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2023-05-09

Ink: React for interactive command-line apps

  • Ink is a UI building tool for command-line apps that uses Yoga to create layouts with CSS-like properties.
  • Ink supports all React features and has been used by popular services such as GitHub Copilot and Cloudflare's Wrangler.
  • Essential components like <Box>, <Text>, <Newline>, <Spacer>, <Static>, and <Transform> are available, along with useful hooks like <useInput>, <useStdin>, and <useFocus>.

Industry Reactions

  • There are other useful technologies available for building text-based UIs, such as Bubbletea, Textual, TUI-rs, Dioxus, and Mosaic.
  • Developers give their experiences and opinions on various tools and approaches for building interactive command-line apps, including both positive and negative opinions on the use of React, as well as the practicality of using CLI interfaces.

FBI agents accuse CIA of 9/11 coverup

  • Former FBI agents allege that the CIA has been hiding information about a failed recruitment effort involving a Saudi intelligence asset who met with two of the 9/11 hijackers in February 2000.
  • Defense lawyers for 9/11 defendants in Guantanamo Bay have requested all documents related to the Saudi spy's recruitment efforts from the CIA, FBI, Congress, and the 9/11 Commission.
  • The CIA strongly denies any cover-up, but the article raises questions about the actions of the agency and Saudi Arabia in the lead-up to the attacks and concludes that key 9/11 mysteries are still unsolved.

Industry Reactions

  • CIA and FBI have different mandates, with the CIA focusing on foreign intelligence gathering and the FBI on domestic law enforcement.
  • The post discusses past scandals of the CIA, including the MKUltra program, and suggests that their work involves lying, manipulating, and committing criminal acts.

Ancient Earth Globe

  • The Ancient Earth Globe is an interactive website that allows users to see how Earth looked like millions of years ago, including the first coral reefs and the emergence of complex life on land during the Ordovician Period.
  • The globe features different time periods, displaying the first emergence of various forms of life that existed during those times, starting from 750 million years ago all the way to the dinosaur extinction 66 million years ago.
  • The website was created by geologist C.R. Scotese and web developer Ian Webster, and it is a great educational tool for anyone interested in learning about Earth's history.

Industry Reactions

  • Concerns over the accuracy of the site's information and mapping were voiced, with calls for more emphasis on the southern hemisphere and the ability to track plate tectonics movement over time.
  • Commentators discuss various historical and hypothetical facts related to the Earth, including the positioning of landmasses, the evolution of humans and apes, and potential effects of climate change on the planet's geography.

You don't need Scrum, you just need to do Kanban right (2022)

  • Scrum is a more prescriptive framework that can prevent teams from being as fast and dynamic as they could be, while Kanban is a pull-based system that provides sound principles, allowing managers to tailor them to their particular situation and obtain much better results.
  • Kanban amplifies Scrum's benefits, making teams more responsive, enabling them to size work effectively, reducing waste, and making work visible.
  • While Scrum's cadenced meetings are useful, such as daily stand-ups and retrospective sessions, teams don't need Scrum to be able to schedule regular events and improve their processes.

Industry Reactions

  • The usefulness of retrospectives in Scrum and Kanban is debated, with some arguing they are helpful while others find them to be a waste of time.
  • The debate between using sprints or a Kanban approach is discussed, with some arguing for the importance of regular touchpoints and others suggesting that touchpoints can be implemented in Kanban.

Street Fighter II, paper trails (2021)

  • The article discusses the use of a paper and scissors system to track ROM budget in the creation of Street Fighter II using the CPS-1 arcade platform in the late 90s.
  • The CPS-1 platform had powerful graphic rendering capabilities but limited rotating and scaling functions, which presented a challenge for project managers in allocating a ROM budget.
  • Software archaeologists can reconstruct the paper sheets to analyze characters and features added later, with the sheet system being used for most CPS-1 games and gradually replaced by tools in later platforms like CPS-2.

