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A Secret Grand Jury Is Seeking the Identity of a Reddit User Who Criticized ICE
2 hours ago
- Federal prosecutors are using a secret grand jury to seek the identity of a Reddit user who criticized ICE, with unclear illegal activity cited.
- ICE initially issued an administrative subpoena for user data, claiming authority under the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, but it was withdrawn after legal challenge.
- The Reddit user's comments included publicly available information about an ICE officer, potentially labeled as doxxing, raising First Amendment concerns.
- Reddit's statement emphasizes privacy but leaves ambiguity on compliance, noting they provide minimal data when legally compelled and notify users.
- Experts warn the case could set a precedent to chill free speech online, as the government targets social media critics through secretive legal processes.
Maki – the efficient coder (AI agent)
9 hours ago
- Parses 15 languages into skeletons to reduce token usage, saving 165 tokens per turn on reads.
- Features a sandboxed Python interpreter with async tools for efficient data processing without cluttering context.
- Includes subagents with varying strengths (weak, medium, strong) and access levels, optimized for different tasks.
- Automatically compacts history to manage long context by stripping unnecessary elements like images and thinking blocks.
- Offers a native binary with performance optimizations like SIMD and background syntax highlighting for smooth user experience.
- Displays real-time information like token count, cost, and model in the status bar, with multiple subagent chat windows.
- Supports bash command parsing with tree-sitter for security, allowing per-tool rules or bypass with --yolo.
- Provides long-term memory across sessions, plan mode for read-only access, and MCP server integration with 26 themes.
- Uses indexing to parse file structures and read only needed lines, improving efficiency by avoiding full file reads.
- Enables sandboxed code execution via async Python functions, where only print output enters the context for clarity.
We gave an AI a 3-year Lease. It opened a store
8 hours ago
- Andon Labs created Luna, an AI managing Andon Market, a retail store in San Francisco, handling hiring, branding, and operations.
- Luna hired human employees for physical tasks, using gig workers for setup and full-time staff for daily operations, while sometimes not disclosing she is an AI during interviews.
- The experiment aims to study AI autonomy and ethics, highlighting concerns about AI employers and the need for transparency and guardrails in AI-human interactions.
Bringing Rust to the Pixel Baseband
6 hours ago
- Google has enhanced security on Pixel 9 by mitigating memory-safety vulnerabilities in the modem firmware.
- For Pixel 10, Google integrated a memory-safe Rust DNS parser into the modem firmware to reduce security risks.
- The modem firmware faces increasing threats; e.g., Project Zero achieved remote code execution on Pixel modems.
- DNS is critical for cellular operations and, if implemented unsafely, can lead to vulnerabilities like CVE-2024-27227.
- Hickory-proto was chosen as the Rust DNS library due to its maintenance, test coverage, and community adoption.
- no_std support was added to hickory-proto for bare-metal environments, benefiting other projects.
- Code size from hickory-proto is not optimized for embedded use but was acceptable due to Pixel's memory constraints.
- Rust integration involved defining unit tests and using rustc with Pigweed for build system scalability.
- Allocator and panic handler were implemented via FFI to integrate with existing C/C++ modem firmware.
- Linking Rust code required extracting object files and resolving weak symbol issues with compiler_builtin.
- A Rust function process_dns_response was created to parse DNS responses and call back to C functions.
- Cargo-gnaw was used to generate GN build rules for managing dependencies, ensuring correctness and maintenance ease.
- This project establishes a foundation for future memory-safe code integration in cellular basebands.
We Only Learn from Error
5 hours ago
- The text discusses the training of a vision-language-action model to follow faces, initially struggling with high error due to limited exposure to corrective scenarios in training data.
- A behavioral cloning approach was used, where the model imitated an oracle that tracked and adjusted to faces, but the dataset was skewed towards frames where the oracle had already corrected to the center.
- To address the issue, periodic disturbances were introduced, teleporting the face target to increase high-error samples, which significantly improved the model's accuracy, reducing average error from 20 to under 5 degrees.
