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2023-06-04

Fq: Jq for Binary Formats

  • FqTool allows working with binary formats using a CLI tool similar to the language jq.
  • It can inspect, slice, concatenate, and transform binary data, supporting nested formats and providing an interactive REPL.
  • Fq can work with a variety of formats, including media codecs, packet captures, and serialization formats like JSON, YAML, and XML.

Industry Reactions

  • Ingve has released 'Fq', a tool for programmatically documenting binary formats and contributing to a centralized repository- Users discuss Fq's usefulness in debugging and analyzing binary data and mention alternative tools for JSON querying- There are comments on the name of the tool and suggestions for more descriptive names, and users suggest using debuggers and low-level tools for understanding binary files.

Red Hat dropping support for LibreOffice

  • Red Hat Display Systems team, responsible for supporting LibreOffice for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), is shifting their engineering priorities towards improving workstation experience for Fedora and RHEL users in areas such as Wayland, HDR, and color-sensitive work, among others.
  • As part of this pivot, Red Hat will cease shipping LibreOffice as part of future RHEL versions, which will also limit their ability to maintain it in future versions of Fedora.
  • Red Hat will continue to maintain LibreOffice in currently supported RHEL versions, contributing upstream fixes to ensure that LibreOffice works better as a Flatpak, which they expect to be the way most people consume LibreOffice in the future. However, any community member is free to take over maintenance, but should be aware that it is a sizable block of packages and dependencies that require significant work to keep up with.

Industry Reactions

  • Red Hat will no longer support LibreOffice RPMs in Fedora, but users can still install it manually or via Flatpak.
  • Red Hat engineers will contribute to optimizing LibreOffice as a Flatpak for RHEL and Fedora Linux systems.
  • Sandboxing is debated as a solution to prevent unauthorized access to system resources, but some criticize Flatpak's delivery method while others suggest Guix as a better alternative.

Intelligent Brains Take Longer to Solve Difficult Problems

  • Researchers at BIH and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin found that participants with higher intelligence scores were only faster in completing simple tasks but took longer to solve difficult problems than those with lower IQ scores.
  • The personalized brain simulations of 650 participants revealed that brains with reduced synchrony between brain areas "jump to conclusions" when making decisions, while higher scoring participants needed more time to solve challenging tasks but made fewer errors.
  • The findings have been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Industry Reactions

  • Intelligent brains take longer to solve difficult problems according to a study by the Berlin Institute of Health.
  • The tech industry's interview process is criticized for placing too much emphasis on rote memorization rather than practical problem-solving skills, which can lead to pressure and stress during the interview process.
  • Several tech companies are taking a more holistic approach to evaluation, including assessing problem-solving skills and getting to know candidates as people.
  • The interview process can be flawed due to potential biases and a lack of assessment of actual problem-solving skills, leading to a focus on stock answers rather than creative thinking.
  • The importance of psychological safety, hiring quality candidates, and cultural fit is emphasized.
  • Debate surrounds whether candidates should be paid for their time during interviews or not.
  • Abstraction solves many hard problems but comes at a cost.
  • Researchers created a digital model of the human brain using brain scans and mathematical models, finding a link between slower problem-solvers and higher average functional connectivity in brain regions.
  • There is a lack of knowledge about human brain structures, and biases are at play in decision-making theories.

GPS (2022)

  • GPS uses satellites orbiting the earth to determine a location with high accuracy.
  • Different methods, such as trilateration and time of flight, are used to measure distance and determine positioning.
  • GPS consists of six different orbits with a total of 30 active satellites, which provide redundancy and improve accuracy.

Industry Reactions

  • Article from ciechanow.ski on GPS from 2022 resurfaces on Hacker News, garnering attention and discussion.
  • Comments discuss technical aspects of GPS, such as the use of gold codes and relativistic effects, and offer additional resources for further reading.
  • Some comments are off-topic, with users commenting on the design of the article or their personal difficulties reading it.

The NixOS Foundation's Call to Action: S3 Costs Require Community Support

  • The LogicBlox team, which has been sponsoring Nix's S3 buckets, is transferring ownership and expenses to the NixOS Foundation.
  • The estimated monthly cost for hosting is around $9000 with a deadline of July 1st.
  • The NixOS Foundation is exploring different solutions, including migrating buckets to Cloudflare R2, paying in full, or garbage-collecting it. They will also start fundraising and create a task force to investigate further options.

