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The Surprisingly Complex History of the Word "Mainframe"

2025-02-01

The Surprisingly Complex History of the Word

This article delves into the unexpected evolution of the term "mainframe." Initially referring to the physical frames of early computers like the IBM 701, its meaning shifted over time. It became synonymous with the CPU, and eventually settled on its modern definition: a large, powerful computer for transaction processing or business applications. The article explores this semantic shift, analyzing the impact of minicomputers and microcomputers, IBM's role in popularizing the term, and its eventual widespread adoption.

(www.righto.com)

Tech mainframe technical terminology

Augmenting MIDI Hardware with Perl: Building Custom MIDI Filters

2025-02-01

Augmenting MIDI Hardware with Perl: Building Custom MIDI Filters

This article details building a custom MIDI filter using Perl and the RtMidi library to enhance the capabilities of an M-Audio Oxygen Pro 61 MIDI keyboard. Two key features are implemented: a software-generated pedal tone and fifth interval, transforming single-note plays into chords; and a bank-switcher using the controller's pads to select MIDI channels, acting like 'tracks'. Asynchronous event handling ensures minimal latency, and the filter is extensible to add features such as 'pickup' functionality and rhythmic strumming effects.

(fuzzix.org)

Hardware Hardware Enhancement

Trump Admin's Illegal Purge of Inspectors General Sparks Outrage

2025-02-01

Trump Admin's Illegal Purge of Inspectors General Sparks Outrage

Last Friday, President Trump abruptly fired multiple agency inspectors general, including Phyllis Fong at the USDA. Fong, a 22-year veteran with numerous awards and key roles, was escorted from the building after refusing to comply with what she deemed an illegal order. The firings have sparked outrage, with CIGIE chairman Hannibal Ware stating they appear to violate federal law. Senator Adam Schiff called the actions illegal, and even Republican Senator Chuck Grassley expressed concern. However, Democrats' slow response raises questions about the effectiveness of checks and balances. This incident highlights the Trump administration's attack on oversight and the vulnerability of institutional safeguards.

(gizmodo.com)

Misc Inspectors General

Revolutionary Cooling Tech: Eco-Friendly Refrigerators via Thermogalvanic Cells

2025-02-01

Revolutionary Cooling Tech: Eco-Friendly Refrigerators via Thermogalvanic Cells

Researchers from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China have developed a groundbreaking cooling technology poised to revolutionize refrigeration. Utilizing a thermogalvanic cell, the technology achieves a 1.42°C temperature drop by using electricity to drive a heat-absorbing chemical reaction – a significant improvement over previous attempts which only managed 0.1°C. While currently modest, the researchers believe this technology has immense scaling potential. Future work involves improving performance, developing refrigerator prototypes, and collaborating with companies to commercialize this eco-friendly innovation.

(cosmosmagazine.com)

Tech thermogalvanic cell cooling technology

USDA Inspector General Escorted Out After Refusal to Accept Dismissal

2025-02-01

USDA Inspector General Escorted Out After Refusal to Accept Dismissal

Security personnel escorted the USDA Inspector General, Phyllis Fong, from her office this week after she refused to comply with her dismissal by the Trump administration. Fong, a 22-year veteran of the department, argued the administration hadn't followed proper procedure, citing a council that deemed the termination notices legally invalid. The White House defended the dismissals, claiming they were necessary to replace “rogue, partisan bureaucrats.” Fong oversaw a wide range of responsibilities, including investigations into Neuralink and animal abuse cases. Her dismissal was part of a larger purge of federal watchdogs, drawing criticism as a politically motivated act.

(timesofindia.indiatimes.com)

Misc US Politics Inspector General

Kill Your Sticky Headers!

2025-02-01

The author hates sticky headers, those persistent elements that cling to the top of websites and steal precious screen real estate. To combat this annoyance, they created a simple bookmarklet that removes all fixed-position elements from a webpage with a single click. The bookmarklet uses `querySelectorAll` to efficiently find and remove these elements, resulting in a cleaner reading experience. The author details the inconveniences of sticky headers, such as reduced screen space, disrupted spacebar scrolling, and interrupted reading flow. While it might remove other fixed elements, a simple refresh restores them. This simple solution avoids the complexity of custom stylesheets or browser extensions.