AI Code Is Hollowing Out Open Source, and Maintainers Are Looking the Other Way
8 hours ago
- AI-generated code, like output from LLMs such as Claude and ChatGPT, is uncopyrightable in the U.S., placing it in the public domain.
- Integrating uncopyrightable LLM outputs into copyleft-licensed open source projects undermines the license's reciprocity requirement, allowing the code to be used in closed-source projects without attribution.
- The case of 'chardet' illustrates controversy, where a maintainer attempted to relicense from LGPL to MIT using AI-generated code, sparking debate over clean-room implementation and contributor rights.
- LLM contributions can hollow out copyleft projects by making license terms unenforceable for AI-generated parts, potentially devaluing human contributions and discouraging future sharing.
- The parody 'Malus' highlights ethical concerns, showing how AI can be used to bypass open source licenses, which may harm the incentive structure of open source communities.
We're heading for an AI-fueled 'dementia crisis,' brain scientist warns
5 hours ago
- AI use may increase dementia risk by reducing brain activity linked to cognitive engagement.
- Overreliance on AI can weaken curiosity, attention, reasoning, and metacognition.
- GPS use offers a parallel, but AI offloads more cognitive functions, potentially leading to a dementia crisis.
- Warning signs of AI dependence include needing AI to start tasks and inability to reconstruct arguments.
- Using AI as an 'adversarial collaborator' can help preserve cognitive reserve.
[STORY] Watching Abandoned Toddlers as the End Approaches
7 hours ago
- The daycare worker stays alone with toddlers as the end of the world approaches, after all other staff and most children have left.
- Parents are not showing up; some tried to contact but can't get through, and one parent gave money as a gesture before leaving.
- The worker focuses on keeping the young children (ages 2-4) calm and occupied, avoiding explanations due to their age.
- Isolation intensifies as communication fails (blocked family texts, busy signals to emergency services), and the worker awaits the inevitable while caring for the children.
Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part I: Finding Carthaginians
9 hours ago
- Carthage was the second greatest military power in the Mediterranean, only eclipsed by Rome, and is the only power to seriously challenge Rome on an even footing after Rome's conquest of Italy.
- Carthage's army was complex and multi-ethnic, drawing forces from across the western Mediterranean, with its peak mobilization during the Second Punic War reaching around 165,000 men in 215.
- The Carthaginian military system evolved over time, from the 5th century through the Punic Wars, with forces varying by period: early armies included citizen soldiers, later ones relied more on mercenaries and subjects.
- Despite Polybius's claim that Carthage used mostly mercenaries, citizen soldiers continued to fight, especially in North Africa, and were effective, as seen in the Mercenary War and at the Battle of Zama.
- Carthaginian citizen soldiers likely fought as heavy infantry similar to Greek hoplites, using large shields, spears, and armor, with possible later adoption of Italic equipment.
- The structure of Carthage's armies included diverse components: African and Iberian infantry, Gallic troops, Numidian and Iberian cavalry, and specialized units like Balearian slingers.
- Historical sources on Carthage are biased, primarily from Greek and Roman perspectives, which may exaggerate Carthaginian losses and underestimate their military capabilities and citizen participation.
- Carthage's military history spans centuries of conflicts, mainly with Syracuse over Sicily and later with Rome, leading to the Punic Wars, which ended with Carthage's destruction in 146 BC.
The Relationship Between Two People Is Not Located in Either Person
3 hours ago
- The text appears to be interface navigation or menu items for a web application or platform.
- It includes sections such as Home, Subscriptions, Chat, Activity, Explore, Profile, and Create.
- There is a promotional line describing it as 'The app for independent voices' with options to Get started or Learn more.
- A 'For you' section is mentioned along with an instruction to Get the app.
- The text ends with a technical note requiring JavaScript to run correctly, advising users to turn it on or unblock scripts.
The Seasons Are Wrong
5 hours ago
- The traditional calendar—with solstices and equinoxes marking season starts—is flawed because summer begins when days shorten, and winter begins when days lengthen.
- Culturally, seasons should align with extremes and transitions: summer as the hottest/longest-day period, winter as the coldest/shortest-day period, and spring/fall as transitions.
