News Nug
15-Fold increase in solar thermoelectric generator performance

Published: 2025-08-26 | Origin: Hacker News

The content discusses advancements in solar thermoelectric generators (STEGs), which have been hindered by the lack of efficient thermoelectric materials and compact heat sinks. A new strategy significantly enhances STEG power generation by 15 times with only a 25% increase in weight. This improvement is achieved by transforming regular tungsten into a selective solar absorber using a femtosecond laser, resulting in over 80% absorption efficiency at high temperatures and reducing convective heat loss by over 40%

Flash Attention from Scratch Part 1: Intro

Published: 2025-08-26 | Origin: /r/programming

The content outlines a 9-part blog series dedicated to implementing Flash Attention 2 from scratch on Ampere GPUs, specifically focusing on performance optimization over 16 kernel iterations without using external libraries. The initial implementation will start with a kernel that achieves 49.5% of the reference performance, and optimizations will eventually improve this to 99.2% on A100 GPUs and 102.9% on RTX 3090s at a sequence length of 4096. Key points include:

The TTY Demystified (2008)

Published: 2025-08-26 | Origin: /r/programming

The TTY (teletypewriter) subsystem is a fundamental component of Linux and UNIX systems, yet its significance is often overlooked. Understanding TTYs is crucial for developers and advanced users, even though the subsystem can be complex and convoluted. The history of TTYs dates back to 1869 with the invention of the stock ticker, leading to the development of ASCII-based teletypes that were initially used for transmitting commercial telegrams. As computers advanced, teletypes became input and output devices

Gemini 2.5 Flash Image

Published: 2025-08-26 | Origin: Hacker News

Gemini 2.5 Flash Image, also known as "nano-banana," is a new advanced image generation and editing model that allows users to blend multiple images, ensure character consistency for storytelling, and implement targeted transformations using natural language. This update addresses user feedback from the earlier Gemini 2.0 Flash, which praised low latency and ease of use but called for higher image quality and creative control. Available via the Gemini API, Google AI Studio, and Vertex AI, the model is priced at

Cool Ruby Hacker Text looking thingy i made!

Published: 2025-08-26 | Origin: /r/ruby

The content promotes a downloadable Ruby hacker animation and invites users to join the associated Discord server. It includes links to the creator's GitHub page and encourages commenters on itch.io to log in. The downloadable files can be accessed after clicking the download button.

Wubular: a browser-native (Ruby WebAssembly) clone of Rubular

Published: 2025-08-26 | Origin: /r/ruby

The article discusses the creation of Wubular, a new application inspired by Rubular, which allows Ruby apps to run entirely in the browser thanks to Ruby's support for WebAssembly (WASM) starting with version 3.2. Rubular, developed in 2007 by Michael Lovitt, is a popular tool for creating and testing Ruby regular expressions, but it feels outdated and is not open-source. The author was inspired to create Wubular as a way to modernize the experience

Rv, a new kind of Ruby management tool

Published: 2025-08-26 | Origin: Hacker News

In a recent reflection, the author expresses a long-standing desire for an enhanced Ruby dependency manager that not only manages gems but also Ruby versions, installs pre-compiled Rubies, and simplifies running various Ruby scripts and tools. Inspired by a Python tool called uv, which addresses these needs effectively, the author has decided to create a similar tool for Ruby named rv. Written in Rust for speed and efficiency, rv aims to streamline Ruby dependency management by combining the best features of existing tools like rvm, bund

macOS dotfiles should not go in –/Library/Application Support

Published: 2025-08-26 | Origin: Hacker News

The author expresses frustration with command-line tools on macOS that store user configuration files in ~/Library/Application Support rather than following the XDG Base Directory Specification, which suggests using $XDG_CONFIG_HOME (by default, ~/.config). They argue that this behavior is often due to the use of popular libraries that default to the Application Support directory, which may be suitable for GUI applications but is not appropriate for command-line utilities. The author points out that users find it surprising and counterintuitive when modern tools

The Limits of NTP Accuracy on Linux

Published: 2025-08-26 | Origin: Hacker News

The author has been exploring the limits of time synchronization between Linux systems, focusing on achieving high accuracy for timestamps in distributed tracing. The goal is to synchronize clocks to within 1 to 10 microseconds, ideally aiming for less than 1 round-trip time (RTT), which is about 20–30 microseconds on their local network. Although using Chrony with a GPS time source claims high accuracy (within nanoseconds), the author finds it challenging to verify these claims, especially in relation to

Climbing catfish filmed scaling waterfalls

Published: 2025-08-26 | Origin: Hacker News

Failed to fetch content - HTTP Status - 403

When AI Gets Accessibility Wrong: Why Developers Still Need Manual Testing

Published: 2025-08-26 | Origin: /r/programming

Ty's exploration of the intersection of technology and cuisine highlights the increasing reliance on AI tools in development workflows, particularly for generating code snippets and components. However, there's a significant issue: AI-generated suggestions often lack accuracy regarding accessibility due to limited training data, leading to incomplete or incorrect outputs. Unlike typical code, which benefits from execution-based validation, accessibility requires intentional manual testing and specialized tools, making it risky to rely solely on AI for accessibility guidelines. Most developers don't create inaccessible code intentionally; rather, it

