Tell HN: Cloudflare is blocking Pale Moon and other non-mainstream browsers

Cloudflare's Browser Integrity Check is denying access to non-mainstream browsers like Pale Moon. Users face difficulties contacting Cloudflare for a solution, despite a previous issue being resolved after public attention.

Ingesting PDFs and why Gemini 2.0 changes everything

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Beej's Guide to Git

Please keep in mind that I'm only human and there is a very, very high probability that there are errors in this guide. Additionally, I might simply not know what I'm talking about when it comes to something! So email corrections are highly appreciated! Contact Beej: [email protected]

Software development topics I've changed my mind on

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Effective management and investing in soft skills are crucial for success. Focusing on code quality and simplicity is more important than following strict style guidelines or scaling for the sake of it.

S1: A $6 R1 competitor?

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A new paper, s1, shows how close AI is to breakthroughs by shedding light on how models work and can be controlled. Researchers can extend or trim thinking time in LLMs by inserting or removing "Wait" tokens, allowing for more experiments and faster AI development.

Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

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Outrage fatigue is a phenomenon where people become numb to repeated moral transgressions, leading to exhaustion and decreased responsiveness. To combat outrage fatigue, experts suggest limiting media consumption, getting involved in local politics, and engaging in activities that promote calm and well-being.

The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

After my story on the FAA’s hiring scandal went viral, many of the people impacted and involved in bringing it to light reached out to me to share their stories in detail. While I initially intended to publish this in another outlet, after a couple of instances of radio silence and with life getting in the way, I put it on the shelf. Now, in the wake of the tragic plane crash on January 29 ...

Eggs US – Price – Chart

Eggs US price increased 22.03% to 7.09 USD/DOZEN in January 2025. It's expected to reach 7.66 USD/DOZEN by quarter end and 9.67 in 12 months.

Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

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Warner Bros. Discovery released over 30 full movies on YouTube for free without any gating. This move seems to indicate that the studio considers these films commercially spent and is embracing a service where reaction videos may get more views than the movies themselves.

Gemini 2.0 is now available to everyone

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Gemini 2.0 Flash is now generally available with improved performance and multimodal input, available via the Gemini API and Gemini app. New models include Gemini 2.0 Pro for coding performance and Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite for cost efficiency, both in public preview.

Andrej Karpathy: Deep Dive into LLMs Like ChatGPT [video]

Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

Effective February 5, 2025, the Postal Service will continue accepting all international inbound mail and packages from China and Hong Kong Posts. The USPS and Customs and Border Protection are working closely together to implement an efficient collection mechanism for the new China tariffs to ensure the least disruption to package delivery.

They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

A German scholar describes how the Nazi regime's gradual takeover went unnoticed by the public, who were distracted by daily life and propaganda. The regime's actions became increasingly extreme, but each step was small and justified as a necessary measure.

Station of despair: What to do if you get stuck at end of Tokyo Chuo Rapid Line

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A Japanese train station called Otsuki Station is considered a "station of despair" due to its remote location and lack of late-night amenities. To survive a night there, one can find a 24-hour convenience store, a karaoke parlor, or a budget hotel, but it's best to plan ahead and avoid getting stuck.

Servo's progress in 2024

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Servo project has seen significant growth with 129 unique contributors and 1,771 pull requests in 2024. The project is back to its 2018-2019 pace with new features and platforms supported.

Okta Bcrypt incident lessons for designing better APIs

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The user discusses the Okta security incident caused by a Bcrypt algorithm vulnerability that allowed users to authenticate with a cache key and a password, and how this issue is not unique to Okta but a common problem in the industry due to poor API design. The user proposes several principles for designing better APIs, including explicit input validation and rejecting invalid input, to ...

DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

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DOGE, formerly USDS, is being transitioned to a Presidential Records Act entity to avoid Freedom of Information Act transparency, with employees ordered to stop using Slack. Experts say this move is concerning and can be legally challenged, with some arguing it's an attempt to hide records and limit public scrutiny.

20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

About 20,000 federal workers have accepted a buyout offer, but it's less than the White House's target of 5-10%. The offer is still open, and the administration is trying to implement a hiring freeze despite some agencies taking on new workers.

Are LLMs able to notice the “gorilla in the data”?

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The study examined how well large language models perform exploratory data analysis and noticed a discrepancy in their pattern recognition capabilities when creating initial visualizations versus analyzing uploaded PNG files. The models primarily focus on quantitative metrics and summary statistics, potentially missing crucial insights during open-ended exploration.

