Links für 2024 KW 19
Zusammengefasst von LlongOrca.
The rise of TikTok has led to a shift in the way content is consumed online, creating an environment where users feel isolated from their favorite creators. This can be attributed to the increasing focus on maximizing time spent on platforms, which has caused them to adopt broadcasting media models similar to those used by traditional outlets like BBC. As social networks continue to evolve, it's crucial to address the loneliness epidemic that is affecting today's youth and find ways to restore the bi-directional bond between storytellers and consumers. The upcoming AI revolution may provide solutions for some of these issues by elevating friends' stories using AI, ultimately reconnecting users with more meaningful content.
Test Failures Should Be Actionable:
This article emphasizes the importance of making unit test failures actionable. Test failures should provide enough information to quickly identify and fix the issue without needing additional context or rerunning tests. Effective use of unit testing frameworks, assertion libraries, and precise expressions of invariants can help create more informative and less brittle tests. Additionally, narrow assertions in unit tests, descriptive test names, and keeping cause and effect clear contribute to making test failures actionable.
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Full Disclosure: Microsoft PlayReady - complete client identity compromise:
The article discusses two attack scenarios developed by Security Explorations, which enable the extraction of private ECC keys used by a PlayReady client on Windows for communication with license servers and identity purposes. These keys can be misused to mimic a PlayReady client outside the Protected Media Path environment. It suggests that PlayReady content protection implemented in software on the client side has little chance of survival, as it is likely to be reverse-engineered and compromised. The article emphasizes the responsibility of vendors to constantly increase security measures through technological means.
Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger:
Marcel Gomes, an investigative journalist, has revealed the depths of JBS, the world's largest meat processing and packing company, as a result of his probe into the supply chain. By mapping complex cattle farms responsible for illegal deforestation in the Amazon, Gomes discovered that six of Europe's biggest retail chains halted purchases of JBS beef due to environmental concerns. However, he found tainted beef on store shelves when he traveled to San Francisco to collect his Goldman Environment Prize. Gomes hopes that by monitoring supply chains more closely, companies such as JBS can operate in a sustainable manner.
Grundsatzprogramm: CDU will DSGVO-Vorgabe zur Datenminimierung in Rente schicken:
The CDU, a political party in Germany, wants to rethink data protection and prioritize „data sovereignty“ and „data care“ over the principle of data minimization. They argue that individuals must have control over when, where, and how their data is collected and used. This includes reforming the existing Data Protection Act (DSGVO) and creating a centralized German data protection authority. The CDU also emphasizes the importance of cybersecurity, calling for better protection against cyber attacks and the use of intelligent video surveillance technology in public spaces. Additionally, they advocate for measures to combat deepfakes and disinformation campaigns through active countermeasures.
This article discusses the use of a DMARC tester to analyze email server validation of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC settings. It encourages readers to take a DMARC quiz to improve their understanding of the topic and suggests utilizing the DMARC tester to examine email headers. The article also promotes visiting the site from a desktop for a full visual explanation of how DMARC works.
Stack Overflow users deleting answers after OpenAI partnership:
The article discusses the recent partnership between Stack Overflow and OpenAI, where OpenAI will use Stack Overflow's vast knowledge platform to enhance its AI models. However, some users are deleting their content in protest against this decision, arguing that it is being used for profit without their consent. Stack Overflow has responded by preventing such mass deletions and suspending accounts involved. The author suggests that the partnership can provide benefits to both parties but acknowledges the concerns of users who feel exploited.
Shell sold millions of carbon credits for carbon that was never captured, report finds | CBC News:
Greenpeace Canada has accused Shell of selling millions of carbon credits for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that never happened, allowing the company to profit from its Quest plant carbon capture and storage project in Alberta. Between 2015 and 2021, Shell was awarded two tonnes' worth of emissions reduction credits for each tonne it actually captured and stored underground at its Quest facility. Greenpeace alleges that Shell sold 5.7 million „phantom“ credits through the Alberta carbon market, making over $200m in profit. Critics argue that this amounts to a hidden subsidy within the program.
In 2012, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. mentioned in a deposition that he had experienced „a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died.“ This description could refer to several parasitic conditions, with neurocysticercosis (NCC) being the most likely candidate. NCC is caused by the larvae of the pork tapeworm Taenia solium that enter the brain after people are exposed to contaminated feces. The infection can lead to inflammation, swelling, and tissue destruction but can be easily prevented with good hand hygiene practices and diagnosed using CT scans. While not common in the US, NCC is more prevalent in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia, and India.
