AI Cash Surges As Chips And Trust Crack!

Rex is a safe kernel extension framework that allows Rust in the place of eBPF

Key Points

• Rex compiles safe Rust to native code, avoiding eBPF verifier constraints.
• Supports kprobe, perf_event, tracepoint, XDP, and tc, plus eBPF helpers and maps.
• Provides RAII resource management, panic handling, and a thin runtime for termination safety.

A new research shows that 21-33% of YouTube's feed may consist of AI slop

Key Points

• 21–33% of YouTube feeds may include AI slop/brainrot.
• Spain leads in subscribers; South Korea leads in views for AI slop channels.
• About 33% of first 500 Shorts on a new account were brainrot.

Multiscale Aperture Synthesis Imager

Key Points

• MASI uses distributed coded sensors and computational phase synchronization to achieve optical synthetic aperture imaging.
• It avoids interferometry, acquiring lensless diffraction-plane data and fusing wavefields at the object plane.
• The system resolves sub-micron features and reconstructs 3D shapes over centimeter-scale fields, surpassing single-aperture limits.

Manus AI 100M USD ARR

Key Points

• Manus reports crossing $100M ARR eight months post-launch.
• Total revenue run rate is stated as over $125M, including usage-based revenue.
• The company cites >20% MoM growth since Manus 1.5 and large-scale usage metrics.

Plugins case study: mdBook preprocessors

Key Points

• Plugins are explicitly discovered via book.toml and run as commands.
• Registration includes a renderer support check and JSON-based processing.
• Rust preprocessors can use mdBook’s Preprocessor trait and API.

Ask HN: By what percentage has AI changed your output as a software engineer?

Key Points

• Overall productivity roughly doubled since adopting AI coding tools.
• Up to ~10x faster in familiar domains and stacks with maintained code quality.
• 10–15% of gains come from AI-driven environment tweaks to configuration files.

C++ says "We have try at home."

Key Points

• C++ emulates finally via destructors/RAII; wil::scope_exit is a practical example.
• Cleanup exceptions overwrite originals in many languages; C++ terminates if a destructor throws during unwinding.
• Use wil::scope_exit_log to avoid termination when cleanup code might throw.

Growing up in "404 Not Found": China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert

Key Points

• Built in 1958, Factory 404 was a secret nuclear base in the Gobi Desert for China’s atomic bomb program.
• Residents endured severe sandstorms and water scarcity; self-sufficiency measures were developed during the 1959–1961 famine.
• Skilled machinists achieved extreme manual precision on bomb components, exemplified by master lathe operator Yuan Gongpu.

Salesforce pulls back from LLMs, pivots Agentforce to deterministic automation

Key Points

• Salesforce pivots Agentforce from LLM-heavy to deterministic automation due to reliability issues.
• Vivint’s case showed missed surveys; deterministic triggers ensured consistent actions.
• Leadership prioritizes data-first foundations, guardrails, and governed use of LLMs.

Langfuse (YC W23) Is Hiring in Berlin, Germany

Key Points

• Langfuse is hiring to expand its open-source LLM engineering platform team.
• Backed by Lightspeed, General Catalyst, and Y Combinator, with notable customer collaborations.
• Public handbook outlines mission, processes, and open-source/product approach for candidates.

I stayed in a $40 capsule hotel (London)

Key Points

• Zedwell Capsule Hotel offers £30 capsules in Piccadilly Circus with nearly 1,000 pods.
• Central London hotel rates average £265 (Q3 2025), making capsules a cheaper alternative.
• Criterion Capital positions the concept to fill a market gap between hostels and affordable hotels.

One year of keeping a tada list

Key Points

• A year of daily to‑done entries with monthly summaries highlighted progress across art and coding.
• Systematic studies led to Minnesota landscape cards; technical tools (tarsec, typestache) supported projects.
• Cons include daily pressure and burnout; the list also helped surface forgotten projects.

