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Stunning Rediscovery: Vibrant Colors Restored to Ancient Egyptian Temple

2025-03-15

Stunning Rediscovery: Vibrant Colors Restored to Ancient Egyptian Temple

In Esna, Egypt, the only surviving part of a temple dedicated to the creator god Khnum—a highly decorated entrance hall from the mid-third century A.D.—has been painstakingly restored. Buried beneath centuries of soot and neglect, the hall served as a warehouse for centuries. A joint Egyptian-German team, beginning in 2018, used distilled water and alcohol to meticulously clean the hall, revealing vibrant painted reliefs and inscriptions. The restoration uncovered detailed depictions of ancient Egyptian religious rituals, astronomical knowledge, and mythology, offering unprecedented insights into their culture and beliefs. The project unveils not just stunning artwork, but also invaluable information about ancient Egyptian religious practices, calendars, and mythology.

(archaeology.org)

Tech ancient Egypt restoration

Neovim's Legacy: A Deep Dive into the Evolution of Unix Text Editors

2025-03-15

Neovim's Legacy: A Deep Dive into the Evolution of Unix Text Editors

This article traces the history of the Neovim editor, starting from its ancestor, the ed editor, and detailing the evolution of editors like QED, ex, vi, and Vim. It delves into the developers behind each editor and their role in the development of the Unix operating system. Neovim, as a modern fork of Vim, inherits Vim's powerful features while incorporating improvements and optimizations, making it a favorite among many developers.

(l-o-o-s-e-d.net)

Development Editor History

Douglas Hofstadter Slams GPT-4's 'Why I Wrote GEB?' as 'Fake' and Expresses Concerns about LLMs

2025-03-15

Douglas Hofstadter Slams GPT-4's 'Why I Wrote GEB?' as 'Fake' and Expresses Concerns about LLMs

Douglas Hofstadter, a pioneer in AI, strongly criticizes a GPT-4-generated text, 'Why I Wrote GEB?', purportedly summarizing his seminal work, Gödel, Escher, Bach. He argues the text is filled with generic platitudes, drastically misrepresenting his writing style and the book's genesis. Hofstadter highlights the LLM's lack of originality and its fabrication of a false narrative. He details the actual creative process behind GEB, from his initial fascination with Gödel's incompleteness theorem to the integration of Escher and Bach, revealing the genuine inspirations and struggles. He expresses serious concerns about the proliferation of LLMs and their potential to flood the world with falsehoods, urging a critical assessment of their inherent dangers.

(www.theatlantic.com)

AI

Apple's Siri AI Upgrade Delayed: Internal Struggle and Pressure

2025-03-15

Apple's Siri AI Upgrade Delayed: Internal Struggle and Pressure

An internal meeting within Apple's Siri team revealed that the planned Siri AI upgrade, originally promised last June, has been indefinitely delayed. This decision has caused anxiety and pressure within the team, and also exposed Apple's lagging position in the AI race. The meeting revealed that the delay stems from internal resource reallocation and miscommunication with the marketing department, leading to over-promised features. While Apple executives have taken responsibility for the delay, Siri's future still faces numerous challenges, including technical issues and managing user expectations.

(www.theverge.com)

AI

Nine Months Stranded: Space Rescue Mission a Success

2025-03-15

Nine Months Stranded: Space Rescue Mission a Success

After nine months stranded on the International Space Station due to malfunctioning spacecraft, astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were finally rescued. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched a Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying four astronauts, paving the way for the stranded duo's return. The rescue mission was fraught with challenges, including helium leaks, thruster failures, and battery repairs, even involving political elements. The astronauts will return to Earth after a crew handover, concluding an unexpectedly long mission that set a new record for female spacewalking time and highlighted the complexities of space exploration.

(apnews.com)

Tech

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.

