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1. Scandal in the Diablo Speedrunning Community – Cheating Exposed Through Random Number Generator Analysis
INFO: A team of researchers set out to verify the record-breaking Diablo speedrun by Maciej "Groobo" Maselewski by analyzing 2.2 billion possible dungeon generations. Their findings revealed that key elements of his gameplay, including a fortunate placement of passages and the rare item Naj’s Puzzler, were impossible to obtain in any legitimate game instance. The evidence points to gameplay manipulation.
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2. How Does Context Switching Affect Developers' Productivity?
INFO: You're working on one task, then briefly switch to another, reply to a colleague, and return to your original task. Sounds familiar? As you might guess, this doesn’t boost your productivity. But maybe you’re not aiming for productivity at work. Frequent context-switching can harm you in other ways, too. In this article, you'll also learn why you need deep work blocks.
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3. How Did Vim Survive After Bram Moolenaar’s Passing?
INFO: After the death of Vim’s creator in 2023, the Vim community faced the challenge of keeping the project alive. Christian Brabandt, a co-author, became one of the main maintainers. Despite numerous obstacles, such as taking over the infrastructure and the lack of documented procedures, the team managed to organize their work, release Vim 9.1, and keep development active on GitHub. It is an interesting read on what can happen to widely used software when its creator doesn’t fully address formalities before their passing.
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4. Let’s Automate YouTube Thumbnail Swaps! – An Interesting Experiment (6-Min Video)
INFO: The creator set out to make one of his channel’s videos feature a dynamic thumbnail. It updates automatically at set intervals. While the idea might sound simple, the process is full of unexpected challenges. This video explores the obstacles faced while implementing this automation and sheds some light on the limitations of the YouTube API.
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5. Build Your Offensive Testing Lab – Step-by-Step
INFO: Want to learn how to attack IT services and infrastructure? First, you need something to attack, and setting up a proper lab can take time. The creator demonstrates how to deploy the necessary services using a compact computer with Ludus installed. In this controlled environment, you can monitor network traffic, scan ports, run security scanners, and experiment with exploits or malware.
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6. SQL Noir – Learn SQL by Solving Crime Mysteries (Game!)
INFO: A simple game (currently just four levels) where you solve criminal cases by querying the right data using SQL. Each stage provides a case description, a query tool, a data schema (including a visual representation), and a notepad for your notes.
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7. How Has Technology Evolved? – From 1500 to Today
INFO: This interactive exhibit showcases how technology has changed across various fields of life, from telephones and computers to data storage, algorithms, medicine, and military advancements. This expansive graphic lets you scroll horizontally and zoom in using the buttons at the bottom of your scroll wheel.
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8. How to Add a Directory to the PATH Variable in Different Shells
INFO: Adding a directory to the PATH variable is essential if you want to run programs without specifying their full path. However, the process differs depending on the shell you’re using. This article will show you how to do it in your shell.
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9. A Year with UV – Is It Worth Migrating to This Python Package Manager?
INFO: Over a year ago, a developer switched from traditional package management with PIP to UV, a frequently praised new solution. What are his thoughts after a year? Was the switch a good decision? What drawbacks did he discover, and what makes UV’s innovation noteworthy? Find out in this article.
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10. Build an AI Supercomputer with 5 Macs (35m Video)
INFO: Is running powerful AI models like Llama 3.1 405B on regular consumer hardware possible? In theory, if we combine multiple smaller computers into a cluster. It turns out that "multiple" doesn’t mean as many as you might think—you only need five new Macs to make it happen. But how do you get five separate computers to work as one? Find out in the video.
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11. Essential Command Line Tools for Developers
INFO: A list of CLI and TUI tools that can significantly boost developers' productivity. This includes solutions for managing Kubernetes, such as k9s, ktop, and kubectx, and Docker tools like lazydocker and dive. The article also covers data processing and project management tools, like jq, ripgrep, and lazygit. There’s quite a bit to explore, so chances are you’ll find some helpful software you didn’t know about.
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12. The History of the S.u.S.E. Linux Distribution
INFO: In 1992, four students from Germany decided to create their own company focused on localizing and distributing Linux-based systems. Initially, they concentrated on translating Slackware, but later introduced an innovative package-building system named AutoBuild. S.u.S.E. (later known as SUSE) quickly evolved, transitioning to the RPM package manager and becoming one of the most important Linux distributions.
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13. How Do Browsers Load Websites? (36m Video)
INFO: Loading a website is not just typing a URL and hitting enter. It’s a more complex process. What happens under the hood in the browser? What are preload and preconnect, how do resource loading priorities work, and what about page rendering? Learn all this and more from the lecture video.
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14. SecTube – Recordings from Numerous Cybersecurity Conferences
INFO: It's like a YouTube platform, but exclusively featuring features of security-related events. A large collection of videos is available. It’s recommended to browse by category to find content aligning with your interests easily.
