Helen Fisher, who researched the brain’s love circuitry, has died
A biological anthropologist, she worked with colleagues to confirm for the first time that love is hard-wired in the brain. Helen E. Fisher, a biological anthropologist who went looking for love in the brain circuitry of people who were besotted as well as people who were rejected, and whose research into love led to a […]
Removing stuff is never obvious yet often better
You know the nagging feeling that your product, project, or company has become more complicated than it needs to be? You can solve many problems and get better results by doing something unthinkable to many: removing parts that once seemed essential. My crusade against complexity continues with this short story from Pinecone. The calculator The […]
Server Setup Basics for Self Hosting
This is a post I’ve been meaning to do for a while. While it’s simple to explain how to set up an app for self-hosting, it’s pointless to host an app on a weak foundation. It’s a massive pain in my ass to start every how to with a section on server setup, so I’m […]
Senior Intel CPU architects splinter to develop RISC-V processors
While Intel is busy laying off thousands of employees some of its most experienced CPU architects, with a combined 80+ years at the firm, have left to form a RISC-V startup. AheadComputing was co-founded by Debbie Marr, Mark Dechene, Jonathan Pearce, and Srikanth Srinivasan, with the goal of “creating compelling open specification core IP.” This […]
We found North Korean engineers in our application pile. Here’s what we did
We found North Korean engineers in our application pile. Here’s what our ex-CIA co founders did about it. Cinder is part of a growing list of US-based tech companies that encounter engineering applicants who are actually suspected North Korean nationals. These North Koreans almost certainly work on behalf of the North Korean government to funnel […]
Uber loses New Zealand appeal, court rules drivers are employees not contractors
Employees are afforded benefits that contractors aren’t – leave entitlements, the minimum wage, holiday pay, and recourse for unjustified dismissal, for example. Uber said it wouldn’t change its New Zealand operations in response to the court ruling, as it planned to challenge it in the Supreme Court. Court of Appeal justices Goddard, Ellis, and Wylie […]
Matching dinosaur footprints found on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean
Two representative theropod tracks from the Koum Basin in northern Cameroon. Credit: SMU An international team of researchers led by SMU paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs has found matching sets of Early Cretaceous dinosaur footprints on what are now two different continents. More than 260 footprints were discovered in Brazil and in Cameroon, showing where land-dwelling […]
Y Combinator backs its first defense startup, Ares Industries
The first defense startup to receive backing from Y Combinator, Ares Industries, launched earlier this week. In a post on the YC website, the startup outlined a vision to build low-cost cruise missiles that will be compatible with existing launch platforms, saying it will “deliver the capabilities that the [Department of Defense] wants in a […]
Realistic Synthetic UGC: A Scaffolding Approach to Generating Online Discussions
Abstract:The emergence of synthetic data represents a pivotal shift in modern machine learning, offering a solution to satisfy the need for large volumes of data in domains where real data is scarce, highly private, or difficult to obtain. We investigate the feasibility of creating realistic, large-scale synthetic datasets of user-generated content, noting that such content […]
Pavel Durov and the Blackberry Ratchet
Why do governments go after companies and executives of services of more weakly encrypted tools? It’s very hard, this early, to pierce through what’s going on with of the French authorities’ arrest of Paul Durov, the CEO of Telegram — but that doesn’t stop people from having pet theories. Was it retaliation from the US […]