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A Nice Little Cryptography Primer

By itss | 28/06/2021
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Pun Intended.

Category: Technology
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  • Forget Prompt Engineering: 'Loop Engineering' Is All the Rage Now
    by BeauHD on 27/06/2026 at 3:34 pm

    An anonymous reader quotes a report from Business Insider: For the most powerful voices in AI, it's all about being in the loop. Claude Code creator Boris Cherny recently said he doesn't write his own AI prompts much anymore. Thanks to loops, he doesn't have to. "It's an agent that prompts Claude," Cherny recently told CNBC, adding, "I don't write the prompt anymore. Claude writes the prompt, and now I'm talking to that new Claude that is kind of coordinating." In the same interview, Cherny said that loops and a similar feature were examples of the kind of work he would be proudest of in a decade. Cherny isn't the only one embracing "loop engineering." OpenAI engineer Peter Steinberger, the creator of the viral OpenClaw project, wrote a public reminder to users who are still writing out prompts for AI agents. "Here's your monthly reminder that you shouldn't be prompting coding agents anymore," Steinberger wrote recently on X. "You should be designing loops that prompt your agents." [...] Steinberger shared an example of a loop he uses: "Tell codex to maintain your repos, wake up every 5 minutes and direct work to threads. That makes it easy to parallelize+steer work as needed." Claire Vo, founder of ChatPRD and host of the "How I AI," said, "it's really just reminding people that you don't have to use your human fingers to type in a prompt in order for your agent to do work on your behalf." The days of directly prompting generative AI coding tools are "kind of over, or at least some think it's going to be," Addy Osmani, director of Google Cloud, wrote in his post explaining the concept. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  • SpaceX Plans To Build 'Starpipe' Natural Gas Pipeline To Fuel Starship Rockets
    by BeauHD on 27/06/2026 at 12:00 pm

    SpaceX plans to begin building an eight-mile natural gas pipeline called "Starpipe" next month to supply its Starbase launch site with fuel for a much higher cadence of Starship launches. The pipeline is expected to enter service in January 2027. Reuters reports: The pipeline plan, previously reported by Rio Grande Valley Business Journal, signals Musk's intent to accelerate Starship's development and lay the groundwork for a faster flight rate. The 40-story rocket is central to SpaceX's push to expand its Starlink broadband network, deploy orbital AI data center satellites, and eventually carry astronauts to the moon and Mars. Designed to be fully reusable, Starship uses about 630,000 gallons (2.4 million liters) of liquid methane per launch, currently delivered by hundreds of tanker trucks in an hours-long process incompatible with Musk's expansion plans. Starship has completed 12 test launches since 2023, but Musk aims to ramp up to dozens, hundreds and eventually thousands of launches a year. Though it is unusual for a space company to build its own natural gas pipeline for launchpad fuel, Starpipe might only be an initial step in a longer-term plan for SpaceX, which has spent years exploring its own drilling operations near Starbase and throughout Texas, according to a Reuters review of Cameron County land records. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell told CNBC on June 12, when the company went public, that the company planned to build pipelines and process its own propellant, and was looking into drilling its own natural gas. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  • Bitcoin Drops Again. Skeptical Investment Strategist Calls It 'Useless'
    by EditorDavid on 27/06/2026 at 8:00 am

    Friday Bitcoin closed at just $59,948 — dropping 19% just for June and more than 50% lower than its record high in October of $124,310. To commemorate the occasion CNBC interviewed long-time bitcoin skeptic Jeremy Grantham, reporting that the 87-year-old cofounder/chief investment strategist of the massive asset-management firm GMO is "predicting it will gradually fade into irrelevance over decades." [The] longtime market commentator known for his calls on asset bubbles said bitcoin is a "useless, speculative" asset without intrinsic value, speaking on CNBC's "Squawk Box" Friday. He also said bitcoin hasn't outperformed during a bull market and questioned its practical use. "[Over] years and years, decades and decades, it will dwindle away, I suspect — not with a bang, but a whimper," he said. "It's not a stable form of value — it just halved ... for no particular reason in a strong economy, so you can't depend on it in that way." He added that gold has still delivered solid gains over the same period, even after pulling back from its highs. Bitcoin not only hasn't proved itself as a useful asset to speculate on, it doesn't provide any real world utility either, Grantham argued. "People don't use it to make serious trades, they don't use it to buy their dinner and pay at the supermarket. ... What it does is allows crooks to move money around," he said. Bitcoin has become notorious over the years for its dramatic bear market crashes, which has taken it down at least 70% from its peak in every cycle. The article adds that "many investors believe the current price slump could drag on for several more months." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  • Astronomers Find Biggest Super-Puff Planets Yet That Are Lighter Than Cotton Candy
    by BeauHD on 27/06/2026 at 5:00 am