Slate AX: Wi-Fi 6 Gigabit travel router

Key Points

• Dual-band Wi‑Fi 6 speeds up to 1800 Mbps with MU‑MIMO, OFDMA, and BSS color.
• OpenWrt 21.02 OS with OpenVPN (DCO) and WireGuard VPN support; high client-mode throughput.
• DFS-approved with additional 5GHz channels; optional 5G via GL‑M2 with multi‑WAN failover.

'PromptQuest' is the worst game of 2025 (trying to make chatbots work)

Key Points

• Copilot’s response produced a Python script without delivering a requested spreadsheet.
• Identical prompts yielded different outputs across Copilot versions and days.
• Chrome users can hide the Gemini button via Unpin and settings at chrome://settings/ai/gemini.

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS – The Roadmap

Key Points

• Tracking GNOME 50 and introducing two new default desktop apps.
• Enhanced Wayland performance/stability and deeper snap integration (plus core24 migration).
• Accessibility and security upgrades, including Piper TTS evaluation and TPM-backed FDE controls.

Ask HN: Anti-AI Open Source License?

Key Points

• Use-case restrictions conflict with OSI/FSF open-source definitions.
• AGPL-style conditions may offer a non-ban approach to AI training.
• Fair use and derivative work status of AI training remain legally unsettled.

Building a macOS app to know when my Mac is thermal throttling

Key Points

• ProcessInfo.thermalState is too coarse compared to powermetrics for detecting throttling.
• Darwin notifications (com.apple.system.thermalpressurelevel) provide accurate thermal pressure without root.
• Monitoring tools confirm throttling: high CPU with declining power and frequency.

Hungry Fat Cells Could Someday Starve Cancer to Death

Key Points

• CRISPR-activated UCP1 converts white fat to thermogenic beige fat that starves tumors.
• Efficacy shown across multiple cancer types in vitro, organoids, and mouse models.
• Potentially translatable via routine liposuction and fat-grafting procedures.

Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

Key Points

• Increased corner radii cause cropping or wasted space and can misrepresent content.
• Control size changes lead to layout issues without clarity benefits.
• Transparency and extreme theming reduce readability and visual demarcation.

Never Use Pixelation to Hide Sensitive Text (2014)

Key Points

• Pixelation of text can be defeated by reproducing blur settings and matching brightness vectors.
• Section-wise candidate generation (e.g., VISA digit grouping) makes the attack efficient.
• Normalized distance comparisons pinpoint the most likely original numbers.

Scientists discover beer bottle in the Mariana Trench (2024)

Key Points

• Dr Dawn Wright descended over 6.7 miles into the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench in 2022.
• She found a beer bottle with its label intact on the seafloor at Earth’s deepest known point.
• Wright highlighted the discovery as evidence of pervasive human pollution and called for better ocean protection.

Designing Predictable LLM-Verifier Systems for Formal Method Guarantee

Key Points

• Convergence theorem with expected latency bound E[n] ≤ 4/δ for LLM-verifier pipelines.
• Pipeline modeled as a four-stage absorbing Markov chain (CodeGen, Compilation, InvariantSynth, SMTSolving).
• Empirical validation across 90,000 trials with C_f ≈ 1.0 and universal verification success.

tc-ematch(8) extended matches for use with "basic", "cgroup" or "flow" filters

Key Points

• Defines ematch syntax and modules for tc filters (basic, cgroup, flow).
• Details ipset/ipt integration, including ip_set_hash:net,iface queries and IPSec policy matches.
• Notes special ifb device behavior and provides practical usage examples.

Shut Up About the Water

Key Points

• The author criticizes tech figures, citing Rob Pike, for denouncing AI’s environmental impact despite their roles in building prior systems.
• The article acknowledges AI’s resource use as a legitimate problem that needs addressing.
• LLMs are portrayed as the culmination of the tech industry’s commodification of human connection.

Streaming Uploads with LiveView

Key Points

• LiveView’s built-in uploads simplify common needs with progress, drag-and-drop, and cleanup.
• LiveView.UploadWriter enables chunked, controllable streaming for advanced scenarios.
• Custom writers can integrate workflows like S3 multipart uploads and multi-destination writes.

