News Nug
Soldering the Tek way

Published: 2025-01-09 | Origin: Hacker News

Soldering may seem intuitive, but it requires practice and good habits, especially in a company dependent on high-quality solder joints. In response to this challenge during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Tektronix produced comprehensive training videos to teach employees the proper soldering techniques. The first video, aimed at assembly line workers, focuses on practical aspects of creating strong solder joints on PCBs, introduces some soldering theory, and emphasizes the importance of maintaining a soldering iron

The Linux Foundation launches an initiative to support open-source Chromium-based browsers

Published: 2025-01-09 | Origin: /r/programming

Since its inception in September 2008, Google Chromium has served as the foundation for many well-known web browsers, including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Opera, largely driven by Google. In response, the Linux Foundation has announced the "Supporters of Chromium-Based Browsers" initiative, set to launch on January 9, 2025. This project aims to promote open development and support the creation of new Chromium-based browsers. The initiative will create a collaborative environment for developers and the open-source

How Britain got its first internet connection (2015)

Published: 2025-01-09 | Origin: Hacker News

Peter T. Kirstein, a prominent British computer scientist and Internet Hall of Fame inductee, passed away in January 2020 at the age of 86 after a nearly 50-year career at University College London (UCL). Before his death, he was commissioned to write an article about the early challenges of connecting the UK to what would become the modern internet, which was not published at the time but is now being released to honor his contributions. The article, edited by Michael Parker and overse

Rails on Heroku: How to Use Less Memory Pt. 1 & 2

Published: 2025-01-09 | Origin: /r/ruby

Jon Sully discusses common memory-related issues faced by developers when hosting Rails applications on Heroku, specifically the R14 and R15 Memory quota errors, which can cause significant downtime. He notes that while it’s challenging to provide a universal guide for reducing memory usage due to the varying nature of applications, there are some general strategies that can be applied. One key recommendation is related to process and thread counts, where he advises using WEB_CONCURRENCY settings tailored to the dyno types, despite Heroku

What Happened to Lightweight Desktop Apps? History of Electron’s Rise

Published: 2025-01-09 | Origin: /r/programming

Electron is a popular development tool that simplifies creating cross-platform desktop applications using web technologies by bundling Node.js and Chromium together. It is celebrated for its ease of use, allowing developers to rapidly build and deploy applications with features like automatic updates and a "write once, ship everywhere" philosophy, similar to React Native but with fewer build complexities. With its origins dating back to 2013, Electron was developed by GitHub and has since become an integral part of developer culture, particularly as many software projects

Datadog acquires Quickwit

Published: 2025-01-09 | Origin: Hacker News

Quickwit has announced its joining with Datadog and plans to develop a new product together. To support their open-source community, they will release a new version of Quickwit under the Apache License 2.0 soon. The journey of Quickwit began four years ago, fueled by a long-standing friendship between three engineers—Paul, Adrien, and the author—who initially met in Paris in 2010 and dreamed of creating something innovative. The idea gained momentum in 2020 when Paul

SQL NULLs are Weird!

Published: 2025-01-09 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses how SQL handles NULL values, emphasizing that they are treated distinctly from one another. This is particularly relevant for columns with UNIQUE constraints, as multiple NULL values can exist in such columns because each NULL is considered a unique "unknown value." The author shares personal experiences with databases like SQLite, Postgres, and MySQL to illustrate this behavior. Key points include: 1. When using the logical equals operator ("="), comparing two NULL values results in NULL, as SQL treats them as unknown

WorstFit: Unveiling Hidden Transformers in Windows ANSI

Published: 2025-01-09 | Origin: Hacker News

The research presented at Black Hat Europe 2024 reveals a new attack surface in Windows through the exploitation of an internal charset conversion feature called Best-Fit. This vulnerability allows for practical attacks, including Path Traversal, Argument Injection, and Remote Code Execution (RCE), affecting several popular applications. The study highlights challenges in addressing the root causes, which involve compiler behavior and common developer mistakes within the open-source ecosystem. The article also poses a challenge to penetration testers by asking whether they can exploit specific

Redis creator antirez (Salvatore Sanfilippo) on Technical Blogging

Published: 2025-01-09 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses a conversation with Salvatore Sanfilippo, known as antirez, who is recognized for creating Redis and writing sci-fi novels. He shares insights on the importance of blogging for expressing passions and communicating about software projects. Antirez emphasizes that effective communication is crucial for a project's success, even though some developers may find success without it. He explains that his writing process is driven by his interests, where ideas coalesce into coherent thoughts, leading him to create blog posts. The piece aims

Show HN: Tetris in a PDF

Published: 2025-01-09 | Origin: Hacker News

The provided content is a segment of a PDF file's structure written in PDF syntax. It specifies the document's catalog and form fields. The key components include: 1. **PDF Version**: The document is identified as PDF version 1.6. 2. **AcroForm**: The document contains an AcroForm with numerous fields referenced by their IDs (e.g., 50 0 R, 51 0 R, etc.). 3. **Page Structure**: There is