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15. Internet Archive – Rapid Growth of Resources and Challenges in Maintaining Them
INFO: This is a Twitter/X thread detailing the development of the Internet Archive from 1996 to today. It shows how quickly the archive size has increased (around 10 petabytes of new data per year). How much material is added daily? Who manages all of this? What increases storage costs? It is a long but fascinating read from an individual involved in the project.
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16. Subtrace – Wireshark for Docker Containers
INFO: This tool allows you to monitor all incoming and outgoing requests in Docker containers without modifying the application code. It supports any programming language and provides detailed information such as full request content, headers, status codes, and delays, with minimal performance overhead. Subtrace is open-source software but currently does not accept external pull requests.
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17. How Does the Internet Work on Linux? – Step by Step
INFO: I know the internet "just works" in modern systems. One command (or sometimes none) and you’re connected. But what happens under the hood? How does it work, and what exactly do all these automations configure? This article will walk you through manual network setup, without any helpers. You’ll probably never need this in real life, but it will give you a deep understanding of how networking works on Linux.
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18. State of React 2024 – Survey Results
INFO: The annual summary of the changes in the react ecosystem has been released. What features are developers using? What external tools and libraries are they relying on, and how do they continue to expand their knowledge? You’ll find answers to these and many other questions in the report.
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19. Cybercrime and Cyberwarfare Converging? – A Report from Google
INFO: The report highlights how cyber crime often blends with the activities of states supporting cyberattacks, which can have consequences for national security and the lives of citizens. These two areas were separate in the past but have merged nowadays. The report also explains why hospitals have become targets for cyberattacks, how these attacks are financed, and how defenses could be improved against such threats.
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20. Cell-based Architecture – What It Is and How It Works (Using Zombies as an Example)
INFO: Cell-based architecture is a distributed model in which the system is divided into smaller units (cells), each managing its data and logic. The concept may not be immediately obvious, but the author devised an analogy using a city defending itself from a zombie apocalypse. Instead of a single large fortress, the city comprises isolated neighborhoods (cells), which operate independently to limit the impact of any potential infection. Decentralization and service isolation increase IT systems' resilience to failures, improve performance, and simplify scaling.
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21. Cheap Smartwatches Without Security? – How Easy It Is to Take Their Data
INFO: The author analyzed how cheap smartwatches, based on the VeryFit app, work and discovered that their security systems are virtually non-existent—there is no authentication, allowing anyone to download data from the device. Unfortunately, firmware updates do not fix the issue. Interestingly, there are also child-friendly versions of these smartwatches, from which all data leaks.
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22. How to Turn a Cheap Keyboard Into a Hybrid with a Built-In Screen? (12m Video)
INFO: An experimental modification of a mechanical keyboard, where a screen is embedded into its (3D-printed) case. The author walks through the entire process, from design to the final device. It’s worth checking out other videos on this channel too, where you’ll find presentations of interesting gadgets (not "DIY" projects) that can enhance or make your work more enjoyable.
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23. Grok 3 – Elon Musk's New AI King? (4m Video)
INFO: The third version of the language model called Grok was released, and it’s caused quite a stir in the statistics of popular LLMs. It looks like there’s a new, powerful player in the market that (at least according to popular tests) surpasses the competition. Grok is interesting not only because of its test results but also because... it lacks political correctness. In short, it delivers what it knows and generates images that no other popular solution would dare to create.
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24. CVE-2024-4367 – Vulnerability Allowing Arbitrary JavaScript Execution in PDF.js
INFO: Codean Labs discovered a vulnerability that allows the execution of JavaScript code when opening a malicious PDF file through PDF.js. This library is commonly used in Firefox and Electron-based PDF viewing applications. Interestingly, the vulnerability is related to improper font processing.
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25. YouTube Email Leak – Bug Bounty for $10k
INFO: A researcher exploited a vulnerability in YouTube's user-blocking system to obtain Google identifiers (Gaia IDs) for any account on the platform. Then, through a flaw in the Pixel Recorder service, these identifiers were linked to actual user email addresses. The article explains the details of this bug.
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26. Deep Research Now Available in Perplexity
INFO: Like other SaaS LLM providers, the Perplexity platform has implemented its version of "Deep Research," similar to what is offered in OpenAI PRO. Interestingly, the new feature is available without additional charges, just like any other model on the platform. Under the hood, it uses DeepSeek. I've been using it since its release, and it handles the topics I'm interested in quite well.
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27. PgAssistant - Open-Source Tool for PostgreSQL Optimization
INFO: PgAssistant is a free tool that helps developers analyze and optimize the performance of PostgreSQL databases. It offers features like behavior analysis, schema optimization, SQL code linting, and integration with LLMs (e.g., OpenAI) for analyzing and improving SQL queries. Additionally, it allows easy management of an SQL query library in JSON format and supports configuring databases in Docker environments.
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28. WGER - Open-Source App for Managing Workouts and Diets
INFO: If you want to track your progress with workouts and diets without paying large corporations and prefer self-hosted solutions, this app is for you. You can install it on your server. Mobile apps for Android and iOS are also available.
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