1. VanillaJSX.com
Total comment counts : 39
Summary
The article explores the idea of using JSX to create reusable DOM elements with their own state. It questions how JSX components could work together to create an interactive DOM tree and handle large data without relying on a virtual DOM. It also considers how complex state could be managed and how parent components could react to changes in their children. The author suggests using the @imlib/jsx-browser.js runtime and compiling JSX with @swc/core. The idea originated from the author’s work on imlib and encourages readers to explore the source code for further information.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the advantages of using JSX and non-JSX libraries like Lit for creating dynamic user interfaces. It suggests that returning a description of the DOM rather than actual DOM nodes allows for more efficient updates and reevaluation of templates with new state. The article also highlights the benefit of using a virtual DOM (VDOM) to iterate over items in a template, avoiding the need for imperative DOM APIs. It mentions that the main drawback of VDOMs is slow diffing, which can be resolved by using templates that separate static and dynamic parts. The author mentions that they work on the Lit library, which addresses this issue.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author created a static site generator (SSG) using JSX because they were frustrated with the complexity of other JSX frameworks like React. This SSG renders JSX as strings and can also render JSX as DOM elements in the browser. The author admits that some parts of their solution are hacky and that IDE support could be better. They also mention that their solution is good for SEO, which is a problem that other JSX frameworks didn’t solve well.
2. “Frost crack” sounds may come from sky, not trees
Total comment counts : 23
Summary
An acoustic experiment conducted by acoustics professor Unto Laine at Aalto University in Finland has discovered that spooky forest sounds heard at night may actually come from the sky, rather than from the trees themselves. Laine’s interest in this phenomenon was sparked when he heard unexplained snaps of sound during an auroral storm in 1990. He began the Auroral Acoustics Project in 2000 to investigate these sounds further. Despite initial skepticism and challenges in explaining the source of the sounds, Laine was able to prove their atmospheric origin through audio recordings and triangulation data. These sounds, which occur at a height of around 230 feet, are associated with a meteorological process called inversion. Inversion occurs when warm air rises, trapping ions and building up energy that eventually discharges with crackling and popping sounds similar to lightning bolts.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author recalls reading the book “The Hatchet” in grade school, which tells the story of a man surviving a plane crash near the arctic circle with only a hatchet. The man mistakenly believes cracking sounds in the wilderness are gun shots and a sign of rescue, but later learns they are actually trees cracking from the extreme cold. The author finds this revelation even more captivating as an adult.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses how spooky noises that were previously attributed to trees may actually come from the night sky. The author argues that while this research demonstrates that the night sky can produce sounds under certain conditions, it does not imply that all mysterious noises come from the sky. The author also points out that the supposed tree cracking sound is typically heard in areas with trees, rather than on open plains or above frozen lakes.
3. LLM and Bug Finding: Insights from a $2M Winning Team in the White House’s AIxCC
Total comment counts : 8
Summary
Team Atlanta, consisting of six leading institutions including Georgia Tech, GTRI, and Samsung Research, has developed Atlantis, an innovative AI-driven cybersecurity solution. They competed in the DARPA AIxCC, showcasing their expertise in AI, cybersecurity, and software engineering. Team Atlanta anticipated that AIxCC would focus on static analysis and fine-tuning language models (LLMs) for source code analysis. They created a benchmark dataset and accomplished their goals within a few months. Their CRS, called Skynet, performed well on the benchmark. At the kick-off event, AIxCC introduced the first challenge project, which focused on the Linux kernel and a specific vulnerability (CVE-2021-43267) with a publicly available PoC exploit.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author is part of a team that extensively uses LLM agents for smart bug finding and patching. They express their willingness to discuss more details and share their approaches after a grand final.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the progress in coverage-guided and directed fuzzing, highlighting that fuzzing is no longer a primitive technique but has evolved with intelligence and new approaches. The author appreciates the use of additional layers and machine learning techniques in fuzzing, suggesting that the term “fuzzing” may not accurately represent the current methodology. The article praises the researchers’ work and expresses excitement about new tools and techniques that may arise from this research. The author also inquires about the possibility of implementing libafl++ and mentions the value of datasets containing information about vulnerabilities, bugs, and patches for other researchers.
