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PostgreSQL Named DBMS of the Year 2024 (Again!)

2025-01-14

DB-Engines has announced PostgreSQL as its DBMS of the Year for the second year running, marking its fifth overall win. Outpacing 423 other monitored systems, PostgreSQL solidified its position as the most popular database management system in 2024. The release of PostgreSQL 17, with performance enhancements and expanded replication, further cemented its success. Snowflake took second place, its cloud-based architecture and multi-cloud support driving its popularity. Microsoft's Azure SQL Database and SQL Server remain strong contenders.

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(db-engines.com)
Tech

Meta's Fact-Checking Failure: The Limits of Truth in the Age of Disinformation 2.0

2025-01-14
Meta's Fact-Checking Failure: The Limits of Truth in the Age of Disinformation 2.0

Meta's abandonment of its fact-checking initiative sparks debate. The author argues that fact-checking struggles against sophisticated disinformation 2.0, involving AI and algorithms. The LA wildfires serve as a case study: claims about budget cuts impacting the fire response are not simply true or false, but involve multiple assumptions and interpretations. Fact-checking, while valuable, isn't a silver bullet. We need to address deeper drivers like political biases and cognitive biases to effectively combat disinformation.

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(weaponizedspaces.substack.com)
Tech fact-checking disinformation

Crystal Macros: Compile-Time Code Generation Powerhouse

2025-01-14

Crystal 1.15.0's macro system enables compile-time code execution, significantly extending the language's capabilities. The `Crystal::Macros` module offers a rich set of functions, including `read_file` for reading file contents, `run` for executing external programs, `env` for getting environment variables, and even version comparison and type parsing. These features empower developers to perform complex preprocessing tasks at compile time, such as dynamically generating code based on platform or environment, improving development efficiency and code maintainability. This is a powerful tool for building highly customized applications and libraries.

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(crystal-lang.org)
Development Macros

Ransomware Gang Exploits AWS Native Encryption

2025-01-14
Ransomware Gang Exploits AWS Native Encryption

A new ransomware group, dubbed 'Codefinger,' is targeting AWS S3 buckets and leveraging the cloud giant's own server-side encryption with customer-provided keys (SSE-C) to encrypt victims' data. They use leaked AWS keys to encrypt files with AES-256 and set a 7-day self-destruct timer. This unique approach exploits AWS's own security features, making data recovery difficult without the attacker's key. Security experts recommend restricting SSE-C usage, regularly auditing AWS keys, and implementing the principle of least privilege to mitigate risk.

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(www.theregister.com)
Tech ransomware AWS security cloud security

US Employee Engagement Plummets to 10-Year Low

2025-01-14
US Employee Engagement Plummets to 10-Year Low

Gallup's latest data reveals a decade low in US employee engagement in 2024, with only 31% of employees reporting engagement—mirroring 2014 levels. Actively disengaged employees also reached 17%, matching 2014 figures. A two-percentage-point drop since 2023 highlights growing employee detachment, especially among those under 35. Key factors contributing to this decline include unclear expectations, lack of care, and limited development opportunities. Gallup advises leaders to focus on workplace culture, defining organizational purpose and values, and developing managers who can inspire and engage employees.

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(www.gallup.com)
Startup employee engagement Gallup poll management

Treewidth: A Key Parameter in Graph Theory and Its Applications

2025-01-14
Treewidth: A Key Parameter in Graph Theory and Its Applications

This article delves into treewidth, a crucial parameter in graph theory. Defined using tree decompositions, treewidth characterizes graph structure and is closely related to algorithmic complexity. The article explores multiple equivalent definitions of treewidth, its structural properties, and computational methods. It then details its broad applications in sparse numerical linear algebra, Bayesian inference, game theory, low-dimensional topology, network science, and algebraic geometry. The author also discusses advances in related width parameters and how treewidth can improve the efficiency of graph algorithms.

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(www.ams.org)
Development treewidth graph theory algorithmic complexity

OpenZFS 2.3.0 Released: RAIDZ Expansion, Blazing Fast Deduplication, and More

2025-01-14
OpenZFS 2.3.0 Released: RAIDZ Expansion, Blazing Fast Deduplication, and More

OpenZFS 2.3.0 is here! This release boasts exciting new features including RAIDZ expansion for adding devices to existing RAIDZ pools without downtime, blazing fast deduplication for significantly improved performance, direct I/O for bypassing ARC caching to boost efficiency on devices like NVMe, optional JSON output for most commands, and support for file/directory names up to 1023 characters. Numerous critical bug fixes and performance improvements round out this release. Supported platforms include Linux kernels 4.18-6.12 and FreeBSD releases 13.3, 14.0-14.2.