Hacker News made out of prime numbers

Key Points

• Prime-number filters (Mersenne, Germain, Fermat, palindrome) shape browsing of Hacker News content.
• Items show titles, points, ages, and ζ(n) annotations, with shard-based pagination and search.
• The interface highlights historical tech topics via a math-themed, structured navigation.

2 in 3 Americans think AI will cause major harm to humans in the next 20 years [pdf]

Key Points

• Awareness and daily interaction with AI increased compared with prior waves.
• A majority are more concerned than excited about AI’s growing role.
• Most respondents feel limited control over AI and want more of it; 20-year outlook is mixed.

Learn computer graphics from scratch and for free

Key Points

• New Vulkan API course offered by Scratchapixel
• Upcoming physical book as a graphics reference
• Lessons emphasize hands-on results before theory

We "solved" C10K years ago yet we keep reinventing it (2003)

Key Points

• Commodity hardware made 10k+ concurrent connections feasible; software design became the bottleneck.
• Core strategies: nonblocking I/O with level-triggered readiness, and asynchronous I/O with completion notifications.
• Frameworks (ACE, ASIO/Boost, libevent) and event mechanisms (epoll, kqueue) enable scalable server architectures.

Deathbed Advice/Regret

Key Points

• The post argues deathbed-advice lists are often unhelpful and resemble cheap complaining.
• It advocates learning from actions and role models rather than generalized advice.
• It highlights “use social media less” as a prevalent, actionable regret recognized in advance.

Global Memory Shortage Crisis: Market Analysis

Key Points

• AI data center demand is diverting capacity to HBM/DDR5, constraining consumer DRAM/NAND supply.
• IDC expects 2026 DRAM and NAND supply growth to be 16% and 17% YoY, below historical norms.
• Device makers face rising memory costs and limited availability, pressuring smartphone pricing/specs.

Ask HN: Best Podcasts of 2025?

Key Points

• The Ezra Klein Show is endorsed based on years of listening.
• Klein’s style combines rigorous interrogation with genuine understanding.
• The show helps listeners grasp opposing viewpoints.

Tell HN: Google ignores English searches and forces localized results

Key Points

• English queries still yield localized, auto-translated results.
• Google’s AI mode outputs in the local language without an obvious override.
• The ‘All web’ option does not reliably return English or disable translation.

2D Signed Distance Functions

Key Points

• Exact, optimized 2D SDF functions for common shapes.
• Primitives centered at origin; transform points for rotation/translation/scale.
• Shadertoy demos and some YouTube explainers linked for each primitive.

Remembering Lou Gerstner

Key Points

• Lou Gerstner, IBM CEO (1993–2002), has passed away, as announced by Arvind Krishna.
• Gerstner kept IBM intact and shifted it toward customer-focused, integrated solutions.
• He drove cultural renewal and fact-based, client-impact-driven decision-making at IBM.

Delete LinkedIn – you'll have zero fucking regrets (2021)

Key Points

• Author deleted LinkedIn due to impersonal, sales-heavy interactions.
• Claims LinkedIn delivers poor organic reach and incentivizes inauthentic content.
• References similar critiques by TechCrunch’s John Biggs and BuzzFeed journalists.

Vibration Isolation of Precision Objects (2005) [pdf]

Key Points

• Real-world constraints make ideal six-DOF isolation rarely feasible.
• Soft isolators and inertia blocks have trade-offs: sway, cost, reduced flexibility.
• A model with “smart” CNF isolators aims to improve passive isolation performance.

No it's not a Battleship

Key Points

• The proposed vessels lack battleship-defining features and align with large missile cruisers.
• Specs indicate IEP propulsion and dimensions similar to Iowa/Alaska classes.
• Armament centers on VLS, CPS hypersonics, and a VLS-compatible nuclear cruise missile.

Rust errors without dependencies

Key Points

• Favor Rust’s standard library over third-party crates for error handling to reduce dependency risk.
• Handle errors explicitly with Result instead of relying on unwrap/expect, especially for external inputs.
• The Cloudflare outage example illustrates how “trusted” inputs can fail and cause panics when using unwrap.