(cyberscoop.com)

Tech

NYT Shuts Down Its Tor Onion Service

2025-03-14

NYT Shuts Down Its Tor Onion Service

The New York Times has announced the shutdown of its Tor onion service, launched in 2017 to bypass censorship and surveillance, providing a secure way for readers to access its journalism. After years of experimentation, the NYT is applying lessons learned to improve its main website and products, enhancing overall security and accessibility. Readers can still access NYT journalism through the main website, newsletters, podcasts, and other channels.

(open.nytimes.com)

Tech

Google Assistant to be Replaced by Gemini: The Rise of Generative AI

2025-03-14

Google Assistant to be Replaced by Gemini: The Rise of Generative AI

Over a year after its launch, Google announced that its Gemini AI assistant will replace Google Assistant on Android phones later in 2025. This marks a significant step towards the widespread adoption of generative AI on mobile devices. While the initial version of Gemini had limited functionality, Google has addressed this through continuous updates and expansion to wearables, cars, tablets, and headphones. Google claims millions have already switched to Gemini, highlighting its personalized, world-aware, and productivity-enhancing features. This replacement also signifies a decade of evolution in natural language processing, from basic voice assistants to today's generative AI, showcasing rapid technological advancement.

(9to5google.com)

AI

Small Contributions, Big Impact: The Power of Foreign Aid

2025-03-14

Small Contributions, Big Impact: The Power of Foreign Aid

This article explores the impact of foreign aid on global health and development. Using the eradication of polio as a case study, it demonstrates that even though wealthy nations spend less than 1% of their national income on foreign aid, its impact is substantial. Through the combined efforts of governments and private donations, global polio cases have fallen by over 99%. The article also highlights other successful aid programs, such as PEPFAR and the Global Fund, and calls for increased foreign aid budgets and improved efficiency in aid spending.

(ourworldindata.org)

Misc foreign aid global health

Strava Bans User for Running in North Korea: A Geopolitical GPS Glitch?

2025-03-14

Strava Bans User for Running in North Korea: A Geopolitical GPS Glitch?

Strava banned a user for uploading a run recorded in North Korea, sparking controversy. The user, a doctoral student researching North Korea, recorded the run using a Garmin watch during a permitted tourist trip and uploaded it upon returning home. Strava cited US sanctions prohibiting services to North Korea as the reason. However, the user didn't access Strava in North Korea, prompting criticism. The article analyzes Strava's policy, US sanctions on North Korea, and how other companies handle similar situations, highlighting Strava's seemingly overzealous and opaque response.

(www.dcrainmaker.com)

Tech GPS data

Amazon Forces a Privacy Trade-off for Alexa Users

2025-03-14

Amazon Forces a Privacy Trade-off for Alexa Users

Amazon will now delete Alexa voice recordings by default, but this disables the Voice ID feature for users who opt out of saving recordings. Voice ID allows for actions like sharing calendar events. This decision sparks debate about the balance between user privacy and convenience. Past controversies include reports of Amazon employees listening to Alexa recordings and viewing Ring camera footage. Amazon claims this move improves speech recognition and emphasizes encryption and security measures. However, analysts suggest Amazon prioritizes profitability through its Alexa+ subscription service over user privacy concerns.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech

FBI Freezes Green Fund Accounts Amidst Controversy

2025-03-14

FBI Freezes Green Fund Accounts Amidst Controversy

The FBI has frozen accounts held by several nonprofits and state government agencies containing funds from the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, established by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act to finance clean energy projects. This action has sparked controversy, with the EPA administrator alleging fraud but providing no evidence. A court has demanded evidence from the Department of Justice or the accounts will be unfrozen.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech Green Fund FBI Investigation Legal Dispute

Tesla's German Nightmare: Musk's Politics Tank Sales

2025-03-14

A survey of over 100,000 Germans reveals that 94% won't buy a Tesla. This is disastrous news for Tesla, whose sales have plummeted in the crucial European market. In 2024, despite a 27% surge in overall EV sales, Tesla saw a 41% sales drop in Germany. The first two months of 2025 saw a further 70% decline. Industry experts blame Elon Musk's meddling in German elections and support for the far-right AfD party. Musk is under investigation in Europe, and his reputation in Germany is severely damaged. A new survey shows only 3% of respondents would consider buying a Tesla. German consumers are clearly rejecting the brand.

