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Dedicated volunteer exposes “single largest self-promotion operation in Wikipedia’s history”

Quick—what are the top entries in the category "Wikipedia articles written in the greatest number of languages"? The answer is countries. Turkey tops the list with Wikipedia entries in 332 different languages, while the US is second with 327 and Japan is third with 324. Other common words make their appearance as one looks down the list. "Dog" (275 languages) tops "cat" (273). Jesus (274) beats "Adolf Hitler" (242). And all of them beat "sex" (122), which is also bested by "fever," "Chiang Kai

Myths About Floating-Point Numbers (2021)

Floating-point numbers are a great invention in computer science, but they can also be tricky and troublesome to use correctly. I’ve written about them already by publishing Floating-Point Formats Cheatsheet and presentation “Pitfalls of floating-point numbers” (“Pułapki liczb zmiennoprzecinkowych” – the slides are in Polish). Last year I was preparing for a more extensive talk about this topic, but it got cancelled, like pretty much everything in these hard times of the COVID-19 pandemic. So in

Should we get the option of a round Apple Watch and more? [Poll]

No, I get it: round watches are a very inefficient use of space, and there is likely a reason that the Apple Watch continues to dominate the market. But what a new piece argues for is not to replace the existing Apple Watch design, but instead to offer us a greater range of options … It’s not coincidence that Apple chose a rectangular display for the Apple Watch. This clearly offers the most efficient use of space, allowing some info-dense faces alongside simpler ones. If we ignore the frankl

The 4 Best Invisible Hearing Aids of 2025, Tested and Reviewed

Stigmas should be stigmatized. Whether we’re talking about mental health or wearing cargo pants, the world would benefit from less societal shade. For hearing aids, these often-bulky devices can age a wearer faster than gray hair or referencing Jefferson Airplane deep cuts. But despite often being associated with seniors, more than 9 million Americans between the ages of 20 and 59 have some degree of hearing loss. Still, the stigma is enough to keep most of these people from even considering an

4 apps you should use instead of Google News

Andy Walker / Android Authority While Google News is a popular choice, its user interface and limited customization options might not be for everyone. I used the app for a long time, but I eventually moved on to something better. After trying countless alternatives, I found a few that offer a more personalized and streamlined experience. Some of these apps provide a highly tailored experience, while others let you get to the gist of a story much faster. While I’ve listed my favorite first, the

Why is it worth spending time on type theory? (2013)

$\begingroup$ Type theory is to set theory what computable functions are to usual functions. It's a constructive setting for doing mathematics, so it allows to deal carefully with what can or can't be computed/decided (see intensionality vs. extensionality, or the different notions of reduction and conversion in $\lambda$-calculus). Furthermore, just like category theory, it gives a great insight on how certain mathematical objects are nothing but particular cases of a general construction, in

Why is it worth spending time on type theory?

$\begingroup$ Type theory is to set theory what computable functions are to usual functions. It's a constructive setting for doing mathematics, so it allows to deal carefully with what can or can't be computed/decided (see intensionality vs. extensionality, or the different notions of reduction and conversion in $\lambda$-calculus). Furthermore, just like category theory, it gives a great insight on how certain mathematical objects are nothing but particular cases of a general construction, in

Could Netflix Have Plans for a ‘Stranger Things’ Spinoff?

Chris Hemsworth talks about his future as Thor and reaction to that recent YouTube video. Get a look at what’s coming on Invasion season 3. Plus, sneak peeks at the next Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Spoilers, away! Trauma Or, Monsters All According to Variety, director Larry Fessenden has completed filming Trauma Or, Monsters All, a simultaneous sequel to his 1995 vampire movie, Habit, his 2019 Frankenstein movie, Depraved, and his 2023 werewolf movie, Blackout. Said to “place the filmmaker’

Microsoft is revamping Windows 11’s Task Manager so its numbers make more sense

Microsoft devotes most of its time and energy these days to promoting new AI- and Copilot-related features for Windows 11, but the company's Windows Insider builds are still full of small tweaks and changes aimed at improving longstanding Windows features for people who just want to use their PC the way they always have. New updates that began rolling out to testers in the Windows Insider program yesterday include a couple of small but meaningful changes for Windows power users. First, Microsof

Ageing accelerates around age 50 ― some organs faster than others

Ageing of many tissues accelerates around age 50, according to an analysis of tissues in people ranging from teenagers to individuals in their sixties.Credit: Karen Haibara/AFP/Getty It is a warning that middle-aged people have long offered the young: ageing is not a smooth process. Now, an exhaustive analysis of how proteins change over time in different organs backs up that idea, finding that people experience an inflection point at around 50 years old, after which ageing seems to accelerate.

