AI Chips, Cheap Robots, And Ads Revolt!

Intel Panther Lake (first Intel 18A node product) makes debut at CES

Key Points

• First Intel platform on 18A process, launched at CES 2026
• New X9/X7 mobile chips with integrated Intel Arc graphics and AI acceleration
• Certified edge processors with claimed AI workload gains and staged availability

enclose.horse

Key Points

• Place limited walls on grass tiles to enclose the horse.
• Horse cannot move diagonally or over water; preview escape via hover/tap.
• Scoring favors larger enclosures and enclosed cherries (+3), with one submission.

JavaScript's For-Of Loops Are Fast

Key Points

• For-of is near cached-length classic for at small/medium sizes.
• For-in is consistently the worst for array iteration.
• Warmup improves for-of but not forEach at large sizes.

The Post-American Internet

Key Points

• Doctorow’s 39C3 speech transcript outlines decades of EFF activism defending general-purpose computing.
• EFF overturned the FCC’s “Broadcast Flag” rule in federal court.
• Doctorow argues current geopolitical shifts have opened an opportunity for a “Post-American Internet.”

New maps reveal post-flood migration patterns across the US

Key Points

• Most movers from buyout areas stay local but many do not take buyouts, shifting risk to new residents.
• FEMA has spent nearly $4B to demolish ~45,000 homes; cited research estimates $4–$6 avoided per $1 invested.
• 42 Hazard Mitigation Grant Program applications were denied or pending, putting buyout capacity at risk.

Interpreter – Offline screen translator for Japanese retro games

Key Points

• Offline, free translator with banner and in-place overlay modes
• Uses MeikiOCR for OCR and Sugoi V4 for Japanese-to-English translation
• Wayland-specific requirements and fullscreen-only in-place overlay on Linux

Investigating and fixing a nasty clone bug

Key Points

• Integration tests with real Postgres and wiremock exposed an intermittent empty-body PATCH bug.
• Octocrab sent JSON with sha and force, but wiremock sometimes received no body.
• The issue relates to Rust’s Ergonomic cloning initiative, prompting dependency investigation.

SCiZE's Classic Warez Collection

Key Points

• 1990s warez file lists are published with original BBS formatting preserved.
• Users can browse via website or BBS and search release NFOs.
• Examples include REXX scripts, game trainers, and multi-disk software releases.

Repair a ship’s hull still in the river in -50˚C (2022)

Key Points

• Zhatay dockyard uses ice-cutting and refreezing to access ship undersides for repairs in winter.
• Shallow Lena River conditions favor paddle-wheel, shallow-draft vessels.
• New shipbuilding facilities are being developed alongside ongoing repairs.

Shipping at Inference-Speed

Key Points

• Default to CLI projects for agent execution and verification.
• Shift to GPT 5 increased trust and reduced code reading; focus on architecture.
• Codex favors thorough pre-reading for large refactors; Opus suits smaller edits.

AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

Key Points

• AWS raised EC2 Capacity Blocks for ML prices ~15%, including p5e/p5en instances.
• US West (N. California) experienced steeper p5e.48xlarge increases.
• AWS attributes changes to expected supply/demand patterns this quarter.

Show HN: Is this the best epoch converter?

Key Points

• Instant two-way conversions between epoch and date with auto-detection of seconds vs milliseconds.
• Displays results in local time, UTC, and ISO 8601 with copy-to-clipboard and date/time pickers.
• Provides code examples for JavaScript, Python, MySQL, and PostgreSQL, including millisecond handling.

"Inspector Dangerfuck", ANSI art comic from 1994

Key Points

• “Inspector Dangerfuck” (1994) is profiled within the BBS and ANSI art context, not the first Internet comic.
• Eerie developed a BBS news utility in 1992 with help from Pascal programmers on Fidonet.
• Eerie’s 2,200-line parody of NPC’s e-magazine in 1993 earned praise from NPC’s editor.

