Susan, a dear friend and core part of Google's history, passed away after a two-year battle with cancer. She was an incredible person, leader, and friend who had a tremendous impact on the world and will be deeply missed.

Haha, wtf, Defcon apparently stiffed the hardware company who designed the cool badges for this year, and physically booted the guy who wrote the software because he mentioned it in an easter egg Yup. This volunteer firmware writer (me) made the fix from his laptop in the plane on the way to defcon. And was then dragged off stage during badge talk. Yup… x.com/defcon/status/…

The value of π² being approximately equal to g is not a coincidence, but rather a result of the historical development of the meter as a unit of length, which was initially defined using a pendulum and later redefined using the distance from the North Pole to the equator. The inaccuracy in the equation π² = g is due to the slight changes in the definition of the meter over time, including the ...

The author created a new pixel font family with 175 fonts, using their own Rust program called PIFO, which automates the process of creating and testing fonts, including kerning and quality control. The author shares their experience and process of creating the fonts, including designing the fonts, writing the PIFO program, and deploying the fonts on itch.io, highlighting the challenges and ...

If you find OpenSnitch useful and want to donate to the dedicated developers, you can do it from the Sponsor this project section on the right side of this repository.

Cadmium is a toxic metal that can cause acute and chronic health effects, and its organic derivatives, such as dimethylcadmium, are particularly hazardous due to their reactivity and ability to be inhaled. Dimethylcadmium is a highly toxic and explosive compound that can cause lung, liver, and kidney damage, and its handling requires extreme caution due to its ability to penetrate latex ...

The author proposes a new architecture for web development where the web service and database are one and the same, using in-memory data storage and transaction logs to ensure data consistency and recovery. This architecture, used successfully in the author's startup Screenshotbot, enables faster iteration, easier debugging, and improved scalability, and can be replicated across multiple ...

Register or sign in with developer credentials and ensure a unique and descriptive User-Agent to access the script or application. If blocked, try changing back to default or file a ticket to discuss alternative access methods.

Caltech researchers have developed a noninvasive and continuous blood pressure monitoring device that uses sound waves to measure blood pressure anywhere on the body, promising better vital-sign monitoring at home, in hospitals, and in remote locations. The device, called resonance sonomanometry, produces results similar to those obtained using standard blood pressure cuffs and can measure ...

Deep Live Cam is an open-source tool for real-time face swapping and one-click video deepfakes, allowing users to replace faces in videos or images using a single photo. The tool supports various platforms, including CPU, NVIDIA CUDA, and Apple Silicon, and has built-in safeguards to prevent processing of inappropriate content.

When I went to law school, I knew a law degree would be helpful no matter what I chose to do in life. Never did I imagine that I would use my skills & training to "prove" my husband's innocence to federal prosecutors after & tried to imprison him. A /1

Entropic Engineering partnered with DEFCON to develop a retro handheld gaming badge, but was stopped from being paid for their work and had their promised visibility and representation revoked. The company is seeking fair compensation for their work and is grateful for the community's support, with plans to use any remaining funds to finance a young engineer's education.

The user created a modern macOS app called Stapler, inspired by 1992's Stapler and 2009's LaunchList, which allows users to collect and launch related apps, files, and folders for a specific task. The app is a hybrid of the two, with features like drag-and-drop and zero-click auto-launch, and is written in Swift and SwiftUI.

Renowned hacker Samy Kamkar has developed a DIY laser-based surveillance system that can detect keystrokes and record audio in a room without being seen, using an infrared laser to bounce off reflective surfaces and detect vibrations. Kamkar's system, which he will debut at the Defcon security conference, can potentially pick up virtually everything typed or spoken aloud in a surveillance ...

pg_replicate is a Rust crate that provides building blocks for constructing data pipelines to replicate data from Postgres to other systems, with abstractions on top of Postgres's logical streaming replication protocol. The crate includes examples for sinks such as stdout, BigQuery, and DuckDB, and can be used in Rust projects with a git dependency in Cargo.toml.