F-Droid Awarded Open Technology Fund's FOSS Sustainability Grant

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F-Droid received $396,044 from the Open Technology Fund to address long-term sustainability challenges and improve efficiency. The grant will help refactor code and integrate with other projects to ensure F-Droid's long-term sustainability.

Chrome 133 Supports DOM State-Preserving Move with moveBefore()

Tesla sales plummet in the UK, France, and Germany

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Tesla sales are crashing in Europe with drops of 63% in France, 59% in Germany, and 44% in Sweden. The company's limited model range and CEO Elon Musk's involvement in European politics may be contributing factors to its poor sales.

OpenLDK: A Java JIT compiler and runtime in Common Lisp

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OpenLDK is a JIT compiler and runtime environment for Java implemented in Common Lisp, translating Java bytecode into Lisp for native machine code execution. It integrates Java classes with Common Lisp Object System (CLOS) classes for smooth interoperability.

Microsoft deletes official Windows 11 CPU/TPM bypass for unsupported PCs

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Microsoft initially provided a workaround to bypass Windows 11 system requirements but later removed it from its support article. The company now recommends a new PC for updating to Windows 11, discouraging users from upgrading on unsupported devices.

Zig; what I think after months of using it

Ah, Zig. I have a love-hate relationship with this one. A “new” (reading: appeared a couple years ago, already — yes, already), language with high ambitions. Zig was made to run at low-level, with a simple design to solve many problems C has (macros, allocators, error handling, more powerful types like baked-in tagged unions and bitsets, a better build system, no hidden control flow, etc.). ...

It's unlikely that there will be any further releases of mt32-pi

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The user has experienced abuse on the VOGONS forum, affecting their mental health, and has stopped contributing to their project, a Raspberry Pi MIDI synthesizer called mt32-pi.

Visual explanations of mathematics (2020)

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Oliver Byrne's 1847 edition of Euclid's Elements is a classic example of visual explanation, combining text and geometric drawings to elucidate mathematical concepts. Annotated equations, like those by Daniel Fleisch and Randall Munroe, can also make mathematics more accessible and understandable.

I coded a Pascal compiler for transputer as a teen in 1993

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A 14-year-old teen in 1993 wrote an almost full Pascal compiler for a transputer processor, learning about code generation, transputer programming, and reverse-Polish notation. The compiler was completed in a little over a month and served as a good experience for the teen's next achievement, a C compiler for transputer.

Kill the "user": Musings of a disillusioned technologist

The concept of "user" is problematic, implying manipulation and commodification, and we need to move beyond it to a more collaborative and respectful relationship with technology. We are no longer just human, but cyborgs, and it's time to recognize our sovereignty and demand control over our embodiment and minds.

I'm Done with Ubuntu

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The user had a positive experience with Ubuntu but was frustrated with frequent upgrade issues and the introduction of Snaps, which they found restrictive and unresponsive. They switched to Fedora and are now using Flatpaks, which they find more user-friendly and flexible.

GNU Make Standard Library

The GNU Make Standard Library (GMSL) is a collection of functions for list and string manipulation, integer arithmetic, and debugging in GNU Make. It is released under the BSD License.

Google kills diversity hiring targets

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Steve Meretzky – Working with Douglas Adams on the Hitchhiker's Guide

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Steve Meretzky, a renowned game designer, worked at Infocom creating classic adventure games like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Leather Goddesses of Phobos. He also designed A Mind Forever Voyaging, a unique game that tackled politics, and later worked on the Spellcasting series and Superhero League of Hoboken.

Show HN: HN as TikTok, welcome to HN hell

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Users discuss various topics including travel blogs with animated SVG maps, government projects, legal battles, bike design, Tetris 99, and a lightweight CLI for MacOS and Linux VMs.

Carl Sagan Predicts the Decline of America (1995)

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The users express concern about the decline of the US, citing issues such as ignorance, misinformation, and the influence of billionaires and racist politicians. They call for a return to scientific thinking and skepticism, and some suggest that the country is heading towards an oligarchy and a collapse of civilization.

Zig Guide

Version: Zig 0.13.0 Zig is a general-purpose programming language and toolchain for maintaining robust, optimal, and reusable software. Knowing a language like C, C++, Rust, Go, Pascal, or similar will help you follow this guide. You must have an editor, terminal, and internet connection available to you.