Industry Reactions

  • The NixOS Foundation is calling for community support due to high S3 storage costs, and some suggest self-hosting as an alternative to cloud storage.
  • NixOS developers are using co-location and self-hosted storage solutions to handle petabyte storage, and are seeking volunteers to act as mirrors on their own home networks.
  • There is a debate around the efficiency and sustainability of hosting practices, suggestions for cost-effective storage solutions include hardware support, designing a specific solution, and using distributed CDNs. Cloud providers' egress fees and anti-competitive pricing are also discussed, and some users suggest AWS OSS sponsorship and EU-mandated cloud portability to reduce lock-in.

Decoding small QR codes by hand (2012)

  • This article provides a guide on how to manually decode a small QR code using pen and paper.
  • The guide explains how to determine the QR code version and format marker and how to account for error correction information.
  • It also explains how to decode the message within the QR code by accounting for the mask pattern and reading the length and byte fields.

Industry Reactions

  • The article discusses hand-decoding QR codes, and the comment section delves into various issues related to QR codes, including error correction, use cases, and privacy concerns.
  • Commenters provide feedback on QR code scanning apps and suggest alternatives, as well as offering tips on improving OCR accuracy for QR codes.
  • QR code decoding from noisy images and video streams poses significant challenges, and while there are standard algorithms and approaches, building a fast and robust decoder remains a valuable and difficult task, with techniques like image processing and perspective correction to consider. Hand decoding QR codes is similar to solving a Rubik's cube and serves as a way to teach implementors of automated QR code readers and writers.

Don't let Reddit kill 3rd party apps

  • Reddit's new policy will make it more expensive to access their API, causing third-party mobile apps to shut down.
  • Beloved apps like Apollo, Reddit is Fun, Narwhal, and BaconReader will be affected, along with customization options like Reddit Enhancement Suite and old.reddit.com.
  • This decision has sparked backlash from subreddit moderators and users who rely on these apps for community management and better features than the official app. Some subreddits will go dark, and users plan to boycott Reddit's competition on June 12th and 13th.

Industry Reactions

  • Reddit's aggressive monetization tactics and API changes have sparked criticism from users and third-party app developers- Users are frustrated with the quality of signals on the platform and push for installing the official mobile app- Concerns arise about privacy, user-hostile decisions, and potential monopoly with Reddit's recent pricing changes to API access

Don't store cash in Venmo and PayPal, US regulator warns

  • Payment apps like PayPal and Venmo lack the same protections as a traditional bank or credit union account and are not federally insured on the institution level.
  • There are billions of dollars at risk for consumers as payment apps encourage customers to store funds rather than just make transactions, and these apps are not immune to bank runs.
  • Some money held in payment app accounts, such as PayPal Savings, are deposited in FDIC-member banks and thus, would be protected, but much of the funds are held by the services themselves without federal insurance, which could be at risk if the payment apps' investments lose value.

Industry Reactions

  • The US regulator warns against keeping unsecured funds in Venmo and PayPal accounts, as the money is not subject to banking regulations.
  • Some users call for more government regulation, while others argue against it, raising questions about financial stability and user protection.
  • PayPal has aggressive fraud detection resulting in false positives, and termination of accounts without warning, but is classified as a bank in Europe and insures deposits.

This site is no longer solar powered for now

  • The author's solar-powered internet connection was disrupted due to a blown-up modem that had a lithium-ion battery in it, which was never supposed to be left in while constantly plugged into a power source.
  • The author now uses Starlink as their primary internet connection, and they would consider setting up a solar-powered internet connection again if they find a cheap and reliable modem/router that doesn't require a constantly inserted battery to function properly.
  • The author moved their website to their Vultr VPS and will likely shift it to a new SD card as the current one is failing.

Industry Reactions

  • The post on Hacker News discusses the pros and cons of self-hosting servers, with some commenters suggesting it's a great learning experience, and others saying it's not worth the effort.
  • The comments section includes discussions on past technologies, accessing the internet in rural areas, and battery safety, with tips on extending battery life and using safer battery options.
  • Battery safety concerns are raised, along with the prevalence of lithium-ion batteries in many devices, and suggestions for fire-retardant battery boxes as a potential solution for safe disposal and storage.

Still Love Telnet

  • Telnet, a protocol and command line tool, used to be how system administrators logged into remote servers before SSH was developed.
  • Although Telnet is not secure and should not be used for logging in remotely, it can be a useful tool for debugging connection issues.
  • Telnet can be used to narrow down the source of connection problems by checking for error messages related to firewall rules, DNS problems, incorrect servers or ports, and server security measures.

Industry Reactions

  • Users reminisce about using telnet in college and for testing connectivity to web servers or other services- Some users recommend using nc instead of telnet, while others argue for the security of using telnet with a secure channel like WireGuard- The comments provide historical and technical context for networking protocols and their use in different environments, including security vulnerabilities and different tools in this vein.