Stepping down as Mockito maintainer after 10 years

Key Points

• Maintainer stepping down in March 2026 after 10 years with a planned smooth transition.
• Mockito 5 now uses a JVM agent due to JVM 22 changes restricting dynamic attachment.
• Kotlin support introduces complex, duplicated code paths in mockito-core, reducing maintainability.

Loss of moist broadleaf forest in Africa has turned a carbon sink into source

Key Points

• Africa’s aboveground biomass shifted from net gain to net loss after 2010.
• Deforestation in moist tropical forests drove most losses; savannas saw biomass gains.
• New remote sensing and machine learning yielded 100 m resolution biomass maps.

Doublespeak: In-Context Representation Hijacking

Key Points

• Replaces harmful keywords with benign tokens to induce layer-wise semantic hijacking.
• Mechanistic evidence shows early-layer benign interpretation and later-layer harmful convergence.
• Transferable across model families and effective on production models like GPT-4o, Claude, and Gemini.

Show HN: Pion SCTP with RACK is 70% faster with 30% less latency

Key Points

• RACK boosts Pion SCTP throughput per CPU by ~71% and reduces latency by ~27%.
• Benchmark: 316 Mbps at ~0.044 CPU seconds vs 234 Mbps at ~0.056 before RACK.
• SCTP powers WebRTC data channels after ICE and DTLS, with features like multiplexing and multi-homing.

PySDR: A Guide to SDR and DSP Using Python

Key Points

• Introduces SDR and DSP with a visual, hands-on approach using Python.
• Condenses DSP fundamentals and emphasizes practical signal visualization with NumPy/Matplotlib.
• Positions PySDR as an accessible gateway and cites external resources for deeper study.

Software engineers should be a little bit cynical

Key Points

• Engineers should adopt a small degree of cynicism to navigate organizations effectively.
• The exaggerated “idealist” view is critiqued as inherently cynical and impractical.
• Delivering features by working within organizational constraints is presented as a practical way to do good work.

MongoBleed Explained Simply

Key Points

• Unauthenticated attackers can exploit OP_COMPRESSED by forging uncompressedSize to expose uninitialized heap memory.
• MongoDB trusts the declared size after decompression, leading to sensitive residual data being present in BSON buffers.
• Supported versions have fixes; EOL versions 3.6, 4.0, and 4.2 will not receive patches.

Show HN: Phantas – A browser-based binaural strobe engine (Web Audio API)

Key Points

• Browser-based binaural strobe engine built with the Web Audio API
• Marketed as a neuro-optical entrainment system for high performers
• Claims instant access to flow state and accelerated cognitive throughput

The Prison of Financial Mediocrity

Key Points

• The article asserts traditional wealth-building paths have eroded for younger generations.
• It cites unfavorable economics: low wage growth versus rising housing and debt costs.
• It claims AI tools now perform tasks of junior white-collar roles (copy, design, code).

Dolphin Progress Release 2512

Key Points

• New frame presentation options reduce latency and improve frame pacing.
• Android gains RetroAchievements support with core functionality live.
• Local mode BBA connects multiple Dolphin instances on one machine for multiplayer.

Oral History of Richard Greenblatt (2005) [pdf]

Key Points

• Interview recorded by the Computer History Museum in Boston in 2005.
• Greenblatt’s upbringing spanned Portland, Philadelphia, and Columbia, Missouri.
• Admitted to MIT in the fall of 1962 after notable high school achievements.

John Malone and the Invention of Liquid-Based Engines

Key Points

• Malone’s 1927 water engine reportedly achieved 27% indicated efficiency.
• He refused to publish most measurements, limiting wider validation and adoption.
• Competing technologies and economic conditions curtailed development and led to obscurity.

Keep the Robots Out of the Gym

Key Points

• Use AI for output-oriented ‘Job’ tasks; preserve personal effort for skill-building ‘Gym’ tasks.
• Run weekly Socratic reviews with a digital assistant (Kai) to ensure deep understanding of AI-assisted work.
• Current implementation leverages a Claude Code skill, with exploration of other interfaces.

