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Texting myself the weather every day

Texting myself the weather every day Opening the Weather app every morning is too much effort, but you know what isn’t? Writing a recurring job to query an API every morning and send you the results in an SMS, delivered right to your doorstep phone! Come with me as we embark on my short, little journey through this very process. Version 1: A Zapier “Zap” Version 1 of this service was simply just a “zap” on Zapier. Very easy to connect together a trigger and an action, and start receiving a te

Writing a Truth Oracle in Lisp

This post assumes some familiarity with typed functional programming, Lisp, and formal logic. Today we will attempt to write a truth oracle in Lisp. By "truth oracle," I mean a program that can determine whether arbitrary mathematical statements are true or false. This might sound impossible, due to first-order logic being undecidable, but let's try anyway. Before that, though, we need to go over some required concepts. Extracting information from proofs First, sometimes, we can extract info

SIMD-friendly algorithms for substring searching (2018)

Introduction Popular programming languages provide methods or functions which locate a substring in a given string. In C it is the function strstr , the C++ class std::string has the method find , Python's string has methods pos and index , and so on, so forth. All these APIs were designed for one-shot searches. During past decades several algorithms to solve this problem were designed, an excellent page by Christian Charras and Thierry Lecroq lists most of them (if not all). Basically these al

I have reimplemented Stable Diffusion 3.5 from scratch in pure PyTorch

miniDiffusion miniDiffusion is a reimplementation of the Stable Diffusion 3.5 model in pure PyTorch with minimal dependencies. It's designed for educational, experimenting, and hacking purposes. It's made with the mindset of having the least amount of code necessary to recreate Stable Diffusion 3.5 from scratch, with only ~2800 spanning from VAE to DiT to the Train and Dataset scripts. -Files: The main Stable Diffusion model code is located in dit.py, dit_components.py, and attention.py. The d

Neanderthals Spread Across Asia With Surprising Speed—and Now We Know How

Neanderthals and modern humans split from a common ancestor around 500,000 years ago, with Neanderthals leaving Africa for Europe and Asia long before modern humans joined them hundreds of thousands of years later. There, Neanderthals dispersed as far as Spain and Siberia. Our prehistoric cousins likely first reached Asia around 190,000 to 130,000 years ago, with another substantial migration to Central and Eastern Eurasia likely between 120,000 and 60,000 years ago. But how did they get there?

Anker 1800W Power Station With 11 Ports Is Selling For Peanuts, Amazon Clears Out Stock Before Summer

Anker has long been a trusted name for laptop and smartphone chargers. But the company’s technological capabilities extend far beyond such everyday essentials: It also produces powerful portable power stations to meet the needs of users looking for robust sources of power on the go or as reliable home standbys. One such gem product in this category is the Anker Solix C1000 portable power station which is a high-end generator that is currently available on Amazon for a mere $549, reduced from it

Last fifty years of integer linear programming: Recent practical advances

Mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) has become a cornerstone of operations research. This is driven by the enhanced efficiency of modern solvers, which can today find globally optimal solutions within seconds for problems that were out of reach a decade ago. The versatility of these solvers allowed successful applications in many areas, such as transportation, logistics, supply chain management, revenue management, finance, telecommunications, and manufacturing. Despite the impressive succes

Peano arithmetic is enough, because Peano arithmetic encodes computation

$\begingroup$ PA is enough, because PA can encode computation. This is longer than I expected, and was made longer still by some browser crashes. But I'd been idly thinking of writing these ideas up. I hadn't for these reasons. It is a lot of work. What I have to say is obvious to logicians, and they would consider the detour into programming to only be a distraction. Computer programmers who can appreciate the programming detour, are mostly not that interested in logic. But this question hi

$100 Hamburger

Aviation slang $100 hamburger ("hundred-dollar hamburger") is aviation slang for the excuse a general aviation pilot might use to fly.[1][2] Background [ edit ] A $100 hamburger trip typically involves flying a short distance (less than two hours), eating at an airport restaurant, and then flying home. "$100" originally referred to the approximate cost of renting or operating a light general aviation aircraft, such as a Cessna 172, for the time it took to fly round-trip to a nearby airport. H

