TL;DR summary of stories on the internet
PGMQ is a lightweight message queue similar to AWS SQS and RSMQ, running on Postgres. It offers guaranteed “exactly once” delivery of messages within a visibility timeout. Surprisingly, no background worker or external dependencies are needed; everything runs on Postgres functions. Unique features include messages staying in the queue until explicitly removed, the ability to […]
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The author has constructed a map of all Hacker News posts semantically using text embeddings. Text embeddings are representations of text in a high-dimensional space, allowing for powerful search and analysis. The author has shared their journey from collecting data using a Node.js service to generating embeddings using BGE-M3 model and then using UMAP for […]
Datatype99 offers safe, intuitive algebraic data types with exhaustive pattern matching and compile-time introspection, all in pure C99. It ensures type-safe coding by catching errors like improper typing and non-exhaustive pattern matching at compile-time. Datatype99 is portable, requiring only a standard-conforming C99 compiler without any specific libraries or functionality. It boasts formal code generation semantics, […]
xkcd recently released Machine, an ambitious project that allows users to build a collaborative rube goldberg machine. The project took 3 weeks and involved a large group of contributors. The team faced challenges in designing constraints, ensuring player expressiveness, and implementing moderation. The use of React and a physics engine called Rapier helped render the […]
Charlie Humble-Thomas, an industrial design student at the RCA, presents his project “Conditional Longevity,” questioning how long objects should last. Through designing three variants of umbrellas – recyclable, repairable, and durable – he explores the trade-offs in design approaches and environmental impacts. Humble-Thomas challenges conventional consumer culture by emphasizing the importance of material choices and […]
The author reminisces about a time working for a Fortune 500 company where a disastrous project was undertaken due to the CTO’s poor decisions. The author’s team cleverly replaced the faulty vendor integration with their own solution, working tirelessly over the holidays to meet an impossible deadline. The author then boldly lies to the CTO […]
The author shares their journey in creating a single-file C program to open a window in Linux using the X11 protocol, bypassing xlib libraries. They explain the basics of X11 protocol, surprise at how it functions similarly to network protocols like HTTP, and how Xlib documentation can be more complex. The author simplifies the communication […]
A pilot project in B.C. is utilizing drone-detecting technology to combat the influx of weapons and drugs being dropped into prisons by drones. Union of Canadian Correctional Officers reports daily incidents of drones delivering contraband in various disguises, prompting concerns about violence and drug-related issues in prisons. Cellphones and contraband footballs are among the items […]
In this blog, we introduce 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. Our research shows that pretrained LLMs can be taught to operate as efficient parallel decoders by mimicking the human cognitive process of forming complete sentences […]
Zimtohrli introduces a new psychoacoustic perceptual metric for measuring human-subjective similarity between audio signals, focusing on just-noticeable-differences for high-quality audio compression. By studying both psychological and physiological responses to sound, this project aims to enhance existing and new audio compression methods. Compatibility and dependencies for Zimtohrli are outlined for building and testing, emphasizing the need […]