3001
The Irish Logarithm
From the highly eclectic blog of Mark Dominus
3002
Building a Handheld PC
I’d like to share with you my latest project: Decktility!
3003
The House Intelligence Committee's Surveillance 'Reform' Bill Is a Farce
Two bills reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act are headed to the House floor. Meanwhile, FBI agents have used Section 702 databases to conduct millions of invasive searches for Americans’ communications, including those of protesters, racial justice activists, 19,000 donors to a…
3004
Chromebook Plus
Introducing the all-new Chromebook Plus, a new category of Chromebooks with double the performance.
3005
GPT-4 gets a B on my quantum computing final exam
Update (April 14): On the suggestion of my TA Justin Yirka, I gave GPT-4 problem 2 from the final exam, along with its own answers and my and Justin’s grading comments, and asked it whether i…
3006
Deep cloning objects in JavaScript
It’s been a long time coming, but we finally now have the built-in `structuredClone` function to make deep cloning objects in JavaScript a breeze
3007
3008
Emacs standing alone on a Linux Kernel
Nano How-To explaining how to setup a root file system with only emacs.
3009
3010
The Dual LLM pattern for building AI assistants that can resist prompt injection
I really want an AI assistant: a Large Language Model powered chatbot that can answer questions and perform actions for me based on access to my private data and tools. …
3011
How to get transactions between almost any data stores
How to get ACID transactions between almost any data stores, with the Epoxy protocol.
3012
Finally getting two's complement
A different view on two's complement math.
3013
Do you need a vector database?
Spoiler alert: the answer is maybe! Although, my inclusion of the word “actually” betrays my bias. Vector databases are having their day right now. Three different vector DB companies have raised money on valuations up to $700 million (paywall link). Surprisingly, their rise in popularity is not for their “original”…
3014
ChatGPT as a Calculator for Words
One of the most pervasive mistakes I see people using with large language model tools like ChatGPT is trying to use them as a search engine. As with other LLM …
3015
Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)
"Focus" requires saying "no" to most things, but there's a way to do it that allows you to say "yes" exactly when it matters most.
3016
Minimal Cross-Platform Graphics
Exploring how to use 2D graphics in various desktop operating systems, the old-school way. In this part we learn how to create an empty window under Linux, macOS and Windows.
3017
Appeals court upholds right to post public laws online
SAN FRANCISCO—Technical standards like fire and electrical codes developed by private organizations but incorporated into public law can be freely disseminated without any liability for copyright infringement, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. Tuesday’s ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S...
3018
What happens when you leak AWS credentials and how AWS minimizes the damage
I heard multiple times that AWS scans public GitHub repositories for AWS credentials and informs its users of the leaked credentials.
3019
Cash Cows
He was born, farmed, and died at Dishley, much like his father before him. But Robert Bakewell, unlike most people, caught the improving mentality, or attitude — the one thing all inventors, both then and now, have in common — which had him viewing everything around him in terms of its capacity for betterment. The…
3020
3021
Emu Video and Emu Edit, our latest generative AI research milestones
Today, we’re announcing new research into controlled image editing based solely on text instructions and a method for text-to-video generation based on diffusion models.
3022
Printed robots with bones, ligaments, and tendons
For the first time, researchers have succeeded in printing a robotic hand with bones, ligaments and tendons made of different polymers using a new laser scanning technique.
3023
Clojure Plays Mario
Before getting too far into the weeds, let's begin with the results. Without too much effort, an AI was written in clojure that could complete all of the levels in the original Super Mario Bros for the NES except for the Bowser levels that have mazes. Namely, levels 4-4, 7-4, and 8-4 were not completed (more on this…
3024
When gradient descent is a kernel method
Suppose that we sample a large number N N N of independent random functions f i : R → R f_i \colon \R \to \R f i : R → R from a certain distribution F \Fc F and propose to solve a regression problem by choosing a linear combination f ˉ = ∑ i λ i f i . \bar{f} = \sum_i \lambda_i f_i. f ˉ = i ∑ λ i f i . For…
3025
3026
Introduction to the Fourier transform for image processing (2001)
The definitons of the transform (to expansion coefficients) and the inverse transform are given below:
3027
Explaining the Postgres iceberg
Have you seen this legendary SQL iceberg meme? Let's talk about it while wearing our PostgreSQL hat!
3028
The death of self-driving cars is greatly exaggerated
GM’s Cruise aims to turn self-driving into a billion-dollar business.
3029
In 1961 a Gallup poll showed only 33% of Americans in favor of moon landing
Today marks the 54th anniversary of the moon landing. In retrospect it has almost unanimous support and adoration in the US: pleasing the left as an example of the power of public funding and the right as a triumph of the capitalist west against the
3030
ChatGPT – The Revolutionary Bullshit Parrot
ChatGPT seems convincing and wise but is neither wise nor hallucinatory—just bullshit. Here’s biased take on AI’s socalled revolution.