News Nug
Medieval Africans had a unique process for purifying gold with glass (2019)

Published: 2025-06-06 | Origin: Hacker News

The small-group adventures offered by the organization are rooted in exploration of the world’s intriguing places, their histories, and the people associated with them. A notable project involved archaeologist Sam Nixon from the British Museum, who in 2005 discovered ancient coin molds in Tadmekka, Mali, dating back to the 11th century. His findings included traces of highly refined gold and fragments of recycled glass, leading to insights into the sophisticated gold purification methods used by medieval Africans. Marc Walton, co-direct

Falsehoods programmers believe about aviation

Published: 2025-06-06 | Origin: Hacker News

At FlightAware, engineers face the challenge of managing complex and unpredictable aviation data, which often contradicts assumptions made during the design of data types and schemas. In a context similar to Patrick McKenzie’s insights on naming conventions, the article identifies several misconceptions about aviation that have impacted both customers and the company’s systems. These false assumptions highlight the complexities that Hyperfeed, FlightAware's flight tracking engine, must navigate to deliver accurate data for their website, apps, and APIs. The article also acknowledges contributions

Researchers develop ‘transparent paper’ as alternative to plastics

Published: 2025-06-06 | Origin: Hacker News

Researchers from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) have developed thick, transparent sheets of paper made from cellulose derived from plant biomass, specifically cotton seed fibers. This innovative material can biodegrade into water and carbon dioxide, making it a potential alternative to plastics, especially for containers, thereby addressing concerns about ocean pollution. The paper exhibits strength comparable to polycarbonate plastic while being transparent, thanks to tightly packed nanometer-scale fibers that allow light to pass through without diffusion.

Nominal Type Unions for C# Proposal by the C# Unions Working Group

Published: 2025-06-06 | Origin: /r/programming

The message emphasizes that all feedback is valued and considered. It also directs users to refer to the documentation for more information on available qualifiers and indicates that there was a loading error, suggesting a page reload.

Smalltalk, Haskell and Lisp

Published: 2025-06-06 | Origin: /r/programming

The author created a program to assist with job interviews at the NRAO, requiring candidates to calculate timing for moving dishes and performing scans using Java. However, the author chose to implement the task in Haskell, Common Lisp, and Smalltalk instead. Through this experience, the author found that their enjoyment of Haskell is less about its functionality and more about the feelings it evokes during use compared to the other languages. They noted Haskell's code was shorter, clearer, and more modular than the implementations

The next phase of jank's C++ interop

Published: 2025-06-06 | Origin: /r/programming

The author describes progress on their project, jank, which is achieving seamless interoperability between Clojure and C++ by using JIT compiling with Clang and integrating LLVM IR. This makes jank the first Lisp to accomplish this seamlessness, and it's notable for supporting ahead-of-time compilation with interleaved C++ IR in a dynamically typed language. The author emphasizes the importance of testing in developing such a complex system. After adding around 60 new tests due to initial uncertainties with several thousand lines

A year of funded FreeBSD development

Published: 2025-06-06 | Origin: Hacker News

After several years of discussions, in April 2024, the author secured a budget from Amazon to sponsor their work on FreeBSD and EC2 through GitHub Sponsors. Although it was unclear when the funding took effect due to the transfer process between Amazon, GitHub, and Stripe, the sponsorship was set for a year and was nearing its conclusion. The author was expected to contribute 40 hours per month, but they ultimately dedicated approximately 50 hours each month, focusing on FreeBSD release engineering and

Exploring Common AI Patterns with Ruby

Published: 2025-06-06 | Origin: /r/ruby

The article discusses the integration of large language models (LLMs) into applications, focusing on three patterns using the OmniAI Ruby gem, which supports various platforms like OpenAI and Google. One practical implementation involves creating data scrapers for extracting information from PDFs, such as receipts, to generate CSV files. This is done by leveraging the vision capabilities of LLMs, particularly through Google, which effectively handles PDF processing. The example illustrates a basic integration pattern where input data (including text and files) is

The Illusion of Vibe Coding: There Are No Shortcuts to Mastery

Published: 2025-06-06 | Origin: /r/programming

Frantisek Lucivjansky discusses the impact of large language models and AI on software engineering, highlighting a critical concern: the erosion of understanding in the learning process of coding. While AI can quickly generate applications or systems based on prompts, this undermines the deep learning that comes from writing, debugging, and refactoring code, which is essential for building confidence and developing cognitive skills in complex problem-solving, much like learning mathematics. The rise of "vibe coding," where developers describe requirements in natural

How we decreased GitLab repo backup times from 48 hours to 41 minutes

Published: 2025-06-06 | Origin: Hacker News

GitLab identified and resolved a significant performance bottleneck in their backup process, which stemmed from a 15-year-old Git function exhibiting O(N²) complexity. Initially, their Rails repository required 48 hours for backups, creating challenges in balancing backup frequency and system performance. This issue posed risks to data protection as it forced some users to compromise on backup completeness or frequency. The team fixed this bottleneck through an algorithmic change, drastically reducing backup times and improving efficiency. This enhancement not only enables