SIMD-friendly algorithms for substring searching

Introduction Popular programming languages provide methods or functions which locate a substring in a given string. In C it is the function strstr , the C++ class std::string has the method find , Python's string has methods pos and index , and so on, so forth. All these APIs were designed for one-shot searches. During past decades several algorithms to solve this problem were designed, an excellent page by Christian Charras and Thierry Lecroq lists most of them (if not all). Basically these al

UK unis to cough up to £10M on Java to keep Oracle off their backs

UK universities and colleges have signed a framework worth up to £9.86 million ($13.33 million) with Oracle to use its controversial Java SE Universal Subscription model, in exchange for a "waiver of historic fees due for any institutions who have used Oracle Java since 2023." Jisc, a membership organization that runs procurement for higher and further education establishments in the UK, said it had signed an agreement to purchase the new subscription licenses after consultation with members.

The Tech Job Meltdown

He wrote me a prescription; he said “You are depressed I'm glad you came to see me to get this off your chest Come back and see me later, next patient please Send in another victim of industrial disease” Industrial Disease, Dire Straits The Google campus doesn’t look as friendly as it used to. (this ia actually from Bartertown in Mad Max 3 - you can see Thunderdome in the middle) Since the start of 2023, more than half-a-million tech workers have been laid off. This isn’t the impact of COV

Beyond GPT architecture: Why Google’s Diffusion approach could reshape LLM deployment

Join the event trusted by enterprise leaders for nearly two decades. VB Transform brings together the people building real enterprise AI strategy. Learn more Last month, along with a comprehensive suite of new AI tools and innovations, Google DeepMind unveiled Gemini Diffusion. This experimental research model uses a diffusion-based approach to generate text. Traditionally, large language models (LLMs) like GPT and Gemini itself have relied on autoregression, a step-by-step approach where each

This Android notification exploit could trick you into opening some very unfriendly links (Updated)

Joe Maring / Android Authority TL;DR A bug in Android notifications can cause the “Open link” button to open a different link than the one displayed. Hidden characters in the messages can confuse the system, causing it to open a link that only makes up a part of the one in the displayed notification. Until Google issues a fix, it’s safest to avoid using the “Open link” button and open links manually in the app. Update, June 13, 2025 (5:19 PM ET): Google has reached out to Android Authority w

Whatever Happened to Sandboxfs?

Back in 2017–2020, while I was on the Blaze team at Google, I took on a 20% project that turned into a bit of an obsession: sandboxfs. Born out of my work supporting iOS development, it was my attempt to solve a persistent pain point that frustrated both internal teams and external users alike: Bazel’s poor sandboxing performance on macOS. sandboxfs was a user-space file system designed to efficiently create virtual file hierarchies backed by real files—a faster alternative to the “symlink fore

Google Meet’s Companion mode is finally ready for Android’s biggest screens

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR Google created Companion mode for Meet to offer a second screen for people in hybrid calls. Originally available for computers, last year Google expanded access to Android and iOS. Today Companion mode is getting an update to optimize it for tablets and foldables. Finding yourself stuck in a meeting can be a real slog, and it’s a situation that’s made all the worse when you feel like you’re not particularly seen, or able to interact with other partic

I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it

I've never shared this story publicly before—how I convinced HP's board to acquire Palm for $1.2 billion, then watched as they destroyed it while I was confined to bed recovering from surgery. This isn't just another tech failure analysis. I was the HP Chief Technology Officer who led the technical due diligence on Palm. I presented to Mark Hurd and the HP board, making the case for moving forward with the acquisition. I believed we were buying the future of mobile computing. Then I watched it

Today's NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for June 14, #264

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today's Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles. Today's Connections: Sports Edition has a whopper of a purple category, but since the other three categories aren't that tough, it kind of fills itself in. Read on for hints and the answers. Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That's

New details emerge on Meta’s $14.3B deal for Scale

In Brief Meta’s deal to partially acquire the AI startup Scale, giving it 49% ownership, is certainly unusual. What Scale officially announced is that the deal values the company at over $29 billion and that it will “distribute” proceeds to shareholders and vested equity holders (aka employees) granting them with “substantial liquidity” while allowing them to continue as shareholders. Meta is also hiring Scale’s famed founder CEO Alexandr Wang, who famously dropped out of MIT at age 19 to bui

Archer drops about 15% on $850 million share sale following Trump air taxi pilot program