Why MIT switched from Scheme to Python (2009)

Costanza asked Sussman why MIT had switched away from Scheme for their introductory programming course, 6.001. This was a gem. He said that the reason that happened was because engineering in 1980 was not what it was in the mid-90s or in 2000. In 1980, good programmers spent a lot of time thinking, and then produced spare code that they thought should work. Code ran close to the metal, even Scheme — it was understandable all the way down. Like a resistor, where you could read the bands and know

Why MIT Switched from Scheme to Python (2009)

Costanza asked Sussman why MIT had switched away from Scheme for their introductory programming course, 6.001. This was a gem. He said that the reason that happened was because engineering in 1980 was not what it was in the mid-90s or in 2000. In 1980, good programmers spent a lot of time thinking, and then produced spare code that they thought should work. Code ran close to the metal, even Scheme — it was understandable all the way down. Like a resistor, where you could read the bands and know

iPadOS 26 preview: The rare software update that makes (most) old hardware feel new

The Mac and the iPad are different devices that do different things. This has been the line from Apple executives, from its initial introduction to the advent of touchscreen PCs to just last month when Apple’s Craig Federighi talked to us about iPadOS 26’s new multitasking features. But it sometimes feels like this internal commitment to keeping the devices separate has held the iPad back as its hardware has become more capable. A mouse cursor? Sure, we’ll add it, after a few years of insisting

AT&T and T-Mobile now both claim the best network crown, but which one is really the best?

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR AT&T was named best network by Rootmetrics, while T-Mobile claims the Speedtest crown, showing there’s no single “best” carrier for everyone. Different awards use different methods, so the right carrier depends on your priorities and where you live. Local coverage varies a lot, so always check how each carrier performs in your area before deciding. Recently, Rootmetrics awarded AT&T as the best network for the first half of 2025. This might sound str

Why I love my little round Dell USB-C mobile adapter

Barbara Krasnoff is officially the reviews editor for The Verge, but although she has done a great deal of reviewing in her time, she doesn’t tend to do a lot of it in her current position. “I was originally hired here to write and edit to-do articles,” she explains. “Now, I spend most of my time editing, overseeing various projects, and coaxing staffers to write about their favorite stuff.” Where did you first hear about the Dell mobile adapter? I didn’t actually hear about it — I saw it at a

I use both YouTube Music and Spotify, and for good reason

Andy Walker / Android Authority For many, the choice between Spotify and YouTube Music is a major dilemma. But for me, it’s not a question of picking one over the other. Unlike most people who stick to a single platform, I seamlessly integrate both into my daily routine, especially when relying on their free plans. But even when I opt for premium features, I often subscribe to one service while still actively using the other. Why this dual-platform approach? It all comes down to their distinct

Agents built from alloys

This spring, we had a simple and, to my knowledge, novel idea that turned out to dramatically boost the performance of our vulnerability detection agents at XBOW. On fixed benchmarks and with a constrained number of iterations, we saw success rates rise from 25% to 40%, and then soon after to 55%. The principles behind this idea are not limited to cybersecurity. They apply to a large class of agentic AI setups. Let me share. XBOW’s Challenge XBOW is an autonomous pentester. You point it at yo

Local cuisine was on the menu at Cafe Neanderthal

Sixty thousand years ago, two groups of Neanderthals lived just a stone’s throw apart in what’s now northern Israel. But they had very different cultures when it came to food, according to a recent study. Archaeologist Anaëlle Jallon of Hebrew University of Jerusalem and her colleagues examined dozens of animal bones from both sites, looking for clues about Neanderthal meal prep. It turns out that something as mundane as the cut marks left by butchering an animal can reveal differences in ancien