(alisdair.mcdiarmid.org)

Development bookmarklet

Sophisticated PDF Phishing Scam Bypasses Mobile Security

2025-02-01

Sophisticated PDF Phishing Scam Bypasses Mobile Security

A novel phishing scam targeting mobile devices uses a never-before-seen obfuscation technique to hide links to fake United States Postal Service (USPS) pages within PDF files. By manipulating PDF elements, clickable URLs become invisible to users and mobile security systems, bypassing detection from several endpoint security solutions. Malicious PDFs are sent via SMS, posing as failed delivery notifications. The links are embedded in a compressed stream, hidden by matching font and background colors, and positioned under an image. Clicking a seemingly innocuous "Click Update" button actually activates the hidden link to a spoofed USPS site, leading to data theft. Over 20 variations of malicious PDFs and 630 phishing pages, supporting 50 languages, suggest international targeting and the potential use of a phishing kit. This highlights the vulnerability of mobile users' trust in PDFs and the need for enhanced mobile security measures.

(www.scworld.com)

Tech PDF security

NSF Freezes Grants Amidst Trump's DEI Crackdown

2025-02-01

NSF Freezes Grants Amidst Trump's DEI Crackdown

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has frozen all grant payments following executive orders from the Trump administration, sending shockwaves through the US scientific community. The freeze affects both existing grants and new applications, leaving scientists unable to pay bills or continue their research. The orders target NSF's diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, conflicting with Congressional mandates for broader participation in science. NSF is reviewing billions of dollars in existing grants for DEI-related activities, a process criticized as wasteful and potentially damaging to US science in the long term. The situation highlights a clash between the administration's policies and the needs of researchers.

(www.npr.org)

Tech Grant Freeze Trump Administration

MindsDB Hiring Office Manager in San Francisco

2025-02-01

Fast-growing AI startup MindsDB is hiring an Office Manager for its San Francisco office. The ideal candidate will have experience in office management, event coordination, and creating a safe and efficient workspace. Responsibilities include facilities management, vendor relations, event planning, and security. The company offers competitive compensation and benefits, including flexible hours, health insurance, and unlimited PTO.

(grnh.se)

Startup Office Manager AI Startup

Burrows-Wheeler Transform: Unlocking Efficient Data Compression

2025-02-01

The Burrows-Wheeler Transform (BWT) is a clever data compression algorithm that rearranges a character string to create runs of similar characters, making it easier to compress using techniques like run-length encoding. Imagine shuffling a text to create many consecutive 'the's – much easier to compress! BWT sorts all cyclic shifts of the string and extracts the last column. Remarkably, this transformation is reversible without needing extra data. Used in bzip2 and other compression tools, BWT also finds applications in genomics, image compression, and more. Its efficiency is further enhanced by algorithms that update the transform quickly after text edits, minimizing computational overhead.

(en.wikipedia.org)

Tech Burrows-Wheeler Transform

Auto-Commit Bot: Automated Git Commits with Gemini AI

2025-02-01

Auto-Commit Bot: Automated Git Commits with Gemini AI

The Auto-Commit Bot is a Python tool automating Git workflows. It monitors a directory for changes, generates descriptive commit messages using Google Gemini's AI, and commits them. This eliminates repetitive tasks and ensures consistent messaging. Features include real-time file monitoring, auto-committing, AI-powered commit messages, and easy customization. Simply install dependencies, set your API key, and run the command.

(github.com)

Development

Google Maps Labels US as 'Sensitive Country' Amidst Gulf of Mexico Name Change

2025-02-01

Google Maps Labels US as 'Sensitive Country' Amidst Gulf of Mexico Name Change

Google Maps has reclassified the United States as a 'sensitive country,' a designation shared with nations like China and Russia, following its confirmation of renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. This move, prompted by Trump's executive order, has sparked debate, highlighting the impact of political shifts on tech companies' operations and perceptions of the US globally. The reclassification raises concerns about the changing global perception of the United States under Trump's presidency.

