"13 Feet Ladder" is a self-hosted tool that bypasses ads and paywalls on websites like Medium and the New York Times, similar to 12ft.io but with broader compatibility.
It works by mimicking GoogleBot to access full content and can be set up using Docker or Python, with detailed instructions provided for both methods.
The tool allows users to access single articles without ads or paywalls, emphasizing that supporting content creators is still encouraged.
13ft is a self-hosted alternative to 12ft.io, developed by GitHub user wasi_master, and has gained unexpected popularity despite being a proof of concept.
The project involves setting the user agent header to Googlebot, which has sparked discussions on its effectiveness, potential issues like IP verification, and ethical considerations of bypassing paywalls.
Users have suggested alternatives such as browser extensions or using archive services, highlighting the ongoing debate about supporting journalism in the digital age.
Sourcegraph transitioned to a private company on August 19, 2024, moving away from its open-source origins.
The change has led to the sourcegraph/sourcegraph repository becoming private, affecting references in engineering blogs and necessitating the use of a public snapshot or personal forks.
To maintain the integrity of his references, the author created a Go program to scrape pull request data, extracted relevant commits, and automated the process of updating links using bash scripts.
Sourcegraph has made its main internal codebase private to improve product development, citing complexity, abuse of their AI tool Cody, and confusion between open-source and enterprise versions.
The company will still offer public code search and maintain some open-source projects, despite the shift.
The CEO noted that privatizing the codebase has led to more significant partnerships and revenue opportunities, though user reactions are mixed.
Toast notifications often appear far from the user's focus, causing usability issues, such as on YouTube where the toast appears in the bottom left while the user is focused on a modal in the center.
Suggested solutions include displaying playlists beneath the button instead of in a modal and using loading indicators to imply action completion, eliminating the need for toasts.
Examples from Gmail and clipboard actions show that toasts can be redundant, as other forms of feedback (like removing an email from the list or button confirmations) can effectively communicate success.
The debate centers on whether toasts (small, temporary notifications) are bad UX (User Experience) due to their redundancy and potential to distract users.
Proponents argue that toasts provide essential feedback, especially for actions that are not immediately visible, and can include undo options, enhancing usability.
Critics highlight issues such as toasts disappearing too quickly, being inaccessible to screen magnifier users, and causing distractions, suggesting alternatives like in-context feedback or message logs.
The author experienced a severe stress episode due to a production issue on their website, jumpcomedy.com, with HTTP POST calls failing unexpectedly.
Despite extensive debugging and community outreach, the issue persisted until the author identified and removed the PostHog API key, which resolved the problem.
The incident highlights the emotional toll of technical failures and the importance of thorough debugging, even when initial clues are misleading.
Netboot.xyz enables quick booting into various operating systems using lightweight tools, facilitating evaluation, installation, and rescue without the need for repeated downloads and media rewriting.
Powered by the iPXE project, it utilizes PXE (Preboot Execution Environment) to provision, rescue, or load live boot environments, making it a valuable tool for system administrators.
This tool is particularly essential for sysadmins, streamlining the process of managing and troubleshooting multiple operating systems efficiently.
Netboot.xyz is a preconfigured build of iPXE that allows users to interactively download and boot installers for many popular operating systems from a single image.
iPXE is an open-source implementation of PXE (Preboot Execution Environment), supporting additional protocols like HTTP(S) and DNS, and can chainload into an EFI image or a Linux kernel.
The project has garnered interest due to its convenience in booting various OS installers from a single image, making it a versatile tool for system administrators and tech enthusiasts.
Ken Shirriff's blog post examines the Minuteman III nuclear missile's guidance system, which has been in use since 1962 and involves a gyro-stabilized platform for precise targeting.
The guidance system, originally costing $510,000 in 1970, includes gyroscopes, accelerometers, a guidance set controller, amplifier, and a computer for trajectory adjustments.
The post also discusses the evolution of the D-17B and D-37 computers in the Minuteman missiles, from transistorized to integrated circuit technology, and reflects on the missile's role in nuclear deterrence and its impact on the IC industry.
The Minuteman III nuclear missile's guidance system and computer are maintained by Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, with local residents advised to avoid disturbing underground pressurized cables.
The missile's guidance system has advanced from physical rotation to using a gyrocompass and autocollimator for precise targeting, allowing multiple targets to be stored and selected via a launch console.
Regular tests ensure the reliability of the missiles, although the warheads have not been tested since 1996 due to the comprehensive test ban treaty.
A 1953 US Navy training film on mechanical computers has resurfaced, sparking interest among tech enthusiasts and historians.
The film showcases the early mechanical computing systems used for naval fire control, highlighting the ingenuity of pre-digital technology.
Discussions reveal the historical significance and practical applications of these mechanical computers, such as their use in WW II and the Gulf War, and their influence on modern computing.
Transformers.rb introduces state-of-the-art transformer models for the Ruby programming language, making advanced NLP (Natural Language Processing) accessible to Ruby developers.
The library supports various models and pipelines, including sentence transformers, named-entity recognition, sentiment analysis, question answering, and image classification, aligning with the popular Transformers Python API.
