1. UI elements with a hand-drawn, sketchy look
Total comment counts : 37
Summary
This article is about a set of UI elements with a hand-drawn, sketchy appearance. These elements can be used for wireframes, mockups, or just to give projects a fun hand-drawn look. Each rendering of the elements has enough randomness that no two will be exactly the same. The article also mentions using wired-element controls to change a sketchy circle drawn using rough.js. There are instructions on how to use wired-elements on their GitHub page, and the API for specific elements can be found in the Docs. The article provides links to showcases of all the wired elements and suggests supporting the development of this project by sponsoring it on Open Collective or GitHub. The project is licensed under the MIT License and was created by Preet Shihn.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses a suggestion for a design feature in which a checkmark would look slightly different each time the checkbox is toggled, giving a nostalgic and hand-drawn feel. The idea is to add some “noise” as a potential feature for a future version.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article recommends using Balsamiq Wireframes as a preferred tool for quick and efficient design, emphasizing the importance of avoiding excessive coding when aiming for speed and simplicity.
2. 60 kHz (2022)
Total comment counts : 35
Summary
The article discusses the radio station WWVB in Colorado that broadcasts the current time. The station operates on a frequency of 60 kHz and broadcasts a single digit of binary every second, taking a full minute to broadcast the current time. Radio clocks in the United States use WWVB to set their time by reading the broadcast once a day and offsetting it according to the clock’s time zone. The author finds this method clever and sees it as an example of American innovation and problem-solving using tangible technology. The article also acknowledges the contributions of countless individuals who have shaped the world we live in.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the tendency for Americans to claim inventions as their own without verifying if they are actually American. It mentions two examples, the Time from NPL and the Greenwich Time Signal, and suggests that this behavior may be due to a sense of patriotism.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the perception of American innovation and highlights an example of a less notable American achievement. The author argues that wristwatches receiving time signals from airwaves is not truly remarkable, as this technology has been commonly used in Europe since the 1980s. The author suggests that this solution to a problem was not reliant on fancy or new technology, but rather on simpler methods. Additionally, the author questions the statement about technology that cannot be touched or does not buzz in airwaves, as they cannot think of an example that fits this description.
3. ROOT: analyzing petabytes of data scientifically
Total comment counts : 21
Summary
The article discusses the ROOT data analysis framework used in high energy physics and other scientific fields. ROOT allows for the analysis and visualization of large amounts of data, with over 1 exabyte stored in ROOT files. The software is written primarily in C++ and can be used on Linux, macOS, or Windows. ROOT is open source, allowing for modification and contribution. It also integrates smoothly with Python and can be used in Jupyter notebooks. The article introduces RNTuple as the successor to TTree and discusses its development and current status. Additionally, it mentions the switch to a web-based TCanvas implementation and suggests using QtCreator as a development and troubleshooting environment to improve productivity and experience with ROOT.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author used to work in particle physics and has experience with ROOT, a software tool. They have mixed feelings about ROOT, acknowledging its technical debt and idiosyncrasies but also recognizing its advantages over more modern options like matplotlib. The author appreciates ROOT’s ease of use for working with histograms, highly structured data, and plotting functions. They also appreciate the straightforward object-oriented API. However, the author left the field five years ago, and during that time, ROOT underwent changes such as replacing the old CINT interpreter with a clang-based codebase and adding support for running analyses in Jupyter using C++ or Python. The author has heard that the code quality has improved substantially.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article argues that there are few reasons why new analyses should default to using ROOT instead of uproot. While some people may have legacy workflows or custom patches on top of ROOT, for physics analysis, it is suggested that using uproot is a more user-friendly and sensible option. Additionally, the author mentions liking the 404 page of the ROOT website.
