Published: 2025-03-21 | Origin: Hacker News

To access digital issues of Physics World, you need to sign in or create a separate Physics World account from any IOP accounts you may have. After registering, a verification email should arrive immediately, but it may take longer in some cases; check your spam folder if you don't see it. If you don't receive it within 24 hours, contact customer services. Additionally, researchers at the University of Maryland have successfully developed a method to remotely detect radioactive material from 10 meters away using short-pulse

Published: 2025-03-21 | Origin: Hacker News

The French National Assembly recently rejected a proposal that would have compromised end-to-end encryption in messaging apps like Signal and WhatsApp, despite pressure from the Interior Ministry. This decision is seen as a win for digital rights, privacy, and common sense, as the proposed law was criticized for being a surveillance measure disguised as anti-drug legislation. It included a controversial "ghost" participant model that would allow law enforcement to access encrypted conversations covertly, raising concerns about trust and security. Lawmakers acknowledged the value

Published: 2025-03-21 | Origin: Hacker News

This text serves as a practical guide for writing your own x86 operating system, offering technical insights without excessive code samples. It compiles various resources and personal experiences, aiming to facilitate the coding process rather than delve into operating system theory, which is suggested to be explored in Andrew Tanenbaum's "Modern Operating Systems." The guide begins with detailed chapters that help readers set up a development environment and boot an OS kernel in a virtual machine, using the C programming language. As the book progresses, it

Published: 2025-03-21 | Origin: Hacker News

arXivLabs is a platform for collaborators to create and share new features for the arXiv website, guided by values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. The platform invites individuals and organizations to contribute ideas that benefit the arXiv community. Additionally, users can receive email or Slack notifications regarding the operational status of arXiv.

Published: 2025-03-21 | Origin: /r/programming

In March 2024, a serious security breach was uncovered in the xz compression software, widely used in Linux distributions for unpacking software packages. The backdoor was secretly introduced by a malicious maintainer known as Jia Tan over three years, allowing remote code execution on affected machines with SSH installed. This discovery shocked the open-source community due to its profound implications and the stealth of the attack. The backdoor was identified by Andres Freund, a developer at Microsoft, while he was investigating a performance issue

Published: 2025-03-21 | Origin: Hacker News

The content describes the commitment to fostering a diverse research environment that encompasses various research types and risk levels. Researchers at Google advance computer science through fundamental and applied research, often collaborating with the broader research community by open-sourcing projects and contributing to Google products. They emphasize sharing knowledge through publications and providing tools and datasets to promote collaboration. Engagement with the academic community and participation in events are also highlighted as crucial for research progress. Additionally, a study conducted by Google researchers investigates how large language models (LLMs)

Published: 2025-03-21 | Origin: /r/programming

PixiEditor 2.0 is now feature complete, transforming from a pixel-art program into a universal 2D graphics editor. Its goal is to address a wide range of 2D editing needs, similar to Blender in the 3D space, and it remains free and open-source. The major new feature is the Node Graph, which allows users to create complex effects by connecting nodes, giving the capability to produce effects previously achievable only with specialized software like game engines. PixiEditor

Published: 2025-03-21 | Origin: /r/programming

Rio is a user-friendly framework for creating websites and applications using pure Python, eliminating the need for HTML, CSS, or JavaScript. It features React-style components, allowing users to build custom components and entire apps that can run locally or on the web. Installation is straightforward via PyPI with pip, and a command-line utility helps create new projects quickly using built-in templates. Users are encouraged to contribute to the project, with a Contributing Guide available for submitting pull requests. Contributions are licensed under the

Published: 2025-03-21 | Origin: /r/programming

The author shares their experiences with breaking down legacy monoliths, noting that while some projects were successful, many faced significant challenges. A common issue was overly ambitious approaches rather than a lack of skills. They emphasize the importance of learning from past mistakes in monolith-to-microservices migrations and warn that completely rewriting a system is often unrealistic. Most migrations do not succeed fully and typically leave some legacy components intact. The author suggests that the goal should not be to eliminate the monolith entirely but to extract

Published: 2025-03-21 | Origin: /r/ruby

The content describes "Hyll," a Ruby implementation of the HyperLogLog algorithm designed for efficient cardinality estimation with minimal memory usage. Hyll can count millions of distinct elements using only a few kilobytes of memory. It supports both standard and Enhanced variants, facilitating large-scale applications with features for merging, serialization, and maximum likelihood estimation. HyperLogLog, developed by Flajolet et al. in 2007, is a probabilistic algorithm that balances memory consumption and accuracy, typically achieving

