Instant is a client-side database that allows developers to build real-time and collaborative apps by writing relational queries and handling data fetching, permission checking, and offline caching. It provides a query engine, triple store, and caching mechanisms to simplify app development and supports multiplayer, ephemeral updates, and offline mode.

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Python has a preprocessor that allows arbitrary code execution during initialization, enabling custom encodings and preprocessors. This can be used to extend Python's functionality, such as adding new syntax or interpreting other languages, and can be achieved through custom codecs and path configuration files.

Marc Olson, a veteran engineer at AWS, shares the journey of Elastic Block Store (EBS) from its humble beginnings in 2008 to its current state, highlighting the lessons learned and challenges overcome along the way. Through incremental improvements and a focus on performance isolation, EBS has evolved to deliver sub-millisecond IO operations and has become a critical component of AWS's infrastructure.

Steam Play Proton, announced 6 years ago, has enabled Linux and Steam Deck gaming to thrive, allowing users to play thousands of games with just a click. With 66 Proton releases, 388 changelog entries, and thousands of reported working games, Proton has come a long way in making gaming on Linux and Steam Deck an incredible experience.

The author optimized the performance of the serde_json library by improving error handling and implementing SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) optimization techniques, resulting in a 21% improvement in parsing JSON-encoded War and Peace in Russian. The author also discussed various techniques for optimizing Unicode parsing and encoding, including using SWAR (SIMD Within A Register) and ...

This Ghidra extension enables exporting program parts as object files with valid metadata, allowing for reuse in toolchains, patching, and decompilation projects. The extension relies on a fully populated Ghidra database and relocation table synthesizer analyzer to work correctly, ensuring accurate object file exports.

The author revisited the TUI email client Aerc after initially dismissing it due to its simplicity, and found it to be a mature and feature-rich client that has exceeded their expectations. The client offers various features such as customizable folder management, HTML email viewing, and email authoring, making it a pleasure to use.

A user created a table of contents for Ian's 20-part essay on linkers and released it into the public domain. The user suggests a public reading of the table of contents, joking that it might be popular.

The article discusses common mistakes people make when working remotely, including starting conversations with a generic "Hi" or "Hello" without explaining the problem, asking for a "quick call" without providing context, and attending meetings without an agenda. The author recommends providing clear and concise written explanations of problems, including error messages and context, and ...

The user designed a custom watch with Ochs und Junior, a Swiss watch company, after years of searching for the perfect watch that meets their unique preferences, including an analogue display, simplicity, autonomy, and water resistance. The resulting watch is a unique, high-quality timepiece that reflects the user's values and personality, featuring an annual calendar complication and a ...

LM Studio 0.3.0 updates include improved functionality for working with local LLMs, such as built-in document processing and retrieval-augmented generation. The update also adds new features like customizable themes, auto-configured load and inference parameters, and improved chat management, as well as support for a JSON-schema based API and serving multiple LLMs simultaneously.

The author explores the foundations of machine learning by studying simple discrete systems, such as cellular automata and rule arrays, and finds that adaptive evolution by repeated mutation can successfully solve problems, even if the underlying mechanisms are not understandable. The author also discusses the limitations of traditional machine learning methods, such as backpropagation, and ...

The user left a promising career in organic chemistry after a year, feeling a significant loss of identity, confidence, and plans, and is now seeking support from friends and community to mourn and move forward. They are hosting a "wake" to mark this transition and invite friends to share food, drinks, and company as they celebrate the good things they'll take forward and look ahead to new paths.

Isaiah is a self-hostable service that enables users to manage Docker resources on a remote server, offering features similar to lazydocker, and can be run as a standalone application or behind a proxy. The service has various configuration options, including authentication, environment variables, and custom CSS, and can be used in multi-node and multi-host deployments.

The project aimed to bring hardware virtualization to Haiku by porting NVMM, a hypervisor, from DragonFlyBSD, and the driver (VMX backend) is almost completely ported, allowing QEMU to accelerate virtual machines. However, several bugs remain, including poor virtualization performance on real hardware and issues with QEMU virtualizing Haiku correctly, and some features are still incomplete.