- A revised calendar proposes season starts at midpoints between equinoxes and solstices, placing summer solstice at midsummer and winter solstice at midwinter.
- New proposed season starts: Summer on May 7, Fall on August 9, Winter on November 6, and Spring on February 21.
- This perspective is not universal; many cultures, including European, Iranian, and ancient Roman traditions, view solstices as mid-season points.
Productive Procrastination
4 hours ago
- The author discusses 'productive procrastination,' where they engage in productive tasks but avoid the main work they need to do, such as finishing older videos.
- Procrastination is explained as a brain conflict between the limbic system (handling emotions like fear) and the prefrontal cortex (for planning and control), with the brain avoiding tasks that trigger negative emotions.
- Novelty plays a role in motivation, as the brain's reward system responds positively to new stimuli, making new projects more appealing than older ones, supported by the author's data on video editing productivity.
- Psychological concepts like moral licensing (using past productivity to justify avoidance), the Zeigarnik Effect (unfinished tasks cause mental tension), and completion bias (preferring easy tasks) contribute to procrastination and guilt.
- Solutions suggested include making old tasks feel new, using affect labeling to manage emotions, forgiving oneself to reduce guilt, and establishing habits to start tasks more easily.
Great at gaming? US air traffic control wants you to apply
4 hours ago
- The FAA is launching an ad campaign targeting gamers to apply for air traffic controller jobs, emphasizing skills from gaming.
- The campaign highlights a salary of $155,000 after three years and uses gaming imagery to appeal to young adults.
- There is a significant shortage of air traffic controllers, with projections indicating growing vacancies in coming years.
- The job requires quick decision-making under pressure and technical expertise to ensure aircraft safety.
- Union officials support recruiting gamers but stress the need to maintain rigorous safety standards in the profession.
ESA Launches 7 New Missions to Supercharge Space Data Transfer
12 hours ago
- Space is becoming increasingly crowded with satellites and the data they generate, requiring new approaches to data transfer.
- The European Space Agency (ESA) launched eight CubeSats and a payload on SpaceX's Transporter-16 mission in March 2026 to test laser communication, inter-satellite networking, and in-orbit AI processing.
- Five CubeSats from Greece's Connectivity Programme aim to enhance optical capabilities, with missions like OptiSat and PeakSat focusing on secure laser links and improved space-to-ground communications.
- The ERMIS Constellation satellites test various technologies, including 5G for IoT and laser terminals for downloading hyperspectral Earth observation images.
- Three Pioneer Partnership Project CubeSats, such as Mission Saas and Mission VIREON, focus on de-risking optical links and providing cost-effective, high-resolution Earth observation data.
- An additional payload by Belgian company EDGX demonstrates 'edge computing' in space using AI to reduce data bandwidth needs, aligning with SpaceX's goal of orbital AI data centers.
- These missions represent a shift towards optical communication and in-orbit data processing to support future planet-wide internet, despite challenges like orbital debris and light pollution.
Beyond Copy-and-Paste: How Game Studios Are Reorganizing Around AI (Research)
12 hours ago
- The gaming industry initially adopted AI through individual 'copy-and-paste' methods, providing tools without training, leading to personal productivity gains but leaving organizational structures unchanged.
- Top-down attempts to automate workflows stalled due to the challenge of extracting tacit knowledge—unwritten rules and institutional memory—and employee reluctance.
- Progress emerged when individuals used AI to cross domain boundaries, such as product managers writing queries or engineers creating art, reducing failure rates and accumulating shared context.
- AI-first studios, designed from the ground up with AI, used markdown documents and small generalist teams to compress development cycles from months to weeks, achieving pipeline collapse with 4–20x speed improvements.
- AI excels at generating code, graphics, and documentation but cannot replace human activities like strategic planning, team alignment, and culture-building, which require collaboration and shared understanding.
- Key challenges include the bottleneck of tacit knowledge, the need for cross-team workflows, and the fact that AI solves production but not distribution, as audience discovery remains a constraint with AI-scale content volume.
Enforcing new limits and retiring Opus 4.6 Fast from Copilot Pro+
6 hours ago
- GitHub Copilot is updating limits due to high usage patterns, affecting service reliability and model capacity, to ensure a fast, reliable experience for all users.
