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Optimizing with Novel Calendrical Algorithms

Published: 2025-02-03 | Origin: /r/programming

Jacob Pratt reflects on his five years of maintaining the time crate, mentioning significant code changes and the absence of substantial optimization efforts. Although benchmarks existed, he had not developed a new date-time algorithm from scratch. Despite the crate's performance being acceptable, he feels it's time for a performance audit and optimization, partly motivated by a personal desire to improve the project. Among various tasks he has, he identifies the `Date::to_calendar_date` method as a candidate for optimization. He describes the method's implementation

The missing cross-platform OS API for timers

Published: 2025-02-03 | Origin: /r/programming

The article discusses the need for delayed actions in programs, such as setting timeouts and sending keep-alives, particularly in C with a non-blocking event loop similar to NodeJS or Redis. The author found that there is no consistent libc function or syscall for creating timers across Unix systems, as each variant handles it differently. This contrasts with Windows, whose timer APIs, like SetTimer and WM_TIMER events, are simpler and more unified. The author notes that POSIX's approach to timers is inadequate

Polish city is using mussels to monitor water quality

Published: 2025-02-03 | Origin: Hacker News

The Dębiec Water Treatment Plant in Poznań, Poland, utilizes mussels as bioindicators to monitor water quality in the Warta River, the city's main drinking water source. Mussels, which close their shells in response to pollution, are equipped with sensors that relay water quality information to a computer system. When the water is clean, the mussels remain open; if pollution occurs, their closure triggers an alert. This innovative system integrates the natural detection capabilities of mussels with modern

Patterns for Personal Web Sites (2003)

Published: 2025-02-03 | Origin: Hacker News

"Patterns for Personal Web Sites" is a collection of guidelines for creating effective personal websites, compiled by Mark L. Irons. Based on observations of interesting personal sites, the patterns are categorized into five groups: 1. **Content patterns** - Focus on what the site contains. 2. **Structural patterns** - Describe organization at three levels: site, individual pages, and links. 3. **Temporal patterns** - Address how the site should evolve over time. 4. **Navigation patterns**

Introducing deep research

Published: 2025-02-03 | Origin: Hacker News

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GarminDB

Published: 2025-02-02 | Origin: Hacker News

The content highlights the importance of user feedback for the GarminDb project, emphasizing the seriousness with which it is taken. GarminDb allows users to download and analyze health data from Garmin Connect, Garmin watches, FitBit CSV files, and MS Health CSV files, storing the data in SQLite, a lightweight, serverless database. The scripts provided enable parsing and manipulating health data, with recommendations for using Jupyter notebooks and third-party SQLite browsers to work with the data. GarminDb is hosted on PyPI

OSS lightweight CLI for MacOS & Linux VMs on Apple Silicon

Published: 2025-02-02 | Origin: /r/programming

Lume is a lightweight Command Line Interface (CLI) and local API server designed for creating, running, and managing macOS and Linux virtual machines (VMs) on Apple Silicon with near-native performance. It utilizes Apple's Virtualization.Framework and offers a Python interface called pylume. Users can download and install the package manually or access pre-built VM images with a pre-configured SSH server from GitHub. Lume exposes a local HTTP API for automated VM management and welcomes contributions to improve its functionality.

F-strings for C++26 proposal [pdf]

Published: 2025-02-02 | Origin: Hacker News

The provided content appears to be a snippet from a PDF file, encoded in binary format, which is not directly interpretable as readable text. The visible portion contains various byte sequences and characters typical of a PDF document, but lacks coherent textual information or a summary to capture. If you have specific text or a different type of content you'd like summarized, please share that explicitly!

Emergence of a second law of thermodynamics in isolated quantum systems

Published: 2025-02-02 | Origin: Hacker News

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Waydroid – Android in a Linux container

Published: 2025-02-02 | Origin: Hacker News

Waydroid is a container-based solution that allows users to run a full Android system on GNU/Linux systems with Wayland-based desktop environments. It utilizes Linux namespaces for creating a containerized Android environment, providing direct access to hardware through LXC and the binder interface. The project is free and open-source, hosted on GitHub, and integrates Android applications seamlessly with Linux applications. Waydroid features both Multi-Window and Fullscreen modes, ideal for desktop use and gaming, with an optimized runtime based