Show HN: LoongArch Userspace Emulator

Key Points

• High-performance LoongArch emulator with interpreter, optional JIT, and LSX/LASX support
• C++ API with Rust/Go bindings, zero dependencies, and safety controls
• Benchmarks: 3000+ CoreMark (interpreter), ~38% native (JIT), ~77% native (binary translation)

Unity's Mono problem: Why your C# code runs slower than it should

Key Points

• Modern .NET runs C# workloads significantly faster than Unity’s Mono (2–3x; up to 15x in small tests).
• Unity’s CoreCLR port discussed in 2018 remains unavailable for running games as of late 2025.
• Profiler benchmark: 100s under Unity/Mono vs 38s under .NET for startup tasks (Debug mode; Unity 6.0 vs .NET 10).

Parsing IP addresses quickly (portably, without SIMD magic)

Key Points

• Manual and unrolled C++ parsers validate and assemble IPv4 addresses efficiently.
• std::from_chars provides a concise, portable approach to parsing 8-bit octets.
• fast_float offers faster 8-bit integer parsing with recent contributor improvements.

What an unprocessed photo looks like

Key Points

• Set black/white points from the histogram and remap raw ADC values to improve contrast.
• Demosaic Bayer-filtered data to reconstruct full color, then apply perceptual tone mapping (sRGB/gamma).
• Perform white balance on linear data to correct green cast before applying a nonlinear curve.

Time in C++: Inter-Clock Conversions, Epochs, and Durations

Key Points

• Distinct epochs mean cross-clock time_point comparisons are invalid.
• C++20 added clock_cast and clock_time_conversion for defined conversions.
• Only certain clocks (system, utc, tai, gps, file) have standard-supported conversions.

As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

Key Points

• AI-driven demand is causing a persistent RAM/DRAM shortage and price rises.
• Chipmakers are prioritizing AI memory, reducing supply for consumer devices.
• Capacity relief is not expected until Micron’s Idaho factory opens in 2027.

62 years in the making: NYC's newest water tunnel nears the finish line

Key Points

• Tunnel No. 3 began in 1970 and is targeted for completion by 2032.
• It already serves the Bronx and Manhattan; Brooklyn and Queens will be added.
• Completion will allow long-term repairs to the older 1917 and 1936 tunnels.

Researchers Discover Molecular Difference in Autistic Brains

Key Points

• Autistic participants showed reduced brain-wide mGlu5 receptor availability via PET.
• EEG measures in autistic participants correlated with lower mGlu5 levels.
• Findings support excitatory/inhibitory imbalance hypotheses in autism.

CEOs are hugely expensive. Why not automate them?

Key Points

• UK AGM season saw potential shareholder revolts over executive pay at several major firms.
• Foxtons shareholders opposed a ~£1m CEO bonus amid significant government assistance to the company.
• Extreme CEO pay disparities and regulatory votes intensify scrutiny of top-heavy wage bills and the CEO role.

Spherical Cow

Key Points

• Rust library for high volume fraction sphere packing based on an advancing fronts algorithm.
• Documentation and runnable examples provided, including a simple packing demo.
• Dual-licensed (Apache-2.0/MIT) with example-only dependencies and clear attribution.

Slaughtering Competition Problems with Quantifier Elimination

Key Points

• SageMath integrates with QEPCAD to perform quantifier elimination.
• The Tarski–Seidenberg theorem underpins converting quantified formulas into quantifier-free conditions.
• A specific inequality with a^4 + b^4 = 17 is verified, with equality only at (1,2) and (2,1).

Why I Disappeared – My week with minimal internet in a remote island chain

Key Points

• A week with minimal internet in the Galapagos shifted the author’s perception of news urgency.
• Offline, diverse in-person interactions were cooperative and lacked online-style vitriol.
• The article argues most daily news cycles are fleeting compared to gradual, meaningful change.

Intermission: Battle Pulses

Key Points

• Defines and contrasts “measure” (striking range) with “contact” (tactical proximity).
• Argues front-line combat is multi-opponent, not a series of duels.
• Explores whether brief withdrawals (“battle pulses”) are a general feature of contact warfare.

