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Curious what has happened this week in the world of Linux development. The University of Minnesota has been banned from Linux development by introduce vulnerabilities on purpose. The reason is a research work being carried out by Qiushi Wu (PhD student) and Kangjie Lu (Assistant Professor) on the feasibility of sneaking vulnerabilities into open source software. The paper can be found on GitHub.

These researchers tried to put a Use-After-Free vulnerability in the Linux kernel, among other commits. That has caused Greg Kroah-Hartman, one of the most important kernel developers and responsible for maintaining the stable branch, decided to ban the University of Minnesota completely Linux development, something that the university itself has confirmed.

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The idea of ​​the “centaur” comes from automation theorists. Half horse, half human. Is a metaphor that arises from Kasparov and Deep Blue, where the IBM machine rivaled the great chess master and helped him improve. A centaur player is one who unites human intuition, creativity and empathy, with the brute force capacity of the computer to calculate an astonishing amount of movements.

It is a way of representing the interaction between humans and robots, where the machine amplifies human abilities. However, there are also those who propose a antagonistic vision to understand the role that robots can have. It is the concept of the “reverse centaur”.

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With the new iMac 2021, Apple has wanted the team to have up to seven colors to choose from. With a most interesting detail: all the peripherals will match the color of the Mac. Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse, of course, but also the power cable and the Lightning to charge the peripherals.

There is also an aspect of homage to past times and products of the company. Enough to feel some nostalgia without actually celebrating it.

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