(electrek.co)

Tech

Notepad Gets AI-Powered Summaries: Microsoft Tests New Feature

2025-03-14

Notepad Gets AI-Powered Summaries: Microsoft Tests New Feature

Microsoft is testing AI-powered summaries in Notepad for Windows Insiders. Users can highlight text, right-click, and select 'Summarize' to generate a summary. Alternatively, Ctrl+M or the Copilot menu can be used. A Microsoft account is required, and AI features are disableable in settings. Alongside this, Microsoft is testing recently closed files in Notepad and a 'draw & hold' feature in the Snipping Tool for automatically straightening lines.

(www.theverge.com)

Development

Open-Source Multi-Agent Framework OWL Tops GAIA Benchmark

2025-03-14

Open-Source Multi-Agent Framework OWL Tops GAIA Benchmark

OWL, a cutting-edge multi-agent collaboration framework built on the CAMEL-AI Framework, achieved the #1 spot on the GAIA benchmark with an average score of 58.18! It enables more natural, efficient, and robust task automation across diverse domains through dynamic agent interactions. OWL is open-source, supports various installation methods and models (including OpenAI, Qwen, and DeepSeek), and boasts a rich set of toolkits such as browser automation, multimodal processing, and document parsing. A user-friendly web interface is also provided. The OWL team is actively seeking community contributions of use cases and continuously improving the framework.

(github.com)

AI multi-agent collaboration task automation

Lead Technical Artist Wanted: Revolutionizing Social VR Gaming

2025-03-14

Lead Technical Artist Wanted: Revolutionizing Social VR Gaming

Gym Class, the top-rated Meta Quest game (58K ratings, 4.9 stars), is seeking a Lead Technical Artist! You'll optimize art pipelines, develop tools, and enhance visual fidelity and performance across VR and mobile platforms using Unity, C#, and Python. Collaborate with engineers on performance profiling and optimization. Backed by top-tier investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, and the NBA, this is a chance to work at the forefront of social VR gaming, with fast iteration cycles and a direct impact on product development.

(www.ycombinator.com)

Game VR Game Development Lead Technical Artist

Bluesky CEO's Subtle Dig at Zuckerberg Sells Out in Minutes

2025-03-14

Bluesky CEO's Subtle Dig at Zuckerberg Sells Out in Minutes

Bluesky CEO Jay Graber's SXSW appearance featured a T-shirt reading "Mundus sine Caesaribus" ("A world without Caesars"), a subtle jab at Mark Zuckerberg, who previously wore a "Zuck or nothing" shirt. The shirt, sold to fund Bluesky's developer ecosystem, sold out in 30 minutes. This highlights Bluesky's decentralized, open-source model, contrasting with Meta's centralized structure. The shirt isn't just a playful rivalry; it embodies Bluesky's commitment to user agency and developer contribution.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech

The Internet of Beefs: A Never-Ending Culture War?

2025-03-14

This essay explores the pervasive online conflict, termed the "Internet of Beefs" (IoB). It argues that this 'culture war' isn't driven by ideology, but by clashes between anonymous users ("mooks") manipulated by high-profile figures ("knights") for personal gain. The war has no winners, only endless conflict and attrition. The author concludes that ending it requires redefining humanity, finding new ways of being, and thus rebooting history.

(www.ribbonfarm.com)

Misc social conflict

Kerning the Hard Way: A Tale of GSUB and Striped Fonts

2025-03-14

This article details the author's struggle and eventual solution to kerning a unique font featuring vertically striped letterforms. Standard GPOS kerning techniques failed due to overlapping letter parts. The ingenious solution involved GSUB lookups to split letters into left and right components, replacing overlapping sections with custom joiners. This complex process relied heavily on custom Python scripts using the fontTools and fontFeatures libraries. While the font is incomplete, the core kerning challenge has been overcome, offering a novel approach to designing unconventional fonts.