Show HN: Prism.Tools – Free and privacy-focused developer utilities

Key Points

• Data never leaves the browser; tools are free and privacy-focused.
• Broad set of utilities for formatting, converting, generating, and testing across development tasks.
• Includes frontend and web helpers like CSS generators, SVG editor, meta tags, and robots.txt tools.

C Is Best

Key Points

• SQLite has been implemented in C since 2000 and will remain in C.
• C was chosen for performance, broad compatibility, minimal dependencies, and stability.
• Object-oriented design is achievable in C; cross-language usability favored C over C++/Java.

Portland's gas-powered leaf blower ban goes into effect

Key Points

• Phased restrictions now in effect; full ban starts Jan. 1, 2028.
• Electric/battery blowers allowed year-round under noise code.
• Rebates and a $1M grant support small landscapers’ transition.

Show HN: DDL to Data – Generate realistic test data from SQL schemas

Key Points

• Generates test data from SQL CREATE TABLE schemas.
• Preserves foreign key and uniqueness constraints.
• No setup required; supports PostgreSQL and MySQL.

System: Control your Mac from anywhere using natural language

Key Points

• Remote natural-language control of macOS via Cloudflare Workers agent and local bridge.
• Authenticated access with API secret; setup configures Anthropic (Claude) and Raycast.
• Supports chat, scheduling (natural language or cron), and extensive Mac automation tools.

Why German Strings Are Everywhere?

Key Points

• German Strings were designed for short, read-heavy, prefix-access workloads.
• C and C++ string designs highlight safety and performance tradeoffs that informed the new format.
• The format is widely adopted in DuckDB, Apache Arrow, Polars, and Facebook Velox.

I write and ship code ~20–50x faster than I did 5 years ago

Key Points

• Two parallel AIs: a full-context builder and a diff-focused reviewer.
• Emphasis on architectural control, tradeoff analysis, and surgical edits.
• Improved cross-stack integration across languages and boundaries with disciplined review.

65% of Hacker News Posts Have Negative Sentiment, and They Outperform

Key Points

• Negative posts average 35.6 points vs a 28-point site average (27% premium).
• Negative sentiment persists across six tested models (transformers and LLMs).
• Code, dataset, and a dashboard will be released; preprint available on SSRN.

Gnome and Mozilla Discuss Proposal to Disable Middle Mouse Paste on Linux

Key Points

• Mozilla proposes disabling middle-click paste by default in Firefox on Unix builds.
• GNOME considers updating GTK default schemas to match the Firefox change.
• Both proposals are under review; no final decisions have been made.

Gemini Protocol Deployment Statistics

Key Points

• 646,369 URIs tracked; 560,646 recently successful; 431,340 serve Gemini content.
• Median Gemini page size is 1,466 bytes; average resource size is 46,339 bytes.
• Coverage limited by robots.txt, discovery gaps, and Lupa’s 10,000-URI cap per capsule.

Swapping two blocks of memory inside a larger block, in constant memory

Key Points

• Three rotations can swap non-adjacent blocks but cost about 2n swaps.
• Reversal-based method achieves the swap in n total swaps.
• Library specializations for random-access iterators reduce rotation cost to n/2 via cycles.

High-performance header-only container library for C++23 on x86-64

Key Points

• Reports 2–5× faster operations than Abseil btree and std::map for large trees.
• Combines hugepage allocators, AVX2 SIMD search, and tunable node sizes for performance.
• Linux/x86-64 with AVX2 is the primary tested platform; Windows untested.

New Lego smart-play system

Key Points

• LEGO announced the SMART Play System with SMART Bricks, SMART Tags, and SMART Minifigures.
• A demo video is provided to show the system in action.
• An FAQ outlines questions about component capabilities, including whether SMART Tags have a speaker.

