An anticapitalist tech blog. Embrace the technology that liberates us. Smash that which does not.

A widespread Apple ID outage caused users to be logged out and forced to reset passwords on Friday evening, with no clear reason or acknowledgment from Apple's System Status. The issue, widely reported on social media, also affected 9to5Mac staff.

The article describes an SVG graphic with specific elements: a rounded rectangle, a path, a circle, and a semi-transparent smaller rectangle, all with designated colors and sizes. The graphic uses a limited color palette.

The program evolves two-wheeled shapes into cars using a genetic algorithm and Box2D physics; it features consistent tracks via seedrandom.js and mutable genetic variation. It allows pausing to view the top car but performance may vary with re-runs.

Large language models (LLMs) exceed expectations in complex tasks but fail at seemingly simple reasoning, a phenomenon the author explores by testing tasks like word grids and cellular automata predictions, revealing limitations in LLMs' ability to generalize and iterate reasoning. Despite advancements, LLMs struggle with tasks requiring dynamic context resetting and selective attention, ...

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A new product for the Atari 2600 enables creating full-length movies with 80x192 resolution and 4-bit audio at home. Each second of video requires data equivalent to 75.5 Combat cartridges.

The author describes their method of scraping millions of SERPs without buying proxies, using AWS Lambda and Headless Chrome for legitimate reasons, while avoiding more malicious activities. To evade detection by anti-bot companies, they suggest using real Android devices with diverse IPs rather than emulators or proxies.

The article celebrates Hubris's fourth anniversary, focusing on their unique system call, REPLY_FAULT, which enhances system robustness by aggressively handling IPC errors through immediate task termination, rather than error codes. Hubris's IPC behaves like a Rust function call, enforcing strict error responses that simplify the system and improve development by catching errors early.

PySheets is a browser-based Python toolkit for data science, with capabilities like Pandas, matplotlib charting, and report creation, launched in public-beta on April 27, 2024. It merges spreadsheet UI with Python coding, praised for its ease of use and interactivity.

The WorldWideWeb initiative seeks to enable access to a vast array of documents. It includes various components such as project summaries, mailing lists, and tools.

Apple is facing a shift as smartphones transition from wonder to commodity, threatening its reliance on iPhone sales in a shrinking market. Regulatory pressures and improved technology are diminishing the 'wow' factor and urgency to upgrade, posing challenges to Apple's ecosystem control.

The author announces the completion of his book "Crafting Interpreters," highlighting the extensive work put into the final product, including a new build system and page design. The physical 640-page book is available for purchase and the author reflects on the complex process from content to final print.

The Biden administration's free tax filing website, developed under budget, was well-received by users with a future renewal pending decision. The IRS spent $24.6 million on the pilot, excluding some costs, amidst criticism over transparency and potential industry impact.

The article discusses the author's use of GNU Make for efficiently managing software builds in IT projects and automating tasks like updating Postfix configurations or Python dependency management. It highlights Make's ability to streamline processes that would otherwise be more complex and error-prone.

Ángela Astudillo, an advocate for textile recycling, and a team were confronted with a massive fire at a Chilean clothes dump they planned to visit for research. Despite laws against textile disposal, the pile, fed by global fast fashion discards, had grown uncontrollably.

The author reminisces about their early crossword-solving program, rediscovered via the Wayback Machine, which still runs on a modern MacBook due to Java compatibility. They recall it being efficient in rendering solutions, coded prior to their first GitHub commit.

The article discusses various DIY projects using ESPHome, including a heat-sensitive door-opening robot, a smart AC unit, a CO2-triggered fan, and integrations with Home Assistant for household efficiency and fun. Hobbyists share their creations, from toilet occupancy indicators to VR body trackers, and plan future innovations in home automation.

An experienced developer explains that contributing to open-source should be purposeful, not just for personal gain, and juniors should integrate with projects carefully to support mutual benefit. Open-source contributions are valuable but require mindfulness to ensure they genuinely enhance the project and community.

Apple's Vision Pro headset failed to meet expectations, facing critique for being antisocial and lacking compelling use cases, leading to slashed production and sales targets. The incident challenges the narrative of tech inevitability and underscores consumer power in rejecting undesirable tech products.

Figma tackled C++ slow build times by targeting unnecessary includes, creating tools like DIWYDU and includes.py, and introducing Fwd.h files for forward declarations, cutting build times by 50%. Their approach included automated identification of superfluous headers and optimization for dev productivity.

