News Nug
EA just open sourced Command & Conquer, Red Alert, Renegade and Generals

Published: 2025-02-27 | Origin: /r/programming

EA has officially open-sourced several classic games from the Command & Conquer series, including Command & Conquer, Red Alert, Command & Conquer Renegade, and Command & Conquer Generals (including Zero Hour). This move encourages community engagement and potential improvements, with the code released under the GPLv3 license, though it comes with additional terms that restrict the use of trademarks. In conjunction with this, EA has introduced Steam Workshop support for these titles and shared rare gameplay footage from early

Charity Majors on Technical Blogging

Published: 2025-02-27 | Origin: /r/programming

The content features Charity Majors, co-founder and CTO of Honeycomb, as part of a series on expert tech bloggers discussing their writing experiences. Charity, known for her bold and insightful contributions to writing, began her blogging journey during a significant transition after leaving Facebook. She expresses pride in her decade-long body of work, with a personal goal of publishing a longform piece each month, acknowledging her growth in mental health, empathy, and reflective thinking through writing. She views writing as a means to critically

How to classify Malaria Cells using Convolutional neural network

Published: 2025-02-27 | Origin: /r/programming

This tutorial provides a comprehensive guide for implementing and training a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model to classify malaria cells using TensorFlow and Keras. Key areas covered include: 1. **Data Preparation**: Downloading the dataset, preparing the data, splitting it into training and testing sets, and applying data augmentation as needed. 2. **CNN Model Building and Training**: Constructing a CNN model tailored for binary classification of malaria cells, including customization of the model and training it with

Whither Open Source?

Published: 2025-02-27 | Origin: /r/programming

Zeke Gabrielse, the Founder of Keygen, discusses the rise of commercial open source software (COSS) among venture-backed startups, noting its benefits in leveraging open source distribution models and fostering communities for product-led growth. However, he highlights a serious downside: the necessity for companies to misrepresent their intentions to succeed with this model. Gabrielse critiques the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL), asserting that it is often misused to limit user freedom and create legal barriers against competition

Turning a Bluetooth device into an Apple AirTag without root privileges

Published: 2025-02-27 | Origin: Hacker News

A new vulnerability allows remote attackers to exploit Apple’s Find My network, turning devices like desktops, smartphones, and smartwatches into trackers similar to AirTags. This method, known as nRootTag, can track Bluetooth devices without needing root privileges and has a success rate exceeding 90% within minutes, costing only a few dollars. It poses significant risks to user privacy by effectively tracking various systems, including Linux, Windows, and Android devices. The evaluation shows that nRootTag is efficient and effective

Nix and Containers: Why Not Both?

Published: 2025-02-27 | Origin: /r/programming

The article discusses how Nix and containers complement each other in software development, countering the notion that containers alone address all related issues. Nix provides a scalable and reliable way to create deterministic and reproducible Open Container Initiative (OCI) images, which can be deployed using various compatible tools. While containers focus on deploying software in isolated environments efficiently, Nix specializes in the packaging and building of that software beforehand. This distinction is crucial, as containers serve as transportation units for software, whereas Nix manages

A One-Time User Is a Failed Experiment: Why Engineers Should Care About Product-Market Fit

Published: 2025-02-27 | Origin: /r/programming

The content emphasizes the importance of ensuring that a product, regardless of its design and scalability, is actually used and valued by users. This is a challenge not only in business and product management but also within engineering. To avoid wasted efforts, teams must measure user adoption and iteratively improve the product. The concept of Product-Market Fit (PMF) is central to this discussion, indicating when a product resonates with the market, demonstrated by user engagement, retention, organic growth, low churn rates,

Code, Sweat, and Tears: Why Imposter Syndrome Never Really Leaves Developers

Published: 2025-02-27 | Origin: /r/programming

The author, Terrance Craddock, reflects on the challenges of programming, sharing a personal anecdote about spending three days troubleshooting a missing semicolon. Despite being praised as a "coding wizard" by his team, he feels like an imposter, highlighting a common insecurity among programmers: the better they become, the more they doubt their abilities. Learning to code is likened to assembling IKEA furniture blindfolded, with confusing tools and complex concepts. Craddock also mentions the creation of the

DualPipe: Bidirectional pipeline parallelism algorithm

Published: 2025-02-27 | Origin: Hacker News

The content discusses the DualPipe algorithm, a bidirectional pipeline parallelism technique introduced in the DeepSeek-V3 Technical Report. This algorithm facilitates full overlap of forward and backward computation-communication phases while minimizing pipeline inefficiencies. It includes a scheduling example for 8 PP ranks and 20 micro-batches, illustrating how forward and backward processes can overlap. The execution times for various chunks are denoted by specific symbols (F, B, W, F&B). Additionally, it's noted that for practical applications

Let's Implement Consistent Hashing From Scratch

Published: 2025-02-27 | Origin: /r/programming

The author shares their experience of developing a consistent hashing system, explaining that consistent hashing is a key distribution technique that allows for efficient mapping of keys to servers while minimizing data movement during the addition or removal of nodes. Unlike traditional hashing methods, consistent hashing reduces the impact of these changes by using a circular hash space, where both servers and keys are mapped, and requests are directed to the closest server in a clockwise manner. The author highlights several use cases for consistent hashing, including load balancing to evenly distribute requests

