183380540
submission
Z00L00K writes:
This is a virtual museum of operating systems (and standalone applications) running under emulation, implemented as a Linux VM for QEMU, VirtualBox, or UTM.
A custom emulator-independent launcher is provided, and all OSes and emulators are pre-installed and pre-configured. The launcher includes a snapshot feature to quickly revert broken installations back to a working state. Hypervisor installers and shortcuts to run the VM on Windows, macOS, and Linux are also included.
Want to see the earliest resident monitors? The ancestor of all modern OSes (CTSS)? The earliest versions of Unix? The first OS with a desktop metaphor GUI (Xerox Star Pilot/ViewPoint)? Early versions of mainstream OSes? If you want to explore historical OSes and platforms without having to worry about configuring/installing emulators and OSes or corrupting emulated installations, you’ve come to the right place.
Just about every well-known OS and platform (and also a lot of obscure ones) is included in some form, spanning the entire history of stored-program computing from the Manchester Baby of 1948 (the first stored-program computer) to the present day.
183380248
submission
theodp writes:
In Of Course They Booed, Audrey Watters takes a look at the chorus of boos greeting college commencement speakers who heralded the glorious AI future students are poised to step into:
And perhaps it’s a little ironic that this graduating class, a group that we've been told time and time again has spent the last four years using ChatGPT to cheat their way through college, would display such sour sentiment towards "AI." But as most commencement speakers seem duty-bound to repeat, graduation marks the entry into adulthood; it is "the beginning of your life"; "the future is now" – that sort of thing. And just these students are now officially adults, they’re being told a very different story: that there really is no future. There are no jobs. And whatever thing they might have learned to do or learned to love in college, whatever career they might have believed they were preparing for, "AI" is going to destroy all of that. No wonder they boo.
But the growing pushback against "AI," and the growing pushback against ed-tech more generally, is not simply a rejection of technology. These efforts are, as Astra Taylor and Saul Levin recently argued in The Guardian, a rejection of the profoundly anti-democratic practices that have pushed technologies into all aspects of our lives without our consent and often in the face of our outright opposition. These technologies have been marketed to us as solutions to all sorts of social problems — and have done so, in no small part, by bypassing and undermining the very public sphere in which debate and discussion can take place: schools, libraries, the arts, the media. The adoption of education technology, "AI" or otherwise, has been anti-democratic in practices both big and small. Despite all the talk of progressive education and ed-tech, it has been experienced as something else entirely. Throughout the country for the past few decades Gates (via the Gates Foundation), other billionaire philanthropists, and giant companies have shaped education funding and policy through a combination of technology and testing.
At one point, perhaps, people were willing to welcome devices into schools, into the classroom. They believed the stories, not just that "this is the future," but that future meant something better for everyone. “Access” signaled equality. But as the tech billionaires have embraced authoritarianism and inequality, and as their apocalyptic rhetoric about not just the "end of work," but quite literally the end of the world grows louder and louder — all while they amass more wealth than anyone in history — it is quite apparent that their promises about the future do not include us. Their vision of future does not make any space or allowance for our children to choose their own futures.
183378732
submission
joshuark writes:
Alternate link: https://aisckool.com/a-basic-p...
It's long been accepted that the smoother the surface, the lower the aerodynamic drag. That turns out not always to be the case.
For more than 80 years, the principle of "the surface of an object must be smooth" has been the basic premise of aeronautical engineering worldwide to suppress the transition to turbulence and reduce aerodynamic drag.
This premise was based on the results of a 1940 study by Ichiro Tani, a Japanese aerodynamicist who quantitatively demonstrated the relationship between "surface roughness" and turbulent transition, arguing that surface roughness prevented laminar flow from being realized.
At Tohoku University, a research team recently announced a discovery that significantly advances this trend. Aiko Yakino, an associate professor at Tohoku University, and her research group were the first in the world to demonstrate that aerodynamic drag can be reduced by up to 43.6 percent simply by applying distributed micro-roughness (DMR), a surface roughness so fine and irregular that the naked eye cannot distinguish it.
A key factor in this achievement was the use of a different wind tunnel experiment method than before. Conventional wind tunnel experiments had structural limitations: the support rods and wires essential for supporting the model disrupted the airflow, negating the minute changes in air resistance caused by micro-scale roughness.