The Sudoku Affair

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Ron Jeffries attempted to build a Sudoku solver using incremental design, but his approach led to a muddled and diffuse implementation. In contrast, Peter Norvig's solver was clear and direct, using a more structured approach to constraint propagation.

Go Data Structures (2009)

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Go's memory layout is controlled by the programmer, allowing for efficient memory access patterns, and its data structures such as strings and slices are designed to be cheap to use without allocation or copying. Go's performance is still improving, but it is holding its own with equivalent C code in real computations, despite some areas where it is slower, such as garbage collection.

Of Course It's a Coup

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Elon Musk's actions are a digital coup against the US government, granting him power to control information and payments. This undermines democracy and human rights, making citizens' votes and citizenship meaningless.

Huawei's Ascend 910C delivers 60% of Nvidia H100 inference performance

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Huawei's Ascend 910C processor delivers 60% of Nvidia's H100 performance in inference, but lacks in AI training. China's reliance on Nvidia GPUs may decrease with Huawei's hardware advancements despite US sanctions.

21st Century C++

It is now 45+ years since C++ was first conceived. As planned, it evolved to meet challenges, but many developers use C++ as if it was still the previous millennium. This is suboptimal from the perspective of ease of expressing ideas, performance, reliability, and maintainability. Here, I present the key concepts on which performant, type safe, and flexible C++ software can be built: resource ...

Show HN: ArXivTok

RISC-V Mainboard for Framework Laptop 13 is now available

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DeepComputing's DC-ROMA RISC-V Mainboard is now shipping for Framework Laptop 13, ideal for developers. Framework also introduced a Laptop 13 Shell and updated storage options, including 8TB drives and a DIY Edition laptop.

FBI turns over details of 5000 employees who worked on January 6 cases

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FBI employees have submitted details of thousands of agents and analysts who worked on January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot investigations. The move has sparked concerns of potential termination by the Trump administration, with some employees suing the Justice Department over alleged privacy violations.

Running ArchiveTeam's Warrior in Kubernetes

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User ran ArchiveTeam Warrior in a Kubernetes cluster, creating a custom manifest to optimize performance and memory usage. They also created a Python script to monitor Warrior pods and metrics, and plan to build a management UI around the project.

OpenWISP: Multi-device fleet management for OpenWrt routers

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OpenWISP offers a network automation system for effortless device management, rapid deployments, and secure VPN connections. It provides customizable solutions for WiFi hotspots, network monitoring, and firmware upgrades, trusted by municipalities, universities, and network administrators worldwide.

Complex Systems and Quantitative Mereology

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The author proposes a new approach to understanding complex systems by using mereology, the study of parts and wholes, to describe how individual components interact and contribute to the overall behavior of a system. This approach, which the author calls "mereology," allows for the decomposition of complex systems into their constituent parts and the identification of higher-order ...

Nellie Bly

Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman (born Elizabeth Jane Cochran; May 5, 1864 – January 27, 1922), better known by her pen name Nellie Bly, was an American journalist who was widely known for her record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days in emulation of Jules Verne's fictional character Phileas Fogg, and for an exposé in which she worked undercover to report on a mental institution from ...

We need network societies, not network states (2024)

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Balaji Srinivasan's book "The Network State" proposes a new social contract enabled by blockchain technology, where individuals join a network state with a shared "One Commandment" and are ruled by a founder-king. However, critics argue that this vision is flawed, as it relies on a simplistic reductionism and ignores the complexity of networks, which are a way of seeing the world that can be ...
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Publishers like Dotdash Meredith and News Corp have partnered with OpenAI for AI licensing deals, receiving payments for their content. The New York Times, however, has taken a different approach, suing OpenAI for allegedly using its content without permission.

Show HN: Matle – A Daily Chess Puzzle Inspired by Wordle

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Solve Matle Chess Puzzles, the fun and challenging game! Play now and create a checkmate.

Fiwix: Small Unix-Like Kernel

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Fiwix is a hobby OS based on UNIX architecture, written in ANSI C with a small size and POSIX compatibility. It's a free, open-source OS with a Fiwix kernel, GNU Toolchain, and libraries, available for download and installation.

The King in Yellow

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Robert W. Chambers' book "The King in Yellow" is a collection of nine short stories and poems that blend supernatural horror and weird fiction, transitioning to a more light-hearted tone. The book is considered a classic in the field of supernatural fiction and has influenced authors such as H.P. Lovecraft.

