1. Rust running on every GPU
Total comment counts : 22
Summary
A demo has been created that allows a single Rust codebase to run on major GPU platforms without using specialized shader or kernel languages. This is achieved through projects like Rust GPU, Rust CUDA, and Naga, which facilitate compiling Rust code directly for GPUs. The demo implements a bitonic sort, showcasing cross-platform GPU compute. It simplifies the developer experience by embedding compiled GPU kernels into a standard Rust binary. This milestone highlights the potential for using Rust in GPU programming, emphasizing its compatibility with various backends and driver APIs. The code is available on GitHub.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author expresses skepticism towards abstractions over the GPU API, emphasizing the importance of low-level GPU details for optimal performance and bug avoidance across different client hardware. They suggest that vendors should develop a unified system but note significant platform differences due to unresolved conflicts. While there are exceptions like Angle, they tend to sacrifice features for stability. The author appreciates that the discussed approach supports conditional compilation, which is beneficial.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author, who develops native audio applications requiring high performance, questions the robustness of the “Rust -> WebGPU -> SPIR-V -> MSL -> Metal” pipeline due to its complexity and concerns about performance. They contrast this with the “Julia -> Metal” approach, which skips MSL and leverages native optimizations for Apple Silicon, such as Unified Memory. The author highlights the advantage of using a full programming language like Rust, which offers features such as newtype, traits, and macros, over traditional shader languages like Slang.
2. CCTV footage captures video of an earthquake fault in motion
Total comment counts : 16
Summary
error
Top 1 Comment Summary
It’s surprising that we have captured images of stellar births, black holes, and cellular division, but not of earthquake faults in motion. This highlights a significant gap in our understanding, as the mechanisms behind earthquakes have largely been inferred rather than directly observed until now.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses concerns regarding property ownership when land shifts significantly, causing one person’s land to encroach on another’s. The author expresses confusion about the implications of such changes in land boundaries, specifically noting how the visible movement of land raises questions about ownership rights.
3. How we rooted Copilot
Total comment counts : 14
Summary
In April 2025, Microsoft updated Copilot Enterprise to include a live Python sandbox using Jupyter Notebook, allowing code execution on a backend. The system runs Linux commands under an ‘ubuntu’ user in a miniconda environment but lacks a sudo binary. While the sandbox generally executes commands well, it exhibits inconsistent behavior similar to a child. The environment includes a Go binary (goclientapp) for managing executions, and another binary for an HTTP proxy. Notably, a vulnerability in a script allows potential root access through exploitations in the $PATH variable, enabling users to execute their own code.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The reported vulnerability allowed running code with root privileges in a container designed for non-root execution. However, it had limited impact since the container remained secure, preventing network requests and breakout, meaning the main risk was the potential to disrupt one’s own container access.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article critiques a post titled “How We Rooted Copilot,” asserting that the authors only achieved root access in a highly restricted Python sandbox container, rather than on the Copilot core system itself. The author suggests the title should be “How We Rooted the Copilot Python Sandbox” to more accurately reflect the situation.
4. Purple Earth hypothesis
Total comment counts : 10
Summary
The Purple Earth Hypothesis (PEH), proposed by Shiladitya DasSarma in 2007, posits that early photosynthetic life on Earth used retinal instead of chlorophyll, giving the biosphere a purplish hue. This is believed to have occurred 3.5 to 2.4 billion years ago, prior to significant oxygen production. Retinal pigments absorb light differently than chlorophyll, which reflects green light, leading to a green Earth. The hypothesis suggests that retinal pigments could be indicators of extraterrestrial life on exoplanets, widening the search beyond planets showing green light to those reflecting blue and red light.
Top 1 Comment Summary
Retinal-containing cell membranes mainly absorb light in the green-yellow spectrum, reflecting red and blue, leading to a magenta appearance. In contrast, chlorophyll absorbs red and blue light but not green, resulting in plants that appear green. The article questions why plants haven’t evolved to utilize both pigments for more efficient light absorption, suggesting such plants would appear dark. It also refers to an evolutionary trap for chlorophyll-based organisms that prevents them from adapting to absorb green light, which constrains their color and efficiency in light utilization.
