I’ve been lightly using Github Copilot in a personal capacity for almost a year, and I’m probably going to get to use it on work projects in the near future. I thought I’d take a moment to collect my thoughts on where I’ve found any value in using it, as well as acknowledge some … | Continue reading
It’s hard to think of a more dramatic way to make an entrance than falling from the sky. While it certainly happens often enough on the silver screen, whether or not it can be done in real life is a tantalizing challenge for our entertainment robotics team at Disney Research. Fal … | Continue reading
"The point is that we want to use all of the biobased material that we can." Researchers work to develop revolutionary wood technology with far-reaching implications for construction industry: 'To replace carbon-intensive materials like concrete and steel' first appeared on The C … | Continue reading
This is an interesting security feature, intentional or otherwise! A financial account I hold has a phone app that—among other things—generates login codes for the desktop web portal. You log into the mobile app, generate the one-time code, then use this to log into the desktop. … | Continue reading
I’ve said somewhere that I have 100s (like upper 300s) of tabs on my phone browser, waiting for me to revisit them or declare tab bankruptcy. You know what I’d love? The ability to attach a little note to these tabs because WHERE THE HECK DID I SEE THIS? (Yes, I could make even m … | Continue reading
Today’s baking project was the rosemary focaccia recipe from America’s Test Kitchen. 🍞 Results were poor. I learned not to use yeast too far past its best-by date, and also to use the specific all-purpose gluten-free flour blend ATK specifies, or else. | Continue reading
Just a quick post introducing Ben Werdmuller’s ShareOpenly tool, and showing how I added it to my site. I saw Ben post about this on Bluesky, read his great intro article about it, and decided I wanted to add it to my site. I’m planning to use it in a few places, so I started by … | Continue reading
"We wanted to do everything we could to help after the fire happened." Conservationists use unlikely helpers to save iconic Joshua trees from extinction: 'Absurdity plus practicality' first appeared on The Cool Down. | Continue reading
Ray-Ban smart glasses will now use Meta AI virtual assistant software so that wearers can speak with their smart glasses and ask questions about what they're looking at. | Continue reading
In our top stories this week, reporter Passant Rabie describes in in-development rocket engine that NASA could eventually use to reach Mars in two months. Reporter Isaac Schultz details the severe geomagnetic storm warning and a new fusion breakthrough, while health reporter Ed C … | Continue reading
You don't need a large network to make a Content Caching server worthwhile. If you've 100 GB or more to spare on an external disk, and a Mac that's running when others are, give it a try. It's simple to set up and use. | Continue reading
Amazon is the number one player in the e-reader sector, and one of their most popular programs is Send to Kindle. It allows people to download a program or use their email client to send ebooks from a PC/MAC directly to their e-reader. Amazon only supports a small handful of supp … | Continue reading
Nature’s Oldest Mandolin: The Poetic Science of How Cicadas Sing – The Marginalian “The use of music,” Richard Powers wrote, “is to remind us how short a time we have a body” — a truth nowhere more bittersweet than in the creature whose body is the oldest unchanged musical instru … | Continue reading
Some squids are “consorts,” others are “sneakers.” The species is healthiest when individuals have different strategies randomly. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered. Read my blog posting guidelines here … | Continue reading
Americans burn much less fossil fuel in their homes on average and use much more electricity compared to half a century ago. This good news means that even though the “Electrify Everything” movement became a leading decarbonization strategy a decade or so ago, American homes had … | Continue reading
If scuba divers use inflatable BCDs (buoyancy control devices), why don't underwater robots? Well, an experimental new one does, and the technology is claimed to be much more energy-efficient than traditional methods of moving up and down in the water. Continue Reading Category: … | Continue reading
This will be my third ColdFusion post in the past year. I'm not saying I'm going to continue the trend, but as I find interesting use cases, I'm going to share. Today, that involves the tag that I recently had a chance to play with. About two weeks ago, an old client of mine rea … | Continue reading
Exploit code for critical "use-after-free" bug is circulating in the wild. | Continue reading
uv pip install --exclude-newer example A neat new feature of the uv pip install command is the --exclude-newer option, which can be used to avoid installing any package versions released after the specified date. Here's a clever example of that in use from the typing_extensions p … | Continue reading
A bombshell report from WIRED reveals that two days after the U.S. Congress renewed and expanded the mass-surveillance authority Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Paul Abbate, sent an email … | Continue reading
Whether authors will admit it or not, some of us use personal experiences as inspiration for our writing. In the case of my latest psychological thriller The Alone Time, I drew inspiration from a plane crash that I survived when I was a child. The influence of my experience can b … | Continue reading
For years, Shadow Robot Company’s Shadow Hand has arguably been the gold standard for robotic manipulation. Beautiful and expensive, it is able to mimic the form factor and functionality of human hands, which has made it ideal for complex tasks. I’ve personally experienced how am … | Continue reading
Buckle in, this is a longer post based on a couple of very interesting iPad-related conversations I’ve had recently. It begins with an email from Justin Harter, who is a graphic designer, teacher and writer. We had an enjoyable exchange largely focused on our workflows for image … | Continue reading