Maria Montessori

News from Scroll 5

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Researchers at Oxford University have made progress in detecting ink on the Herculaneum scroll P.Herc. 172, revealing dense ink and letters. Preliminary analysis suggests the scroll may be written by Philodemus, a philosopher from the 1st century BCE.

Changes in schizophrenia diagnoses associated with cannabis use disorder

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USPS has suspended inbound parcel service from China and Hong Kong

The US Postal Service has temporarily suspended international mail acceptance to certain countries due to transportation issues or service disruptions. Affected services include Priority Mail Express International and others, with refunds available upon request.

Prediction Games

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Netflix launched the Netflix Prize competition in 2006 to improve their movie recommendation system by 10% with a $1 million prize, which attracted over 5,000 teams and led to significant advancements in machine learning. The competition's success was marred by a bitter lesson about data privacy, as Netflix pulled their data and canceled future competitions due to lawsuits and regulatory complaints.

A hexagonal-tiled cartogram for U.S. counties

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A hexagonally tiled cartogram transforms traditional US county maps by normalizing visual weight and highlighting socio-economic variables. This approach offers fresh insights into population, density, and other data, making it a powerful tool for data analysis and interpretation.

NsJail: A light-weight process isolation tool for Linux

NsJail is a Linux process isolation tool that uses the Linux namespace subsystem, resource limits, and seccomp-bpf syscall filters to isolate processes from the rest of the OS. It allows for various execution modes, including standalone, listen TCP, and rerun, and supports features like custom uid and gid mappings, bind mounts, and seccomp policies.

Insomnia, Control

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The writer used to be an insomniac with a controlling relationship with sleep, but found freedom by giving up control and allowing themselves to create when inspired. They now believe that acceptance is key to overcoming overthinking and that creating art, regardless of skill level, can be liberating.

America's "First Car-Free Neighborhood" Is Going Pretty Good, Actually?

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Culdesac Tempe is a car-free neighborhood in Arizona that offers a healthier, eco-friendly lifestyle with built-in community and amenities. Residents praise its walkability, social interaction, and access to public transit, but critics argue it lacks long-term growth benefits.

CIA offers buyouts to entire workforce

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You're missing your near misses

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Incident severity drives attention, but most incidents are novel and won't repeat. Near misses, which could have been major incidents, are a source of insight for preventing novel incidents.

Personal Software

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Personal computers initially offered one-size-fits-all software, but now AI enables users to create custom applications. This shift empowers individuals to build software that solves their specific problems.

How does DeepSeek work: An inside look

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DeepSeek is an open-source LLM developed by a Chinese AI company, offering a unique architecture and features like multi-token prediction and mixture of experts design. It's faster, cheaper, and more efficient than other LLMs, including ChatGPT.

DARPA solicitation for the Active Social Engineering Defense program (2017)

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DARPA is soliciting proposals for automated defense against social engineering attacks with 8 bi-annual evaluations. The opportunity was issued full and open with a deadline of November 28, 2017.

First glimpse inside burnt scroll after 2k years

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Scientists have digitally "unwrapped" a 2,000-year-old burnt scroll from Herculaneum using X-ray imaging and AI. The scroll, likely a work of philosophy, is now partially legible and may contain substantial passages.

The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class

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The author proposes the "Michael Scott Theory of Social Class," where people who ascend the Educated Gentry ladder become detached from reality. This detachment is reinforced by language, specifically "Posturetalk" and "Babytalk," which turn people into Michael Scott-like characters.

21st Century C++ (Feb. 2025) by Bjarne Stroustrup

It is now 45+ years since C++ was first conceived. As planned, it evolved to meet challenges, but many developers use C++ as if it was still the previous millennium. This is suboptimal from the perspective of ease of expressing ideas, performance, reliability, and maintainability. Here, I present the key concepts on which performant, type safe, and flexible C++ software can be built: resource ...

Franz Kafka – the workers' friend (2018)

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Kafka worked at the Workers Accident Insurance Institute in Prague from 1908, using his job to assess claims and write about workers' rights. He anonymously wrote letters and articles exposing poor factory conditions and safety breaches, leading to reforms and improved worker safety in Bohemia.

Fat Rand: How many lines do you need to generate a random number?

The user analyzed the rand crate in Rust, finding it has a high number of dependencies despite only needing a few, and questioned whether this is necessary for generating random numbers. They suggest that the Rust standard library should include features like random number generation and terminal size detection to reduce reliance on external crates with many dependencies.