Top 2 Comment Summary
PBS Eons released an episode titled “When the Earth Was Purple,” exploring a time in Earth’s history characterized by unique atmospheric and biological conditions. The episode is praised for its scientific insights, highlighting the importance of PBS as a valuable educational resource deserving of federal funding support. You can watch the episode here.
5. Open Sauce is a confoundingly brilliant Bay Area event
Total comment counts : 25
Summary
The author reflects on attending Open Sauce, a maker faire in the Bay Area, with their retired radio engineer dad. The event featured diverse exhibits, inventive contraptions, and prominent YouTubers, including CuriousMarc. Highlights included meeting creators, showcasing unique projects, and a panel on reverse engineering. The author encountered NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick, who shared his interest in open-source tools for managing his ISS photography. The lively atmosphere of creativity and innovation left the author eager for future events, emphasizing the cultural importance of technology and community in the region.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The event felt mediocre, resembling a Maker Faire with a YouTuber stage. The panels, moderated by William Osman, lacked audience engagement, allowing few questions. Notably, children were predominantly interested in interacting with YouTubers rather than exploring the non-famous creators’ booths, highlighting a concerning focus on idolizing online personalities.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author expresses skepticism about the maker movement’s impact on fostering interest in engineering careers among students. While appreciating the advancements it has brought, they note that kids prefer roles as content creators and tinkerers rather than aspiring engineers. Despite acknowledging the value of engineering as a hobby, they argue that the movement contributes to a shortage of engineers, with a noted decline in civil engineering quality and an aging workforce. The author highlights a concerning trend in local engineering communities that could have broader implications.
6. What went wrong for Yahoo
Total comment counts : 50
Summary
Yahoo, once a leader in web navigation and information, ended its independent run in 2016, selling to Verizon for $4.8 billion, a stark decline from its peak value of $125 billion. Founded in 1994 as a directory of links, Yahoo initially thrived but faltered due to poor acquisition decisions and an inability to adapt to a changing internet landscape. Despite successful early years and profitability, its costly acquisitions, like Broadcast.com and Tumblr, failed to yield profits. Competing tech firms, notably Google, showed better acquisition strategies, leading to Yahoo’s eventual downfall.
Top 1 Comment Summary
Yahoo declined opportunities to acquire Google in 1998 for $1 million and again in 2002 for $1 billion, ultimately watching Google grow into a trillion-dollar company. In 2006, Yahoo attempted to buy Facebook for $1 billion, but Mark Zuckerberg rejected the offer; a slight increase could have swayed his board. The article suggests that had Yahoo acquired either company, they likely wouldn’t have achieved their trillion-dollar status.
Top 2 Comment Summary
Yahoo was a major contributor to FreeBSD in the late 90s and early 2000s, similar to Netflix’s current role. They hosted essential build and test infrastructure, employed several src committers, and made significant contributions, including the SMPng project that transformed FreeBSD into a modern multi-threaded kernel. They also employed Peter Wemm, who was instrumental in the AMD64 port. Their involvement was crucial in making FreeBSD a viable operating system.
7. Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth
Total comment counts : 57
Summary
The article informs users to switch to a supported browser to continue using x.com. A list of compatible browsers is available in the Help Center, which also includes links to the Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, and Imprint. The content is published by X Corp in 2025.
Top 1 Comment Summary
Engineers should negotiate for higher base salaries, particularly during acquihires when equity often holds little value. They are advised to seek transparency regarding the company’s 409A valuation, liquidation preferences, and pay bands. If a company is unwilling to disclose this information, it may indicate potential issues. Ultimately, while equity can be uncertain, a solid salary provides guaranteed income.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the misleading nature of acquisition headlines, specifically in the context of startups sold for millions. It highlights that the reported purchase price often doesn’t reflect the actual payout to shareholders; it usually includes future share offers and incentives (golden handcuffs) to keep employees with the acquiring company. The author suggests that receiving a large upfront payment would disincentivize continued work, hence the structure of these deals.
