1. Cyber Scarecrow
Total comment counts : 64
Summary
The article discusses software that operates in the background of a computer to create a perception of being threatening to viruses and malware. It specifically refers to this software being compatible with Windows 10 and 11.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses a concept for a fun website but raises concerns about the lack of trust-building elements such as an “about us” section or a GitHub link. The article points out that the website asks for personal information and tries to download an “exe” file, which would likely only be trusted by a small group of people who understand the purpose of the website.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author of the article questions the reasoning behind implementing licensing for a software product that only creates fake processes and registry keys. They express discomfort with the limitation of three processes and a license dialog. They also mention that the software’s processes are 14.1MB in size and question the need for such complexity when a simpler Powershell script could achieve the same result with fewer resources. They argue that although the science behind the software may make sense, it is not an effective way to protect against common malware like credential stealers and ransomware. The author believes that the software creates a false sense of security and predicts that an open-source alternative would likely become available quickly if the software were to be popular.
2. Chat Control: Incompatible with Fundamental Rights (2022)
Total comment counts : 37
Summary
The Chat Control regulations being negotiated in the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers aim to combat sexual violence against children. However, there are concerns about the effectiveness of the proposed measures and their potential violation of fundamental rights. The draft regulation includes obligations for certain online services, such as internet access providers, app stores, hosting platforms, and communication services like email and instant messaging. The part of the draft known as “chat control” allows authorities to compel providers to monitor private communications, which is seen as a serious restriction on privacy and personal data protection. The monitoring is not limited to specific suspects and includes the surveillance of message contents. Authorities can issue “detection orders” that allow for the preventive monitoring of all communications of all users of a service, without probable cause, leading to mass surveillance. Detected content must be forwarded to an EU center and then to law enforcement agencies after verification. The use of detection technologies that analyze the content of communications is required, including machine learning for semantic analysis. These technologies are prone to errors and do not truly understand the content or context of conversations. The draft regulation does not exempt end-to-end encrypted communication services from detection orders, which has been a point of criticism. This means that even if the service provider cannot access the contents of encrypted communications, they still have to comply with the detection orders.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article provides context about a previous version of chat control that was rejected by the European Parliament. It mentions that although some details have changed, the concept remains the same. The new version requires users to opt in, or else they won’t be able to send images and videos. It is anticipated that the European Council may approve this version tomorrow.
Top 2 Comment Summary
This article discusses the power dynamics within the European Union (EU). The author points out that while the EU holds parliamentary elections, most decisions are actually made by the unelected EU commission. The author suggests that this bureaucratic structure often leads to excessive regulation and control. However, the author clarifies that they don’t believe the EU commission has malicious intentions.
3. NumPy-style broadcasting in Futhark
Total comment counts : 6
Summary
The article discusses recent work in Futhark called AUTOMAP, which allows for NumPy-style broadcasting. The motivation behind this work is to make mathematical code with higher-dimensional arguments resemble handwritten notations without the clutter of administrative maps. The article provides examples of how AUTOMAP simplifies code by automatically inserting maps and reps to handle rank mismatches between arguments. AUTOMAP is expected to be merged into Futhark’s master branch soon, and a paper on AUTOMAP is currently under review.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article suggests not using Numpy and instead reading about the “broadcast” functionality in Julia. It emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between element-wise functions and functions applied to an entire array. It provides an example of the matrix exponential versus the element-wise exponential of a matrix, with the former being exp(M) and the latter being exp.(M). The article also provides links for further reading on the subject.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses optimizing broadcast operations on GPUs, which can be challenging due to different array dimensionalities. The author congratulates the researcher on their paper and graduation and expresses an interest in reading the work.
4. Optical PCIe 7.0 connection hits 128 GT/s
Total comment counts : 12
Summary
Cadence demonstrated its optical connectivity solution for the upcoming PCIe 7.0 standard at a recent event. This is significant because PCIe interconnections are growing longer and the use of traditional copper connectors is becoming more complex and limited. Cadence’s demonstration showed stable transmission and reception capabilities, achieving a pre-FEC BER within the PCIe specification requirement. The company’s demonstration supports the development of a unified approach for PCIe over fiber optics. While other vendors also provide proprietary external PCIe connectivity solutions, there is an industry-wide push to standardize optical PCIe connectivity. This development is important as an optical solution for PCIe 7.0 will be necessary in the future.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The user is questioning the extent to which the article was written by the author and raises concerns about the use of certain adjectives that seem out of place for a generic news editor. The user expresses doubt about the trustworthiness of the article’s claims.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author questions why electrical signals are currently used to connect data lanes between components and computers, instead of using optical signals. They mention that cost may play a role, and that optical signals would need to be converted back into electrical signals for current computer usage. However, the advantages of optical signal usage must outweigh these factors for the development to be considered.
5. FPGA-Based Disk Controller for the Apple II (2017)
Total comment counts : 6
Summary
The article discusses the development of an FPGA-based solution for Apple II disk controller cards. The author explains that there are many different types of these cards, some of which are rare and expensive. The goal is to create a universal clone that can connect to various Apple II disk drives as well as a Floppy Emu. The author shares their progress in creating a Liron clone card, which involved mapping out the schematic and writing Verilog code for the FPGA. They also describe the hardware used, including the FPGA, connectors, and level converters. The article concludes with the author admitting that progress has been slow but they have assembled a prototype board.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article is about a controller that is commercially available. The author provides a link to where the controller can be purchased and another link to blog posts about its development.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author expresses a desire to own an 80’s microcomputer like the TI-99/4A, Atari 800, or Apple II. However, they struggle to find a reason for owning one, as they recall the limitations and unpleasant aspects of these machines. Instead, they decide to stick to modern computers and preserve their nostalgia.