The One Where I Lie To The CTO:
This article tells the story of an individual who worked on a big project for a Fortune 500 company, where the CTO outsourced a key part of it to a large tech services firm with poor track records. Despite everyone's doubts about the decision, they proceeded with the project, which led to several challenges and delays. The team managed to replace the vendor's product in just two months while keeping it hidden from both the clients and the original technology partner. The author explains how they lied to their CTO during this period but eventually achieved a successful launch despite the obstacles.
🇪🇺 European Accelerationism - eu/acc:
The article discusses European doomerism and argues that while some criticism is valid, Europe's strengths are often overlooked. It highlights various areas where Europe excels, such as its strong economy, AI research, high rates of entrepreneurship, and tax competitiveness. The author suggests several policy proposals to accelerate European potential, including common markets for defense procurement, capital, and electricity; standardization across the EU; digital sandboxes; and establishing a European Advanced Research Agency. These measures aim to bolster innovation, growth, and competitiveness in Europe.
Rule of Thumb: Anything that looks fancy is not worth you time:
The article discusses the issue with SEO-focused content on recipe websites, where sites provide large amounts of narrative text before the actual recipe in order to increase their search engine ranking. Users express frustration with these tactics and suggest that simplifying website design would be more beneficial for user experience.
A new material structure developed by scientists could revolutionize energy storage by enabling capacitors in electric vehicles or devices to store energy for much longer. The researchers have created capacitors from „heterostructures“ with a novel property that reduces the speed at which energy dissipates without affecting their ability to charge quickly. This discovery could lead to better battery life across consumer devices, such as laptops and smartphones, as well as more flexibility in grid-scale energy storage. The scientists found that by accidentally creating a tiny gap in the core of the capacitors, they could increase the relaxation time, allowing them to retain energy more effectively over longer periods than current batteries.
Consistency Large Language Models: A Family of Efficient Parallel Decoders:
This article introduces Consistency Large Language Models (CLLMs), a new family of parallel decoders capable of reducing inference latency by efficiently decoding an n-token sequence per inference step. It demonstrates that pretrained LLMs can be taught to operate as efficient parallel decoders and trained to perform parallel decoding by mapping any randomly initialized n-token sequence to the same result yielded by autoregressive (AR) decoding in as few steps as possible. CLLMs are shown to achieve $2.4\times$ to $3.4\times$ improvements in generation speed, in par with or even better than other fast inference techniques like Medusa2 and Eagle, yet requiring no additional memory cost to accommodate auxiliary model components at inference time.
library-librarians-e-books-license-policies:
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Development notes from xkcd's "Machine":
In April 2022, xkcd released Machine, their 15th annual April Fools project. It is a giant Rube Goldberg machine builder similar to the classic Incredible Machine games, created by individual xkcd readers. The development process took three weeks and involved the largest group of contributors for an xkcd project so far. This project explored the challenges of user-generated content in interactive comics and how players can create subdivisions within a larger machine without communicating directly. The game's design focused on player expressiveness, robustness, and having machines reach steady state within 30 seconds. Overall, Machine is a collaborative effort that showcases the creativity of its contributors and the potential for interactive comics to engage audiences in new ways.
The article discusses how designers often focus on visual aesthetics while prioritizing function over form. It highlights the importance of finding a balance between form and function, and how beauty can be subjective in the world of graphic design. The author shares their personal journey in re-evaluating what makes good design and appreciating the concept of „beautiful ugly websites.“ They argue that while form should serve a purpose, it shouldn't always follow function strictly, and that there is room for creativity and exploration within design.
I used resume spammers to apply for 120 jobs. Chaos ensued.:
Job application bots have become increasingly popular in today's competitive job market, with some services like LazyApply allowing users to send up to 750 applications per day. However, these bots can also result in errors and misinformation on applications, potentially damaging a candidate's chances of being hired. Despite their convenience, the human oversight needed for job application bots may not be worth the risk, as personal connections and networking still play a significant role in landing jobs.
The article discusses various issues and misunderstandings in the C++ programming language, including: 1. Inline does not mean inline 2. <iosfwd> 3. C++ is not a superset of C 4. Spaceship operator, digraphs, else if is a lie, vector<bool> is broken, unary minus with unsigned operand, analog integer literals, templates, Turing completeness, zapcc compiler, std::move does not move, std::remove does not remove, the strange details of std::string, iostream was a mistake, rvalue references are lvalues, function try blocks, shared_ptr is an anti-pattern, initialization matrix, the for loop is broken, constexpr does not mean what you think it means, const std::string bitand, templates are obfuscated Haskell, the grand error explosion competition, operator,() herbceptions, std::optional is a monad, C++0x is a hexadecimal name, heap and stack don't exist, hello world has a bug, C++ disproves Fermat's last theorem, C++0x concepts were Rust traits, godbolt is a real person.