- Two types of limits will be rolled out: overall service reliability limits (requiring wait time) and specific model family limits (allowing switching to alternative models or using Auto mode).
- Users are advised to distribute requests evenly over time and consider upgrading plans for higher limits, with ongoing efforts to explore increased capacity.
- Opus 4.6 Fast is being retired for Copilot Pro+ users to streamline offerings and improve reliability, with Opus 4.6 recommended as an alternative model.
Static code analysis in Kotlin – tools overview
4 days ago
- Static code analysis examines Kotlin source code without execution, using AST and PSI from the Kotlin compiler, to identify bugs, style violations, and quality issues via visitor pattern rules.
- Three tools evaluated: detekt (code smells, 200+ rules, YAML config, extensible), diktat (strict Kotlin conventions, noisy defaults, complex config), and ktlint (lightweight formatter, auto-fix, minimal config).
- Evaluation metrics included config shareability, method ordering by visibility, build time impact, capabilities beyond ktlint, and ease of rule configuration; none support method ordering out of the box.
- Custom detekt rule created for visibility-based method ordering (public > protected > internal > private) via a Gradle plugin, with testing using detekt-test library, but not deployed due to overhead.
- Conclusion recommends ktlint for formatting and auto-fix due to low maintenance; detekt suits targeted needs like custom rules, but added tool cost may outweigh benefits.
20 Years on AWS and Never Not My Job
3 hours ago
- The author created their first AWS account in 2006, initially interested in Amazon S3, but the account had SQS and E-Commerce Service enabled.
- Early concerns focused on security, such as lacking response signatures in AWS and advocating for end-to-end signing.
- They pushed for FreeBSD on EC2, requiring a custom kernel feature, and later contributed to making FreeBSD available on t1.micro instances.
- Security feedback included auditing Xen vulnerabilities and improving EC2 instance security features like read-only root disks.
- Proposed the concept of Eventually Known Consistency as an improvement over Eventual Consistency in S3.
- Reported security issues in AWS services, such as signature collisions in SimpleDB and insecure NextToken values.
- Engaged with AWS on access key security, advocating for constrained keys, which influenced IAM and SigV4.
- Identified and reported infrastructure issues like router hardware failures and firewall problems affecting Path MTU Discovery.
- Highlighted risks of IAM Roles for EC2 via IMDS, leading to IMDSv2 after the Capital One breach.
- Contributed to AWS Heroes program and received sponsorship for FreeBSD/EC2 work after becoming FreeBSD Release Engineering Lead.
- Continued to provide security feedback, including on Seekable OCI, ensuring fixes were implemented.
Poll: Majority of voters say risks of AI outweigh the benefits
10 hours ago
- A majority of voters (57%) believe AI risks outweigh benefits, with only 26% holding positive views and 46% negative views.
- Most voters trust neither party on AI; 33% say neither party handles it well, and only 20% favor Republicans vs. 19% Democrats.
- Demographic divides show younger voters (18-34) and women (18-49) are most negative, while men over 50 and upper-class voters are slightly positive.
- Partisan splits reveal independents and Democrats lean negative (48% and 56% negative, respectively), while Republicans are evenly split (33% positive vs. 33% negative).
- AI's impact on jobs is a key concern, with studies showing entry-level roles and women in AI-exposed professions at higher risk, and 56% of voters have used AI recently.
Two Japanese suppliers commit to keeping Blu-ray discs and drives in supply
8 hours ago
- Japanese firms I-O Data and Verbatim Japan strengthen partnership to continue Blu-ray drive and disc supply in Japan.
- Efforts include securing components, adjusting production, and developing new products tailored to user needs, such as backup, storage, and business use.
- I-O Data's BD Reco external Blu-ray drive for Windows, launched in February, received strong response for recording TV shows and anime.
- Companies plan to improve BD Reco and their Blu-ray lineup despite declining demand in some areas due to streaming and cloud storage.
- Blu-ray remains relevant for physical media like PlayStation 5 and Xbox games, offering comfort to anime fans in Japan who use recorders for personal libraries.

