ReHacked vol. 309: R.I.P. Leon The Lobster, Framework’s first desktop and more
Support ReHacked newsletter with one time donation. Thank you very much!
Make a donation - support Ukraine. Щира подяка. Разом до перемоги!
Get your discount at Hostinger and Support ReHacked
Don’t forget to share if you like what you read here, subscribe (if not yet) and leave a comment. Any form of your feedback is very important to me. Thanks!
RSS feed available if you don’t want to clutter your inbox.
I'm excited to offer you an opportunity to support my work as the sole contributor to ReHacked. Your contribution will play a crucial role in covering server expenses. Rest assured, my commitment to keeping the primary content accessible to everyone remains unwavering.
As the sole contributor, your support is truly invaluable. Feel free to become a paid subscriber, and remember, you have the flexibility to cancel or switch to the "Free" option at any time.
Thank you for being an essential part of our community. Together, let's continue fostering a culture of knowledge-sharing and making a positive difference in the digital landscape.
The early days of Linux [LWN.net] #software #history #longread
My name is Lars Wirzenius, and I was there when Linux started. Linux is now a global success, but its beginnings were rather more humble. These are my memories of the earliest days of Linux, its creation, and the start of its path to where it is today.
I started my computer science studies at the University of Helsinki in the fall of 1988, and met Linus Torvalds, who was the other new Swedish speaking student in computer science that year. Toward the end of that first year, we had gotten access to a Unix server, and I accidentally found Usenet, the discussion system, by mistyping rm as rn, the Usenet reader. I told Linus about it and we spent way too much time exploring this.
The Pentium contains a complicated circuit to multiply by three #hardware #computing #longread
Multiplying a number by three is straightforward in binary: add the number to itself, shifted to the left one position. (As mentioned above, shifting to the left is the same as multiplying by two and is easy in hardware.) Unfortunately, using a simple adder is too slow.
The problem with addition is that carries make addition slow. Consider calculating 99999+1 by hand. You'll start with 9+1=10, then carry the one, generating another carry, which generates another carry, and so forth, until you go through all the digits. Computer addition has the same problem: If you're adding two numbers, the low-order bits can generate a carry that then propagates through all the bits. An adder that works this way—known as a ripple carry adder—will be slow because the carry has to ripple through all the bits. As a result, CPUs use special circuits to make addition faster.
One solution is the carry-lookahead adder. In this adder, all the carry bits are computed in parallel, before computing the sums. Then, the sum bits can be computed in parallel, using the carry bits. As a result, the addition can be completed quickly, without waiting for the carries to ripple through the entire sum.
POLL: Trust in Firefox and Mozilla is Gone - Let's Talk Alternatives #software #privacy
It’s been a long time coming, but the trust in Firefox and its mother organization, Mozilla, seems to be mostly gone, after a recent commit on the source code removed the “we don’t sell your data” promise, along with a change of Privacy notice and Terms of Use.
Private spacecraft Blue Ghost makes historic lunar landing : NPR #space #technology
A commercial spacecraft carrying NASA experiments successfully touched down on the moon's surface early Sunday morning, ushering in a new phase of private space exploration.
American firm Firefly Aerospace, which livestreamed the descent of its Blue Ghost lunar lander, said the craft arrived on the moon's surface at 3:34 a.m. EST.
Troubleshooting: The Skill That Never Goes Obsolete — The Autodidacts #skills #longread
Troubleshooting is often learned tacitly, in the process of explicitly learning “the skill”. Troubleshooting is rarely discussed as a skill unto itself. But many features of an effective approach to troubleshooting are domain-agnostic.
Violence alters human genes for generations, researchers discoverNews | University of Florida #health #psychology
“The idea that trauma and violence can have repercussions into future generations should help people be more empathetic, help policymakers pay more attention to the problem of violence,” said Connie Mulligan, Ph.D., a professor of Anthropology and the Genetics Institute at the University of Florida and senior author of the new study. “It could even help explain some of the seemingly unbreakable intergenerational cycles of abuse and poverty and trauma that we see around the world, including in the U.S.”
While our genes are not changed by life experiences, they can be tuned through a system known as epigenetics. In response to stress or other events, our cells can add small chemical flags to genes that may quiet them down or alter their behavior. These changes may help us adapt to stressful environments, although the effects aren’t well understood.
AWS, Google Cloud find local competition in Nigeria’s market - Rest of World #infrastructure #cloud #economy
- Cloud costs for Nigerian companies have shot up after the naira depreciated sharply because most U.S. cloud companies charge in dollars.
- Several local cloud startups have sprung up in the last two years. They offer the option to pay in naira, along with data sovereignty and lower latency.
- Amazon Web Services started accepting payments in naira in January this year, which experts believe is a reaction to local competition.
Map Hidden Structures With a $100 DIY Muon Tomographer - IEEE Spectrum #diy
In the mid-1960s, the Nobel Prize–winning physicist Luis Alvarez had a wild idea. He proposed using muons, highly penetrating subatomic particles created when cosmic rays strike Earth’s atmosphere, to search for hidden chambers within one of the pyramids of Giza.
