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Europe's free satellite service just made it easier to track wildfires

Europe’s Copernicus Browser now includes a dedicated wildfires visualization for Sentinel-2 imagery. A JavaScript script by Pierre Markuse, integrated by ESA’s Simon Proud, combines red, near‑IR, and SWIR2 bands to show active fires (white/yellow), burning vegetation (red), and burned areas (dark). It leverages high-resolution (down to 10 m) Sentinel-2 data updated every few days, offering a free, public tool to track fires alongside NASA’s coarser FIRMS. Released Aug. 4 amid a global, record wildfire season.

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ao486: x86-compatible Verilog core implementing all features of a 486 SX (2014)

ao486 is an x86-compatible Verilog core implementing all 486 SX features, modeled after Bochs. It includes a SoC (processor, IDE HDD, SD card, floppy, 8259 PIC, 8237 DMA, Sound Blaster 2.0, VGA with VGABIOS) and uses Altera Qsys on a Terasic DE2-115 board (Cyclone IV). It runs MS-DOS 6.22, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows 95, and Linux 3.13.1. BIOS/VGABIOS from Bochs/VGABIOS; NIOS II controller for OSD; BSD/LGPL licenses; Quartus II required to compile. Benchmarks: Dhrystone; max ~39 MHz.

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Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs

rosenbridge reveals a hardware backdoor in some x86 CPUs (VIA C3) that lets unprivileged code access kernel memory via a hidden embedded core controlled by an MSR bit and a launch instruction. The backdoor is usually disabled but sometimes enabled by default. The project provides research, utilities to detect and close it, and a set of tools (sandsifter, DEIS assembler, fuzzers, etc.). It is presented as a case study; the backdoor is limited to older C3 generation CPUs, not present in later models. Checking/closing instructions are included, but success may vary.

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Workers Drilling in Romania Broke into a Cave Sealed for 5.5M Years

In 1986 Romanian drillers broke into Movile Cave, a sealed limestone system beneath Mangalia that had been isolated for about 5.5 million years. Its air and water show no surface influence—the Chernobyl fallout timestamps in surface water are absent, confirming long isolation. The cave hosts an acrid, low-oxygen, hydrogen sulfide–rich environment. A chemosynthetic ecosystem thrives on chemical energy from rock and water, not sunlight. About 50 invertebrate species live there, with roughly one-third to one-half endemic and many eyeless or unpigmented. Movile reshaped biology by showing a sunless, subterranean biosphere, a model for life on other worlds.

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As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program

Marcin Wichary surveys how macOS apps are installed by dragging the app icon to the Applications folder, treating customized Finder windows as a design playground. He analyzes various drag-to-Applications screens, exploring arrow shapes, explicit instructions, and layout tricks—different axes, text cues, and scenes that use the icon grid and background. He notes gestalt pitfalls, shows examples that work well or confuse, and highlights how some apps (Firefox, Inkscape) and others from the App Store either preserve or skip the flow. The piece frames these windows as creative constraints revealing design intent and user education.

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Physicist Rigged His Pet Hamster's Wheel to Strava. It Runs Far Every Night

A physicist rigged his pet hamster Mollie’s wheel with a magnet, hall sensor, and ESP32 to log nightly runs and auto-upload them to Mollie’s Strava account. The setup records distance, pace, and time, generating .FIT files and posting via Strava’s API (requiring Strava Premium for auto-upload). Mollie averages about 10 km per night, with recent spins of 6.06 miles in 4:37 and 5.55 miles in 3:56. The quirky project drew thousands of likes and followers, turning Mollie into a social-media athlete.

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NASA to keep its 48-year-old Voyager 2 probe running for yet another year

NASA kept Voyager 2 running for another year by trimming its power draw from the plutonium-powered RTG. Engineers shut off nonessential devices and switched to low-power options, leaving three active science instruments instead of ten. The adjustment, nicknamed the “Big Bang” power shift, conserves energy as power fades by about four watts per year. Voyager 1 is set to receive a similar treatment in the coming months.

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The Nixpkgs core team has disbanded

The Nixpkgs core team has disbanded after 10 months of governance, citing unsustainable, lightweight leadership and burnout. They cite achievements such as reforming committer delegation, onboarding 19 committers, extending the merge bot, reestablishing GitHub contact, securing an Enterprise Cloud upgrade, triaging a GitHub security incident, and starting an automation/AI policy. They attribute ongoing governance failures to systemic Steering Committee issues—poor communication, micromanagement, lack of delegation instinct, and slow progress on GSoC, grants, AI policy, moderation, and GitHub org reform—making autonomous decision-making untenable. They’ll reduce involvement and won’t seek SC roles, hoping for future delegated leadership.

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Captain Bible Reverse Engineering

An open repository documenting a clean-room reverse engineering of Captain Bible in the Dome of Darkness (1994 DOS game). It provides a reproducible FreeDOS/QEMU environment and research notes, with the original CB/ data kept Git-ignored. The project includes a Rust-based clean-room engine (SDL3 frontend), a suite of analysis tools (Rizin, Python, mdBook), and living documentation in docs/ and spec/. PLAN.md and progress logs track activity, and results are published as mdBook books. Setup uses run.sh to launch the emulator with a persistent image; deterministic comparisons and rebuilds are supported. Docs publish to GitHub Pages.

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Curlese, Five Years Later

Five years after proposing curlese, curl remains the universal language for diagnosing broken HTTP integrations. The core problem—two teams, opaque logs, and a firewall—persists, but curl output now provides executable evidence that can be pasted into tickets, or fed to an LLM for context. What changed: HTTP/2, HTTP/3, widespread mTLS, and edge defenses (WAFs/proxies) complicate failures; a single curl -v repro often pins the issue. The 2026 survival kit adds flags for timing, DNS bypass, mTLS, JSON payloads, retries, and a -w one-line autopsy. Updated symptoms-to-culprits dictionary and starter phrases round out the guide.

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