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Otary – Image and Geometry Python Library Now Has Tutorials
3 days ago
- Provides examples of using Otary for understanding its functionality.
- Covers topics like image cropping, linear entities, scoring, area computation, geometric intersections, and OCR.
- Aims to inspire exploration and practical application rather than serve as a complete reference.
Vermont becomes first US state to ban paraquat herbicide over Parkinson's fears
5 hours ago
- Vermont is the first U.S. state to ban the weedkiller paraquat due to research linking it to an increased risk of Parkinson's disease.
- The ban takes effect on November 1, with a provision allowing special permits for use on certain fruit crops until 2030, and requires annual data reporting and a state-funded study on alternatives.
- Lawmakers debated the ban, with some concerned about farmer competitiveness and the need for more research, while others emphasized established scientific risks and the need to phase out paraquat.
- Studies, including from the National Institutes of Health, link paraquat to Parkinson's, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and childhood leukemia, with internal Syngenta files showing efforts to downplay these risks.
- Syngenta, the key maker, denies a credible link to Parkinson's but has settled lawsuits and announced in April it will stop making and selling paraquat products, though generic versions remain available.
- Parkinson's cases have more than doubled in 25 years, and advocacy groups like the Michael J. Fox Foundation are pushing for broader bans, urging other states and the federal government to follow Vermont's lead.
Most people suck at traveling: 9 principles to travel well
18 hours ago
- Travel principles emphasize maximizing new experiences and serendipity by avoiding over-planning and tourist traps.
- Go to less frequented places or popular spots in the off-season to be interesting to locals and avoid disingenuous interactions.
- Travel cheaply to enhance experiences, using budget accommodations like hostels or couch surfing, and prioritize destinations with high purchasing power.
- Avoid distractions like travel romances or hookups; focus on exploring and making genuine connections.
- Accept that travel involves bad days, loneliness, and stress, which can build socialization skills and resilience.
- Create a mission or goal for your trip to add structure and attract others to join your adventures.
- Find travel companions, preferably locals, or meet people in hostels to enrich your journey and overcome loneliness.
- If your hostel is dull, visit others to meet new people and join in on the fun without hesitation.
- Feel free to part ways with travel buddies when needed, and don't pressure yourself to maintain long-term connections.
- Wrangle groups for activities to enhance fun, such as organizing wine hikes or boat trips with fellow travelers.
AI developers are buying up old books in Germany in large numbers
14 hours ago
- German booksellers report a surge in demand, with orders sometimes matching annual revenue, facilitated by Zoom Books.
- High demand for scientific/academic literature, regional history, linguistics, economics, and law books, especially with historical linguistic features for AI training.
- Interest increased as AI developers exhaust public online texts; Anthropic's Panama project involved cutting book covers to digitize, destroying physical copies.
- Booksellers fear this practice spreading to Europe, comparing it to a gold rush and raising copyright and cultural heritage concerns.
- Legal controversy exists; U.S. companies may use 'fair use' to copy copyrighted works without consent, a key argument in AI training lawsuits.
- Focus on copyright-protected books from the 1970s onward, risking cultural loss, as earlier German works are already digitized.
Documentation is still in your Mum's filing cabinet
4 days ago
- Traditional documentation uses folder structures based on physical office metaphors, which may not align with how knowledge is interconnected.
- Information foraging theory suggests people follow clues rather than browsing hierarchies, leading to behaviors like searching first or asking colleagues.
- Knowledge, such as design system decisions, often spans multiple categories, but folder structures force a single location, making other paths harder.
- AI retrieval systems expose the limitation of folders by accessing information through meaning and context rather than location.
- Modern documentation should enable multiple discovery paths, like search, tagging, and cross-linking, similar to knowledge graphs or tools like Obsidian.