The user, a casual Go programmer, discovered a basic concept they were missing about Go assignment and learned about the "100 Go Mistakes" website, which revealed several misconceptions they had about the language. They found the website's format, which lists common mistakes and how to avoid them, to be helpful and easy to skim, and appreciated the opportunity to learn about Go's nuances and ...

The author's team has chosen Swift as the best C++ successor language due to its memory and data race safety, modern ergonomics, and strong object-oriented support. They plan to start using Swift 6 when it's released, but will also provide feedback to the Swift team as they navigate using it for browser engine development.

The proposed UN Cybercrime Convention poses significant risks to human rights, including surveillance, data sharing, and criminalization of legitimate activities, without sufficient safeguards. The treaty's broad scope and lack of protections for human rights defenders, journalists, and security researchers raise concerns about its potential misuse and abuse.

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The author discovered that 49 Python packages on PyPI were built with the -ffast-math compiler option, which can cause incorrect numerical results, and found that thousands of other packages depend on these packages, affecting at least 9.7 million downloads over the past 30 days. The author created a script to scan shared libraries and found that 2,514 packages depend on packages that use ...

Rivian's second-generation R1T pickup and R1S SUV feature a new electrical architecture with a zonal approach, reducing wiring length by 1.6 miles and enabling a 44-pound weight reduction. The new system also simplifies software complexity, reduces material costs by 20%, and carbon footprint by 15%, with a more sustainable option developed in-house by Rivian's hardware and software team.

The AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, a mobile CPU with the Zen 5 architecture, features a dual-cluster design with 12 cores, 24 threads, and a maximum clock speed of 5.15 GHz. The CPU has several improvements over its predecessors, including a larger L1 data cache, increased TLB capacity, and a more capable branch predictor, making it a significant evolution of the Zen line.

The concept of antifragility is applied to both technical and natural systems, defining three scales of antifragility: intrinsic (ecological), inherited (evolutionary), and induced (interventional). Antifragility is quantified through the response of a system to volatility, with systems that benefit from internal dynamics distribution unevenness, external signals, and closed-loop controllers ...

The `-v` flag in the codesign tool has a surprising behavior, where it can either verify signatures or print the version number, depending on the context. This unexpected behavior is attributed to a compromise between two team members, Victor and Veronica, who both wanted to use the same flag for different purposes.

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The Super Nintendo's graphics system consists of four chips: Pixel Processing Units 1 and 2 (PPU1 and PPU2), and two 8-bit SRAM chips. The PPU1 is the brain, addressing VRAM, while the PPU2 is a compositor, generating the video signal, with the CPU controlling both chips.

The Google Backup module downloads Google Mail, Contacts, and Calendar data to separate files, syncing only new data. It can be run using npm or Docker, with options for username, password, and file path.

Interval Parsing Grammars (IPGs) are proposed as a new grammar mechanism for file format specifications, handling context-sensitive patterns through intervals and attributes. IPGs are declarative, modular, and enable termination checking, and have been used to specify file formats including ZIP, ELF, GIF, PE, and part of PDF.

The United Nations approved its first international cybercrime treaty, despite opposition from tech companies and human rights groups, which warn it will permit countries to expand invasive electronic surveillance and undermine global human rights. The treaty's broad scope and lack of safeguards have raised concerns that it could be used to prosecute perceived crimes online and facilitate ...

Hal Hickel and animation supervisor on Rogue One, created Grand Moff Tarkin using a digital human process, replacing Peter Cushing's head with a CG model, and Guy Henry's voice and facial performance. The team used a combination of facial capture, lighting data, and texture scanning to create a realistic digital Tarkin, with no modulation or audio tricks used to match Cushing's voice.

RealPage, a company that helps landlords set rent prices, is being sued for allegedly facilitating price-fixing through its algorithmic pricing recommendations, which could lead to a lack of competition and higher prices for consumers. The lawsuits argue that RealPage's algorithmic pricing recommendations are not just individualized advice, but rather a way for landlords to collude and set ...

