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Computing Inside an AI Published: 2024-12-14 | Origin: Hacker News Since the launch of ChatGPT, two main areas of exploration have emerged: technical capabilities and interaction design. Technical advancements focus on enhancing model size, effectiveness in tasks (like answering SAT questions), and efficiency in serving the model. Interaction design, on the other hand, seeks to improve how users engage with models and utilize them for practical work, introducing various metaphors for understanding their functionality. While technical capabilities receive significant attention and investment, the exploration of interaction design remains essential and largely unexplored. The author |
Silicon Valley Tea Party a.k.a. the great 1998 Linux revolt take II (1999) Published: 2024-12-14 | Origin: Hacker News The narrator recounts an encounter with Microsoft personnel at a planned event. David and the narrator expected Microsoft to monitor Linux-related discussions about their event. Instead, two Microsoft representatives, Dan Frumin and Mike, approached them at a café, concerned about a potential influx of Linux enthusiasts disrupting their proceedings. They offered five SVLUG badges to allow some attendees inside at a time, claiming that only invited individuals could RSVP for the event, which was later found to be untrue as many who RSVPed were |
I built for the problem I have today Published: 2024-12-14 | Origin: /r/programming Max Rozen reflects on a common issue he faces as a developer: the tendency to overcomplicate solutions as a means of procrastination. He shares an example where he initially wanted to create a complex entitlements system for user limits but realized after discussing it with a friend that he only needed a simple solution – a single variable in a shared package. He acknowledges that while his proposed solution may not scale well or be easy to update, it effectively addresses the immediate problem. Rozen emphasizes the importance of |
Biodiversity loss due to agricultural trade three times higher than thought Published: 2024-12-14 | Origin: Hacker News Failed to fetch content - HTTP Status - 400 |
macOS 15.2 breaks the ability to copy the OS to another drive Published: 2024-12-14 | Origin: Hacker News macOS 15.2 has a significant issue: it breaks the replicator, causing it to fail with a "Resource Busy" error during the Data volume replication process. Unlike previous versions, there is no workaround for most systems, rendering OS copying impossible until Apple resolves the bug. Users are advised to use the "Backup - all files" option with "Smart Update" as a temporary solution, which will back up applications, data, and settings but exclude the OS. The author expresses frustration over |
Coercing a Magic MIFARE credential into being an iPhone-compatible NFC tag Published: 2024-12-14 | Origin: Hacker News The author describes their experience using NFC cards as virtual business cards, including a notable instance of embedding one in a conference badge for networking. While most NFC cards worked well, some Magic MIFARE cards were incompatible with iPhones. The author discovered that this was due to the specific attributes of these Magic MIFARE cards, which are not readily recognized by iPhones. They then provide a step-by-step guide to make a Magic MIFARE card readable by an iPhone, demonstrating the process with |
Algorithms for high performance terminal apps Published: 2024-12-14 | Origin: /r/programming The author reflects on their experience working full-time on the FOSS project, Textual, for over three years. Throughout this time, they faced numerous programming challenges, particularly in building a modern User Interface for terminal applications, as traditional terminal specifications offer limited guidance. Despite the frustration, the process has been engaging, requiring the development of various UI components from scratch, such as buttons and a syntax-highlighted TextArea. As they recently reached a 1.0 milestone, the author intends to document their |
Show HN: Performant intracontinental public transport routing in Rust Published: 2024-12-14 | Origin: Hacker News The content discusses a multimodal routing project in Rust, which features a fast RAPTOR implementation optimized for memory-constrained environments. The primary aim of this project is to enhance OpenTripPlanner in underserved areas. It utilizes memory mapping for timetables to facilitate broad coverage with minimal hosting costs and includes support for GTFS-RT. While it will not support custom per-request walking/cycling costing model adjustments due to RAPTOR's pre-computation requirements, it plans to offer predefined models for various travel |
Luon programming language Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News Luon is a high-level programming language that draws inspiration from Oberon+ and Lua, targeting the LuaJIT VM. It integrates features from these languages while being statically typed. Luon supports declaring "external" procedures that can be implemented in Lua, promoting library reuse. The language avoids pointers, using reference semantics for structured data types, and includes ARRAY, HASHMAP, and immutable STRING types. Luon addresses specific limitations found in Lua and aims to provide a robust programming environment. A compiler |
Sharing new research, models, and datasets from Meta FAIR Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News Meta is sharing its latest research and resources from its Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) division, focusing on advancements in machine intelligence. This release includes new models, code, and datasets aimed at improving agent capabilities, robustness, safety, and learning efficiency. Highlighted projects include an open-source video watermarking model called Meta Video Seal and a foundation model for guiding virtual agents' behavior. Meta emphasizes its commitment to open and reproducible science, encouraging the research community to utilize these resources to foster innovation in AI |
