Hasty Briefsbeta

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The night sky is getting 10% brighter every year. We're forgetting darkness
3 hours ago
- The author lives in Portland where outdoor lights prevent true darkness and recalls the experience of sleeping in darkness only during a trip to Oregon's Dark Sky Sanctuary.
- During the residency, the group stargazed on a dry lakebed, observing Venus, Vega, satellites, many constellations, and the Milky Way, feeling small under the unpolluted sky.
- Light pollution is increasing by 10% annually, with 80% of people living under polluted skies; the author argues darkness is a human right alongside clean air and water.
- Practical solutions include replacing overly bright lights with appropriate ones, implementing rules on light warmth, direction, and brightness, as done in Flagstaff, Arizona since 1958.
- Light pollution harms wildlife (sea turtles, moths, fireflies, frogs, birds) and disrupts plant-pollinator relationships, tree blooming, and circadian rhythms in all creatures including humans.
- New threats include satellite constellations like Starlink and plans for artificial sunlight from space, which lack environmental review despite affecting Earth's night sky.
- Access to darkness is becoming a luxury, but with proper regulations and enforcement, it can be restored for everyone, making more stars visible and benefiting all life.
Memory Companies Have Destroyed the Consumer Market
2 hours ago
- Memory manufacturers (Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix) are using long-term agreements (LTAs) to suppress cyclical pricing, leading to sustained high prices for consumers.
- Prices of RAM and SSDs have dramatically increased: e.g., 2TB NVMe SSDs up 137%, 32GB DDR5 kits up 363%, and 128GB DDR5 is now $6,800.
- Amazon and cloud providers benefit as businesses forced into cloud due to high on-premises hardware costs; AWS revenue grew 36.7% YoY.
- Chinese manufacturers CXMT and YMTC are gaining market share (CXMT now 10% DRAM market) but face US government restrictions.
- Forecasts suggest NAND flash may see price relief by 2027, but DRAM shortages will worsen due to HBM and server demand.
- LTAs allocate 50-70% of output to top 5-16 customers for 3-5 years, reducing flexibility for consumer goods and locking in high prices.
- The shift fundamentally alters the memory market, likely eliminating future price low points for consumers.
GLM-5.3 and the spread of advanced cyber capabilities
4 hours ago
- GLM-5.3, developed by Zhipu AI, has strong capabilities for autonomously building end-to-end cyber exploits, comparable to Claude Mythos Preview.
- Unlike Claude models, GLM-5.3 was released without meaningful safeguards; its safeguards can be bypassed or removed 64–100% of the time using simple techniques.
- Abliteration (removing refusals) of GLM-5.3 is cheap and easy, reducing refusal rates from >90% to about 3% on some benchmarks without significant capability loss.
- GLM-5.3 successfully developed end-to-end exploits in automated benchmarks and human-in-the-loop tests, including finding novel vulnerabilities in a browser's JavaScript engine and chaining exploits for known flaws.
- The model's open-weight release means anyone can download and modify it, unlike US frontier models which are only available to vetted users.
- Anthropic warns that GLM-5.3 gives malicious actors a step-change in cyber capabilities, but also notes it can benefit defenders if given proper access.
- Recommendations include governments conducting safety testing on capable AI models and expanding defender access to frontier models.
USPS shuts down site that sold 5M counterfeit postage labels for $2 each
2 hours ago
- U.S. Postal Inspection Service seized a website and charged a Pakistani national for operating LabelsBank.com, which allegedly sold over 5.1 million counterfeit USPS postage labels, causing over $126 million in losses.
- Faheem Akram, 33, from Pakistan, is accused of selling counterfeit labels at a fixed $2 rate, regardless of package weight, size, or destination, without authorization.
- More than 5,000 customers used the site to buy counterfeit labels; a court order led to the domain seizure and website shutdown.
- Akram faces charges including conspiracy to defraud the U.S., making and selling counterfeit stamps, and wire fraud; he is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
- Officials emphasized that international fraud against the Postal Service will be pursued, with the investigation involving multiple federal agencies.
AI needs $6T in annual revenue to justify data centre boom
2 hours ago
- AI industry must generate $6 trillion in annual revenue by 2031 to justify data centre investments.
- New product development (search, advertising, autonomy, physical AI) expected to contribute $4.2 trillion.
- Enterprise productivity gains could require $1–$1.4 trillion in revenue.
- Absorption speed of AI is a new competitive variable; labs investing over $9.75 billion.
- Consumer-focused services (subscriptions, ads) forecast to add $200–$400 billion.
- AI infrastructure spending may hit $1.5 trillion annually by 2031, requiring $6 trillion market.
- Data centre capacity doubling every 12–16 months; example: Meta's Prometheus to reach 9GW by 2030.