(www.themarysue.com)

Tech Political Impact

Running Python and Pygame on a $30 Handheld Linux PC

2025-02-01

This post details how the author installed Debian and ran Python and Pygame on the ~$30 Miyoo A30 handheld. After flashing spruceOS, a Debian chroot environment with Python 3, Pygame, and necessary libraries was created using debootstrap. To solve graphics and input driver issues, essential libraries were copied from spruceOS into the chroot. Finally, a script was written to add a Pygame game to the spruceOS interface, successfully running a custom game on the Miyoo A30. While a 90-degree screen rotation issue remains, this post provides a complete guide to running complex programs on a low-cost handheld.

(www.jtolio.com)

Development

California Bill: AI Can No Longer Be a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card

2025-02-01

California Bill: AI Can No Longer Be a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card

Assembly Member Krell's proposed legislation aims to prevent defendants from using AI autonomy as a defense in civil lawsuits. The bill adds a new section to California's Civil Code, clarifying liability for both developers and users of AI technology. It defines AI and explicitly prohibits arguing that an AI system acted independently to cause harm. This builds upon existing law requiring documentation of generative AI training data and general principles of liability, ensuring accountability in AI-related cases.

(www.veeto.app)

Tech AI liability California legislation civil litigation

Giant Clam Genome Sequencing Reveals Secrets of Algae Symbiosis

2025-02-01

Giant Clam Genome Sequencing Reveals Secrets of Algae Symbiosis

Scientists sequenced the genome of the giant clam, *Tridacna maxima*, revealing how these massive mollusks evolved a symbiotic relationship with algae to fuel their impressive size. The study found that giant clams have evolved genes to specifically recognize and tolerate symbiotic algae, suppressing their immune response to avoid rejection. This immune suppression, however, leaves them vulnerable to viral infections. The research highlights the evolutionary mechanisms behind the giant clam's size and underscores the importance of protecting these keystone species, threatened by climate change and other factors impacting coral reef ecosystems.

(www.colorado.edu)

Tech genome sequencing symbiosis coral reef ecosystem

Battery-Free Solar-Powered Fabric Heats Up in the Sun

2025-02-01

Battery-Free Solar-Powered Fabric Heats Up in the Sun

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed a new type of fabric that heats up when exposed to sunlight thanks to embedded nanoparticles. This eco-friendly alternative to traditional heated clothing eliminates the need for batteries or external power sources. The fabric changes color to indicate temperature, is highly stretchable and durable, and shows potential applications in cold-weather rescue and pet clothing.

(uwaterloo.ca)

Tech

Tech Giants Flee Delaware: Texas Emerges as a New Favorite

2025-02-01

Meta and Dropbox are reportedly planning to move their incorporation from Delaware, a state long known for its business-friendly environment, signaling a further exodus of tech companies from the state. Elon Musk's prior criticism of Delaware's business climate and his relocation of SpaceX and Tesla's incorporation to Texas paved the way. Meta and Dropbox's moves are seen as a pursuit of Texas's more favorable business environment and a response to Delaware court rulings. Experts suggest Texas is actively trying to attract companies by cultivating a friendlier judicial environment for businesses.

(www.newsweek.com)

Tech Tech company relocation Delaware

YouTube Audio Quality Deep Dive: Opus vs. AAC

2025-02-01

This article delves into the audio quality of YouTube videos. The author, collaborating with the Ralph Vaughan-Williams Society, compared original audio files with various encoded versions available on YouTube, focusing on Opus and AAC codecs. The analysis revealed that YouTube's audio processing introduces some distortion, particularly at higher frequencies. While the Opus codec performed better in some aspects, overall YouTube's audio quality shows room for improvement.