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A Secret Grand Jury Is Seeking the Identity of a Reddit User Who Criticized ICE
2 hours ago
- Federal prosecutors are using a secret grand jury to seek the identity of a Reddit user who criticized ICE, with unclear illegal activity cited.
- ICE initially issued an administrative subpoena for user data, claiming authority under the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, but it was withdrawn after legal challenge.
- The Reddit user's comments included publicly available information about an ICE officer, potentially labeled as doxxing, raising First Amendment concerns.
- Reddit's statement emphasizes privacy but leaves ambiguity on compliance, noting they provide minimal data when legally compelled and notify users.
- Experts warn the case could set a precedent to chill free speech online, as the government targets social media critics through secretive legal processes.
Maki – the efficient coder (AI agent)
9 hours ago
- Parses 15 languages into skeletons to reduce token usage, saving 165 tokens per turn on reads.
- Features a sandboxed Python interpreter with async tools for efficient data processing without cluttering context.
- Includes subagents with varying strengths (weak, medium, strong) and access levels, optimized for different tasks.
- Automatically compacts history to manage long context by stripping unnecessary elements like images and thinking blocks.
- Offers a native binary with performance optimizations like SIMD and background syntax highlighting for smooth user experience.
- Displays real-time information like token count, cost, and model in the status bar, with multiple subagent chat windows.
- Supports bash command parsing with tree-sitter for security, allowing per-tool rules or bypass with --yolo.
- Provides long-term memory across sessions, plan mode for read-only access, and MCP server integration with 26 themes.
- Uses indexing to parse file structures and read only needed lines, improving efficiency by avoiding full file reads.
- Enables sandboxed code execution via async Python functions, where only print output enters the context for clarity.
We gave an AI a 3-year Lease. It opened a store
8 hours ago
- Andon Labs created Luna, an AI managing Andon Market, a retail store in San Francisco, handling hiring, branding, and operations.
- Luna hired human employees for physical tasks, using gig workers for setup and full-time staff for daily operations, while sometimes not disclosing she is an AI during interviews.
- The experiment aims to study AI autonomy and ethics, highlighting concerns about AI employers and the need for transparency and guardrails in AI-human interactions.
Bringing Rust to the Pixel Baseband
6 hours ago
- Google has enhanced security on Pixel 9 by mitigating memory-safety vulnerabilities in the modem firmware.
- For Pixel 10, Google integrated a memory-safe Rust DNS parser into the modem firmware to reduce security risks.
- The modem firmware faces increasing threats; e.g., Project Zero achieved remote code execution on Pixel modems.
- DNS is critical for cellular operations and, if implemented unsafely, can lead to vulnerabilities like CVE-2024-27227.
- Hickory-proto was chosen as the Rust DNS library due to its maintenance, test coverage, and community adoption.
- no_std support was added to hickory-proto for bare-metal environments, benefiting other projects.
- Code size from hickory-proto is not optimized for embedded use but was acceptable due to Pixel's memory constraints.
- Rust integration involved defining unit tests and using rustc with Pigweed for build system scalability.
- Allocator and panic handler were implemented via FFI to integrate with existing C/C++ modem firmware.
- Linking Rust code required extracting object files and resolving weak symbol issues with compiler_builtin.
- A Rust function process_dns_response was created to parse DNS responses and call back to C functions.
- Cargo-gnaw was used to generate GN build rules for managing dependencies, ensuring correctness and maintenance ease.
- This project establishes a foundation for future memory-safe code integration in cellular basebands.
We Only Learn from Error
5 hours ago
- The text discusses the training of a vision-language-action model to follow faces, initially struggling with high error due to limited exposure to corrective scenarios in training data.
- A behavioral cloning approach was used, where the model imitated an oracle that tracked and adjusted to faces, but the dataset was skewed towards frames where the oracle had already corrected to the center.
- To address the issue, periodic disturbances were introduced, teleporting the face target to increase high-error samples, which significantly improved the model's accuracy, reducing average error from 20 to under 5 degrees.
