News Nug
Surnames from nicknames nobody has any more

Published: 2025-02-10 | Origin: Hacker News

The content discusses the patterns of English patronymic surnames, where a person's last name indicates their father's forename. Examples include surnames like "Peters" and "Peterson," which derive from the name "Peter," and other similar forms tied to common given names like William, Richard, and Nicholas. The text highlights how these patterns allow one to infer the original forenames, even if they're less common now. It also notes that some surnames incorporate diminutive suffixes, such as

Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure

Published: 2025-02-10 | Origin: Hacker News

The content discusses the PDFSyntax tool, a self-contained Python package designed to analyze and visualize PDF file structures, including tasks like decompression and parsing. It transforms raw PDF bytes into a pretty-printed format that allows for logical navigation between file revisions and objects, while maintaining the original physical flow. The tool's key feature, the browse command, generates static HTML output with interactive elements, which can be viewed even with JavaScript disabled. Users can access a live demo on GitHub Pages and can install

Durable plastic gets a sustainability makeover in novel polymerization process

Published: 2025-02-10 | Origin: Hacker News

Failed to fetch content - HTTP Status - 400

I built an AI company to save my open source project

Published: 2025-02-10 | Origin: Hacker News

Geoffrey De Smet reflects on a pivotal moment from three years ago when he faced the collapse of his open-source project, OptaPlanner, which he had dedicated over a decade to developing alongside others. Despite its global success, De Smet found himself devastated, feeling as if his life's work was over. However, he transitioned this setback into an opportunity, founding Timefold AI, a company focused on developing PlanningAI solutions while maintaining open-source values. His journey began in 2006 when

Effortless Schema.rb diff tracing & DDL commands in Rails console

Published: 2025-02-10 | Origin: /r/ruby

Failed to fetch content - HTTP Error - Failed to open TCP connection to :80 (Connection refused - connect(2) for nil port 80)

8 Out of 10 Senior Engineers Feel Undervalued: The Hidden Crisis in Tech’s Obsession With Junior…

Published: 2025-02-10 | Origin: /r/programming

The author reflects on a troubling corporate trend where "cost optimization" leads to the dismissal of experienced engineers in favor of less experienced staff. They recount a specific incident involving a skilled engineer being replaced by a junior developer, emphasizing the larger issue of companies making poor decisions due to a lack of experienced oversight. This trend results in significant consequences, such as critical errors going unnoticed because senior engineers are preoccupied with mentoring newer employees. The piece serves as a commentary on the detrimental impacts of prioritizing cost savings over

Qalculate hacks

Published: 2025-02-10 | Origin: /r/programming

The author expresses a strong bias in favor of Qalculate, declaring it the best calculator ever created. They plan to share personal notes and hacks related to the software, primarily focusing on its command-line interface (CLI) and graphical interface (GUI). While the author appreciates the GUI for its better display of complex formulas and feature discoverability, they note that the abundance of menus can make it challenging to find specific commands. A few examples of useful calculations are provided, such as estimating data transfer over time and

Nvidia Security Team: “What if we just stopped using C?” (2022)

Published: 2025-02-10 | Origin: Hacker News

The blog post highlights NVIDIA's adoption of formally verified SPARK code for their products, driven by the need for enhanced cybersecurity measures. A key insight from Daniel Rohrer, NVIDIA's VP of Software Security, emphasizes that traditional testing methods are insufficient for guaranteeing software security. Instead, NVIDIA shifted its focus towards formal verification, which allows for mathematical proof of code behavior in line with specifications. In 2018, a successful proof-of-concept effort converted two security-sensitive applications from C to SPARK within

Writing my own dithering algorithm in Racket

Published: 2025-02-10 | Origin: /r/programming

Of course! Please provide the content you would like me to summarize.

20,000,000th Fibonacci Number in < 1 Second

Published: 2025-02-10 | Origin: /r/programming

The feedback from users is valued and taken seriously. Documentation is available to view all qualifiers. The Fibonacci number calculator created is highly efficient, capable of calculating Fibonacci numbers, including negative ones, up to the 25 millionth position in just 1 second on a laptop, outperforming previous code by GSheaf. Users are advised to clone the repository and run the release version for optimal performance.

Europol: Financial institutions should switch to quantum-safe cryptography

Published: 2025-02-10 | Origin: /r/programming

Europol has issued a warning about the urgent need for financial institutions and policymakers to transition to quantum-safe encryption due to the imminent threat posed by advances in quantum computing. During a Quantum Safe Financial Forum (QSFF), participants highlighted the risk of "store now – decrypt later" attacks, where malicious actors could collect encrypted data for future decryption with quantum computers. Europol noted that current encryption methods may become obsolete within the next 10 to 15 years, prompting a global call to action for developing

None of the major mathematical libraries that are used throughout computing are actually rounding correctly.

