Chris’ Corner: If This Then Splat

I love the little typographic thing where if you’re reading a block of text that is in italics, that when an italic word is needed within that, it is unitalicized (like that). I’ve seen that expressed in CSS like: em em { font-style: normal; } That’s probably smart to have,

Channel capacity of a telegraph

Claude Shannon’s famous paper A Mathematical Theory of Communication [1] includes an example saying that the channel capacity of a telegraph is log2 W where W is the largest real root of the determinant equation Where in the world did that come from? I’ll sketch where the equation above came

How API security is evolving for the GenAI era

Ben Popper chats with Keith Babo, Head of Product at Solo.io, about how the API security landscape is changing in the era of GenAI. They talk through the role of governance in AI, the importance of data protection, and the role API gateways play in enhancing security and functionality. Keith

LocalXpose: The Most Useful Tool for Developers to Share Localhost Online

Read LocalXpose: The Most Useful Tool for Developers to Share Localhost Online and learn Developer Tools with SitePoint. Our web development and design tutorials, courses, and books will teach you HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Python, and more. Continue reading LocalXpose: The Most Useful Tool for Developers to Share Localhost Online

Squares, triangles, and octal

I ran across the following theorem in Ross Honsberger’s book Mathematical Morsels: Every odd square ends in 1 in base 8, and if you cut off the 1 you have a triangular number. A number is an odd square if and only if it is the square of an odd

How to become a Java developer: Skills & career guide

Question: Which of the following are true about the Java programming language? Java is an object-oriented programming language.   It supports “write once, run anywhere” functionality.   Java features automatic garbage collection for memory management.   The language emphasizes security and robust exception handling.   Java was originally developed at Sun Microsystems in the

The Linux Finger Command: A Forgotten Linux Feature

Brain Drain: David vs Goliath

There are worries that GenAI systems may run out of fresh data as they scale. Synthetic data is an option, but using AI-generated data to train AI can degrade the model's performance. There may be a better solution. Can data quality overcome a loss of data quantity?

RNG, PRNG, CSPRNG

Most random number generators are pseudorandom number generators (PRNGs). The distinction may be pedantic or crucial, depending on context. In the context of cryptography, it’s critical. For this post, RNG will mean a physical, true random number generator. A PRNG may be suitable for many uses—Monte Carlo simulation, numerical integration,

Triangle circle maximization problem

Let a, b, and c be the sides of a triangle. Let r be the radius of an inscribed circle and R the radius of a circumscribed circle. Finally, let p be the perimeter. Then the previous post said that 2prR = abc. We could rewrite this as 2rR =