Solarpunk is happening in Africa

478 JoiDegn 2025-11-05 20:02:07 UTC climatedrift.substack.com Llama Share 238

Africa is witnessing the most ambitious infrastructure project in human history, with startups selling solar panels to farmers on payment plans, resulting in over 30 million solar products sold in 2024 and 400,000 new solar installations every month. This model, enabled by mobile money and carbon credits, is creating a template for building infrastructure in the 21st century, with the ...

Photos: New Phoenix Microcenter is a 'tech-heaven' for geeks

30 tortilla 2025-11-06 00:02:07 UTC phoenixnewtimes.com Llama Share 32

Hundreds of people lined up outside the new Micro Center Phoenix store for its VIP access day, with employees expecting even bigger numbers for the grand opening on Friday. The store features over 20,000 items, including PC components, gaming gear, and 3D printing supplies.

Dillo, a multi-platform graphical web browser

215 nazgulsenpai 2025-11-05 19:02:07 UTC github.com/dillo-browser Llama Share 78

Dillo is a fast, secure, and private graphical web browser with a small footprint. It uses the FLTK 1.3 GUI toolkit and accepts additional patches or pull requests.

ChatGPT terms disallow its use in providing legal and medical advice to others

191 randycupertino 2025-11-05 19:02:07 UTC ctvnews.ca Full Share 189

OpenAI dispelled suggestions that it’s changing its terms around legal and medical advice.

New gel restores dental enamel and could revolutionise tooth repair

294 CGMthrowaway 2025-11-05 20:02:07 UTC nottingham.ac.uk Llama Share 134

Scientists at the University of Nottingham have developed a gel that can repair and regenerate tooth enamel, a major contributor to tooth decay affecting almost 50% of the world's population. The gel, which mimics natural proteins, can be applied to teeth and promotes the growth of new mineral, recovering the structure and properties of natural healthy enamel.

The state of SIMD in Rust in 2025

144 ashvardanian 2025-11-05 19:02:07 UTC shnatsel.medium.com Llama Share 79

SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) is a technique to speed up arithmetic operations by processing multiple data in parallel, but it has limitations and drawbacks such as instruction decoding bottleneck and complexity limits. Various Rust crates like std::simd, wide, pulp, and macerator provide portable SIMD abstraction to help developers use SIMD without worrying about platform-specific details.

Firefox profiles: Private, focused spaces for all the ways you browse

98 darkwater 2025-11-05 19:02:07 UTC blog.mozilla.org Llama Share 44

Firefox introduces a new profile management feature to keep work, school, and personal life separate with distinct spaces for bookmarks, logins, and more. This feature prioritizes privacy and accessibility, allowing users to set boundaries and protect their information.

Why aren't smart people happier?

165 zdw 2025-11-05 17:02:07 UTC theseedsofscience.pub Llama Share 286

Author Adam Mastroianni argues that traditional intelligence tests only measure the ability to solve well-defined problems, not the ability to solve poorly defined problems like living a happy life. He suggests that we should value and recognize the skill of solving poorly defined problems, which is often associated with wisdom and is essential for living a good life.

The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity (1987) [pdf]

18 bookofjoe 2025-11-05 23:02:07 UTC gandalf.fee.urv.cat Llama Share 5

The author argues that a constant fraction of people, denoted as å, are stupid and this fraction is determined by nature, not nurture. The author also proposes four basic categories of human behavior: intelligent, helpless, bandit, and stupid.

Ruby and Its Neighbors: Smalltalk

164 jrochkind1 2025-11-05 16:02:07 UTC noelrappin.com Llama Share 94

Smalltalk, a programming language developed at Xerox PARC, had a significant influence on Ruby's object model, where every piece of data is an object and interactions are managed through method calls. Ruby's syntax and style, particularly its emphasis on creating new classes and objects, were shaped by the author's experience with Smalltalk, which encouraged a more agile and object-oriented ...

A Lost IBM PC/at Model? Analyzing a Newfound Old Bios

55 TMWNN 2025-11-05 21:02:07 UTC int10h.org GoogleT5 Share 9

'rev. 1.5's odd/even pair is a ps/2 bios, says bob greene. the '25/05/90' odd byte is clearly not one of them: its date stamps and part numbers don't match, he says. if this is the case, it may not be compatible with the newer pc/at boards - oh, and it doesn' t work with

The Last Literary Lion of New York, Gay Talese

6 B1FF_PSUVM 2025-11-06 00:02:07 UTC metropolitanreview.org Prefix Share 0

It is the rarest of gifts to have lived long enough to survey both a life and a century in its greatest breadth; even rarer still to be both an active participant and shaper of the currents, to have walked alongside the titans of the age and brought them, somehow, to fuller life. This is the shorthand for understanding Gay Talese, and it’s nearly correct: Frank Sinatra and Joe DiMaggio, in ...

Unicode Footguns in Python

18 meander_water 2025-11-05 22:02:07 UTC pythonkoans.substack.com Llama Share 6

The user discusses the importance of understanding the difference between visual and machine-readable text, specifically in the context of Unicode and canonical equivalence. Normalizing text to a standard form, such as NFC, can help ensure accurate comparison and counting of visual characters, but may not always account for invisible control characters or complex scripts.

The shadows lurking in the equations

248 calebm 2025-11-05 15:02:07 UTC gods.art Llama Share 81

FuzzyGraph visualizes equations in non-binary mode, showing areas of high and low error. This reveals hidden features like black holes and underwater islands that are invisible in conventional graphing.

