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Safe C++ Partnership

Published: 2024-09-13 | Origin: /r/programming

The C++ Alliance has partnered with renowned engineer Sean Baxter to develop the Safe C++ Extensions proposal, which aims to enhance memory safety in the C++ programming language. This initiative responds to the increasing demand for safer coding practices amid growing concerns for software security and reliability. The proposal includes a Safe Standard Library, providing developers with memory-safe implementations of essential data structures and algorithms, promoting safety from the start of new code development. The C++ Alliance and Baxter are actively seeking feedback from the community to refine the

Ray Casting With Squeak

Published: 2024-09-13 | Origin: /r/programming

Lauren Pullen shared her experience on the Squeak developers mailing list, detailing her work on a rendering engine for a first-person maze game using Squeak, inspired by ray casting methods from Wolfenstein 3D. Ray casting is a graphics technique where rays are cast from the player's perspective to determine the distance to nearby objects, creating a 3D view from a 2D world. Initially, Lauren worked with Common Lisp to develop a GUI application but faced challenges due to an

Defend against vampires with 10 gbps network encryption

Published: 2024-09-13 | Origin: Hacker News

The content discusses the vulnerabilities associated with data transmission over fiber optic cables, particularly in shared environments where physical security is lacking. It highlights that attackers can easily tap into these fibers to capture data, contrary to the belief that such an act requires advanced skills and expensive equipment. To mitigate these risks, it suggests encrypting Ethernet traffic on-the-fly for robust network security with good performance. Technologies mentioned include WireGuard for encryption, VXLAN for network virtualization, and MACsec for securing Ethernet links. The narrative

C vs. Ruby+YJIT: I2C Edition

Published: 2024-09-13 | Origin: /r/ruby

The author enjoys coding, primarily in Ruby and occasionally in C, often related to electronics and hardware. They have recently implemented a bit-bang I2C method in the lgpio gem, which allows for I2C communication without using dedicated hardware by manipulating GPIO pins. This approach is useful when multiple devices share the same I2C address, as it allows for more devices to be connected without conflict. The author benchmarks I2C performance using a script that fills and clears pixels on a

The A-Z of Product Psychology

Published: 2024-09-13 | Origin: Hacker News

The "A-Z of Product Psychology" discusses various cognitive biases and principles that can be leveraged to design products that resonate with users. It highlights how people's decision-making can be influenced by specific psychological effects, as summarized below: - **A**: **Anchor Effect** - Initial information impacts decisions. - **B**: **Bizarreness Effect** - Unusual information is memorable. - **C**: **Confirmation Bias** - Preference for information that supports existing beliefs. - **D**:

Porting SBCL to the Nintendo Switch

Published: 2024-09-13 | Origin: Hacker News

For the past two years, Charles Zhang and the author have been working to port the Trial game engine to the Nintendo Switch, primarily focusing on adapting the Common Lisp runtime for the platform. The process has been more challenging than anticipated, but they have successfully reached a stage where they can compile and execute Lisp code on the Switch and interface with shared libraries. They have also ported necessary operating system libraries for Trial's functionality. However, the current implementation has limitations, such as crashing when the system attempts to

Hey everyone! I’ve been working on an VLM driven app that processes surveillance videos, automatically extracts frames, and generates detailed annotations to highlight notable events, actions, and objects. It’s powered by a fine-tuned Florence-2 VLM that I specifically trained on the SPHAR dataset

Published: 2024-09-13 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses an AI-driven tool for processing surveillance videos, which extracts key frames and generates detailed annotations using a fine-tuned Florence-2 Vision-Language Model (VLM) trained on the SPHAR dataset. This tool features real-time frame processing with asynchronous threading for efficiency and logs information for easy verification. It offers a user-friendly Gradio-based web interface for interacting with and analyzing the video footage. Annotations capture relevant actions, objects, and unusual events, which are stored in a SQLite database

Beyond Ctrl-C: The dark corners of Unix signal handling :: sunshowers

Published: 2024-09-13 | Origin: /r/programming

RustConf 2024 is approaching, prompting a recap of the speaker's RustConf 2023 talk, which focuses on the concept of signals in computing. The speaker uses an analogy of being interrupted by a friend during a conversation to illustrate how signals function as interruptions for running processes in an operating system. The post aims to provide insights into Unix signals, their history, and how to manage them effectively, emphasizing the importance of proper signal handling to avoid chaos and potential errors in programs. The discussion is

Speech Dictation Mode for Emacs

Published: 2024-09-13 | Origin: Hacker News

The text discusses the development of a speech-based input mechanism for Emacs, inspired by existing transcription tools that can struggle with accuracy. While speech recognition is seen as promising, it's more suited for drafting ideas than structured writing. The author aims to enhance transcription tools using large language models (LLMs) to enable real-time editing, mimicking a conversation with a human writer. After delaying the project, the author created an Emacs package called "emacs-speech-input" that allows spoken words to be

Reasons I still love the fish shell

Published: 2024-09-13 | Origin: /r/programming

The author reflects on their long-term love for the fish shell, updating a previous blog post from 2017 to include new insights gained over the years. They appreciate how fish "fixes the terminal," which has led to an intuitive user experience without the need for extensive configuration. The author highlights the intelligent autocomplete feature, where fish suggests recent commands as they type, enhancing productivity. Another favorite aspect is the context-aware autocompletion for commands with paths, only suggesting relevant files for the current directory.

