News Nug
Our RNG Git Hash Bug

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

The author works on the live services game "Dragon Prince: Xadia," which has iOS and Android clients, game servers, and a platform. To keep clients and servers synchronized, a dynamic version value is included in the platform's YAML configuration, allowing clients to know when updates are necessary. Recently, the QA lead reported that the Sandbox2 shard was incorrectly prompting users to update, despite having the latest client and server deployed. The author suspected a deployment issue or incorrect git hash. After verifying

Windows NT vs. Unix: A design comparison

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

The author reflects on their long-standing curiosity about Windows NT, particularly how it compares to Unix. Their journey began in 2006 when they applied for a project requiring knowledge of the Win32 API, furthered by their employment at Microsoft in 2020 and an incomplete reading of the detailed Windows Internals 5th edition in 2021. By the end of 2023, inspired by the Showstopper book, the author decided to explore the first edition of Windows Internals, titled

Making Hard Things Easy

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

The author recently delivered a keynote at Strange Loop titled "Making Hard Things Easy," discussing the challenges of learning complex topics over long periods, such as DNS. They express frustration that some basic concepts take years to grasp and highlight how this struggle can feel personal, with people often assuming it's just them who can't understand. The author notes that while they have a thick skin and patience, many friends face the same difficulties, leading to recurring issues. To address this, they started a publishing company called Wizard Zines

Mastering Pipes and Filters: A Messaging System Pattern

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

The article discusses the challenges of building complex processing pipelines in software engineering, particularly the difficulties in designing systems that can handle tasks such as parsing, authentication, and data enrichment efficiently. It introduces the Pipes and Filters messaging integration pattern, which serves as a foundation for creating robust processing pipelines. This pattern simplifies the development of complex systems, improves resilience, throughput, and architectural integrity, and enhances system scalability and maintainability. Using the example of a transaction processing system, the article illustrates the limitations of monolithic components

proctrace - a high level profiler for process lifecycle events

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

The content discusses "proctrace," a profiler built on bpftrace that tracks the execution of a process tree from a specified command. It currently logs specific events and their timings, with future plans to include file descriptor activities and I/O operations. The project is available on GitHub, and there's a desire to connect with others about it at RustConf 2024 in Montreal. Outputs from proctrace can be visualized, notably as a Mermaid Gantt diagram. The author, affiliated with

The Secrets of the ‘delete’ Operator in JavaScript

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

The delete operator in JavaScript is an older feature that aims to remove property references from objects rather than deleting values like numbers directly. Using `delete 0` does not lead to actual deletion in the execution system. Typically, when a property is successfully deleted, the operator returns true; if it fails, it returns false. Notably, the delete operator affects only an object's own properties and will skip any properties found in the prototype chain. If a property is non-existent, the delete operation has no

Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

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

Synthetic diamonds have become purer, more beautiful, and significantly cheaper than mined diamonds due to advancements in manufacturing technology developed over decades. A diamond, composed of a strong carbon atom lattice, is the hardest natural material and has unique properties such as high thermal conductivity and electrical resistivity. While natural diamonds take billions of years to form and often contain impurities, lab-grown diamonds can be produced more quickly and cost-effectively, allowing for new applications. Initially, synthetic diamonds were small and impure, suitable only

Understanding Concurrency, Parallelism and JavaScript

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

The author previously misunderstood the terms concurrency and parallelism, often used interchangeably. After reading Chapter 9 of "Clojure for the Brave and True," they realized that these concepts are distinct, prompting a desire to learn more, particularly in the context of JavaScript. The author explains three methods of task execution: sequential, concurrent, and parallel. Sequential execution involves completing tasks one after another without overlap, which can lead to inefficiencies if one task is blocked by waiting for another (e.g

The Modern CLI Renaissance

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

In recent years, there has been a noticeable resurgence in the development of command line interface (CLI) tools, particularly after a period of limited activity between 1995 and 2015. This trend involves not just the creation of new tools but also the rethinking and redesign of traditional command line staples. The terminal and CLI have been important features of computing since the late 1950s, with many foundational Linux commands originating from the first Unix version in 1971. While these tools, such

Short Ruby News - Edition #106

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

The content provides updates and resources related to Ruby and Ruby on Rails, highlighting recent launches, events, code insights, and community contributions. Key points include: - **Launches**: Ruby on Rails has introduced a new video series titled "Rails in Focus," and Alexandre Ruban has (pre)launched The New Authentication Generator. - **Events**: Friendly.Rb shared updates on speakers and activities for an upcoming event, and Ahmed Nadar announced a guide to Toronto by AppSignal. -

