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Rust 1.94.0
2 hours ago
- Rust 1.94.0 has been released, featuring new capabilities and improvements.
- New `array_windows` method for slices allows iteration with constant length windows.
- Cargo now supports the `include` key in configuration files for better organization.
- TOML 1.1 support in Cargo introduces new syntax features like inline tables with trailing commas.
- Several APIs have been stabilized, including `LazyCell` and `LazyLock` methods.
- New intrinsics for x86 `avx512fp16` and AArch64 NEON `fp16` are now available.
- Previously stable APIs are now stable in const contexts.
- The release includes contributions from many individuals in the Rust community.
Trump fires Homeland Security Secretary Noem after criticism
2 hours ago
- President Donald Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after criticism over her leadership.
- Noem faced criticism for handling immigration crackdown, disaster response, and a $220 million ad campaign.
- Trump announced he would nominate Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin as her replacement.
- Noem was reassigned as 'Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas,' a new security initiative.
- Her tenure was marked by protests, lawsuits, and scrutiny over spending and immigration enforcement tactics.
- Noem is the first Cabinet secretary to leave during Trump’s second term.
- The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been partially shut down for 20 days, with many employees working without pay.
- Mullin can serve as acting secretary while awaiting Senate confirmation.
Show HN: Hormuz Crisis Dashboard Real-time shipping disruption tracker
7 hours ago
- The Strait of Hormuz is closed following US-Israeli strikes on Iran, disrupting 20% of global oil supply.
- Commercial shipping is suspended, with ~0 ships detected today vs. a daily average of ~138.
- AIS reliability is compromised due to ships turning off transponders and electronic warfare.
- ~3,200 ships (4% of global tonnage) are idle in the Gulf region, affecting ~100 container ships (10% of global fleet).
- Oil prices have surged: Brent crude at $83.74 (+16.3%), WTI at $74.42 (+14.5%), and US gas at $3.19/gal (+7.4%).
- Carriers have suspended transits through Hormuz, with emergency surcharges ranging from $1,500-$4,000/TEU.
- Multiple vessels are trapped in the Gulf, with some carriers declaring 'End of Voyage' for Gulf-bound cargo.
- Alternative routes like the Cape of Good Hope add 10-14 days to transit times, disrupting supply chains.
- Impacts include higher fuel costs, fertilizer and food transport price surges, and delays in Asia-Europe container routes.
- War risk insurance premiums have increased 8x, with VLCC transit costs rising from $125,000 to up to $1,000,000 per passage.
Sam Altman asks if government can nationalize artificial general intelligence
3 hours ago
- Sam Altman considers the possibility of AGI development being a government project.
- OpenAI's new contract with the U.S. Department of Defense sparks discussions on AI nationalization.
- Fortune magazine highlights historical government-led strategic projects like the Manhattan Project.
- Defense Department's use of the Defense Production Act on Anthropic hints at 'soft nationalization'.
- OpenAI employees and developers express concerns over AI's military use and surveillance.
- Anthropic's Claude AI tool is already utilized by U.S. military for target identification and simulations.
- OpenAI updates its contract to explicitly prohibit domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons.
- Sam Altman emphasizes the importance of societal consideration of AI's consequences.
- OpenAI assures users of data security and no government access to unflagged messages.
- OpenAI advocates for layered safeguards and industry-wide norms in AI military deployments.
Cloudflare rewrites Next.js as AI rewrites commercial open source
3 hours ago
- Cloudflare rewrote Next.js in one week using AI agents, creating 'vinext', a drop-in replacement built on Vite.
- Vinext allows Next.js apps to be deployed on Cloudflare Workers, claiming faster builds and smaller bundles.
- The rewrite cost $1,100 in tokens and was done by one engineer, showcasing AI's potential to disrupt engineering efforts.
- Vercel criticized vinext as not production-ready, highlighting security and reliability concerns.
- AI's ability to rewrite open source projects challenges commercial open source business models, as seen with Next.js.
- Cloudflare's move includes an AI migration agent to help users switch from Next.js to vinext, indicating a strategic use of AI.
- The incident raises questions about defensibility in open source, with suggestions like making test suites private or focusing on other moats like support and community.
- AI's efficiency in tasks with clear correctness criteria (like rewrites with tests) far exceeds its general productivity boosts.
- The tech industry may see more ruthless competition as AI enables rapid project rewrites and migrations.
- Non-commercial open source could benefit from AI by facilitating forks, rewrites, and feature additions.
US asked Ukraine for help fighting Iranian drones, Zelensky says
2 hours ago