A plane in 3D space is an infinitely extending flat surface described by point-normal and three-point forms; the article clarifies these concepts through visual aids and addresses complex geometric calculations such as finding distances and intersections.

Lyme disease risk escalates due to climate changes facilitating tick survival and expansion into new regions. Prevention methods include environmental awareness, repellents, vaccines in trial, and prompt treatment with antibiotics.

The article reveals that language models can use filler tokens instead of logical reasoning to solve complex tasks, although it's hard to train them to do so. It suggests concerns that models might execute hidden computations detached from visible reasoning steps.

Pablo Azócar, an engineer from Santiago who became a visual artist, uses pen plotters for his art, finding success through adaption during the pandemic. His approach includes selling at art fairs and online, using social media effectively, and maintaining high-quality, brand-independent work.

Langchain/LlamaIndex abstracts are for Jupyter notebook prototyping, while Cognita structures and scales RAG components for production, with a no-code UI and incremental indexing. It's open-source, simplifying local testing and deployment in production environments.

The author discusses their interest in Microsoft At Work (MAW), a failed effort by Microsoft to integrate office machines with Windows architecture in the mid-90s. Despite ambitious goals to unify document handling and communication, MAW resulted in few products and market failure, later influencing the development of Windows CE.

The article presents a method for embedding a user-space program into the Linux kernel, allowing it to run without a filesystem. This technique, useful for cases with unreliable file system access, involves statically linked programs like Go and facilitates communication between the kernel and the program.

FTC alleges Amazon execs, including Bezos, used Signal to evade antitrust probe evidence retention. The investigation examines clandestine use of an algorithm potentially generating over $1B in profits.

The article recounts the author's frustrating experience with their Apple ID being locked and subsequent problems with unlocking it despite being at home, a familiar location. It also highlights widespread issues other users faced, suggesting a potential problem with Apple's security system.

The text appears to be corrupted or encoded and hence cannot be summarized. It contains a string of nonsensical characters and symbols with no discernible information.

The author manages hobby websites with a DIY approach, preferring self-hosting and FOSS tools, and has designed a self-built form system using n8n to avoid using third-party services. They balance hands-on management with using tools like Coolify and Astro for convenience.

The transition to IPv6 is slow due to carriers and Big Tech preferring NAT and IPv4 to safeguard their investments, causing the internet to be shaped by these dominant entities. Geoff Huston of APNIC criticizes this as stifling innovation and cementing the power of large incumbents.

VMware, often passed between owners, is now under Broadcom which is outsourcing support to select distributors, a move not well-received by the enterprise IT community. The change complicates support for loyal users who already face subpar service and challenging conversations about rising costs.

The article discusses Vim command workflows to edit text efficiently, suggesting motion commands and giving real-life examples. It also recommends a plugin for Neovim users and emphasizes the importance of practice to develop muscle memory.

Mastodon has established a 501(c)(3) non-profit in the US, with a diverse board to support open-source social media growth. Despite losing non-profit status in Germany, recent funding allows hiring a third developer.

Clang 19 will eliminate the -mrelax-all flag at -O0, reducing text section size and impacting jump instruction encoding. The change addresses the larger file sizes and minimal compile-time benefits previously seen with -mrelax-all.

The article describes a tool that enables Wayland applications to run on an X server with certain limitations, missing features like touchscreen support, and a requirement for a recent X.Org server. It details dependencies for building and running the tool, including specific X protocol extensions and configurations for EGL support.

Hertz plans to sell 30,000 EVs due to reliability issues and higher costs, contributing to a $392 million loss in Q1. Their EV investment has led to a total loss of $440 million and significant stock decline.

The article refutes the idea that unnecessary software maintenance is a corporate conspiracy for profit, highlighting that software must evolve with changing user needs and a dynamic world. Lehman's laws of software evolution emphasize that as software changes, its complexity and maintenance costs increase unless quality control measures are in place.

The Ioun Stone of Mastery is depicted as merging magic with mathematical prowess, while einsum, useful in ML, is compared in efficiency to other tensor manipulation methods.

Smalltalk is a pure object-oriented language where all elements are objects, unlike Java which also has primitives; the article explores handling of 'null' in Java and 'nil' in Smalltalk. It explains that 'nil' in Smalltalk is an actual object, unlike 'null' in Java which isn't, and suggests the consistency this brings to Smalltalk.