Midnight, an all-electric aircraft from company Archer Aviation, is seen at the Salinas Municipal Airport in Salinas, California, on Aug. 2, 2023. Archer Aviation 's stock dropped about 15% on Friday after the air taxi maker said it sold $850 million worth of shares. The electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle, or eVTOL, company said Thursday it plans to use the financing to support new infrastructure and the rollout of an artificial intelligence-based aviation software platform. The mon

Oracle's stock closes out best week since 2001 on cloud momentum

Oracle CEO Safra Catz speaks at the FII PRIORITY Summit in Miami Beach, Florida, on Feb. 20, 2025. Oracle shares enjoyed their best week since 2001 as Wall Street cheered a strong earnings report and bullish comments on the company's prospects in cloud computing. The stock jumped about 24% for the week, with almost all the gains coming in the two trading days after the company's quarterly earnings release. The last time Oracle had a better week was in April 2001, in the midst of the dot-com cr

The case for embedding audit trails in AI systems before scaling

Join the event trusted by enterprise leaders for nearly two decades. VB Transform brings together the people building real enterprise AI strategy. Learn more Editor’s note: Emilia will lead an editorial roundtable on this topic at VB Transform this month. Register today. Orchestration frameworks for AI services serve multiple functions for enterprises. They not only set out how applications or agents flow together, but they should also let administrators manage workflows and agents and audit t

AirTag helps London couple recover stolen car after police refuse to act

A London couple was able to locate and reclaim their Jaguar E-Pace this week using Apple’s AirTag, after local police chose not to take immediate action, even with real-time location data in hand. As reported by BBC News, the £46,000 stolen vehicle was taken from outside the couple’s home in Brook Green, Hammersmith, on June 3. The car had an AirTag hidden inside, which allowed the owners to track its precise location to a nearby neighborhood in Chiswick. The couple contacted the Metropolitan

Student discovers fungus predicted by Albert Hoffman

Corinne Hazel, a WVU environmental microbiology major from Delaware, Ohio, has discovered a new species of fungus that may treat a variety of medical conditions. (WVU Photo/Brian Persinger) Making a discovery with the potential for innovative applications in pharmaceutical development, a West Virginia University microbiology student has found a long sought-after fungus that produces effects similar to the semisynthetic drug LSD, which is used to treat conditions like depression, post-traumatic

Today's NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for June 14, #734

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today's Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles. Dog-lovers, today's NYT Connections puzzle is barking out your name. Two dog-related categories should make it easy for fans of our furry friends. Read on for clues and today's Connections answers. The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there aft

Copilot Vision brings Microsoft's screen-watching AI to everyday Windows tasks

AI overload: Microsoft wants Copilot to be your digital sidekick, always watching and ready to help – whether you need it or not. The latest feature, Vision, turns the AI into a screen-reading assistant that talks back, offering tips, tasks, or tech-induced headaches. Microsoft announced that Copilot Vision is now available to users in the US, with plans to expand to more non-European countries soon. This update significantly enhances Copilot, which is evolving into more of a digital "companion

Archer drops 15% on $850 million share sale following Trump air taxi pilot program

Midnight, an all-electric aircraft from company Archer Aviation, is seen at the Salinas Municipal Airport in Salinas, California, on Aug. 2, 2023. Archer Aviation 's stock dropped about 15% on Friday after the air taxi maker said it sold $850 million worth of shares. The electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle, or eVTOL, company said Thursday it plans to use the financing to support new infrastructure and the rollout of an artificial intelligence-based aviation software platform. The mon

Oracle's stock on pace for best week since 2001 on cloud momentum

Oracle shares are on pace for their best week since 2001 as Wall Street cheers a strong earnings report and bullish comments on the company's prospects in cloud computing. The stock is up about 24% for the week, with almost all the gains coming in the two trading days after the company's quarterly earnings release. The last time Oracle had a better week was in April 2001, in the midst of the dot-com crash, when so-called dead-cat bounces were common. The prior quarter Oracle shares lost almost

Apple announces global in-person sessions to dive deeper into WWDC25 updates

Apple is taking WWDC25 on the road. Following the close of its week-long developer conference, the company has scheduled a worldwide series of in-person events and online appointments to give developers, designers, and product managers a closer look at what’s new. Here’s how you can register. Branded as “Explore the biggest updates from WWDC25”, (via MacMagazine) these sessions aim to highlight key technologies unveiled during the conference, including updates to Apple Intelligence, visionOS, d