- The US has requested Ukraine's assistance in defending Gulf allies against Iranian drones, as stated by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
- Ukraine is willing to help under conditions that its own defense is not weakened and that there are diplomatic benefits for Kyiv.
- Zelensky suggested a potential swap of Ukrainian interceptor drones for more US Patriot air defenses to counter Russian ballistic missiles.
- Concerns exist about Ukraine suffering due to allies being distracted by the Middle East conflict and potential shortages of interceptor missiles.
- Zelensky has engaged with Gulf counterparts, offering expertise and support to defend against Iranian drone attacks.
- Ukraine has experience with Iranian-designed Shahed drones, used by Russia, making its expertise valuable to the US and Gulf allies.
- The US, under Trump's administration, has halted direct military support but continues to provide intelligence aiding Ukraine's defense.
- Zelensky sees this as an opportunity for diplomatic, military, and financial gains, including potential gratitude from the US and favor among Arab nations.
- Ukraine faces a shortage of Patriot missiles and is cautious about diverting resources from its own defense needs.
- Training and expertise are critical for effective use of air defenses, and Ukraine's training centers are currently fully booked.
Let's Get Physical
2 hours ago
- A company hired a pentester for a series of security tests, including physical penetration testing.
- The pentester and their colleague successfully infiltrated multiple buildings without being challenged by security or employees.
- They stole a shredding bin containing sensitive documents, proving a significant security flaw.
- The team attempted to bypass door sensors using compressed air but did not confirm if it worked.
- They accessed the director’s office by exploiting an unlocked door and left a business card as proof.
- The pentester tried to enter the server room by manipulating a cleaning lady but was ultimately stopped.
- On the final day, they deliberately got caught by stealing a flag in front of cameras to test security response.
- The cleaning lady was the only person who effectively denied access, demonstrating strong security awareness.
- The pentester left business cards in unauthorized areas to prove breaches during the final report.
- The test revealed major physical security weaknesses despite strong IT security measures.
The Brand Age
3 hours ago
- The Swiss watch industry faced a 'quartz crisis' in the 1970s, a combination of competition from Japan, the collapse of the Bretton Woods agreement, and the rise of quartz movements.
- Swiss watchmakers adapted by transforming from precision instrument makers into luxury brands, shifting focus from accuracy and thinness to branding and status symbols.
- Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet pioneered the use of distinctive case designs to emphasize brand, leading to iconic models like the Golden Ellipse and Royal Oak.
- The transition to luxury branding was successful, with Swiss watch sales by revenue rebounding in the late 1980s, despite a decline in unit sales.
- The modern era of watchmaking, termed the 'brand age,' is characterized by large, conspicuous watches designed to display wealth and status, often at the expense of traditional design principles.
- Rolex, already focused on branding during the golden age, became a model for other watchmakers, with its recognizable and bulky designs.
- Artificial scarcity and secondary market manipulation are now key strategies for luxury watch brands, particularly for high-demand models like the Patek Philippe Nautilus.
- The brand age has led to a divergence from the functional design principles of the golden age, with watches now serving primarily as status symbols rather than timekeeping devices.
Donald Trump insists there are no wind farms in China. Here are 20 in pictures
4 hours ago
- Donald Trump falsely claims there are no wind farms in China.
- The article provides photographic evidence of 20 wind farms in China.
- The claim by the US president is easily debunked.
Deutschland-Stack: Open-Source Alliance Warns of "Sovereignty Washing"
3 hours ago
- The OSB Alliance criticizes the Deutschland-Stack project for lacking a binding commitment to open-source solutions.
- The revised draft prioritizes open-source and European sovereign providers but leaves loopholes for proprietary software.
- The OSBA warns of 'sovereignty washing,' where closed-source European software cannot be independently verified.
- Closed-source software poses risks in cases of acquisition or insolvency, threatening state infrastructure.
- The removal of a maturity model for evaluation criteria hinders informed comparisons of digital offerings.
- Existing lock-in effects and dominance by non-European hyperscalers remain unaddressed.
- The BMDS's definition of 'digital sovereignty' as merely a backup plan is insufficient, according to the OSBA.
- The IT Planning Council's definition, emphasizing interchangeability and design capability, should be the benchmark.
- Consistent implementation of the coalition agreement is crucial for the D-Stack's success and job creation in the European IT industry.
