the key reason for the Jupiter Ace's failure. While Forth offered technical advantages, like faster speed and suitability for professional software development, its steeper learning curve and the Ace's outdated hardware (3KB RAM, no color graphics) ultimately doomed it. Most users prioritized games and memory over programming language.

(nemanjatrifunovic.substack.com)

Tech

Trump Admin's Rollback of Air Pollution Regulations Threatens Public Health

2025-04-10

Trump Admin's Rollback of Air Pollution Regulations Threatens Public Health

This article details the Trump administration's decision to roll back air pollution regulations and the severe health risks this poses to the American public. Studies show air pollution leads to numerous diseases, including heart disease, stroke, asthma, lung cancer, and cognitive impairment, even premature death. The administration's policies not only weaken existing air quality standards but also cut funding for air pollution research, exacerbating the problem and hindering a deeper understanding of pollution's health impacts. The author urges attention to this issue and pressures the government to act to protect public health.

(www.theatlantic.com)

Tech

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