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Researchers discover new third class of magnetism

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News

A new study has successfully imaged altermagnetism, a novel form of magnetism that could revolutionize magnetic memory devices by increasing operational speeds by up to a thousand times. Researchers from the University of Nottingham demonstrated that altermagnetism, characterized by antiparallel alignment of magnetic building blocks with a rotated structure, can be controlled in microscopic devices. The findings, published in Nature, highlight the potential of altermagnets to enhance speed and efficiency in microelectronic components while reducing reliance on

Clean Code: The good, the Bad and the Ugly

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/programming

"Clean Code" by Robert C. Martin is a highly influential programming book that has helped a generation of developers enhance their coding practices. Despite its longstanding impact, questions arise regarding whether some of its advice remains valid or if there are better alternatives available today. The author acknowledges that some recommendations may be contentious. The book is praised for popularizing the concept of "Clean Code" and fostering awareness around code quality, readability, and maintainability, fundamentally improving the programming landscape. It offers practical guidance, particularly

Quarkdown: a powerful Markdown-based Turing-complete typesetting system

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/programming

Quarkdown is an advanced Markdown-based typesetting system that transforms projects into print-ready books or interactive presentations. It extends Markdown's capabilities with a Turing-complete framework, allowing users to incorporate functions, layout builders, and dynamic content generation. Developed as an enhancement of CommonMark and GFM, Quarkdown features an extensive standard library and supports custom functions and variables. With live preview and fast compilation, it provides a robust environment for creating complex documents. Users can set document types directly within the

My PhD advisor rewrote himself in bash (2010)

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News

The author discusses the challenge of teaching Ph.D. students how to write effectively, particularly focusing on clarity and precision. To address this, they have developed shell scripts designed to identify three specific writing issues—particularly concerning the use of the passive voice and "weasel words." These scripts are integrated into the document build system for LaTeX papers, encouraging students to consciously consider their writing choices instead of merely defaulting to problematic constructs. The ultimate goal is for students to recognize their individual writing weaknesses and utilize

The Age of Average

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News

In the early 1990s, Russian artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid commissioned a market research firm to discover what Americans desire most in art. Over 11 days, researchers surveyed 1,001 U.S. citizens on preferences regarding color, shapes, figures, and settings. Using this data, the artists created a series of paintings called "People's Choice," which they replicated in several countries, including Russia, China, France, and Kenya. However, despite engaging over 11

A transformer supply crisis bottlenecks energy projects

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News

A global transformer supply crisis is causing significant delays in energy projects, particularly in renewables. At Silicon Ranch, a solar developer in Georgia, Chief Technology Officer Nick de Vries likens transformers to vital infrastructure for solar energy, as they adjust voltage for grid compatibility. Currently, the wait time for new transformers has increased from 50 weeks in 2021 to nearly two years, with specialized large power transformers taking up to four years. Prices have surged by 60 to 80 percent since 202

Show HN: DataFuel.dev – Turn websites into LLM-ready data

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News

The message promotes a web scraping solution aimed at developers from leading companies, highlighting its benefits for enhancing products and supporting business growth. Key features include transforming websites into structured datasets suitable for retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) applications, automating the collection of high-quality datasets for fine-tuning language models, and creating comprehensive knowledge bases from various web sources. The solution allows users to track AI news, extract and structure technical documentation, and scrape authentication-protected resources. It can transform web content into L

Mathematicians uncover a new way to count prime numbers

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News

An editorially independent publication, supported by the Simons Foundation, has reported on a significant mathematical discovery made on December 11, 2024. Mathematicians have advanced their understanding of prime numbers, which are the fundamental building blocks of mathematics and currently viewed as seemingly scattered across the number line. The new proof aids in uncovering the underlying order among primes, highlighting their non-random distribution. Historically, Euclid established around 300 BCE that there are infinitely many prime numbers, a

NYC wants you to stop taking traffic cam selfies, but here's how to do it anyway

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News

Morry Kolman's Traffic Cam Photobooth (TCP) website allows users to take selfies with New York traffic cameras, offering a playful interaction with the surveillance state. Despite the New York Department of Transportation sending Kolman a cease-and-desist letter, which claims the site promotes unsafe behavior, he remains unfazed. TCP has expanded its reach to other locations including Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, and Ireland since its launch. The project was showcased at Miami Art Week, where Kolman even created a performance

A new video captures a 1968 demo of IBM’s Executive Terminal

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News

A recent discovery at the Computer History Museum highlights a 1968 demonstration video of IBM's Executive Terminal, designed to enhance high-level decision-making through the use of computers and digital information. The museum reflects on the history of its collection, noting that each item has a significant backstory, including the recent acquisition of a Memorex videotape from the Dunlop collection. The story begins in May 2020 when Debra Dunlop, a dean at New England College, reached out to the