Congress Is Considering Abolishing Your Right to Be Anonymous Online
3 hours ago
- Biden administration hosted the first-ever Creator Economy Conference in August 2024, advocating against online anonymity.
- Bipartisan support is pushing a dozen 'child online safety' bills in the House, aiming to enforce identity verification on social media.
- Age verification laws would link users' offline identities to online behavior, posing privacy and civil rights concerns.
- Critics argue these laws enable mass surveillance, endangering whistleblowers, activists, and marginalized communities.
- LGBTQ+ youth, undocumented immigrants, and abortion seekers would be particularly vulnerable under these laws.
- Big Tech companies, including Meta and Elon Musk, are lobbying for these laws, consolidating their power.
- The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) could censor content deemed 'harmful to minors,' targeting LGBTQ+ and abortion information.
- Similar laws abroad, like the UK's Online Safety Act, have been used to suppress dissent and police criticism.
- Privacy activists warn these laws create insecure data pipelines, exposing sensitive user information.
- The push for online age verification aligns with global authoritarian trends, threatening free speech and dissent.
AI and the Ship of Theseus
5 hours ago
- AI can reimplement libraries by using test suites, leading to different designs but similar functionality.
- The chardet library was reimplemented from scratch to change its license from LGPL to MIT, causing controversy.
- The new chardet implementation is faster, supports multiple cores, and has a different design than the original.
- Copyleft licenses like GPL rely on copyright enforcement, but rewriting code is now easier due to AI.
- AI-generated code might not be copyrightable if courts rule there's insufficient human input.
- Reimplementing software raises moral and legal questions, especially regarding licensing and authorship.
- The future may see more software re-emerging under permissive or proprietary licenses due to AI.
- Trademarks might become more important than licenses for protecting authorship in the age of AI.
- The debate between copyleft and permissive licenses is reignited by AI's ability to rewrite code.
- AI and licensing combined create complex challenges for the software industry.
A Number with a Shadow
4 hours ago
- Floating point arithmetic can lead to errors when computing derivatives due to catastrophic cancellation at small step sizes.
- Dual numbers provide a way to compute exact derivatives by pairing a value with its derivative, avoiding approximation errors.
- Dual numbers follow arithmetic rules derived from calculus, such as the product rule and chain rule, to propagate derivatives accurately.
- A Rust implementation of dual numbers demonstrates how to compute exact derivatives with minimal code overhead.
- Generic programming in Rust allows the same functions to compute both values and derivatives by simply changing the type parameter.
- The 'tang' library leverages dual numbers and generic programming to provide exact derivatives across various mathematical operations and decompositions.
- Dual numbers offer performance benefits over finite differences, being both faster and more accurate.
- The 'tang' library supports a wide range of operations, from linear algebra to symbolic computation and GPU acceleration.
- Despite being generic, 'tang' remains competitive in performance with specialized libraries like 'nalgebra' and 'glam'.
- The library is used in training large models and simulations, blurring the line between simulation and learning by providing exact derivatives.
Optimizing Recommendation Systems with JDK's Vector API
3 days ago
- Netflix's Ranker service uses video serendipity scoring to personalize recommendations by comparing new titles to a user's viewing history.
- The original implementation had high CPU usage (7.5% per node) due to sequential cosine similarity calculations between candidate and history embeddings.
- Optimizations included batching computations into matrix operations, improving memory layout with flat buffers, and reusing ThreadLocal buffers to reduce allocations.
- Initial attempts with BLAS libraries showed limited gains due to overheads, leading to adoption of JDK's Vector API for SIMD-optimized matrix multiplication in pure Java.
- Final optimizations reduced CPU usage by ~7%, latency by ~12%, and improved CPU/RPS by ~10%, making the service more efficient without sacrificing performance.
Who really invented television?
12 hours ago
- John Logie Baird demonstrated the first working television in 1926, but the invention was a collaborative effort involving many inventors.
- Early technologies leading to TV included Paul Nipkow's mechanical television concept and selenium-based light transmission experiments.
- Baird's 'Televisor' used a mechanical system to transmit live images, though the quality was poor by modern standards.
- Other inventors like Charles Francis Jenkins and companies like AT&T also developed early television technologies simultaneously.
- Mechanical televisions were replaced by electronic televisions in the 1930s, using electron beams for better image quality.