Mamdani Targets Junk Fees and Hidden Charges in Two Executive Orders

Key Points

• NYC created a junk fees task force and empowered DCWP to enforce against deceptive practices.
• Tenant protections include “rental rip-off” hearings and city intervention in a major landlord bankruptcy.
• State-level actions by AG Letitia James provide precedent, including cases against Equinox and Uber.

State of the Fin 2026-01-06 – Jellyfin

Key Points

• Jellyfin considers revising versioning, potentially to 12.0.
• 10.11 EF Core refactor unified databases; 100+ fixes shipped via point releases.
• Jellyfin Desktop rebranded and migrated to Qt 6; stable Windows/macOS builds pending.

I wanted a camera that doesn't exist – so I built it

Key Points

• Custom camera combines Lumix G9ii internals with a CNC-made Leica M-style body.
• Hardware approach avoids firmware reverse engineering; custom flex cables enable new control layout.
• Platform and design choices were driven by MFT context, specific features, and lens compatibility.

Vienam Bans Unskippable Ads, Requires Skip Button to Appear After 5 Seconds

Key Points

• Skip for video/animated ads required within 5 seconds; static ads must be instantly cancellable.
• Platforms must provide clear one-click ad closing and visible reporting tools.
• Stricter rules apply to advertising 11 health- and environment-impacting product categories.

FTSE100 bosses' pay overtakes typical worker's annual salary in less than 3 days

Key Points

• FTSE 100 CEOs surpassed average UK worker pay less than three days into 2026.
• Average FTSE 100 CEO pay is £4.40m, 113 times the average worker’s £39,039.
• High Pay Centre urges governance reforms and targeted taxation to address pay disparities.

The skill of the future is not 'AI', but 'Focus' (2025)

Key Points

• LLMs boost productivity but require careful human review due to hallucinations, inconsistencies, and biases.
• LLMs struggle with truly novel problems, placing error detection on engineers.
• Search engines enable exploration; LLMs favor immediate exploitation, risking reduced problem-solving practice.

Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?

Key Points

• Gmail on iOS is 760.7 MB and among the largest in the top 100 free apps.
• Historical data shows rapid app size growth since 2013; Gmail jumped past 200 MB in 2017.
• Apple’s native apps are far smaller than many Google/Microsoft equivalents; Gmail on Android is ~185 MB.

Loongarch Improvements with Box64

Key Points

• Linux Steam runs on Arm64, RISC-V, and LoongArch via Box64/Box32; Battle.net stability improved.
• Prefix opcode decoder across interpreter/dynarec reduces code, adds automatic opcode support, and eases maintenance.
• RISC-V dynarec now runs Steam/Proton/Wine; DRM software requires SV48 or modified Proton/Wine.

Volkswagen Brings Back Physical Buttons

Key Points

• VW’s refreshed ID. Polo debuts a cockpit with physical buttons and switches.
• Some climate controls remain on the touchscreen but have dedicated access positions.
• The new design may extend to EVs like the refreshed ID.4 and potentially ID.Buzz in the U.S.

Raspberry Pi and mini PC home lab prices hit parity as DRAM costs skyrocket

Key Points

• Raspberry Pi 5 kit and Intel N100/N150 mini PCs have reached price parity.
• Mini PC prices rose sharply across brands between 2025 and 2026.
• Raspberry Pi introduced a 1GB Pi 5 at $45; the 16GB board is now $145.

Gtasks-terminal – Google Tasks power-tool for the terminal

Key Points

• Comprehensive CLI features: CRUD, advanced filters, interactive UI, reports, sync, backups, editor integration
• Simple installation via PyPI or automated script; latest version noted as 0.1.4
• OAuth-based setup through Google Cloud with Tasks API and Desktop credentials

Launch HN: Tamarind Bio (YC W24) – AI Inference Provider for Drug Discovery

Key Points

• AI inference platform for drug discovery with APIs and a web app, serving models like AlphaFold.
• Custom scheduler, standardized schemas, and GPU/CPU job splitting optimize large-scale inference.
• Supports pipelines, proprietary model onboarding, fine-tuning, Docker UIs, and wet lab data integration.