Google erases promise not to use AI technology for weapons or surveillance

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Google updated its AI ethics policy removing promises not to use AI for weapons and surveillance. The change comes as AI development advances rapidly, with legislation and regulations struggling to keep pace.

Ask HN: How to handle pushback on a team switch?

VP gives IC vague promo signal, IC seeks new team for more interesting work. IC transitions to new team smoothly to avoid burning bridges and losing new opportunity.

OCR Crypto Stealers in Google Play and App Store

Researchers at ESET discovered malware implants in messaging app mods that scanned users' image galleries for crypto wallet access recovery phrases. The malware, dubbed "SparkCat", targeted Android and iOS users through official and unofficial app stores.

The practical (Unix) problems with .cache and its friends

Unix programs should cache data in non-dot directories to avoid hiding disk space usage. Disk space usage tools should explicitly show dot-directories like ~/.cache and ~/.local.

Elastic Binary Trees (2011)

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The elastic binary tree (EB tree) is a binary search tree optimized for frequent insertion, retrieval, and deletion of discrete integer or binary data, particularly suited for operating system schedulers. It offers fast time-ordering and priority-ordering, with insertion and lookups in O(log n) and removal in O(1), making it a high-performance data structure for various applications.

Using Terraform Workspace for AWS multi account architectures

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This example uses Terraform workspaces to manage AWS multi-account architecture, associating accounts with environments and using Localstack for testing. It uses OpenTofu and Docker Compose to run Localstack and dynamically loads variables based on the workspace.

Farewell potholes? UK team invents self-healing road surface

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Researchers developed a self-healing road surface that fixes cracks without human intervention, extending road lifespan by 30%. The material uses tiny plant spores and recycled oils to seal cracks, potentially reducing pothole-related repairs and improving road safety.

My Status Circles

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The author describes their personal circles of concern, prioritizing respect for intellectuals who contribute to the world's understanding of important topics. They value original insight and marginal impact over fame and prestige.

The WW2 experiment to make pigeon-guided missiles [video]

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During World War Two, psychologist B F Skinner tried to use pigeons to guide missiles towards enemy ships. His study proved it was possible, and it was finally recognised at the 2024 Ig Nobel Prize awards. But how did the 'crackpot idea' even come about? We spoke to Skinner's daughter, Julie Vargas, to learn more about the history of the study 'Pigeons in a Pelican'.

Global Caps Lock Key

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if you're not ready to run the client, you can type some text here if you'd like...

Implementation of a RingBuffer in Java with optional FIFO like semantics

https://opengraph.githubassets.com/6d5eb6b85502c5e74836a10577135ee14168c3a77fdda18dad6afb2c7be4a3cc/evolvedbinary/j8cu
A RingBuffer is a Java 8 implementation that supports two modes: Unordered and Ordered, with Ordered mode having FIFO semantics and useful for keeping a buffer of recent objects. The RingBuffer can be cleared or reset, and listeners can be added to capture entries within a specified time window.

U.S. foreign aid freeze derails efforts to stem proliferation risks

US foreign aid freeze has halted nonproliferation programs worldwide, including lab security and radiation monitoring efforts. This pause may leave the US "blinded" to bad actors and compromise national security.

The familiar loneliness of the Kinetoscope

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_520,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F813b1640-8f8b-49b3-8c2d-2ba1fef313b1_600x424.gif
The author compares the 1890s to the 2020s, noting parallels in protectionism, polarization, and fears of automation, as well as the emergence of new technologies like the Kinetoscope. The Kinetoscope's solitary viewing experience foreshadows our current era of algorithmic feeds and personalized AI companions, which prioritize individual consumption over collective experience.

Show HN: PulseBeam – Simplify WebRTC by Staying Serverless

https://opengraph.githubassets.com/fe86afbcdd4010fea3ec47b450b7543d71ad805fd0140a648648e11369d86878/PulseBeamDev/pulsebeam-js
This example uses the @pulsebeam/peer library to establish a WebRTC connection, handling media and data transmission. It retrieves an authentication token, creates a Peer instance, and connects to a specific peer within a group.

Google drops pledge not to use AI for weapons, surveillance

https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/2025-01-25T172100Z_2146383394_RC2AF9ALK500_RTRMADP_3_TECH-AI-GOOGLE-TRAINING-1738733425.jpg?resize=770%2C513&quality=80
Google has updated its AI ethics policy, removing language about not using AI for weapons or surveillance. The company now focuses on developing AI responsibly and in line with international law and human rights.