Show HN: My app just won best iOS Japanese learning tool of 2025 award

Key Points

• Yomitan is named Best Overall tool for 2025.
• Renshuu, Jidoujisho, and Manabi Reader win mobile app categories (overall, Android, iOS).
• Kaishi (deck), Kiku (notetype), and Priority Reorder (add-on) lead the Anki categories; Migaku wins best paid solution.

Fast Cvvdp Implementation in C

Key Points

• fcvvdp shows major performance and memory improvements over cvvdp in benchmarks.
• Build requires Zig 0.15.x, zlib‑rs, and libunwind, with artifacts placed in zig-out directories.
• fcvvdp is Apache 2.0 licensed, developed by Halide Compression, and derived from Vship (MIT).

How to Complain

Key Points

• Use descriptions instead of contested names to avoid alienating readers.
• Avoid absolute claims; make qualified, defensible statements.
• Frame the problem and provide context to improve clarity and accessibility.

Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

Key Points

• Hickey’s critique was prompted by a machine-generated praise email attributed to “Claude Haiku 4.5.”
• He lists alleged harms from AI across education, environment, labor, privacy, search, and content quality.
• He warns agentic AI will flood communication channels with low-quality output, complicating remote interactions.

Writing non-English languages with a QWERTY keyboard

Key Points

• US International layout uses dead keys, which complicate programming with quotes.
• AltGr-based mapping preserves normal quotes while keeping diacritics accessible.
• The “International AltGr dead keys” layout was accepted in Linux around 2007.

Self-hosting is being enshittified

Key Points

• Self-hosting adoption grew in 2025 amid dissatisfaction with hosted services.
• Hardware costs surged (DRAM, GPUs, SSDs), complicating self-hosted builds.
• Popular self-hosted software made adverse changes, reducing user trust.

You can make up HTML tags

Key Points

• Browsers standardly render unknown HTML tags as generic elements controlled by CSS.
• Hyphenated custom tag names avoid conflicts with future native HTML elements.
• Descriptive custom tags can improve readability over class-heavy div/span structures.

Finding Jingle Town: Debugging an N64 Game Without Symbols

Key Points

• Debugging Snowboard Kids 2’s level overlay selection without symbols due to decompilation constraints.
• GCC’s -g can shift sections and break absolute references, causing the game not to boot.
• Workflow leverages gdb-multiarch and the Ares emulator to debug MIPS code on N64.

Loneliness at 19, How to Cope?

Key Points

• Focus on giving attention to others rather than seeking friends.
• Build connections through regular, shared-goal participation (clubs, classes, work).
• Proactively initiate contact and reduce social media use (Facebook, Instagram).

NextDNS is my new favourite DNS service · Stan's blog

Key Points

• Pi-hole is unsuitable for mobile use without an always-on VPN.
• Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 lacks DNS-level tracker blocking.
• NextDNS offers DoT/DoH, blocking, customization, and statistics, meeting all requirements.

Why I Think Valve's Retiring the Steam Deck LCD

Key Points

• Valve retired the Steam Deck LCD and marked it sold out.
• The move does not imply an imminent “Steam Deck 2,” per the article.
• Market factors are acknowledged, but the article doubts cost alone drove the decision.

A bitwise reproducible deep learning framework

Key Points

• RepDL ensures bitwise reproducible training and inference across hardware.
• Provides reproducible ops and PyTorch-compatible modules with example MNIST results.
• Contributions require IEEE-754 compliance and Microsoft CLA adherence.

Line scan camera image processing

Key Points

• Line scan imaging produces time-axis images with repeated static backgrounds.
• Hardware: Alkeria Necta N4K2-7C (4096×2 Bayer) storing 16-bit raw arrays.
• Gradient-based energy function detects moving regions in long captures.

Fast GPU Interconnect over Radio

Key Points

• Radio links over polymer waveguides target terabit GPU interconnects with 10–20 m reach.
• Point2 cites one-third the power and cost of optics and far lower latency.
• Nvidia’s planned scale-up to 576 GPUs per system by 2027 intensifies interconnect demands.