Industry Reactions

  • Discussions on artists' subtle decisions when designing character sprites, including color choices and reused assets from other games.
  • Speculations on whether memory optimizer tools were used and how they affected sprite allocation and arrangement.

KeePassXC pull request to add basic support for WebAuthn

  • KeePassXC has added basic support for WebAuthn through a pull request.
  • This support uses the default Elliptic Curve key (EC2, ES256 signature, P-256 curve), 2048-bit RSA key, and offers basic registration/authentication with User Verification enabled and the default none Attestation.
  • Some extensions are still missing, and support for Resident Key, triggering unlock from extension, root certificates, and PIN/TouchID when authenticating is not yet available.

Industry Reactions

  • The post discusses the potential risks and benefits of attestation in the FIDO WebAuthn standard, with different opinions on its use for user privacy and security.
  • Passkeys are being introduced by major tech companies, but critics argue that the system promotes centralization and vendor lock-in, and a more interoperable approach is needed.

Ancient Greek terms worth reviving

  • This post discusses 12 ancient Greek terms that are worth reviving in modern society.
  • The terms include Eudaimonia, Arete, Phronesis, Kleos, Xenia, Aidos, Nostos, Oikos, Apatheia, Ataraxia, Doxa, and Episteme/Techne.
  • These terms encompass concepts such as human flourishing, excellence, practical wisdom, glory, hospitality, shame, returning home heroically, family/home, equanimity, popular opinion, and knowledge.

Industry Reactions

  • It discusses the intersection of esoteric philosophy and artificial intelligence and the importance of pushing the envelope with new ideas.
  • Various comments highlight the usefulness of ancient language study, grammar constructions, and the meanings of various Greek words.

Please don't upload my code on GitHub

  • A call to open source developers to not upload the work of others on GitHub due to the Copilot feature's potential violation of licenses and intellectual property rights.
  • Copilot, an AI-powered pair programmer, is trained on billions of lines of public code from GitHub repositories, including copylefted code without proper attribution or licenses, leading to legal abuse and intellectual property violations.
  • Not uploading the code of others on GitHub, even though it may be legal under certain licenses, is an ethical choice, and developers can add a badge to their website or repository's README to ask others not to share their code on GitHub.

Industry Reactions

  • Legal implications of using Language Learning Models (LLMs) to replicate code are being closely watched, with potential infringement lawsuits possible.
  • Ethical considerations of AI-generated content in relation to copyright law are being emphasized, with calls for AI to include plagiarism detection software to prevent the use of copyrighted code.

Cantonese Font with Pronunciation

  • Cantonese Font is a font that includes Jyutping romanization for traditional Chinese characters to aid in learning Cantonese.
  • It adapts to context for accurate pronunciation and includes a tone-hint system to make learning easier.
  • Available for MacOS and Ubuntu, it can be used offline in compatible apps and includes a mini-dictionary with over 1,500 vocabulary words.

Industry Reactions

  • Differences between tonal languages are explored, with Mandarin being particularly challenging due to the large number of homophones
  • Challenges of tonal languages are discussed, and the importance of tonal detection systems and accuracy in pronunciation is highlighted

1-Bit Hokusai's "The Great Wave"

  • An artist has recreated all of Hokusai's 36 views of Mount Fuji as 1-bit pixel art using contemporary hardware and software on early black and white Macintosh computers, in a nostalgic attempt to capture the original vision and aesthetic of Hokusai and Susan Kare's 'the Japanese lady.'
  • The images are the original Macintosh screen resolution of 512 x 342 pixels, and the artist used Aldus SuperPaint 3.0 software on Quadra 700 or PowerBook 100 computers running System 7.
  • The first of these pixel art images recreated by the artist is "The Great Wave off Kanagawa," which can be downloaded as a desktop pattern for Macintosh computers with a 640 x 480 screen.

Industry Reactions

  • Some users have issues with font rendering on certain devices, but there are proposed solutions.
  • Comments also discuss related topics like dithering, laser engraving, and the work of Hokusai in general.