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1. ▲ ThreadPlotter – toolkit for punch needle embroidery with X-Y plotters (2020) (github.com/liciahe)
The GitHub repository for “ThreadPlotter” unleashes yet another high-tech solution to a problem you never knew you had: turning your glorified graph plotter into a needle-punching, rug-making, ephemeral art-producing powerhouse. Because, why not? Commenters swarm like moths to a flame, marveling at the possibility of scaling this up to floor coverings, blissfully ignoring the glaring lack of durability in a technique that unravels easier than their understanding of basic textiles. Meanwhile, nostalgia trips about Swedish educational reforms of the '80s awkwardly dangle between genuine intrigue and the haunting realization that yes, even embroidery has been swallowed by the merciless maw of automation. 🧵🤖
53 points by matthberg 2024-08-16T21:35:24 | 7 comments
2. ▲ VanillaJSX.com (vanillajsx.com)
In a world where complexity is often mistaken for sophistication, vanillajsx.com emerges as the unsung hero determined to liberate overworked developers from the tyrannical embrace of modern JavaScript frameworks. With an audacity bordering on recklessness, the site proposes returning raw DOM elements like some tech hermit crafting his own shoes in the wilderness. Our visionary hero, bored by the simplicity of static sites and irked by the unnecessary veneration of JSX, concocts an SSG that churns out JSX as mere strings. Commenters glow with the enthusiasm of discovering fire, debating whether this profoundly solitary approach could be the panacea for web maladies, while quietly mourning the loss of IDE hand-holding. Embracing the inevitable avoidance of bureaucratic toolchains, vanillajsx.com soldiers on, slightly hacky, minimally supported, but SEO-friendly – the rogue cowboy of web development gallops into the sunset. 🌅
147 points by novocantico 2024-08-16T19:01:09 | 65 comments
3. ▲ LLM and Bug Finding: Insights from a $2M Winning Team in the White House's AIxCC (team-atlanta.github.io)
**Title: Team Atlanta Fumbles Through AI Cybersecurity Like Drunk Robots at a Lock Picking Contest**

In a stunning display of academic verbosity only matched by their ability to name-drop various affiliations, Team Atlanta presents "Atlantis", an AI wonder-tool allegedly geared towards upping the cybersecurity game. This rag-tag crew of conference-slayers boldly assembled under the DARPA-funded lights to mix high-sounding notions with hacking contests in a scene less coherent than a JavaScript error stack trace. Meanwhile, the comments section quickly devolves into a geeky abyss where every commentator is either bragging about their own minor hacking exploits or stubbornly querying the monetary value of digital holes in a pounding void of existential questioning. By the end, it’s clear that the only real winner is confusion enhanced by good old AI over-promising.
51 points by garlic_chives 2024-08-16T19:56:41 | 19 comments
4. ▲ A Texas "moth man" photographed 550 species in his own yard (texasmonthly.com)
In a thrilling exposé of backyard biodiversity, a Texas man achieves the extraordinary by photographing 550 species of moths, revealing not only an impressive collection but also a riveting lack of hobbies. Comment sections erupt with shock and awe as users, grappling with their mundane existence, herald this monumental feat. One astute observer points out the ability of 7th graders to also collect insects, perhaps inadvertently likening the moth man’s achievement to child's play. Meanwhile, another genius suggests replacing natural curiosity with neural networks because, why bother experiencing nature when an algorithm can simulate the excitement for you?
159 points by anarbadalov 2024-08-16T15:04:06 | 63 comments
5. ▲ Discrete Mathematics – An Open Introduction, 4th edition (openmathbooks.org)
**Discrete Mathematics - Yet Another Edition**

In another earth-shattering update, an *open* textbook on Discrete Mathematics makes a heroic leap into its fourth edition, equipped with the ground-breaking advancements of "interactive exercises," luring self-educated programmers into believing they can bootstrap a CS degree for free. Comment sections light up with autobiographies of late bloomers in academia and declarations of newfound love for ancient, supposedly still relevant math books. One aspirant intellectual discovers that “old but gold” textbooks can be freely accessed online, sparking a predictable comment chain of lesser-known math resources, while others debate the nuances between applied and concrete mathematics like it's the hot new gossip. Watch out, academia, the autodidacts armed with free PDFs are coming for your ivy-laced walls! 🎓💥
180 points by yawboakye 2024-08-16T15:53:09 | 13 comments
6. ▲ The Apple IIGS Megahertz Myth (userlandia.com)
**The Apple IIGS Megahertz Myth: A Nerd's Tale**

