In this post, Austin Z. Henley explores how to implement cosine in C, using several different approaches and optimizations. He benchmarks each implementation for both accuracy and runtime, with the goal of finding a method that is simple enough for him to understand, accurate enough that no one will notice the error, and fast enough […]
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Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao are facing accusations from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of violating securities rules, the latest development in the crypto exchange’s ongoing legal troubles. The SEC alleges that Binance operated unregistered exchanges, sold unregistered securities, and misrepresented trading controls, among other violations. This marks a significant escalation in […]
Lisp’s expressive power is tied to its uniform syntax, which allows macros to apply everywhere, making it easy to define macros that operate on expressions, statements, declarations, and even lexically scoped ones. Lisp syntax is highly uniform and does not lend itself to syntax bikeshedding, unlike SQL, which has a highly specific syntax that is […]
The author shares their experience of running Linux on an Xbox 360 for a project they started in March. They found an old Ubuntu live CD on Sourceforge and then used a precompiled Linux 2.6.24.3 Kernel to get Debian booting on the Xbox. After modifying the hard drive, they managed to compile Gentoo on the […]
The U.S. Patent Office is proposing new rules to limit who can challenge wrongly granted patents. If approved, these rules would primarily benefit patent trolls by making challenging patents more burdensome, and sometimes impossible. Organizations, such as the EFF, which has used this process to fight certain patents, could be barred from filing patent challenges […]
The author highlights Canada’s state-sponsored assisted suicide program, or MAID, and its concerning expansion beyond the original eligibility requirements. The author argues that the program has expanded to include people with mental illness and the poor, who may not have had other alternatives due to their socio-economic status. The author also points out a disturbing […]
Pneumatic Antenna Launching Systems are a simple, safe, and effective way to deploy antennas over trees, especially for temporary or emergency field use. The launchers use a tennis ball as a projectile, propelled by compressed air, and can reach heights of up to 200 feet towing a fishing line. Pneumatic launchers are preferable to slingshots […]
The lack of transparency from builders of big closed language models, such as GPT-3 and GPT-4, regarding their training data is causing concern among users. The main issue is that there is no way to confidently state that private data being passed to these models isn’t being used to train future models, given the lack […]
Parents in Greystones, Ireland, have implemented a voluntary smartphone ban for primary school-aged children in an effort to curb anxiety and exposure to unsuitable content. The ban has won support from parents’ associations across the area’s eight primary schools, and is meant to be enforced not only at school, but also at home. The ban […]
The author discusses their desire to automate their home and the challenges they faced due to complexity and high prices from vendors. After purchasing smart devices, they were underwhelmed with the limitations of available apps and sought out a more customizable solution. They settled on using Lua and the Mako Server to create their own […]