The text discusses the controls for penalties in SSH, which can be enforced against clients that represent attacks on the SSH server, and the penalties can be disabled using the "no" keyword. The text also includes various commands and options for the SSH protocol, as well as a discussion of a vulnerability in SSH public key authentication.

PEP 750 proposes tag strings for custom, repeatable string processing, an extension to f-strings with a custom function. This feature aims to make string processing and writing Python-based DSLs easier, seeking feedback from the community.

Dan Haskin, a DevOps engineer, conducted the Common Lisp Community Survey 2024 and has released the results, which show that 1/3 of respondents use Common Lisp for work, and the community is diverse in its use of implementations, libraries, and tools. The survey also highlights the community's preferences for GUIs, graphics, and better tooling, as well as its love for the language itself.

3D Renderer using ASCII. Contribute to kciter/ascii-3d-renderer.js development by creating an account on GitHub.

The State of the Onion was a series of talks at Perl conferences from 1997 to 1999, discussing the language's development. The talks were no longer maintained and users are advised to use alternative tools like GNU autoconf instead.

Rodney Brooks, a robotics expert, shares his "three laws of robotics" for making robots work in the real world, emphasizing the importance of delivering on promises, respecting people's agency, and achieving reliability through steady improvement over 10+ years. He warns against overpromising and underdelivering, and highlights the challenges of making robots work reliably in the real world, ...

Daily marijuana use may increase the risk of head and neck cancers by 3-5 times, especially for those with a cannabis use disorder. The study found that people with cannabis use disorder were 2.5 times more likely to develop oral cancer, nearly five times more likely to develop oropharyngeal cancer, and over eight times more likely to develop laryngeal cancer.

The author argues that Apple's increasing anti-malware protections in MacOS are becoming too restrictive for power users, who need flexibility and control. The author suggests that Apple should strike a balance between safety and power, like SawStop's table saw technology, which prevents accidents while still allowing users to cut wood.

Moxie Marlinspike, founder of Signal, argues that Agile development has destroyed innovation in software development by creating "black box abstraction layers" that strip developers of freedom and understanding. He believes that security researchers, who have been learning to understand how things work, have inherited the "magic" of software development and can use their knowledge to change the world.

The author reflects on their experiences in China, from 2005 to 2023, witnessing the country's rapid economic growth, technological advancements, and transformation of its automotive industry. The streets of Shanghai have evolved from a mix of bicycles and foreign cars to a showcase of domestic electric vehicles, luxury brands, and innovative technologies, reflecting China's unique approach ...

The Wingnut Museum, celebrating the wingnut's history and cultural significance, has opened at Grand Opening art salon in Berkeley's Gilman District, featuring a collection of hundreds of wingnuts. The museum's founder, Neko, aims to honor the term "wingnut" as a symbol of outsider culture, creativity, and resourcefulness, and to provide a space for people to celebrate their individuality.

Researchers have discovered that a common gene family, called LONELY GUY or LOG, is responsible for thorns in various plant species, including roses and rice, and has been evolved independently at least 28 times. The study's findings have implications for understanding convergent evolution and could lead to a predictable and efficient strategy for eliminating prickles in various plant ...

Your 19-year-old child, a top-ranked EECS student, is struggling with Internet Gaming Disorder, neglecting grades and internship opportunities to play Roblox. You're concerned about the impact on their future and unsure how much to intervene, seeking advice from others who may have experienced similar situations.

The paper introduces a sphere tracing algorithm for harmonic functions, which can visualize surfaces reconstructed from point clouds or polygon soup without linear solves or mesh extraction. The algorithm uses Harnack's inequality as a conservative lower bound on distance to the level set, allowing for larger steps and handling jump discontinuities.

Google's 2017 strategy document reveals the company's intentional plan to shift revenue from the open web to its own properties, creating a walled garden of tracking and surveillance across the internet. The document also highlights Google's dominance in the adtech industry, its concerns about privacy and competition, and its efforts to manipulate the market to its advantage.