I made a search engine worse than Elasticsearch

Published: 2025-06-06 | Origin: /r/programming

The author expresses a mix of shame and humility for undertaking a project to create a search library called SearchArray, which adds full-text search capabilities to Pandas. They integrated SearchArray with the BEIR benchmark to compare its performance against Elasticsearch using the MSMarco Passage Retrieval corpus. However, the comparison showed that SearchArray performed worse in various aspects, though its BM25 score calculations were nearly accurate. The author notes that a proper search engine like Elasticsearch employs advanced techniques for lexical search, such as using mathematical

Weaponizing Dependabot: Pwn Request at its finest

Published: 2025-06-06 | Origin: /r/programming

GitHub's Dependabot and similar bots can be vulnerable to "Confused Deputy" attacks, where attackers manipulate them into merging malicious code through crafted branch names and by exploiting automated processes. These attacks can escalate to command injection and bypass branch protection rules. A .github/dependabot.yml file controls Dependabot's behavior, enabling it to scan repositories for outdated dependencies and create pull requests (PRs). However, this automation can lead to security risks if proper user verification isn't implemented, as bots might inadvertently

Small Programs and Languages

Published: 2025-06-06 | Origin: /r/programming

The author discusses the appeal of tiny Forth implementations and small programs in general, highlighting the accessibility and intrigue of concise code. They express that shorter programs (like 200 lines versus 2,000) are more approachable and engaging, especially when they achieve significant functionality in a few lines. For instance, the author recalls discovering a 25-line JavaScript library called ijk, which piqued their interest due to its simplicity. They also mention a 46-byte “Forth” implementation,

A masochist's guide to web development

Published: 2025-06-06 | Origin: /r/programming

The author discusses their experience in converting a Rubik’s Cube optimal solver into a web application using C and WebAssembly through Emscripten, complemented by minimal JavaScript and HTML for the frontend. The process was complex and challenging but ultimately successful, leading to a wealth of learning. They explain the advantages of WebAssembly, such as providing near-native performance in web browsers, which contrasts with the limitations of interpreted languages like JavaScript. The blog post serves as a guide for C or C++ developers

Sharing everything I could understand about gradient noise

Published: 2025-06-06 | Origin: Hacker News

The content discusses gradient noise, specifically Perlin noise, and its widespread applications in creative fields like visual effects, video games, and procedural art. The article aims to provide a deeper understanding of gradient noise, starting with a one-dimensional version and progressively exploring higher dimensions and complexities, focusing on a GPU perspective with WebGL2/GLSL implementations. It acknowledges the foundational work by Inigo Quilez and aims to fill gaps in existing literature that often overlook details. The discussion emphasizes the need for a

🚀 Junie, JetBrains' AI coding agent, is now in RubyMine!

Published: 2025-06-06 | Origin: /r/ruby

Junie, an AI coding agent from JetBrains, is now integrated into RubyMine, enhancing developers' coding experiences. Unlike traditional AI assistants, Junie utilizes JetBrains' advanced IDE capabilities and reliable large language models to achieve a 60.8% task success rate based on the SWE-bench Verified benchmark of real-world developer tasks. This high performance allows developers to offload repetitive tasks, enabling them to concentrate on more strategic aspects of their work. Junie is designed to complement the developer's

Germany: Digital Minister wants open standards and open source as guiding principle

Published: 2025-06-06 | Origin: /r/programming

At the re:publica internet conference, Germany's Federal Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger called for increased digital sovereignty in Germany and Europe. He emphasized the importance of adopting open standards and open source technologies to reduce dependence on major US tech companies. Wildberger highlighted that discussions during his initial weeks in office have centered around creating platforms based on European values such as freedom, justice, and community. He proposed the development of a unified IT infrastructure, the "Germany stack," to enhance cloud and IT services.

Self-hosting your own media considered harmful according to YouTube

Published: 2025-06-06 | Origin: Hacker News

The author discusses receiving a second community guidelines violation from YouTube for a video demonstrating the use of LibreELEC on a Raspberry Pi 5 for 4K video playback. They emphasize that they avoided promoting any tools for illegal media access and highlighted their long history of purchasing physical media. Despite their intention to demonstrate self-hosting a media library legally, YouTube removed the video, labeling it as promoting "Dangerous or Harmful Content." The author references a previous strike for a similar video on Jelly

Test Postgres in Python Like SQLite

Published: 2025-06-06 | Origin: Hacker News

The content discusses a PGlite wrapper in Python, which allows developers to test their applications using PostgreSQL in a lightweight manner, similar to SQLite. The library integrates seamlessly with Python test suites and manages PGlite npm dependencies automatically. It also advises on using multiple sessions with the same engine for handling multiple database connections to avoid connection pool conflicts. Contributions to the project are encouraged, and it is licensed under Apache 2.0. The documentation contains additional information on available qualifiers, but there were issues

How we’re responding to The NYT’s data demands in order to protect user privacy

Published: 2025-06-06 | Origin: Hacker News

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