This principle is fundamentally different from the effect of dimples on golf balls. Dimples reduce pressure resistance by intentionally turbulizing the airflow and suppressing backward separation. Distributed micro-roughness delays the transition, thereby suppressing not pressure resistance but the wall friction itself. They are opposite mechanisms.
The strength of DMR's aerodynamic drag reduction lies in its extremely high passivity and omnidirectional nature. For the rivet process to be effective, grooves must be precisely cut along the direction of airflow. In contrast, DMR has a great advantage in that the surface roughness is random and does not depend on the direction of the flow.
In addition, since it requires neither moving parts nor electricity, a high drag reduction effect can be achieved at a low cost. If DMR is applied to aircraft, it is expected to significantly reduce operating costs and carbon dioxide emissions by improving fuel efficiency.
183323476
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
The Paris Appeals Court found that both Air France and Airbus were "solely and entirely responsible" for the crash of Air France 447 over Atlantic Ocean which killed 228 people on June 1, 2009. The court overturned a lower court's April 2023 ruling which had cleared both companies. Both companies were fined the maximum of €225,000. While both companies blamed the cause of the accident on pilot error, prosecutors contend that poor training and failing to fix an known flaw led to the accident. In the accident analysis identified a root cause of the accident was pitot tubes which iced up during certain flying conditions. That icing caused erratic air speed readings fluctuating between low to supersonic within seconds of each other. Those conflicting readings led to a chain of confusing errors and warnings from the flight system including a stall warning. The plane was stalling however the flying pilot's (PF) attempted to climb out of a stall by pulling back actually caused the plane to stall into the ocean.
While not in the official report, a contributing factor noted by experts is the design of Airbus cockpits. One issue is the electronic fly-by-wire controls where the physical position of certain controls like the throttle does not match the input in the system. In this case, the autopilot had lowered the thrust output during flight, but it could not move the throttle position. The throttle position appeared that plane had more thrust than it did. In the Airbus cockpit, joysticks are used instead of a control yoke. The joysticks are symmetric in the layout of the cockpit in that the pilot on the left has the joystick on the left and the pilot on the right has their joystick on the right. The joysticks are also not linked to provide feedback to each other. The other pilot (pilot in command or PIC) could not know the PF was trying to climb unless he was looking directly at the PF's hands. The PIC realized the error too late to overcome the stall.
As for responsibility, Airbus had identified an icing problem on their Airbus 320 model planes and recommended those pitot tube be replaced as early as September 2007. Air France 447 was an Airbus 330, and Air France delayed replacing the pitot tubes until further recommendations. However, Air France themselves recorded had nine incidents between May 2008 and March 2009 on Airbus 330/340 planes where the pitot tubes failed due to icing conditions. Air France found six unreported incidents after the AF447 crash.
While the cockpit situation was confusing, crash investigators faulted the pilots for failing to follow procedures which would have been to first re-establish controls after the autopilot turned off. After the accident, pilot training now includes scenarios like AF447 where there is conflicting warnings. Also there was more emphasis placed on manually flying instead of relying on the autopilot.
183319496
submission
Sun writes:
AMD has announced a change to the way they are licensing Vivado, their FPGA development tool. The spotlight of their announcement is the shift to yearly subscription instead of a one-time license.
Unsurprisingly, they are phrasing it as an improvement, saying "Annual subscriptions offer lower entry cost and continuous access to the latest updates."
Hidden between the lines of the announcement, however, is the change to the free of charge tier. AMD is adding more devices to be supported in this tier, which is supposedly the carrot. The stick, however, is the removal of certain debug features.
The thing that's likely to hit the hobbist community the worst, however, is that the free tier will now not be available on Linux.
AMD are saying that old licenses are still in effect, so it appears that if you hurry to install Vivado now, you'd still be able to use it moving forward. It is not clear, however, whether it'll still be possible to install Vivado 2025.2 after Vivado 2026.1 becomes available.
183307669
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
Flipper Devices has finally revealed Flipper One, a Linux-powered cyberdeck that sounds less like a gadget and more like an attempt to rebuild portable ARM computing from the ground up. Unlike Flipper Zero, which focuses on offline protocols like RFID and Sub-1 GHz radio, Flipper One is all about networking, modular hardware, SDR experimentation, local AI, and upstream Linux kernel support. The company says it wants to build âoethe most open and best-documented ARM computer in the world,â complete with zero vendor BSP dependency and as few binary blobs as possible. That alone is enough to get Linux folks paying attention.
