Alvaro Lopez Ortega / 2026-07-11 Briefing

Created Sat, 11 Jul 2026 21:05:40 +0000 Modified Sun, 16 Aug 2026 19:17:13 +0000
3942 Words

Trump administration pressured Apple to use Intel’s fabs and pushed the chipmaker to expand domestic capacity. Irish datacenters now consume 23% of the country’s electricity, despite grid restrictions. Psychologist Peter Gray argues school stress and lack of unstructured play, not smartphones, are the primary drivers of the teen mental health crisis, challenging Jonathan Haidt. Activist investor Elliott took a large stake in CCC Intelligent Solutions, which is exploring a sale. Meanwhile, Chinese voice actor Shen Anyu struggles to prove his humanity as AI clones flood platforms, costing him income.

💻 Technology & Development

Handsum: An LQIP Image File Format

Handsum is a new Low Quality Image Placeholder (LQIP) format based on the Discrete Cosine Transform, with fixed file sizes ranging from 48 to 147 bytes. It is compared to other LQIP methods like Blurhash, Thumbhash, low-quality JPEG/WebP, PNG, and ETC2, demonstrating trade-offs between encoded size and visual quality across multiple test images.

Madame Semver Will See You Now

A developer visits Madame Semver, who uses tarot-like cards and a crystal ball to predict a series of open-source maintenance headaches, including a costly pull request, a mistaken package publication, security reports conflating bugs with documented behavior, and a helpful contributor who eventually asks for repository keys. The fortune also foretells future forks, a deprecated function being recommended for years, and automated enthusiasm. The developer pays the minimum fee and is told to return for the next major version.

I converted an Android app to a webpage

The author criticizes the Travelbound app for forcing users to install it to view itinerary details, which could have been a simple webpage, and for including tracking and advertisements. They reverse-engineered the app’s API to extract JSON data and built a Ruby script that generates an accessible HTML page, bypassing the app’s unwanted features.

Ant – A JavaScript runtime and ecosystem

Ant is a JavaScript ecosystem that includes its own runtime with a custom engine, a package manager, a package registry, a deployment and hosting platform, and a desktop app builder similar to Electron. It aims to function as a coherent, end-to-end alternative while remaining compatible with the wider JavaScript ecosystem. The project is still in early stages, and the creator seeks feedback on its direction.

How to hide from killer drones

The article discusses techniques for evading surveillance and armed drones, including using thermal blankets, natural cover, and camouflage to avoid detection. It also covers electronic countermeasures such as jamming and spoofing to disrupt drone guidance systems. The piece emphasizes that while no method is foolproof, combining physical and electronic tactics can increase survival chances.

ZeroFS vs. Amazon S3 Files

Amazon S3 Files preserves a one-to-one mapping between files and S3 objects with asynchronous export, allowing direct S3 API access. ZeroFS uses an LSM tree and packed, encrypted segments, sacrificing S3 API visibility for better packing, compression, and client-side encryption. The two systems trade off immediate S3 interoperability for either performance or security features.

Prefer strict tables in SQLite

Strict tables in SQLite enforce rigid typing, preventing errors like inserting text into integer columns and disallowing invalid column types. They require explicit, valid types and allow flexible columns via the ANY type. However, existing non-strict tables cannot be altered to strict; they must be recreated.

BLISS

BLISS is a typeless, expression-based system programming language developed at Carnegie Mellon University around 1970, notable for its lack of a goto statement and extensive use of optimizations. It was heavily used by Digital Equipment Corporation for system software like OpenVMS but faded into obscurity after the rise of C. The language remains influential, with compilers ported to modern architectures like x86-64 using LLVM.

  • BLISS — en.wikipedia.org

Reject Modernity, Return To 80s, Learn C

A young programmer from Generation Alpha built a text editor from scratch in C on a vintage 386 PC with 8MB RAM, using Borland Turbo C and learning from books instead of modern IDEs. He chose this retro approach because modern tools with code completion and AI hindered his learning, and he plans to learn assembly next.

Orbit – AR satellite tracker, watch 15k+ objects

Orbit is an iOS app that lets users view satellites, planets, and constellations in AR, on a 2D map, or a 3D globe. It tracks over 15,000 objects with pass predictions, descriptions, and orbital data, and includes a searchable catalog and a space-related chatbot.

Earth Game – An offline CLI for turning life goals into quests

Earth Game is a private, offline CLI tool that turns life goals into quests, built solely with Python’s standard library and SQLite—no third-party dependencies, accounts, or network requests. It offers both a command-line interface and a local web UI for managing quests, editing character traits, and conducting daily reviews, with all data stored locally to ensure privacy.