These muon particles are heavyweight cousins of electrons that travel close to the speed of light. They can penetrate through many meters of solid rock, including the limestone and granite blocks used to build the pyramids. But some of the muons will be absorbed by this dense material, meaning that they can be used to essentially “X-ray” a pyramid, revealing its inner structure. So in 1968, Alvarez and his colleagues began making muon measurements from a chamber located at the base of the Pyramid of Khafre.
They didn’t find a hidden chamber, but they did confirm the feasibility of what has come to be called muon tomography. Physicists have since used the technique to discover hidden access shafts above tunnels, study magma chambers within volcanos, and even probe the damaged reactors at Fukushima. And, in 2017, muon measurements finally revealed a hidden chamber in one of the pyramids of Giza—just not the pyramid that Alvarez had chosen to explore.
You too can perform similar experiments with equipment that you can build yourself for only US $100 or so.
The people who 'see' foreign languages: How synaesthesia can help language learning #psychology #health #longread
Synaesthesia is a neurological phenomenon that causes an estimated 4.4% of people to experience the world as a cacophony of sensations. Around 60 different types of synaesthesia have been identified, but there could be more than 100, with some types experienced in clusters.
The condition is thought to be caused by genetically inherited traits that affect the structural and functional development of the brain. Increased communication between sensory regions in the brain means, for example, words can stimulate taste, sequences of numbers may be perceived in spatial arrangements, or the feel of textures might conjure emotions.
Synaesthesia is not considered to be a neurological disorder and – although it has been linked to neurodevelopmental and mental health conditions including autism, anxiety and schizophrenia – it is described as an "alternative perceptual reality" and generally thought to be beneficial.
Ancient deity, pet and endangered species. Why is axolotl Mexico's most beloved amphibian? | AP News #nature
Legend has it the axolotl was not always an amphibian. Long before it became Mexico’s most beloved salamander and efforts to prevent its extinction flourished, it was a sneaky god.
“It’s an interesting little animal,” said Yanet Cruz, head of the Chinampaxóchitl Museum in Mexico City.
Its exhibitions focus on axolotl and chinampas, the pre-Hispanic agricultural systems resembling floating gardens that still function in Xochimilco, a neighborhood on Mexico City’s outskirts famed for its canals.
Star Wars Reimagines Characters in Ukiyo-E Style #art #culture #movies #starwars
Star Wars Celebration is a massive annual event where fans of the galaxy far, far away come together from all corners of the world to express their passion for the franchise, meet celebrity guests, receive first-hand major announcements, buy exclusive merchandise, cosplay and more. The venue changes every year and in 2025, it’s coming to Tokyo.
Alphanumeric users 11 bits for every two characters, Byte mode uses (you guessed it!) 8 bits per single character.
But why is the lower-case code pushed into Byte mode? Isn't it using letters and number?
Well, yes. But in order to store data efficiently, Alphanumeric mode only has a limited subset of characters available. Upper-case letters, and a handful of punctuation symbols: space $ % * + - . / :
Luckily, that's enough for a protocol, domain, and path. Sadly, no GET parameters.
So, there you have it. If you want the smallest possible physical size for a QR code which contains a URl, make sure the text is all in capital letters.
If it is worth keeping, save it in Markdown #internet
Walled gardens requiring login are even worse - when they go down, everything within them vanishes forever. If you haven't saved it yourself, it's gone. Moreover, any service (free or paid) may restrict access to content at any time - either completely or practically, by making it impossible to find what you're looking for. The same content you posted on Twitter a few years ago, now is on X, and in a few years might be available after login, paid subscription, or - not at all .
Even self-hosting isn't foolproof - your content can vanish when you forget to pay for hosting or after a server crash. And even if your data survives, accessing it can be tricky: WordPress blogs store posts in databases that server updates can break. I learned this lesson when my PHP photo gallery went down - thankfully, I had kept all photos as simple JPGs organized by date.
The only reliable solution is to store content in formats that can be opened without specialized software - formats that will remain accessible for decades to come.
Framework’s first desktop is a strange—but unique—mini ITX gaming PC - Ars Technica #hardware
One of Framework's announcements today was for the company's first desktop PC. Unsurprisingly dubbed the Framework Desktop, it's aimed less at the general-purpose PC crowd and more at people who want the smallest, most powerful desktop they can build and will pay extra money to get it. Pre-orders for this system start today, and Framework says it should ship in Q3 of 2025.
The 25 Most Influential Shoes and Bags - The New York Times #fashion #design #history #longread
The 25 selected pieces, which appear not ranked by their importance but in the rough order they were discussed, come from almost every decade since the 1930s (excepting the 1940s and 2020s). Discussed with particular enthusiasm were the picks from the 1990s and early aughts, which made sense, the group concluded: the ’90s were when the idea of the It bag was born, ushering in an era in which status-symbol accessories would permeate pop culture, with Real Housewives and Kardashians wearing Louboutins and carrying Hermès Birkins on TV.
If you would like to propose any interesting article for the next ReHacked issue, just hit reply or push this sexy “Leave a comment” (if not subscribed yet) button below. It’s a nice way to start a discussion.
Thanks for reading this digest and remember: we can make it better together, just leave your opinion or suggestions after pressing this button above or simply hit the reply in your e-mail and don’t forget - sharing is caring ;) Have a great week!
Dainius