- Accessibility principles emphasize not relying on a single path, which applies to making documentation discoverable through various methods.
- The goal is to create connected knowledge systems that are easy for both humans and AI to navigate, moving beyond rigid hierarchies.
The vintage beauty of Soviet control rooms (2018)
5 hours ago
- A selection of vintage control rooms from the Soviet era is presented, highlighting their beauty and analog design.
- These control rooms feature large buttons and analog dials, predating the widespread use of computers and screens.
- Specifically mentioned is the Chernobyl Reactor 4 control room, with a photo credit to Cary Markerink.
- More information can be found at 'Present And Correct'.
What's the best way to do authentication in modern applications
4 hours ago
- JWTs are commonly used for authentication but storing them in localStorage makes them vulnerable to XSS attacks, as any JavaScript on the page can read localStorage.
- Using HTTP-only cookies with flags like Secure and SameSite=Lax prevents JavaScript from reading tokens, reducing the risk of token exfiltration during XSS attacks.
- CSRF attacks are a risk with cookies, but can be mitigated using CSRF tokens, SameSite attributes, and checking request headers like Origin or Sec-Fetch-Site.
- Stateless JWTs have revocation issues; server-side sessions with opaque session IDs in HTTP-only cookies allow immediate session invalidation and are more secure for single applications.
- For OAuth or third-party tokens, use a Backend for Frontend (BFF) pattern where tokens are stored server-side, and the browser only holds an HTTP-only session cookie, preventing token exposure to JavaScript.
- Refresh token rotation and reuse detection enhance security by invalidating stolen refresh tokens and forcing re-authentication.
- Device Bound Session Credentials (DBSC) bind sessions to hardware, preventing stolen cookies from being used long-term, though adoption is currently limited.
- For React applications, centralize token handling in an API wrapper to manage token refresh and prevent concurrent refresh requests from causing logout.
Show HN: Embersent – Document Tracking and Analytics
2 days ago
- Track document engagement by sending PDF, PowerPoint, or Word files with a tracked link to see who opens them, which pages they read, and when they do so.
- Receive instant notifications via email, Slack, or push alerts when a document is opened, including details on the reader, device, and specific pages viewed.
- Access per-recipient analytics with unique links for each viewer, showing engagement timelines, reading order, time per page, and drop-off points.
- Use privacy-focused tracking with no cookies, fingerprinting, or raw IP storage, compliant with GDPR and ePrivacy regulations on EU infrastructure.
- Benefit from features like forward detection, daily digests, and filters for unopened documents to optimize follow-up timing and outreach strategies.
- Serve freelancers, creators, recruiters, and consultants by providing insights into client engagement, pitch effectiveness, and candidate interest in offers.
- Choose from free and paid plans with options for 3 to unlimited tracked documents, white-labeling, custom domains, retention periods, and CRM integrations.
Stacks: Run classic HyperCard stacks on modern macOS without emulation
2 days ago
- Run HyperCard stacks directly on modern macOS without an emulator
- Browse and run stacks from the Internet Archive's collection with one-click
- Includes sound, instruments, period-accurate typography, MacinTalk speech synthesis, and cross-stack navigation
- Universal binary requiring macOS 13 (Ventura) or later
The crypto billionaires building a world where money buys you a vote
6 hours ago
- The Free Republic of Liberland is a micronation founded on disputed land between Serbia and Croatia, aiming to be a libertarian, digital country running on cryptocurrency technology.
- Liberland uses a purchasable crypto token called Liberland Merits for voting, meaning wealth directly influences political power, and it operates as a tax-free society.
- The micronation is bankrolled by crypto billionaires like Justin Sun, who see it as a prototype for replacing traditional government with blockchain-based systems.
- Justin Sun, worth $8.5bn, leads Tron blockchain and has invested in Trump's crypto business, advocating for borderless societies run by decentralized technology.
- Other tech billionaires, including Tim Draper and Peter Thiel, support similar micronation projects like Prospera and Seasteading, viewing government as inefficient and replaceable.
