WebVM is a server-less virtual Linux environment that runs entirely client-side using HTML5 and WebAssembly, powered by the CheerpX virtualization engine.
It allows safe, sandboxed execution of x86 binaries in any browser, featuring an x86-to-WebAssembly JIT (Just-In-Time) compiler, a virtual block-based file system, and a Linux syscall emulator.
New feature: Users can now create custom WebVM images using Dockerfile, enhancing flexibility and customization.
WebVM is a server-less virtual Linux environment running client-side, utilizing a CheerpX build hosted by Leaning Technologies and supporting networking via Tailscale.
Unlike full system emulators, WebVM acts as a Linux syscall emulator for userland binaries, offering greater flexibility and speed.
It is not open-source, and self-hosting the CheerpX engine is prohibited, making it suitable for education, live documentation, software preservation, and web IDE development, though it has limitations like performance issues on mobile devices and partial offline functionality.
AT&T experienced a data breach affecting nearly all customers, exposing call and text metadata but not content or timestamps.
Despite an initial stock drop, the market remains largely unaffected, reflecting a belief that companies face minimal financial consequences for such breaches.
The incident, linked to Snowflake's cloud platform, has sparked calls for stricter data retention policies, better security practices, and potential hefty fines or lawsuits to enforce corporate accountability.
The Physics-based Deep Learning Book (v0.2) provides a practical introduction to deep learning in physical simulations, with hands-on Jupyter notebook examples.
New in version 0.2: Extended section on integrating differentiable programming (DP) into neural network (NN) training and a new chapter on improved learning methods for physics problems.
Future updates will include chapters on training networks for fluid flow prediction, using model equations as residuals, interacting with simulators for inverse problems, and leveraging higher-order information for better neural networks.
A new book titled "Physics-Based Deep Learning" has been introduced, focusing on applying deep learning to physics simulations rather than general deep learning concepts from a physicist's perspective.
The book includes hands-on code examples in Jupyter notebooks, physical loss constraints, differentiable simulations, training algorithms for physics problems, reinforcement learning, and uncertainty modeling.
The book is produced by the Physics-based Simulation Group and is available for download on arXiv, with additional resources and discussions available on various platforms like YouTube and GitHub.
A developer has demonstrated using Amazon S3 as a container registry by exposing an S3 bucket through HTTP and uploading container image files to specific paths, allowing for docker pull operations.
The main advantage of using S3 over traditional container registries like DockerHub or Amazon ECR is significantly faster upload speeds due to parallel chunked uploads.
This experimental approach lacks features like automated security scans and access controls but could lead to hosting public container images in Cloudflare’s R2 with free egress.
Using Amazon S3 as a container registry is being discussed, highlighting its potential as an alternative to traditional container registries like DockerHub and AWS ECR.
The conversation critiques the OCI (Open Container Initiative) Distribution Spec for its inefficiencies, such as requiring sequential layer uploads and lacking standardized pagination for listing tags.
Docker's impact on software development is debated, with some praising its simplification of dependency management and others criticizing it for not improving end-product reliability or development speed.
Recent tech layoffs indicate that employees are often viewed as disposable by executives, even in profitable companies.
Companies like Microsoft continue to lay off employees and implement pay freezes despite exceeding investor expectations and having high revenues.
Wealthy executives, such as Tim Gurner, have made comments reinforcing the notion that employees are replaceable, regardless of their contributions or tenure.
Companies are transactional entities and may let employees go when it benefits them, emphasizing that employees are not indispensable.
Over-hiring and layoffs are often strategies to boost shareholder value, highlighting the importance of employees focusing on their own interests and seeking fair compensation.
Considering unions and open-sourcing code can be beneficial for developers, reinforcing the idea that the employer-employee relationship is fundamentally a business deal.
The repository contains source code for ARC firmware and its loader, targeting New World Power Macintosh systems using the Gossamer architecture, including models like iMac G3 and Power Macintosh G3.
The ARC firmware supports various drivers, but only NT4 is currently compatible, with potential future support for NT 3.51.
Installation involves downloading binaries, partitioning the disk, and following prompts to set up NT4, with known issues such as instability and specific steps required for dual-booting with Mac partitions.
CHARM (Coupled Histone tail for Autoinhibition Release of Methyltransferase) is a new gene-silencing tool developed by the Broad Institute and Whitehead Institute, showing potential for treating prion diseases and other neurodegenerative conditions.
This tool uses epigenetic editing to silence disease-causing genes, including the prion protein gene, without altering the underlying DNA, potentially offering a one-time treatment.
The research team, led by Sonia Vallabh and Jonathan Weissman, has made significant progress, creating a compact, effective, and low-toxicity gene silencer, and is now refining CHARM for clinical trials.
A gene-silencing tool, delivered via Adeno-Associated Virus (AAV), shows potential as a therapy for prion diseases, which are currently 100% fatal and resistant to destruction.
This tool works by silencing the prion protein gene, potentially preventing or reversing the disease, and could be effective against both genetic and acquired prions.
While promising, the tool's long-term effects on memory and cognition are still under investigation, with ongoing research exploring applications for other prion-like diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Tau is a new framework designed for building low-maintenance, highly scalable cloud computing platforms, serving as an alternative to services like Vercel, Netlify, and AWS.
Key features include minimal configuration, Git-native infrastructure changes, peer-to-peer networking, and support for WebAssembly, with future plans for containers and VMs.
Tau aims to reduce infrastructure costs and development time, providing a developer-friendly platform with tools for local development and end-to-end testing.