Published: 2025-02-10 | Origin: /r/programming

The IEEE-754 Standard for floating-point numbers, introduced in 1985, aimed to standardize floating-point implementations to enhance code portability and stability across platforms. This standard has been widely adopted and revised over the years, impacting applications that involve real numbers. The author has spent the past year analyzing mathematical function errors and their accumulation, particularly focusing on activation functions in neural networks and their approximations for improved performance. This exploration led to pushback from those advocating for mathematical function correctness and adherence to standards,

Jooki – Taking Control of a Forgotten Device

Published: 2025-02-10 | Origin: Hacker News

The content discusses the challenges faced by Jooki users after the company behind the innovative screen-free audio player went bankrupt, rendering many devices unusable. It proposes a technical exploration to potentially unlock and revive these devices by examining the firmware and finding exploits. The author encourages the original creators to open-source the Jooki to allow the community to maintain and evolve the product. Additionally, the blog post analyzes the SD Card of a Jooki Gen 2, highlighting its multiple partitions and Linux filesystems

How Does Ada's Memory Safety Compare Against Rust?

Published: 2025-02-10 | Origin: Hacker News

The article compares memory-related errors and the effectiveness of the Rust and Ada programming languages in preventing them. Rust has gained significant popularity due to its memory safety features, making it a strong alternative to languages like C++. Ada, a more established language used in safety-critical industries, is also designed for safety but has faced rivalry from the Rust community. The author reflects on their own biases towards Rust and questions whether they have evaluated it fairly, especially in terms of memory safety. The piece highlights Ada's capability to

Thomas Aquinas' skull reveals appearance and cause of death

Published: 2025-02-10 | Origin: Hacker News

EWTN News, Inc. is the largest Catholic news organization focused on delivering accurate reporting aligned with the Gospel and the Catholic Church. Recently, following the tour of St. Thomas Aquinas's skull across the nation, a new study has revealed a reconstructed image of the "Angelic Doctor," showcasing what he may have looked like. Brazilian 3D designer Cicero Moraes led the reconstruction, utilizing photographic and CT scan data to build a detailed bust. Moraes described the challenge of reconstructing

Thank You Bootstrap 1

Published: 2025-02-10 | Origin: Hacker News

The author has come to appreciate using Bootstrap for CSS in personal projects, including Anki Books and Larder, where it simplifies creating interactive UI elements. They express gratitude for Bootstrap's utility in their work and announce a blog series titled "Thank You Bootstrap." In the Larder project, the UI features a navigation bar and an action bar at the top and bottom, respectively, painted in Bootstrap's primary and secondary colors. The author experimented with custom Bootstrap CSS variables to change these colors multiple times,

Show HN: Searchable Library of Free Audiobooks

Published: 2025-02-09 | Origin: Hacker News

This is an open beta featuring 4,610 books, with plans to add more source options. It is best viewed on larger screens, and users can request features or sources via email.

Password Math

Published: 2025-02-09 | Origin: /r/programming

On February 8, 2025, a former PC Magazine colleague shared a mathematical anomaly regarding password generation on Facebook. The scenario involved constructing a four-character password from four groups of characters: 26 uppercase letters, 26 lowercase letters, 10 numeric digits, and 18 special characters, totaling 80 characters. Initially, the friend calculated the number of possible passwords based on choosing characters sequentially from the groups. However, upon questioning the approach, he realized discrepancies in his calculations when varying the

How concurrency works: A visual guide

Published: 2025-02-09 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses the complexities of concurrent programming and the challenges in understanding how these programs operate. Visualization can help simplify these complexities, especially for beginners, by breaking down larger systems into smaller models. The author has been exploring model checking, which emphasizes the importance of formally verifying solutions to ensure correctness in complex distributed or concurrent programs. The text cites Leslie Lamport's quote about the necessity of writing down thoughts to truly understand them, advocating that similar rigor is needed in implementing concurrent programs. The article will guide readers

Why I rebuilt ProseMirror’s renderer in React

Published: 2025-02-09 | Origin: /r/programming

The article discusses the author's experience building the Oak rich text editor for the New York Times, which has been utilized by over a thousand journalists for nearly five years. Oak was designed to facilitate collaborative editing and provide a "what you see is what you get" (WYSIWYG) experience. The complexity of the project stemmed from building atop an outdated content management system and creating software equipped for professional use, complete with numerous features and workflows. The editor was developed using React, aligning with the Times