Inside the ISS is a pretty unique enviroment: a nice, predictable, mapped, zero-gravity environment but with humans nearby to hit reset and no vacuum welding. So it's no surprise that NASA is all about robots for automation there.
You've got to respect a game that, when faced with a reputation for enabling Space Hitler, doubles down and enhances the mechanics. (I tease because I love, Stellaris is great)
Finally, someone is building the small, arm SoC with gigabit and sata that I've always wanted: EspressoBin. Looks like they fully funded but the updates don't show up for non backers :(
There's a common theme in infosec that your threat model is either Mossad or not-Mossad, in that if you're worried about a hostile nation-state you're kind of fucked regardless of your opsec. It's not strictly Mossad but fascinating to contemplate the hack of the Israeli lawful cellphone hacking company Cellebrite and where that fits on the transitive Mossad scale.
Speaking of the 'can be hacked' list: your car. This should surprise no-one.
I really love/hate the webassembly thing. On one hand, it means I don't have to write javascript. On the other, now we're just bringing SQL to the browser which gives me the howling fantods.
Yay, mass produced nuclear reactors are getting regulatory attention. Solar is going to eat Nuclear's lunch but it's still nice to have for baseload and remote sites.
I'm not entirely sure what this actually is but it's several of my favorite things tossed into a blender: Nix + Rust + Cap'n Proto = Fractalide. I'm entirely not sure how to parse "Fractalide agents are Rust macros that compile to a shared library with a C ABI." but boy it sounds neat.
Fastly (a cdn) talks about building their network software. Part 1, in which routers are complained about is fine but there's some real cleverness in Part 2. Come for FIB, stay for ARP.
Speaking of networking, I've been trying to figure out what to do with my home network. Right now I have a gaming desktop that I almost never use, a big ol ZFS storage box and the shitty router my ISP provided. I'd like to upgrade to a faster LAN between the two because 1gbe is just not fast enough to put my Steam library on an iscsi zvol.
The problem is the absolutely silly gulf between 1gbe and literally anything else. 10GBaseT NICs are $300+, (with a handful of sketchy exceptions) and switches are $600+ if you want more than 2 10-gig ports.
To properly secure a device from physical intrusion, be sure to test it against the most diabolical, methodical and patient attacker you can come up with: Sprocket H.G. Shopcat.
"General relativity breakdown" is a pretty good indication that the story is bunk, even if it's from Nature. Wake me when it's 5σ.
I can't figure out where I got on this train of thought but I wondered what the largest check ever written was. The internet thinks it might be this one that 'saved' Morgan Stanley but this 9-figure personal check has to merit an honorable mention.
Orbital ATK, who seems to have gotten their Antares rockets to stop exploding, had a much less dramatic launch failure of their other, wackier launch system the other day. Pegasus is literally dropped from an old Air Canada airliner before firing all its guns at once and exploding into space. The airliner is, of course, a civilian replacement for NASA's oldest and best-named B-52. Postgresql liked the naming scheme so much they went to the wall with it and I'm just as surprised to include that sentence here as you were to read it.
There's a new instruction set in town: RISC-V. There's a small, $59 arduino-compatible HiFive1 (HN comments) and soon a larger, linux-compatible SoC called LowRISC (HN comments). See LowRSIC's blog for coverage of the recent RISC-V workshop: day 1, day 2.