- Curtis Yarvin's 'Patchwork' concept proposes replacing nation-states with sovereign mini-countries owned by shareholders, using blockchain to create 'corporate monarchies'.
- The crypto lobby has become the most powerful in the U.S., contributing $238m in recent elections, pushing for a future where technology controls governance and wealth.
Meta removes AI feature on Instagram after global backlash
6 hours ago
- Meta reversed a controversial feature that automatically allowed public Instagram posts to be used for AI generation after backlash.
- Users could opt out, but the feature was on by default for public accounts, criticized as unethical and lacking meaningful consent.
- Experts and agencies, including Hollywood's CAA, condemned the move, highlighting broader concerns about nonconsensual AI use and deepfakes.
- Meta acknowledged the feedback, stating the intent was to provide a creative tool, but has now disabled the feature.
The Lindy Effect in Software
3 days ago
- The Lindy effect suggests that the longer something has existed, the longer it is expected to continue existing.
- In software, this means older technologies are often more robust and reliable than newer ones.
- Choosing established tech offers benefits like stability, mature ecosystems, predictable performance, industry acceptance, and reduced risk.
- Examples include C language and SQL, which have endured for decades and remain relevant.
- For software engineers, applying the Lindy effect involves prudent adoption, sticking to proven foundations, planning for longevity, and embracing evolutionary improvements.
Show HN: Phobos – A tiny scale-free kernel language with tile-DAG support
4 days ago
- The author developed Phobos, a tiny kernel language inspired by Triton that compiles to PTX and runs on NVIDIA GPUs.
- Phobos achieves about 76% of cuBLAS SGEMM performance on an RTX 2080 SUPER, with optimizations like tiling and tensor core usage.
- The language abstracts thread-level details, focusing on tile-level operations for AI computations, enabling natural scaling to distributed clusters.
- The project involved learning low-level GPU programming, using MLIR and LLVM with Rust, and implementing autotuning for kernel parameters.
- A cluster prototype was built for distributed tile-DAG execution, though multi-node benchmarks were not performed due to hardware limitations.
Zeal 8-Bit Computer
12 hours ago
- First release of Zeal 8-bit Video Board in April 2024, compatible with all Zeal 8-bit Computer revisions and measuring 5x10cm.
- Release v1.3.1 in December 2023 added two 2.54mm pads near power and reset switches for external component connections.
- First public release v1.1.0 in November 2022 introduced a voltage supervisory device for stable RESET and jumpers for blank signals.
- Fourth pre-final prototype in February 2022 added MMU, Real-Time Clock with battery, and a single PLD for glue logic on a 15x10cm board.
- Third prototype in December 2021 featured two PLDs and an internal 32KB I2C EEPROM on a 15x10cm hybrid form factor.
- Second prototype in June 2021 was the largest at 21x11cm, with upgraded ROM/RAM, PS/2 port, Z80 PIO, video connector, and level shifters.
- First prototype in April 2021 was a simple 10x10cm computer with Z80 CPU, 32K ROM, 128KB RAM, and 5 LEDs for feedback.
SF Farmers Market allows laundering food stamps for drug purchases
10 hours ago
- The article describes a scheme at the Heart of the City Farmers' Market where individuals, often fentanyl addicts, sell their SNAP and Market Match vouchers for cash to professional buyers, typically older Cantonese women, instead of purchasing fruits and vegetables.
- Funding for the vouchers comes from multiple sources: the USDA via CalFresh, the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program through the Ecology Center's Market Match, and intermittently from San Francisco's soda tax via the Sugary Drinks Advisory Committee, with significant amounts potentially lost to fraud.
- Despite investigations and public records requests, full redemption data remains undisclosed due to non-cooperation from involved nonprofits and agencies, while similar fraud occurs at corner grocery stores, though recent security measures have reduced overt transactions at the market.
Choosing the Right AI Agent Memory Strategy: A Decision-Tree Approach
9 hours ago
- The article explains how to choose the right memory strategy for an AI agent using a decision tree.
- It identifies four types of agent memory: working (for session continuity), semantic (for stable facts), episodic (for evolving history), and procedural (for reusable procedures).
- A five-question decision tree helps classify information needs, covering persistence beyond turns, session survival, stable vs. evolving nature, retrieval methods, and learning procedures.
