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2024-11-13

No GPS required: our app can now locate underground trains

  • The app provides location tracking for underground trains without relying on GPS, which is often unavailable in such environments.
  • It uses offline motion detection to determine the user's location between stations, ensuring functionality even with poor service.
  • The app alerts users when their stop is approaching, enhancing convenience and reducing the risk of missing a stop.

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  • The app can locate underground trains without relying on GPS by utilizing the phone's pressure sensor to detect pressure changes when a train enters or leaves a station.
  • Inspired by a French company, Snips, this method is enhanced by incorporating train schedules and accelerometer data to improve accuracy in predicting train movement.
  • This innovation significantly enhances user experience by providing precise location information in underground transit systems, even though not all phones have pressure sensors.

M4 Mac mini's efficiency

  • The M4 mini demonstrated a 32% efficiency gain over previous models, achieving 6.74 Gflops/W on the HPL benchmark, surpassing the M1 Max Mac Studio.
  • It idles at 3-4W, comparable to a Raspberry Pi, and features 10 GbE and 32 GB RAM, making it highly efficient for its size.
  • In a 1.25U rack space, three M4 minis could idle at 10W, providing nearly a teraflop of CPU performance, highlighting its potential for high-performance computing.

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  • The M4 Mac mini is highly regarded for its efficiency and performance, particularly in video editing tasks, making it a popular choice for diverse applications like home servers and video rendering.
  • The placement of the power button on the bottom of the device has been a point of contention, especially for users who rack-mount the Mac mini, finding it inconvenient.
  • Users express a desire for improved Linux support and more upgrade options, especially concerning storage and RAM, despite the device's low power consumption and impressive capabilities.

Jelly – A simpler shared inbox for small teams

  • Good Enough has launched Jelly, a simplified shared inbox solution designed for small teams to manage emails efficiently.- Jelly addresses issues with existing tools like Fastmail and Google Groups, which were either chaotic or ineffective for team email management.- Jelly offers a cost-effective alternative to complex and expensive tools, with a flat rate pricing model, making it significantly cheaper than competitors like Zendesk.

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  • Jelly is a shared inbox tool developed by Good Enough, aimed at simplifying email management for small teams without the complexity and high costs of other solutions.- It offers a flat rate of $29/month for an entire team, making it more affordable compared to competitors like Zendesk, which often charge per user.- Built on a Rails stack and utilizing Postmark for email processing, Jelly is designed to be user-friendly for both technical and non-technical users, addressing issues like unclear email responsibilities and lost replies in personal inboxes.

Unusual Raku Features

  • Logic for Programmers" has entered Beta v0.5, indicating the completion of its alpha phase, with only copyediting and formatting remaining.
  • The book explores Raku, a programming language known for its unique features such as junctions, whatevers, hyperoperators, and multiple concurrency models."
  • The author emphasizes Raku's advancements in regex, pair syntax, and the potential of Slangs and RakuAST for future language innovation, while also recommending Raku blogs and offering early access to the new book."

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  • Raku is a programming language known for its unique features, particularly its powerful regular expressions and grammars, which surpass traditional parsers in capability.
  • It supports compositional regular expressions, allowing for more modular and understandable code, and can perform advanced operations like matching equal numbers of characters without backtracking.
  • While Raku offers flexibility and advanced features, its speed and complexity may be challenging for some developers, yet it remains attractive to those interested in innovative language design.

Mom jailed for letting 10-year-old walk alone to town

  • Brittany Patterson was arrested in Georgia for allowing her 10-year-old son to walk alone, highlighting a clash between "Free-Range" parenting and legal perspectives on child safety.
  • Patterson was released on bail but faced pressure from the Division of Family and Children Services to sign a "safety plan," which she refused, seeking legal assistance from ParentsUSA.
  • The assistant district attorney proposed dropping charges if Patterson signed the plan, but she remains steadfast in her refusal, potentially facing further legal repercussions.

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  • A mother was jailed for allowing her 10-year-old child to walk alone to town, igniting a debate on children's autonomy in the US.
  • The incident underscores varying societal norms and law enforcement practices, with some regions being perceived as overly protective.
  • This case highlights broader issues of control-oriented parenting, fear-driven policies, and the balance between child safety and independence.

3600 MHz Raspberry Pi 5 with Liquid Nitrogen

  • The attempt to make the Raspberry Pi 5 the fastest in the world involved methods such as changing the operating system, using liquid nitrogen cooling, and modifying power circuitry.
  • Despite efforts, including using the ElmorLabs AMPLE-X1 power card and swapping the crystal oscillator, the Raspberry Pi 5 could not exceed a frequency of 3.6 GHz.
  • The project provided valuable insights into Raspberry Pi overclocking and hardware modifications, highlighting the challenges and limitations of pushing the device's performance.

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  • A Raspberry Pi 5 was overclocked to 3600 MHz using liquid nitrogen, sparking interest in extreme cooling methods for enhancing performance.
  • The article faced criticism for being perceived as promotional content for Elmor Labs, highlighting the importance of transparency in tech reporting.
  • Discussions included the practicality of overclocking older CPUs and the comparative performance of Raspberry Pi OS against other operating systems.