4. Tiny number of ‘supersharers’ spread the majority of fake news
Total comment counts : 42
Summary
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Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the issue of “Recreational Sharing Disorder” (RSD) that was observed in the early days of internet email. RSD refers to a behavior where certain individuals, often non-technical older women, would share various types of content without considering its credibility or the time and interests of others. This behavior had a negative impact on email service, particularly when the number of connected users increased. The article suggests that although the current situation may be more complicated due to politics and emotions, the underlying problem stems from a large network and the distribution of certain human behaviors.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article argues that the focus should not be on stopping people from sharing what is considered fake news, but rather on providing them with the tools to identify it. The author believes that if people still share what is considered fake news after being provided with the necessary tools, then there is nothing more that can be done. The author also expresses concern over the idea of clamping down on communication and emphasizes the importance of allowing people to think and share different perspectives, even if they are not mainstream. The article concludes by cautioning against the use of censorship as a solution to combat fake news.
5. Napster sparked a file-sharing revolution 25 years ago
Total comment counts : 38
Summary
The article discusses the launch of Napster on June 1, 1999, which marked the beginning of a global piracy frenzy. The invention of the MP3 format in 1993, which allowed for the compression of music files without significant loss of quality, played a significant role in enabling the sharing of music online. Napster, created by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, quickly gained popularity and allowed users to share and download music for free. Despite its massive user base, Napster faced legal challenges from the music industry and was ultimately shut down in July 2001. The article notes that while music piracy still exists today, it has evolved with the advent of legal digital music platforms such as iTunes.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the evolution of music piracy from the days of Napster to the present. The author reminisces about the slow download speeds and misleading file names on Napster, contrasting it with the ease and convenience of the present day, where platforms like TPB offer entire discographies with a quick search. The article also mentions the quality of pirated products, noting that pirate groups often offer superior versions of free content compared to official releases.
Top 2 Comment Summary
This article discusses the evolution of music distribution platforms, specifically focusing on how Napster and other platforms emerged to fulfill the need for sharing ripped CDs and MP3s. It mentions that initially, IRC channels were used, but they were slow and cumbersome. Then, platforms like Gnutella, Hotline, eDonkey2000/eMule, KaZaA, and Limewire came into popularity. Eventually, BitTorrent and overlay peer-to-peer (p2p) apps became the dominant platforms. The article provides a link for further information on Hotline Communications.
6. Nginx Unit: open-source, lightweight and versatile application runtime
Total comment counts : 11
Summary
NGINX Unit is a lightweight and versatile open-source server that allows you to run your web application’s code, serve static assets, handle TLS, and manage request routing. It was developed by the NGINX team to be highly efficient and fully configurable at runtime. The most recent version is 1.32.1, released on March 26, 2024. You can find a tutorial course on NGINX Unit on their website.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author prefers to be skilled in using the Caddyfile and have a project folder structure without the need for sudo or configuration files spread throughout their filesystem. They believe that competition is beneficial and had enjoyable experiences with nginx in the past. However, they feel that it is now too late for them to switch to using nginx.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author of the article is in charge of a unit and is inviting users to provide feedback on their experience with it. They are open to discussing any issues, improvements, or suggestions users may have. The author also mentions that they have their own ideas but value external validation. Contact information can be found in their profile.
7. Arthur Whitney releases an open-source subset of K with MIT license
Total comment counts : 40
Summary
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Top 1 Comment Summary
This article discusses the limitations and issues with a release of the K language implementation. It states that the current version only implements a subset of the language and is a work in progress. The article also mentions that the release is buggy, prone to segmentation faults, and not recommended for learning the K language. It suggests that other open source K projects are better alternatives, as they are more complete, less buggy, and better documented. The article also notes that this implementation is useful for understanding the coding style of Arthur Whitney and highlights the size difference between this implementation and others written in the same style.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the claims made about a performance improvement in a certain technology. The author questions whether anyone outside the author has been able to reproduce these claims, especially given the high cost involved. Additionally, the author wonders if the commercial version of the technology includes anti-benchmark clauses, which would make it difficult to compare its performance to other alternatives. A source provided states that commercial licenses indeed come with such clauses, which raises skepticism about the claims made in the article.