Timing Wheels

22 pncnmnp 2025-11-05 22:02:07 UTC pncnmnp.github.io Llama Share 0

The blog post discusses the evolution of timekeeping from ancient hourglasses and water clocks to modern quartz clocks and their use in computers, highlighting the importance of timers in managing time intervals and scheduling tasks. It also explores software timer modules, including timing wheels, which are used to efficiently manage timer events over a specified period, and discusses their ...

An eBPF Loophole: Using XDP for Egress Traffic

197 loopholelabs 2025-11-05 13:02:07 UTC loopholelabs.io Llama Share 67

Researchers at Loophole Labs discovered a way to use XDP for egress traffic by exploiting veth interfaces, achieving 10x better performance than current solutions. This breakthrough enables line-rate packet processing for container networking, live migration, and other applications without modifying the kernel or infrastructure.

NY smartphone ban has made lunch loud again

196 hrldcpr 2025-11-05 14:02:07 UTC gothamist.com Llama Share 146

Benjamin N. Cardozo High School in Queens implemented a smartphone ban, resulting in a more engaging and interactive school environment. Students are now more focused on socializing and learning, with teachers reporting improved productivity and student interaction.

I want a good parallel language [video]

53 raphlinus 2025-11-05 19:02:07 UTC youtube.com Embed Share 32

Carice TC2 – A non-digital electric car

177 RubenvanE 2025-11-05 15:02:07 UTC caricecars.com Llama Share 134

The Carice TC2 is a lightweight, fully electric car with no emissions, offering a dynamic and comfortable driving experience. It combines 21st-century technology with classic car looks, delivering a unique driving experience.

Vacuum bricked after user blocks data collection – user mods it to run anyway

150 toomanyrichies 2025-11-05 09:02:07 UTC tomshardware.com Llama Share 37

An engineer discovered his iLife A11 smart vacuum was sending logs and telemetry data to the manufacturer without consent. The device was remotely bricked after he blocked its data collection capabilities, revealing a security nightmare and potential for manufacturer control.

I was right about dishwasher pods and now I can prove it [video]

261 hnaccount_rng 2025-11-05 01:02:07 UTC youtube.com Embed Share 138

Absurd Workflows: Durable Execution with Just Postgres

84 ingve 2025-11-05 12:02:07 UTC lucumr.pocoo.org Llama Share 19

The author built Absurd, a SQL-only library for durable workflows on top of Postgres, to simplify complex systems. Absurd enables long-lived, reliable functions that survive crashes and network failures by combining a queue system and state store.

A P2P Vision for QUIC (2024)

85 mooreds 2025-11-05 15:02:07 UTC seemann.io Llama Share 38

The IETF has standardized numerous protocols for establishing IP packet flows through NATs and firewalls, including STUN, ICE, and TURN, but traditional approaches have limitations and shortcomings. QUIC can be leveraged to provide a comprehensive solution for NAT traversal, encompassing address discovery, UDP proxying, and hole punching, potentially simplifying and improving upon traditional ...

Optimism associated with exceptional longevity (2019)

84 RickJWagner 2025-11-05 14:02:07 UTC pnas.org Llama Share 64

Higher optimism levels were associated with longer life span and greater likelihood of achieving exceptional longevity in both men and women. Optimism was linked to 8.7-14.9% longer life span and 1.2-1.7 times greater odds of surviving to age 85.

Apple App Store frontend source code archive

170 redbell 2025-11-05 01:02:07 UTC github.com/rxliuli Llama Share 29

Repository disabled due to DMCA takedown notice, owner can file counter notice to reinstate. Consult a lawyer for process and risks.

SPy: An interpreter and compiler for a fast statically typed variant of Python

230 og_kalu 2025-11-05 07:02:07 UTC antocuni.eu Llama Share 107

SPy is a statically typed variant of Python with a focus on performance, aiming to provide a balance between static typing and dynamic features, and is not a compiler for Python but rather a separate language with its own features and limitations. SPy aims to solve the issues of existing Python compilers by formalizing the limitations of subsets of Python and adding novel features that are ...

Learning from failure to tackle hard problems

95 djoldman 2025-11-05 14:02:07 UTC blog.ml.cmu.edu Llama Share 22

Researchers developed BaNEL, an algorithm that post-trains generative models using failed attempts only, minimizing reward evaluations. BaNEL improves success rates by learning patterns in failures and using a separate generative model to filter out similar attempts.

Norway reviews cybersecurity after remote-access feature found in Chinese buses

315 dredmorbius 2025-11-05 17:02:07 UTC scandasia.com Llama Share 174

Norway's Ruter discovered hidden SIM cards in Chinese-made electric buses allowing potential remote access. Ruter removed the SIM cards and strengthened security measures to ensure local control over transport operations.

Internet Archive's legal fights are over, but its founder mourns what was lost

130 thinkcontext 2025-11-05 19:02:07 UTC arstechnica.com Llama Share 83

The Internet Archive has archived its trillionth webpage and was recently designated a federal depository library, but it faces ongoing copyright battles and lawsuits. The Archive's founder, Brewster Kahle, is pushing forward with new ideas despite the challenges.

Microsoft and Google overstate job creation at Chile data centers

35 ohjeez 2025-11-05 23:02:07 UTC restofworld.org Llama Share 14

Chile's data centers, touted as job creators, directly hire fewer than 1,500 full-time employees. Most positions are in security and cleaning, not skilled IT jobs.