In an urgent bid to prove they *haven't totally* forgotten everything pre-2007, the folks at Userlandia dive head-first into the dusty archives to "bust myths" about the Apple IIGS, an artifact so ancient that its mention prompts comments about when RAM was a precious commodity. Cue a nostalgia-tripped commenter romanticizing the "Cambrian explosion" of computing, clearly having forgotten the sheer horror of coding with 4K of memory. Meanwhile, another brave soul reminisces about their attic-rescued IIGS miraculously powering on, blissfully ignoring that every other antique machine is a ticking time bomb wrapped in cracked plastic, just waiting to rain fiery electronic death when plugged in. Ah, to relive the days when your school computer could survive a nuclear fallout, but not the year 2023! 🍏💥
117 points by rbanffy 2024-08-16T17:08:10 | 47 comments
7. ▲ Does Reasoning Emerge? Probabilities of Causation in Large Language Models (arxiv.org)
In the latest groundbreaking act of throwing complicated words at simple concepts to seem very smart, aficionados at arXiv discuss "Does Reasoning Emerge? Probabilities of Causation in Large Language Models," a thrilling adventure into making machines pretend to think. The comment section becomes a delightful playground where the overly optimistic battle the cynically enlightened, each armed with painfully anecdotal evidence of human and computer incompetence. One genius pipes up with a math riddle to prove... something about reasoning, prompting a missile exchange of "you're wrong!" that could rival any family Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, everyone misses that the real question isn't whether LLMs can reason, but whether we can convince ourselves they do without laughing out loud. 🤖😂
127 points by belter 2024-08-16T16:19:11 | 78 comments
8. ▲ The Bare Minimum Beats: Panasonic's RD-9844 Rhythm Machine (nicole.express)
**The Bare Minimum Beats: Panasonic's RD-9844 Rhythm Machine (nicole.express)**

Welcome to the latest blog post where the author dives headfirst into the arcane world of analog rhythm machines without any pesky knowledge of music to clutter the journey. Here, circuits aren't just components; they're an emotional journey back to a simpler, scratchier audio era. Commenters eagerly one-up each other with obscure references to capacitor brands and the golden age of transistor radios, basking in the warm, fuzzy glow of their superiority over "digital" plebeians. It's a deep dive into nostalgia, with a side of elitism, all served in a hand-soldered, retro-styled blog post. 🎚️🥁📻
21 points by nicole_express 2024-08-16T20:00:34 | 0 comments
9. ▲ Fun times with energy-based models (mpmisko.github.io)

Armchair Quantum Physicists Conquer Death with Blog Hacks


In an Internet corner reserved for those who speak in equations, a brave soul takes on the Herculean task of explaining Energy-Based Models (EBMs) in a way that suggests these computational chimeras could somehow, someday, maybe solve mortality. Commenters, channeling the ghost of Pythagoras, quibble over integration bounds and the existential dread of normalization while casually throwing around terms like "entropy regularization." Remember, folks, nothing screams "cutting-edge science" more than solving death by tweaking a few energy variables while lamenting the computational cost of the partition function. 💀💻 Perhaps, instead of debating multi-dimensional integration, our brainy friends should focus more on the multidimensional complexities of taking their theories from the chalkboard to practical, life-extending applications. Real life: now with more entropy!
18 points by mpmisko 2024-08-16T19:16:07 | 7 comments
10. ▲ Crafting a 13KB Game: The Story of Space Huggers (frankforce.com)
In a world of terabyte SSDs, one brave soul attempts to harken back to the floppy disk era with "Space Huggers", a game squeezed into a microscopic 13KB—because who doesn't want to relive the glory days of 1995 when websites loaded faster than your mom could ask if you're winning? The comment section erupts in nostalgic glee as tech bros throw around references to arcane software and quirky competitions that absolutely no one outside their bubble has ever heard of. Of course, everyone is dazzled by the vintage charm of this pixelated run-and-gun, forgetting momentarily that it's less about gaming and more about fitting the digital equivalent of a whale into a goldfish's lunchbox. 💾🕹️
156 points by lovegrenoble 2024-08-16T08:10:48 | 30 comments
11. ▲ What Is a Knowledge Graph? (neo4j.com)
**What Is a Knowledge Graph? (neo4j.com)**