- Television became a global cultural force post-WWII, with millions of sets and new programming formats like sitcoms and news shows.
- By the 1950s, TV entered its golden age, becoming a dominant medium for entertainment and information.
- Modern TV continues to evolve with digital technology, but its origins trace back to early 20th-century innovations.
Scientists study comet 3I/ATLAS to understand material from other star systems
10 hours ago
- The Solar System occasionally receives interstellar visitors, objects not originating from our system.
- Three identified interstellar objects include ��Oumuamua (2017), Comet Borisov (2019), and 3I/ATLAS.
- 3I/ATLAS exhibits non-gravitational acceleration with a sideways component, suggesting an irregular surface.
- Hubble observations show multiple jet structures on 3I/ATLAS, aligning with its unusual acceleration.
- The JUICE mission unexpectedly observed 3I/ATLAS, providing rare spacecraft data on an interstellar comet.
- 3I/ATLAS's behavior is surprisingly similar to Solar System comets, hinting at universal planetary formation processes.
- Improved telescopes like the Vera Rubin Observatory may soon increase discoveries of interstellar objects.
- Interstellar comets offer samples of distant planetary systems, acting as chemical messages from other stars.
Field notes from the circus of corporate AI adoption
10 hours ago
- The company's C-suite and IT department began embracing AI due to FOMO, leading to the adoption of an enterprise LLM subscription.
- A 'Prompt-a-Thon' was organized to discover AI use cases, but it lacked clear goals and resulted in superficial ideas.
- The author, with a data science background, critiques corporate AI adoption as performative and lacking substance.
- An executive meeting with a hyperscaler featured grand but vague promises about AI's transformative potential.
- An AI strategy workshop devolved into a post-it note brainstorm with disjointed and poorly articulated ideas.
- The author highlights the gap between AI hype and reality, where thoughtful implementations are overshadowed by spectacle.
- Genuine AI use cases, like sentiment detection and automation, are often ignored in favor of flashy but impractical solutions.
- The AI circus continues, driven by hype, with little regard for actual value or employee needs.
Trojan Source: Invisible Vulnerabilities
11 hours ago
- Introduces 'Trojan Source' attacks, exploiting Unicode encoding to make source code appear differently to compilers and humans.
- Demonstrates vulnerabilities across multiple programming languages including C, C++, Java, Python, and more.
- Proposes compiler-level defenses and mitigating controls for editors, repositories, and build pipelines.
- Documents an industry-wide coordinated disclosure effort, highlighting responses from various stakeholders.
Emacs internals: Deconstructing Lisp_Object in C (Part 2)
11 hours ago
- GNU Emacs is analyzed from a system-design perspective, focusing on the Lisp interpreter embedded within it.
- The mathematical foundation of Lisp is discussed, referencing McCarthy's Lisp and its computational principles.
- The approach to reading source code emphasizes starting with data representation before operations, aligning with functional and data-oriented programming.
- Lisp_Object in GNU Emacs is a 64-bit machine word that uses the lowest 3 bits for type tagging, leveraging 8-byte alignment for efficiency.
- The design of Lisp_Object allows for immediate integers (fixnums) to use 62 bits for value, doubling the representable range by using a 2-bit tag for integers.
- Operations on Lisp_Object follow naming conventions: X for extraction, P for predicates, and CHECK_ for assertions.
- The implementation details include optimizations like using subtraction for tag clearing to save CPU registers and improve performance.
- McCarthy's 7 Lisp axioms are mapped to C implementations in GNU Emacs, split across data representation, memory management, and control flow.
- The tagged pointer technique is part of a broader pattern in systems programming, seen in various forms across languages like C, C++, and Rust.
Stop the Interviews
8 hours ago
- The article criticizes the excessive length and inefficiency of software engineering interviews, citing a 7-hour onsite interview as an example.
- It contrasts software engineering with other fields like medicine and system administration, where certifications and licensure reduce the need for extensive technical interviews.
- The author argues that humans are not wired to assess strangers accurately in short interactions, leading to flawed interview processes.
- Internal candidates and employee referrals have significantly higher hiring probabilities compared to cold applicants, highlighting the importance of social connections in hiring.
- The article acknowledges biases like racism and sexism but suggests that the current interview system is inherently flawed and proposes lower-stakes ways to assess candidates.
- The author shares personal frustrations with the job market, including ghosting by recruiters and companies, and suggests contract work as a more viable option in the current market.
- The article concludes by encouraging job seekers to stay positive and focus on connections rather than money for security.