We scaled PgBouncer to 4x throughput

PgBouncer is single-threaded, limiting it to one core, but running multiple processes with so_reuseport allows kernel-level load balancing across cores. Query cancellation is fixed via peering, which forwards cancel requests to the correct process. Benchmarks show 16 processes achieve ~336k TPS on a 16-core machine, roughly 4x the ~87k TPS of a single process.

Microsoft admits Windows 11 has a GDID tracker with no off switch

Finnish police arrested suspected Scattered Spider member Peter Stokes at Helsinki airport after Microsoft provided the FBI with a Global Device Identifier (GDID) that traced his Windows PC across multiple VPNs and countries. The GDID is a persistent, server-assigned identifier linked to a Microsoft account that survives updates and cannot be disabled, enabling law enforcement to track a device’s owner.

Google deleting all recently inactive accounts without phone number

Google is deleting accounts that have never had a phone number associated with them if they haven’t logged in within a year. Even if users log in with the correct credentials and receive a PIN via email, they cannot recover their account unless they add a phone number.

Learn by rebuilding Redis, Git, a database from scratch

A programming platform teaches by having users build real systems from scratch, offering over 80 courses across nine languages. It includes sequenced career paths (e.g., backend, frontend) and language tracks, with a free account that requires no credit card.

Semantic/Hybrid Search in the Browser

The author replaced their blog’s keyword search with a lightweight semantic search using a static embedding model (model2vec/potion) that runs entirely in the browser via a 4 MB lookup table, achieving 81% of MiniLM’s retrieval quality. The index is built at publish time by chunking posts into overlapping 600-character segments and storing embeddings for client-side search. This approach avoids the need for server-side resources or heavy transformer models.

Networking and the Internet, from First Principles

The internet enables instant global communication by converting data into radio waves, electrical pulses, and light signals through undersea cables, with no central control or single company owning the infrastructure. It relies on a patchwork of protocols like packet switching and TCP, each developed over decades to solve specific problems, creating a system that is reliable despite its decentralized, uncoordinated nature.

Your code is fast – if you’re lucky

Modern compilers, particularly Clang, can optimize loops using branch-free instructions when the appropriate programming style is applied. The article presents a branchless Quicksort implementation in a header file, which uses sorting networks for small subarrays (up to 12 elements) to eliminate branches.

How Container Networking Works: Building a Bridge Network from Scratch

The tutorial demystifies container networking by explaining that containers are isolated Linux processes and that single-host container networking can be built from scratch using basic Linux facilities like network namespaces, devices, routes, and iptables rules. It demonstrates inspecting the network environment and constructing a container network manually with standard Linux tools.

What’s the best way to do authentication in modern applications

Storing authentication tokens like JWTs in localStorage is risky because any JavaScript, including from third-party scripts or XSS attacks, can access and steal them. The article advocates for more secure alternatives, such as httpOnly cookies, to prevent token theft from XSS vulnerabilities.

The vintage beauty of Soviet control rooms (2018)

A collection of vintage Soviet control rooms, including the Chernobyl Reactor 4 control room, showcases the aesthetic of large buttons and analog dials from the era before widespread computer use. The photos highlight the nostalgic, pre-digital design of these control panels.

MDN has a page that shows every web API update as it hits each browser

MDN now provides a dedicated page that tracks every web API update as it rolls out across different browsers. This resource helps developers stay informed about the latest web technology changes and browser support.

I’ve been building this alone for months. Roast it before I lose any more time

A developer shared a project they built alone for months on the PeakD platform, asking the community to critique it before they invest further time. The post includes platform navigation elements but no detailed description of the project itself.

FreeCAD in the Browser

FreeCAD, a large parametric 3D CAD application, has been ported to run in a browser via WebAssembly using Qt for WebAssembly with JSPI, completing the port in roughly four days. The resulting single 196 MB module includes OCCT, Coin3D, CPython, PySide6, and other dependencies, requiring a Chromium-based browser (Chrome/Edge 137+) and an initial ~96 MB compressed download that is cached afterward.

🤖 AI & Machine Learning

The Chinese Voice Actor Forced to Prove He’s Human

Chinese voice actor Shen Anyu has been forced to repeatedly prove he is human after AI clones of his voice spread online, causing platforms to flag his genuine recordings as synthetic and costing him income. He and his wife now spend much of their time documenting the copies and filing complaints, but tracing creators and succeeding with legal action remains difficult. Despite years of training and a successful career, Shen remains trapped in a cycle of proving his authenticity.

Reame – a CPU inference server that gets faster as it runs

Reame is a lightweight LLM inference server built on llama.cpp, optimized for cheap CPU hardware by never recomputing the same token twice. It features persistent shared-prefix KV caching, on-disk n-gram archiving (Palimpsest), and self-regulating speculative decoding, making it ideal for narrow, repetitive AI workloads on existing low-cost hardware.

Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine (1965) [pdf]

A 1965 paper by I.J. Good speculates that the creation of the first ultraintelligent machine—one that surpasses all human intellectual abilities—would lead to an “intelligence explosion,” enabling rapid technological progress. The essay argues that such a machine could design even more advanced successors, potentially posing existential risks or offering immense benefits to humanity.

One Wikipedia page costs your AI agent 68,000 tokens

A typical Wikipedia page costs 68,000 tokens in raw HTML, and while Claude Code’s built-in webfetch handles simple cases, it fails on JavaScript-rendered or anti-bot pages like Nike.com. The author developed an open-source stealth browser (Fortress) that runs as an MCP for AI agents, reducing token usage and bypassing detection, though it still cannot handle residential egress or Kasada-style walls.

🌍 Environment & Energy

Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country’s electricity

Irish datacenters now consume 23% of the country’s electricity, with consumption rising another 10% despite restrictions on most new grid connections around Dublin.

Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

Leaded gasoline was invented in 1921 by Thomas Midgley Jr., despite being known as a potent poison, because it could be patented and controlled unlike ethanol. A 1926 public health report downplayed the risks, enabling its widespread use until the 1970s, when it began to be phased out after causing lasting neurological harm, particularly in children.

Tropical forests facing increasing risks of exposure to critical temp thresholds

Tropical forests are increasingly at risk of exceeding critical temperature thresholds that can impair their function. This heightened exposure threatens their ability to regulate climate and support biodiversity. The findings highlight the urgent need for conservation and climate mitigation efforts.

El Niño Is Wreaking Havoc on Pacific Fisheries

The “super” El Niño has disrupted global fisheries: Peru canceled its anchovy season due to deep, hard-to-reach fish, while Southern California sees record tuna catches. These contrasting effects stem from altered ocean currents and upwelling, creating winners and losers and causing price fluctuations for key seafood products.

UNIGRID’s sodium-ion home battery debuts in Europe, US is next

UNIGRID has shipped the first units of its sodium-ion residential battery, Na+Casa, to homes in Europe, with US installations expected by the end of 2026 pending certification. The battery offers a 25-year lifespan, operates between -40°C and 60°C, and eliminates thermal propagation risk. The company plans to scale annual production from 200 MWh to 2 GWh by 2027.

💼 Business & Finance

Activist investor Elliott builds large stake in CCC, which is exploring sale; market cap ~$3.5B

Elliott Investment Management has acquired a significant stake in CCC Intelligent Solutions Holdings, a car insurance software provider with a market cap of approximately $3.5 billion that is exploring a potential sale. The investment is being led by Elliott’s private equity division, though the exact size of the stake remains undisclosed.

Nvidia, CoreWeave, and Nebius: Inside the Circular Financing of the GPU Boom

Neoclouds like CoreWeave and Nebius have surged by offering hyperscalers rapid GPU access and optimized compute, securing over $120 billion in commitments from Microsoft and Meta. However, their expansion is cash-intensive, driving heavy debt and reliance on circular financing from Nvidia, raising concerns about profitability and sustainability.

Germany’s richest man takes on Big Tech

The Schwarz Group, owned by Germany’s richest man Dieter Schwarz, is challenging Big Tech with a new €11 billion data center and headquarters in Bad Friedrichshall, aiming to reduce European reliance on US and Chinese technology. The conglomerate, which earned nearly €185 billion in revenue last year from its Lidl and Kaufland chains, is now winning contracts with governments and organizations such as the German Football Association.

UPI: Anatomy of a Payment Transaction

A UPI transaction involves seven hidden parties beyond the user’s app, which only collects the intent and PIN before passing the instruction to a sponsor bank connected to the payment network. In June 2026, the system processed over 2,272 crore payments, with a duopoly of PhonePe and Google Pay handling about four-fifths of all transactions.

USAA closed 51% of home insurance claims without making a payment in 2025

USAA closed approximately 51% of home insurance claims without payment in 2025, one of the highest rates among U.S. insurers, continuing a years-long trend. The company attributes the figure to factors such as claims below deductibles or not pursued, while critics point to increasing denials as insurers tighten policies amid more frequent natural disasters and rising costs.

Richest people in the world by wealth creation instead of ownership

The “Anti‑Forbes List” ranks 28 founders by the shareholder wealth their companies created for others, minus what the founder kept. Jensen Huang tops the list with $4.98 trillion, while several founders, including Brian Armstrong and Thomas Peterffy, show negative values, indicating net destruction of shareholder wealth since listing.

