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BlueHats prizes, a French initiative, awards €10,000 to maintainers of critical free and open-source projects. Simon Kelley, maintainer of dnsmasq, won the first 2024 prize for providing network addressing for small networks. Public officials recognized dnsmasq’s importance for network security. Kelley expressed his delight and the significance of public recognition for his 25 years of […]
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In October 2022, a Bar-tailed Godwit nicknamed B6 achieved a monumental feat, flying 8,425 miles from Alaska to Tasmania in just 11 days without stopping. This impressive journey, equivalent to a nonstop flight of the Boeing 777, showcased the extraordinary athleticism of this small bird. The secret to its success lay in the feather’s incredible […]
In the paper by Hoffmann et al. (2022), three methods are presented for estimating a compute-optimal scaling law. Our attempt to replicate their third estimation procedure reveals inconsistencies with the first two methods, failure to fit the data, and implausibly narrow confidence intervals. We question the validity of their reported estimates, suggesting that over 600,000 […]
Hermit is a powerful tool that ensures deterministic execution of programs by isolating them from sources of non-determinism like time and random number generation. It can be used for concurrency stress testing, reproducible builds, and diagnosing concurrency bugs. Hermit uses a pseudorandom number generator to replace random bytes, ensuring consistent program output. By controlling how […]
Meta AI, powered by Meta Llama 3, is a leading AI assistant available on various social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. It is now expanding globally with new features and is being rolled out in English in several countries outside of the US like Australia, Canada, Nigeria, and more. The AI can […]
Author showcases the extensive work done to add HD resolution support to the Original Xbox version of Halo 2, involving patching the game, modifying console hardware, and developing custom tools. Partnering with a friend who made hardware upgrades, the author delves into the complexities of rendering in HD, revealing technical challenges and rendering issues. Controversially, […]
Scientists have discovered the first known fractal protein, which appears to be an evolutionary accident. Fractals are complex geometric shapes made up of smaller structures that resemble the whole, found in nature like snowflakes and river networks. This newly found protein, a Sierpiński triangle fractal, is an enzyme used by cyanobacteria and was stumbled upon […]
The author presented a project involving the creation of an in-browser home automation assistant named Nero powered by Nx, OpenAI APIs, and ElevenLabs. The initial version of Nero lacked natural conversation capabilities and retained conversation history, prompting the author to improve its functionality. A demo from Retell showcasing a conversational agent inspired the author to […]
30 years ago, pagers sparked controversy among parents and lawmakers due to their popularity among both teens and drug dealers. The gadgets were seen as a direct line to the drug trade, leading to prohibitions in schools, towns, and states, even resulting in arrests and suspensions of students found with pagers. Motorola, holding 80% of […]
In the realm of steampunk, dieselpunk, and atompunk fiction, flying aircraft carriers are a common sight, becoming a genre trope over the years. From Castle Wulfenbach in Girl Genius to the helicarriers of S.H.I.E.L.D., these behemoths of the sky have captured the imagination of many. The concept is not entirely fictional, with real-life experiments in […]