Geometric Algebra

Published: 2025-02-26 | Origin: Hacker News

The content discusses Clifford's Geometric Algebra, which provides a comprehensive framework for understanding vector spaces of varying dimensions. Key concepts include: 1. **Vectors**: Defined as one-dimensional oriented quantities, where two parallel vectors multiply to form a scalar, while perpendicular vectors anti-commute. 2. **Bivectors**: Represent two-dimensional oriented quantities that naturally depict transformations, with n vectors combining to form n-vectors. 3. **Algebra Construction**: The n-dimensional geometric algebra \

iMac G4(K)

Published: 2025-02-26 | Origin: Hacker News

The author previously used an M1 iMac for work but found its 21" screen too large for their desk. Inspired by a video on Action Retro, they decided to replace the logic board of a 17" or 20" iMac G4 with a Juicy Crumb DockLite G4, allowing the built-in LCD to function as an HDMI monitor. The setup utilizes the iMac's custom power supply and includes an audio amplifier for Apple Pro speakers. After ordering the Dock

Dixon's Algorithm: Asymptotically Fast Factorization of Integers

Published: 2025-02-26 | Origin: /r/programming

LeetArxiv is a publication that encourages reader support through subscriptions. The article discusses a fast integer factorization algorithm invented by John D. Dixon in 1981, outlined in his paper "Asymptotically Fast Factorization of Integers." The author plans to code Dixon's algorithm in C and provide a step-by-step guide, recommending that readers follow along with the original paper, which is concise at only six pages. Dixon's algorithm is historically significant as it was the first integer

Affixes: The Building Blocks of English

Published: 2025-02-26 | Origin: Hacker News

The content describes a dictionary that includes over 1,250 entries and around 10,000 examples, all defined and explained. It is based on the book "Ologies and Isms: Word Beginnings and Endings," published by Oxford University Press in 2002 and made available for free after going out of print in 2008. The site is currently being updated, with more information available on the Site updates page. It is authored by Michael Quinion, and comments from users

Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam

Published: 2025-02-26 | Origin: Hacker News

The content appears to be a discussion about the development and launch of a game called "Ballionaire." Here’s a summarized version of the key points: 1. **Publishing Deal Insights**: The decision to sign a publishing deal can vary based on developer circumstances. The author outlines four reasons for their choice: (1) the need for a partner to navigate unknown challenges, (2) financial security through an advance, (3) assistance in finding a talented artist, and (4) the advantages

Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships

Published: 2025-02-26 | Origin: Hacker News

High-temperature superconductors (HTS) are poised to revolutionize fusion energy, potentially allowing for Q > 1—where output power exceeds input power—within three years. Achieving breakeven is just the beginning; making fusion reactors cost-competitive is a bigger challenge. Instead of targeting traditional electricity grids, the focus is shifting to large commercial and military ships because the shipping industry is eager to decarbonize. Current alternatives like hydrogen and ammonia face significant downsides, while fusion offers a

htmldocs – LaTeX alternative for building PDFs with React and Tailwind

Published: 2025-02-26 | Origin: /r/programming

htmldocs is a modern tool for generating PDF documents, designed to improve the document creation process compared to outdated methods like Word or LaTeX. Built with React, TypeScript, and Tailwind, it offers a local document editor and preview server, allowing users to create templates for various document types (like invoices and reports) using familiar web technologies. Users can easily modify documents by passing different props to JSX components. htmldocs utilizes Chromium’s rendering engine and the Paged.js library

Nuclear Reactor Lasers: From fission to photon

Published: 2025-02-26 | Origin: Hacker News

The post discusses the advantages and disadvantages of reactor lasers compared to MHD generators and diode lasers. While reactor lasers can provide high efficiency and robust designs, their complexity and the need for high operating temperatures are seen as drawbacks. The author poses questions about the performance of fusion reactors as pump sources and the potential of gas dynamic lasers, noting that while theoretically promising, their practical efficiency is low. Additionally, the post mentions concerns about the susceptibility of laser systems to enemy interference due to optics and mirrors being bi-direction

Inverse Symbolic Calculator – Turning Approximations into Exact Formulas

Published: 2025-02-26 | Origin: /r/programming

The content appears to reference a work based on RIES by Robert Munafo and indicates that the website was created by Thomas Ahle, with an option for editing available on Github.

Show HN: I made a website where you can create your own "Life in Weeks" timeline

Published: 2025-02-26 | Origin: Hacker News

The content introduces a tool for creating a life map that visualizes one's life in weekly boxes, inspired by Tim Urban's blog post "Your Life in Weeks." This visualization emphasizes the finite nature of life and allows individuals to track significant life events, see progress, and share their life stories with others. The app enables users to document their life's journey by color-coding various life stages, highlighting important memories, and providing detailed notes for each period. Users can also auto-add birthdays and significant world events to