The Wire
Curated cybersecurity and tech news — AI-summarized, source attributed.
Building a cloudless, globally-reachable smart fan on an ESP32 with iroh
A walkthrough shows how to turn a cheap ESP32 microcontroller into an internet-controllable smart fan without any cloud backend. Using iroh, a Rust peer-to-peer
Combustion Lab: a browser-based engine simulator with real thermodynamic models
Combustion Lab is an educational, in-browser internal-combustion-engine simulator that resolves engine behavior by crank angle rather than just reporting steady
EU Says Facebook and Instagram's Addictive Design Breaches the DSA
The European Commission has found that Meta's Facebook and Instagram run afoul of the Digital Services Act, the EU's platform-governance regime, on the grounds
Flashcards for deep understanding: rethinking spaced repetition beyond rote memorization
The author pushes back on the common STEM assumption that flashcards are just mechanical memorization tools fit only for vocabulary. After taking the "Learning
Grand Canyon raft guide rows California to Hawaii solo, beats men's and women's speed records
Kelsey Pfendler, a longtime Colorado River raft guide, reached Honolulu on Friday after rowing her 21-foot boat roughly 2,400 miles solo from Monterey, Californ
How ILM Invented the Software Behind Terminator 2's Liquid-Metal T-1000
In 1991, ILM's computer graphics department was tiny and pushing against the limits of the hardware it had, yet it delivered the CG that defined Terminator 2: J
Leaded Gasoline Was Known to Poison From Day One — Industry Shipped It Anyway
In 1921, GM engineer Thomas Midgley Jr. identified tetraethyl lead (TEL) as an additive that suppressed engine knock, and by 1923 it was being pumped at filling
Limpet teeth dethrone spider silk as the strongest known natural material
Engineers at the University of Portsmouth found that the teeth of limpets — marine snails that grind rock as they feed — have a tensile strength roughly five ti
NYC to Outlaw Subscription Traps and Hidden Junk Fees Starting October
New York City has finalized a rule, effective October 1, that forces companies to offer an easy way to cancel recurring charges like gym memberships and streami
Relativity, Not Textbook Chemistry, Governs Triple Bonds in Heavy Atoms
Brown University chemists have produced direct experimental evidence that the standard textbook model of triple chemical bonds breaks down for heavy elements. C
Residential proxies turn millions of hijacked devices into a scraping arms race
LWN reports that the scraping onslaught against websites now arrives as coordinated bursts from millions of unique residential and mobile IP addresses, each tou
Roughgarden's IAS Course Traces the Line Between What Computers Can and Can't Do
A free lecture course from Tim Roughgarden, now a mathematics professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, walks through the theoretical spine of computer sci