Nullable vs nullable in C#

Published: 2025-08-25 | Origin: /r/programming

The article discusses the confusion caused by the reuse of the T? syntax for denoting nullable types in C#, which has separate meanings for value types and reference types. Nullable value types, introduced in C# 2.0, use T? as a shorthand for the wrapper type Nullable<T>, meaning that T? and T are distinct types. In contrast, nullable reference types, introduced in C# 8.0, treat T? as a signifier of intention, indicating that null values are

Who's Afraid of a Hard Page Load?

Published: 2025-08-25 | Origin: /r/programming

On July 16, 2024, the author critiques the common assumption that users prefer Single-Page Applications (SPAs) due to their "modern" and responsive feel. SPAs utilize partial page replacement, which involves updating the DOM instead of loading new pages, enabling a smoother user experience. However, this approach can pose significant issues, particularly with navigation. Instead of traditional page links, SPAs fetch content using JavaScript and manipulate the browser's URL via the History API, creating an app

What is a color space?

Published: 2025-08-25 | Origin: /r/programming

The content authored by Dan Hollick is a comprehensive exploration of digital color, addressing a wide range of questions related to the topic. It aims to provide thorough answers to both common and less common inquiries about digital color theory, practices, and applications. The text spans 6207 words, likely covering aspects such as color models, perception, tools for digital color manipulation, and best practices in various digital mediums. Overall, it serves as an extensive resource for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of digital color.

SSD-iq: Uncovering the Hidden Side of SSD Performance

Published: 2025-08-25 | Origin: /r/programming

The content provided appears to be a snippet from a PDF file, specifically in the PDF 1.7 format. The text consists mainly of binary data and encoded information, which is not legible as coherent text or an understandable message. Therefore, it cannot be summarized in a meaningful way. If you need information about PDFs or different content related to them, please provide additional context or content.

Remote Ruby: Sabbaticals, Pagination Gems, Streaming Controllers, and Rails World Prep 🎙️

Published: 2025-08-25 | Origin: /r/ruby

In this episode, Rubyists Andrew and Chris discuss their recent activities, including Andrew's upcoming sabbatical and completion of tasks at Podia. They share thoughts on gaming, specifically the Battlefield 6 Beta's large download size, and their experiences with internet services like Google Fiber and Cox. The conversation transitions to technology trends, including Apple's new iOS beta and potential hardware releases. They explore programming topics like pagination gems, streaming controllers, and updates on their ongoing projects such as the Learn Hotwire course

Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android

Published: 2025-08-25 | Origin: Hacker News

Google announced that starting in 2026, only apps from verified developers will be installable on certified Android devices to combat malware and financial scams. This requirement extends beyond the Play Store to all install methods, including third-party app stores and sideloading. The verification process is meant to confirm developer identities, not app content. Google aims to reduce the presence of convincing fake apps and make it harder for malicious actors to distribute harmful software, as they found that malware from sideloaded sources is significantly more

Google's Liquid Cooling

Published: 2025-08-25 | Origin: Hacker News

Liquid cooling has a long-standing presence in both PC enthusiasts' setups and enterprise computing, recently becoming more significant in datacenters due to the rising power demands and heat produced by advanced chips, especially in machine learning applications. Google emphasizes the efficiency of water, which has a thermal conductivity about 4000 times that of air, for cooling solutions related to their machine learning accelerators, TPUs. Since launching their liquid-cooled TPUs in 2018, Google has been refining their cooling systems.

RubyGems Security Response to Socket.dev + How We Actually Protect the Ruby Ecosystem

Published: 2025-08-25 | Origin: /r/ruby

On August 25, 2025, Marty Haught discussed RubyGems.org's security measures in response to recent research from Socket.dev regarding malicious gems that steal social media credentials. RubyGems.org employs a proactive, multi-layered security strategy, which includes: 1. **Automated Detection**: All gem uploads undergo static and dynamic code analysis and behavioral checks, facilitated by Mend.io’s security tools. 2. **Risk Scoring**: Each package is assessed and higher-risk gems are

Short Ruby Newsletter - edition 147

Published: 2025-08-25 | Origin: /r/ruby

The summary highlights various announcements and updates in the Ruby community as of August 25, 2025: - **Judoscale** is promoting its autoscaling services for platforms like Heroku and AWS, emphasizing ease of use and reduced stress from production alerts. - **José Valim** has launched **Tidewave Web**, a coding agent for Rails and Phoenix. - **Irina Nazarova** announced updates for the **SF Ruby 2025** conference, including the full schedule and Ruby