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We're Charging Our Cars Wrong Published: 2025-03-05 | Origin: Hacker News The March issue of IEEE Spectrum highlights a key issue hindering the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs): the lack of a robust public charging infrastructure. While most charging occurs at home, a significant percentage of drivers, such as those in commercial and residential situations, depend on public charging options, and their experiences can be stressful due to scarcity and reliability issues. A survey revealed that 62% of EV owners have altered their travel plans due to range anxiety. Policymakers are aware of this challenge, |
NetBSD on a JavaStation Published: 2025-03-05 | Origin: Hacker News The author reflects on the initial excitement surrounding Java when it was a new programming language with the promise of being a universal platform—“write once, run anywhere.” They recall their enthusiasm for the JavaStation, a soon-to-be-released device that intended to embody this vision. Initially imagined as a stylish coffee pot-like computer, the JavaStation ultimately appeared more like a conventional SPARCstation, and despite its innovative intentions, it did not revolutionize computing as expected. The JavaStation 2 was released |
Brother accused of locking down third-party printer ink cartridges Published: 2025-03-05 | Origin: Hacker News Louis Rossmann, a prominent advocate for the right to repair, expressed his shock and disappointment over Brother's recent shift towards anti-consumer practices in the printer industry. He highlighted two major issues resulting from Brother's firmware updates: the disabling of third-party toner compatibility and the failure of color registration functionality on color devices. Rossmann, who previously recommended Brother printers for their reliability with aftermarket inks, now feels disheartened by their decision to join the ranks of companies restricting consumer choices. He advises users |
Mox – modern, secure, all-in-one email server Published: 2025-03-05 | Origin: Hacker News Mox is a modern email server designed for ease of setup and maintenance, integrating all email protocols into a single application. The latest release, version 0.0.14, was launched on January 20, 2025. Users can quickly set up Mox by downloading the binary and running a quickstart, or for a quicker test, they can use the "mox localserve" command for a local-only SMTP/IMAP/Webmail environment. Development of Mox began in |
Writing an LLM from scratch, part 8 – trainable self-attention Published: 2025-03-05 | Origin: Hacker News The writer shares the eighth post in their journey through Sebastian Raschka's book "Build a Large Language Model (from Scratch)." They express that their blogging has included some self-referential topics, partly as a means of procrastination, but they have regained their focus and momentum. In this post, they explore section 3.4, which discusses implementing self-attention with trainable weights in language models. The author aims to explain how a model learns to prioritize certain words in a sentence over |
Should managers still code? Published: 2025-03-05 | Origin: /r/programming A reader asks whether engineering managers (EMs) should write code in their roles. The author, James, responds that while all managers should engage with the codebase, not all of them need to write code. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the nuances behind coding and management. Using Andy Grove's equation for measuring a manager's impact, James explains that a manager’s effect is based on their team's output and the influence on neighboring teams. He highlights various ways managers can increase their impact, such as |
The Dead Planet Theory Published: 2025-03-05 | Origin: Hacker News The content discusses the Dead Internet Theory and highlights a related phenomenon where a small percentage of users engage significantly more than others, often referred to as the Power Law, Pareto Principle, or 80-20 Rule. For instance, 10% of Twitter users generate 92% of tweets, illustrating that in various fields—including social media, hobbies, and careers—most contributions come from a minority of participants. This disparity can be observed in competitive gaming, such as in Marvel Rivals, where |
ARC-AGI without pretraining Published: 2025-03-04 | Origin: Hacker News In their blog post, Isaac Liao and Albert Gu explore whether lossless information compression can independently lead to intelligent behavior. They build upon previous theories suggesting that efficient information compression is central to intelligence. Their practical demonstration involves a method called CompressARC, which utilizes lossless compression during inference to perform well on the ARC-AGI challenge—an AI benchmark designed to evaluate the ability to infer abstract rules from limited examples. CompressARC adheres to three specific restrictions and achieves performance scores of 34.75 |
Why fastDOOM is fast Published: 2025-03-04 | Origin: Hacker News In the winter of 2024, the author restored an IBM PS/1 486-DX2 66Mhz, a computer they had long desired since their teenage years. Upon getting it to boot, they benchmarked it with the game Doom, calculating a framerate of 21.5 fps—decent for a 1993 machine. After discovering fastDOOM, a port that enhanced performance without sacrificing features, they experienced a 30% speed increase, and an even greater |