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(github.com)
Development storage

Soviet Hero: A Daring Rescue from the Depths of Lake Yerevan

2025-01-14

In 1976, Shavarsh Karapetyan, a Soviet swimming champion, witnessed a trolleybus plunge into Lake Yerevan. Ignoring the perilous icy water and pollution, he launched a daring rescue, repeatedly diving into the submerged vehicle to save dozens of passengers. This heroic act, suppressed by Soviet authorities, remained largely unknown until years later. Karapetyan's story is a testament to extraordinary courage and the power of human compassion.

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(grantland.com)
Misc Heroism Rescue

Campsite Open Source: A Monorepo Deep Dive

2025-01-14
Campsite Open Source: A Monorepo Deep Dive

The Campsite open-source project is a large monorepo containing the entire codebase for their application. While no longer actively maintained, it's a valuable resource for learning how Campsite works and forking for non-commercial projects. The project relies on numerous services, including S3, Pusher, Imgix, 100ms, and OpenAI, requiring extensive configuration for local setup. Detailed instructions are provided for local development, covering environment variable setup, service integration, and running the web app, marketing site, Storybook, and desktop app.

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(github.com)
Development local development

Misty Programming Language: A Novel Approach

2025-01-14

The Misty programming language, developed by Douglas Crockford, aims for conciseness and efficiency. It features a unique type system, operators, statements, functions, pattern matching, and intrinsic constants and functions. Misty prioritizes performance with built-in support for math, Blob, JSON, Parseq, and system security. Its parse tree structure and unique Wota message format are also noteworthy aspects.

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(mistysystem.com)
Development

The Untold Story of the Mac OS X Dock

2025-01-14
The Untold Story of the Mac OS X Dock

On January 5th, 2000, Steve Jobs unveiled Mac OS X's Aqua interface, prominently featuring the Dock. This article recounts the story behind its creation. James Thomson, a programmer, reveals how he translated designer Bas Ording's Macromind Director prototypes into functional code. Thomson's prior work on a similar application, DragThing, landed him the Apple job. He recounts being secretly recruited in Ireland for project 'Überbar' (the Dock), ultimately 'killing off' his own DragThing. This inside look reveals details of Mac OS X's early development and the power of individual contributions in technological progress.

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(daringfireball.net)
Development

Training AI Might Not Need Massive Data Centers

2025-01-14
Training AI Might Not Need Massive Data Centers

Tech giants are vying to build massive data centers with tens or even hundreds of thousands of GPUs to train AI models. However, an article in *The Economist* suggests this trend may soon change. Future AI model training might not require massive hardware infrastructure, potentially eliminating the need for dedicated hardware altogether. Advances in distributed computing and new algorithms will allow training complex AI models on regular computer networks, significantly lowering the barrier to entry for AI research and promoting wider adoption of AI technology.

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(www.economist.com)
AI AI training distributed computing

Why Japanese Kids Ride the Subway Alone

2025-01-14
Why Japanese Kids Ride the Subway Alone

An article in The Economist explores the phenomenon of young children in Japan riding the subway independently. It suggests this is linked to Japan's rigorous primary education and societal order. Children receive strict discipline and safety training from a young age, fostering independence and responsibility, making solo commutes possible. This highlights Japan's emphasis on children's independence, but also sparks discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of this approach.

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(www.economist.com)
Misc Japanese education social order child independence

Soviet Hero: The Extraordinary Rescue of Shavarsh Karapetyan

2025-01-14
Soviet Hero: The Extraordinary Rescue of Shavarsh Karapetyan

Shavarsh Karapetyan, a former Soviet finswimmer, is renowned for his incredible bravery in saving the lives of 20 people during a 1976 trolleybus accident in Yerevan. In freezing, murky water, he repeatedly dived into the submerged vehicle, pulling people to safety. Despite suffering severe injuries and contracting pneumonia, he still competed and set a world record. Karapetyan's heroic act is a testament to human courage and selflessness, a truly inspiring legend.

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(en.wikipedia.org)
Misc heroism rescue

Canada: Squandering its Resource Advantage?

2025-01-14
Canada: Squandering its Resource Advantage?

Jay Martin's essay sharply criticizes Canada for failing to capitalize on its abundant natural resources. He argues that Canada's excessive focus on environmental concerns has overshadowed its global competitiveness in mining, energy, and other resource sectors, leading to sluggish economic growth and insufficient corporate investment. Using the analogy of the "Jamaican bobsled team," he emphasizes that nations should leverage their strengths instead of pursuing unrealistic goals. Martin calls on Canada to confront its realities and fully exploit its resource potential to thrive in the global economy.