- Common pitfalls include mixing memory layers, overly aggressive trimming, and storing raw logs instead of distilled lessons.
- Memory layers should be combined based on the agent's specific needs, such as using semantic memory for user preferences and episodic memory for interaction history.
Meta pulls new AI image feature after days of backlash
9 hours ago
- Meta removed a new AI image feature from Instagram after privacy backlash.
- The feature allowed users to create AI-generated content using public Instagram accounts without consent.
- Meta admitted it 'missed the mark' and disabled the feature in response to criticism.
- The backlash highlighted concerns about AI companies exploiting user data without permission.
- Meta stated the intent was creative control but acknowledged user feedback in pulling the feature.
The footgun of right-to-left decorative characters
4 days ago
- Fleurons are decorative typographic elements that have been incorporated into digital fonts via Unicode, including symbols like the Manichaean Punctuation Fleuron.
- The Manichaean fleuron () is a right-to-left (R) character, which can cause unexpected rendering issues in bidirectional text, such as rearranging adjacent numbers.
- Unicode's Bidirectional Algorithm determines text direction based on character types (strong, weak, neutral), with R-type characters taking precedence over weak types like European numbers.
- To fix rendering problems, wrap the fleuron in the <bdi> HTML tag or use the CSS style 'unicode-bidi: bidi-override;' to isolate its directionality.
- Manichaeism was a historical world religion that declined due to persecution, competition from other religions, and the collapse of supporting empires.
- The post highlights practical solutions for web developers using decorative characters in mixed-direction text environments.
UNIGRID's sodium-ion home battery debuts in Europe, US is next
9 hours ago
- Sodium-ion home battery storage is emerging as an alternative to dominant lithium-ion systems.
- UNIGRID's Na+Casa battery is being installed in Europe, with U.S. installations expected by late 2026.
- The battery offers a 25-year lifespan, matching typical rooftop solar systems.
- It eliminates thermal propagation risks for enhanced safety and operates in extreme temperatures (-40°F to 140°F).
- With 9.25 kWh capacity, it's compatible with hybrid inverters and competitively priced against lithium-ion.
- Sodium-ion advantages include abundant materials, lower cost, and avoidance of critical mineral supply chains.
- UNIGRID plans to scale production from 200 MWh/year to 2 GWh/year by 2027 via Asian partnerships.
- Sodium-ion suits stationary storage due to lower energy density, making it less ideal for EVs.
Atlassian ordered to reinstate engineer sacked over Slack clash with leadership
10 hours ago
- NLRB judge orders Atlassian to reinstate engineer Denise Unterwurzacher, fired in 2023 over confrontational Slack messages about co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes.
- The judge ruled the termination violated US labour law, as the messages constituted 'protected concerted activity' related to workplace restructuring disputes.
- Atlassian argued the comments were personal attacks, but the judge noted the company failed to discipline others for similar remarks in the same chat.

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Hasty Briefsbeta

Otary – Image and Geometry Python Library Now Has Tutorials

Vermont becomes first US state to ban paraquat herbicide over Parkinson's fears

Most people suck at traveling: 9 principles to travel well

AI developers are buying up old books in Germany in large numbers

Documentation is still in your Mum's filing cabinet

The vintage beauty of Soviet control rooms (2018)

What's the best way to do authentication in modern applications

Show HN: Embersent – Document Tracking and Analytics

Stacks: Run classic HyperCard stacks on modern macOS without emulation

The crypto billionaires building a world where money buys you a vote

Meta removes AI feature on Instagram after global backlash

The Lindy Effect in Software

Show HN: Phobos – A tiny scale-free kernel language with tile-DAG support

Zeal 8-Bit Computer

SF Farmers Market allows laundering food stamps for drug purchases

Choosing the Right AI Agent Memory Strategy: A Decision-Tree Approach

Meta pulls new AI image feature after days of backlash

The footgun of right-to-left decorative characters

UNIGRID's sodium-ion home battery debuts in Europe, US is next

Atlassian ordered to reinstate engineer sacked over Slack clash with leadership