(home.octetfont.com)

Design font design

From the Andes to Evolutionary Psychology: An Accidental Scientific Journey

2025-03-14

From the Andes to Evolutionary Psychology: An Accidental Scientific Journey

A chance encounter with a Peruvian native woman who strikingly resembled his mother sparked the author's journey into evolutionary psychology. This led to an investigation into the similarities between East Asians and Native Americans, and their shared Siberian ancestry. Overcoming ideological censorship and funding challenges within academia, he independently conducted research and published a paper on the impact of extreme climates on human psychology. His work promises solutions to long-standing sociocultural problems affecting East Asian and tropical societies.

(davidsun.substack.com)

AI environmental adaptation

Ransomware Decryption Without Paying: A Race Against Time

2025-03-14

Ransomware Decryption Without Paying: A Race Against Time

The author successfully helped a company recover its data from Akira ransomware without paying the ransom, and has open-sourced the full source code. The ransomware uses four nanosecond timestamps as seeds to generate encryption keys. By analyzing the ransomware's encryption algorithm and filesystem timestamps, the author devised a GPU-accelerated brute-force solution. This involved enumerating timestamp combinations, generating keys, and attempting to decrypt known plaintext. The process was challenging, requiring reverse engineering, CUDA programming optimization, and cloud computing resources. The author shares technical details and code, providing a valuable resource for data recovery in similar situations.

(tinyhack.com)

Development

New Benchmark Exposes the Automation Bottleneck in OCR: Achieving 98% Precision

2025-03-14

The influx of new OCR players like Mistral and Andrew Ng's offerings makes it hard for enterprises to distinguish genuine advancements from hype. Existing benchmarks focus on OCR accuracy and information extraction, neglecting automation levels. Nanonets introduces a new benchmark emphasizing automation at 98% precision. Using a dataset of 1000 images and 16,639 annotated data points, they measure model performance based on confidence scores – the proportion of data accurately processed without human intervention. While LLMs excel in overall accuracy, reliable confidence scores remain elusive. Gemini 2.0 Flash achieved 98% precision but automated only 8% of the data. This benchmark aims to help enterprises find solutions that truly reduce manual effort in document processing.

(nanonets.com)

Development

Exo Language: Installation, Development, and Testing Guide

2025-03-14

Exo Language: Installation, Development, and Testing Guide

Exo is a programming language supporting Python 3.9 and above. Installation is straightforward using pip. Exo files execute directly with Python, and C/header files are generated via the exocc command. Development involves setting up a virtual environment and installing dependencies, including PySMT and CMake. Testing requires z3-solver (or another solver) and CMake 3.21 or later. Tests cover various scenarios and support code coverage. More information and examples are available in the project repository.

(github.com)

Development

The UK's 'Economic Inactivity' Crisis: Myth vs. Reality

2025-03-14

The UK's 'Economic Inactivity' Crisis: Myth vs. Reality

The much-discussed 'economic inactivity' crisis in the UK isn't a true unemployment problem, argues this piece. Decades-long stability in the number of economically inactive people points to a shift in narrative, not a sudden crisis. The government frames non-work as a moral failing, attempting to coerce people into employment, echoing historical forced labor. The article critiques this view of work as the sole source of value, highlighting the neglect of unpaid labor (care, childcare). Technological advancements haven't reduced working hours, but instead intensified work's intrusion. The real crisis, the author suggests, is capitalism's declining ability to extract surplus value, not individual 'non-work'. The solution lies in redistributing the fruits of technological progress and shifting values to appreciate care, art, and rest.

(anticapitalistmusings.com)

Misc Capitalism

US Restaurant Productivity Soared During COVID: The Fast Food Revolution?

2025-03-14

US Restaurant Productivity Soared During COVID: The Fast Food Revolution?