What Okta Bcrypt incident can teach us about designing better APIs

Published: 2025-02-02 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses a recent security incident involving Okta, reported on November 1st, 2025, where vulnerabilities in the Bcrypt hashing algorithm were exploited. The issue arose because the cache key was generated using a combination of user ID, username, and password, allowing users with long usernames (over 52 characters) to log in with any password. Even for usernames just under the limit, such as 50 characters, the attacker would only need to guess the first few characters, making it

The legacy of lies in Alzheimer's science

Published: 2025-02-02 | Origin: Hacker News

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Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

Published: 2025-02-02 | Origin: Hacker News

A significant geolocation data leak from Gravy Analytics has come to light, revealing that over 2,000 apps in the App Store and Google Play covertly collect users' geolocation data without their knowledge or consent. After reviewing the list, the author discovered several apps installed on their iPhone that were involved. Motivated by this, they attempted to track their own geolocation data externally, even exploring methods to purchase it. The author outlines their research setup, which involved using the Charles tool to

DocumentDB: Open-Source MongoDB implementation based on PostgreSQL (from Microsoft)

Published: 2025-02-02 | Origin: /r/programming

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Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

Published: 2025-02-02 | Origin: Hacker News

The discussion highlights mixed experiences with AI tools like GPT in coding tasks. The initial comment expresses skepticism about AI's effectiveness, noting that many users struggle to ask the right questions or collaborate effectively with the AI. It suggests that a good interview process can still identify strong candidates without AI assistance. A respondent shares a negative experience where AI-generated code led to a bug in production, likening it to inexperienced behavior. Another participant mentions how they now find it easier to manage code tasks with AI, specifically mentioning the

What is PKCE Flow?

Published: 2025-02-02 | Origin: /r/programming

The article by Hemanta Sundaray outlines the Proof Key for Code Exchange (PKCE) flow, an enhancement of the OAuth 2.0 Authorization Code grant type designed to prevent authorization code interception attacks, particularly for public clients. PKCE addresses vulnerabilities by introducing a series of steps that involve the generation of a code verifier—a cryptographically secure string. This process involves the following five main steps: 1. **Code Verifier Creation**: The client generates a cryptographic random string (code verifier)

Managing Secrets in Docker Compose — A Developer's Guide | Phase Blog

Published: 2025-02-02 | Origin: /r/programming

This guide highlights the importance of secure secret management in Docker Compose, especially for production deployments. While Docker Compose has evolved from a local development tool to a viable option for production environments, users often overlook best practices for handling secrets. Common methods involve either hardcoding secrets directly into the Docker Compose file or using a .env file, both of which pose significant security risks. The guide emphasizes the need to avoid exposing secrets through environment variables, which can lead to security incidents. It suggests adopting more secure methods for

Unexpected Benefits of Building Your Own Tools

Published: 2025-02-02 | Origin: /r/programming

The author reflects on their experience with tool creation in game development, particularly while working on a hacking simulator called "Botnet of Ares." They discuss the challenge of designing and balancing game elements called Exploits, which are akin to items in role-playing games. Initially, this process involved tedious spreadsheet management, requiring repetitive copy-pasting to transfer data to the game engine, which was time-consuming and unenjoyable. To improve the workflow, the author created a custom editor that directly saves and loads

Making Python Fast: A Software 3D Renderer that Hits 60+ FPS

Published: 2025-02-02 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses a high-performance 3D software renderer called Pixerise, implemented in Python and optimized with NumPy and Numba JIT compilation. It is designed for CPU-based rendering, making it suitable for educational purposes, embedded systems, and situations where GPU acceleration is not feasible. The text includes instructions for installing project dependencies via various package managers and encourages contributions from the community while highlighting the importance of aligning with project goals. It mentions the availability of example demonstrations showcasing different engine features and concludes with

Open Source Tool for simulating dynamic systems using block diagrams written in C++

Published: 2025-02-02 | Origin: /r/programming

The content outlines a trial implementation of a node editor designed for solving differential algebraic systems. It highlights the implementation's optimization, achieving 60 frames per second while using minimal CPU resources. Testing is conducted using `ctest`, and specific dependencies and build instructions are provided, including the required libraries like SDL3, nlopt, and others. A Python script is mentioned for creating an AssetsManager project. The project is licensed under GPL-3.0, allowing for the use of commercial proprietary plugins but