Auto-saving Rails forms with Turbo Streams

Published: 2025-01-09 | Origin: /r/ruby

The content explains how to implement autosaving for inline input fields using Hotwire, specifically with Turbo and Stimulus. Autosaving automatically saves user input without requiring a specific action, such as when the user changes focus or after a period of inactivity. To achieve this, a Stimulus controller is created to handle the autosave functionality, removing the need for a traditional 'Save' button. The controller targets a form, and instead of calling the usual submit method, it uses requestSubmit to ensure a Turbo

WebGPU Sponza Demo – Frame Rendering Analysis

Published: 2025-01-09 | Origin: /r/programming

The author has been working on rendering the Sponza model using the WebGPU standard as a personal project to enhance their skills with the API and explore various rendering techniques. A demo of the project can be tried online, and the source code is available on GitHub. The article aims to provide a high-level overview of the rendering pipeline and various effects used in the demo without going into excessive detail about specific techniques like Screen Space Reflections. It also compares WebGPU to Apple's Metal rendering API. The

Show HN: Factorio Blueprint Visualizer

Published: 2025-01-09 | Origin: Hacker News

The content describes a Python library and interactive web demo designed to visualize Factorio blueprints. The creator is passionate about the game Factorio and aims to showcase the beauty of factories and blueprints. Users can import blueprints as text and visualize them with customizable settings, including viewing various building components and connections in scalable vector graphics (SVG). There is a note that blueprints from versions prior to 2.0 may require re-exporting after import to work correctly. Additionally, the creator has shared a

Phi 4 available on Ollama

Published: 2025-01-09 | Origin: Hacker News

Phi 4 is a state-of-the-art open model with 14 billion parameters, updated 3 days ago. It is built using a combination of synthetic datasets, filtered public domain content, and acquired academic materials. The model has undergone thorough enhancement and alignment, utilizing both supervised fine-tuning and preference optimization to improve instruction adherence and safety. It offers a context length of 16,000 tokens and is intended to facilitate research and serve as a foundation for generative AI applications, primarily in English.

The stories of survivors of the Rwandan Genocide

Published: 2025-01-09 | Origin: Hacker News

Of course! However, I need you to provide the content you'd like me to summarize. Please paste it here, and I'll be happy to help!

Why Agile Teams Are Getting Security Wrong (And How to Fix It)

Published: 2025-01-09 | Origin: /r/programming

Agile methodologies prioritize speed and flexibility in software development but often neglect security, increasing risks to software integrity. To counter this, it is vital to integrate secure coding practices throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC), ensuring security is a core element rather than an afterthought. Research from Secure Code Warrior shows that 67% of developers acknowledge shipping code with vulnerabilities. By embedding security into each development sprint, organizations can proactively tackle risks and potentially reduce vulnerabilities by up to 53%. This proactive approach aligns with

git-of-theseus: Analyze how a Git repo grows over time

Published: 2025-01-09 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses the analysis of Git repositories using a tool called "git-of-theseus." Users are encouraged to provide feedback, indicating that their input is valued. The tool can be installed using `pip install git-of-theseus`, and is used to analyze how a repository evolves over time by generating various visualizations. To analyze a repository, users must run the command `git-of-theseus-analyze <path to repo>`, which may take a while, and can customize parameters with

rails-history: A tool for analyzing the history of a Rails application using git

Published: 2025-01-09 | Origin: /r/ruby

The content emphasizes the importance of user feedback and mentions that all input is taken seriously. It also provides a reference to documentation for available qualifiers. Additionally, it describes a tool designed for analyzing the history of a Rails application repository using Git, with a command example for usage.

Who would have won the Simon-Ehrlich bet over different decades?

Published: 2025-01-09 | Origin: Hacker News

In 1980, biologist Paul Ehrlich and economist Julian Simon entered a bet regarding the future prices of five materials—chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten—over the next decade. Ehrlich anticipated that population growth would deplete resources, causing prices to rise. In contrast, Simon believed that human innovation would counteract shortages, leading to declining prices. They agreed on a wager of $1,000, with Ehrlich betting that prices would increase and Simon betting they would

28h Days: year 1 update

Published: 2025-01-08 | Origin: Hacker News

The author shares an update on their experience living on a 28-hour day schedule for over a year. They describe this shift as the second best decision for their health, following regular exercise. Initially, it took about two months to adjust, during which they faced challenges such as excessive sleepiness and difficulty communicating with their partner. However, implementing short strategic naps helped them manage sleepiness while maintaining the schedule. They note the importance of remaining consistent with their schedule throughout the week, particularly until weekends when they