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(jaymartin.substack.com)
Misc Canadian economy resource development national strategy

AI Agents to Become Primary Application Users by 2030

2025-01-14
AI Agents to Become Primary Application Users by 2030

Accenture predicts a significant shift: by 2030, AI agents will be the primary users of most enterprise digital systems, surpassing app usage by 2032. This 'Binary Big Bang,' marked by AI foundation models breaking the natural language barrier, reshapes how we design, use, and operate technology. Future development focuses on agentic systems, digital core, and generative UIs, built on composable blocks. Accenture recommends internal experimentation with agents, starting small and expanding functionality over time. Crucially, maintaining transparency, explainability, and trust in these agents is highlighted.

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(www.zdnet.com)
AI digital transformation

NYC Congestion Pricing: 43K Fewer Cars in Manhattan's Core

2025-01-14

Data from the MTA shows Manhattan's congestion pricing initiative has yielded significant results in its first week. An average of 43,000 fewer vehicles entered the toll zone daily, a 7.5% reduction. While slightly below projections, this decrease has led to faster bus speeds (up to 40%) and improved traffic flow. The revenue will fund transit improvements, though the policy faces opposition from some congressmen. Transit advocates praise the immediate positive impacts.

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(gothamist.com)
Tech Congestion Pricing Traffic NYC

$765M Bitcoin Landfill Dig Fails: Judge Rules Against Man

2025-01-14
$765M Bitcoin Landfill Dig Fails: Judge Rules Against Man

A British man, James Howells, lost his 11-year legal battle to excavate a landfill site in search of a hard drive containing 8,000 bitcoins, now worth $765 million. A judge ruled against Howells, citing environmental concerns and legal precedents stating the landfill owns all deposited waste. The claim was also barred by the statute of limitations. Howells, who claims the hard drive was mistakenly discarded, expressed disappointment, calling the ruling a miscarriage of justice.

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(arstechnica.com)
Tech bitcoin environmental concerns

Apollo Guidance Computer Shrunk to the Size of an Apple Watch

2025-01-14
Apollo Guidance Computer Shrunk to the Size of an Apple Watch

British startup Apollo Instruments has created a wristwatch, the DSKY Moonwatch, that replicates the interface of the Apollo Guidance Computer. Using original MIT design specs, they shrunk the briefcase-sized computer down to a wearable device. While it doesn't offer navigation capabilities, it features a GPS, digital display, working keyboard, and is programmable via Arduino and Python. Priced at £649, it's a novelty item with expandable functionality, making it a unique conversation starter for tech enthusiasts.

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(gizmodo.com)
Hardware wearable tech Apollo program

Voyage-code-3: More Accurate Code Retrieval with Lower Costs

2025-01-14
Voyage-code-3: More Accurate Code Retrieval with Lower Costs

Voyage AI unveiled Voyage-code-3, a next-generation code retrieval embedding model surpassing OpenAI-v3-large and CodeSage-large by an average of 13.80% and 16.81% across 32 datasets. Leveraging Matryoshka learning and quantization (int8 and binary), Voyage-code-3 dramatically reduces storage and search costs with minimal impact on retrieval quality. Supporting 2048, 1024, 512, and 256-dimensional embeddings and various quantization formats, it boasts a 32K token context length. Trained on a massive, diverse code corpus, Voyage-code-3 excels in code retrieval, particularly handling algorithmic reasoning and nuanced syntax, and has been rigorously evaluated for robustness and accuracy.

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(blog.voyageai.com)
AI code retrieval embedding model

Malicious NPM Packages Targeting Cursor.com Deployed by Snyk Researcher

2025-01-14
Malicious NPM Packages Targeting Cursor.com Deployed by Snyk Researcher

A Snyk security researcher deployed several malicious NPM packages targeting Cursor.com, a popular AI coding company. These packages, named things like "cursor-retreival" and "cursor-always-local", collect system data and send it to an attacker-controlled server upon installation. The attack leverages dependency confusion, aiming to trick Cursor employees into installing these public packages. While the OpenSSF package analysis scanner flagged and reported these malicious packages, NPM hasn't yet marked them as such. This highlights limitations in software supply chain security tools and emphasizes the importance of careful NPM package installation.

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(sourcecodered.com)
Tech software supply chain security

LinuxServer.io Launches Webtop: Full Desktop Environments in Your Browser

2025-01-14

LinuxServer.io has released Webtop, a Docker-based project that lets users access full desktop environments through any modern web browser. Supporting multiple architectures and desktop environments like XFCE, KDE, MATE, and i3, it offers several security options including HTTP basic auth and reverse proxy support. Users can deploy Webtop via Docker Compose or the Docker CLI, customizing ports, environment variables, and volume mappings. Webtop also supports PRoot apps, enabling users to install and run native system applications while preserving settings across container upgrades.