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Rust 1.94.0
2 hours ago
- Rust 1.94.0 has been released, featuring new capabilities and improvements.
- New `array_windows` method for slices allows iteration with constant length windows.
- Cargo now supports the `include` key in configuration files for better organization.
- TOML 1.1 support in Cargo introduces new syntax features like inline tables with trailing commas.
- Several APIs have been stabilized, including `LazyCell` and `LazyLock` methods.
- New intrinsics for x86 `avx512fp16` and AArch64 NEON `fp16` are now available.
- Previously stable APIs are now stable in const contexts.
- The release includes contributions from many individuals in the Rust community.
Trump fires Homeland Security Secretary Noem after criticism
2 hours ago
- President Donald Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after criticism over her leadership.
- Noem faced criticism for handling immigration crackdown, disaster response, and a $220 million ad campaign.
- Trump announced he would nominate Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin as her replacement.
- Noem was reassigned as 'Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas,' a new security initiative.
- Her tenure was marked by protests, lawsuits, and scrutiny over spending and immigration enforcement tactics.
- Noem is the first Cabinet secretary to leave during Trump’s second term.
- The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been partially shut down for 20 days, with many employees working without pay.
- Mullin can serve as acting secretary while awaiting Senate confirmation.
Show HN: Hormuz Crisis Dashboard Real-time shipping disruption tracker
7 hours ago
- The Strait of Hormuz is closed following US-Israeli strikes on Iran, disrupting 20% of global oil supply.
- Commercial shipping is suspended, with ~0 ships detected today vs. a daily average of ~138.
- AIS reliability is compromised due to ships turning off transponders and electronic warfare.
- ~3,200 ships (4% of global tonnage) are idle in the Gulf region, affecting ~100 container ships (10% of global fleet).
- Oil prices have surged: Brent crude at $83.74 (+16.3%), WTI at $74.42 (+14.5%), and US gas at $3.19/gal (+7.4%).
- Carriers have suspended transits through Hormuz, with emergency surcharges ranging from $1,500-$4,000/TEU.
- Multiple vessels are trapped in the Gulf, with some carriers declaring 'End of Voyage' for Gulf-bound cargo.
- Alternative routes like the Cape of Good Hope add 10-14 days to transit times, disrupting supply chains.
- Impacts include higher fuel costs, fertilizer and food transport price surges, and delays in Asia-Europe container routes.
- War risk insurance premiums have increased 8x, with VLCC transit costs rising from $125,000 to up to $1,000,000 per passage.
Sam Altman asks if government can nationalize artificial general intelligence
3 hours ago
- Sam Altman considers the possibility of AGI development being a government project.
- OpenAI's new contract with the U.S. Department of Defense sparks discussions on AI nationalization.
- Fortune magazine highlights historical government-led strategic projects like the Manhattan Project.
- Defense Department's use of the Defense Production Act on Anthropic hints at 'soft nationalization'.
- OpenAI employees and developers express concerns over AI's military use and surveillance.
- Anthropic's Claude AI tool is already utilized by U.S. military for target identification and simulations.
- OpenAI updates its contract to explicitly prohibit domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons.
- Sam Altman emphasizes the importance of societal consideration of AI's consequences.
- OpenAI assures users of data security and no government access to unflagged messages.
- OpenAI advocates for layered safeguards and industry-wide norms in AI military deployments.
Cloudflare rewrites Next.js as AI rewrites commercial open source
3 hours ago
- Cloudflare rewrote Next.js in one week using AI agents, creating 'vinext', a drop-in replacement built on Vite.
- Vinext allows Next.js apps to be deployed on Cloudflare Workers, claiming faster builds and smaller bundles.
- The rewrite cost $1,100 in tokens and was done by one engineer, showcasing AI's potential to disrupt engineering efforts.
- Vercel criticized vinext as not production-ready, highlighting security and reliability concerns.
- AI's ability to rewrite open source projects challenges commercial open source business models, as seen with Next.js.
- Cloudflare's move includes an AI migration agent to help users switch from Next.js to vinext, indicating a strategic use of AI.
- The incident raises questions about defensibility in open source, with suggestions like making test suites private or focusing on other moats like support and community.
- AI's efficiency in tasks with clear correctness criteria (like rewrites with tests) far exceeds its general productivity boosts.
- The tech industry may see more ruthless competition as AI enables rapid project rewrites and migrations.
- Non-commercial open source could benefit from AI by facilitating forks, rewrites, and feature additions.
US asked Ukraine for help fighting Iranian drones, Zelensky says
2 hours ago
- The US has requested Ukraine's assistance in defending Gulf allies against Iranian drones, as stated by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
- Ukraine is willing to help under conditions that its own defense is not weakened and that there are diplomatic benefits for Kyiv.