Compilers and Termination Revisited – Embedded in Academia:
The article discusses the behavior of C compilers, specifically how they treat non-terminating executions in code. It explains that some compilers generate terminating object code for non-terminating programs at the level of the abstract machine, which can lead to unexpected results. The author argues that the C standard is flawed and should be more specific about whether this behavior is permitted or not.
The article discusses the presence of bugs in „hello world“ programs, which are often considered to be bug-free due to their simplicity. It highlights that even in languages such as C, Python, and Java, there can still be bugs in these basic programs. The article also points out that detecting and reporting I/O errors is essential for real-world programming, as files can run out of space in the same way that standard output can.
The article discusses that the user's request has been blocked due to a network policy, and suggests logging in or creating an account to regain access. For script or application users, they should register with developer credentials and ensure their User-Agent is unique and descriptive. If still blocked, users can file a ticket to discuss easier ways to obtain data or address incorrect blocking. Include the IP address (185.232.69.199) and Reddit account when contacting support.
Novel attack against virtually all VPN apps neuters their entire purpose:
Researchers have developed an attack called TunnelVision that targets nearly all virtual private network (VPN) applications, forcing them to send and receive some or all traffic outside of the encrypted tunnel designed for protection against snooping and tampering. The researchers believe that the attack affects all VPN applications when connected to a hostile network, with no ways to prevent such attacks except when the user's VPN runs on Linux or Android. TunnelVision negates the purpose of VPNs, which is to encapsulate incoming and outgoing Internet traffic in an encrypted tunnel and cloak the user's IP address. The attack works by manipulating a DHCP server that allocates IP addresses to devices trying to connect to the local network.
The greatest resume I've ever seen:
This article tells the inspiring story of Daniel Singletary, a plumber who wanted to make a career change into IT. He took up the Cloud Resume Challenge, which involved learning various technical skills and hosting his resume in the cloud. Despite having no professional IT experience, he managed to complete the challenge and landed a job as a cloud DevOps engineer. The article emphasizes that Daniel's success came from his hard work, perseverance, and existing trade skills which he used to adapt quickly to new technologies.
Microsoft has closed several Bethesda studios, including Arkane Austin (Redfall maker), Tango Gameworks (The Evil Within developer), and Alpha Dog Studios (Mighty Doom). Roundhouse Games will be absorbed by ZeniMax Online Studios. Significant layoffs are expected but the exact number of staff members affected has not been disclosed. Microsoft cited a „reprioritization of titles and resources“ as the reason behind these cuts, prioritizing high-impact titles and investing in Bethesda's portfolio of blockbuster games.
Use Rails · Applied Cartography:
The author suggests that when choosing a software stack for building SaaS applications, one should use what they are familiar with. Rails is an ideal choice due to its popularity and robust ecosystem. However, the author acknowledges that experience in other languages like PHP or Python may be just as valuable. Ultimately, the success of a business depends on factors beyond just the chosen software stack.
The article discusses various models and projects related to AI and machine learning, including the „Hugging Face“ organization and its GitHub, Twitter, Discord, and WeChat presence. It showcases model updates such as xtuner/llava-llama-3-8b-v1_1 and xtuner/llava-phi-3-mini, along with datasets that are not yet publicly available.
This article is about a set of utilities designed to refactor and upgrade Ruby code based on Abstract Syntax Trees (ASTs). The tools are licensed under the MIT license and have received 28 stars from users. The text also mentions that there are no forks, branches, or tags available related to this project.
In diesem Artikel wird die Entscheidung von Microsoft-CEO Satya Nadella thematisiert, Security-Überlegungen als Teil des Entwicklungsprozesses bei Microsoft einzuführen. Der Autor ist skeptisch und erinnert sich an einen vergleichbaren Vorfall in der Vergangenheit unter Bill Gates. Der Autor kritisiert Nadella dafür, die Tester-Ressourcen gestrichen zu haben, und fordert ihn auf, zunächst zu gehen.