4. Zngur: A C++/Rust interop tool
Total comment counts : 7
Summary
Zngur is a tool that enables interoperability between C++ and Rust. It allows users to utilize Rust types, methods, and functions in C++ code while maintaining their original semantics and ease of use. Zngur facilitates the use of Rust crates in C++ as seamlessly as using them in Rust code, and it enables the creation of idiomatic Rust APIs for C++ libraries within C++. While Rust and C++ have some differences, Zngur provides more flexibility for C++ to use Rust types, store them in the C++ stack, and call Rust methods and functions. However, Zngur does not translate C++ types into Rust due to ergonomic reasons. Instead, it allows users to create a Rust wrapper for their C++ library, implement Rust traits for C++ types, cast them as Box<dyn Trait>, implement inherent methods on Rust types, implement Rust traits for Rust types, and expose C++ bare functions that operate on Rust types. Detailed examples can be found in the examples/simple folder for building and running.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author briefly looks at some code and finds it plausible. They then discuss the importance of well-executed foreign function interface (FFI) stories with C++ for the Rust ecosystem. They point out that the community’s commitment to C++ interop has been lacking. The author acknowledges that Rust may be superior to C++ in certain domains, but acknowledges that there is a large amount of C++ code that cannot be rewritten in a reasonable timeframe. They highlight use cases where Rust is a better choice, such as applications with an attack surface, but caution against the idea of rewriting everything in Rust without considering interop. The author expresses support for more incremental efforts.
Top 2 Comment Summary
I’m sorry, but I am unable to open or access external links. If you provide the text from the article, I would be more than happy to help summarize it for you.
5. Interviewing the Interviewer: Questions to Uncover a Company’s True Culture
Total comment counts : 40
Summary
In the world of tech interviews, candidates often feel like they’re being closely evaluated, but it’s important to remember that companies hold the power and can obscure their culture during interviews. To gain insights into a company’s culture, candidates should ask open-ended questions that encourage detailed responses. Examples of these questions include asking about personal experiences at the company, how the company’s culture manifests in day-to-day work, areas for improvement, how the company handles struggling team members, examples of unconventional problem-solving, how achievements are celebrated, times when the company culture had to evolve, and paying attention to the interviewer’s responses for subtle cues about the company culture. By asking these types of questions, candidates can make a more informed decision and choose a company that aligns with their values and supports their growth.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author shares a story about interviewing a candidate for a software engineering role. The candidate expressed a desire to work regular hours and not have to work overtime. The organization was able to accommodate this request, and the candidate seemed satisfied with his job. The author wishes for more interviews like this.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article suggests asking indirect questions during an interview to determine if you would be a good fit for the team. Some suggested questions include: what types of people tend to succeed or struggle in the team, what are the main objectives in the next 6 to 12 months and how they plan to meet them, how the candidate will contribute to those objectives, and how the team collaborates and coordinates work. These questions aim to assess the team’s culture, work-life balance, objectives, and collaboration methods.
6. X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum
Total comment counts : 18
Summary
Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter, has been ordered to pay €550,000 ($602,640) to a former employee in Ireland in an unfair dismissal case. The employee, Gary Rooney, was dismissed in December 2022 after he failed to commit to new working arrangements in an email from Musk. X claimed that Rooney had resigned voluntarily, but the commission ruled that not ticking a box in response to the email did not constitute resignation. This is the largest sum ever awarded by the Irish Workplace Relations Commission. Since Musk acquired Twitter, the company has faced multiple lawsuits and allegations of withheld severance benefits.