The author suggests that chasing scale can be a stressful and burnout-inducing experience, and that pursuing things that can't scale, such as hobbies or small businesses, can be a therapeutic and fulfilling alternative. The author argues that this shift in focus can help individuals find a sense of purpose and happiness, and that it's not just limited to those who have already achieved success.

Researchers discovered ~12-h gene programs related to mRNA and protein metabolism in humans, which were also detected in marine animals, suggesting evolutionary conservation. The study found that these ~12-h rhythms were associated with fundamental biological processes, including mRNA splicing and protein processing, and were attenuated by liver-specific loss of function of XBP1 in mice, ...

A new HIV drug, Lenacapavir, could cost $40 per year for every patient, a thousand times less than its current price, according to new research. Campaigners are urging Gilead to make the drug available at a lower price worldwide, citing its potential to "herald a breakthrough for HIV prevention" and meet the 2030 goal of ending new HIV transmissions.

The Totem Compass is a device that allows people to connect with each other at festivals and live events without relying on cell service, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth, using a peer-to-peer communication protocol and a Unity Mesh Network to extend its range. The device features a range of features, including GPS, IMU, and sound reactivity, and allows users to bond with up to four other compasses, ...

Complex numbers are made up of two components: a real component and an imaginary component, which can be represented as a point on a 2D plane. Complex functions can be visualized using polar coordinates, allowing for the representation of four dimensions, and can be used to model various mathematical concepts, including the distribution of primes.

The ATR turboprop that crashed in Brazil on August 9, 2024, was experiencing severe icing conditions above 12,000 feet, and the pilots failed to properly recover from a stall, leading to a spin. The crash highlights the importance of proper stall recovery techniques, which are not designed for airliners, and the need for pilots to prioritize descending to warmer air rather than trying to ...

The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study provides a comprehensive assessment of global health trends, containing prevalence and incidence counts and rates for 371 diseases and injuries. The data is sourced from IHME and processed by Our World in Data, with major processing steps including standardization, conversion, and metadata addition.

The paper discusses the concept of linearizability in concurrent systems, providing a formal definition and illustrating its application to a queue object, and also discusses the importance of reading foundational papers in the field of distributed systems. The author also shares their own experiences and advice on learning distributed systems, including the importance of understanding the ...

Lisa Davis, a medievalist, has spent years studying the Voynich Manuscript, a mysterious and undeciphered book from the 15th century, and has made significant discoveries about its physical characteristics and the number of scribes who contributed to it. Despite the many attempts to crack the code, the Voynich remains an enigma, and Davis believes that its secrets will only be revealed ...

The Super Nintendo's graphics system renders sprites and backgrounds by accessing VRAM, with limitations due to latency, and uses internal memory to amortize the cost. The PPU2 composes the five layers, including sprites, and sends the RGB color to the CRT, with the PPU1 driving the PPU2 and streaming the sprite layer during HBLANK.

Staub is a French cookware brand that has been handcrafting exceptional cast iron cookware for nearly 50 years, combining heating performance and longevity with a colorful, smooth enameled finish. Their cookware is renowned for its versatility, durability, and ability to enhance flavors, with many users praising its quality and performance over time, making it a valuable heirloom piece.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is addressing notorious traffic in the city ahead of the 2028 Summer Games by expanding public transportation and encouraging businesses to allow employees to work from home. Bass aims to make the Games a "no-car" event, using 3,000 borrowed buses and staggering work hours to reduce traffic congestion.

Architectural Retrospectives focus on improving the team's decision-making process, examining biases and assumptions, and learning from experience. They are distinct from Architectural Reviews, which focus on improving the architecture itself, and are essential for teams to improve their way of working and make better decisions.

Mutex in Go ensures only one goroutine accesses a shared resource at a time. It has three main operations: Lock, Unlock, and TryLock, and uses a state and semaphore to manage goroutine access and synchronization.

Apple Arcade developers face issues with delayed payments, poor tech support, and lack of communication, leading to frustration and burnout. The company's approach to gaming is criticized for prioritizing profit over developer needs, with some arguing that Apple Arcade is an abusive relationship where developers stay hoping for change.