The development of Ethernet involved a complex process of standardization, with DIX releasing the Ethernet II frame in 1980, while IEEE and ECMA worked on their own standards, ultimately leading to the adoption of Ethernet II as the dominant frame type. The use of LLC and SNAP frames was also developed to provide additional functionality, with LLC being used for token passing and SNAP being ...

The author prototyped a new version of Townie, a code generation tool, using Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Vercel's AI SDK, and achieved significant results, including generating a basic Hacker News clone with a backend and database. The author also discussed various challenges and optimizations, such as reducing the context window, generating diffs, and feeding back errors to the LLM, to improve the ...

The .NET team experimented with green threads and async2, a new implementation of async/await, to make it more efficient and flexible, but concluded green threads weren't suitable for the runtime. The async2 experiment aims to move async and await to the runtime, allowing for more control and flexibility, and potentially replacing the current async implementation in the future.

The article discusses the new features and updates in Xcode 16.1 and SwiftUI, including the new data flow system, predictive code completion, and improvements to window management, tabs, and SF Symbols. The author also shares their favorite features and provides examples of how to use them in a sample app, highlighting the benefits of using SwiftUI for macOS development.

Peloton will start charging a one-time $95 activation fee for new subscribers who bought used equipment on the secondary market, aiming to increase revenue and gross profit. The company sees a growing trend of new members buying used hardware, which it believes will lead to lower churn rates and incremental revenue without upfront costs.

Beastie Boys discovered their gold record plaque for "Paul's Boutique" didn't contain their music, instead featuring piano versions of Barry Manilow and Morris Albert songs. The band broke the glass to inspect the record, finding it didn't match the album's tracklisting, sparking curiosity about the authenticity of gold record plaques.

Joseph "Bum" Farto was a Key West fire chief who disappeared in 1976 after being convicted of drug trafficking and jumping bail. His life story was the subject of a podcast and a musical, and he was declared legally dead in 1986 to allow his wife to collect his pension and insurance policies.

Electric v3 is a rewritten network runtime that fixes issues with rendering collections and Electric Lambdas, using differential dataflow to improve performance. The talk will demonstrate Electric v3's differential semantics and how they align with the computational structure of user interfaces, with a focus on writing network-transparent programs.

84% of Americans want Congress to pass tougher privacy laws, but the government has failed to do so due to corruption and prioritizing profits over consumer welfare. Meanwhile, consumers themselves are not taking adequate measures to protect their personal data, with many not using basic security measures like two-factor authentication or password managers.

The authors analyzed 1500 climate policies implemented across 41 countries and 4 sectors between 1998 and 2022, identifying 63 successful policy interventions that reduced emissions by 0.6-1.8 billion metric tons CO2. The study found that policy mixes, including pricing and regulation, are more effective than single policies, and that the effectiveness of policies varies across sectors and ...

Apple is restructuring its App Store team into two divisions, one for the traditional App Store and another for alternative app stores in the EU, following the Digital Markets Act. App Store Vice President Matt Fischer is leaving the company after 21 years, with Carson Oliver and Ann Thai taking over as leaders of the two new divisions.

The growth of sports gambling has led to a "heads I win, tails you lose" system where governments profit from addictive and predatory taxation, while young men are disproportionately affected by financial distress. The Left should draw a moral line against the trivialization of gambling and advocate for a definancialization of sports.

LangCSS is the AI tool that creates Tailwind designs and components for you. Enjoy the demo, or sign up for a free account, that has no time limit and let's you save your work.

The user shares a collection of Windows 11 registry tweaks to make the system more usable, with a warning to carefully review and manually apply the patches. The tweaks are not well-tested and may break the system, so users should proceed with caution.

Microsoft is reworking its Recall feature, which takes screenshots and saves them to a searchable database, to address security concerns and will send a revised version to Windows Insiders in October. The updated feature will be encrypted and require authentication, and will be off by default, with plans to publish more details in a future blog post.