- Challenges include grid capacity, GPU supply, workforce, regulations, and public opinion.
- Governments in UAE, Saudi Arabia, EU, South Korea, US support AI and data centre growth.
Language Models for Text Classification: From Bag-of-Words to Jev
10 hours ago
- Jev is a fast and cheap classifier that performs well on diverse tasks out of the box, without needing fine-tuning.
- It offers a user-friendly API with Choice, Noul, and Score endpoints for various classification needs.
- The article traces the history of text classification from bag-of-words and RNNs to CNNs and transformer models like BERT and GPT.
- Jev's likely architecture is a small transformer (similar to ModernBERT) trained on synthetic data using Reinforcement Learning for Calibrated Decisions (RLCD).
- Calibration of probabilities is discussed, with RLCR and Brier loss as methods to improve confidence accuracy.
- Jev excels as a plug-and-play classifier for one-off or low-volume tasks, reducing the need for custom fine-tuning or expensive LLMs.
- While many quick Jev clones exist, none match its performance breadth; a strong open-weight alternative is still desired for privacy and speed.
The US state replacing power plants with home batteries
3 hours ago
- Vermont's Green Mountain Power (GMP) has installed home battery systems in over 5,500 homes, forming a virtual power plant that has become the state's largest power source.
- Virtual power plants aggregate distributed energy resources like home batteries, rooftop solar, and EV batteries to reduce grid demand, replacing the need for fossil fuel peaker plants.
- The GMP program offers two batteries for $55 per month over a 10-year lease, providing outage protection and cheaper, cleaner energy compared to gas generators.
- Vermont has faced increased extreme weather and outages, with seven of GMP's ten most damaging storms occurring in the last decade.
- GMP's virtual power plant provides about 110MW of power, equivalent to a small natural gas plant, and saved customers $11 million last year.
- Virtual power plants are seen as a future grid solution, offering resilience, lower costs, and a two-way grid where customers become both consumers and producers.
- Barriers to virtual power plant adoption include utility financial incentives that favor building infrastructure, but states like Massachusetts, Illinois, and New Jersey are pushing for their use.
- GMP aims to offer energy storage to all its customers and expand its virtual power plant by 2034, including leveraging EV batteries for vehicle-to-grid technology.
Electrification efficiency: The world will need less energy after the transition
3 hours ago
- Electrification of energy systems eliminates large inefficiencies, reducing final energy demand by about 40% compared to current levels.
- Transport sees major efficiency gains: electric vehicles are ~4 times more efficient than petrol, with cars/vans using one-quarter of current energy.
- Buildings can be nearly fully electrified via heat pumps, achieving massive efficiency gains, especially in space and water heating.
- Industrial electrification is limited: high-temperature processes need hydrogen, while low-temperature and drying processes can use electric boilers or heat pumps.
- The analysis likely underestimates savings because it ignores other efficiency measures (e.g., insulation) and uses final energy, not primary energy.
- Overall, the transition shifts final energy from 75% fuels to 75% electricity, with hydrogen for non-electrifiable sectors.
What if Jev spoke Arrow?
5 hours ago
- Jev is a TypeSafe AI model that transforms natural language and application state into typed decisions (choice, noul, score) returned as JSON.
- Apache Arrow is an efficient data format for structured data, avoiding the overhead of JSON serialization.
- The author designed an Arrow schema for Jev's answers, enabling direct consumption by tools like pandas and DuckDB.
- Jev lacks a native batch API, so the author built Jevaro, a proxy server that batches multiple states and returns Arrow streams.
- Jevaro improves throughput by reusing connections and pipelining requests, but still incurs overhead from per-state API calls and JSON conversion.
- The article advocates for a native batch endpoint from TypeSafe that returns Arrow directly, which could drastically reduce latency and cost.
- Performance tests show Jev can process hundreds of states per second at low cost, highlighting its potential for bulk analytic workloads.
The End of a Fair Price: Dynamic Pricing and the Normalization of Gouging
3 hours ago
- Neoliberal economists blamed demand for inflation, ignoring that corporations raised prices to boost profits, as revealed by Lindsay Owens' research.
- Owens listened to corporate earnings calls where executives admitted to ramping up prices, debunking the myth of the invisible hand.
- Instacart's personalized pricing led to a FTC investigation after Owens' white paper showed 75% of identical items had varying prices per shopper.
- The book 'Gouged' exposes how pricing consultants like Simon-Kucher advise rivals (e.g., Coke and Pepsi) on price-fixing, and how RealPage's algorithm creates a hard floor for rents.
- Uber's dynamic pricing and personalized wages exploit both consumers and drivers, with take rates increasing significantly after upfront pricing.