Rust's incremental compiler architecture Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/programming A subscription to LWN allows you to stay updated on the Linux and free-software community, with a free trial available for potential subscribers. Traditionally, compilers operate in a linear pipeline consisting of parsing, type-checking, optimization, and code generation. However, modern programming languages are shifting away from this model to support incremental compilation and low-latency responses, especially for integrated development environments (IDEs). Rust, in particular, has made significant strides in improving compile times over the past |
C++ exception performance three years later Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/programming The blog discusses performance issues encountered with C++ exception unwinding, particularly in systems with multiple cores, where contention could significantly degrade performance. To address this, a group explored both language changes and less invasive solutions. A key improvement came from Florian Weimer's modification to glibc, which introduced a lock-free mechanism for accessing unwind tables, resulting in much better scalability of simple C++ programs. With this update, performance tests demonstrated significant improvements, although some slowdowns were observed at high thread counts due |
The secret life of DNS packets Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/programming The content outlines a range of payment solutions and financial services provided by a company, likely Stripe, including: - **Payment Options:** Online and in-person payments, as well as customer financing and virtual/physical cards. - **Fraud Prevention:** Tools to enhance security and prevent fraudulent transactions. - **Optimization and Integration:** Services for acceptance optimizations and payments for platforms, alongside accounting and sales tax automation. - **Financial Management:** Features like online invoices, custom reports, data synchronization, and access to |
"Rules" that terminal programs follow Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/programming The author reflects on terminal interactions, specifically the combination of the operating system, shell, terminal emulator, and the various programs run within the terminal. While the first three components are relatively standardized and predictable, the behavior of the programs can vary widely without any real standards. The author aims to compile a list of consistent behaviors observed in terminal programs based on 20 years of experience. This list will serve as guidelines that help users anticipate program behavior, even though exceptions exist. While the focus is on behaviors that |
What every systems programmer should know about concurrency [pdf] Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/programming The provided content is a fragment of a PDF file, indicated by the initial `%PDF-1.5` line. The text appears to be largely encoded binary data rather than readable content. This type of data is commonly found in PDFs where the actual textual information and formatting details are compressed or encoded for storage, typically not meant for direct interpretation in a human-readable format. The summary is: it is a section of a PDF file containing encoded data, which does not convey any meaningful information in its current |
Rain hashes – well designed, simple and fast variable sized hashes Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/programming The content discusses the latest updates in Rainsum v1.2.0, which has incorporated enhancements from Frank J. T. Wojcik's SMHasher3, a framework for assessing non-cryptographic hash functions. The updated codebase includes two hash functions: Rainbow and Rainstorm, both developed by Cris at DOSAYGO and available under the Apache-2.0 license. Rainbow is a straightforward and efficient hash function that produces 64, 128, or 256-bit outputs |
New LLM optimization technique slashes memory costs Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News Researchers at the Tokyo-based startup Sakana AI have developed a technique known as "universal transformer memory," which enables language models to use memory more efficiently. This advancement helps enterprises reduce the costs associated with building applications on large language models (LLMs) and Transformer-based models. The technique utilizes neural networks to optimize the context window, or working memory, of the models by keeping important information and discarding redundancy. This optimization is crucial because the effectiveness of Transformer models is significantly influenced by the content of their |
Why am I writing a Rust compiler in C? Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/programming John Nunley shares an update on his recent lack of activity in the Rust community due to personal challenges, increased work responsibilities, and a waning enthusiasm for open source. He reveals that he has been focused on a significant personal project: developing a Rust compiler called Dozer, using pure C programming—without C++, flex, yacc, or Makefiles. Nunley emphasizes the importance of bootstrapping in compiler construction, explaining that a compiler needs a means of converting its own code into machine code. |
The DCR Kids Programming Language Supports Live GUI Updates Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/ruby The author reflects on a request for live GUI updates in Glimmer DSL for LibUI at #RubyConf2024, drawing from their experience with a kids' programming language called DCR. They highlight an earlier discussion with Noel Rappin about how productivity in software development derives more from effective processes and good design rather than small features like live updates or advanced IDEs. Many Ruby developers successfully use simple editors, which illustrates that advanced features aren't essential for productivity. The author initially considered implementing live GUI updates |
Mysterious tablet with unknown language unearthed in Georgia Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News A basalt tablet with a mysterious inscription has been discovered near Lake Bashplemi in Georgia's Dmanisi region. The tablet, measuring 24.1 x 20.1 cm and crafted from local basalt, features 60 characters — 39 of which are unique — arranged in seven registers, prompting extensive debate among researchers regarding its meaning and purpose. The craftsmanship suggests a skilled creation process, likely involving a conical drill and rounded tools. Scholars speculate that the writing might record military spoils, |