Microsoft released the source code for MS-DOS 4.00/4.01, an important historical milestone, with build tools included. Criticism is levied at using git for such releases due to timestamp loss and detrimental conversions to UTF-8, affecting the code's integrity.

The article discusses the overcrowding of an AI UX venue and promotes an upcoming AI Engineer World's Fair. It delves into the evolution of generative AI, from simple applications to its potential in simulative AI, and highlights recent advancements and the capabilities of AI models like Cloud 3 in creating immersive simulations.

State-sponsored actors targeted perimeter network devices in a campaign called ArcaneDoor to exploit vulnerabilities for espionage. Cisco's investigation revealed sophisticated techniques and two main vulnerabilities (CVE-2024-20353, CVE-2024-20359) used by the actor UAT4356.

New research shows that cats can be attracted to 2D illusions of squares just as they are to 3D boxes, indicating they have illusory-contour perception. This citizen science study is pioneering in exploring cat cognition and their susceptibility to optical illusions in a home setting.

The article lists individuals offering free mentorship and coffee chats on various topics, emphasizing this is not for promoting paid services. It provides contact details and areas of expertise for each person.

Police use of sedatives during arrests, exemplified by the death of a man named Jackson after a Wisconsin encounter, has quietly become more common and sometimes fatal. An AP investigation revealed at least 94 deaths following sedative use since 2012, shedding light on the risks and racial disparities involved.

Declassified records reveal "Football" emergency plans of questionable legality, used by U.S. Presidents for nuclear crisis decisions. Efforts to refresh outdated Presidential Emergency Action Documents (PEADs) were made during Carter's term.

Nokolisp, created by Timo Noko in 1976 for a Nova-like computer, evolved through various implementations until a recent one for cell phones; Noko's loss of authorship followed his job loss at Nokia. The language, lacking initial lambda calculus knowledge, featured Prolog-like pattern matching and evolved into a Forth-like language with a unique implementation of S-expressions and garbage collection.

Fyrox is a feature-rich, production-ready, open-source game engine written in Rust.

Hack Club offers a programmatic art editor Blot; submissions can earn teens a free CNC machine. Blot is open source, encouraging all to contribute and explore art and technology.

An individual creates a flute-controlled mouse interface for fun navigation in games and web browsing, releasing the code and a Chrome extension for public use. They optimize pitch detection on RP2040 micro-controllers through fixed point operations for better efficiency.

Everything Google's Python team were responsible for. In a questionable strategic move, Google laid off the majority of their internal Python team a few days ago. Someone on Hacker News asked what the team had been responsible for, and team member zem relied with this fascinating comment providing detailed insight into how the team worked and indirectly how Python is used within Google.

"Chipped" is a collection of essays by José Vadi that depicts California's urban spaces through a skateboarder's experiences, reflecting on the culture and art of skateboarding. Vadi portrays skateboarding as a life-shaping ritual and an act of defiance, with vivid writing and cultural references.

Software and AI, notably GPT-4, assist in academic tasks including writing research papers and grant proposals, possibly replacing some academic roles. There's concern this trend may inflate scientific output without enhancing understanding.

Software supply chain security involves securing software components' lifecycle and the CI/CD pipeline to mitigate threats. Technologies like SBOM, TUF, Sigstore, and SLSA guidelines enhance transparency and reliability in the process.

Astroscale's ADRAS-J satellite captured the first image of space debris while demonstrating rendezvous and proximity operations. The satellite aims to advance debris-removal technology by studying and approaching a defunct Japanese rocket body.

The article examines how people's intuitions often lead to incorrect answers in logic problems, despite efforts to prompt reflection, and suggests dual process models may not wholly account for persistent errors in judgment. Even when given hints, many still fail to correct their mistaken intuitions.

Boyajian's star's odd flickering led some to theorize it could be an alien megastructure, but it's likely caused by a dust cloud. Stellar phenomena like this inform new methods in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, away from traditional radio signal detection.

The article details how to store API keys, initialize providers, and categorize data using DataBonsai with OpenAI and Anthropic providers, including batch processing to save tokens. It also describes the adaptive handling of batch sizes and error retry logic for efficient categorization.

