1. My daughter (7 years old) used HTML to make a website
Total comment counts : 173
Summary
error
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the importance of maintaining fun in computer science and not taking it too seriously. It quotes Alan J. Perlis, who believes that computer scientists should focus on stretching the boundaries of technology and keeping things exciting, rather than trying to achieve error-free perfection. Perlis encourages computer scientists to share their knowledge and not perceive themselves as superior, suggesting that the world already has enough “missionaries.” He hopes that the field of computer science will retain its sense of fun and that individuals will see the potential for growth and innovation in computers.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article is discussing how sometimes it’s more fun and enjoyable to focus on the creative or visual aspects of web design, like using background images, rather than getting caught up in technical details like CSS and semantic markup. The author suggests that learning these technical aspects can be done at a later time.
2. Ask HN: What’s Prolog like in 2024?
Total comment counts : 46
Summary
The article discusses the author’s interest in Prolog and their desire to learn more about it, specifically in relation to ontologies. The author mentions that there is limited activity and visibility of Prolog in the wider world, but believes that there is something interesting and fun about the language despite its complexity. The article also touches on the challenges of modeling ontologies, particularly in defining concrete boundaries around abstract ideas. The reasoning systems in Prolog are said to work well but do not solve the difficulty of designing the model.
Top 1 Comment Summary
This article discusses the state of Prolog, a programming language, after 50 years. The author questions the usefulness of Prolog due to its complex and fragmented nature, with more Prolog systems existing than actual Prolog code. Learning Prolog involves contorting one’s thinking to accommodate its peculiarities. The author mentions that there are a few dedicated individuals working on Prolog projects, but overall, there seems to be limited activity and adoption of the language. The author compares Prolog to a town that has lost its soul, lacking a vibrant community, but still holding some potential. However, the author suggests that Prolog may be less dangerous than Lisp, another programming language.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses a significant milestone in the development of Prolog programming language. Scryer Prolog is introduced as the first open-source, iso-compliant Prolog that achieves high performance. The author suggests checking out Markus Triska’s work for more information. The article provides links to Triska’s website and a YouTube channel showcasing the power of Prolog.
3. Elligator: Elliptic-curve points indistinguishable from uniform random strings (2013)
Total comment counts : 8
Summary
The article discusses the use of projective equivalences between planar curves that are birationally equivalent to elliptic or hyperelliptic curves. It also mentions the Gallant-Lambert-Vanstone GLV algorithm for accelerating the computation of scalar multiplication of points on an abelian variety. Additionally, the article discusses the Ate pairing and its efficient computation on ordinary elliptic curves with small values of the traces of Frobenius t. The affiliations of the authors are also mentioned: TU Darmstadt, CASED, Intel ICRI-SC, Carnegie Mellon University, and Columbia University. The article is available for download as a PDF file.
Top 1 Comment Summary
Elligator is a bidirectional map used for censorship resistance that converts random bytes to elliptic curve points. It is primarily integrated with the obfs4 protocol, one of the Tor circumvention pluggable transports. Previous implementations of Elligator have had subtle bugs, but there are now third-party test vectors available. The direct map from random bytes to points is useful in cryptography for various purposes, such as verifiable random functions (VRFs). The direct map has been specified more rigorously in certain standards and documents. Ristretto provides a map from a fixed amount of random bytes and is part of the fundamental group abstraction, while the CFRG approach offers domain-separated hash “suites” that directly produce curve points.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article is a mathematically focused explanation of the use of secp256k1 in peer-to-peer communications in the real world.
4. Closed form arc length parametrization is impossible for quadratic Bézier curves
Total comment counts : 10
Summary
The article discusses Bézier curves, which are commonly used in computer graphics to define vector graphics. It explains that Bézier curves are polynomial parametric curves given in the Bernstein basis, and they can be defined using control points. The article mentions that there are two types of Bézier curves: quadratic (defined by three control points) and cubic (defined by four control points).
The article then discusses the concept of arc length, which is the distance traveled when moving along a curve from start to end. It notes that while the arc length of quadratic Bézier curves can be computed with a closed form expression, the arc length of cubic Bézier curves cannot, and it has to be computed numerically.
The article mentions that proving the lack of a closed form solution for the arc length parametrization of quadratic Bézier curves is challenging. It introduces Schanuel’s conjecture, which states that there is no nontrivial polynomial relationship between the numbers α and e^α. The article explains that assuming Schanuel’s conjecture is true, Lin’s result can be used to prove the nonexistence of a closed form arc length parametrization for quadratic Bézier curves.
The article then delves into the mathematics behind the proof, discussing rational numbers, polynomials over rational numbers, irreducible polynomials, and algebraic numbers. It concludes by acknowledging that the desired result depends on an unproven conjecture but assumes its truth to make progress in the proof.
Overall, the article explores the difficulty of finding a closed form solution for the arc length parametrization of Bézier curves and references Schanuel’s conjecture as a potential approach for proving its nonexistence.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the fact that the arc length of cubic Bézier curves cannot be computed using a closed form formula and must instead be computed numerically. The author laments that they have not seen a proof sketch for this. The article also mentions that there are exceptions to this, such as Pythagorean-Hodograph curves, which have closed form solutions and could be useful in many applications. However, due to a lack of mathematicians working in computer graphics, numerical solutions are often used instead.