Tau is an open-source, self-hosted Platform as a Service (PaaS) alternative to Vercel, Netlify, and Cloudflare, utilizing libp2p for network autodiscovery and IPFS for distributed storage.
It is WebAssembly-native, offering benefits such as avoiding vendor lock-in, but users have noted that the documentation is vague and the concept is unclear.
Comparisons to Kubernetes and other PaaS solutions like Coolify and CapRover are common, indicating the project's potential but highlighting the need for better documentation and clearer communication of its features and benefits.
Researchers have reproduced GPT-2 (1.6B) using llm.c, a C/CUDA implementation, on a single 8XH100 node in 24 hours for $672, bypassing typical Python-based deep learning stacks like PyTorch.
Despite some tuning and stability issues, the model's performance is comparable to GPT-2, evaluated using metrics like validation loss and HellaSwag accuracy.
The post also covers memory management, multi-node training, and compares the implementation with a PyTorch version, with future plans to optimize hyperparameters and improve training stability.
Andrej Karpathy successfully reproduced GPT-2 (1.6 billion parameters) on a single 8XH100 node in 24 hours at a cost of $672.
AI hardware advancements could potentially lower costs and reduce training times in the future.
While AI in video games shows promise for enhancing NPCs and storytelling, current technology still faces significant limitations, particularly in text generation for narrative and dialogue.
The Floppy8 is a microcomputer and cartridge system built inside a floppy drive, capable of playing 4K movies and games with wireless controllers and motorized cartridge ejection.
The project involved repurposing an Amiga 1010 disk drive, designing a new media format, and extensive 3D printing and electrical engineering to fit all components inside the drive.
The creator used a Latte Panda 3 Delta computer and custom 3D-printed cartridges, overcoming challenges in size constraints, eject mechanisms, and LED control to complete the project.
Floppy8 is a tiny computer built into a 3.5" floppy drive, reminiscent of past compact computing projects like the Amiga 1200 clone and Ross SPARCPlug.
The creator, abeisgreat, shared a video detailing the project, including SD card-based cartridges and other technical aspects, sparking interest and admiration in the tech community.
Discussions highlight the nostalgia and innovation in fitting computers into small form factors, with references to historical attempts and modern DIY projects.
AuraFlow v0.1 is an open-source, flow-based text-to-image generation model, demonstrating the resilience of the open-source AI community.
The model excels in generating detailed images from text descriptions and incorporates advanced techniques like zero-shot learning rate transfer and re-captioning.
With 6.8 billion parameters, AuraFlow was trained over four weeks, achieving high GenEval scores, and future plans include further training and developing efficient models for consumer GPUs.
AuraFlow v0.1 is an open-source alternative to Stable Diffusion 3, showing promise despite being an early release.
The model performs well on simple prompts but struggles with complex ones and negations, indicating areas for improvement.
Discussions highlight the model's limitations in generating realistic human bodies and handling nuanced text prompts, reflecting ongoing challenges in AI image generation.
The post discusses using value speculation to enhance CPU performance by leveraging the branch predictor to guess values and reduce data dependencies in tight loops.
By speculating the next node's address in a linked list summation function, the technique aims to bypass L1 cache read delays, resulting in significant performance improvements.
Despite compilers often optimizing away this trick, using inline assembly ensures the speculation remains, leading to a 50-200% increase in function speed when data fits within CPU caches.
The article "Beating the L1 cache with value speculation" (2021) by mazzo.li explores optimizing memory layout in linked lists through value speculation, emphasizing the importance of linear memory layout of nodes.
Commenters debate the practicality and effectiveness of this method, with some appreciating its cleverness but questioning its broad applicability.
Discussions also cover related technical details like instruction execution, memory models, potential use cases, and the possibility of compilers automating such optimizations.
Apple Vision Pro U.S. sales are declining sharply, with a projected 75% drop by the end of August 2024, as most interested buyers have already purchased the $3,500 headset.
The current model has not reached 100,000 units sold, leading Apple to lower its sales expectations and consider a cheaper model, rumored to be around $1,750, for 2025.
Apple is also developing a visionOS update to enhance the user experience, which may help sustain interest until the release of the more affordable headset.
Apple Vision Pro U.S. sales are underperforming due to limited user interest and developer support.
The high price of $3500 and restricted content are significant obstacles, deterring both consumers and developers.
Analysts suggest Apple may need to reconsider its strategy, potentially by creating a more affordable version or improving its software ecosystem to broaden appeal.
Intel is allegedly selling defective 13th and 14th Gen CPUs, leading to crashes, BSODs (Blue Screen of Death), and other errors, with some reports indicating the issues worsen over time.
Trusted sources such as RadGames and Level1Techs have confirmed these instability problems, which may be linked to Intel's aggressive power and thermal management strategies.
Due to these persistent issues, many users are contemplating switching to AMD as an alternative.
GE Aerospace has successfully developed and tested a new hypersonic dual-mode ramjet in under 11 months, demonstrating a threefold increase in airflow over previous technologies.
This achievement underscores GE Aerospace's commitment to advancing hypersonic technology, with the next phase focusing on further testing and technology demonstration.
The project was a collaborative effort between GE Aerospace, Innoveering, and GE Aerospace’s Research Center, highlighting the rapid progress and dedication of the team.
GE Aerospace, in collaboration with Innoveering and their Research Center, has developed and tested a new hypersonic dual-mode ramjet in under 11 months.
The technology, likely based on an existing design, is intended for missiles or high-speed aircraft, not commercial aviation, due to the extreme speeds and conditions.
This project underscores significant advancements in hypersonic propulsion, which are vital for military applications.