Article: 24 min

Netflix has successfully integrated AV1 into its streaming platform, powering approximately 30% of all Netflix viewing. This milestone marks a significant advancement in video compression efficiency and quality for mobile users, smart TVs, web browsers, and Apple devices. The adoption of AV1 has led to improved visual experiences with reduced data usage and fewer buffering interruptions.

• Co-founded the Alliance for Open Media in 2015 to develop next-generation open-source media technologies
• AV1 was released in 2018, offering significant improvements over state-of-the-art codecs
• Initial pilot on Android mobile devices in 2020, followed by smart TVs and web browsers
• Support for AV1 HDR10+ and film grain synthesis has enhanced visual experiences

Quality:
The article provides a comprehensive overview of Netflix's AV1 journey, backed by detailed data and technical insights.

Article: 9 min

The article discusses the issues with BMW's plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) high-voltage battery management control unit (iBMUCP), highlighting its unrepairability, over-engineered diagnostic procedures, and cryptographic locking of components. It also mentions the high costs associated with repairs and services.

• €5,000 cost for a single fuse replacement due to crash detection system
• Difficulty in accessing and replacing replaceable components
• Need for flashing the entire vehicle before and after replacement increases risk and recovery time
• Infineon TC375 MCU cryptographic locking prevents clearing of crash flag

Quality:
The article presents a detailed analysis of the issues with BMW's iBMUCP, providing technical insights and highlighting the challenges faced by owners and service providers.

Article: 9 min

The author reflects on their 15-year history blog journey, discussing its evolution from a vibrant community of historians to the current state dominated by social media platforms. They also share their experience with blogging's addictive nature and the shift towards clickbait content.

• Started writing the blog Res Obscura in 2010 as a PhD student.
• Focused on writing daily posts about obscure historical subjects.
• Moved from traditional blogging to Substack newsletters due to changes in online behavior.

Quality:
The author provides a balanced view of the changes in blogging and social media, without expressing strong opinions.

Article: 1 hr 8 min

The article discusses a new technique called SVG clickjacking that enables complex interactive attacks and data exfiltration by leveraging SVG filters on cross-origin documents, offering examples such as fake captcha generation, grey text hiding, pixel reading, logic gates implementation, and QR code generation. The author also shares insights into the development process and showcases real-world applications of this technique.

• Examples demonstrating various attack primitives
• Real-world applications and case studies

Quality:
The article provides detailed technical insights and examples, but lacks a clear call to action.

Article: 23 min

Ron Gilbert, known for his work on classic adventure games like Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island, pivots to action game design with Death by Scrolling after facing challenges in securing funding for an ambitious RPG project. The game is inspired by modern classics such as Binding of Isaac, Nuclear Throne, and Dead Cells.

• Ron Gilbert's transition from adventure game development to action games
• Development challenges in creating a large open-world RPG
• Crowdfunding and its limitations for funding game projects

Quality:
Balanced coverage of the game development process and industry challenges.

Article: 14 min

Tacopy is a Python library that optimizes tail-recursive functions by transforming them into iterative loops, preventing stack overflow errors and significantly improving performance.

• Tacopy library transforms tail-recursive functions into efficient loops.
• Eliminates risk of stack overflow errors.
• Improves performance by 1.41x to 2.88x compared to regular recursion.
• Ensures proper tail recursion before transformation.
• Preserves function metadata like docstrings and type hints.

Article: 11 min

Scientists have documented brown rats hunting and eating bats for the first time. The study, published in Global Ecology and Conservation, shows that these adaptable rodents are exploiting urban food resources while potentially affecting local bat populations.

• Rats observed snatching and eating bats
• First-ever documented behavior
• Potential impact on local bat populations

Quality:
The article provides clear, factual information with a neutral tone.

Article: 33 min

The NeurIPS 2025 Best Paper Awards were announced for seven groundbreaking papers that cover a range of machine learning topics including diffusion model theory, self-supervised reinforcement learning, attention mechanisms in large language models, reasoning capabilities in LLMs, online learning theory, neural scaling laws, and benchmarking methodologies. The award-winning papers introduce novel datasets, benchmarks, and theoretical insights into AI evaluation, architecture design, and generalization, with implications for improving the diversity, creativity, and societal impact of AI systems.

• Seven papers recognized for their contributions to machine learning across various subfields.
• The awards highlight the importance of rigorous evaluation methods, novel architectures, and theoretical insights for advancing AI systems.

Quality:
The article provides a comprehensive overview of the NeurIPS 2025 Best Paper Awards, highlighting key findings and their implications for machine learning research.

Article: 3 min

The article discusses leadership styles, comparing servant leadership with transparent leadership, advocating for the latter as a more effective approach in managing teams.

• Transparent leadership involves coaching, connecting, teaching problem-solving skills, explaining organizational values, creating career growth opportunities, and continuously training successors.
• The article argues that servant leadership can lead to overworked leaders who become single points of failure, leaving behind isolated teams with unclear purpose.
• Transparent leadership aims to make the leader redundant by empowering team members, fostering autonomy, and enabling them to take on more responsibilities.

Quality:
The article presents a personal viewpoint on leadership styles, advocating for transparent leadership over servant leadership.