Top 2 Comment Summary
This article discusses the fact that the arc length of cubic Bézier curves cannot be determined using a closed form formula and needs to be calculated numerically. The writer acknowledges that they have not yet come across a proof for this statement. A cubic Bézier curve is described as a cubic polynomial of t in the range of 0 to 1, with four control points. The length of the curve is the integral from 0 to 1 of the square root of (1 + (B')^2), which is a quartic function. This integral is known to be reducible to elliptic integrals, which do not have a closed form solution.
5. SAPwned: SAP AI vulnerabilities expose customers’ cloud environments and privat
Total comment counts : 12
Summary
The Wiz Research Team has discovered vulnerabilities in SAP AI Core that could allow malicious actors to take over the service and access customer data. The researchers found that the vulnerabilities stem from the ability for attackers to run malicious AI models and training procedures. By executing arbitrary code, they were able to gain access to customers’ private files, cloud credentials, and other sensitive information. The vulnerabilities have been reported to and fixed by SAP. The researchers will be presenting their findings at the upcoming Black Hat conference.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses a vulnerability in a Kubernetes (k8s) configuration, emphasizing that it is unrelated to the AI product or its training. The vulnerability is a result of poor security measures in the cloud computing platform.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author hopes that SAP will conduct a thorough analysis of why Wiz’s research was not detected before they gained full cluster admin privileges. They want to know if SAP received any alerts for this activity and if they properly investigated them. The author also wonders if SAP is required to have adequate alerting for suspicious network activity and if this research can demonstrate that they do not.
6. Mistral NeMo
Total comment counts : 27
Summary
The article introduces Mistral NeMo, a new 12B model developed in collaboration with NVIDIA. Mistral NeMo offers a context window of up to 128k tokens and is known for its excellent reasoning, world knowledge, and coding accuracy. It can be easily integrated into systems using Mistral 7B. The model is released under the Apache 2.0 license and comes with pre-trained base and instruction-tuned checkpoints. Mistral NeMo was trained with quantization awareness, enabling efficient FP8 inference. It outperforms Gemma 2 9B and Llama 3 8B models in terms of accuracy. Mistral NeMo is designed for global, multilingual applications and is particularly strong in multiple languages. It uses a new tokenizer called Tekken, which compresses natural language text and source code more efficiently than previous Mistral models using SentencePiece tokenizer. Tekken is also more proficient at compressing text in various languages compared to the Llama 3 tokenizer. Mistral NeMo underwent advanced fine-tuning and alignment to improve its performance in following precise instructions, reasoning, handling multi-turn conversations, and generating code. The model is available for use through the mistral-inference and mistral-finetune tools, as well as the NVIDIA NIM inference microservice and ai.nvidia.com platform.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the release of Mistral NeMo, a 12B model developed in collaboration with NVIDIA. This model offers a large context window of up to 128k tokens and has state-of-the-art reasoning, world knowledge, and coding accuracy. It is easy to use and can be seamlessly integrated into systems already using Mistral 7B. Pre-trained base and instruction-tuned checkpoints have been released under the Apache 2.0 license to promote adoption by researchers and enterprises. Mistral NeMo has been trained with quantization awareness, enabling FP8 inference without any loss in performance. The article notes that while the model seems promising, information about its size in terms of VRAM/RAM requirements is not provided. Additionally, accessing the model files requires logging in and agreeing to share contact information, although it is expected that the model will be reposted without such restrictions due to the permissive nature of the Apache 2.0 license.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses Mistral NeMo, a tool that uses a tokenizer called Tekken, based on Tiktoken, to compress natural language text and source code more efficiently than the SentencePiece tokenizer used in previous Mistral models. The author wonders why everyone switched back to SentencePiece when Byte-pair encoding, which Tiktoken uses, was shown to be more efficient as far back as GPT-2 in 2019.
7. The Objects of Our Life (1983)
Total comment counts : 20
Summary
The article describes Steve Jobs’ talk at the 1983 International Design Conference in Aspen. The author highlights Steve’s profound understanding of the upcoming changes in computer accessibility and his role in defining products that would change our culture. Steve emphasizes the importance of design, pointing out that the design effort in the US had primarily focused on automobiles, ignoring consumer electronics. He predicts that the sales of personal computers would surpass car sales by 1986 and that people would spend more time with computers than in cars within the next ten years. Steve urges designers to think about the design of these products and emphasizes the role of education in explaining complex technologies in accessible terms. The author also mentions Steve’s support for the creative process and his commitment to a civic responsibility of creating useful and beautiful products. The article concludes with a description of Steve’s excitement before his talk and his casual attire, symbolizing his unconventional approach.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article suggests that instead of idolizing Steve Jobs, it is more beneficial to respect and appreciate his work. The author emphasizes that the key insight about design is not just its beauty, but rather the opportunity to inject beauty and joy into interactions with technology. The article also points out that society is trapped by the things required for living, and encourages readers to be responsible in shaping the future. The author believes that Steve Jobs saw this as a responsibility as he himself was adopted and understood the importance of nurturing and appreciation. The article ends with a quote from Jony Ives, stating that the ability to contribute to the pool of human experiences is remarkable.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the effectiveness of powerful and simple speaking styles, particularly exemplified by Steve Jobs and Jeremy Irons in the movie Margin Call. The author admires Jobs’ ability to rephrase complex ideas in a straightforward manner, and attempts to emulate this style in their own presentations. They believe that acknowledging their own level of knowledge and taking responsibility for decisions resonates with audiences. The article also mentions NASA’s instruction to flight controllers to simplify their communication.