8. Go: Sentinel errors and errors.Is() slow your code down by 3000%
Total comment counts : 29
Summary
The article discusses benchmarking different strategies for handling errors in Go and their relative performance. The author reveals that naively using the sentinel error pattern combined with errors.Is() can slow down code by over 5 times. The article provides raw benchmark output and breaks down the performance of each error handling strategy when the value is found and not found. The fastest strategy is to not represent a “not found” condition as an error and instead return a boolean found result. The next strategy is using classic Go sentinel errors, which is about 2 times slower. There are also two common ways to check for sentinel errors in Go, both slightly slower than the previous strategy. The best practice is to use errors.Is(), but unfortunately, it has bad performance. To avoid a performance penalty when the value is found, errors.Is() should only be called after determining the error is non-nil.
Top 1 Comment Summary
In this article, the author corrects an earlier statement by saying that the result is not accurate and apologizes for the mistake. The headline should state that “errors.Is() is 500% slower.” The author explains that the benchmark’s critical functions were small enough to be inlined by the compiler, which could lead to further optimization and inaccurate results in some cases. The author suggests fixing this by adding “noinline” directives to the methods. The article will be updated to address this issue, and the order of techniques in the article remains the same, but the difference in performance is not as significant as previously stated.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses a recent change made to the Go programming language, specifically in the errors package. The change optimizes the case where the error is equal to nil. Although this change has not been included in the latest Go release, it is expected to be included in a future release soon.
9. How some good corporate engineering blogs are written (2020)
Total comment counts : 20
Summary
The author of the article compares their personal blog’s traffic to the traffic of corporate engineering blogs at companies with high valuations. They find it odd that their personal blog often receives more traffic despite tech companies having more resources and employees. The author believes that companies would benefit more from having a compelling blog, as their personal blog mainly helps with job searching. The author also discusses the value of a good blog for recruitment purposes. They note that many corporate engineering blogs are filled with uninteresting content and vague posts. The author interviewed individuals from companies with compelling blogs, as well as companies with lackluster blogs, to understand the common processes and practices. The article includes examples of the different approaches taken by these companies.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article praises Dan for his clear thinking and expertise in various fields such as mathematics, electrical engineering, discrete logic, and computer science. However, the author suggests that Dan’s true specialty is rigor, which has broad applicability. The article recommends reading Dan’s work for anyone interested in drawing plausible conclusions or creating durable things.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author explains that they do not write blog posts because it is not a good use of their time. They have never had the opportunity to dedicate days to writing a polished technical blog post due to their workload. They always have a backlog of tasks to complete, including bug fixes, tech debt cleanups, and feature requests. Additionally, they have colleagues who seek their advice, want to have design conversations, or need code reviews, all of which they find more useful and personally satisfying than writing a blog post. The author speculates that people mainly write blogs when required, either because they need to promote themselves or because their boss asks them to for project PR purposes.
10. Space secrets leak disclosure
Total comment counts : 14
Summary
Unauthorized access was detected on the Spaces platform, specifically related to Spaces secrets. As a precautionary measure, a number of HF tokens have been revoked and users have been notified via email. It is recommended that users refresh their keys or tokens and switch to fine-grained access tokens, which are now the default. The company is working with outside cyber security forensic specialists to investigate the issue and reviewing security policies and procedures. Improvements have been made to the security of the Spaces infrastructure, including the removal of org tokens, implementation of key management service for Spaces secrets, and enhancements to identify and invalidate leaked tokens. The company plans to deprecate “classic” read and write tokens in the near future. The incident has been reported to law enforcement agencies and data protection authorities. The company apologizes for any disruption caused and pledges to use this incident to strengthen the security of its infrastructure. For any questions, users can contact security@huggingface.co.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses a security concern related to using models from platforms like Huggingface. The author found that by using such a model, the author of the model can execute any code on the user’s machine. This means that if Huggingface receives a court-signed letter or gets hacked, unauthorized code execution can occur. The article also highlights how the format of these models allows for easy standardization but comes with potential risks. It references a source that states 20% of security breaches go unnoticed for months, depending on the situation and actions taken by attackers.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article criticizes a statement for its word choice, labeling it as “weasley.” The phrase “they have suspicions” is specifically called out as inappropriate for a communication of this kind.