(www.audiomisc.co.uk)

Tech audio quality codecs

Government's Energy Gamble: Lessons from the Failed Ivanpah Solar Project

2025-02-01

Government's Energy Gamble: Lessons from the Failed Ivanpah Solar Project

The Ivanpah solar project, a massive concentrated solar power plant, ultimately ended in failure. Despite significant government investment, it proved unprofitable due to technological flaws and high costs, even causing numerous bird deaths. This raises questions about the government's continued investment in high-risk clean energy technologies. While Ivanpah failed, overall government investment in renewable energy has been successful, driving progress in solar photovoltaic technology and fostering the growth of the clean energy industry. However, government investments carry risks, requiring careful project selection and rigorous evaluation to prevent similar failures.

(www.latimes.com)

Tech government investment

Pushing the Limits: A New Measurement of Superheavy Nuclei Half-Life

2025-02-01

Pushing the Limits: A New Measurement of Superheavy Nuclei Half-Life

Researchers have pushed the limit of known half-lives of superheavy nuclei by two orders of magnitude by measuring the half-life of a neutron-deficient rutherfordium isotope. The extremely short half-life was measured by exploiting the longer half-life of excited states, providing insights into nuclear fission. The team bombarded a lead target with titanium-50 ions to create rutherfordium-252, measuring its half-life in excited and ground states as 13 microseconds and 60 nanoseconds, respectively. This challenges existing theoretical models and opens avenues for studying heavier superheavy elements.

(www.chemistryworld.com)

Tech superheavy elements nuclear physics fission

The Dopamine Economy: How Tech Giants Manipulate Your Brain

2025-02-01

The Dopamine Economy: How Tech Giants Manipulate Your Brain

This article explores how the 'addiction economy' manipulates the dopamine reward system to influence industries ranging from food to social media. The author argues that many of history's most successful companies rely on addictive mechanisms to create demand and profit, citing examples from tobacco, food, and pharmaceutical industries. The piece analyzes how tech companies, especially social media platforms, utilize algorithms to maximize user engagement, leading to addiction and mental health issues. Ultimately, the author warns that this addictive mechanism, combined with inherent human biases and conflict tendencies, can lead to severe societal consequences, urging caution regarding the risks of technological advancements.

(www.profgalloway.com)

Tech addiction economy dopamine

US Air Crash: Outdated Tech, Not Diversity Hiring, is the Culprit

2025-02-01

Following a recent collision between an American Eagle jet and a Black Hawk helicopter, various narratives have emerged. Some blame diversity hiring for unqualified air traffic controllers, while others suggest closing Washington National Airport. However, the article argues the real culprit is the severely outdated US air traffic control system: antiquated equipment, cumbersome manual processes, and decades of failed technology upgrades. The article reveals that the FAA's technological issues far outweigh the impact of diversity hiring, with its self-regulation and inefficient procurement systems also being significant factors. The FAA's outdated technology and inefficient management are the root causes of frequent air accidents and staffing shortages.

(viewfromthewing.com)

Tech air crash air traffic control outdated technology

11 Million Strikers: A Phased Approach to the General Strike

2025-02-01

The General Strike is planned in three phases. Phase 1 (0-6 million signatures): Building a broad network of participants by connecting with organizations and individuals already taking action. Phase 2 (6-10 million signatures): Focusing on concrete demands, setting strike dates and event plans, and holding meetings to gather diverse perspectives. Phase 3 (10-11 million signatures): Finalizing demands, preparing for Strike Day, distributing funds, and conducting final events. The goal is to unite 11 million strikers to fight for racial, economic, gender, and environmental justice.