8. Resizable structs in Zig
Total comment counts : 8
Summary
The article proposes a “runtime resizable struct” concept in Zig, leveraging its comptime features to manage data structures with runtime-determined sizes. Currently, Zig offers fixed-size arrays and many-item pointers but lacks a way to efficiently handle structures of varying types with sizes known only at runtime. The author illustrates the complexity of allocating and managing such data through existing methods and advocates for an improved API design to simplify these tasks, facilitating safer and more efficient data handling without introducing potential vulnerabilities. A proof-of-concept package is available on GitHub.
Top 1 Comment Summary
Zig does not include variable-length arrays (VLAs) in its language specification. Instead, it allows allocating slices on the heap or using arrays as bounded backing stores for stack data. The author notes that aligned byte-typed VLAs, akin to features in Swift, are necessary for stack allocation across ABI boundaries. They reference IBM’s SOM using alloca in C as a historical example of this approach, concluding that they will need to find an alternative solution.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author reflects on using dynamically sized types (DSTs) in Zig but ultimately favors Zig’s opaque types for improved simplicity and usability. They present an example of defining a Connection struct with a nested Header. The init function allocates memory for the header and an additional variable-length host, while the host function retrieves the host data from the allocated memory. Although the code is based on memory assumptions and may not compile, it illustrates a practical approach similar to previous experiences.
9. The rise and fall of the Hanseatic League
Total comment counts : 13
Summary
The Hansa, a coalition of medieval German merchants, established Northern Europe’s first long-distance trade network, enabling collective bargaining, action, and security without formal governance. Operating across thousands of miles, they signed treaties and occasionally waged wars, lasting nearly 500 years despite internal divisions. Following the Dark Ages, Europe experienced a recovery from the 800s, marked by improved agricultural techniques and climate conditions during the Medieval Warm Period, leading to population growth and the revival of artisan classes. This fostered permanent marketplaces and significant trade expansion, transforming Northern Europe’s commercial landscape.
Top 1 Comment Summary
If you’re in Hamburg, consider a day trip to Lübeck to visit the Hanse Museum, which features stunning design and multilingual accessibility. Visitors can customize their experience by focusing on topics of interest, such as naval architecture. Lübeck itself boasts charming old Hanseatic buildings, largely intact from wartime. Nearby, the Travemünde beaches are also beautiful, making this trip an excellent choice for a day’s outing.
Top 2 Comment Summary
Edward II granted Hansa merchants tax exemptions and travel freedoms for £1,000, representing a significant portion of the Crown’s annual tax revenue. He assured that neither he nor future kings would impose new restrictions on the Hansa without their consent. These privileges allowed Hanseatic merchants to enjoy lower tax rates than English merchants. The article highlights ongoing issues of autocracy and lack of accountability for the wealthy.
10. Getting decent error reports in Bash when you’re using ‘set -e’
Total comment counts : 6
Summary
The blog “Wandering Thoughts” is currently blocking access for certain web crawlers due to their generic HTTP User-Agent headers, which are perceived as suspicious. This action aims to reduce the excessive load caused by these crawlers, often used for training large language models. Effective User-Agent headers should clearly identify the software and its user, rather than presenting a vague designation like “Go-http-client/1.1.”
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses enhancing error handling in scripts by using the command trap 'caller 1' ERR, which can help identify the location of errors. It also recommends setting error flags such as “errtrace” (-E), “nounset” (-u), and “pipefail” to improve script reliability and debugging.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses an improved Bash error handling function featuring advanced features such as a backtrace for debugging. It utilizes set -e to exit on errors and includes a custom error message upon early startup failures. The backtrace function captures the state of the script when an error occurs, providing useful details about the failure context, including file names and line numbers. By employing trap and other Bash built-ins, it enhances the original error handling behavior, particularly in scenarios involving unexpected failures. The code demonstrates robust error reporting capabilities.