Published: 2025-03-21 | Origin: Hacker News

The content discusses a Rust implementation of the Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), highlighting its emphasis on security and support for various codecs. It features a collection of Rust crates that offer a full-fledged RDP client based on the IronRDP crate suite, utilizing non-blocking, asynchronous I/O. An example demonstrates the use of IronRDP in a blocking, synchronous manner, showcasing how to create a basic RDP client that connects to a server, decodes graphics updates, and saves them as

Published: 2025-03-21 | Origin: /r/programming

The article emphasizes the importance of understanding CPU architecture to enhance software performance, which is achieved through "hardware-aware coding." It explains that even well-designed algorithms can underperform if they do not align with the computer's hardware capabilities. Using a drive-through restaurant analogy, the article outlines three key concepts of CPU architecture: instruction pipelining, memory caching, and speculative execution, illustrating how minor code adjustments can significantly boost performance. Additionally, it introduces Stream, a platform that provides developers with APIs and SDKs

Published: 2025-03-21 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses the functionalities and improvements of CKEditor, a customizable rich text editor, and highlights its integration with CKBox for secure image and file management. It emphasizes how CKEditor has significantly enhanced productivity for users like Blooksy’s writers, saving them over 120 hours annually through better collaboration features. Despite its extensive capabilities, CKEditor 5 struggled with performance, particularly with large or complex documents, being slower than its predecessor. To address this, the team launched a performance improvement project aimed at

Published: 2025-03-21 | Origin: /r/programming

The article by Olga Koroleva discusses the challenges and inefficiencies in the code review process that can arise when developers create pull requests (PRs) out of obligation rather than value. It highlights issues such as delays in reviews due to busy schedules, the tendency to bypass the review for minor changes, and the risk of losing context while waiting for feedback. A well-structured code review process should facilitate effective collaboration, but without proper organization, it can become a bottleneck to productivity. Key challenges include

Published: 2025-03-21 | Origin: /r/ruby

The article discusses the creation of value-alike objects in Ruby within object-oriented programming (OOP). These value objects serve to encapsulate multiple related values, often with added methods for various functionalities such as computed properties and predicates. Key characteristics of value objects include comparability by type and value, as well as immutability, ensuring that their attributes cannot be changed once set. Value objects are useful for representing concepts in a domain and streamline handling related values by bundling them into a single object,

Published: 2025-03-21 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses a new feature in Android 15 that allows users to access a Linux development environment directly on their Android devices. This feature, hidden in Developer Options, enables developers and advanced users to run a command-line interface, powered by the Debian Linux distribution, facilitating scripting, coding, and use of Linux tools on smartphones and tablets. The environment operates alongside Android OS within a container, providing a secure space thanks to the Android Virtualization Framework (AVF), which uses pKVM technology for enhanced

Published: 2025-03-21 | Origin: /r/programming

Open-source software has an estimated economic value of $8.8 trillion, and without it, companies would spend about 3.5 times more on software. A study from Harvard Business School highlights that this value largely comes from around 3,000 developers globally, with open-source software present in 96% of all codebases. Researchers calculated the "supply value" at $4.15 billion and the "demand value" at $8.8 trillion, indicating that companies would incur

Published: 2025-03-21 | Origin: Hacker News

The IETF Administration LLC has decided to hold its 127th meeting in San Francisco, USA, despite significant safety concerns for attendees traveling there. The community is encouraged to boycott the meeting, as holding it in the US goes against their values of inclusivity. Many individuals feel unsafe in traveling to the US due to the country's current hostile environment, particularly for marginalized groups. Instances of detainment at the US border are highlighted, with reports of inhumane conditions and lack of legal representation for those affected

Published: 2025-03-21 | Origin: /r/programming

Namanyay Goel discusses the risks associated with "vibe coding," which refers to the practice of developing software using AI assistance without technical knowledge or coding skills. Last week, a "vibe coder" faced serious issues with his SaaS product, including subscription bypasses and database corruption, admitting his technical limitations and the challenges he encountered. Goel expresses concern about the growing belief that technical understanding is unnecessary in AI-driven development, calling vibe coding not only inefficient but potentially disastrous. He shares a

Published: 2025-03-21 | Origin: Hacker News

The IndieWeb is a movement focused on individuals reclaiming their digital independence by hosting their own websites and controlling their online content. Though some argue that it hasn't gained widespread popularity, this perspective misses the movement's essence. The IndieWeb values personal expression, creative freedom, and individuality, much like gardening as a personal endeavor rather than a mass-market activity. The author reminisces about the joy of creating personal websites in the early 2000s and emphasizes that the IndieWeb fosters a culture of creativity and