This release is significant as it bridges the gap for Ruby developers, allowing them to leverage powerful transformer models without switching to Python, thus enhancing productivity and expanding the Ruby ecosystem.
Ankane's Onnx runtime for Ruby has been well-received, earning 206 points on GitHub, praised for its ease of use compared to the official JavaScript repository.
Users appreciate Ankane's contributions to the Ruby community, highlighting the scarcity of similar tools in Ruby compared to Python and JavaScript.
Ankane is also known for creating other valuable Ruby tools like pgvector, neighbor, pretender, ahoy, blazer, and field_test, enhancing Ruby's productivity and accessibility for AI and web applications.
Pragtical is a lightweight text editor using only 30 MB of RAM and 5 MB of disk space, ensuring smooth performance on various devices.
It offers features like powerful syntax highlighting, multiple cursors, a command palette, and is hyperextensible via Lua and its C API, with additional functionalities available as plugins.
Pragtical is cross-platform, running on Windows, Linux, and macOS, and is free, open-source under the MIT license, with no data collection.
Pragtical is a new code editor that claims to be lightweight, using only 30MB of RAM, though this is likely without any extensions loaded.
The discussion highlights a recurring issue in software development: tools and editors start lightweight but become bloated over time due to added features and extensions.
The post also touches on the ease of writing extensions in Lua for Pragtical, comparing it favorably to other editors like VSCode, which has a more complex and inconsistent API for extensions.
Digipres.club is a decentralized social network powered by Mastodon, offering features like profile directories, privacy policies, and open-source code.
Users can interact with profiles or hashtags, favorite, share, and reply to posts, enhancing social engagement.
The platform is currently running on version v4.2.10+hometown-1.1.1, indicating recent updates and active development.
A user acquired a NUC (Next Unit of Computing) from e-waste, originally used by an AI company, sparking discussions on technical setups and encryption methods.
The conversation included debates on the US healthcare system, the importance of proper data disposal, and the challenges of managing secrets.
Users shared experiences with dumpster diving for hardware, discussing the associated risks and legalities, and emphasized the need for full disk encryption.
Google Research has introduced a music recommendation system using Transformer models to better understand user actions in context.
The system aims to improve recommendation accuracy by adapting to user behavior, such as preferring uptempo songs during workouts, thereby reducing skip rates and increasing listening time.
This approach combines a Transformer with a ranking model, enhancing the relevance of recommendations and indicating higher user satisfaction.
Music recommendation systems using transformer models are being discussed on research.google, highlighting user dissatisfaction with current systems like Apple Music and Spotify.
Users prefer a more exploratory approach, similar to YouTube's recommendation tab, and mention alternative platforms like cosine.club and everynoise.com, which use vector embeddings but have limitations.
There is a call for more user-driven systems that challenge biases and introduce genuinely new music, rather than relying on list-generating models.
Phrack Magazine has released its 71st issue on August 19, 2024, featuring a variety of articles on advanced hacking techniques and cybersecurity topics.
Key articles include discussions on MPEG-CENC vulnerabilities, bypassing CET & BTI with functional programming, and novel exploit strategies for Linux systems.
The magazine calls for papers for its 72nd issue, marking its 40th anniversary in 2025, inviting contributions from the hacker community.
Mosivers, a physicist and electronics enthusiast, created a Lenticular Clock using interlaced pictures and cylindrical lenses to display time, inspired by lenticular animations seen on postcards.
The project involved various components, including servo motors, a PWM driver board, an ESP8266 microcontroller, and a 3D printer, with detailed steps for calibration, printing, and assembly.
The Lenticular Clock won Second Prize in the Colors of the Rainbow Contest, highlighting its innovative approach and successful execution.
A user on Instructables shared a project about creating a Lenticular Clock, sparking interest and discussion among tech enthusiasts.
Lenticular technology, which creates images that change or move as they are viewed from different angles, is being explored for various creative applications, including clocks and art.
The discussion includes technical challenges and solutions, such as aligning lenses by hand, using different display technologies, and addressing viewing angle issues.
Researcher Kinley Ragan from the Phoenix Zoo discovered an ocelot on a trail camera in the Atascosa Highlands, Arizona, marking the first sighting in the region in at least 50 years.
The discovery was part of the Atascosa Complex Wildlife Study, which set up 50 cameras in April to better understand local wildlife.
The ocelot, identified as a new individual not previously seen in the state, underscores the species' critical endangerment in Arizona.
The talk by Edsger W. Dijkstra discusses the scientific and educational impact of viewing computers as a radical novelty, requiring new approaches rather than relying on past concepts.
Dijkstra argues that the failure to recognize the radical nature of computers leads to misconceptions in fields like software engineering and education, advocating for programming to be taught as a formal mathematical discipline.
He emphasizes that universities should embrace teaching radical novelties to prevent intellectual stagnation and better prepare students for future challenges.
Dijkstra's 1988 paper argues that the business community is unprepared for the complexities introduced by computers, which solve simple problems but create harder ones.
He advocates for formal methods in computing, sparking debate on their practicality and the challenges of software complexity.
The discussion includes the value of formal proofs, differences between theoretical and practical programming approaches, and the impact of educational methods on programming skills.