The hardware itself is loaded with nerd bait: dual Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6E, M.2 expansion for SSDs and 5G modems, GPIO add-ons, HDMI 2.1, and a dual-processor architecture pairing a Rockchip RK3576 with a Raspberry Pi RP2350 microcontroller. Flipper Devices is even developing its own small-screen Linux UI framework because squeezing KDE onto tiny touchscreens is miserable. The company openly admits the project is financially and technically terrifying, which honestly makes this announcement feel more believable than most startup hardware pitches. Whether Flipper One succeeds or not, it is one of the most ambitious Linux hardware projects in years.
183302851
submission
fjo3 writes:
A group of leading nutrition scientists, food policy lawyers, and public health experts has released what may be the most actionable blueprint yet for tackling one of the biggest threats to American health: ultra-processed food. Released in May 2026 by Healthy Eating Research, the report offers a concrete definition of what ultra-processed food is and a ranked list of policy options lawmakers could act on right now.
More than half of calories eaten by American adults come from ultra-processed foods, industrial products containing few or no real whole-food ingredients and made with additives that keep them cheap, shelf-stable, and highly appealing. For kids, that figure climbs even higher. A recent study found that of 651 baby and toddler food products sold in the eight largest grocery stores in North Carolina, 71% were classified as ultra-processed.
183299479
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
A new study from Barna Group and Gloo suggests artificial intelligence is becoming a surprisingly influential spiritual tool for many Americans, including practicing Christians. According to the research, one in three adults now believes AI-generated spiritual guidance can be just as trustworthy as advice from a pastor. Among Millennials, that number climbs to 44 percent. The study also found many Christians are already using AI for Bible study, prayer assistance, personal growth, and finding meaning or purpose in life.
At the same time, many respondents expressed concern about where this trend could lead. Large majorities worried AI could misinterpret scripture, weaken religious faith, replace pastors, or even act as a substitute for God. Critics argue that while AI may be useful for studying religious texts or organizing information, it lacks wisdom, morality, lived experience, and genuine understanding. The findings raise uncomfortable questions about whether society is beginning to hand increasingly personal and spiritual responsibilities over to algorithms created by tech companies.
183297675
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
FICO has launched the new UltraFICO Score, and it could change how lenders judge borrowers by looking beyond traditional credit reports and into actual bank account activity. Through a partnership with Plaid, the system can analyze deposits, balance stability, spending habits, and cash flow behavior in real time. Supporters say it could help younger people, gig workers, and thin-file borrowers get approved more easily, but critics will probably see it as another step toward financial surveillance becoming normalized.
The bigger story here may not even be FICO itself, but how deeply Plaid is becoming embedded into the financial system. Consumers are increasingly being asked to hand over live banking data in exchange for convenience, approvals, and personalized financial services. UltraFICO could genuinely help some folks access credit, but it also raises uncomfortable questions about privacy, behavioral profiling, and whether every financial decision we make is slowly becoming part of a permanent algorithmic reputation score.
183292025
submission
fahrbot-bot writes:
TechSpot reports that a mixture most people associate with tofu production could soon help make safer, longer-lasting batteries. Researchers from the City University of Hong Kong and Southern University of Science and Technology have built a water-based power cell that runs on tofu brine – the mineral-rich solution left behind after pressing soy curds.
The design replaces the complex, flammable chemistry of lithium-ion batteries with an electrolyte that's as safe as saltwater. In lab tests, the prototype endured more than 120,000 charge cycles, an endurance record that far exceeds today's commercial standards. Typical electric-vehicle batteries degrade after just a few thousand cycles – even long-duration grid systems seldom survive beyond ten thousand.
In conventional designs, water decomposes at higher voltages, creating instability that shortens battery life. The tofu-brine solution suppresses that reaction, allowing energy to flow repeatedly without corroding the battery's internal materials.
The result is a cell that is neither flammable nor caustic – a stark contrast to lithium-ion counterparts known for fire hazards when damaged or overheated. Because the tofu-brine system uses benign ingredients, it could simplify end-of-life handling and lessen environmental damage from discarded batteries.
