TL;DR summary of stories on the internet
Introducing the Core 2 Duo and Core Time 2 smartwatches, both running open source PebbleOS and packed with features like always-on e-paper screens, long battery life, sleek design, physical buttons, and hackability. Priced at $149 and $225 respectively, these watches are only available via pre-order on store.rePebble.com, with limited quantities and global shipping. The Core […]
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OpenVMS, a stable operating system with a new package manager, is a game-changer at 47 years old. The package manager streamlines software installation, even though it’s in early beta with no update management or independent package support. Dependencies, service scripts, and multiple installer packages come with a learning curve, but VSP is a welcome addition […]
On December 30th, the US Treasury notified lawmakers that their systems were breached by a China state-sponsored hacker using an old SQL injection vulnerability in a Privileged Access Management tool from Beyond Trust. This surprising exploit went undetected in PostgreSQL for ten years, allowing attackers to control the PostgreSQL interactive terminal (psql) and execute arbitrary […]
PrintedLabs is a platform that allows users to build their own labs with the help of a 3D printer, carrying out exciting STEM experiments. Aimed at teachers, students, and anyone curious about science, the platform offers a growing number of project ideas and inexpensive equipment. Their components have even been used in physics teaching at […]
Taara is breaking away from X to launch as an independent company with a goal of providing fast, affordable connectivity to everyone through light beams. The company, led by CEO Mahesh Krishnaswamy, has secured funding to deploy its innovative wireless optical communication system that utilizes light for high-speed data transmission over long distances. Inspired by […]
In this paper, we challenge the notion that deep neural networks exhibit unique generalization behavior compared to other model classes. We discuss phenomena such as benign overfitting, double descent, and the success of overparametrization, arguing that these are not exclusive to neural networks. By incorporating soft inductive biases, we can better understand and characterize generalization […]
The author gave a talk at the Berkeley I-school’s Information Access Seminar on Archival Storage, aiming to debunk the idea that quasi-immortal media is the solution for storing archival data. They emphasize the importance of backups over archiving, sharing their personal backup strategies and discussing media lifespans. The talk explores the economic aspect of archiving, […]
OLMo 2 32B is claimed to be the first fully-open model to outperform GPT3.5-Turbo and GPT-4o mini. The MLX project offers a recipe for installing the model on a Mac using llm-mlx plugin. By following instructions to download the model, 17GB of data is stored, allowing users to start an interactive chat with OLMo 2. […]
The article discusses the flaws in the on-call system in big tech companies and how smaller companies tend to handle it better. Big corporations often resort to a hand-holding approach, leading to unreliable software development and declining quality. On-calls are necessary but need to evolve. The author shares experiences from military duty to encountering on-call […]
Garby, Bahr, and Hutton introduce a novel method for designing type checkers in their peer-reviewed submission. They demonstrate how to derive checkers from behavioral specs using equational reasoning and simplify the process through fold fusion and constraint-based techniques. The authors showcase their approach with examples involving an expression language, exceptions, and lambda calculus. This insightful […]