A new study reveals that real labor productivity at US restaurants surged over 15% during the COVID-19 pandemic—an unprecedented jump after nearly 30 years of stagnation. Using mobile phone data tracking over 100,000 limited-service restaurants, researchers found this wasn't due to economies of scale, increased market power, or pandemic-related demand fluctuations. Instead, it strongly correlates with reduced customer dwell time, especially a rise in customers spending 10 minutes or less. The frequency of such takeout orders increased dramatically during COVID, even at fast-food restaurants, and remained elevated. The relationship between productivity and reduced dwell time almost entirely accounts for the overall productivity increase. This suggests the pandemic accelerated the adoption of fast food and takeout, significantly boosting restaurant efficiency.

(bfi.uchicago.edu)

Tech labor productivity covid impact fast food

Postgres Sharding: A Thrilling Tale of Scaling to 6x

2025-03-14

A company faced a challenge with PostgreSQL's write capacity, handling 100,000 users/second. Instead of migrating to NoSQL, the engineering team chose to shard their database. They split the database into 6 instances, syncing data with logical replication. This involved writing Ruby and Python code to handle sharding keys and custom tools to address sequence issues. The successful 6x expansion resulted in the creation of PgDog, an open-source project for automated Postgres sharding. This story highlights the ingenuity and determination of engineers, and the scalability of PostgreSQL.

(pgdog.dev)

Development database sharding

AI Agents: Hype or the Future of Work?

2025-03-14

AI Agents: Hype or the Future of Work?

Silicon Valley is betting big on AI agents, but there's a significant lack of consensus on what exactly constitutes an AI agent. Companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Salesforce envision them as the future of work, yet their functionalities and implementations vary wildly. Definitions range from fully autonomous systems to tools following predefined workflows, causing confusion even among industry experts. This ambiguity stems from rapid technological advancements and marketing hype, creating both opportunities for innovation and potential for misaligned expectations and uncertain ROI. Ultimately, whether AI agents truly revolutionize the world may depend on the industry's ability to establish a unified definition.

(techcrunch.com)

AI technical definitions

The Absurdity of US School Carpool Lines: Why Are They So Long?

2025-03-14

The Absurdity of US School Carpool Lines: Why Are They So Long?

The ubiquitous and frustrating school carpool lines in the US are a national embarrassment. This article explores the reasons behind their existence, citing declining school bus usage, increased distances between homes and schools due to suburban sprawl, and a car-centric urban design. The author analyzes data showing a dramatic increase in the percentage of students driven to school by private vehicles and a corresponding decrease in walking and biking. Solutions proposed include improving pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, encouraging the use of e-bikes, and fostering greater independence in children. Ultimately, the article argues that fixing this problem requires a community-wide effort to reshape both the physical environment and cultural expectations.

(collegetowns.substack.com)

Misc traffic

Apple AirPods to Get Real-Time Translation

2025-03-14

Apple AirPods to Get Real-Time Translation

Apple is planning to add real-time translation to its AirPods, Bloomberg News reported Thursday. The feature will arrive as part of a software update later this year, tied to the iOS 19 update. This will allow AirPods to translate conversations on the fly. Competitors like Google's Pixel Buds have offered this for years. Apple last year announced AirPods Pro 2 could become personalized hearing aids via software updates. Apple is also planning a major software overhaul later this year, changing the look of its operating systems across iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

(www.yahoo.com)

Tech Real-time Translation

Briar: Decentralized Messaging App for Activists and Journalists

2025-03-14

Briar is a messaging app designed for activists, journalists, and anyone needing secure communication. Unlike traditional apps, Briar doesn't rely on central servers; messages sync directly between devices. Offline, it uses Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or memory cards. Online, it leverages Tor for enhanced privacy. Briar resists surveillance and censorship by employing end-to-end encryption and a decentralized architecture. It offers private messaging, public forums, and blogs, protecting against metadata surveillance, content filtering, takedown orders, and denial-of-service attacks. Briar's long-term vision extends beyond messaging, aiming to support secure, distributed applications for crisis mapping and collaborative work, fostering safe spaces for communication and organization globally.

(briarproject.org)

Development censorship-resistant

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