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A SKEPTIC'S TAKE ON BEAMING POWER TO EARTH FROM SPACE

While the idea of space-based solar power sounds good, there are many potential problems that could doom such a project. Such a misadventure would undermine the credibility of the responsible space agency and waste capital that could be spent improving less risky methods of renewable energy. This article presents a roadmap of the potential challenges that must be overcome before orbital solar power can become truly appealing to electrical utilities.

SYMBOLICA

Symbolica is a computer algebra system. It can match complicated mathematical patterns and work with huge expressions. Symbolica features state-of-the-art polynomial arithmetic and expression optimization, a framework for numerical integration, and APIs for Python, Rust, and C++. A live demo is available.

THE SEARCH FOR EASIER SAFE SYSTEMS PROGRAMMING

Getting to a level where you're comfortable using Rust can be difficult. June is a safe systems language that can be learned as quickly as one can learn Go. It features grouped allocations, arbitrary data structures, full encapsulation, and safe memory recycling. This article introduces June and discusses its features and development. June could become a good complement to Rust once Rust has a stable ABI.

DANGEROUS PROTOCOLS

Protocols are a potential alternative to walled technology gardens. They offer a level of interoperability and customization that platforms don't. A historical look at protocols suggests that their purpose has always been to simplify coordination and communication, leading to conformity over time. Protocols are not owned or mediated by any central authority, so switching protocols isn't as easy as switching platforms. While protocols are not necessarily bad, it is important to acknowledge the dangerous implications of increasingly outsourcing more decisions to them.

LOG SCALES

This article contains a lesson on log scales. It covers the basics, like linear scales, before moving on to more advanced topics such as exponentials, symmetry, homoscedasticity, and more. The article uses many charts and graphs to help visualize the concepts it discusses. It focuses on log10, where segments represent a tenfold increase compared to the last, but there are many other types of log bases to also be aware of that offer different perspectives and may be better suited for specific situations or data types.

I WENT TO CHINA AND DROVE A DOZEN ELECTRIC CARS. WESTERN AUTOMAKERS ARE COOKED

Chinese automakers have put in a lot of effort to understand the desires of their customers, while Western manufacturers seem to just sell the cars they wanted to make.

GOOGLE BUILT SOME OF THE FIRST SOCIAL APPS FOR ANDROID, INCLUDING TWITTER AND OTHERS

Many early Android apps were written by Google as it wanted companies to adopt Android.

LLM-UI

llm-ui is a React library for large language models that allows developers to add custom components to outputs.

HOW AHREFS GETS A BILLION DOLLAR-WORTH INFRASTRUCTURE WITH A 90% DISCOUNT

Ahrefs chose colocation for its infrastructure, allowing its developers to focus on product development rather than getting caught up in a never-ending cycle of trying to optimize cloud costs.

GOOGLE CLOUD ACCIDENTALLY DELETES UNISUPER'S ONLINE ACCOUNT DUE TO ‘UNPRECEDENTED MISCONFIGURATION'

More than half a million UniSuper fund members had no access to their superannuation accounts for a week after a misconfiguration led to the financial services provider's private cloud account being deleted.

THE END OF SOCIAL MEDIA: AN INTERVIEW WITH JACK DORSEY

This interview with Jack Dorsey discusses his exit from Bluesky, how Twitter lost its way, Dorsey's strategy for ending censorship forever, Elon Musk, and the death of social media as we know it.

JOHN TERNUS EMERGING AS THE MOST LIKELY SUCCESSOR TO TIM COOK AS APPLE CEO

Apple CEO Tim Cook, who has held the title since 2011, turns 64 this year. While there is no reason to assume that a change at the helm is imminent, there are multiple possibilities for who may eventually take over. Apple's board will likely want someone who will stick around for at least a decade. This makes 49-year-old John Ternus, Apple's Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, the most likely successor.

TESLA QUIETLY TOOK DOWN ALL U.S. JOB POSTINGS AFTER WEEKS OF ELON MUSK'S 'HARDCORE' LAYOFFS

Tesla had 3,400 job postings across the US, Mexico, Canada, and Puerto Rico on May 1, but it has since removed almost all of them. The bulk of the positions were in California, Texas, and Nevada, where the company has its gigafactories. This is the second time that Tesla has almost entirely wiped out its job postings since it began laying off workers on April 16. The company entered its fourth consecutive week of layoffs this week. At least six high-profile executives have either already resigned or plan to later this year.

GOOGLE DEEPMIND'S NEW AI CAN MODEL DNA, RNA, AND ‘ALL LIFE'S MOLECULES'

Google DeepMind's AlphaFold 3 can predict the structure of all of life's molecules. Previous versions of the model could only predict the structures of proteins. AlphaFold 3 can model DNA, RNA, and ligands. It shows a 50% improvement in prediction accuracy compared to its previous models. DeepMind is making the AlphaFold Server research platform, powered by AlphaFold 3, to some researchers for free for academic and noncommercial use.