[UPDATE May 10, 4:00 pm Boston Time, 10:00 pm EU time: AURORAS MAY BE ACTIVE NOW!] I don’t use exclamation marks in blog post titles lightly. For those of us hoping to see the northern and southern lights (auroras) outside their usual habitat near the Earth’s poles, this is one o … | Continue reading
The EU’s objectives are ambitious: The total solar energy deployment is to reach around 750 gigawatts by 2030. In this context, dual land use concepts, especially agricultural PV, are gaining importance. At Intersolar Europe, the world’s leading exhibition for the solar industry, … | Continue reading
"Just one embarrassment after another." Resident calls out government's ad campaign targeting clean energy: 'A disgraceful use of our tax dollars' first appeared on The Cool Down. | Continue reading
The Sun is a hot mess right now. Solar maximum is fast approaching, and a giant dark spot on the surface of the Sun keeps growing while spewing radiation out to space in the process. Read more... | Continue reading
We’re all familiar with the idea of the web, the www, the global network we pretty much all use daily. When we say “the web” we mean the whole thing, from the biggest of social platforms to the smallest of personal blogs. The web is cluttered, minimalistic, loud, and also quiet. … | Continue reading
We get 24 hours in a day. How do we spend this time? How does our time use change as we get older and priorities shift? Tags: age, time use | Continue reading
Jennie Young nails it in this delightful little bit of satire about the misuse of learning outcomes in education, Forget the Magic of Discovery, It’s Learning Outcomes That Help Children Identify, Comprehend, and Synthesize Their Dreams. Learning outcomes do have their uses. They … | Continue reading
Simon Willison has a perfect name for unreviewed content that is shared with other people: "slop". He goes on: "I’m happy to use LLMs for all sorts of purposes, but I’m not going to use them to produce slop. I attach my name and stake my credibility on the things that I publish." … | Continue reading
Find Gen AI insights, metrics, and use cases faster using Feedly AI | Continue reading
While I don’t think the new iPad release is compelling I also agree with Lou Don’t let anyone else tell you how you should feel or use your personal technology. Use what works for you. Enjoy it without shame. This goes for anything you enjoy that’s not harmful to others. Enjoy th … | Continue reading
The perfect word to describe thoughtless, rude use of AI has emerged. Let’s hope it sticks… | Continue reading
"I could use chemicals as a last resort, but obviously I don't want to." Homeowner seeks advice on low-effort solution to control overgrown grass: 'How would you take care of that?' first appeared on The Cool Down. | Continue reading
In January 2024, the European Commission published a White Paper on options for enhancing support for research and development involving technologies with dual-use potential. In response to the Commission’s public consultation on the White Paper, the European University Associati … | Continue reading
Do you use Python in an academic setting? Maybe you run a research lab or teach courses using Python. Maybe you're even a student using Python. Whichever it is, you'll find a ton of great advice in this episode. I talk with Keiland Cooper about how he is using Python at his neuro … | Continue reading
Note that this is a copy of the announcement on GitHub. [!NOTE] TL;DR: Maintenance of oapi-codegen is largely done for free, on the maintainers' personal time. We'd like to move to a more sustainable model by getting companies who use us to sponsor us. At this time, Jamie, one of … | Continue reading
The technology is about to be put to use for the first time in a commercial setting, at one of the largest cement plants in the western United States. Startup develops technology to produce cleaner cement at commercial scale — here's how it could revolutionize construction indust … | Continue reading
TL;DR: There's special behaviour if you use the each parameter name when defining an after handler, but the way this works and the way you should invoke it has changed. Adding custom logic to your CAP services is easy, and you can register event handlers with the before, on and a … | Continue reading
One day, during one of those meetings that did not require my full attention, I was doing some work in the background. I muted my microphone, and I was coding away[1]. Suddenly, someone asked me a question. "Now, where is that goddamn Teams window so I can unmute my microphone?!" … | Continue reading
I haven’t changed my desktop manager for over a decade now, but I change wallpapers from time to time. Awesomewm is still my main window manager, with one terminal, and tmux only. As I wrote before, I mainly use only a couple of tags like this: Terminal Librewolf Signal Darktable … | Continue reading
"Users who disagree with having their content scraped by ChatGPT are particularly outraged by Stack Overflow's rapid flip-flop on its policy concerning generative AI. For years, the site had a standing policy that prevented the use of generative AI in writing or rewording any que … | Continue reading
We’re in love! READ MORE... | Continue reading
If you use Ubuntu 22.04 LTS or later and want to access the Google Gemini AI chatbot straight from your desktop outside of a web browser, you’re in luck! The Gemini AI ChatBot GNOME Shell extension (unaffiliated with Google; it’s not an official thing) gives you immediate access … | Continue reading
Skip deep frying and use your air fryer for easy, juicy katsu-style chicken encased in crunchy panko bread crumbs in under an hour. | Continue reading
In the latest Upgrade Jason Snell’s just a broken record repeating his own nonsense at this point. His big storyline is the M4 iPad Pro is too expensive, too powerful for iPadOS. He wants to know what its use case is, who is it for? But, now, wait, wait, wait. Wait. Thirteen mont … | Continue reading
Bricks made partially of discarded glass and recycling-waste ash have been shown to insulate better than regular bricks, while also requiring less energy to produce. And of course, they additionally use materials which would otherwise end up in landfills. Continue Reading Categor … | Continue reading