Phi-4: Microsoft's Newest Small Language Model Specializing in Complex Reasoning

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: Hacker News

Today, a new small language model named Phi-4 has been introduced, featuring 14 billion parameters and excelling in complex reasoning tasks, particularly in mathematics. As the latest addition to the Phi family, Phi-4 showcases significant advancements in small language models (SLMs) and will be available on Azure AI Foundry under a Microsoft Research License Agreement, with access to Hugging Face expected next week. Phi-4 has demonstrated superior performance compared to both similar and larger models on math reasoning tasks,

Ruby 3.4.0 rc1 Released

Published: 2024-12-13 | Origin: /r/ruby

On December 12, 2024, Ruby 3.4.0-rc1 was announced with several key updates: 1. **Parser Change**: The default parser has been switched from `parse.y` to Prism. 2. **Modular Garbage Collector**: Users can now dynamically load alternative garbage collector (GC) implementations by configuring Ruby with `--with-modular-gc` at build time. The built-in GC has been restructured into a separate file and can be built

Clio: A system for privacy-preserving insights into real-world AI use

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

The content discusses the growing use of AI models, particularly large language models, and the challenges in understanding their applications for reasons of safety and privacy. While it's important to monitor how these models are used to prevent abuse, traditional safety methods fall short due to the vast range of potential uses. Anthropic has introduced an automated analysis tool named "Clio," which allows for privacy-preserving insights into the real-world usage of its Claude models. Clio functions similarly to Google Trends, helping the company enhance safety

Elixir/Erlang Hot Swapping Code (2016)

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

The content discusses the advantages of using a runtime, particularly in the context of Elixir and Erlang, which allow for dynamic code loading and unloading while the system is active. This capability resembles the functions of a traditional operating system, enabling seamless deployment and upgrades without interrupting services or affecting users. With specific constraints, such as those provided by Erlang's functional programming approach, code changes can occur nearly instantaneously, offering a significant improvement over other systems like Docker or Kubernetes, which may require longer transition

Taming LLMs – A Practical Guide to LLM Pitfalls with Open Source Software

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

The book titled "Taming LLMs" critically examines the limitations and challenges associated with building applications that utilize Large Language Models (LLMs). While many discussions emphasize their capabilities, this work focuses on practical issues encountered by engineers and technical product managers, providing a comprehensive guide to overcoming these challenges. It includes practical Python examples and open-source solutions to tackle concrete problems such as managing unstructured outputs and context windows. Key sections of the book cover core challenges, practical approaches, and prerequisites for readers, along

Energy-Harvesting Electronic Holiday Card 2024

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

The message is a holiday greeting from friends and family, introducing an innovative electronic card created after six years. The card, themed "powered by the holiday spirit," harvests ambient energy from radio waves and light to power fun LED lights, operating without a battery. It can be remotely controlled via a Wi-Fi-enabled phone without needing to connect to a Wi-Fi network. The card is designed for high power efficiency, operating at an average of just 400 nanowatts, with the highest mode consuming

Thoughts on Rust hashing

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

In programming languages like Python, Java, and C++, values are hashed through a method defined by the type's author, leading to several issues, such as difficulties in hashing integers effectively and potential denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on hash tables. These challenges also complicate hashing already random data and raise questions about the guarantees provided by hash functions. Rust addresses these issues by separating responsibilities: objects produce an integer stream from structured data, while hashers convert this stream into a numeric hash. Although this

Beyond Gaming: X11 bridging in muvm

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

Asahi Linux has released an update to its x86/x86-64 emulation stack, enabling the use of non-game applications. The system operates using microVMs with muvm, which allows it to run applications like Cisco Packet Tracer on Fedora Asahi Remix effectively. Traditionally, running x86 applications in virtual machines with GPU support has been limited, requiring either complete GPU passthrough—dedicating the GPU to the virtual machine—or slower API-level paravirtualization, which processes commands

NonStop discussion around adding Rust to Git

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

The Git project is currently considering the integration of Rust, prompted by discussions surrounding the language's benefits, such as memory safety and easier refactoring. This topic was first introduced by Taylor Blau in January and revisited at the Git Contributor's Summit in September. While there is no formal decision yet, the conversation highlights the need to address several key questions regarding platform support, potential migration of parts of Git to Rust, and how it would fit with existing maintenance processes. Elijah Newren expressed enthusiasm for incorporating

Tricking c64 basic into clearing a hi-res screen quickly

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

The content discusses programming bitmap graphics on the Commodore 64 using BASIC 2.0, highlighting the challenges due to the limited commands for handling bitmapped screens. It notes that clearing the bitmap screen can be inefficient with traditional methods, specifically mentioning that the FOR… NEXT loop is slow for this task. The article proposes a technique to improve speed by modifying memory location 648 to allow faster PRINT commands instead of slow POKE commands, demonstrated through horizontal scrolling of a chessboard. Additionally, it touches