TL;DR summary of stories on the internet
On April 15, 2024, Zilog declared the end of life for the iconic Z80 8-bit CPU, prompting the open-source and hardware preservation community to create a Free and Open Source Silicon (FOSS) replacement. The first fabrication of FOSS Z80 is set for June 2024, utilizing the Tiny Tapeout infrastructure and Guy Hutchison’s TV80 Verilog core. […]
Read more »
The Cessna 185 Skywagon is a versatile aircraft well-suited for remote areas with minimal airstrips. The Skywagon 185 equipped with floats, skis, and a Robertson STOL kit offers unique capabilities for rough terrains. A tragic accident unfolded due to a violent right-wing stall during take-off, resulting in a fatal crash into Lake Ounasjärvi in Finland. […]
The Ioun Stone of Mastery is a powerful tool that bridges magic and mathematics, granting the wielder control over arcane energies and multidimensional calculations. Einsum, particularly in ML, is a valuable tool for tensor manipulation, offering advantages such as dimension documentation and implicit reordering. The iterative way of using einsum involves nested loops, while the […]
The author reflects on their experiences with Make and its role in simplifying tasks in IT projects. They discuss its use in software compilation, project management, Postfix map files, Python projects, Terraform projects, and even in Hugo blogging. Make is highlighted for its ability to automate tasks efficiently based on dependencies, streamline processes, and make […]
Cognita is a framework that organizes RAG codebases, providing a modular, API-driven approach for scalability and deployment. It integrates with Langchain/LlamaIndex for experimentation and prototyping, offering a production-ready environment with a no-code UI. Noteworthy features include support for incremental indexing, customization options for data loaders, embedders, and parsers, as well as the ability to develop […]
Ibn Tufail’s 12th-century Arabic philosophical novel, Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, follows a boy named Ḥayy who grows up on an island, isolated from humans. He learns languages of animals, studies the stars, and gains knowledge in natural science, philosophy, and religion through exploration. Ḥayy concludes a great creator exists. The novel, highly influential in Islamic philosophy […]
The author reflects on their recent writing hiatus, attributing it to failed writing projects and a busy schedule. They delve into the forgotten realm of Microsoft At Work, a product from the ’90s that aimed to revolutionize office machines. MAW integrated Windows architecture into fax machines and printers, with grand visions of a paperless office. […]
Language models benefit from using filler tokens to solve hard algorithmic tasks, even if not in a human-like manner. However, learning to use filler tokens effectively requires dense supervision. The study reveals that additional tokens can offer computational advantages regardless of their content. Concerns arise regarding the potential for large language models to conduct hidden, […]
Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) has impressively woken up once again after three lunar nights, much to everyone’s surprise. Defying the odds, SLIM managed to take a picture of the lunar surface using its navigation camera, despite some malfunctioning electronics and battery cells. While the lander lacks heaters to keep its electronics warm, […]
The author presents a unique method of embedding a user-space program directly into the Linux kernel image to be executed from there. While this may seem unconventional, it can be useful in scenarios where the kernel needs to run helper programs. By using the User Mode Driver API and assembly files, a program can be […]