6. Intel details Skymont
Total comment counts : 10
Summary
error
Top 1 Comment Summary
The next generation of *mont cores are expected to be as impressive as Skylakes. The article suggests that the E cores are so capable that P cores may no longer be necessary. Intel’s split decoders are also praised, as the x86 instruction set can be challenging to decode 8-wide in a single thread. However, this is only a problem if loops are large, as tight loops benefit from the uop cache and branchy code can be decoded in three ways.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the architecture of the Efficiency core of Lunar Lake, known as Skymont. It mentions that the Wikipedia page for Skymont has not been created yet, but should redirect to a Lunar Lake page. The article provides links for more information.
7. Intel-undervolt: CPU undervolting and throttling configuration tool for Linux
Total comment counts : 8
Summary
The article discusses a tool called intel-undervolt for undervolting and altering throttling limits for Intel CPUs. It warns that using the tool may damage hardware due to its use of reverse engineered methods. The tool can be built and installed on the system by running a command. It also provides various configuration options for undervolting, altering power limits, temperature limits, and performance scaling. The article mentions that the tool can change the hardware-managed P-states (HWP) hint depending on the load, which can improve performance or battery life. It also discusses configuring the tool to switch hints based on power consumption and CPU load. The article provides commands for reading and applying the configuration, enabling automatic configuration application, and measuring power consumption. It advises that periodically applying limits can prevent them from being reset by other factors. The tool can be run in daemon mode for certain features.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author of the article mentions that they have undervolted an i7 11800H processor by -100mV, which has significantly lowered the CPU temperature by an average of -10°C. They also note that as a result, the fans no longer make noise, even with resource-intensive tasks like running Docker and Jetbrains IDEs. The author expresses curiosity as to why this kind of undervolting is not the default setting, as it not only improves temperature but also enhances performance by reducing thermal throttling.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article states that Dell has removed the ability to undervolt the XPS series with a recent BIOS update. To regain this functionality, users would need to downgrade the BIOS.
8. Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago
Total comment counts : 17
Summary
A recent study suggests that humans began rapidly accumulating technological knowledge through social learning around 600,000 years ago. This development of cumulative culture allowed human populations to build on the solutions of previous generations and quickly develop complex solutions to problems. The study analyzed changes in the complexity of stone tool manufacturing techniques over the past 3.3 million years. The results showed that the complexity of manufacturing sequences increased significantly around 600,000 years ago. This increase in complexity coincided with the Middle Pleistocene epoch and the development of other complex technologies such as the controlled use of fire and the construction of wooden structures. The findings suggest that cumulative culture may have arisen before the divergence of Neanderthals and modern humans.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the fascinating subject of ancient human anthropology and the continuous discoveries being made in this field. It highlights that stone tools remained unchanged for a long period of time, possibly up to 600,000 years ago when multiple species of Homo coexisted in similar regions. The article also mentions the complexity of the Homo family tree, with blurred lines and potential interbreeding between different species. This leads to the author’s curiosity about the origins of technological advancements, questioning whether they were solely developed within one specific lineage or shared, stolen, or learned among different human species.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the earliest known human, Homo sapiens, who lived about 300,000 years ago. However, the actual paper referred to hominids rather than specifically humans.
9. Lnav Logfile Navigator
Total comment counts : 12
Summary
The Logfile Navigator, or lnav for short, is a user-friendly tool that allows users to easily merge, tail, search, filter, and query log files. It is an advanced log file viewer that does not require a server or setup. It is designed specifically for small-scale use.
Top 1 Comment Summary
LNAV is a tool that the author recently discovered and finds great. They have also created a Caddy server LNAV configuration file to help those who struggle with parsing the default JSON logs produced by Caddy. The link to the configuration file can be found at the provided GitHub gist.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article recommends using Logdy as a tool for those who prefer a Web UI. Logdy can be found at logdy.dev and the GitHub repository for logdy-core is available at github.com/logdyhq/logdy-core.
10. The Public Interest Internet
Total comment counts : 6
Summary
The article discusses the idea of a public interest internet and explores the global digital architecture that would be needed for its realization. The author argues that the problems with the internet start with infrastructure and control, and suggests that recapturing digital infrastructure in the public interest is crucial. The article also highlights the significance of transnational forums in shaping digital governance and emphasizes the need for alternative sources of authority. Overall, the author calls for a reimagining of the internet that aligns with the common good and addresses the current issues and power imbalances.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article emphasizes the significance of both standards and economic considerations in the technology industry. The author suggests that the current tech landscape is largely governed by platforms that aim to extract and redistribute resources for the benefit of investors. In order to create a more public-interest driven internet, the author believes it is crucial to foster a stronger sense of collective and individual responsibility towards shared interests. This involves recognizing the economic implications of technofeudalism and investing resources into digital public infrastructure by exerting pressure on collectively owned assets like pension funds and government procurement.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the role of Google as a steward of web standards and how its competency in developing browser features and web standards makes it difficult for competitors to challenge. It mentions the success of Firefox in gaining market share in the 2000s before Google’s dominance. The author predicts that the next wave will involve a model similar to Brave, where users are paid directly by advertisers to view ads, rather than Google organizing the web for ad viewing.