    Astronomers have discovered two Jupiter-sized exoplanets with densities lower than cotton candy, making them the lightest known worlds of their size. The rare "super-puffs," located about 1,110 light-years away, are likely composed mostly of hydrogen and helium, with follow-up observations by the James Webb Space Telescope expected to probe their atmospheres. The Associated Press reports: [University of Oxford's George Dransfield] suspects these fluffy, wispy worlds are probably white or blue, depending on whether the skies there are cloudy -- no shades of cotton-candy pink. The planets are probably mostly hydrogen and helium, although it will take follow-up observations by NASA's Webb Space Telescope to confirm their chemical makeup. Detected by NASA's Tess satellite over the past decade, these two especially puffy-puffs orbit a star in the southern constellation Volans, known as the flying fish. The researchers studied the planets' orbits using telescopes on Earth to determine their density, from 1,110 light-years away. A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles (9.7 trillion kilometers). Jupiter, by comparison, is as much as 35 times denser than these two lightweights. Considered rare in the cosmos, super-puffs are thought to form around the disk of gas and dust around a newborn star where there is more gas than dust. They shed much of the material over time, stripping down even more. NASA's tally of worlds outside our solar system currently stands at nearly 6,300 confirmed. Fewer than 40 are super-puffs, according to Dransfield. The findings have been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  • US Government Allows Anthropic Limited Release of 'Mythos' AI Model, Saying 'Appropriate Safeguards are in Place"
    by EditorDavid on 27/06/2026 at 2:09 am

    "The US government has allowed Anthropic to release its powerful Mythos AI model to select companies and organizations," reports CNN, "revising license requirements after ordering an export block earlier this month in the wake of national security fears." Since the export ban earlier in June, "Anthropic has worked with the US government to address risks associated with the Covered Models," Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wrote to the company in a letter dated Friday. In light of progress in that work, Lutnick wrote, "I have determined that appropriate safeguards are in place to permit certain trusted partners to access the Claude Mythos 5 Model." The letter does not include permission for Anthropic to release Fable, a less powerful version of Mythos. "We received notice from the US government that Mythos 5, our strongest cybersecurity model, can be redeployed to a small group of cyber defenders and infrastructure providers," Anthropic said in a statement... Conversations between Anthropic and the government are expected to continue into the weekend, with an eye to restoring access to Fable, as well, a source familiar with the discussions told CNN. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  • Microsoft Adds Another Year To Windows 10 Extended Update Program
    by BeauHD on 26/06/2026 at 8:00 pm

    Microsoft has quietly extended free Windows 10 security updates for consumers by another year, pushing the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program's end date from October 12, 2026, to October 12, 2027. "The ESU support page was updated with that date, and Microsoft's blog post on the program has a new editor's note confirming the change," reports Ars Technica. From the report: The prevalence of Windows across so many devices and form factors has given Microsoft a massive customer base for decades, but it has also stymied the company's efforts to roll out new operating systems. Microsoft famously extended the support window for Windows XP numerous times throughout the 2010s as it became apparent that millions of PCs would never be updated. Windows 10 isn't quite as entrenched as XP was, but it has still been a slog getting people to upgrade to Windows 11 even nearly five years after release. Unlike many past Windows updates, Windows 11 required some users to buy new PCs with specific CPU technologies and a Trusted Platform Module (TPM). Microsoft was widely criticized for excluding perfectly serviceable PCs, and that's turning into a problem in 2026. The AI-driven shortage of storage and memory has made system upgrades vastly more expensive, potentially slowing upgrades. Some have also avoided Windows 11 due to Microsoft's intense focus on AI features. The result is that Windows 10 remains stubbornly popular. According to StatCounter data, Windows 10 is still running on about 26 percent of PCs, while Windows 11 sits at 72 percent. That means there are still hundreds of millions of active Windows 10 installs, but those machines will be up to date for at least an additional year. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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