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(docs.linuxserver.io)
Development

3Dify: Free AI-Powered 2D to 3D Model Generator

2025-01-14

3Dify is a free AI-powered tool that transforms 2D images into professional 3D models. Simply upload your image, and the AI automatically removes the background and generates a GLB or Gaussian format 3D asset. Perfect for game development, 3D printing, and commercial projects, 3Dify offers an easy-to-use platform with unlimited uploads and downloads. While currently limited to single-object images and may require adjustments for complex models, its free and accessible nature makes it a valuable resource for creators.

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(3dify.space)
AI

LLMs: The Next Frontier in Code Assistance

2025-01-14
LLMs: The Next Frontier in Code Assistance

This article recounts the rapid advancement of Large Language Models (LLMs), particularly their application in code assistance. Using examples like Amazon AWS and Kubernetes, the author illustrates how small technological breakthroughs can give rise to massive industries. The author argues that LLM-powered coding assistants are poised to revolutionize software development, emphasizing the importance of high-quality data (a data moat) for superior code generation. The article concludes with an introduction to Sourcegraph's Cody, an LLM-based coding assistant leveraging Sourcegraph's powerful code search engine to build a 'cheat sheet' – the context window – for significantly improved code generation.

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(sourcegraph.com)
Development Code Assistance

Linus Torvalds to Gift Handmade Guitar Pedal

2025-01-13
Linus Torvalds to Gift Handmade Guitar Pedal

Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, is giving away a hand-built guitar effects pedal to a lucky kernel contributor. This unusual giveaway, announced in his weekly kernel release notes, serves as both a thank-you and a test to see if anyone actually reads his announcements. Torvalds, describing himself as a 'software person with a soldering iron,' will assemble an Aion FX pedal kit, promising a unique, if somewhat unpredictable, reward reflecting the quirky culture of the open-source community.

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(www.theregister.com)
Development

dopy: Python Without Strict Indentation

2025-01-13
dopy: Python Without Strict Indentation

dopy is an experimental Python preprocessor that allows the use of do...end syntax instead of strict indentation. This improves code readability and flexibility, especially for developers familiar with languages like Ruby or Lua. It supports type hints and transpiles .dopy files into PEP 8 compliant .py files. The project is archived and no longer maintained by the original author, but the code remains open-source for learning and reference.

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(github.com)
Development Preprocessor Code Style

Blizzard Traps Luxury Train Near Donner Pass for Three Days

2025-01-13
Blizzard Traps Luxury Train Near Donner Pass for Three Days

In January 1952, a fierce blizzard trapped the luxury passenger train, City of San Francisco, near Donner Pass for three days. 226 passengers endured freezing temperatures, carbon monoxide poisoning, and food shortages. Initially, passengers played cards and sang to pass the time, but conditions worsened as power and heating failed. Passengers resorted to burning furniture for warmth, and carbon monoxide poisoning occurred. The stranded passengers were eventually rescued with the help of the army, highway department, and volunteers. This event highlighted humanity's vulnerability to natural disasters and the over-optimism regarding technology's ability to conquer all.

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(www.smithsonianmag.com)
Tech Blizzard Train Disaster Survival Story

NY's $15 Broadband Law Takes Effect After ISP Defeat

2025-01-13
NY's $15 Broadband Law Takes Effect After ISP Defeat

New York's Affordable Broadband Act, requiring ISPs to offer low-cost plans to low-income residents, is now in effect after a lengthy legal battle. Following a Supreme Court decision against industry challenges, the law mandates $15 or $20 monthly plans with varying speeds. The law aims to bridge the digital divide, particularly after a federal program expired, leaving millions without subsidized internet. Small ISPs may seek exemptions, while larger providers face penalties for non-compliance.

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(arstechnica.com)
Tech broadband low-income

Solving a 350-Image Classification Problem with GPT-4

2025-01-13

A small AI company tackled a challenging image recognition problem: identifying 350 highly similar car illustrations. Traditional computer vision and augmented reality approaches failed. The team tried MobileNet transfer learning and data augmentation, but results were inconsistent. Ultimately, they cleverly combined a KNN-based image embedding search with GPT-4, submitting candidate images to GPT-4 for final matching. While not perfect, this solution significantly improved accuracy and successfully powered a museum app, even improving the company's main product line. This demonstrates how large language models are increasingly becoming versatile tools in product development, simplifying the AI application process.

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(olup-blog.pages.dev)
AI
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