Powering up a module from the IBM 604: an electronic calculator from 1948

1948 was an interesting time for computing. For decades, businesses had used punch card equipment that added and sorted electromechanically. Now these electromechanical relays and counting wheels were being used to build room-filling general-purpose computers such as Harvard Mark I (1944) and IBM's SSEC (1948). But slow electromechanical mechanisms were already becoming obsolete. World War II had…

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China leaders skip Singapore defence summit headlined by US

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth is the headline speaker at Asia’s premier defence summit opening on Friday, but China’s top officials are not expected, despite weighty questions like Taiwan and the war in Iran.

Beijing’s defence minister is to skip the three-day Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore for the second year running, which analysts viewed as a sign of China’s rising power.

Yet, the forum that…

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Planet Mars Conquers the Russians

Russia's Mars 96 was one of the most advanced spacecraft of the 20th Century. Designed to be the first vessel to explore the Red Planet, its mission was to drill up to 20 feet below the surface in search for life. But beyond the (literally) groundbreaking science, Mars 96 had another purpose: Rescue the country's dying space program and prove to the West that the post-Soviet Russia was worth…

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I'm unable to upload files in Prism

Welcome to the forum!

Thanks for repoting.

I have not used OpenAI Prism before but wanted to verify if the problem is reporoducable.

Using OpenAI Prism via an internent browser with URL starting wtih https://prism.openai.com/?u=

in the middle panel at the bottom find

when clicking shows

I do not get the option to upload. However I am also not signed-in to an OpenAI account.


After…

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Deprecating Monero's Custom Transaction Unlock Time

Please be advised, the Custom Transaction Unlock Time feature is set to be deprecated at consensus with FCMP++. There is already a relay rule in place today that prevents nodes from accepting and relaying transactions with a Custom Unlock Time to the transaction pool (source). This is a formal announcement that the feature would be deprecated altogether with the FCMP++ fork, and new

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Parsley, Pot Roast, and Changing Tastes

Why 1980s Meals Were Always Garnished With Parsley - Food Republic

From steak dinners to bowls of soup, 1980s restaurants topped nearly every dish with a sprig of parsley. But why was this garnish so ubiquitous?

Food Republic (@foodrepublic.bsky.social) on bluesky (source)


I saw this Bluesky post come across my timeline because I follow Food Republic, and it got my…

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Parsley, Pot Roast, and Changing Tastes

Why 1980s Meals Were Always Garnished With Parsley - Food Republic

From steak dinners to bowls of soup, 1980s restaurants topped nearly every dish with a sprig of parsley. But why was this garnish so ubiquitous?

Food Republic (@foodrepublic.bsky.social) on bluesky (source)


I saw this Bluesky post come across my timeline because I follow Food Republic, and it got my…

Read more →
E
Editing wikibase.world (a MediaWiki site), with Jules (an AI agent)

I recently decided to run an experiment on wikibase.world: what happens when you give an AI agent the keys to a live MediaWiki instance and ask it to do some targetting gardening, including edits to Wikibase?

Meet the Jules free tier, though i’m sure you could use any agent. Over the course of a few hours, I tasked Jules with editing wikibase.world, moving from simple API edits, querying SPARQL,…

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A Call to Arms

This past year has been marked by conflict. The United States has been particularly aggressive. The country I call home has been aggressive against Venezuela and now Iran.

2026 Cuban crisis - WikipediaWikimedia Foundation, Inc.Contributors to Wikimedia projects

Conflicts are like Waves.

They come and go. They rise and fall.

On June 1st of last year, 2025, some drones took off and…

Unofficial, open-source Notepad++ code editor build arrives for macOS

You can’t argue with a good text editor. After more than 20 years on the Microsoft Windows platform, the nifty Notepad++ coding editor is now available as a native macOS app, following an unofficial open-source community port of the original Windows codebase. The Notepad replacement runs as a universal binary, so it works on both […]

Source

NewPipe will drop support for Android 5 in v0.28.7; welcome Aayush and Ida!