Study published in Nature Communications: An aqueous battery using an electrolyte with a pH of 7 and suitable for direct environmental discard
183272659
submission
schwit1 writes:
AI use on college campuses “threatens to turn a generation of promising young Americans into a class of drooling morons,” writes Owen Yingling, a University of Chicago philosophy major, in The Great Zombification. “It will grotesquely disfigure, if not destroy, the university as an institute in every way that it is imagined — as a sacrosanct humanist project, as a moral training ground, or even as a vulgar sweatshop for job training,” he argues in The New Critic.
Elite universities are spending millions of dollars to figure out how to “integrate” AI in the classroom, Yingling writes. What it really means is substituting AI “for learning, teaching, and conversing.”
Some will wait for the university system to crumble, hoping to build something new from the ashes, he writes. The ivied halls “will remain, to be observed and treated respectfully — like old cathedrals, mainline Protestant churches, and most of the European continent.”
183269007
submission
AeiwiMaster writes:
The CORE1 (Competition for Outstanding Research Explanation) contest, launched by Curt Jaimungal of the Theories of Everything YouTube channel, has closed submissions as of May 17—leaving behind a large batch of unusually technical science videos.
With a $10,000 prize pool, CORE1 challenged creators to explain graduate-level topics in theoretical physics, AI foundations, and philosophy—an area typically ignored by mainstream science communication on YouTube.
Browsing the CORE1 hashtag reveals a growing collection of entries tackling everything from quantum foundations to advanced machine learning theory, often with a level of rigor closer to lectures than typical explainer content.
Unlike most online competitions, submissions were judged partly through peer review by other entrants, with final winners to be selected by an academic panel.
Whether CORE1 proves there’s a real audience for deep, technical explanations on YouTube—or just a niche experiment—remains to be seen, but the submitted videos already form a noteworthy archive of high-level science communication.
183268261
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
Social media increasingly feels algorithmically optimized, engagement obsessed, and strangely sterile. A new open source platform called Ditto wants to push in the opposite direction. Built on the Nostr protocol and interoperable with Mastodon and Bluesky, Ditto heavily emphasizes customization, user ownership, and what its creators describe as a return to the âoefunâ internet many users remember from the MySpace and GeoCities era. The platform includes profile themes, custom fonts, decorative messaging, virtual pets called Blobbis, and even browser playable games embedded directly into feeds.
I recently spoke with Derek Ross from Soapbox for a sponsored Q&A about the platformâ(TM)s broader vision. Ross argued that users are exhausted by algorithmic feeds, AI generated slop, and increasingly homogenized online experiences. He also discussed decentralized moderation, interoperability across protocols, why Ditto intentionally avoids ad driven design, and why the company believes the open web can eventually compete with corporate social platforms. Love the idea or hate it, the interview raises some interesting questions about whether the modern internet has lost too much personality in pursuit of optimization.
183242879
submission
schwit1 writes:
Angelenos have been noticing something strange: the Google Maps satellite imagery depicting the Los Angeles areas of the Pacific Palisades and Altadena now shows pristine neighborhoods untouched by the devastating fires of January 2025.
Of course, as we all know, those neighborhoods are in ruins. Why would Google pretend otherwise?
On Reddit, user TinyPinkSparkles asked, “Why is Google maps back to showing old satellite images of Altadena?" She continued:
Not too long after the fire, Google updated the satellite imagery to reflect the fire and thousands of lost structures. Now it's back to pre-fire images of houses and businesses that are no longer there. Why?
183226435
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
OpenAI is rolling out a new personal finance experience for ChatGPT that lets Pro users in the United States connect bank accounts, credit cards, loans, and investments directly to the AI chatbot. The company says ChatGPT can then analyze spending habits, subscriptions, debts, and financial goals to provide more personalized budgeting advice and financial planning recommendations. Support currently includes more than 12,000 financial institutions through Plaid, with Intuit integration planned for the future.
The idea of AI helping people understand their finances will probably sound appealing to many users, especially since ChatGPT can generate conversational recommendations instead of rigid spreadsheet style budgeting. Still, handing years of financial history over to an AI company may make some folks uneasy. OpenAI says ChatGPT cannot move money or see full account numbers, but the launch raises obvious questions about privacy, trust, and how comfortable people really are with AI systems becoming deeply connected to their financial lives.