- Zelensky suggested a potential swap of Ukrainian interceptor drones for more US Patriot air defenses to counter Russian ballistic missiles.
- Concerns exist about Ukraine suffering due to allies being distracted by the Middle East conflict and potential shortages of interceptor missiles.
- Zelensky has engaged with Gulf counterparts, offering expertise and support to defend against Iranian drone attacks.
- Ukraine has experience with Iranian-designed Shahed drones, used by Russia, making its expertise valuable to the US and Gulf allies.
- The US, under Trump's administration, has halted direct military support but continues to provide intelligence aiding Ukraine's defense.
- Zelensky sees this as an opportunity for diplomatic, military, and financial gains, including potential gratitude from the US and favor among Arab nations.
- Ukraine faces a shortage of Patriot missiles and is cautious about diverting resources from its own defense needs.
- Training and expertise are critical for effective use of air defenses, and Ukraine's training centers are currently fully booked.
Let's Get Physical
2 hours ago
- A company hired a pentester for a series of security tests, including physical penetration testing.
- The pentester and their colleague successfully infiltrated multiple buildings without being challenged by security or employees.
- They stole a shredding bin containing sensitive documents, proving a significant security flaw.
- The team attempted to bypass door sensors using compressed air but did not confirm if it worked.
- They accessed the director’s office by exploiting an unlocked door and left a business card as proof.
- The pentester tried to enter the server room by manipulating a cleaning lady but was ultimately stopped.
- On the final day, they deliberately got caught by stealing a flag in front of cameras to test security response.
- The cleaning lady was the only person who effectively denied access, demonstrating strong security awareness.
- The pentester left business cards in unauthorized areas to prove breaches during the final report.
- The test revealed major physical security weaknesses despite strong IT security measures.
The Brand Age
3 hours ago
- The Swiss watch industry faced a 'quartz crisis' in the 1970s, a combination of competition from Japan, the collapse of the Bretton Woods agreement, and the rise of quartz movements.
- Swiss watchmakers adapted by transforming from precision instrument makers into luxury brands, shifting focus from accuracy and thinness to branding and status symbols.
- Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet pioneered the use of distinctive case designs to emphasize brand, leading to iconic models like the Golden Ellipse and Royal Oak.
- The transition to luxury branding was successful, with Swiss watch sales by revenue rebounding in the late 1980s, despite a decline in unit sales.
- The modern era of watchmaking, termed the 'brand age,' is characterized by large, conspicuous watches designed to display wealth and status, often at the expense of traditional design principles.
- Rolex, already focused on branding during the golden age, became a model for other watchmakers, with its recognizable and bulky designs.
- Artificial scarcity and secondary market manipulation are now key strategies for luxury watch brands, particularly for high-demand models like the Patek Philippe Nautilus.
- The brand age has led to a divergence from the functional design principles of the golden age, with watches now serving primarily as status symbols rather than timekeeping devices.
Donald Trump insists there are no wind farms in China. Here are 20 in pictures
4 hours ago
- Donald Trump falsely claims there are no wind farms in China.
- The article provides photographic evidence of 20 wind farms in China.
- The claim by the US president is easily debunked.
Deutschland-Stack: Open-Source Alliance Warns of "Sovereignty Washing"
3 hours ago
- The OSB Alliance criticizes the Deutschland-Stack project for lacking a binding commitment to open-source solutions.
- The revised draft prioritizes open-source and European sovereign providers but leaves loopholes for proprietary software.
- The OSBA warns of 'sovereignty washing,' where closed-source European software cannot be independently verified.
- Closed-source software poses risks in cases of acquisition or insolvency, threatening state infrastructure.
- The removal of a maturity model for evaluation criteria hinders informed comparisons of digital offerings.
- Existing lock-in effects and dominance by non-European hyperscalers remain unaddressed.
- The BMDS's definition of 'digital sovereignty' as merely a backup plan is insufficient, according to the OSBA.
- The IT Planning Council's definition, emphasizing interchangeability and design capability, should be the benchmark.
- Consistent implementation of the coalition agreement is crucial for the D-Stack's success and job creation in the European IT industry.
Congress Is Considering Abolishing Your Right to Be Anonymous Online
3 hours ago
- Biden administration hosted the first-ever Creator Economy Conference in August 2024, advocating against online anonymity.
- Bipartisan support is pushing a dozen 'child online safety' bills in the House, aiming to enforce identity verification on social media.
- Age verification laws would link users' offline identities to online behavior, posing privacy and civil rights concerns.
- Critics argue these laws enable mass surveillance, endangering whistleblowers, activists, and marginalized communities.