AI Code Is Hollowing Out Open Source, and Maintainers Are Looking the Other Way
8 hours ago
- AI-generated code, like output from LLMs such as Claude and ChatGPT, is uncopyrightable in the U.S., placing it in the public domain.
- Integrating uncopyrightable LLM outputs into copyleft-licensed open source projects undermines the license's reciprocity requirement, allowing the code to be used in closed-source projects without attribution.
- The case of 'chardet' illustrates controversy, where a maintainer attempted to relicense from LGPL to MIT using AI-generated code, sparking debate over clean-room implementation and contributor rights.
- LLM contributions can hollow out copyleft projects by making license terms unenforceable for AI-generated parts, potentially devaluing human contributions and discouraging future sharing.
- The parody 'Malus' highlights ethical concerns, showing how AI can be used to bypass open source licenses, which may harm the incentive structure of open source communities.
We're heading for an AI-fueled 'dementia crisis,' brain scientist warns
5 hours ago
- AI use may increase dementia risk by reducing brain activity linked to cognitive engagement.
- Overreliance on AI can weaken curiosity, attention, reasoning, and metacognition.
- GPS use offers a parallel, but AI offloads more cognitive functions, potentially leading to a dementia crisis.
- Warning signs of AI dependence include needing AI to start tasks and inability to reconstruct arguments.
- Using AI as an 'adversarial collaborator' can help preserve cognitive reserve.
[STORY] Watching Abandoned Toddlers as the End Approaches
7 hours ago
- The daycare worker stays alone with toddlers as the end of the world approaches, after all other staff and most children have left.
- Parents are not showing up; some tried to contact but can't get through, and one parent gave money as a gesture before leaving.
- The worker focuses on keeping the young children (ages 2-4) calm and occupied, avoiding explanations due to their age.
- Isolation intensifies as communication fails (blocked family texts, busy signals to emergency services), and the worker awaits the inevitable while caring for the children.
Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part I: Finding Carthaginians
9 hours ago
- Carthage was the second greatest military power in the Mediterranean, only eclipsed by Rome, and is the only power to seriously challenge Rome on an even footing after Rome's conquest of Italy.
- Carthage's army was complex and multi-ethnic, drawing forces from across the western Mediterranean, with its peak mobilization during the Second Punic War reaching around 165,000 men in 215.
- The Carthaginian military system evolved over time, from the 5th century through the Punic Wars, with forces varying by period: early armies included citizen soldiers, later ones relied more on mercenaries and subjects.
- Despite Polybius's claim that Carthage used mostly mercenaries, citizen soldiers continued to fight, especially in North Africa, and were effective, as seen in the Mercenary War and at the Battle of Zama.
- Carthaginian citizen soldiers likely fought as heavy infantry similar to Greek hoplites, using large shields, spears, and armor, with possible later adoption of Italic equipment.
- The structure of Carthage's armies included diverse components: African and Iberian infantry, Gallic troops, Numidian and Iberian cavalry, and specialized units like Balearian slingers.
- Historical sources on Carthage are biased, primarily from Greek and Roman perspectives, which may exaggerate Carthaginian losses and underestimate their military capabilities and citizen participation.
- Carthage's military history spans centuries of conflicts, mainly with Syracuse over Sicily and later with Rome, leading to the Punic Wars, which ended with Carthage's destruction in 146 BC.
The Relationship Between Two People Is Not Located in Either Person
3 hours ago
- The text appears to be interface navigation or menu items for a web application or platform.
- It includes sections such as Home, Subscriptions, Chat, Activity, Explore, Profile, and Create.
- There is a promotional line describing it as 'The app for independent voices' with options to Get started or Learn more.
- A 'For you' section is mentioned along with an instruction to Get the app.
- The text ends with a technical note requiring JavaScript to run correctly, advising users to turn it on or unblock scripts.
The Seasons Are Wrong
5 hours ago
- The traditional calendar—with solstices and equinoxes marking season starts—is flawed because summer begins when days shorten, and winter begins when days lengthen.
- Culturally, seasons should align with extremes and transitions: summer as the hottest/longest-day period, winter as the coldest/shortest-day period, and spring/fall as transitions.
