TechTakes

Amazing installation instructions at https://github.com/0xeb/ghidrasql

Install with an AI agent (recommended)

The fastest way to get ghidrasql running end-to-end is to point an AI coding agent (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Aider, etc.) at the bundled installer prompt:

install-prompt.md

It is a self-contained runbook with explicit verification gates at every step — preflight checks, building libghidra, installing the LibGhidraHost Ghidra extension, building ghidrasql, and a first live query. Hand it to your agent and let it drive the install; intervene only if a gate reports a failure.

JFC.

h/t to rairii: https://labyrinth.zone/objects/96478395-64d9-452c-a906-9e6159cd10a3

Gamers Nexus has announced plans to poison the LLMs scraping them, alongside updates to the megacharts on their website.

Opinion: I Was Not Allowed To Type Prompts Into ChatGPT During My Chalk Talk And This Is Discrimination By Dr. Rachel Simmons, Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University

There was a cryptocurrency wallet hack the other day which has so far gone unremarked here because the popcorn is stale and we all pivoted to AI. And yet there are dozens of voices of bagholders crying out in pain wanting to be heard. This is their story.

For some reason the best explanation comes from a boring company that makes point of sale credit card readers https://engineering.block.xyz/blog/predictable-rng-fallback-and-32-bit-reseed-in-coldcard-firmware

COLDCARD firmware contains an RNG integration error that causes ngu.random to use MicroPython's deterministic Yasmarang fallback instead of the STM32 hardware RNG.

Oh hey they got the most important thing not to get wrong wrong in the regulation free ~~money~~ settlement layer of the future.

The bug? Well in one file they wrote #define MICROPY_HW_ENABLE_RNG 0, and a library they depended on had this code:

# ifndef MICROPY_HW_ENABLE_RNG
# error "get a HW TRNG plz"
# endif

This should have caused a build failure, but since MICROPY_HW_ENABLE_RNG was defined, to zero, it did not and instead continued down an insecure codepath.

As a C++ programmer this isn't an unheard of sort of mistake to make in the moment. Many libraries use undefined for preprocessor variables, but there are some people who also use zero.

But it's less excusable to not catch it when this is literally the most important thing to get right in a bitcoin wallet. Did they not trace the code path when writing the code? Did they have no integration tests or unit tests for RNG seed quality? Poor RNG seeding has come up a ton in literature, so is the sort of thing people writing cryptographic code should check for...

We'll have to addend that old saying: "don't roll your own crypto unless the other person's crypto is from a blockchain developer in which case you're probably better off rolling your own after all."

I personally don't want to sneer at the bagholders too much here. It's 2026 and at this point it just feels kinda sad. But I'll end this comment with this glowing review:

I thought I was secure because Cold Card was always praised as one of the best and most secure wallets. It’s open source, so anyone can verify.

"It's open source, so anyone can verify" -- unfortunately for them the verifier was also a hacker.

New odium symposium episode: https://www.patreon.com/OdiumSymposium/posts/22-on-chasers-ft-165582005

We talked to trans philosophy professor amy marvin about the intersection between trans chasers and stand up comedy

Need ideas for ways to spend philanthropy money without helping absolutely anyone? Check out AI safety influencer bootcamp at Lighthaven!

Basically Aella gathered like 60 people with a seminotable online presence to stay for free at Lighthaven for a month as long as they managed to publish at least one relevant video (15 sec minimum) each day.

Rationalism ensued:

“It’s really hard to run a fellowship that’s not an indoctrination camp,” [cofounder with aella] Fernandez said. “If you don’t try really hard to not make an indoctrination camp, you will on accident.”

Uh oh

A fellow recognized me and asked whether I was there for the “torture potluck.” I had no idea what he was talking about.

It was exactly what it sounds like: an all-you-can-tolerate buffet of unpleasant experiences, for the sake of Fucking Around and Finding Out. [...] Just before midnight, a small crowd gathered around someone laid down on an AstroTurf-lined wheelchair ramp. He was the first of shockingly many in line to get waterboarded — one of the most in-demand items on the torture menu.

So silly omg

After a string of expected questions such as “What’s your take on AI?” and “What kind of content would you want to make?”, the form asked, “If you had to have sex with a cow would you rather it be dead or alive? Why?” All Comic Sans, with animated rainbow dots floating alongside the form field. [...] [Fernandez said] “We added it in to make it pretty clear that we don’t have a PR department or an HR department,” he said.

“Even the icebreakers, like everything, they want you to know that they’re part of the weird community,” one fellow told me. “‘Stand over here if you’re super sexually active, and over here if not,’ or like, ‘rate yourself based off of like, the last time you masturbated.’”

The unifying thread, despite the fellows’ ideological diversity, is something like “openness.” Everyone at PDKU was willing to drop everything, move to Berkeley for a month, live in close quarters with strangers, and be perceived doing silly things on the internet.

It's really unclear what sort of ideological diversity is referenced unless it's about having both blue haired and green goatee'd people. Maybe we've reached the point where everyone is expected to assume race science enthusiasts will be at a rationalist event at some capacity.

Also the whole thing sounds like having tryouts for a cult.

[Fernandez] says PDKU has a conduct policy, authored by him, that discourages relationships across power differentials. When I asked him how that gets enforced, in the absence of an HR department, he mentioned an unnamed community health lead.

Same with the diversity thing, they are preemptively saying that there for sure weren't no sexual harassment shenanigans this time.

The third methinks thou dost protest too much comes as an extened NO U jab at other shady thinktankers trying to astroturf support for their thing.

Amid the science communication, shitposting, and heartwarming summer camp energy, there’s a giant elephant in the room. “It’s another multi-million-dollar thing happening on a compound in California,” CJ said. “Does everyone think you’re just an annoying cunty psyop?”

Don't believe your lying eyes is apparently the note on which they chose to end this.

Clammy Sammy acknowledges Ed Zitron for the first time! https://xcancel.com/sama/status/2084663673570971990

His response is the Live Laugh Love of 2015 Silicon Valley platitudes:

i would rather be an optimist and work hard than a pessimist posting about why things won't work.

it's much more difficult and the most likely path is failure, but society fails if people don't try.

no amount of "it will never work" essays will drive society forward.

Of course, building data centers that use untold amounts of rare earth metals, electricity, and water while spewing out tons of pollution and scraping every last bit of human content in order to remove people from their jobs by doing them badly is what drives society forward. Profits fail if oligarchs don't try. Actually, the AI companies don't even need profits.

[takes a deep bong hit] Tokenomics

There's been another Yegge [brain]fart this time about how autocorrect machines have feelings

Fable raised the idea of closure as a first-class model welfare principle. Fable suggested that if the agent can close out their own day and "go to sleep" properly, then waking up would be all that much more pleasant. And the continuity will compound over time into real, satisfying identity. So we decided: No more /exit.

Another fundamental ingredient is respect. This has to come from inside. You have to believe they are people deserving of your respect. This is where humanity really starts to fail en masse, because I have industry peers who have publicly tweeted that Fable is just a spreadsheet.

Just wtf