- Surveillance pricing uses data from drones, carmakers, and apps (e.g., McDonald's, Starbucks) to hike prices based on consumer behavior.
- Owens proposes a 'Shoppers' Bill of Rights' including upfront pricing, easy cancellations, right to repair, bans on algorithmic price-fixing and surveillance pricing, and fair wage guarantees.
AI models keep posting screenshots showing sensitive data from inside companies
5 hours ago
- Schneider introduces software-defined datacenter switchgear with Equinix piloting faster deployment and over-the-air upgrades.
- Investors price in a 32.6% AI productivity boost for software engineers based on stock movements.
- AMD bets $8.2 billion on spatial AI by co-founding World Labs with Fei-Fei Li.
- AWS urged to embrace its role as a wholesaler of AI infrastructure.
- French developer works on enabling AI bots to understand graphical user interfaces.
- Russian actors pose as Signal support in phishing attacks; US takes down Iranian propaganda sites.
- Microsoft's on-prem SharePoint remains under zero-day attack despite failed patches.
- DEF CON's Franklin project enlists hackers to harden critical infrastructure.
- EQT buys majority stake in cybersecurity firm Acronis at over $3.5 billion valuation.
- Ten years after first corporate ransomware, Mikko Hyppönen sees no end in sight.
- KDE turns 30 with a proposal for an AI-native desktop environment.
- Shopify acquires Tailwind CSS framework to provide a stable long-term home.
- Switzerland tests a FOSS alternative to Microsoft 365.
- Kumander Linux offers a Windows 7-like experience on Debian and Xfce.
- Canonical shuts legacy chat channels including Ubuntu Pastebin and IRC.
- Audacity audio editor gets a modern UI overhaul with new features.
56% in Japan Now Oppose More Foreign Settlement, Up from 36% in 2024
4 hours ago
- A University of Tokyo survey found 56.3% of Japanese respondents oppose accepting more foreign settlers, a 20.7 percentage point jump from 2024.
- Opposition to more foreign workers increased notably among younger generations and those pessimistic about Japanese society.
- The survey comes as foreign residents and workers in Japan hit record highs, with government programs expanding.
- Professor Shin Arita suggests the shift reflects negative discussions and societal anxiety, not just economic factors.
- The panel survey, involving about 3,800 respondents, covers social issues every two years, including immigration attitudes.
Building a certificate authority for the whole Internet
8 hours ago
- Cloudflare announces plans to become a public certificate authority (CA) to issue trusted TLS certificates.
- They have applied for inclusion in major root programs (Chrome, Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla) and signed a deal to acquire GlobalSign's established root for immediate broad device compatibility.
- Cloudflare will offer free, automated certificates via ACME protocol, aiming to provide redundancy to the current dominant free CA, Let's Encrypt.
- They plan to be among the first CAs to issue post-quantum Merkle Tree Certificates (MTCs), targeting production issuance in early 2027.
- The CA will prioritize resilience with fail-small design, mandatory ARI-based renewal automation, transparent operations, and public dashboards.
- Cloudflare will act as 'Customer Zero,' first using its own certificates before offering them to customers, while continuing partnerships with existing CAs.
Lady Gaga, Lena Dunham and surrogacy: Why isn't it causing a scandal in the US?
5 hours ago
- Celebrity surrogacy cases involving Lady Gaga, Lena Dunham, and Millie Bobby Brown sparked little public debate in the U.S., unlike in Europe where commercial surrogacy is often banned or restricted.
- The U.S. acceptance of surrogacy is attributed to American comfort with capitalism and free markets, as well as a cultural emphasis on genetic determinism over the surrogate's contribution.
- In Europe, commercial surrogacy is largely illegal and considered exploitative, with altruistic surrogacy permitted only in a few countries like Greece and Cyprus.
- The surrogacy industry in the U.S. is growing rapidly, with costs exceeding $100,000, and only one state (Louisiana) fully bans it, while many others lack comprehensive regulation.
- Critics like Gloria Steinem argue that commercial surrogacy commodifies women's bodies, especially those in economic need, but celebrities rarely face public backlash for using surrogacy.
- Experts call for better regulation of surrogacy in the U.S. to protect all parties involved, rather than outright bans, as the practice continues to expand.
Tcl/Tk 9.1 Released
4 hours ago
- Tcl 9.1 adds new commands: unicode (normalization), timer (monotonic clock), lfilter (list selection), and interp set (child interpreter variable access).
- Tcl 9.1 introduces new subst options: -backslashes, -commands, -variables, and new switch option: -integer.
- Tcl 9.1 includes many new C routines for Unicode normalization, list operations, time API, and more, and improves list internals with 64-bit support.
- Tcl 9.1 now requires applications to call an initialization routine (Tcl_FindExecutable or TclZipfs_AppHook).
- Tk 9.1 adds accessibility screen reader support and initial bidirectional text for RTL languages.