Extending That XOR Trick to Billions of Rows

Can we extend the XOR trick for finding one or two missing numbers in a list to finding thousands of missing IDs in a billion-row table? Yes, we can! This is possible using a data structure called an Invertible Bloom Filter (IBF) that compares two sets with space complexity based only on the size of the difference. Using a generalization of the XOR trick [1], all the values that are identical cancel out, so the size of this data structure depends only on the size of the difference. Most explan

The (Unfinished) PDE Coffee Table Book

THE (UNFINISHED) PDE COFFEE TABLE BOOK Lloyd N. Trefethen and Kristine Embree, editors Unpublished, 2001 During 2000-2001 a group project based in the Oxford University was begun to write this book. The vision was 100 2-page spreads, each one giving exactly the most useful possible starting information about a different partial differential equation, with beautiful color illustrations. Many people at Oxford and around the world contributed drafts, which were then extensively rewritten and e

Signs of autism could be encoded in the way you walk

Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects how people's brains develop and function, impacting behaviour, communication and socialising. It can also involve differences in the way you move and walk – known as your gait. Having an "odd gait" is now listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a supporting diagnostic feature of autism. What does this look like? The most noticeable gait differences among autistic people are: toe-walking, walking on the balls

Signs of Autism Could Be Encoded in the Way You Walk

Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects how people's brains develop and function, impacting behaviour, communication and socialising. It can also involve differences in the way you move and walk – known as your gait. Having an "odd gait" is now listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a supporting diagnostic feature of autism. What does this look like? The most noticeable gait differences among autistic people are: toe-walking, walking on the balls

One of our favorite Ninja air fryers is 36 percent off right now

Engadget has been testing and reviewing consumer tech since 2004. Our stories may include affiliate links; if you buy something through a link, we may earn a commission. Read more about how we evaluate products . Prime Day might have ended last week, but that doesn't mean the sales are over. Amazon still has discounts on some of our favorite items, including our pick for best dual-zone air fryer. Right now, you can get the Ninja DZ401 Foodi Air Fryer for $160, down from $250. The 36 percent di

Diffsitter – A Tree-sitter based AST difftool to get meaningful semantic diffs

diffsitter Disclaimer diffsitter is very much a work in progress and nowhere close to production ready (yet). Contributions are always welcome! Summary diffsitter creates semantically meaningful diffs that ignore formatting differences like spacing. It does so by computing a diff on the AST (abstract syntax tree) of a file rather than computing the diff on the text contents of the file. diffsitter uses the parsers from the tree-sitter project to parse source code. As such, the languages sup

Tuesday Telescope: Webb and Hubble team up to reveal spectacular star clusters

Welcome to the Tuesday Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light—a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We’ll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we’ll take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is filled with stars and wonder. Open clusters of stars—which consist of dozens up to a few thousand stars—are an interesting tool for astronomers to study the Universe. T

Apple just released a weirdly interesting coding language model

Apple quietly dropped a new AI model on Hugging Face with an interesting twist. Instead of writing code like traditional LLMs generate text (left to right, top to bottom), it can also write out of order, and improve multiple chunks at once. The result is faster code generation, at a performance that rivals top open-source coding models. Here’s how it works. The nerdy bits Here are some (overly simplified, in the name of efficiency) concepts that are important to understand before we can move

Optimizing Tool Selection for LLM Workflows with Differentiable Programming

Modern agentic architectures rely heavily on chaining LLM calls. A typical pattern looks like: Use an LLM to decide which tool to invoke Call the tool (e.g. search, calculator, API) Use another LLM call to interpret the result and generate a final response This structure is easy to reason about, simple to prototype, and generalizes well. But it scales poorly. Each LLM call incurs latency, cost, and token overhead. More subtly, it compounds context: every step includes not only the original q

A rare look inside the durability lab where Apple tortures its products

Apple puts its products through a lot of tests during the development process, intended to ensure they have a long and reliable life even in challenging conditions. The company tests at least 10,000 iPhones prior to launch in an attempt to cover all the bases. It’s not often the iPhone maker lets outsiders into its labs, but Apple invited some of those attending WWDC 2025 to visit one to see for themselves the conditions it expects its gadgets to survive … To be clear, it’s not the first time