The Case Against Formal Verification, 50 Years Later

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Engineers are excited about software verification due to AI coding, making it faster and easier. Classic papers argue against formal verification, but recent developments invalidate their points.

A 3rd World Embedded Engineer Responds to "RISC-V They Should Have Known Better"

The author criticizes Dmitry Grinberg's article on RISC-V, arguing that his criticism of the architecture is biased and misses the point. The author claims that RISC-V's openness and low cost make it accessible to developers in developing countries, allowing them to create their own projects without relying on expensive tools or licenses.

Claude: System Prompts

https://platform.claude.com/docs/og?locale=en&path=release-notes/system-prompts&design-rev=1
Claude's web interface and mobile apps use a system prompt to provide information, including the current date, at the start of conversations. The prompt is updated periodically to improve Claude's responses, but not for the Claude API.

Protobuf has LSP support. You're welcome

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Buf releases the Buf LSP server, providing modern IDE support for Protobuf development. The new implementation is faster and more flexible than protoc, enabling incremental compilation and better diagnostics.

SIMD in the 90s: Programming Intel's Pentium MMX

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Intel's MMX technology was introduced in 1997, allowing for single instruction, multiple data processing on x86 CPUs. It enabled significant speedups in multimedia software and paved the way for modern SIMD architectures like AVX-512 and GPUs with thousands of cores.

The AI Credit Resale Economy

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Token brokers buy unused credits from startups and resell them, offering discounts to attract buyers. This market is growing rapidly, with tens of millions of credits being offered across various sites and forums.

Low-Tech Ceramic Water Filter

The ceramic water filter, developed in 1981 by Dr. Fernando Mazariegos, uses clay and combustible materials to remove pathogens and contaminants from water, with colloidal silver added for antibacterial properties. The filter can be produced locally using a hydraulic press and finishing process, requiring training and equipment to manufacture at scale.

Models Are Getting Dumber on Purpose

Large language models are getting smarter per parameter, but this comes at the cost of factual knowledge, which is often outdated and prone to hallucination. By decoupling reasoning from knowledge, frontier models can provide high-quality answers without relying on stale facts.

MathCode, Mathematical Coding Agent

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MathCode is a terminal AI coding assistant that converts plain language math problems into Lean 4 theorems and attempts formal proofs. It features various tools for efficient proof-solving, including a persistent Lean REPL and theorem libraries.

St Lucie Nuclear Reactor Unit 1 manually shutdown, 3 control rods drop into core

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The Saint Lucie Nuclear Power Plant Unit 1 was manually shut down after 3 control rods dropped into the reactor core. The event, classified as a non-emergency by the NRC, had all systems responding normally post-trip.

Clamiga: Common Lisp for the Amiga

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CL-Amiga, a Common Lisp implementation for the Amiga family, is built to run on m68k and PPC architectures. It has a self-contained bytecode VM with no external runtime dependencies and supports various features like object system, condition system, macros, and interactive development style.

Anton Chekhov played at love most of his life

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A favorite professor taught Anton Chekhov's short stories as models of writerly virtues, emphasizing his life and work. Chekhov's personal life was marked by a mix of romantic relationships, including with actress Olga Knipper, whom he married at 41 and died from tuberculosis at 44.

Plastic mechanical computer from 1963: The Digi-Comp 1 [video]

Firefox for iOS now has a native adblocker

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NIH is ending a key grant for budding clinical researchers

Tell HN: Cloudflare silently injects its analytics when you switch nameservers

You recently switched to Cloudflare's nameservers, which silently added a JS analytics snippet to your site. This approach is invasive and should opt-in instead of opt-out for users' consent.

In the Shadow of the (Berlin) Wall

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Thalia Gigerenzer meets a Treptow family who were literally hemmed in by the Berlin Wall… At first glance, Bouchéstraße seems almost identical to any other street in this sleepy, residential area on the border of Treptow and Neukölln. Tall trees line the street on both sides, and the parade of five-story apartment blocks is interrupted briefly by a boxy, bright yellow Edeka that squats in a ...

Before Rightmove, there was the Cosmorama

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Researchers found that a London estate agency used an early form of virtual property tour, called cosmorama, in the 1840s and 1850s to promote luxury homes. This technique allowed customers to view specially commissioned images through convex lenses, creating an immersive experience decades before digital technology.

Archie G. Norcross' Maine Forest Fire Maps (1918–22)

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Jack Kerouac worked as a fire lookout in the North Cascade Mountains from 1956 to 1957, seeking an ascetic experience. He kept panoramic maps of his surroundings, which were drawn by civil engineer Archie G. Norcross for the Maine Fire District between 1918 and 1923.

Stripe Clinches over $7B Deal to Buy AI Firm OpenRouter

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The weekend is 100 years old

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The concept of the weekend has evolved over 100 years, from its origins in Henry Ford's five-day workweek to modern debates about a four-day week. The weekend is now seen as a time for rest and leisure, but also for socializing and pursuing passions.

Tasklet (YC P26) Is Hiring a Head of Design Engineering

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Tasklet is hiring a Head of Design Engineering to create a simple, intuitive, and beautiful AI platform for businesses. The ideal candidate will be an exceptional product thinker, designer, and frontend engineer who can own the design process end-to-end.

A True Telnet BBS on a Casio Calculator

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The author, a hobbyist, has developed software for Casio Pocket Computer calculators and created a Bulletin Board Service (BBS) hosted on one of the devices. The BBS allows users to connect via telnet and log amateur radio contacts using the calculator's programming capabilities.

Chestnut – eGPU dock with open-source firmware

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Comma.ai's Chestnut eGPU dock allows users to read and modify its firmware, a first for the industry. The $249-$799 dock enables more powerful driving models in cars, with some versions reaching 100W of power similar to Tesla's HW4.

The deep history behind the Road to Nowhere inside the Great Smoky Mountains

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The Road to Nowhere is a mysterious tunnel in western North Carolina with a history of displacement and environmental concerns. Locals visit the tunnel as part of their connection to ancestral lands and communities affected by the construction of Fontana Dam.

Asus Bike Booster

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Follow the user manual for safe and proper use of the ASUS Oxiis E250G1. Failure to comply with instructions may result in damage to the product or others, and voids warranty.

ICE Shot a Journalist and Threw Him in Detention. He's Approaching 300 Days

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A journalist, Carlitos Ricardo Parias, has spent over 300 days in ICE detention after being shot and detained by federal immigration agents. He was investigating an immigration raid when he was attacked and injured.

A SAT Attack on Tarski's High School Algebra Problem

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A countermodel to Tarski's identity exists with 11 elements, but no smaller models satisfy it. The smallest possible countermodels are of size 12, and there are exactly 8,957,952 such models up to isomorphism.

Research papers using "kidney disappointment" instead of "kidney failure"

Researchers studied persistent kidney disappointment using the UCI dataset, exploring its causes and outcomes. Kidney failure can lead to various health issues, including heart problems, bone diseases, and increased potassium levels.

The Trumps' Crypto Project Just Got One Step Closer to Becoming a Bank

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The Trump family's crypto business, World Liberty Financial, has received conditional approval to operate like a bank from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. This move is seen as an example of President Trump's corruption by Democratic lawmakers.