- LGBTQ+ youth, undocumented immigrants, and abortion seekers would be particularly vulnerable under these laws.
- Big Tech companies, including Meta and Elon Musk, are lobbying for these laws, consolidating their power.
- The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) could censor content deemed 'harmful to minors,' targeting LGBTQ+ and abortion information.
- Similar laws abroad, like the UK's Online Safety Act, have been used to suppress dissent and police criticism.
- Privacy activists warn these laws create insecure data pipelines, exposing sensitive user information.
- The push for online age verification aligns with global authoritarian trends, threatening free speech and dissent.
AI and the Ship of Theseus
5 hours ago
- AI can reimplement libraries by using test suites, leading to different designs but similar functionality.
- The chardet library was reimplemented from scratch to change its license from LGPL to MIT, causing controversy.
- The new chardet implementation is faster, supports multiple cores, and has a different design than the original.
- Copyleft licenses like GPL rely on copyright enforcement, but rewriting code is now easier due to AI.
- AI-generated code might not be copyrightable if courts rule there's insufficient human input.
- Reimplementing software raises moral and legal questions, especially regarding licensing and authorship.
- The future may see more software re-emerging under permissive or proprietary licenses due to AI.
- Trademarks might become more important than licenses for protecting authorship in the age of AI.
- The debate between copyleft and permissive licenses is reignited by AI's ability to rewrite code.
- AI and licensing combined create complex challenges for the software industry.
A Number with a Shadow
4 hours ago
- Floating point arithmetic can lead to errors when computing derivatives due to catastrophic cancellation at small step sizes.
- Dual numbers provide a way to compute exact derivatives by pairing a value with its derivative, avoiding approximation errors.
- Dual numbers follow arithmetic rules derived from calculus, such as the product rule and chain rule, to propagate derivatives accurately.
- A Rust implementation of dual numbers demonstrates how to compute exact derivatives with minimal code overhead.
- Generic programming in Rust allows the same functions to compute both values and derivatives by simply changing the type parameter.
- The 'tang' library leverages dual numbers and generic programming to provide exact derivatives across various mathematical operations and decompositions.
- Dual numbers offer performance benefits over finite differences, being both faster and more accurate.
- The 'tang' library supports a wide range of operations, from linear algebra to symbolic computation and GPU acceleration.
- Despite being generic, 'tang' remains competitive in performance with specialized libraries like 'nalgebra' and 'glam'.
- The library is used in training large models and simulations, blurring the line between simulation and learning by providing exact derivatives.
Optimizing Recommendation Systems with JDK's Vector API
3 days ago
- Netflix's Ranker service uses video serendipity scoring to personalize recommendations by comparing new titles to a user's viewing history.
- The original implementation had high CPU usage (7.5% per node) due to sequential cosine similarity calculations between candidate and history embeddings.
- Optimizations included batching computations into matrix operations, improving memory layout with flat buffers, and reusing ThreadLocal buffers to reduce allocations.
- Initial attempts with BLAS libraries showed limited gains due to overheads, leading to adoption of JDK's Vector API for SIMD-optimized matrix multiplication in pure Java.
- Final optimizations reduced CPU usage by ~7%, latency by ~12%, and improved CPU/RPS by ~10%, making the service more efficient without sacrificing performance.
Who really invented television?
12 hours ago
- John Logie Baird demonstrated the first working television in 1926, but the invention was a collaborative effort involving many inventors.
- Early technologies leading to TV included Paul Nipkow's mechanical television concept and selenium-based light transmission experiments.
- Baird's 'Televisor' used a mechanical system to transmit live images, though the quality was poor by modern standards.
- Other inventors like Charles Francis Jenkins and companies like AT&T also developed early television technologies simultaneously.
- Mechanical televisions were replaced by electronic televisions in the 1930s, using electron beams for better image quality.
- Television became a global cultural force post-WWII, with millions of sets and new programming formats like sitcoms and news shows.
- By the 1950s, TV entered its golden age, becoming a dominant medium for entertainment and information.
- Modern TV continues to evolve with digital technology, but its origins trace back to early 20th-century innovations.
Scientists study comet 3I/ATLAS to understand material from other star systems
10 hours ago
- The Solar System occasionally receives interstellar visitors, objects not originating from our system.
- Three identified interstellar objects include ��Oumuamua (2017), Comet Borisov (2019), and 3I/ATLAS.
- 3I/ATLAS exhibits non-gravitational acceleration with a sideways component, suggesting an irregular surface.
- Hubble observations show multiple jet structures on 3I/ATLAS, aligning with its unusual acceleration.