Questions about LLMs in Group Chats

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

The author is observing the xenocog community and projects emerging from cyborgism concepts. They are particularly fascinated by how individuals like Janus, ampdot, and Theia Vogel interact with language models (LLMs) in innovative ways, treating these models with intellectual respect. Instead of focusing on how to build a Discord bot, the author is intrigued by the mechanics of interaction within group chats and how LLMs can participate naturally. They discuss the typical limitations of chat models and express interest in identifying

Kibana Vulnerabilities Let Attackers Execute Arbitrary Code

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

Elastic has identified two critical vulnerabilities in Kibana, CVE-2024-37288 and CVE-2024-37285, both stemming from YAML deserialization issues that could allow attackers to execute arbitrary code. CVE-2024-37288 specifically affects Kibana version 8.15.0, with a focus on the Amazon Bedrock Connector, posing a significant threat to users of that integration. To address this vulnerability, users are urged to upgrade to Kibana version 8

VLC plugin for OBS Studio with Streamlink and hardware acceleration support

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

The feedback received from users is greatly valued. Users can find all available qualifiers in the documentation. A modified VLC plugin with Streamlink and hardware acceleration support for OBS Studio is available. Before installation, it's advised to back up the files vlc-video.dll and vlc-video.pdb, typically located in C:\Program Files\obs-studio\obs-plugins\64bit. Streamlink facilitates receiving video streams via channel links, such as Twitch, and can run a local server. Users can refine

QUIC Is Not Quick Enough over Fast Internet

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

The content describes the addition of an alert feature that will notify users whenever a selected record is cited. Users can manage their alert preferences by logging into their account. Additionally, it discusses network performance evaluation, measurement, and protocols, specifically highlighting the QUIC protocol, which enhances web application performance through multiplexing and encryption over UDP. It contrasts QUIC with TCP, emphasizing their use of Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) to manage congestion, and notes the long journey of TCP's adoption of ECN

A snake game made entirely in the BIOS without any OS or bootloader

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

The content discusses a snake game that was developed entirely in the BIOS, based on a previous version. The game code is compact at 114 bytes, which includes the necessary hardware initialization. Players control the snake using the numpad arrows, and there's an option to compile the game to use a standard keypad instead. Additionally, a QR code is provided for easy access to the game. Feedback from users is taken seriously, and further documentation on qualifiers is available.

ATProto for Distributed System Engineers

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

The article discusses AT Protocol, the technology developed by Bluesky for open social networking, through the lens of distributed backend engineering. It begins by contrasting traditional web architecture, which relies on a single SQL database and can become a performance bottleneck, particularly for large-scale social networks. As performance issues arise, solutions such as caching and sharding are introduced, but these still struggle with strong consistency requirements. To improve scalability, the article advocates for moving to a NoSQL system that employs eventual consistency. However,

Linux's Bedtime Routine

Published: 2024-09-08 | Origin: Hacker News

The author explores the transition process of a Linux system from an active state to hibernation, focusing on how it restores its previous state upon waking. This investigation, facilitated by source code analysis from Linux version 6.9.9, is structured in multiple parts, with the first part detailing the steps from hibernation initiation to disk synchronization. The article references debugging system files that help control and understand the hibernation process, specifically the state and disk files, which allow direct manipulation of sleep

Reclaim the Stack

Published: 2024-09-08 | Origin: Hacker News

After 7 months of development, mynewsdesk.com has created a Kubernetes-based platform to replace Heroku for their SaaS product, achieving a 90% cost reduction and a 30% performance improvement. The new platform also enhanced developer experience with quicker deploy times and better tooling. They have now open-sourced the entire stack, enabling others to implement similar improvements in just a few days, promoting the initiative as "Reclaim the Stack."

Exploiting CI / CD Pipelines for fun and profit

Published: 2024-09-08 | Origin: Hacker News

The blog discusses a serious security vulnerability chain that begins with a publicly accessible .git directory, which contains the entire version history of a project, including sensitive configuration files. The author discovered that many websites still expose their .git directories, posing a risk for unauthorized access. Through accessing the .git/config file, the author obtained credentials that allowed them to clone the entire repository. Further exploration revealed the use of Bitbucket Pipelines for automated deployment. Within the pipeline configuration, they noticed that an SSH login

Sleep duration, chronotype, health and lifestyle factors affect cognition [pdf]

Published: 2024-09-08 | Origin: Hacker News

The provided content is a segment of a PDF file (version 1.7), which includes various objects encoded in a binary format typically used for document representation. The excerpt contains object definitions, including matrices, filters, lengths, and resource declarations such as font and state specifications. The data appears to include compressed streams, possibly representing images or graphical elements, which are not human-readable in the original format. The content is structured with several objects (4, 5, 6, and 12),