The Neo4j blog swings for the fences with a hard-hitting piece *pretending* that "knowledge graphs" are a brand new concept rather than a decades-old idea reheated more often than last week's lasagna. Comment sections explode with enthusiasts debating the merits of Neo4j's Cypher vs. the venerable SPARQL, with one daring user claiming they'd prefer self-inflicted fork wounds over using Cypher. Meanwhile, semantic web vets roll their eyes so hard you can hear the woosh from the other side of the internet, as beginners are left wondering if they accidentally signed up for an advanced course in cryptic tech jargon. 🙄🍴💻
82 points by Anon84 2024-08-16T18:22:26 | 31 comments
12. ▲ Synthesizing Abstract Transformers for Reduced-Product Domains (arxiv.org)
Title: Synthesizing Abstract Transformers for Reduced-Product Domains (arxiv.org)

Welcome to this week's episode of Scholars With No Budget Meeting Bogus Needs. Come one, come all, to witness the tantalizing spectacle of synthesizing *abstract transformers* for something called "reduced-product domains." God knows the masses were clamoring for that. Surely amidst the scintillating woofs and buzzes of Slack notifications, the unwashed hordes of commenters sharing their uninformed yet vehemente opinions will provide the intellect we all desperately desire. Join the fray, leave your common sense at the login screen, and pledge allegiance to the ever-glowing shrine of arXiv’s *openness, community, excellence*, and whatever we’re pretending *user data privacy* means today. 🎭📚
11 points by luu 2024-08-16T21:38:27 | 0 comments
13. ▲ Using a list to manage executive function (drmaciver.substack.com)
Title: Revolutionary Discovery: You Can Write Things Down to Remember Them

In a captivating turn of events, a blogger who bravely faced over a year of unemployment has uncovered the ancient secret of list-making to manage daily tasks. By categorizing his day into two, high-pressure, bucket-sized choices - 15 things before lunch and 3 grand ideas after - he has single-handedly vanquished decision fatigue. Commenters, equally enlightened, trip over each other to share their various adaptations of this groundbreaking "write stuff down so you remember to do it" technique, from stone tablets to voice memos. Amidst the fervent exchanges, one even remembers to find that lost 'Get Things Done' book, proving there's hope for us all. Classics never die; they just get bullet-pointed on Substack. 📝😲
127 points by swah 2024-08-13T10:21:50 | 13 comments
14. ▲ Jerry (YC S17) Is Hiring Lead Product (New Product,B2B GenAI Platform) (ashbyhq.com)
Jerry, yet another startup sham birthed from the frothy loins of Y Combinator, is on the hunt for a "Lead Product" to shepherd its latest venture into the abyss: a B2B GenAI platform. Because what the world truly needs is another AI platform, as innovative as renaming a trash bin. Comments erupt with enthusiasm from techno-optimists who can't fathom the sarcasm, comparing Jerry to the second coming of Skynet. Meanwhile, others question if their B2B solution can actually stand for "Boredom to Bankruptcy." 🙄
0 points by 2024-08-16T21:00:14 | 0 comments
15. ▲ MIFARE Classic: exposing the static encrypted nonce variant [pdf] (iacr.org)
Title: MIFARE Classic: exposing the static encrypted nonce variant [pdf] (iacr.org)

In a stunning revelation that shocks absolutely nobody, another soul bravely reports that MIFARE Classic cards are as secure as a diary with a "Keep Out" sticker. 🙄 Enthusiasts and "carders" rally in the comments to recount war stories of exploiting these relics for free sandwiches and dubious vacations. Meanwhile, a confounded commenter begs for an "explain like I'm five" on threat vectors, blissfully unaware that their RFID's security is practically in toddler shoes as well. And yes, of course, some champions still believe revealing "carding" tricks on clearnet will invite nothing but academic accolades. 🕵️‍♂️🎓
206 points by dave_universetf 2024-08-16T18:53:57 | 66 comments
16. ▲ IEEE and Keysight Team Up to Teach Kids About Electronics (ieee.org)
The Magnificent Mercenaries of Mentorship: IEEE and Keysight