(generalstrikeus.com)

Misc General Strike Social Movement Organizing Strategy

Threads Surges Past 320 Million MAUs, Outpacing Rivals

2025-02-01

Threads Surges Past 320 Million MAUs, Outpacing Rivals

Meta's microblogging app, Threads, continues its rapid growth, surpassing rivals like X. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced 320 million monthly active users (MAUs), a jump from 300 million last month. This growth contrasts with the slowing expansion of Bluesky. Threads boasts over 1 million daily sign-ups. Meta is enhancing user engagement with features like post scheduling and view counts, and is exploring new ad experiments in the US and Japan. Improvements to recommendation algorithms prioritize recent posts and top creators, alongside enhanced personalized feeds.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech

The Charlie Sheen Effect: How a Celebrity Disclosure Sparked a Surge in HIV Testing

2025-02-01

Charlie Sheen's 2015 public disclosure of his HIV-positive status unexpectedly triggered a massive increase in public interest in HIV testing. Research revealed millions of online searches related to HIV prevention and testing, alongside record sales of at-home rapid HIV tests. The impact significantly outweighed traditional awareness campaigns like World AIDS Day. Researchers concluded that individual celebrity endorsements are more effective than traditional public health messaging, highlighting the importance of using big data for public health decision-making.

(www.sciencedaily.com)

Tech HIV testing celebrity effect

Dell Mandates Return to Office: Hybrid Work Policy Scrapped

2025-02-01

Dell Mandates Return to Office: Hybrid Work Policy Scrapped

Dell Technologies is ending its hybrid work arrangement in March, requiring all employees previously allowed to work from home part-time to return to the office for a full five-day work week. Those working remotely within an hour's drive of a Dell office must also commute daily. CEO Michael Dell justified the decision by emphasizing the benefits of in-person communication and citing the full-time office presence of sales, manufacturing, and engineering teams. This contradicts previous statements about remote work flexibility and has sparked employee discontent. Dell claims the change is aimed at boosting innovation and market leadership.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech

Stop Overusing Feature Flags: They're Often Unnecessary

2025-02-01

Stop Overusing Feature Flags: They're Often Unnecessary

Many teams rely heavily on feature flag management software, believing it solves all problems, but this introduces complexity and risks. This article argues that for most teams, a simple JSON configuration file suffices; read at application startup to control feature visibility. Overusing feature flags leads to unmaintainable code and increased security risks. The author suggests that only when needing large-scale runtime feature changes should complex feature flag management software be considered, avoiding premature optimization.

(code.mendhak.com)

Development feature flags

BZip3: A Superior Successor to BZip2

2025-02-01

BZip3: A Superior Successor to BZip2

BZip3 is a faster and more efficient successor to BZip2, boasting higher compression ratios and improved performance. This is achieved through an order-0 context mixing entropy coder, a fast Burrows-Wheeler transform utilizing suffix arrays, and an RLE with Lempel Ziv+Prediction pass based on LZ77-style string matching and PPM-style context modeling. Benchmarks comparing it against other compression algorithms, including tests on a massive archive of Perl source code, demonstrate its significant advantages. BZip3's performance is highly dependent on the compiler, with x64 Linux clang13 builds showing impressive speeds. The project is licensed under LGPLv3.

(github.com)

Development

Beyond ADHD: How Upbringing Shapes Your Cognition

2025-02-01

Beyond ADHD: How Upbringing Shapes Your Cognition

After receiving an ADHD diagnosis, the author initially attempted to 'cure' it, only to discover the real pain stemmed from an incompatible upbringing. Strict parenting and suppression of individuality led to a long-term dependence on parental approval and self-doubt. The article argues that ADHD isn't a deficit, but a cognitive variation, mistaken for a problem in incompatible environments. The author calls for reflection on the impact of upbringing, a redefinition of success, and encourages rebuilding a life aligned with one's true self.

(claimingattention.substack.com)

Misc upbringing cognitive variation

Photographer's iPhone Odyssey: Newsstands NFT Collection Sells Out

2025-02-01

Photographer's iPhone Odyssey: Newsstands NFT Collection Sells Out

Photographer Trevor Traynor embarked on a global journey from 2012, documenting vibrant newsstands worldwide using only iPhones. In 2022, he transformed these images into a collection of 100 unique NFTs, which sold out within months. The project culminated in a physical exhibition in Los Angeles, blending online and offline experiences. This showcases a successful fusion of photography, NFT technology, and art.

(www.trevortraynor.com)

Design

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