Das Thema des Artikels bezieht sich auf den Einsatz von „Zero Trust DNS“, der als Begriff als völlig dämlich empfunden wird. Der Autor hat den Artikel dreimal gelesen, um einen klareren Sinn daraus zu erkennen, konnte jedoch keine Aussage treffen.
Der Autor ist skeptisch gegenüber dem neuen Security-Modell und hofft, dass Microsoft weiter in die Bedeutungslosigkeit abdriftet, da es bereits eine Werbungsplattform mit wenigen Mitgliedern und einer Datenabgreifplattform ist.
Read the full court ruling warning Trump of jail time if he continues violating gag order:
Judge Juan M. Merchan fined former President Donald Trump $1,000 for violating a gag order in his hush money trial for the second time. Prosecutors had accused Trump of four violations; however, the judge concurred with only one. The judge also warned that further violations could result in jail time.
Right-Wing Nonprofit Paid Millions to Companies With Ties to Insiders:
The Conservative Partnership Institute, a nonprofit group that supports President Donald Trump's allies, has paid at least $3.2 million to corporations led by its own leaders or their relatives since the start of 2021. The three highest-paid contractors were connected to insiders within the institute. This raises concerns about self-dealing and potential misuse of tax-exempt nonprofit funds, as the institute's money should serve public interests rather than private ones.
The article discusses the importance of bollards as physical barricades to prevent vehicles from crossing into pedestrian areas or striking buildings. Bollards can be built into the environment, movable, large or small, and are designed to protect people from vehicle-related accidents. In contrast, areas without bollards may experience more damage due to careening or speeding vehicles. The article also highlights instances where a lack of bollards has led to serious injuries and fatalities, emphasizing the need for proper planning and installation of these safety barriers.
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The article discusses how Ansible, a popular IaC automation tool, is homoiconic and has syntactic macros similar to the Lisp family of languages. It highlights the ability of Ansible to execute YAML files, treating them as both code and data. Additionally, the article mentions the use of syntactic JSON templating in Ansible for tasks such as generating YAML content dynamically.
tchia-maano-camps-meavora-statues-guide:
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Nearly half of all masters degrees aren't worth getting:
A new paper from the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP) suggests that college is worth it, but depends on the degree and institution you attend. Over 3/4ths of bachelor's degrees have a positive return on investment (ROI), while master's and associate degrees are riskier with many costing students in the long run. Factors like earnings after graduation, completion rate, and college quality should be considered when choosing a degree program. Federal funding often supports low-value degree programs, with 29% of federal dollars going to programs with negative ROI.
radient/examples/drug_discovery.md at main · fzliu/radient:
The article demonstrates how vectors can be used to represent non-traditional unstructured data by using AI-powered drug discovery in the biotech industry. It describes a method to generate embedding vectors for molecular structures, focusing on Ibuprofen as an example. By vectorizing all SMILES strings and searching for alternatives, the article finds that Loxoprofen, Phenylacetic acid, Naproxen, Fenoprofen, Ketoprofen, Mandelic acid, and Oxeladin are similar to Ibuprofen in terms of their analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties.
This article is an anonymous dump of all user-contributed content on the Stack Exchange network, including Posts, Users, Votes, Comments, Badges, Tags, PostHistory, and PostLinks. Each site has its own separate archive consisting of XML files compressed with 7-zip using bzip2 compression. The data is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, intended to be shared and remixed, with attribution requirements specified in the article.
Expedition Magazine | Ancient Egyptian Stone-Drilling:
The drilling of hard stones such as quartz and granite has been a topic of debate among scholars, particularly regarding how the ancient Egyptians drilled them in the 3rd millennium B.C. This study aimed to provide experimental evidence for resolving this disagreement, focusing on an Old Kingdom sarcophagus lid from Brooklyn Museum. The researchers created silicone impressions of drill holes and analyzed them under a scanning electron microscope (SEM). They found that the concentric lines were visible in the impressions, similar to those reported by Petrie. Through functional analysis, they discovered that emery was an abrasive used for drilling granite but did not require fixed points to create cutting lines. Furthermore, the researchers suggested that diamond could have been used due to its efficiency, although it is uncertain which of the three tested abrasives - emery, corundum, and diamond - was actually utilized.
In Defense of Parasitic Worms:
In recent years, scientists have begun to view parasites as potential forces for good in some ecosystems, rather than just nature's villains. Parasites are a bellwether for the health of an ecosystem, and their presence signals that other hosts are also present. Understanding this counterintuitive idea helps us appreciate the profound ways ecosystems are shaped by parasites. As with the gray wolves in Yellowstone, scientists are just starting to recognize the profound ways that ecosystems are shaped by parasites.
Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins:
Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine have identified small changes in metabolism between birth and the onset of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) later in childhood. They discovered that a small number of biochemical pathways are responsible for the majority of these changes, which could help inform early detection and prevention strategies for ASD. The study found that 14 out of 50 different biochemical pathways were responsible for 80% of the metabolic impact of autism. The cell danger response, a natural and universal cellular reaction to injury or metabolic stress, is related to these pathways. The researchers hope that by revealing specific ATP-related pathways altered in ASD, their work will help scientists develop new drugs for the treatment and management of ASD symptoms.
This article is about the world's first interactive linear algebra book, which introduces various concepts such as vectors, dot products, vector products, Gaussian elimination, matrices, determinants, rank, linear mappings, and eigenvectors. The book aims to help readers navigate through the material and build their understanding of linear algebra by providing an engaging and interactive learning experience.
Scotland suddenly has a lot of mosquitoes:
As global temperatures rise, tropical diseases carried by insects like mosquitoes are increasingly becoming a concern in temperate zones. Scotland is the latest country experiencing this trend as researchers from the University of Glasgow discovered that mosquitoes can be found throughout the country. While there have been mosquitoes in Scotland for millennia, their presence has not previously warranted significant study. This lack of data makes it difficult to gauge how to approach controlling mosquito populations and mitigating the risk of mosquito-borne diseases. The UK is taking the threat seriously and has implemented a wider program to examine the potential impact of vector-borne diseases on the country under various climate change scenarios.
Flatpak - a security nightmare:
The article discusses issues with Flatpak, a popular software distribution and management system on Linux, two years after it was heavily pushed as the „Future of Apps on Linux.“ It criticizes the security of Flatpak, stating that most apps still have full access to the host system but are misleadingly labeled as sandboxed. The article also highlights the lack of security updates for Flatpak runtimes and applications, long-known security holes, and broken desktop integration. The author concludes by expressing concern over whether Linux will be able to support Chinese input in the future due to these issues.
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World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5C target:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has revealed that nearly 80% of its scientists expect global temperatures to rise by at least 2.5°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. This is a significant increase from the internationally agreed target of limiting warming to 1.5°C and would have catastrophic effects on humanity and the planet. Many scientists predict widespread famine, conflicts, and mass migration as a result of extreme weather events such as heatwaves, wildfires, floods, and storms. Despite the clear scientific evidence provided by the IPCC, many experts expressed their frustration and fear at the failure of governments to act on climate change. The survey found that younger scientists were more pessimistic about meeting the 1.5°C target, with over half predicting a rise of at least 3°C.
High prices are not the main cause of low fertility rates in cities:
The article discusses the relationship between housing density and fertility rates, suggesting that high-density living may contribute to low birth rates due to a lack of space and an inability for families to find suitable accommodations with yards for children to play. It cites examples of cities like Macau, Tokyo, Australia, and New Zealand where densely populated areas have been linked to low fertility rates. The article also highlights the political choices made by previous generations that may have contributed to the current situation, such as Baby Boomers having more children than Millennials due to different living circumstances and priorities.
Made in America: The Ridiculous History of 'OK':
In 1839, Charles Gordon Greene, the editor of Boston's Morning Post, coined the term „OK“ as an acronym for „oll korrect.“ He used it in response to a semi-satirical citizens group called the Anti-Bell-Ringing Society and its criticism by Providence Journal editors. Although initially intended as an inside joke, OK quickly gained popularity and has since become a widely recognized term.
No One Knows What Universities Are For:
This article discusses the growth of bureaucracy and administrative positions in colleges and universities, which has outpaced the growth of tenured faculty positions since the early 1990s. The increase is attributed to various factors such as increased student diversity, expanded college sports participation, and federal regulations. This expansion has led to a phenomenon called empire building, where administrators are emotionally and financially rewarded for hiring more people beneath them. This growth in administrative positions may contribute to rising college costs, as well as constricting the academic freedom of faculty and siphoning power away from researchers at institutions that are theoretically dedicated to instruction and research. The article highlights the need for a balance between administrative functions and institutional focus.
The article discusses Elvish, a modern shell scripting language that offers readable and maintainable scripts. It covers various features such as data structures, functional programming, error catching, cross-platform compatibility, and integration with CI/CD pipelines. It also mentions the availability of an interactive shell, command history, built-in file manager, and a community of users for support and discussions.