TLDR: NewPipe v0.28.7 will stop supporting Android 5 because of some libraries that became incompatible with it; the NewPipe team recently e-met to welcome two contractors and discuss future endeavors.

Coinciding with this blogpost, we released a new update to NewPipe (v0.28.6), where we introduced a pop up on Android 5.0 and 5.1 notifying those users that NewPipe will stop being available on…

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E
Introducing the Wikimedia Foundation’s draft FY 2026-2027 Annual Plan

By Dietmar Rabich – Own Work, CC BY-SA 4.0
Dülmen, Börnste, Teiche in der Heubachniederung,
Baum

What does the world need from us now?

The internet is at an inflection point. The global
trends the Wikimedia Foundation and volunteers have been tracking over the past several years are no longer distant or theoretical; they are impacting Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects now. Wikipedia…

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W
PTPL 205 · Apple Shortcuts, Handrolled Notes, and Apps Worth Your Attention

A casual roundup of productivity tools, tips, and rabbit holes

No deep dives today, just a list of worthwhile productivity related things I’ve come across lately. Some universal, most Apple flavoured.

Clever (but unnecessary?) Apple Shortcut for lost iPhones

Create an automation in Apple Shortcuts that fires when you get someone to text the word “Lost” to your number. Have it take your…

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W
PTPL 205 · Apple Shortcuts, Handrolled Notes, and Apps Worth Your Attention

A casual roundup of productivity tools, tips, and rabbit holes

No deep dives today, just a list of worthwhile productivity related things I’ve come across lately. Some universal, most Apple flavoured.

Clever (but unnecessary?) Apple Shortcut for lost iPhones

Create an automation in Apple Shortcuts that fires when you get someone to text the word “Lost” to your number. Have it take your…

Read more →
[Pre-RFC] A tiny internal change to `reverse`, `copy_from_slice`, `swap_with_slice`

tl;dr: I propose to rewrite, for example, swap_with_slice from this current version (source)

// Before (minimized)
pub const fn swap_with_slice(&mut self, other: &mut [T]) {
    unsafe {
        ptr::swap_nonoverlapping(self.as_mut_ptr(), other.as_mut_ptr(), self.len());
    }
}

to lift self.len() to the front as follows:

// After (minimized)
pub const fn…
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PM Shehbaz meets Saudi crown prince in Jeddah; Dar says avenues to further enhance cooperation discussed

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after he reached Jeddah on Wednesday alongside a high-level delegation on an official visit to the kingdom, the PM Office’s (PMO) said in a statement.

The statement added that Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar was also present at the meeting.

Dar separately posted on X that the meeting was “marked…

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PM Shehbaz meets Saudi crown prince in Jeddah on first leg of regional tour

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after he reached Jeddah on Wednesday alongside a high-level delegation on an official visit to the kingdom, the PM Office’s (PMO) said in a statement.

The statement added that Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar was also present at the meeting.

Earlier, a post on the PMO’s X account said the premier…

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PM Shehbaz arrives in Saudi Arabia on first leg of regional tour

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif arrived in Jeddah on Wednesday alongside a high-level delegation on an official visit to Saudi Arabia, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said.

Earlier in the day, the Foreign Office said the prime minister, accompanied by a high-level delegation, would be undertaking official visits to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkiye from April 15 to 18.

In a post on X, the PMO…

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PM Shehbaz departs on official visits to Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Qatar

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif departed from Islamabad for Jeddah on Wednesday, kicking off a series of official visits to Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Qatar, according to the Foreign Office (FO).

The prime minister, accompanied by a high-level delegation, is undertaking official visits to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkiye from April 15 to 18, the FO said in a press release on Wednesday.

According…

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PM Shehbaz to depart today on official visits to Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Qatar

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will depart from Islamabad for Jeddah today on official visits to Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Qatar, the Foreign Office (FO) said on Wednesday.

“Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif will undertake official visits to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the State of Qatar and the Republic of Turkiye from 15–18 April,” the FO said in a statement posted to social media…

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