🏛️ Politics & Society

Trump admin heavy-handedly aided Intel pushing local expansion and pressuring Apple to use its fabs

The Trump administration pressured Apple CEO Tim Cook to use Intel’s manufacturing plants for chip production, part of a broader intervention to support the struggling chipmaker. Apple secured a tariff exemption after pledging billions in U.S. investment, while officials also pushed Intel to expand domestic capacity.

Elon Musk’s family foundation took Tommy Robinson to Russia, says Musk’s father

Errol Musk said the Musk family foundation funded a trip to Russia for far-right activist Tommy Robinson, during which Robinson encouraged anti-migration protests from Moscow and met with Russian business figures. Upon his return to Britain, police seized Robinson’s phones.

Is There Any End to the Atlantic’s “End-Ism” Fetish?

The article criticizes The Atlantic for its recurring “end of” headlines, which it argues cater to its older, mortality-conscious readership. It cites examples like “The End of Reading Is Here” and critiques a piece on antisemitism for exaggerating current threats while ignoring historical context.

Ofcom Wants American Police to Collect Its Speech Fine

Ofcom plans to recover a £520,000 fine from 4chan by enlisting U.S. debt recovery specialists and law enforcement, despite the site having no U.K. presence. 4chan’s U.S. attorney dismissed the effort as legally illiterate, arguing American courts will not enforce a foreign censorship penalty against a First Amendment-protected publisher. The fine stems from alleged violations of the U.K.’s Online Safety Act, but 4chan maintains it operates only in the U.S. and breaks no American law.

We Are Officially Beginning the Process to Convene Grand Juries over DOGE

Citizens in six U.S. states are beginning the petition process to convene grand juries investigating DOGE employees at the Social Security Administration for allegedly moving data to unauthorized servers and transferring encrypted files, which may constitute identity theft. The signature requirements to force a grand jury are achievable in most of these states, and such citizen-led grand juries have previously issued subpoenas and indictments.

The crypto billionaires building a world where money buys you a vote

Liberland, a micronation on the Danube, uses purchasable crypto tokens to give more voting power to those with more money, effectively allowing wealth to buy influence. Backed by crypto billionaires including Justin Sun, the tax-free, libertarian project aims to replace traditional government with blockchain-based systems. Its leaders argue against helping the poor, comparing them to animals, and claim that centralized redistribution of wealth violates individual liberty.

🔬 Science & Health

Gray: School stress, not smartphones, main driver of teen mental health crisis, challenging Haidt

Psychologist Peter Gray argues that the decline in unstructured play and increased school stress, rather than smartphone use, are the primary drivers of the teen mental health crisis, challenging Jonathan Haidt’s popular thesis. Gray contends that society’s restriction of children’s independence and self-directed activities has been more harmful than technology itself.

Earendel (Astronomical Object)

Earendel, discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2022, was initially considered the most distant known single star, but subsequent observations by the James Webb Space Telescope suggest it is more likely a star cluster. A 2025 study using JWST data estimated a significantly lower magnification factor, calling into question its classification as a single star.

Female US rower completes historic solo journey from California to Hawaii

Kelsey Pfendler, a Grand Canyon river-rafting guide, completed a solo row from California to Hawaii in under 44 days, breaking both the women’s and men’s speed records for the 2,400-mile journey. She became the first American woman to accomplish the feat, documenting her challenges and triumphs on social media.

Modern decor may be straining people’s brains

Certain artificial visual patterns like striped floors and flickering LEDs may cause headaches and nausea by overloading the brain’s visual cortex, which evolved for natural scenes. Researchers hypothesize this metabolic overload triggers discomfort, though the mechanism remains unconfirmed. People with autism, ADHD, migraines, and other conditions are disproportionately affected.

The early History of the Singular Value Decomposition (1993) [pdf]

A 1993 paper traces the early history of the singular value decomposition (SVD), covering its development from the 19th century through key contributions by mathematicians such as Eugenio Beltrami, Camille Jordan, and James Joseph Sylvester. The document details how the SVD evolved from related matrix decompositions to its formal definition and early applications in statistics and physics.

Almost $1B Later, the US Still Can’t Make a Medical Glove

A US government-backed factory in Virginia, funded with $123 million to produce a key ingredient for medical gloves, has failed after more than four years and may soon be sold for parts. The project aimed to revive domestic manufacturing of nitrile gloves but underscores the challenges of reshoring production.

Frog bacterium wiped out cancer tumors in mice with a single dose

A single intravenous dose of Ewingella americana, a bacterium from Japanese tree frog intestines, completely eliminated colorectal tumors in mice by directly attacking cancer cells and stimulating an immune response. The bacteria accumulated specifically in tumors due to low-oxygen conditions and were rapidly cleared from healthy tissues. The findings, published in Gut Microbes, provide a proof of concept for a new bacterial cancer therapy, though results are limited to mice.