मुख्य कंटेंट तक स्किप करें

2023-06-30

Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

  • The Supreme Court has struck down affirmative action policies at colleges and universities that use race as a factor in admissions decisions, ruling that they are illegally discriminating based on race and violating the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
  • Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. stated that the Constitution forbids treating people differently based on their race and that students should be treated based on their experiences as individuals, not on the basis of race.
  • The impact of the rulings is likely to be limited in California, as the state already prohibits the use of race as an admissions factor in public universities, but the ruling extends the prohibition to private universities as well.

Industry Reactions

  • The Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action in college admissions has generated a debate about its effectiveness in addressing inequality.
  • Some argue that race should not be the sole focus and that socioeconomic factors should be considered instead.
  • The discussion highlights the complexity of addressing historical injustices, the importance of understanding the context of discrimination, and the need to improve education and opportunities for disadvantaged communities.

Valve is not willing to publish games with AI generated content anymore?

  • Valve is no longer willing to publish games that contain AI-generated content, citing potential legal issues related to intellectual property rights.
  • The decision comes after a developer tried to release a game with AI-generated assets and received a message from Valve stating that the developer did not have the necessary rights for the art assets.
  • This move by Valve suggests that they are being cautious about potential copyright infringement issues surrounding AI-generated content, and it may have implications for the future of AI in game development.

Industry Reactions

  • Valve will no longer publish games with AI-generated content without proof of ownership of the training data.
  • The decision is to avoid legal liability for copyright violations.
  • Valve's policy reflects their concern for copyright protection and raises questions about the difference between human and machine-generated content.

The Awk Programming Language, Second Edition

  • The second edition of "The AWK Programming Language" is soon to be released, reflecting the changes in the Awk language and the computing world since the first edition in 1988.
  • The book will include historical documents, code snippets, and essays on Awk and related topics to provide readers with additional interesting and useful material.
  • There are multiple implementations of Awk, and readers can access the Awk source on GitHub and Gawk releases on GNU's website, as well as find a list of other Awk implementations compiled by Arnold Robbins.

Industry Reactions

  • The second edition of "The Awk Programming Language" is being released, with updates and restructuring done by Brian Kernighan.
  • The early chapters of the book cover hands-on exploratory data processing, particularly with CSV files.
  • There will be a new "--csv" option in Gawk and awk that allows for proper CSV input mode, addressing the parsing of quoted and multiline fields.

CLI tools hidden in the Python standard library

  • The Python standard library contains hidden CLI tools that can be accessed directly from the terminal using the python -m command.
  • Some examples of these tools include the ability to decompress files, run a local webserver, pretty-print JSON, and generate calendars.
  • These tools can be helpful for developers who want to quickly perform certain tasks without installing additional software.

Industry Reactions

  • Python's standard library contains CLI tools that are hidden and not widely known.
  • One example is the re.Scanner tool, which is a regex-based tokenizer that is missing from official documentation.
  • These CLI tools provide convenient and powerful functionality that can be used for various tasks, such as pretty-printing JSON or running a simple HTTP server.

Kagi raises $670k

  • Kagi has raised $670K in a SAFE note investment round, their first external fundraise so far, with the support of 42 accredited investors, many of whom are Kagi users.
  • The funds will be used to accelerate new and existing product initiatives and enhance product benefits for members.
  • Kagi is focused on humanizing the web and providing unbridled access to unbiased knowledge while prioritizing the best interests of their users.

Industry Reactions

  • Kagi, a search engine and web browser company, has raised $670,000 in funding from a group of accredited investors.
  • Kagi aims to provide a novel, ad-free search engine and browser experience, focusing on user privacy and high-quality search results.
  • The funding will support the growth and development of the company, allowing Kagi to expand its offerings and improve its search engine and browser features.

Monster gravitational waves spotted for first time

  • Researchers have used pulsars, beacon stars in the Galactic neighborhood, to detect monster gravitational waves for the first time.
  • The waves are much larger and longer than the waves detected in 2015, with wavelengths of up to tens of light years.
  • This discovery could provide evidence of the existence of thousands of pairs of supermassive black holes in the Universe and their mergers, which will be further studied by the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission.

Industry Reactions

  • Scientists have detected gravitational waves, confirming a major prediction of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity.
  • The detection of these waves using interferometry provides strong evidence for the existence of black holes and neutron stars.
  • This breakthrough allows for the study of violent and energetic processes in the universe, impacting our understanding of the cosmos.

Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports

  • The World Health Organization's cancer research arm is reportedly preparing to declare aspartame, an artificial sweetener used in thousands of products, as a "possible carcinogenic to humans."
  • Aspartame has been widely used since the 1980s and is authorized for use globally by regulators who have reviewed the available evidence.
  • There is existing evidence that raises questions about the potential impact of aspartame on cancer risk, but further research is needed to make firm conclusions.

Industry Reactions

  • Aspartame, a widely consumed artificial sweetener, may be classified as a possible cancer risk by the World Health Organization based on a French study.
  • Debate exists among experts about the carcinogenic potential of aspartame and the study's findings.
  • The ongoing discussion highlights the importance of clear guidelines and communication about risk levels for aspartame and other substances.
  • Google is removing news links in Canada due to a new online news law called Bill C-18.
  • This move by Google is in response to the requirement of the law that would make it mandatory for tech companies to pay news publishers for their content.
  • The removal of news links by Google has sparked interest and concern among tech-savvy individuals.

Industry Reactions

  • Bill C-18 in Canada targets Google and Meta, requiring them to remove news links and pay royalties to news publications.
  • Critics argue that the law harms the open nature of the internet and interferes with access to information.
  • The law raises questions about the definition of "news content," the impact on Canadian news organizations, and the ethical implications of monetizing others' work.

Github.com is down

  • GitHub, a popular platform for hosting and collaborating on software projects, experienced a temporary outage.
  • The outage caused the website to become temporarily inaccessible to users.
  • The issue has since been resolved, and GitHub is back up and running.

Industry Reactions

  • GitHub.com is currently experiencing an outage.
  • Users are unable to access their repositories, and the status page is also down.
  • GitHub outages have been occurring frequently in recent months, raising concerns about stability and reliability.

Programming languages going above and beyond

  • The author discusses the limitations of existing programming languages and highlights the potential for improvement in programming languages.
  • The author introduces Dafny, a language that offers advanced static checking capabilities, allowing for the verification of postconditions at compile time.
  • Dafny enables the development of functions that are verifiably correct without the need for extensive testing, making it a unique and powerful tool in software development.

Industry Reactions

  • Dafny is a programming language that supports formal verification and can prove properties about programs, improving software reliability and correctness.
  • Other tools and languages like Ada, SPARK, and ACL2 also support formal verification and have real-world applications.
  • The debate on the practicality and benefits of functional programming, static typing, and writing robust code.