If we accept the erosion of human rights for others, we may soon find ourselves subjected to that same treatment

by Mario Gerada, sul Times of Malta di Venerdì 11 aprile 2025

The will to live

^{Times of Malta}

One of the delights in Bash, zsh, or whichever shell tickles your fancy in your OSS distribution of choice, is the ease of which you can use scripts. These can be shell scripts, or use the Perl, Python or another interpreter, as defined by the shebang (#!) at the beginning of the script. This signature is followed by the path to the interpret, which can be /bin/sh for maximum compatibility across OSes, but how does this actually work? As [Bruno Croci] found while digging into this question, it is not the shell that interprets the shebang, but the kernel.

It’s easy enough to find out the basic execution sequence using strace after you run an executable shell script with said shebang in place. The first point is in execve, a syscall that gets one straight into the Linux kernel (fs/exec.c). Here the ‘binary program’ is analyzed for its executable format, which for the shell script gets us to binfmt_script.c. Incidentally the binfmt_misc.c source file provides an interesting detour as it concerns magic byte sequences to do something similar as a shebang.

As a bonus [Bruno] also digs into the difference between executing a script with shebang or running it in a shell (e.g. sh script.sh), before wrapping up with a look at where the execute permission on a shebang-ed shell script is checked.

hackaday.com/2025/04/11/tracin…

Human biology is very much like that of other mammals, and yet so very different in areas where it matters. One of these being human neurology, with aspects like the human brain and the somatosensory pathways (i.e. touch etc.) being not only hard to study in non-human animal analogs, but also (genetically) different enough that a human test subject is required. Over the past years the use of human organoids have come into use, which are (parts of) organs grown from human pluripotent stem cells and thus allow for ethical human experimentation.

For studying aspects like the somatosensory pathways, multiple of such organoids must be combined, with recently [Ji-il Kim] et al. as published in Nature demonstrating the creation of a so-called assembloid. This four-part assembloid contains somatosensory, spinal, thalamic and cortical organoids, covering the entirety of such a pathway from e.g. one’s skin to the brain’s cortex where the sensory information is received.

Such assembloids are – much like organoids – extremely useful for not only studying biological and biochemical processes, but also to research diseases and disorders, including tactile deficits as previously studied in mouse models by e.g. [Lauren L. Orefice] et al. caused by certain genetic mutations in Mecp2 and other genes, as well as genes like SCN9A that can cause clinical absence of pain perception.

Using these assembloids the development of these pathways can be studied in great detail and therapies developed and tested.

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Over on the Google blog [Joel Meares] explains how Google built the new family of Gemini Robotics models.

The bi-arm ALOHA robot equipped with Gemini 2.0 software can take general instructions and then respond dynamically to its environment as it carries out its tasks. This family of robots aims to be highly dexterous, interactive, and general-purpose by applying the sort of non-task-specific training methods that have worked so well with LLMs, and applying them to robot tasks.

There are two things we here at Hackaday are wondering. Is there anything a robot will never do? And just how cherry-picked are these examples in the slick video? Let us know what you think in the comments!

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There are some ideas which someone somewhere has to try. Take [Uri Tuchman]’s foot mouse. It’s a computer mouse for foot operation, but it’s not just a functional block. Instead it’s an ornate inlaid-wood-and-brass affair in the style of a very fancy piece of antique footwear.

The innards of an ordinary USB mouse are placed in something best described as a wooden platform heel, upon which is placed a brass sole with a couple of sections at the front to activate the buttons with the user’s toes. The standout feature is the decoration. With engraving on the brass and inlaid marquetry on the wood, it definitely doesn’t look like any computer peripheral we’ve seen.

The build video is below the break, and we’re treated to all the processes sped up. At the end he uses it in a basic art package and in a piloting game, with varying degrees of succes. We’re guessing it would take a lot of practice to gain a level of dexterity with this thing, but we salute him for being the one who tries it.

This has to be the fanciest peripheral we’ve ever seen, but surprisingly it’s not the first foot mouse we’ve brought you.

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Un uomo di 39 anni è stato condannato a 6 anni e 8 mesi di reclusione per pornografia minorile aggravata e violenza sessuale su minori. Decisive per la sentenza sono state le immagini degli abusi, che lui stesso aveva ripreso e conservato sul proprio computer.

Le violenze si sono consumate tra il 2021 e il 2022, all’interno delle mura domestiche, approfittando dell’assenza della madre delle bambine. Gli inquirenti hanno ricostruito un quadro drammatico, basato su documentazione e testimonianze che hanno confermato la gravità degli atti compiuti dall’uomo.

Le indagini sono scattate dopo la denuncia di una ragazza, che aveva accusato il trentanovenne di abusi subiti quando era minorenne. In quel caso, il procedimento si era concluso con un’assoluzione per insufficienza di prove. Tuttavia, il materiale trovato successivamente sul suo computer ha permesso di riaprire l’inchiesta, portando alla scoperta delle violenze sulle figlie.

Con la condanna, l’uomo ha perso la responsabilità genitoriale ed è stato colpito dall’interdizione perpetua da qualsiasi incarico che comporti contatti con minori. Una misura necessaria per tutelare le vittime e prevenire il rischio di ulteriori crimini.

Questa tragica vicenda riporta al centro l’urgenza di proteggere e sorvegliare i minori da abusi spesso consumati nell’ambiente familiare, dimostrando quanto il male possa annidarsi proprio dove dovrebbe esserci amore e sicurezza.

L'articolo Il Mostro è stato Arrestato! Violentava e filmava le proprie figlie di 3 e 6 anni mentre la Mamma era fuori proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

Il dettaglio elenca "attività connesse alla vita sociale, ad esempio accompagnatori e di accompagnatrici (escort)", le agenzie "di incontro e matrimoniali" e poi la "fornitura o organizzazione di servizi sessuali", l'organizzazione di "eventi di prostituzione o gestione di locali di prostituzione", e l'organizzazione di "incontri e altre attività di speed networking".

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