A new release 0.0.5 of the RcppFastAD package is now on CRAN, has been built for r2u, and updated at r-universe. This comes (to the day) two years after the preceding 0.0.4 release.

RcppFastAD wraps the FastAD header-only C++ library by James which provides a C++ implementation of both forward and reverse mode of automatic differentiation. It offers an easy-to-use header library that is both lightweight and performant. With a little of bit of Rcpp glue, it is also easy to use from R in simple C++ applications. This release updates the continuous integration setup as one does, adds a local configuration helper to quieten compilation (described also in this blog post). It also adds a defensive setting for g++: Under recent g++ versions and optimisation at least the -O3 level, segfaults are seen as something is not quite right with (temporary) “views” of Eigen objects in code generated by this versions. Others are fine, as is clang++. We have not gotten to the bottom of it, but setting -g0 seems to ensure that builds generally work.

The NEWS file for this release follows.

Changes in version 0.0.5 (2026-09-24)

• Several routine updates to continuous integration have been made

• Local builds (where a .git/ directory is seen) now append silencing compiler option that CRAN would object to

• Given recent issues with g++ under optimization, debugging is turned off by default.

Courtesy of my CRANberries, there is also a diffstat report for the most recent release. More information is available at the repository or the package page.

This post by Dirk Eddelbuettel originated on his Thinking inside the box blog. If you like this or other open-source work I do, you can now sponsor me at GitHub.

Bjorn Stahl of the Arcan project wrote an insightful blog post The Day of a new Command-Line Interface: Shell [1]. He does a really good job of identifying problems and strategies for dealing with them, the UI of the results isn’t suitable to what I do though.

Using sqlite as an executable format (replacement for ELF) is one of the wildest ideas I’ve seen in a while, it might actually have some good use cases too [2].

Andrew Dana Hudson wrote an interesting LongNow article about SciFi’s focus on space travel when it seems unlikely [3].

TheDriven has an informative article about the “Hands Off Our Fuel” astroturf campaign that uses farmers as the face of an attempt to give tax exemptions to mining companies [4].

The Conversation has an interesting article about the new Chinese regulations restricting access to AI systems to prevent emotional dependence and prevent minors from having virtual partners or relatives [5].

Elana Hashman wrote an informative blog post about Python virtualenvs, has useful information for people who aren’t Python experts and just need to get stuff done [6].

We need more systems in the NTP pool, I would consider doing this if I had a server with an IP address that won’t change and no risk of bandwidth throttling [7].

Cory Doctorow has some interesting thoughts on the CEO fetish for “AI” even though it is almost never doing any good [8].

Steve Rose wrote an insightful article for The Guardian about the tech fascists of Silicon Valley [9].

Jacqui Lambie calls Pauline Hanson an “angry little woman” and a “bloody coward”, One Nation hate the rule of law [10].

The Conversation has an interesting article about Regime Change, the book about Trump by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan [11].

Elvira Barry wrote an insightful article about the many failures of the Russian legal system, it’s interesting to note that ALL those failures match things that the Trump regime is doing [12].

Pyotr Kurzin – Geopolitics YouTube channel has an interesting interview about “continental” vs “maritime” powers in the context of what the US and Russia are doing [13].

Maxinomica has an interesting video about how China obtained a monopoly on rare earth metals and what happens next [14].

Anarcat wrote an insightful blog post The people vs the AI overlords about the problems that “AI” software development is bringing [15].

John Goerzen wrote an interesting blog post discussing the issues related to LLM use in FOSS projects [16].

Cybernews has an article about an exploit for Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo, and OnePlus phones due to bad OEM kernel drivers and bad OEM API proxies, no company should release devices with proprietry drivers [17].

Scott Santens wrote an insightful article about how retraining fails laid-off workers and why UBI is needed when workers get replaced by LLMs [18].

libroot has some information on the Snowden archive and why so little of it has been used by journalists, we need more answers about this [19].

Drew Devault’s list of Weird little guys of FOSS is interesting history about some people who are best avoided [20].

• [1] https://tinyurl.com/ydye29ta
• [2] https://tinyurl.com/26223e79
• [3] https://longnow.org/ideas/space-dead/
• [4] https://tinyurl.com/287rktuz
• [5] https://tinyurl.com/25a9mag3
• [6] https://hashman.ca/managing-venvs/
• [7] https://dreamstation.systems/personal/ntppool.html
• [8] https://tinyurl.com/2bzwm5d6
• [9] https://tinyurl.com/25bj88ss
• [10] https://tinyurl.com/2ywkupwv
• [11] https://tinyurl.com/257umlg6
• [12] https://tinyurl.com/2cjyev9l
• [13] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y50uWvxGb-A
• [14] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXLGV0Sj0n8
• [15] https://anarc.at/blog/2026-08-18-people-vs-ai-overlords/
• [16] https://tinyurl.com/2a8pzj8j
• [17] https://tinyurl.com/249oafcy
• [18] https://tinyurl.com/28f5gdjv
• [19] https://tinyurl.com/2cv3v9e7
• [20] https://drewdevault.com/weird-guys/

Who?

Fre(i)e Software GmbH is looking for a senior Golang + fullstack developer who can handwrite code and act as meticulous code review partner for another senior developer in the company.

What?

Most of your work would result in Open Source contributions to the Voxit project [1], an online civic tech tool for digital participation.

How and Where?

The work can either be delivered on project agreement base via freelancing or via employment (option only available to developers resident in Germany, Austria or Poland).

What next?

If you are interested, please get in touch and provide your hourly rate to us and your average hours of availability per week.

[1] https://gitlab.com/voxit/