Top 1 Comment Summary
I’m sorry, but as an AI text-based assistant, I am unable to click on or access external links. However, if you provide me with the text from the article, I will be happy to summarize it for you.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The individual is questioning the legality of a policy that requires employees to either click on a certain link or face termination. They express uncertainty about US labor laws and ponder whether employees are treated like indentured servants, as employment is typically seen as a contract between two parties.
7. Fun times with energy-based models
Total comment counts : 5
Summary
This article discusses Energy-Based Models (EBMs), which are generative models used to learn the underlying distribution of data and generate new samples. Unlike other generative models, EBMs learn to assign low energy to likely data configurations and high energy to unlikely ones. The article explains how to sample data from EBMs and introduces Langevin dynamics as a method for sampling. It also explores different approaches to training EBMs, including maximum likelihood estimation.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author of the article is being advised to address a confusing aspect in the proof. Specifically, in Step 6, the integration by parts technique is applied to the “uv” term and the range of integration suddenly appears to be from -∞ to ∞, which assumes that x ∈ ℝ. However, in other parts of the article and in the examples, higher-dimensional x’s are mentioned. The author is suggested to either include the full multidimensional version from the paper or explicitly clarify that this is the simple 1d case, but the same result holds in ℝ^n, and refer to the paper for further details.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the rationale behind using tricks like score matching and contrastive divergence due to the computational expense of the partition function. The author also asks about the current usefulness of Energy-Based Models (EBMs).
8. Slackdump
Total comment counts : 10
Summary
This article is about a tool called Slackdump that allows users to save or export their private and public Slack messages, threads, files, and users without needing admin privileges. It offers four modes of operation and accepts two types of input. The tool can be used on both Windows and macOS, but users may encounter an “Unknown developer” window that can be bypassed. The article also mentions another tool called Slackord2, which is recommended for migrating to Discord. It provides instructions for using different loggers with Slackdump and expresses gratitude to contributors and donors.
Top 1 Comment Summary
Slack will delete chats and files from free workspaces at the end of August. However, there is a tool called Slackdump that is better than Slack’s built-in export feature because it does not require admin access and can download attachments along with messages. The exports from Slackdump can be browsed offline or loaded into other platforms such as Discord or Mattermost. The author of the article was impressed with how well Slackdump worked compared to other tools they tried.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the use of Linen.dev as a tool to preserve and search historical data for a community. Linen.dev is appreciated for its search functionality and the ability to prevent data deletion by services like Slack.
9. Google removed Organic Maps from the Play Store
Total comment counts : 35
Summary
error
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses an incident related to the Fediverse, specifically a post made by a user on Fosstodon. The user discusses the incident and provides a link to the post for those who do not want to click on a Twitter link.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article asserts that the monopoly held by the AppStore is burdensome because there is no separate judicial authority to resolve disputes between Google and app providers. It points out that having all powers concentrated in one entity is generally disliked in democratic countries. However, it acknowledges that such cooperation seems to be accepted when the entities involved are sufficiently large.
10. Xapian: Open source search engine library
Total comment counts : 7
Summary
Xapian is an Open Source Search Engine Library written in C++, with bindings in multiple languages such as Perl, Python, PHP, Java, and more. It allows developers to easily add indexing and search functionalities to their applications. Xapian supports different weighting models and boolean query operators. Omega is a search engine application built upon Xapian that can be extended to meet specific website search needs. The latest stable version of Xapian is 1.4.26, released on 2024-07-18.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author recalls using a self-hosted search engine for their PDF library in the past and found it extremely helpful. They express a desire for a similar tool that can perform optical character recognition (OCR) on scanned documents, extract text from their collection of epub and mobi files, and also index metadata for photos, movies, subtitles, and song lyrics. They envision this tool being added to a NAS appliance and believe it would be very useful.
Top 2 Comment Summary
This article discusses a project that has been actively maintained for over ten years. It has a small memory usage and is known for its fast performance. However, one drawback is that it is licensed under GPL v2, which may restrict its usage for commercial purposes.