Bluetooth USB Peripheral Relay – Bridge Bluetooth Devices to USB

  • A Bluetooth USB Peripheral Relay was developed using a Raspberry Pi Zero W to connect Bluetooth devices, such as keyboards and mice, to USB-only hosts.
  • This tool is particularly useful in scenarios where Bluetooth is disabled on a PC due to policy restrictions, acting as a bridge to relay Bluetooth input over USB.
  • The project is written in the Go programming language and optimized for the Raspberry Pi Zero W, inviting feedback and contributions from the community.

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  • The Bluetooth USB Peripheral Relay enables Bluetooth devices to connect to USB-only hosts using a Raspberry Pi Zero W, addressing policy restrictions on Bluetooth usage.- Developed by bahaaador and written in Go, the project is optimized for the Raspberry Pi Zero W and has generated interest for its potential to switch Bluetooth devices between computers without re-pairing.- The project is open-source, inviting feedback and contributions on GitHub, and has sparked discussions on alternative solutions like USB hubs or devices with multiple pairing profiles.

Russian family lived alone in the Siberian wilderness for 40 years (2013)

  • In 1978, a helicopter crew discovered the Lykov family, Old Believers who had lived in isolation in the Siberian taiga for over 40 years to escape Soviet persecution.- The Lykovs survived harsh conditions with limited resources, demonstrating remarkable resilience and intelligence, although three of the four children died after re-establishing contact with the outside world.- Agafia Lykov, the youngest, continues to live in the taiga, receiving occasional assistance as her health declines, but remains committed to her isolated lifestyle.

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  • A Russian family, part of the Old Believers religious sect, lived in isolation in the Siberian wilderness for 40 years to escape persecution.- Their survival story, marked by challenges such as disease and malnutrition, underscores themes of faith, survival, and the effects of isolation.- The family's discovery by geologists in the 1970s drew attention to their lifestyle and sparked discussions on historical, cultural, and geopolitical issues.

Qwen2.5-Coder-32B is an LLM that can code well that runs on my Mac

  • Simon Willison reviews the Qwen2.5-Coder-32B, an open-source large language model (LLM) developed by Alibaba's Qwen team, which can operate on a MacBook Pro M2 with 64GB RAM.- The model claims to rival GPT-4o in coding capabilities and demonstrates strong performance in benchmark tests, making it competitive with other hosted models.- Willison encountered some initial setup difficulties but found the model effective for code assistance, using both Ollama and MLX versions.

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  • Qwen2.5-Coder-32B is an open-source large language model (LLM) designed for coding tasks, notable for its ability to run locally on devices such as a Mac.
  • The model is praised for its accessibility and cost-effectiveness, being cheaper than alternatives, but there are concerns about its performance on real-world tasks versus benchmarks.
  • Users have mixed experiences, with some finding it effective for specific tasks, while others highlight its limitations in complex scenarios, and the discussion includes the challenges of running LLMs locally compared to cloud services.

Micron launches 60TB PCIe gen5 SSD with 12GB/s read speeds

  • Micron has introduced the Micron 6550 ION SSD, the world's first 60TB PCIe Gen5 data center SSD, designed to enhance performance and energy efficiency for AI workloads.
  • The company offers a variety of memory solutions, including DRAM, NAND, and SSDs, catering to markets like AI, automotive, and data centers.
  • Micron emphasizes sustainability, security, and innovation, providing design tools and technical support for partners and customers.

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  • Micron has introduced a 60TB PCIe Gen5 SSD, boasting impressive read speeds of 12GB/s, aimed at server applications requiring high capacity.- Despite its advanced features, the SSD is costly, with Gen5 models priced significantly higher than traditional hard drives, posing a challenge for broader consumer adoption.- The drive's Mean Time to Failure (MTTF) of 2.5 million hours underscores its reliability, making it suitable for large-scale operations, although the exact pricing remains unspecified.

Sentry just gave $750k to open source projects

  • Sentry has increased its funding for Open Source maintainers to $750,000 for 2024, marking a 50% rise from the previous year, reflecting its commitment to the Open Source community.
  • The company introduced the Open Source Pledge, aiming to address sustainability by ensuring maintainers receive at least $2,000 per developer annually, with significant contributions to projects like Django and OSI.
  • Sentry advocates for efficient fund allocation through algorithms and leadership from Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) foundations, and invites other companies to join the pledge to bolster support for maintainers.

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  • Sentry has donated $750,000 to open source projects, sparking discussions on whether this is genuine support or a marketing strategy, considering their emphasis on paid plans.- Sentry is developed using Python and Django, highlighting its strong connection to the Python community and contributing to ongoing debates about the advantages of Django versus FastAPI.- Despite some criticisms, Sentry's financial contributions to open source projects are substantial and noteworthy.

How to deal with a serious mental health breakdown?

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