In my experience using large language models (LLMs), one of my most frequent frustrations is that they seem mostly unable to identify when they are missing some context needed to fully answer a question. In other words, they don’t “know” when to ask clarifying questions (many LLMs seem to be Read more
An app signing key is used to sign APKs (Android Package Kits) that are installed on a user’s Android device. As part of the Android operating system’s secure update model the signing key never changes during the lifetime of an app (the Android PackageInstaller class needs to be able to Read more
According to wikipedia (and as discussed in various places in the Android docs, including here), Android is “based on a modified version of the Linux Kernel along with other open-source software”. iOS is mostly proprietary software, so there is less publicly available information about the operating system, but according to Read more
Modern programming languages like Java or C++ have standard library API’s that make it relatively easy to take advantage of multicore processors by enabling simultaneous execution of multiple tasks within a program without the programmer having to think too deeply about how the processors work. For example std::thread in C++11 Read more
With web extension Manifest V3 rolling out across chromium-based browsers, support is being dropped for extensions that are not compatible with the new manifest version. For example, uBlock Origin began to be disabled for more Chrome users recently, as discussed in this article from The Verge. Reading about this led Read more
C++ does not have automatic garbage collection like Java does, so the programmer is generally responsible for ensuring objects that are created are subsequently destroyed. Any object that is created but not destroyed can cause a memory leak. The tradeoff for this manual memory management is the potential for improved Read more
When you compile Java source code using javac (the primary Java compiler included in the Java Development Kit), the .class files that are produced from the source code contain bytecodes that can run on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), rather than machine code that is native to your processor. So, Read more
MDN has some great documentation on various web technologies, including on third-party cookies. From those docs: If the cookie domain and scheme match the current page the user is looking at (the URL shown in the browser’s address bar), the cookie is considered to be from the same site as Read more
Pointers can be an intimidating concept. One resource I have found particularly helpful is the C++ Language tutorial on pointers. Quoting from that tutorial: The variable that stores the address of another variable is what in C++ is called a pointer.…Pointers are said to “point to” the variable whose address Read more
Since ChatGPT was released on November 30, 2022, “Artificial Intelligence” or “AI” has been in the news frequently. I’ve often been frustrated when reading news articles and blog posts that don’t define the term, since it can mean different things in different contexts. When discussing ChatGPT in particular, “AI” is Read more