Ricardo B�nffy

ASCII characters are not pixels: a deep dive into ASCII rendering

A look at how I used shape vectors to achieve sharp, high-quality ASCII rendering.

C Strings: A 50-Year Mistake

Why C strings suck—and why length-based strings are the right design.

jamf.com

Threat Actors Expand Abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code

Jamf Threat Labs uncovers North Korean hackers exploiting VS Code to deploy backdoor malware via malicious Git repositories in the Contagious Interview campaign

science.org

Trump fires every member of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s governing body

Dismissal of the National Science Board is widely seen as latest move to erase NSF’s independence

Nanoraptor: "BeBox BeHemoth All-in-one." - Mastodon

Are we human?

Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” Leaves the Gods in the Outtakes

Christopher Nolan’s Homer adaptation presents a modern, relatable Odysseus, rather than trying to understand the ancient world on its own terms.

arXiv.org

AI Self-preferencing in Algorithmic Hiring: Empirical Evidence and Insights

As artificial intelligence (AI) tools become widely adopted, large language models (LLMs) are increasingly involved on both sides of decision-making processes, ranging from hiring to content moderation. This dual adoption raises a critical question: do LLMs systematically favor content that resembles their own outputs? Prior research in computer science has identified self-preference bias -- the tendency of LLMs to favor their own generated content -- but its real-world implications have not bee

Add EBCDIC support to inspector by rbanffy · Pull Request #598 · microsoft/vscode-hexeditor

EBCDIC support has been requested before, and, in many contexts, it's an important feature. Being able to inspect a binary file the editor isn't able to immediately make sense of is a small...

New Generation Systems' MicroShell

Mixing REAL Time With REAL UNIX Is Not Magic...It Is Technology.

42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support—there are no 'bad guys' here, says financial therapist

Parents can maximize the impact of their support by ensuring their gifts alleviate financial stress or help their kids move closer to their long-term goals.

Quanta Magazine

Will We Ever Find Alien Civilizations? | Quanta Magazine

Astronomer David Kipping discusses why claims of extraterrestrial life keep dissolving under scrutiny, why we need a more statistically grounded approach to searching for life beyond Earth, and why it’s rational to believe that we may be alone.