Month: February 2025

$100 Muon Detector Lets You Harness the Cosmos

24 Feb 2025 5 min read With this detector, muons can be used to map underground structures. James Provost In the mid-1960s, the Nobel Prize–winning physicist Luis Alvarez had a wild idea. He proposed using muons, highly penetrating subatomic particles created when cosmic rays strike Earth’s atmosphere, to search for hidden chambers within one of […]

Solitaire

I have cited a few games as inspiration for Balatro in the past, but I wanted to talk about one in particular that hasn’t been mentioned much that arguably is the most important. I think if I had some kind of Balatro vision board, solitaire (Klondike) would be right in the middle of it with […]

Instagram ‘Error’ Turned Reels into Scroll of Murder, Gore, and Violence

Content warning: this article contains graphic descriptions of violence against people and animals. An “error” in Instagram Reels caused its algorithm to show some users video after video of horrific violence, animal abuse, murders, dead bodies, and other gore, Meta told 404 Media. The company said “we apologize for the mistake.” Sometime in the last […]

Who was Aleph Null? (2013)

Thirty years ago this month Scientific American launched a new column called “Computer Recreations.” I wrote the first six installments, then passed the baton to A. K. Dewdney. Soon after the first column appeared, we received a letter pointing out that the title “Computer Recreations” had already been used by the journal Software—Practice and Experience. […]

Show HN: Probly – Spreadsheets, Python, and AI in the browser

An AI-powered spreadsheet application that combines spreadsheet functionality with Python data analysis capabilities. Interactive Spreadsheet: Full-featured spreadsheet with formula support Python Analysis: Run Python code directly on your spreadsheet data Data Visualization: Create charts and visualizations from your data AI-Powered: Get intelligent suggestions and automated analysis Requirements Node.js 18 or higher npm or yarn A […]

Imposing memory security in C [video]

They say that Rust is going to replace C. I don’t believe that and I wanna share how we’re doing memory-safe operations in BIRD’s C code with no need to enforce this by the language paradigm. It’s obviously possible to override that, yet with the right policies and processes in place, it is almost impossible. […]

Mozilla’s New Terms of Use Are Out of Step with Firefox’s Direct Competition

On Wednesday, Mozilla introduced legal updates to users of Firefox, and something feels off. I read, and re-read the new Terms of Use and while much of it reads like standard boilerplate from any tech company, there’s a new section that is unexpected: When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us […]

Can photons reach back in time?

Can photons ‘reach back in time’?? Like most of my posts, this one is free and reasonably non-technical; my few premium posts have technical content. (Audio version below.) I considered sending this post back in time to make up for the major delay in publishing it – but I hope that readers with a fair […]

Fish 4.0.0

fish’s core code has been ported from C++ to Rust (#9512). This means a large change in dependencies and how to build fish. However, there should be no direct impact on users. Packagers should see the For Distributors section at the end. Notable backwards-incompatible changes As part of a larger binding rework, bind gained a […]

Local social spending and political dissatisfaction of the economically deprived

1 Introduction Providing welfare and reducing inequalities within a society are at the heart of social policy. The latter is particularly relevant for individuals in difficult economic situations who rely on governmental support to make ends meet. In addition, social policies shape individuals’ political attitudes (Kumlin, 2014), such as political dissatisfaction. These three components—individual economic […]