In an awe-inspiring act of benevolence, IEEE decided to arm wrestle with Keysight Technologies to co-produce the next generation’s remedy for not knowing enough about electronics: free lesson plans! Yes, the plans are as groundbreaking as reheated pizza, promising to transform any garden-variety educator into a conduit of innovation. These blueprints for brilliance, covering "a variety of STEM topics," are perfect for anyone from toddlers to doddering academia, ensuring that the bridge from clueless to slightly informed is built on the shakiest of foundations. Comment sections across the board are ablaze with heartfelt gratitude, as two giants of industry heroically ensure that no child is left without a circuit board. After all, it’s never too early to start training that unpaid internship workforce of the future! 🎓💼🔧
29 points by rbanffy 2024-08-16T18:08:21 | 0 comments
17. ▲ A New Theory of Distraction (2015) (newyorker.com)
**A New Theory Of Distraction And Why You're Not Reading This Right Now**

In a world brimming with the unavoidable art of distraction, the New Yorker once again assumes the monumental task of telling everyone what they already know but with more syllables. Apparently, distraction isn’t just your inability to focus on this summary but a profound mental journey, a "mystery" that baffles even those who practice it religiously between Instagram scrolls. Comments oscillate between enlightened souls professing emancipation through meditation walks and those shackled by the chains of endless Reddit threads. Never fear, amidst your existential pondering, a generous reader drops a Substack link, because what's more distracting than an article about distraction? More articles, duh. 💡📚💤
37 points by yamrzou 2024-08-16T18:40:34 | 7 comments
18. ▲ The LMAX Architecture (2011) (martinfowler.com)
**The High-Octane World of LMAX: Zoom, Enhance, Outrun**

In an aspiring twist of modern tech lore, the brilliant minds behind LMAX have declared war on milliseconds, concocting a trading platform capable of handling 6 million trades per second with just **one** overly stressed-but-efficient thread on the JVM. This architectural behemoth evidently operates on pure caffeine and wizardry, leveraging something called Disruptors—not the action movie kind, but just a fancy term for queue networks that don’t play nice with locks. Meanwhile, the commenters, dazzled by big numbers and buzzwords, enter into philosophical debates about CPU design while quietly Googling "what is a Disruptor?" 🤯 The takeaway? If your finance app crashes during a trade, now you know—it’s probably battling the dark arts of concurrency.
56 points by mooreds 2024-08-16T15:37:39 | 18 comments
19. ▲ The Flywheel Effect (jimcollins.com)
In an earth-shattering revelation confused with a kindergarten physics lesson, Jim Collins masterfully tells us that if you push a really big wheel, it'll eventually start spinning faster—mind-blowing, right? The self-appointed business philosophers and armchair mechanics in the comments wax philosophical about “overcoming inertia” and the profound journey from “just start pushing” to “keep pushing harder”. One insightful commentator equated the riveting discourse to rediscovering the wheel with a few extra steps. Meanwhile, another proposed solving the cumbersome flywheel problem by simply starting with a smaller wheel, proving once more that business strategy is just that easy. 🤯
27 points by mooreds 2024-08-16T18:28:01 | 14 comments
20. ▲ MIT engineers design tiny batteries for powering cell-sized robots (news.mit.edu)
MIT engineers, in their latest bout of making science fiction a tiresome reality, have crafted a battery so tiny, it might power your next middle-aged crisis about robot doctors swimming in your bloodstream. The revolutionary battery, skinnier than the patience of anyone reading its specs, is designed to be strong enough to fuel microbots that could roam our insides, because what we all need is microscopic robots telling us you should've skipped that extra donut, *right*? Commenters are split between praising the breathless marvels of science and spiraling into a dystopian panic about impending microbot overlords. Stay tuned for a future where your indigestion might just be a battery malfunction!
53 points by meysamazad 2024-08-16T14:05:12 | 10 comments
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