Month: January 2023

PyTorch identifies a malicious dependency that uses its “torchtriton” library name, warning users to uninstall the framework; the hacker claims ethical research (Ax Sharma/BleepingComputer)

Ax Sharma / BleepingComputer: PyTorch identifies a malicious dependency that uses its “torchtriton” library name, warning users to uninstall the framework; the hacker claims ethical research  —  PyTorch has identified a malicious dependency with the same name as the framework’s ‘torchtriton’ library.

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A look at a growing wave of US doctors and telehealth startups prescribing ketamine online, aided by looser federal rules on prescribing controlled substances (Daniel Gilbert/Washington Post)

Daniel Gilbert / Washington Post: A look at a growing wave of US doctors and telehealth startups prescribing ketamine online, aided by looser federal rules on prescribing controlled substances  —  People can take the drug at home, thanks to federal action during the pandemic.  Some experts worry it’s now too easy to get.

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7 downsides of open source culture

There is no doubting the merits of the open source philosophy for writing code and producing software. Many of the software packages at the core of modern computing, from the Linux operating system to MySQL, were created using a model of open sharing and collaborative development. Four decades of great code, nurtured by the philosophy

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Tools to manage SLOs and error budgets

Site reliability engineers (SREs) take proactive measures to improve app performance, decrease the number of defects found in production, and reduce the impact of production incidents. Their responsibility requires making trade-offs because increasing operational performance often comes at exponentially increasing costs. Devops organizations with SREs use two measurement tools to guide decisions: service-level objectives and

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German grocery delivery app Flink, one of the last independent services, had €400M in 2022 sales and expects to be profitable in 2023; Flink has raised $700M+ (Tim Bradshaw/Financial Times)

Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times: German grocery delivery app Flink, one of the last independent services, had €400M in 2022 sales and expects to be profitable in 2023; Flink has raised $700M+  —  Berlin-based start-up aims for profits next year as rivals struggle for cash  —  Flink, one of Europe’s …

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Luke Dashjr, one of the original core BTC developers, says someone stole “basically” all his BTC by compromising his PGP key; a wallet shows ~217 BTC were moved (Stephen Katte/Cointelegraph)

Stephen Katte / Cointelegraph: Luke Dashjr, one of the original core BTC developers, says someone stole “basically” all his BTC by compromising his PGP key; a wallet shows ~217 BTC were moved  —  A Bitcoin OG and core developer Luke Dashjr claims his PGP key was compromised, resulting in virtually all his Bitcoin being stolen

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DIYson Lamp Hides Cables Between the Seams

[Steven Bennett] is so fond of Dyson’s new Lightcycle lamp that he’s decided to clone his own version in the spirit of the original. Dyson, however, knows what makes their lamp so special — so much that they patented their technique for tucking away the power wiring. Undaunted, [Steven]’s latest challenge has been to create

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A look at the longest tech boom so far, including crypto’s rise and fall, VR falling short of its hype, the marketplace economy’s growth, pizza robots, and more (Christopher Mims/Wall Street Journal)

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal: A look at the longest tech boom so far, including crypto’s rise and fall, VR falling short of its hype, the marketplace economy’s growth, pizza robots, and more  —  From pizza robots to the crypto meltdown, the long bubble has shown us the hilarious, the regrettable, and the unexpectedly

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Snow Plowing by Bicycle

There are few challenges more difficult or dangerous than trying to get around the majority of North American cities by bicycle. Not only is the bicycle infrastructure woefully inadequate for safe travel (if it exists at all), but it’s often not maintained to any reasonable standard, either. This goes double in colder areas, where bike

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What 2023 may bring for crypto regulation in the US and around the world, as bankruptcies stretch into the new year, attracting lawmakers and criminal probes (Nikhilesh De/CoinDesk)

Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk: What 2023 may bring for crypto regulation in the US and around the world, as bankruptcies stretch into the new year, attracting lawmakers and criminal probes  —  CoinDesk’s policy team predicts the issues and topics that may take center stage over the next 12 months.

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A profile of Matrix, an open-source, decentralized protocol for messaging interoperability that saw its network’s users double in 2022 to at least 80.3M (Paul Sawers/TechCrunch)

Paul Sawers / TechCrunch: A profile of Matrix, an open-source, decentralized protocol for messaging interoperability that saw its network’s users double in 2022 to at least 80.3M  —  After years of walled gardens, cross-pollination could be in sight  —  Interoperability and decentralization have been major themes in tech this year …

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Electronics Explained with Mechanical Devices

It can be surprisingly hard to find decent analogies when you’re teaching electronics basics. The water flow analogy, for instance, is decent for explaining Ohm’s law, but it breaks down pretty soon thereafter. Hydraulics aren’t as easy to set up when you want an educational toykit for your child to play with, which leaves them

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A look at the use of AI to design and test games, such as to tune difficulty, find world geometry flaws, and sniff out situations that make it impossible to win (Matthew Smith/Wired)

Matthew Smith / Wired: A look at the use of AI to design and test games, such as to tune difficulty, find world geometry flaws, and sniff out situations that make it impossible to win  —  The next generation of video game characters could be powered by AI, making them more engaging and challenging.

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LEDCard: The Pocketable Ring Light

How many times have you found yourself fumbling about with lighting while trying to get a clear up-close shot of an object? Although smartphones come with pretty nice cameras these days, properly lighting an object and taking impressive macro shots isn’t exactly their strong suit. This is where [MisterHW]’s LEDCard is a very welcome companion.

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