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A quixotic new project takes an AI-first approach to battling Adobe, and while it’s unclear where it leads, it raises important questions about what happens when companies ignore their users.

My notes from this talk by Alexander Petros at Big Sky DevCon 2026. Alex starts by noting how “modernize” used to mean something along the lines of “update this thing that was made before I was born”. But now “modernize” means something more like “update this thing from 5-10...

If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you may know that I do a lot of work with data privacy and that I have an interest in modal logic. Recently these two worlds collided: I became aware of work that uses modal logic to reason about data privacy. The story begins with Helen Nissenbaum’s […]

The post Privacy policies and modal logic first appeared on John D. Cook.

In 1960, a team at the University of Illinois released the first version of their PLATO “computerized instruction system,” a network of what would eventually be thousands of computer terminals connected to large mainframe computers.

I'm a theatrical cheapskate. I'm on all those last-minute seat-filler websites. I'll happily take a chance on an experimental play for a tenner a ticket or sit in an inexplicably unsold cheap seat at a major show. My philosophy is that the worst seat at the best show is preferable to the best seat at the worst show. But, once in a while, I'll splash out and pay full price. When the email landed…

On October 9, 1991, Apple Records settled one of its many lawsuits with Apple Computer. It wasn’t the first time the two companies tangled. Nor would it be the last. Apple Records was the Beatles’ record label. Apple Computer was,

The post When Apple Records sued Apple Computer appeared first on The Silicon Underground.

I have written before about my Swedish Colemak hack, but I never explained what makes it so good. This is a better image what it looks like:

If you’re struggling to find the difference against normal Colemak, look at the cluster of five keys next to the return key.

This layout makes room for the three Swedish letters Å, Ä, and Ö, by only changing five keys in total, and they have changed very thoughtfully:

(Continue reading the full article on the web.)

They weren't defined, not even as undefined.

The post How can undefined opcodes <CODE>ud0</CODE> and <CODE>ud1</CODE> have parameters? How undefined were they? appeared first on The Old New Thing.

Monte Carlo simulations (or methods) is the technique of applying randomness and the Law of large numbers to the solution of various scientific and engineering problems. One of its first documented uses was by Stanislaw Ulam and John von Neumann for nuclear weapon simulations after WWII [1].

In this post …

I've always been kind of into computers since I was young. And then when film started to move from analog film to digital, I became more interested in that aspect of it. And the visual effects workflow for many years has included machine learning. So I can write like pretty...

Agents have collapsed the cost of building native apps twice. But I think they will also make formal verification the default way software gets written.

The Riemann Hypothesis (RH) is the conjecture that all the zeros of the Riemann zeta function ζ(s) in the critical strip, i.e. the region of the complex plane with real part between 0 and 1, have real part equal to ½. The Quasi Riemann Hypothesis (QRH) says that there exists a constant θ < 1 […]

The post Consequences of progress toward the Riemann Hypothesis first appeared on John D. Cook.

The Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm can compute the discrete Fourier transform of a sequence of length n in time O(n log n). OpenAI recently posted a paper saying there is an algorithm that could compute the discrete Fourier transform in O(n (log n)1 − ε) time for ε = 10−13. This result is amazing. It seemed that […]

The post Faster Fourier Transform first appeared on John D. Cook.

For a real number x, the irrationality index μ(x) is a way of measuring how well x can be approximated by rational numbers. If x is rational, μ(x) = 1. If x is irrational, μ(x) ≥ 2. OpenAI recently published a proof that μ(π) = 2. Almost all real numbers have irrationality exponent 2, so the new result says […]

The post Irrationality exponent of π first appeared on John D. Cook.

As previously promised, here's Anthropic's new fast, low cost model: Introducing Claude Haiku 5.5. The previous Haiku, 4.5, was very much showing its age. It came out almost a year ago, and was priced at $1/million input and $5/million output - relatively expensive even back...

The real news here isn’t the result; it’s what we were not told.

I have recently improved my mental model of Git. Consider these two git commands:

Anti-Patterns in Software Blogging Some excellent writing advice from Michael Lynch. Michael warns against "meandering intros", misjudging your reader's existing knowledge, assuming they'll read your previous posts, and excessive formality. He also warns against overreliance...

A teenager from Amman, Jordan suspected of leading the prolific data theft and extortion group ShinyHunters has been detained and is reportedly cooperating with the FBI to identify other members of the hacking gang. KrebsOnSecurity has learned that the suspect, who uses the hacker handle "Rey," was detained as ShinyHunters was in the process of extorting a business unit recently divested by the global aerospace company Boeing, which manufactures the fleet of planes used by the employer of Rey's father -- Royal Jordanian Airlines.

Today's links Disloyalty: Air Canada's frequent flier fuckery. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Indie booksellers v internet; Coke pays dieticians to astroturf soda taxes; Voting in a voter-suppression state; Facebook v your use of Facebook. Upcomin...