8. Overcoming the limits of current LLMs
Total comment counts : 20
Summary
The article discusses the limitations of large language models (LLMs) such as hallucinations, lack of confidence estimates, and lack of citations. Hallucination refers to the generation of content that may seem convincing or factual but is actually incorrect. Confidence estimates are important for determining the reliability of predictions, and lack of citations means that the model doesn’t base its responses on reliable sources. The author suggests that addressing these limitations would lead to better LLM chatbots. One possible solution is to exclude contradicting training data and supervise the training process to create a consistent LLM. The idea is to curate a high-quality text corpus based on reliable sources, train a base model, and gradually extend the training data to create a big consistent LLM. The author also suggests exploring the idea of training models with different world views by curating different training datasets. The article provides references for further reading on the topic.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article highlights that the hallucinations of language models (LLMs) are not solely due to errors in their training data, but also a result of their ability to remix, interpolate, and extrapolate answers to questions that are not directly addressed in the dataset. For instance, a legal question posed to a chatbot could lead it to cite a non-existent precedent that seems plausible based on existing cases. The article argues that this issue cannot be solved by training the models solely on factual data. The author also expresses sadness at the investment of talented people and resources in developing these AI chatbots and questions if this is truly creating a better world.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article explains that one of the reasons LLMs (Language Models) are popular is because they can easily be scaled up by purchasing more computing capacity and collecting more text data to train them. However, without large and diverse training datasets, LLMs cannot generate high-quality results. Manually curating reliable datasets is much more difficult, expensive, and time-consuming than using whatever information is available on the internet. The article mentions Wolfram Alpha as a successful example of a curated dataset, but it does not have the capability to create fantastical results effortlessly or show exponential improvement.
9. Sparrows may be ‘canary in the coal mine’ for lead poisoning in children: study
Total comment counts : 9
Summary
The article discusses a study that found house sparrows can be used to monitor lead exposure in children. The study focused on two Australian towns affected by lead mining, Broken Hill and Mount Isa, where lead exposure in children is a major concern. By collecting blood lead samples from the sparrows and comparing the results to local children’s blood lead data, the researchers found that where lead exposure was highest in sparrows, it was also highest in children. The study suggests that sparrows can be used as a monitoring tool for environmental pollution on a neighborhood scale. Lead poisoning can have severe effects on children’s mental and physical development.
Top 1 Comment Summary
Lead poisoning in Australian mining towns, such as Broken Hill and Mount Isa, is a controversial issue. Local mayors often try to hide or dismiss evidence of lead poisoning because the towns rely on the mines for their existence. In Broken Hill, the original mine has been completely removed, leaving only a slag heap that sits in the middle of the town. The wind carries the lead-laden dust from the heap into the streets and backyards. Similarly, in Mount Isa, the mine and smelter are located to the west of the town, with prevailing winds causing the toxic dust to settle on the town.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the potential harm caused by a small amount of a mineral to the human mind. The author admits to being skeptical at first, but acknowledges that humans are vulnerable to various elements and chemicals. The article also mentions the importance of collecting data on server health in production software systems and collecting health data on towns in a country, despite the fear it may cause leaders in malfunctioning environments.
10. Hash-based bisect debugging in compilers and runtimes
Total comment counts : 6
Summary
The article discusses a tool that can pinpoint the relevant line of code or call stack in an unfamiliar code base, making debugging easier. It introduces the concept of binary search and how it can be used to find specific items in a sorted list or identify bugs in a program. The article also mentions the use of binary search for debugging through time by examining a program’s version history. It emphasizes the importance of documenting and automating these debugging techniques to build effective tools.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article suggests an alternative approach to bisecting flakes, which involves using information probing operations and Bayesian inference. This method allows for noisy benchmarks or low-probability flakes to be analyzed. By narrowing down the probable range of failure with each new observation, new probes can be chosen to maximize information gain. The article recommends providing flake rate probability for probability estimates, but even rough estimates work well. Implementing this method can greatly improve the robustness of the bisecting process. The article concludes by mentioning the simplicity of the math involved and the possibility of re-implementing the prototype for the open source community.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses a cool debugging technique that involves running a test with coverage reporting. By examining the HTML coverage report, developers can determine the specific code path that a test followed, eliminating the need for print statements or a debugger. This technique is useful for identifying why certain code is not being tested as expected.