The author attends the Project Voice conference, where they encounter various AI-powered avatars and chatbots, including Chatty, a conversational AI designed for healthcare, and VERA, a veterinary engagement and relationship agent. The author becomes increasingly uneasy about the potential misuse of these technologies and the blurring of lines between humans and machines.

Objective-C introduced revolutionary concepts that were taken for granted later, and its dynamic messaging, runtime, and introspection features were not new but made accessible in a systems programming language. Objective-C is a glue layer that integrates with other languages, and its success in replacing a portable PDP-11 macro assembler and making C a separate language in the Apple ...

The myth that "the Code IS the Software" distracts programming language designers from opportunities to improve software development overall, especially for vernacular software developers who use tools other than general-purpose programming languages. The myth also overlooks the fact that modern software is often composed of multiple components, including data, communications, sensors, and ...

Arva AI automates manual verification for new business customers in banking and fintech, reducing reviews to seconds and operational costs by 80%. The AI agent handles document verification, business activity analysis, and customer communication in real-time, solving a problem that costs fintechs $10B annually in lost revenue in the US.

Scientists discovered extremophiles in microwave ovens, including bacteria that can survive in extreme environments, and found that the bacterial composition varies depending on the environment and usage. The study highlights the importance of regularly cleaning microwaves to reduce potential health risks and opens up new avenues for exploring the biotechnological applications of bacteria ...

The Burrows-Wheeler Transform (BWT) is a simple yet powerful algorithm for capturing complex correlations in data, but its inverse transform (i-BWT) is slow due to sequential dependencies and cache misses. To speed up the i-BWT, various techniques are employed, including multi-streaming, word-at-a-time output, and adaptive output algorithms, which can significantly improve performance, but ...

Microsoft's latest security update has caused issues on dual-boot Windows and Linux systems, preventing some Linux installs from booting. The update was intended to fix a vulnerability in the GRUB boot loader, but it has affected distributions including Ubuntu, Debian, and Linux Mint, among others.

A German Navy ship played the Imperial March theme from Star Wars near Tower Bridge in London. The ship's commander chose the music freely, with no deeper meaning intended.

The concept of ordinals, which seem infinite, can be represented and computed using finite representations, such as polynomials, and their arithmetic operations can be implemented using existing mathematical structures like quaternions and floating-point numbers. By using these finite representations, ordinals can be computed and manipulated, and their properties, such as termination and ...

The IMGUI (Immediate Mode GUI) paradigm is a style of API where important state is kept in user code, rather than being retained inside the API implementation, allowing for a more straightforward and efficient UI programming experience. The term "IMGUI" has been misused and misunderstood, leading to confusion and hindering research and development in the field of UI programming.

Canada's two largest railways have ground to a halt, causing disruptions to travel and supply chains, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promising a solution soon. Meanwhile, various news stories from around the world include a massive diamond discovery, a terrorist charge laid in Canada, and a new movie filming in Calgary.

Alex, the second participant in the PRIME Study, received a Neuralink implant and has been improving his ability to play video games and use CAD software to design 3D objects. He has also been able to surpass previous world records for brain-computer interface cursor control and is working to increase his productivity with the Link by mapping intended movements to different types of mouse clicks.

Microsoft employees shared pay data in a spreadsheet, revealing average compensation, raises, and bonus percentages for software engineers in the US. The data shows highest pay for engineers in Microsoft's AI organization, with reported pay ranging from $150,000 to over $250,000.

Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol will not be required to relocate to Seattle and will instead commute from his home in Newport Beach, California, on a corporate jet. Niccol's arrangement is an example of a company making exceptions for senior-level employees to attract and retain top talent, and may set a precedent for other CEOs to work remotely.

The user wanted to self-host their own DNS resolver with AdGuard Home due to limitations with NextDNS, requiring support for modern DNS protocols and customizability. They detail their setup process, including configuring AdGuard Home, setting up a certificate, and integrating it with their network, highlighting the benefits and challenges of self-hosting a DNS resolver.

Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman predicts that most developers may not need to code in the future as AI takes over many tasks, but instead focus on innovation and creativity. Garman's comments suggest that developers will need to adapt and upskill to work with AI tools, rather than being replaced by them.

AnswerGrid is a web research tool that helps founders discover relevant leads for their businesses by using AI-powered qualification tools, such as web scraping and search, to narrow down potential customers. The tool aims to help first-time founders find their early users by providing an intuitive way to codify research heuristics and qualify leads that justify manual outreach.

It provides tools and resources that help developers efficiently and effectively design, develop, and deploy operating systems. With its modular structure and user-friendly interface, FOSD offers an environment suitable for developers of all levels.

Flipper Cloud redesigned its pricing and entitlements system to support multiple pricing options and avoid forcing customers to change plans. The new system uses a Pricing class and Entitlements class to manage different versions of pricing and entitlements, allowing customers to compare and transition between plans easily.

The project allows building a Windows desktop app using JavaScript, TypeScript, and other languages on Windows' built-in ECMAScript engine, with a dual license under GPL 3.0 and MS-RL. It provides a library, sayhello.js, with functions for console logging and event triggering, inspired by an inter-language IPC implementation using Named Shared Memory.

Fasting in mice triggers stem cells to repair intestinal damage, but this activation comes with a risk of developing precancerous polyps if a cancer-causing genetic change occurs during the refeeding period. The study suggests that the refeeding period creates a "vulnerable state" that may warrant extra caution against DNA damage, and researchers plan to conduct a clinical trial to determine ...

In May 2024, ARRL's systems were compromised by threat actors who demanded a $1 million ransom, which was paid after days of negotiation, and the organization is still working to restore minor servers. Despite the attack, most ARRL member benefits remained operational, and the organization has established an Information Technology Advisory Committee to analyze and advise on future IT steps.

StructuredRAG is a benchmark of six tasks evaluating Large Language Models' ability to generate structured outputs like JSON, with an average success rate of 82.55%. The study finds high variance in performance across tasks, models, and prompting strategies, highlighting the need for further research into improving structured output generation reliability and consistency.

The speaker, a Soviet dissident, criticizes Western society for its decline into materialism, moral decay, and spiritual emptiness, and argues that the West's values are no longer aligned with its Christian heritage. He calls for a spiritual revival and a reevaluation of human values, urging people to rise above their physical nature and seek a higher purpose in life.

Quarkdown supports CommonMark and GitHub Flavored Markdown specifications, allowing for comfortable code typing. It also features functions and math equations, enabling the creation of stunning documents.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is stepping down due to low public support and scandals, leaving behind a tightened alliance with the US and South Korea, but a shaky domestic legacy. His successor will face challenges in reviving the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's popularity and addressing issues such as the economy, military spending, and birth rate.

You lost $0.03 on an eBay sale due to a $1.02 fee on a $0.99 item. The buyer paid $5.40, including $3.96 shipping and $0.45 tax, but eBay's fee is based on the total amount including tax.

MIT researchers found that the convoluted language of legalese is used to convey a sense of authority, similar to "magic spells" that use special rhymes and archaic terms. The study suggests that even non-lawyers use this type of language when writing laws, and that the style has been perpetuated over time, making it difficult for both lawyers and laypeople to understand.

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The energy consumption of AI processing is a complex issue, with training models requiring significantly more energy than inference operations. However, when comparing the proportional cost of AI to other activities, such as cryptocurrency transactions or traditional art creation, AI's energy consumption appears relatively low and potentially efficient.

The bullshit-detector is a platform that identifies and tackles jargon in text, enabling clear communication. It provides AI-driven insights and seamless integration with existing tech stacks to revolutionize content strategy and drive outcomes.

The proposed change aims to eliminate the pinning issues with object monitors in Java, allowing virtual threads to unmount from their carrier threads when blocking to gain ownership of a monitor or waiting in Object.wait, thereby improving scalability and performance. The change will also remove the need for libraries to migrate from synchronized to java.util.concurrent locks, making it ...