It finally happened: My Waymo got a ticket and there was existential confusion from the officer about who or what was being ticketed. They just stare at the empty driver’s seat and then leave it on the windshield. The car drives away, indifferent.

Ancient DNA is difficult to extract and sequence due to degradation, but recent advances have enabled researchers to study genetic material from over 10,000 ancient individuals, revealing human migration patterns and connections to extinct species. Archaeogeneticists continue to develop innovative methods to research ancient DNA, exploring topics such as human migration, animal domestication, ...

Russian President Putin signed a law regulating instant messaging services, requiring popular channels with over 10,000 subscribers to provide user information to Roskomnadzor. The law also restricts access to user pages, requires verification of subscriber information, and limits SIM card usage to 20 for Russian citizens and 10 for foreign citizens.

Credit card delinquencies have increased by 12% and are now higher than during the Great Financial Crisis, indicating tight consumer spending. Student loan delinquencies remain low, but the ongoing legal battle over loan forgiveness may impact consumer spending and the economy in the future.

The Fobos SDR, designed by Rig Expert, is a software-defined radio that covers 100KHz to 6GHz with a direct sampling receiver and double conversion heterodyne architecture. It features a 14-bit ADC, 50MSPS sampling rate, and outputs IQ samples up to 50MHz, with software support available for SDRSharp, HDSDR, and GNU Radio.

A heatwave has hit the Arctic town of Inuvik, Canada, breaking the all-time heat record and threatening to shatter the community's usual brief summer reprieve from bitter cold. The unseasonable warmth brings joy but also concerns about wildfires, thawing permafrost, and the long-term impact of climate change on the region.

A study tested the ability of astrologers to match people with their natal charts, but despite their confidence, astrologers performed no better than random chance, with no single astrologer getting more than 5 out of 12 answers correct. The study found little agreement among astrologers about which chart belonged to each subject, suggesting that astrology does not work and providing evidence ...

DEF CON hired Entropic Engineering to develop the Raspberry Pi badge, but due to issues and going over budget, DEF CON issued a stop work order and finished the badge on their own. The badge included Entropic's logo, but they were not involved in the case design or production, and unauthorized code was found in the firmware, leading to a controversy at the conference.

Traditional resume screening methods are outdated and often fail to capture a candidate's true potential and skills, while AI-driven hiring tools can inherit and amplify human biases. To move beyond these limitations, hiring processes should focus on comprehensive assessments, including coding challenges, technical quizzes, and real-world project evaluations, to identify green signals of ...

The Super Nintendo's graphics system consists of four chips: Pixel Processing Units 1 and 2 (PPU1 and PPU2), and two 8-bit SRAM chips. The PPU1 is the brain, addressing VRAM, while the PPU2 is a compositor, generating the video signal, with the CPU controlling both chips.

Two men, Jordan Parlour and Tyler Kay, were jailed for inciting racial hatred and violence online, linked to recent UK riots. They are the first to be charged for posting criminal messages online, with Parlour sentenced to 20 months and Kay to 3 years and 2 months.

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System prompts from Apple Intelligence on the new macOS Sequoia 15.1 Developer Beta. These prompts give lots of insight into how Apple Intelligence works and what it can do.

Researchers trained nankeen kestrels to hover in a wind tunnel to study their stable flight behavior, finding that their morphing wings and precise wrist and tail movements enable them to remain still in turbulent winds. The team used the findings to build a prototype unpowered drone and hopes to apply the kestrel's hovering technology to real-world applications.

The widespread legalization of mobile sports gambling has led to negative financial consequences, including decreased credit scores, increased debt, and bankruptcy, particularly among low-income men. To mitigate these harms, policymakers should consider implementing guardrails, such as limiting wagering to physical locations, requiring transparency from gambling companies, and restricting ...

Google's Quick Share for Windows had 10 vulnerabilities that could have allowed attackers to wirelessly write new files onto victims' PCs and execute code remotely. The vulnerabilities have been fixed, and Google claims they have not been exploited in the wild, with the researchers confirming the RCE chain is no longer possible to pull off.