Category Archives: News

Shared items and notes from my feeds and browsing. Subscribe as feed.

Dystopian tales of that time when I sold out to Google

Source: Hacker News

Article note: The rustled bro-jimmies in the HN thread are pretty funny.
Comments
Posted in News | Leave a comment

Switch 2 rooted on day 1

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Shown exploit isn't root (or even arbitrary code execution), but they did cobble a little drawing-a-user-controlled-graphic PoC by doing ROP in the userspace... less than 5 hours after release.
Comments
Posted in News | Leave a comment

New book uncovers radical networks that existed before the internet

Source: Boing Boing

Article note: I'm so excited for this to drop. Reading Writing Interfaces was delightful, I've read (and once or twice left notes on) her Internet postings preparing this one, and the content is right up my alley.
Other Networks: A Radical Technology Sourcebook by Lori Emerson

Other Networks: A Radical Technology Sourcebook, by Lori Emerson, is a new book that looks at alternative communication systems that existed outside mainstream channels. The illustrated book has examples like messages bounced off the moon's surface and telegraph signals sent through barbed wire telegraph. — Read the rest

The post New book uncovers radical networks that existed before the internet appeared first on Boing Boing.

Posted in News | Leave a comment

Endangered classic Mac plastic color returns as 3D-printer filament

Source: Ars Technica

Article note: Neat! There's a substantial demand for small-volume retro replacement parts that 3D printing is perfect for, nice to see us being served. ...I wonder how it looks with RAL 7044 that people sometimes use as a paint match.
Comments
Posted in News | Leave a comment

The IRS Tax Filing Software TurboTax Is Trying to Kill Just Got Open Sourced

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Interesting. I wonder if it will result in something long-term useful.
Comments
Posted in News | Leave a comment

Ask HN: Options for One-Handed Typing

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Interesting discussion, I'm always fascinated by input devices, some of the old options are no longer commercially available, and there are a couple more recent ones and easier DIY options.
Comments
Posted in News | Leave a comment

New Guide! USB Chording Keyset #3D Printing #AdafruitLearningSystem

Source: adafruit industries blog

Article note: Sweet! someone built a clone of the style of chorder used on the Engelbart SRI machines and the Alto. I've been thinking about doing it for funsies, but never decide to do so since it's historically interesting but not actually ...good.

Build a chording keyset inspired by the Xerox Alto

Learn Guide: USB Keyset

This is a take on a custom input device inspired by the original keyset from the 1960’s that never quiet caught on. This 5-finger keyset lets you type without moving your hand, entering full words and phrases by pressing multiple keys simultaneously as a chord.

Content Summary:
– The guide provides instructions on building a custom USB HID device that functions as a chording keyset, allowing users to type words and phrases by pressing multiple keys simultaneously.
– It includes a step-by-step process for assembling the 3D printed chording keyset, wiring the components, and programming the Adafruit QT Py RP2040 with CircuitPython to create the USB keyset.

Adafruit Products Summary:
– The project is powered by the **Adafruit QT Py RP2040**, a small and powerful board based on the RP2040 chip: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4900
– A **USB-C Cable** is used to connect the USB keyset to a computer or USB hub: https://www.adafruit.com/product/6278

Read more at USB Keyset


649-1
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Feather or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!



Posted in News | Leave a comment

Ransomware attack on MATLAB dev MathWorks – licensing center still locked down

Source: The Register

Article note: And this, children, is the classic argument for why you avoid dependency on anything cloud based or with an online licensing scheme.

Commercial customers, STEM students all feeling the pain after mega outage of engineering data-analysis tool

Software biz MathWorks is cleaning up a ransomware attack more than a week after it took down MATLAB, its flagship product used by more than five million people worldwide.…

Posted in News | Leave a comment

Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

Source: Hacker News

Article note: This neatly hits two important points that a lot of AI discourse has trouble with, quoting: 1. "there’s a big difference between getting something explained to you, and actual learning. You might feel like you are learning when querying a chatbot, but those intellectual gains are often illusory." 2. "AI severs the connection between an output, like an essay, and the real learning, thinking, and practice creating that output usually requires. There’s now no way to be sure that a student who turns in a good essay actually has a grasp on the material that assignment was supposed to push them toward understanding. Thus, AI lets students skip the “desirable difficulties” that produce real learning. The temptation to skip these difficulties is powerful enough that even very engaged students, students who understand the value of “desirable difficulty,” will use AI for the sake of their GPA, their time, and their stress levels."
Comments
Posted in News | Leave a comment

College Board keeps apologizing for screwing up digital SAT and AP tests

Source: Ars Technica

Article note: Ed Tech is always such a shitshow. The customers aren't the users, the vendors DGAF because they're mostly compulsory and/or monopolies, the vendors are usually run by carpetbaggers, the sites aren't generally well equipped for the correlated load for this kind of testing, everyone up and down the chain believes in weird security theater woo...

Don't worry about the "mission-driven not-for-profit" College Board—it's drowning in cash. The US group, which administers the SAT and AP tests to college-bound students, paid its CEO $2.38 million in total compensation in 2023 (the most recent year data is available). The senior VP in charge of AP programs made $694,662 in total compensation, while the senior VP for Technology Strategy made $765,267 in total compensation.

Given such eye-popping numbers, one would have expected the College Board's transition to digital exams to go smoothly, but it continues to have issues.

Just last week, the group's AP Psychology exam was disrupted nationally when the required "Bluebook" testing app couldn't be accessed by many students. Because the College Board shifted to digital-only exams for 28 of its 36 AP courses beginning this year, no paper-based backup options were available. The only "solution" was to wait quietly in a freezing gymnasium, surrounded by a hundred other stressed-out students, to see if College Board could get its digital act together.

Read full article

Comments

Posted in News | Leave a comment