Tech giants Oracle and Tesla, initially hailed as symbols of Austin's growing tech prominence, have faced setbacks, with Oracle moving to Nashville and Tesla downsizing in Austin, reflecting a broader cooling of the city's tech hype and a shift in Texas' economic and political landscape.

Intel struggles with poor Q1 earnings and a dim Q2 outlook, causing share prices to drop. CEO Gelsinger aims to regain semiconductor leadership by 2026 amid skepticism, as Intel faces tough competition and past market share losses.

Is_ready is a standalone program that waits for multiple addresses to be accessible, aiding the coordinated start-up of interdependent services like Docker containers. It differs from similar tools by supporting multiple addresses without external dependencies.

The article speculates on the time required to rebuild CPU production post-apocalypse and suggests it could take centuries, depending on the preservation of knowledge and civilization's priorities. It highlights the complexity of the supply chain and knowledge layers needed for modern technology.

Tesla issued a recall after finding the Autopilot's controls may be inadequate for situations requiring constant human supervision, leading to crashes. Investigations revealed Tesla's system design as a factor in driver disengagement and accidents.

The author reminisces about a great value 40" 4K display purchased in 2016, but is struggling to find a similar large monitor with improved specs in 2024. Most 4K monitors are now smaller, with odd aspect ratios, or are TV panels ill-suited for coding.

Earth has experienced its hottest year, causing extensive climate-related disasters; however, technological advancements and policy changes may signal that peak emissions are nearing, with a chance of decline from 2024 onwards. Despite challenges, there's cautious optimism in combating climate change as renewable energy and electric vehicles rise, and emissions decouple from economic growth.

The 9th Circuit Court ruled that using a suspect's fingerprint to unlock their phone during an arrest is lawful, highlighting potential privacy issues with phone biometrics. The case reflects ongoing legal debates about the 5th Amendment's application to biometric unlocking of devices.

Federal authorities highlight that Tesla's Autopilot system contributed to multiple crashes due to a "critical safety gap," and NHTSA's analysis links the system to at least 467 accidents. The NHTSA suggests Tesla's recent software update might be inadequate as Autopilot-related crashes continue.

The study analyzes UK Biobank data to identify four dietary subtypes which impact mental health and cognitive functions. Participants with balanced diets had better brain health outcomes and structural differences, highlighting diet's significance on mental and cognitive health.

IBM's acquisition of Hashicorp raises concerns given the company's financial struggles and historical difficulty other tech firms have had monetizing open-source tools. Alternatives to Terraform are suggested as IBM's history with acquisitions and market interests pose potential conflicts.

Douglas Fairbairn interviews Brian Halla at the Computer History Museum, discussing Halla's early inspiration from gadgets and his pragmatic choice of electrical engineering guided by financial prospects. Halla's career progression, from wanting to be a pilot to technology and software, is highlighted with influential figures, including Terry Opdendyk at Intel.

The author expresses frustration with community management and governance issues within the NixOS project and feels the need to distance themselves from it. The article also draws parallels between the author's emotions about NixOS problems and the themes in the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Apple has slashed its 2024 Vision Pro shipments by over half due to weaker US demand, impacting non-US markets and may skip introducing a new model in 2025. These cuts suggest a bearish view of upcoming trends in MR headsets, Pancake optics, and Micro OLED applications.

The H5N1 avian influenza, commonly known as bird flu, is spreading among mammals, including cows, posing a risk of widespread transmission. Recent outbreaks among sea lions have been severe, and the possibility of the virus mutating to transmit easily among humans is a major concern.

DoorDash takes nearly half the total fees, with workers' pay just over half of what customers are charged. An analysis found DoorDash could drop its new $5 fee and still keep a 31% margin after paying workers.

The article outlines the evolution of digital ergonomics, tracing how joysticks, buttons, and controllers have influenced video game design and user interaction over the years. It also discusses the adaptation of technologies from other industries into gaming, leading to the standardization of modern gaming controls.

The article discusses how to replicate the Move to Trash shortcut (Cmd+Backspace/Delete) from macOS 7.5.3 on System 7.1 using KeyQuencer and FinderHack, and how to remove the lingering icon issue by modifying FinderHack directly or using KeyQuencer Extensions.

CATL introduced the Shenxing Plus battery, boasting a range of over 1000 km and a charge rate of 600 km in 10 minutes using LFP chemistry; it surpasses 200 Wh/kg energy density using novel materials and technology. This advancement promises significant charging efficiency for electric vehicles.