The Pitchfork Story Published: 2025-03-04 | Origin: /r/ruby In early March 2025, a Shopify engineer from the Ruby and Rails Infrastructure team reflects on the launch of a new Ruby HTTP server called Pitchfork, which was released over two years prior. The engineer discusses the unique design and trade-offs associated with Pitchfork, contrasting it with Unicorn, the application server long used by Shopify's monolith, which they argue is unfairly labeled as legacy software. The engineer defends Unicorn, asserting that it remains suitable for Shopify's needs, especially given their less |
Abusing SQLite to Handle Concurrency Published: 2025-03-04 | Origin: /r/programming SkyPilot utilizes SQLite for state management due to its capability to handle millions of queries per second and terabytes of data. However, challenges arose when scaling their Managed Jobs feature due to SQLite's limitation on concurrent writers—only one writer can operate at any moment, which is problematic when multiple jobs complete simultaneously. During testing, issues emerged primarily when jobs exceeded 1000 in number, causing errors linked to SQLite’s concurrency constraints. SkyPilot operates with a single instance (the "controller") managing multiple job |
Mountains, Cliffs, and Caves: A Guide to Using Perlin Noise for Procedural Gen Published: 2025-03-04 | Origin: Hacker News James Wilkins discusses procedural generation, a method for creating natural-looking textures and environments using algorithms instead of manual design. This technique is widely used in video games to generate unique landscapes, as exemplified by Minecraft, where each new world is created using procedural methods. At the core of this process is Perlin noise, which provides a smooth randomness that is beneficial for terrain generation. The guide aims to explain how Perlin noise works, how to implement it, and ways to customize it for designing terrains, |
How to Do Thoughtful Code Reviews Like a Human Published: 2025-03-04 | Origin: /r/programming Failed to fetch content - HTTP Status - 403 |
Show HN: Bayleaf – Building a low-profile wireless split keyboard Published: 2025-03-04 | Origin: Hacker News Of course! Please provide the content that you would like me to summarize. |
Short Ruby Newsletter Edition 125 Published: 2025-03-04 | Origin: /r/ruby Pagecord is a free, independent open-source microblogging platform designed for a #NoSocial world, allowing users to publish content without ads or tracking. It provides features like publishing via email, using custom domains, automated digests for subscribers, and automatic media embedding, all built with Ruby on Rails. Currently, short Ruby readers can get a discounted first year of Pagecord Premium for $12. The content also highlights various events and updates within the Ruby community, such as the launch of a Ruby |
The Full-Stack Trap: How Tech’s Obsession with Overloaded Developers Leads to Burnout and… Published: 2025-03-04 | Origin: /r/programming The article discusses the challenges of modern software development, likening it to a chef needing to perform every aspect of meal preparation rather than focusing on cooking. It critiques the unrealistic expectations placed on "full-stack developers," who are now expected to possess a wide range of skills, often at the expense of deep expertise. The author notes that while the original idea of a full-stack developer was practical, the current demand for multi-talented programmers has led to burnout and a generation of developers who can do many things |
A float walks into a gradual type system Published: 2025-03-04 | Origin: /r/programming Ruud van Asseldonk is developing a new configuration language called RCL, which is a gradually typed superset of JSON that allows for abstraction and reuse. RCL is designed to generate JSON, YAML, and TOML files, while also serving as a JSON query tool. A significant recent enhancement to RCL is the inclusion of float support, which has presented challenges due to conflicting guiding principles. RCL builds on JSON's number syntax, but the semantics of numbers can vary across different programming |
New UI Features for Schema Tracking and Migration Management in ActualDbSchema Published: 2025-03-04 | Origin: /r/ruby Failed to fetch content - HTTP Error - Failed to open TCP connection to :80 (Connection refused - connect(2) for nil port 80) |
The German language broke my website Published: 2025-03-04 | Origin: Hacker News The author is developing an app aimed at reducing smartphone usage, using "speed bumps" as a metaphor for its disruptive but effective nature. However, translating the site into German revealed challenges due to the numerous terms for "speed bump" and inaccuracies from translation tools. The author compiled a list of the terms and emphasizes the importance of using professional translation services, as cultural context can also impact relevance—speed bumps are unpopular in Germany, with Munich having stopped their installation due to safety concerns. The author also notes |
What to Do When Tech Concepts Feel Like Rocket Science Published: 2025-03-04 | Origin: /r/programming The content addresses the challenges of learning new technology and acknowledges that many people experience frustration and imposter syndrome when faced with complex concepts. It emphasizes that struggling to understand new tech is a normal part of the learning process and not a reason to give up. The author offers practical advice for navigating this difficulty: 1. **Complexity is Normal**: Learning tech can be challenging and confusing, and it's okay to feel overwhelmed. 2. **Break It Down**: Don't try to grasp difficult concepts all at |