- A revised calendar proposes season starts at midpoints between equinoxes and solstices, placing summer solstice at midsummer and winter solstice at midwinter.
- New proposed season starts: Summer on May 7, Fall on August 9, Winter on November 6, and Spring on February 21.
- This perspective is not universal; many cultures, including European, Iranian, and ancient Roman traditions, view solstices as mid-season points.
Productive Procrastination
4 hours ago
- The author discusses 'productive procrastination,' where they engage in productive tasks but avoid the main work they need to do, such as finishing older videos.
- Procrastination is explained as a brain conflict between the limbic system (handling emotions like fear) and the prefrontal cortex (for planning and control), with the brain avoiding tasks that trigger negative emotions.
- Novelty plays a role in motivation, as the brain's reward system responds positively to new stimuli, making new projects more appealing than older ones, supported by the author's data on video editing productivity.
- Psychological concepts like moral licensing (using past productivity to justify avoidance), the Zeigarnik Effect (unfinished tasks cause mental tension), and completion bias (preferring easy tasks) contribute to procrastination and guilt.
- Solutions suggested include making old tasks feel new, using affect labeling to manage emotions, forgiving oneself to reduce guilt, and establishing habits to start tasks more easily.
Great at gaming? US air traffic control wants you to apply
4 hours ago
- The FAA is launching an ad campaign targeting gamers to apply for air traffic controller jobs, emphasizing skills from gaming.
- The campaign highlights a salary of $155,000 after three years and uses gaming imagery to appeal to young adults.
- There is a significant shortage of air traffic controllers, with projections indicating growing vacancies in coming years.
- The job requires quick decision-making under pressure and technical expertise to ensure aircraft safety.
- Union officials support recruiting gamers but stress the need to maintain rigorous safety standards in the profession.
ESA Launches 7 New Missions to Supercharge Space Data Transfer
12 hours ago
- Space is becoming increasingly crowded with satellites and the data they generate, requiring new approaches to data transfer.
- The European Space Agency (ESA) launched eight CubeSats and a payload on SpaceX's Transporter-16 mission in March 2026 to test laser communication, inter-satellite networking, and in-orbit AI processing.
- Five CubeSats from Greece's Connectivity Programme aim to enhance optical capabilities, with missions like OptiSat and PeakSat focusing on secure laser links and improved space-to-ground communications.
- The ERMIS Constellation satellites test various technologies, including 5G for IoT and laser terminals for downloading hyperspectral Earth observation images.
- Three Pioneer Partnership Project CubeSats, such as Mission Saas and Mission VIREON, focus on de-risking optical links and providing cost-effective, high-resolution Earth observation data.
- An additional payload by Belgian company EDGX demonstrates 'edge computing' in space using AI to reduce data bandwidth needs, aligning with SpaceX's goal of orbital AI data centers.
- These missions represent a shift towards optical communication and in-orbit data processing to support future planet-wide internet, despite challenges like orbital debris and light pollution.
Beyond Copy-and-Paste: How Game Studios Are Reorganizing Around AI (Research)
12 hours ago
- The gaming industry initially adopted AI through individual 'copy-and-paste' methods, providing tools without training, leading to personal productivity gains but leaving organizational structures unchanged.
- Top-down attempts to automate workflows stalled due to the challenge of extracting tacit knowledge—unwritten rules and institutional memory—and employee reluctance.
- Progress emerged when individuals used AI to cross domain boundaries, such as product managers writing queries or engineers creating art, reducing failure rates and accumulating shared context.
- AI-first studios, designed from the ground up with AI, used markdown documents and small generalist teams to compress development cycles from months to weeks, achieving pipeline collapse with 4–20x speed improvements.
- AI excels at generating code, graphics, and documentation but cannot replace human activities like strategic planning, team alignment, and culture-building, which require collaboration and shared understanding.
- Key challenges include the bottleneck of tacit knowledge, the need for cross-team workflows, and the fact that AI solves production but not distribution, as audience discovery remains a constraint with AI-scale content volume.
Enforcing new limits and retiring Opus 4.6 Fast from Copilot Pro+
6 hours ago
- GitHub Copilot is updating limits due to high usage patterns, affecting service reliability and model capacity, to ensure a fast, reliable experience for all users.