Flip Video cameras were a huge success in 2006, selling millions of units and earning double-digit market share in the US, but the company's success was short-lived and it was eventually acquired by Cisco in 2009. Despite its popularity, Flip's sales declined rapidly after Apple added video recording capabilities to its iPhone, and the brand was ultimately killed by Cisco in 2011, resulting ...

The website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks and has blocked the user's action. The user can email the site owner to report the block and include details of what they were doing when the page came up.

Webtoon Entertainment, a digital comics platform, has faced a disappointing quarterly earnings report, with revenues flat compared to last year, leading to a 40% stock price drop. The company has attributed the decline to currency headwinds, but also considers piracy a serious challenge, with a recent DMCA subpoena request targeting 170 unique domain names suspected of infringing on its content.

Jesse Kipf, a 39-year-old from Kentucky, was sentenced to 81 months in prison for hacking into a state database to fake his own death and avoid paying over $100,000 in child support. Kipf also sold stolen databases and access to compromised systems on the darknet, causing $195,758.65 in damages.

Athletes who swam in the Seine during the Paris Olympics had higher rates of gastroenteritis, with 10% developing the illness compared to 1-3% in past games. The US Olympic team used rapid PCR tests to identify pathogens and decided on antibiotic treatment based on symptoms and competition schedules, without taking antibiotics prophylactically.

The user proposes a strategy for a game theory final exam where players must agree on an average, and they suggest choosing a Schelling point of zero. They analyze the probability of winning using this strategy and discuss potential flaws and alternative approaches, including the impact of a "Leeroy Jenkins" player.

The new Google Pixel 9 phone's Magic Editor feature allows users to easily create realistic and believable fake photos, which could lead to a loss of trust in photography as a medium for conveying truth. This shift could have significant repercussions, including making it harder to verify the authenticity of images and potentially leading to a decline in the use of photography as a tool for ...

if you say you can't code, remember this video

Bill Ackman, Elon Musk, and Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud are among the nearly 100 owners of X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter. The list of owners was unsealed as part of a lawsuit brought by former employees seeking payment of arbitration fees incurred following Musk's purchase of the site.

The author discusses the importance of removing emotional blockers in creative work, which can be achieved by designing tools that encourage play, experimentation, and imperfection, such as Arroost, a live programming tool for making music. By embracing mess, uncertainty, and simulation, Arroost and similar tools can help creators overcome emotional barriers and focus on the creative process.

The text appears to be a collection of notes and test results from a reverse engineering project on various electronic book devices, including the Bookman 1, Bookman 2, and Bookman 3. The notes cover topics such as ROM card dumping, serial communication, and testing of various components, including the CPU, memory, and peripherals.

Peloton will charge a $95 "used equipment activation fee" for used bikes purchased outside of its official distribution partners in the US and Canada. The fee aims to generate incremental revenue and support Peloton's investments in improving the fitness experience, but critics argue it's a deterrent to the used market and unnecessary for the user experience.

Texas Instruments will receive $1.6 billion in grants and $6-8 billion in tax credits to build three chip factories in Texas and Utah, with plans to grow internal manufacturing to 95% by 2030. The funding is part of the US Chips and Science Act, aimed at revamping the US chip manufacturing economy and securing the supply chain for foundational semiconductors.

OpenAI partnered with Condé Nast to display content from prominent publications within its AI products, including ChatGPT and SearchGPT, and use Condé content to train future AI language models. The deal allows users to access information from Condé Nast publications through AI assistants and provides additional revenue to Condé Nast while ensuring proper compensation and attribution for its IP.

The US Air Force has developed a new anti-ship weapon called Quicksink, which turns a dumb bomb into a precision missile at a cost of $300,000 per round, compared to $1.2 million for a torpedo. Quicksink was tested in a recent exercise and can be delivered by stealthy aircraft, making it a cheaper and more effective alternative for anti-ship attacks.

The study found that winning a lottery for a Nintendo Switch or PlayStation 5 console in Japan had a positive impact on mental well-being, with the Switch having a greater effect. The study used a natural experimental design and found that the benefits of video gaming were influenced by various socioeconomic factors, including gender, age, job, and family structure.