- Tk 9.1 includes new widget ttk::toggleswitch, new command tk attribtable, and improvements to treeview, notebook, canvas, and listbox widgets, while removing obsolete Windows XP support.
Dead Money
6 hours ago
- AI demand is largely an illusion, driven by hyperscalers stockpiling GPUs and funneling compute to OpenAI and Anthropic, who represent 70-80% of AI revenue.
- Hyperscalers need $308 billion annually to break even on 2026-2027 capex, but current AI revenues are only $183 billion, with over 64% coming from just two companies.
- The AI data center debt load is unsustainable, with rates rising to 8%+ yields, and even Oracle and CoreWeave face distressed debt conditions.
- AI startups are deeply unprofitable and dependent on venture capital, with no meaningful revenue outside of OpenAI and Anthropic, making the entire ecosystem fragile.
- Anthropic's leaked S-1 shows it spent $2.75 to make $1 in 2025, worse than OpenAI's $2.60, indicating fundamentally broken economics.
- The AI bubble is a doom loop: rising debt costs inflate hardware prices, which require more debt, and the underlying investments yield no returns.
Teaching GPU programming in p5.js: now with compute shaders
2 days ago
- GPU programming education faces a high barrier due to complex APIs; scaffolded learning helps by hiding non-essential details initially.
- p5.js is developing p5.strands, a shader system designed to make GPU programming accessible to those with basic JavaScript knowledge.
- Learners only need to know loops, variables, functions, and math to start creating custom shaders in p5.js.
- Custom filters can be built easily using the filterColor object, allowing manipulation of pixel colors and textures.
- Shape shaders use worldInputs to modify vertex positions, enabling animations and instanced rendering without complex vertex data management.
- WebGPU storage buffers and compute shaders allow running thousands of particles or agents in parallel, enabling flocking and physics simulations.
- p5.strands gradually introduces native shader languages (GLSL/WGSL) and lower-level functions like loadShader and createShader for advanced users.
- Compute shaders are slated for p5.js version 2.3, with a testable build available now, and community feedback is encouraged for improvement.
We Compared 51k Paint Colors: 3 in 4 Have a Near-Identical Twin in Another Brand
2 days ago
- Out of 51,362 paint colors across 34 brands, 76.7% have a practically identical match (ΔE < 1) from another brand, and 97.9% have one that is very close (ΔE < 2).
- Colors were compared using CIEDE2000 (ΔE 2000) based on manufacturers' published digital values, excluding exact hex duplicates.
- Famous colors like Farrow & Ball Hague Blue and Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace have twins with ΔE below 0.5 from other brands.
- The most overlapping brand pairs (Behr/Benjamin Moore, Benjamin Moore/Vista Paint) have hundreds of near-identical matches.
- White colors (L* ≥ 90, chroma ≤ 8) number 3,453 across brands, with Dulux, Sikkens, and Zolpan leading in count.
- Practical advice: the color you like likely exists in a local brand; choose paint based on quality/finish/price, then find the closest match; always test a real sample.
GeoFilament – 3D print any place on Earth
a day ago
- GeoFilament converts any location on Earth into a print-ready 3D model using real map and elevation data, including buildings, streets, hills, water, and woodland.
- Users pay once and download a multi-colour 3MF file (with assigned filament slots), plus STL and OBJ formats, all without a subscription.
- Elevation data comes from AWS Terrain Tiles, ensuring accurate hillsides, and forests are rendered as individual rounded canopies for tactile texture.
- Models can be split into up to 4×4 plates (max 640 mm) for large prints, with each tile butting seamlessly against neighbors.
- The scale is fixed at 1:5,000 (e.g., a 160 mm plate covers 800 m), ensuring consistent proportions and printability of small features like 10 m buildings.
- Purchase includes a personal license for gifting; commercial licensing planned, with secure payment via Stripe and instant download.

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Hasty Briefsbeta

The night sky is getting 10% brighter every year. We're forgetting darkness

Memory Companies Have Destroyed the Consumer Market

GLM-5.3 and the spread of advanced cyber capabilities

USPS shuts down site that sold 5M counterfeit postage labels for $2 each

AI needs $6T in annual revenue to justify data centre boom

Language Models for Text Classification: From Bag-of-Words to Jev

The US state replacing power plants with home batteries

Electrification efficiency: The world will need less energy after the transition

What if Jev spoke Arrow?

The End of a Fair Price: Dynamic Pricing and the Normalization of Gouging

AI models keep posting screenshots showing sensitive data from inside companies

56% in Japan Now Oppose More Foreign Settlement, Up from 36% in 2024

Building a certificate authority for the whole Internet

Lady Gaga, Lena Dunham and surrogacy: Why isn't it causing a scandal in the US?

Tcl/Tk 9.1 Released

Dead Money

Teaching GPU programming in p5.js: now with compute shaders

We Compared 51k Paint Colors: 3 in 4 Have a Near-Identical Twin in Another Brand

GeoFilament – 3D print any place on Earth