- Two types of limits will be rolled out: overall service reliability limits (requiring wait time) and specific model family limits (allowing switching to alternative models or using Auto mode).
- Users are advised to distribute requests evenly over time and consider upgrading plans for higher limits, with ongoing efforts to explore increased capacity.
- Opus 4.6 Fast is being retired for Copilot Pro+ users to streamline offerings and improve reliability, with Opus 4.6 recommended as an alternative model.
Static code analysis in Kotlin – tools overview
4 days ago
- Static code analysis examines Kotlin source code without execution, using AST and PSI from the Kotlin compiler, to identify bugs, style violations, and quality issues via visitor pattern rules.
- Three tools evaluated: detekt (code smells, 200+ rules, YAML config, extensible), diktat (strict Kotlin conventions, noisy defaults, complex config), and ktlint (lightweight formatter, auto-fix, minimal config).
- Evaluation metrics included config shareability, method ordering by visibility, build time impact, capabilities beyond ktlint, and ease of rule configuration; none support method ordering out of the box.
- Custom detekt rule created for visibility-based method ordering (public > protected > internal > private) via a Gradle plugin, with testing using detekt-test library, but not deployed due to overhead.
- Conclusion recommends ktlint for formatting and auto-fix due to low maintenance; detekt suits targeted needs like custom rules, but added tool cost may outweigh benefits.
20 Years on AWS and Never Not My Job
3 hours ago
- The author created their first AWS account in 2006, initially interested in Amazon S3, but the account had SQS and E-Commerce Service enabled.
- Early concerns focused on security, such as lacking response signatures in AWS and advocating for end-to-end signing.
- They pushed for FreeBSD on EC2, requiring a custom kernel feature, and later contributed to making FreeBSD available on t1.micro instances.
- Security feedback included auditing Xen vulnerabilities and improving EC2 instance security features like read-only root disks.
- Proposed the concept of Eventually Known Consistency as an improvement over Eventual Consistency in S3.
- Reported security issues in AWS services, such as signature collisions in SimpleDB and insecure NextToken values.
- Engaged with AWS on access key security, advocating for constrained keys, which influenced IAM and SigV4.
- Identified and reported infrastructure issues like router hardware failures and firewall problems affecting Path MTU Discovery.
- Highlighted risks of IAM Roles for EC2 via IMDS, leading to IMDSv2 after the Capital One breach.
- Contributed to AWS Heroes program and received sponsorship for FreeBSD/EC2 work after becoming FreeBSD Release Engineering Lead.
- Continued to provide security feedback, including on Seekable OCI, ensuring fixes were implemented.
Poll: Majority of voters say risks of AI outweigh the benefits
10 hours ago
- A majority of voters (57%) believe AI risks outweigh benefits, with only 26% holding positive views and 46% negative views.
- Most voters trust neither party on AI; 33% say neither party handles it well, and only 20% favor Republicans vs. 19% Democrats.
- Demographic divides show younger voters (18-34) and women (18-49) are most negative, while men over 50 and upper-class voters are slightly positive.
- Partisan splits reveal independents and Democrats lean negative (48% and 56% negative, respectively), while Republicans are evenly split (33% positive vs. 33% negative).
- AI's impact on jobs is a key concern, with studies showing entry-level roles and women in AI-exposed professions at higher risk, and 56% of voters have used AI recently.
Two Japanese suppliers commit to keeping Blu-ray discs and drives in supply
8 hours ago
- Japanese firms I-O Data and Verbatim Japan strengthen partnership to continue Blu-ray drive and disc supply in Japan.
- Efforts include securing components, adjusting production, and developing new products tailored to user needs, such as backup, storage, and business use.
- I-O Data's BD Reco external Blu-ray drive for Windows, launched in February, received strong response for recording TV shows and anime.
- Companies plan to improve BD Reco and their Blu-ray lineup despite declining demand in some areas due to streaming and cloud storage.
- Blu-ray remains relevant for physical media like PlayStation 5 and Xbox games, offering comfort to anime fans in Japan who use recorders for personal libraries.

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