- The JUICE mission unexpectedly observed 3I/ATLAS, providing rare spacecraft data on an interstellar comet.
- 3I/ATLAS's behavior is surprisingly similar to Solar System comets, hinting at universal planetary formation processes.
- Improved telescopes like the Vera Rubin Observatory may soon increase discoveries of interstellar objects.
- Interstellar comets offer samples of distant planetary systems, acting as chemical messages from other stars.
Field notes from the circus of corporate AI adoption
10 hours ago
- The company's C-suite and IT department began embracing AI due to FOMO, leading to the adoption of an enterprise LLM subscription.
- A 'Prompt-a-Thon' was organized to discover AI use cases, but it lacked clear goals and resulted in superficial ideas.
- The author, with a data science background, critiques corporate AI adoption as performative and lacking substance.
- An executive meeting with a hyperscaler featured grand but vague promises about AI's transformative potential.
- An AI strategy workshop devolved into a post-it note brainstorm with disjointed and poorly articulated ideas.
- The author highlights the gap between AI hype and reality, where thoughtful implementations are overshadowed by spectacle.
- Genuine AI use cases, like sentiment detection and automation, are often ignored in favor of flashy but impractical solutions.
- The AI circus continues, driven by hype, with little regard for actual value or employee needs.
Trojan Source: Invisible Vulnerabilities
11 hours ago
- Introduces 'Trojan Source' attacks, exploiting Unicode encoding to make source code appear differently to compilers and humans.
- Demonstrates vulnerabilities across multiple programming languages including C, C++, Java, Python, and more.
- Proposes compiler-level defenses and mitigating controls for editors, repositories, and build pipelines.
- Documents an industry-wide coordinated disclosure effort, highlighting responses from various stakeholders.
Emacs internals: Deconstructing Lisp_Object in C (Part 2)
11 hours ago
- GNU Emacs is analyzed from a system-design perspective, focusing on the Lisp interpreter embedded within it.
- The mathematical foundation of Lisp is discussed, referencing McCarthy's Lisp and its computational principles.
- The approach to reading source code emphasizes starting with data representation before operations, aligning with functional and data-oriented programming.
- Lisp_Object in GNU Emacs is a 64-bit machine word that uses the lowest 3 bits for type tagging, leveraging 8-byte alignment for efficiency.
- The design of Lisp_Object allows for immediate integers (fixnums) to use 62 bits for value, doubling the representable range by using a 2-bit tag for integers.
- Operations on Lisp_Object follow naming conventions: X for extraction, P for predicates, and CHECK_ for assertions.
- The implementation details include optimizations like using subtraction for tag clearing to save CPU registers and improve performance.
- McCarthy's 7 Lisp axioms are mapped to C implementations in GNU Emacs, split across data representation, memory management, and control flow.
- The tagged pointer technique is part of a broader pattern in systems programming, seen in various forms across languages like C, C++, and Rust.
Stop the Interviews
8 hours ago
- The article criticizes the excessive length and inefficiency of software engineering interviews, citing a 7-hour onsite interview as an example.
- It contrasts software engineering with other fields like medicine and system administration, where certifications and licensure reduce the need for extensive technical interviews.
- The author argues that humans are not wired to assess strangers accurately in short interactions, leading to flawed interview processes.
- Internal candidates and employee referrals have significantly higher hiring probabilities compared to cold applicants, highlighting the importance of social connections in hiring.
- The article acknowledges biases like racism and sexism but suggests that the current interview system is inherently flawed and proposes lower-stakes ways to assess candidates.
- The author shares personal frustrations with the job market, including ghosting by recruiters and companies, and suggests contract work as a more viable option in the current market.
- The article concludes by encouraging job seekers to stay positive and focus on connections rather than money for security.

Hasty Briefsbeta

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Emacs internals: Deconstructing Lisp_Object in C (Part 2)

Stop the Interviews

Rust 1.94.0

Trump fires Homeland Security Secretary Noem after criticism

Show HN: Hormuz Crisis Dashboard Real-time shipping disruption tracker

Sam Altman asks if government can nationalize artificial general intelligence

Cloudflare rewrites Next.js as AI rewrites commercial open source

US asked Ukraine for help fighting Iranian drones, Zelensky says

Let's Get Physical

The Brand Age

Donald Trump insists there are no wind farms in China. Here are 20 in pictures

Deutschland-Stack: Open-Source Alliance Warns of "Sovereignty Washing"

Congress Is Considering Abolishing Your Right to Be Anonymous Online

AI and the Ship of Theseus

A Number with a Shadow

Optimizing Recommendation Systems with JDK's Vector API

Who really invented television?

Scientists study comet 3I/ATLAS to understand material from other star systems

Field notes from the circus of corporate AI adoption

Trojan Source: Invisible Vulnerabilities

Emacs internals: Deconstructing Lisp_Object in C (Part 2)

Stop the Interviews