NEURALINK'S FIRST BRAIN-CHIP IMPLANT IN A HUMAN APPEARED FLAWLESS. THERE WAS A PROBLEM

Neuralink encountered a problem with the implant in its first human patient that reduced the amount of data the device could capture from his brain. Some of the implant's threads have come out. Neuralink has not disclosed the reasons why the threads retracted unexpectedly. Despite the implant's degraded capabilities, the patient is still able to navigate around his computer screen and play games. Challenges with the first test in a human patient were expected and the Neuralink team remains optimistic that this problem can be solved.

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HOW CONTRIBUTING TO OPEN SOURCE HELPED YOU BECOME A BETTER DEVELOPER OR LANDED YOU A JOB (LOBSTERS THREAD)

This thread discusses the different ways open source work can help in one's career. For those without certificates from higher education, open source can work as a CV, demonstrating work to potential employers. Contributing to open source can also widen your network and help you find employment. Working with open source can help develop the ability to jump into other people's codebases very quickly, allowing you to become more efficient quickly. It also shows that you can complete tasks/projects without anyone telling you exactly what to do.

STACK OVERFLOW SUSPENDS USER FOR EDITING POSTS IN OPENAI PROTEST

OpenAI and Stack Overflow's recent partnership announcement has raised concerns for some users that their data is being used without permission. Some users who wanted to delete their answers have had their accounts suspended. The site does not generally allow the deletion of posts if the questions have any answers. Stack Overflow moderators say that it doesn't allow users to remove posts as they hurt the company as a whole. While the GDPR gives users in the EU the right to be forgotten, websites have a right not to delete data if it doesn't contain identifiable information to prevent the flow of a topic or question from being disrupted.

GOOGLE EMPLOYEES QUESTION EXECS OVER ‘DECLINE IN MORALE' AFTER BLOWOUT EARNINGS

Google's business is growing at its fastest rate in two years, but the performance isn't translating to higher pay for employees. Employees questioned the company's plans to address a significant decline in morale, increased distrust, and a disconnect between leadership and the workforce during an all-hands meeting last week. At the meeting, Sundar Pichai said that the company plans to continue cutting expenses and driving efficiencies. While Google is growing its expenses this year, it is moderating its pace of growth. Most employees will receive a pay raise this year.

WHY IS EVERYONE SUDDENLY FURIOUS ABOUT AI REGULATION?

If California's Senate Bill 1047 passes, it will require the companies behind the world's largest, most advanced AI models to take steps to guarantee their safety before releasing the models to the public. Despite being a piece of state legislation, the bill has unusual international importance, as most of the companies making such models are headquartered in the state. This article looks over the bill and responds to some of the most serious misconceptions. It also suggests concrete changes that address some of the real concerns.

FTX CRYPTO FRAUD VICTIMS TO GET THEIR MONEY BACK — PLUS INTEREST

FTX says that it will be able to distribute between $14.5 and $16.3 billion in cash.

SLOP IS THE NEW NAME FOR UNWANTED AI-GENERATED CONTENT

Slop is AI content that is mindlessly generated and thrust upon someone who didn't ask for it without review.

INSIDE MICROSOFT'S XBOX TURMOIL

Microsoft's latest round of layoffs has shocked both employees and fans.

DONT HAVE F-YOU MONEY? BUILD AN F-YOU NETWORK.

Having a good network means that you will always have options if your current job dries up.

OPENAI RULES THE CHANGES BUT META CHANGES THE RULES

OpenAI's primary threat as the leader of the AI industry is a GPT-4-class model that's available to anyone - something Meta is working on.

VENTURE FIRMS DOUBLE, THEN HALVE, IN STUNNING REVERSAL

The number of active venture capital firms worldwide in 2021 was more than double 2014 levels, but numbers have since sharply contracted to below 2014 figures.

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EVERYTHING ANNOUNCED AT APPLE'S LET LOOSE IPAD EVENT

Apple's Let Loose showcase was all about the iPad. The next iPad Pro will be powered by an M4 chip. It will use a new display tech called Tandem OLED, which layers two OLED panels on top of each other to provide richer colors and deeper blacks. The iPad Air is now available in 11 inches and 13 inches. The Apple Pencil Pro features a new squeeze gesture and supports rotation. The new Magic Keyboard, which is only compatible with the iPad Pro, features a larger trackpad with haptic feedback as well as a row of function keys.

TIKTOK SUES TO BLOCK U.S. BAN

TikTok has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the new law requiring the sale or ban of the company. The suit seeks a court order preventing the US from enforcing the law. It accuses the US of trampling on TikTok's First Amendment rights under the banner of national security. Parent company ByteDance says it can't and won't sell its US operations by the deadline, leaving litigation as its best hope to remain in the US market. It claims to have taken measures to safeguard user data and prevent Chinese influence.