Boeing workers vote to strike in resounding defeat for troubled company

Published: 2024-09-13 | Origin: Hacker News

More than 33,000 Boeing machinists voted overwhelmingly to strike after rejecting a tentative agreement that included a 25 percent pay raise and a commitment to build a future airliner in Washington. Approximately 96 percent of members from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751 supported the walkout, which is set to begin at midnight Pacific time. This strike represents a significant challenge for Boeing, which is already facing financial and safety issues, and could potentially cost the company about $1

Better-performing "25519" elliptic-curve cryptography

Published: 2024-09-13 | Origin: Hacker News

Amazon Web Services (AWS) emphasizes the importance of cryptographic algorithms for online security through its open-source library, AWS LibCrypto (AWS-LC), which is based on Google’s BoringSSL. AWS-LC provides optimized and secure implementations of these algorithms for AWS hardware. Among the notable algorithms are x25519 and Ed25519, both derived from the curve25519 elliptic curve. In 2023, AWS enhanced their implementations of x/Ed25519 in AWS-LC,

Does Your Startup Need Complex Cloud Infrastructure?

Published: 2024-09-13 | Origin: Hacker News

In a recent episode of the Lex Friedman Podcast, Pieter Levels discussed his experience building successful micro-SaaS businesses using simple infrastructure, typically on a single server. He emphasizes that many startups complicate deployment and infrastructure management unnecessarily, particularly as they move beyond the MVP stage. While managing complex systems like Kubernetes can be beneficial for large enterprises, it's not always appropriate for startups, which should instead focus on product-market fit and rapid iteration. Using personal examples, the speaker highlights the drawbacks of complicated setups, noting

The Magnetic Field of the Milky Way

Published: 2024-09-13 | Origin: Hacker News

The content references several academic works related to astronomy and astrophysics, specifically highlighting studies by Han and Qiao (1994), Reid and Silverstein (1990), and Reid (2000). It also mentions the availability of further details in a preprint of a recent review talk.

Notes on OpenAI's new o1 chain-of-thought models

Published: 2024-09-13 | Origin: Hacker News

On September 12, 2024, OpenAI launched two new preview models, o1-preview and o1-mini (the latter also a preview), previously referred to by the codename "strawberry." These models mark a significant development beyond GPT-4o, prioritizing improved reasoning capabilities over mere performance or cost efficiency. The core concept underlying these models is their ability to take more time to think before responding, utilizing a specialized version of "chain of thought" prompting—a technique that

FDA Authorizes First Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Software

Published: 2024-09-12 | Origin: Hacker News

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized the first over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aid software device, called the Hearing Aid Feature, designed for use with compatible Apple AirPods Pro headphones. This software can be customized to meet the hearing needs of users aged 18 and older with mild to moderate hearing impairment. The FDA emphasizes the importance of addressing hearing loss, which affects over 30 million American adults and can negatively impact communication and emotional well-being. The introduction of this

Data sleuths who spotted research misconduct cleared of defamation

Published: 2024-09-12 | Origin: Hacker News

In September 2024, it was reported that an internal investigation by Harvard Business School found that professor Francesca Gino had committed research misconduct, which became public due to her lawsuit alleging defamation against the researchers who identified data fabrication. A court has ruled that evidence of fabricated data cannot be considered defamation, allowing the case against Harvard to continue. The researchers, Uri Simonsohn, Leif Nelson, and Joe Simmons, who run the blog Data Colada, had previously reported suspicious data in

State of Webhooks Report 2024

Published: 2024-09-12 | Origin: /r/programming

The "State of Webhooks 2024" report is now available for download. It highlights key findings on webhook implementations across various industries, emphasizing best practices and adoption rates. The research compared 100 established companies to assess changes in webhook and best practice adoption, revealing a slight increase in adoption from 83% to 85%. Additionally, it examined over 100 Forbes-classified startups in the Fintech, Developer Tools, and AI sectors, noting that these startups generally adopt webhooks at lower rates

Do You Need Redis? PostgreSQL Does Queuing, Locking, & Pub/Sub

Published: 2024-09-12 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses an architectural approach for supporting web services and applications, particularly focusing on job dispatch coordination traditionally handled by Redis. It suggests that similar functionality can be achieved using PostgreSQL, especially with its version 9.5 feature that includes the SKIP LOCKED option for `SELECT ... FOR ...`. This feature allows background workers to skip over rows that are locked by other transactions, ensuring that only one worker processes each job without encountering blocking issues. The row-level locking with SKIP LOCKED prevents multiple

Open-source AI & Data Web Builder -- alternative to Streamlit

Published: 2024-09-12 | Origin: /r/programming

Taipy is a tool designed for data scientists and machine learning engineers to quickly build production-ready web applications using Data and AI algorithms, requiring only Python. It simplifies the development and deployment process, allowing users to focus on their algorithms without additional complexity. Users can access documentation for qualifiers, installation instructions, and guides to get started. The tool's capabilities include a scenario for filtering movie data by genre, which processes requests based on user selection and displays the top seven popular movies. Although the example uses a basic