A Guide to Building Dependable Distributed Systems

Up for a potential fast-track vote next week in the House of Representatives, the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, also known as H.R. 9495, would grant the secretary of the Treasury Department unilateral authority to revoke the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit deemed to be a “terrorist supporting organization.” “It basically empowers the Treasury secretary to target any group it wants to call them a terror supporter and block their ability to be a nonprofit,” said Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council Action, which opposes the law. “So that would essentially kill any nonprofit’s ability to function. They couldn’t get banks to service them, they won’t be able to get donations, and there’d be a black mark on the organization, even if it cleared its name.”

Virologist Beata Halassy says self-treatment worked and was a positive experience — but researchers warn that it is not something others should try.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42095292

Campaign leadership installed when Joe Biden was running is facing fierce internal criticism. “I’m amazed that we even got close,” said one official close to the team.

Aidan Toner-Rodgers† MIT November 6, 2024 This paper studies the impact of artificial intelligence on innovation, exploiting the randomized introduction of a new materials discovery technology to 1,018 scientists in the R&D lab of a large U.S. firm. AI-assisted researchers discover 44% more materials, resulting in a 39% increase in patent filings and a 17% rise in downstream product in- novation. These compounds possess more novel chemical structures and lead to more radical inventions. However, the technology has strikingly disparate effects across the productivity distribution: while the bottom third of scientists see little benefit, the output of top researchers nearly doubles. Investigating the mechanisms behind these results, I show that AI automates 57% of “idea-generation” tasks, reallocating researchers to the new task of evaluating model-produced candidate materials. Top scientists leverage their domain knowledge to prioritize promising AI suggestions, while others waste significant resources testing false positives. Together, these findings demonstrate the potential of AI-augmented research and highlight the complemen- tarity between algorithms and expertise in the innovative process. Survey evidence reveals that these gains come at a cost, however, as 82% of scientists report reduced satisfaction with their work due to decreased creativity and skill underutilization.

via GitHub Public Timeline Feed https://ift.tt/EHbhjky

from Daring Fireball John Geleynse, Apple’s longtime head of developer evangelism, on LinkedIn: Doing anything for 25 years is a pretty big deal. Being a part of Apple for 25 years has been the privilege and experience of a lifetime. My last day at Apple was exactly a week ago today. I’d always dreamed of being a part of Apple but never imagined it would be a reality. The most productive and exciting years of my career have been with Apple, and I’ll be forever grateful for the opportunity to meet and work with thousands of creative and passionate developers, designers, and students worldwide. [...] There are no words to describe how grateful I am for the opportunity to work side-by-side with so many great people at Apple. Apple is an immensely special place — far greater than the sum of its parts. Together, we did a lot. I heard about Geleynse’s retirement through the grapevine a month or two ago. I was hoping he’d post something like this publicly, so I could link to it. It’s a lovely departing message. Turns out, in all the years I’ve been writing here, I’ve only mentioned Geleynse by name twice, and both times I was quoting what someone else had written. And those two posts were from 2007 and 2008 — a while ago, to say the least. That’s a shame, dare I say negligent on my part. In third-party developer circles, everyone knows John Geleynse. Most prominently, his role as co-host (with Shaan Pruden) and I think effectively co-chief of the Apple Design Awards. But the ADAs are a once-per-year award show. Year-round, year after year, platform after platform, Geleynse has been shaping, guiding, and defining what it means to be a third-party developer for Apple platforms. The point of winning an ADA isn’t to win an ADA; it’s to reward making a great app that moves the state of the art forward. That’s what Geleynse spent his career trying to do. He’s just incredibly well-liked and well-respected. But, like a typical “bleed six colors” Apple employee, I think Geleynse going all these years operating mostly behind the scenes, with his own name out of the story, taking no personal credit, is just the way he wanted it. He’s going to be missed, dearly — both inside Apple, and out.  ★ 

via @vapaad@wandering.shop boost of https://mspsocial.net/@bright_helpings/113435299378706993

LLM-powered multiagent persona simulation for imagination enhancement and business insights. - microsoft/TinyTroupe

OpenCoder is an open and reproducible code LLM family which matches the performance of Top-Tier Code LLM. We provide not just the final models, but also the reproducible training data, the complete data processing pipeline, rigorous experimental ablation results, and detailed training protocols for open scientific research.

President-elect Donald Trump has promised to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. He’s vowed to jail his political foes and journalists. A Republican-controlled government could further restrict abortion and transgender rights. via Pocket

Federal legislation needs to be simplified and improved, according to Liberal Democrats candidate Mark Guest, who is running for the seat of Parramatta.

CONSTRUCTION will soon start on a massive new $3.7m play area in Centennial Park that is expected to attract 200,000 visits in its first year.

Law-breaking pedestrians are keeping officers from Sydney’s Motorcycle Response Team busy as statistics show a city which has an attitude problem about road safety.

She was chasing a bunch of other rich boys too. Willys friends called her The Mattress I think the options dried up for both so they both had to settle for each other

El centro invita a “desaprender” los tópicos sobre la región en una sorprendente exposición en la que participan pensadores, activistas y artistas indígenas Ni el Aguirre de Klaus Kinski, ni el coronel Fawcett, ni el explorador Ridgewell de La oreja rota de Tintín, ni el Indiana Jones del via Pocket

La Audiencia de Barcelona condenó al activista Marcel Vivet a cinco años de cárcel por golpear a un policía y el TSJC rebajó la pena a un año y medio La Audiencia de Barcelona ha rechazado amnistiar al independentista Marcel Vivet, con una condena ya extinguida por golpear a un mosso d’esqu via Pocket

Publicat ahir arreu del món, l’informe investiga en quina mesura l’alumnat de segon curs de secundària de 34 països (22 dels quals de la UE) està preparat per a "estudiar, treballar i viure en un món digital". via Pocket

Las emisiones mundiales de dióxido de carbono (CO2) debidas a la energía fósil, el principal factor de calentamiento de la Tierra, siguen sin tocar techo. via Pocket

BarcelonaRelleu a la Taula d'Entitats del Tercer Sector. L'activista Enric Morist és el nou president de la gran plataforma d'associacions socials i federacions en substitució de Francina Alsina, que ha esgotat els dos mandats màxims. via Pocket

A l'Arxiu Històric de Barcelona acaba d'ingressar tota la documentació del Projecte d'un Ferrocarril Metropolità Circular per a Barcelona, que proposava una xarxa a partir d'anelles que s'entrellacen, amb un abast descomunal. via Pocket

“O s’abaixen els preus, o vaga de lloguers”. Aquesta és la consigna que han llançat les organitzacions en defensa de l’habitatge en els últims mesos. via Pocket

La Coordinadora Vecinal del Baix Besòs ha emitido un comunicado para apremiar a las administraciones públicas a aportar una solución definitiva al barraquismo con presencia en los márgenes del río Besòs desde hace años. via Pocket

»Ein Raumfahrtunternehmen will sich in Vorpommern ansiedeln und arbeitet an einem leistungsstarken Antrieb. Das könnte bald gut bezahlte Jobs in die strukturschwache Region locken.«

Involute spur gear generator and simulator

EVE-NG PRO platform is ready for today’s IT-world requirements. It allows enterprises, e-learning providers/centers, individuals and group collaborators to create virtual proof of concepts, solutions and training environments. EVE-NG PRO is the first clientless multivendor network emulation software that empowers network and security professionals with huge opportunities in the networking world. Clientless management options will allow EVE-NG PRO to be as the best choice for Enterprise engineers without influence of corporate security policies as it can be run in a completely isolated environment.