SOME CASES OF ALZHEIMER'S CAUSED BY TWO COPIES OF A SINGLE GENE

Researchers have identified a genetic form of late-in-life Alzheimer's disease that occurs in people who inherit two copies of the APOE4 gene. The gene has been associated with the disease as a risk factor for Alzheimer's for years. A recent study suggests that having two copies of the gene is an underlying cause of Alzheimer's rather than just a risk factor. An estimated 15% of Alzheimer's patients carry two copies of APOE4. The gene can make symptoms begin seven to 10 years sooner than in other adults, but it also makes patients more prone to the dangerous side effects of some drug treatments. The discovery allows researchers to develop gene therapy or drugs specifically targeting the gene.

BASE POWER COMPANY

The power industry is bottlenecked by the grid - adding more renewables and electrifying more things will only make the grid less stable. The grid is buckling due to the increasing use of variable sources of electricity, decreasing grid reliability, increasing delays in building electrical infrastructure, and increasing demand for electricity. The Base Power Company is trying to fix this problem by deploying connected batteries across the grid. These batteries will store energy for use when needed, reducing strain on the grid.

DENIABLE ENCRYPTION

Deniable encryption is a concept where messages are encrypted in such a way that using a different key would reveal a different message. Theoretically, it allows people to reveal their keys without spilling their secrets. This blog post proposes a method for building a deniable encryption scheme that allows multiple passwords and messages. The full code for the method is provided.

HEADLESS UI V2.0 FOR REACT

Headless UI v2.0 for React features built-in anchor positioning, a new checkbox component, HTML form components, combobox list virtualization, a new website, improved docs, and improved hover, focus, and active state detection. The improvements are aimed at helping developers write less code and making the developer experience even better. This article details the most interesting new improvements. An upgrade guide is available for those transitioning from v1.x.

LPCAMM2 IS FINALLY HERE, AND IT'S A BIG DEAL

LPCAMM2 is a totally modular, repairable, and upgradeable memory standard for laptops. It allows consumers to buy laptops and then install more RAM as needed. LPCAMM2 supports the latest LPDDR chips for maximum speed and efficiency. This article presents a teardown of Lenovo's ThinkPad P1 (Gen 7), the first laptop to support LPCAMM2 technology. While the technology is arriving initially in a Lenovo product, it owes its existence to an alliance of tech companies working together over the course of several years.

WE'VE BEEN PUT IN THE VIBE SPACE

Search and recommendation have traditionally been kept separate, because while they occupy opposite ends of the same spectrum conceptually, they have different tooling, architectures, and machine learning goals. Large language models introduce expectations that need to be managed carefully because it is hard to guide customer intent in an open-ended solution space. This may be frustrating for consumers until specific LLM use cases are sorted out and made less general.

SWITCH 2 WILL BE REVEALED BEFORE APRIL 2025, PROMISES NINTENDO

Nintendo's President has stated that a next-generation Switch console will be announced within this fiscal year.

ENGINEERS USE ULTRASONIC REACTOR TO MAKE COLD BREW COFFEE IN UNDER 3 MINUTES

The ultrasonic reactor delivers sound frequencies of 38.8 kHz, generating cavitation bubbles that explosively fracture coffee grounds, accelerating extraction.

A 100X SPEEDUP WITH UNSAFE PYTHON

A good way to make Python code fast is by using C libraries in the right ways.

LIX

Lix is an implementation of the Nix functional package management language designed to allow evolution of the language and tooling so that developers can improve usability and ergonomics without sacrificing correctness.

HOW NOVELTY EFFECTS AND DOPAMINE CULTURE RULE THE TECH INDUSTRY

Dopamine Culture is the result of everything becoming more accessible and universal - people have access to an endless variety of choice from their handheld devices.

STORAGE CHURN

We're entering a period of churn where there will be serious competition on storage price and performance.

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'IPHONE 17 SLIM' WITH SMALLER DISPLAY RUMORED TO LAUNCH NEXT YEAR

Apple is reportedly planning an 'iPhone 17 Slim' model to replace the Plus model in its lineup. The Slim model will have around a 6.6-inch display, a slimmer design, an A18 or A19 chip, 8GB of RAM, a 24-megapixel front camera, and a 48-megapixel telephoto camera. It is expected to have an aluminum chassis and some other external design changes. Apple will likely announce the iPhone 17 lineup in September 2025.

APPLE REPORTEDLY BUILDING M2 ULTRA AND M4-POWERED AI SERVERS

Foxconn is reportedly assembling Apple AI servers that contain the M2 Ultra. It is planning to assemble AI servers powered by the M4 chip in late 2025. While Apple is prioritizing on-device processing for many of its upcoming AI tools, some operations will inevitably have to occur in the cloud. The company is expected to announce on-device AI features at WWDC in June. 2025's iPhone 17 models will apparently be more focused AI devices.

HOW BOEING LOST THE SPACE RACE TO ELON MUSK'S SPACEX

The US provided Boeing and SpaceX with funding to build a crewed space vehicle in 2014. Boeing received far more funding than SpaceX and it had far more experience, but the company still allocated fewer resources to the project than it needed to thrive. The company kept carrying technical debt forward so that additional work was lumped onto the final milestones. Other issues, such as the way the company was structured, cost fixation, siloed development, and a lack of proper testing, all worked together to kneecap the project.