Miscellanous Infodump

• The black soot in onions is the mold called Aspergillus Niger

• C - enums are better than strings when specificity is found. Learn enums
• std::unordered_map in C. What does it do? I found it in Discord
• Python: Learn threading.BoundedSemaphore and collections.deque and try implementing them in an example. See if they are useful
• Check out The Pragmatic Programmer for language-agnostic methods to improve code quality in engineering
• Database sharding is when a database is split into smaller databases (“split into shards” in a way) and stored across multiple servers to ease storage use
• Huanliu-3 Fusion Reactor tokamak built in China created a unique-design magnetic field. Not up to the mark but is a good PoC.
• Tokamaks are toroidal chambers in which nuclear fusion happens. Strong magnetic fields are created to contain superheated plasma
• Plasma should not touch tokamak walls, hence magnetic field should be extremely strong. If plasma touches, instant cooldown and material damage
• Glial cells reprogrammed into neurons to repair brain damage
  • Neuron reprogramming is hard
  • Reprogramming done using a single transcription factor
  • Chemicals involved: Neurogenin2 and YingYang1
    • Neurogenin2 (Ngn2) is the transcription factor → this is reprogrammed post translation
    • YingYang1 (Yy1) is a newly discovered transcriptional regulator → This opens up chromatin for reprogramming and interacts with Ngn2
  • Epigenetic modification - Epigenome controls which genes are active at a given time
• Time reversal symmetry - Classical and quantum equations are still valid with negative time. Input-Output Indefiniteness
• Did a good morning walk - 5 km
• YouTube’s experimenting with server-side ad injection that seems to circumvent ad blocker detection by injecting ads into videos directly. Come on, YouTube, really now? Maybe make ads less intrusive and annoying instead?
• UMP protocol to load video metadata and package it (video + ads metadata) into a streamlined unit. YouTube has been using this
• Ruff - Python Linter programmed in Rust. Seems like it’s worth a try
• register keyword is ignored in all modern C compilers. Here’s a demonstration. It was only useful during the K&R era when compilers weren’t that smart in optimizations. Same with inline
  • Registers don’t occupy memory, so you can’t borrow a reference like register int n → &n
• Microburst (aviation)
• https://xkcd.com/2956 brilliant one
• Have to file my IT returns and I already feel reluctant and ashamed
• Have to transfer the money in my SEB account to my Indian Bank account. Parents are saying and I have no idea how, and I’m nervous and scared too
  • The problem will be solved. Moulika said she will transfer INR for my SEK, thank god but still
  • When I am doing something of my own initiative, I am not very nervous but when my parents tell me the same thing or when they involve themselves directly or indirectly, I get nervous, tense, and I dissociate
  • I am afraid to share my thoughts openly with my family, whether they are casual or important
    • Part of my anxiety comes from my parents overreacting to what I say, even if they don’t outright mean it
    • My uncle is extremely dismissive of everything I say. Conversations with him cannot be casual and they can’t last for more than a few seconds without him stampeding over me
    • Daily exercise in patience and forgiveness
      • Parents also make mistakes
      • They have experienced this in their childhood too
      • They are good people by heart and are trying their best
    • Learn to keep separate parts of your life separate
    • No need to share much beyond the bare important minimum with parents
    • Not everyone is privy to everything about my life and that’s okay
    • My parents aren’t and shouldn’t be my friends - They are parents

• I am still young, there’s so much more to life
• I may not be able to change what has happened in the past but I have control over myself now. I have control over the many things that are in my control - stoicism
• Comparison is the thief of joy - Theodore Roosevelt
• I need to be able to stand in the eye of a hurricane and remain calm and centered while the storm swirls around me
  • Actually, why is the eye of the hurricane so calm? Coriolis force pushes winds away from the center
  • Use ball tied to bat and swinging ball in circles analogy. Ball moving fast but hand isn’t moving so fast
• https://roadmap.sh/ - Good resource for directional guidance on how to build skills
• Filing my IT returns
  • e-Filing portal ← go here to file it. I had to file a NIL return, which is the same as taxable amount of 0
  • I filed ITR-1
  • There was an issue with the tax deductions. The option of 80TTA - Interest in Savings Bank Accounts was greyed out and deductions showed as 0, which shouldn’t be the case although it’s not important
• Job applications
  • Qamcom - Embedded Software Engineer
  • Qamcom - Systems Engineer with interest in MedTech, Industrial IoT and AI
    • Research and Technology company. Works with HW, SW, and Systems
    • Concept → Sketch → PoC → Aftermarket services
    • Seems like Deloitte but for tech research
  • XpertDirect - Embedded Software Engineer (UAV) Easy Apply. I don’t know what the connection is between UAV development and recruitment because Xpert Direct seems like so - an automated hiring platform company for tech skills. Edit: Okay, it’s for one of their clients. Which client though? No information on that! I applied, let’s see
  • Nyfors + KTH - Industrial PhD (Optical non-linear waveguides)
  • ULTEUM - Prototype Engineer
• Look at the development process of satellites
• INT_PTR is basically an integer with which pointer arithmetic can easily be performed. It is Windows-specific
  • INT_PTR is architecture-size agnostic. If the system is x86, it will have asize of 32 bits. If the system is x64, 64 bits. Ensures code portability
• reinterpret_cast<> preserves the value but not necessarily the address. static_cast<> does the opposite. It is recommended to static_cast void* pointers. The former essentially is a compile-time directive that says “treat that thing as if it had the type that’s within<>”
• static_assert(var1, var2) checks whether var1 and var2 are the same. Used to make assertions at compile time

Automated Binary Analysis System

UEFI vulnerability targeting Intel Core Architectures Unsafe call to GetVariable() UEFI service in Phoenix SecureCore UEFI firmware → Unsafe variable TCG2_CONFIGURATION in UEFI code handling TPM configuration (Buffer overflow → Arbitrary Code Execution)

1. Check the buffer size. When the provided buffer is tiny, EFI_BUFFER_TOO_SMALL is returned along with the recommended buffer size in the first call
2. The attacker then modifies the buffer size carefully to ensure a buffer overflow. A small calculated number is added to the buffer size that overflows the integer down to a smaller number
3. The data that is fed to the function will be larger in size than the new buffer size, thus triggering a buffer overflow and writing adjacent memory cells

Name of vulnerability: CVE-2024-0762 (CVSS 7.5)