Opus 4.5 is going to change everything

Key Points

• Opus 4.5 built and iteratively fixed a Windows image conversion utility using dotnet CLI.
• The agent automated packaging, PowerShell scripts, and GitHub Actions-based releases.
• A screen recording app quickly expanded into advanced image/video editing features.

Show HN: Stash – Sync Markdown Files with Apple Notes via CLI

Key Points

• Bidirectional sync between Markdown files and Apple Notes via simple push/pull commands.
• Uses front‑matter identifiers to map files to notes and preserve metadata.
• Requires macOS, Apple Notes, Pandoc, and pcregrep; installed via Homebrew.

Locating a Photo of a Vehicle in 30 Seconds with GeoSpy

Key Points

• SuperBolt adds meter-level precision to GeoSpy’s photo geolocation.
• Geoestimation provides broad location inference; geomatching delivers exact coordinates.
• Dense, geotagged image databases and scalable processing underpin precise matching.

Show HN: Jax-JS, array library in JavaScript targeting WebGPU

Key Points

• Pure JavaScript JAX-like ML library that runs in-browser using WebGPU and Wasm.
• Supports grad, vmap, and jit with JS-specific API differences (e.g., .mul, .js(), .ref).
• Provides a runnable MNIST neural network training example on the web.

Passing of Joe Mancuso author of Masonite (Python web framework)

Key Points

• Joseph Mancuso, creator of Masonite, has passed away due to health complications.
• Masonite’s continuation is encouraged through community contributions.
• The community is asked to keep Mancuso’s family in their thoughts.

Creating a Bespoke Data Diode for Air‑Gapped Networks

Key Points

• Two Raspberry Pis and an opto coupler create a one-way, electrically isolated data path.
• Custom scripts emphasize reliability to ensure lossless syslog transmission across the diode.
• UART was chosen over standard serial ports for simpler, more reliable communication.

Hierarchical Autoregressive Modeling for Memory-Efficient Language Generation

Key Points

• PHOTON introduces hierarchical, multi-resolution context access to replace token-level scanning.
• Architectural design reduces KV-cache traffic during decoding, improving memory efficiency.
• Experiments report up to 10^3× higher throughput per unit memory and better throughput-quality trade-offs.

Dude, where's my supersonic jet?

Key Points

• Boom’s XB-1 used “Mach cutoff” to avoid audible sonic booms during a claimed supersonic flight.
• A U.S. executive order now permits overland supersonic flight if ground-level booms are inaudible.
• Boom is developing the Overture airliner and Symphony engine to tackle cost and efficiency challenges.

My Tamagotchi is an RL agent playing Slither.io

Key Points

• Controls implemented by injecting JavaScript to emulate mouse movement via window.xm/window.ym and mousemove events.
• Observations sourced from Slither.io’s global JS variables instead of computer vision for efficiency.
• Actions discretized; boost mechanic excluded to simplify the agent’s control space.

DatBench: Discriminative, faithful, and efficient VLM evaluations

Key Points

• Three evaluation desiderata: faithfulness, discriminability, efficiency.
• Converting multiple-choice to generative tasks reveals up to 35% capability drops.
• DatBench achieves 13x average speedup (up to 50x) while maintaining discriminative power.

Why Big Companies Keep Failing: The Stack Fallacy (2016)

Key Points

• Stack fallacy: believing the layer above your core technology is easy to build.
• AWS’s IaaS success vs. VMware’s struggles despite VM expertise.
• Oracle failed to beat Salesforce in CRM SaaS even though Salesforce uses Oracle’s database.

Show HN: ccrider - Search and Resume Your Claude Code Sessions – TUI / MCP / CLI

Key Points

• TUI/CLI tool with SQLite FTS5 search to browse and resume Claude Code sessions.
• Integrated, read-only MCP server enables Claude to query local session history.
• Install via Homebrew or from source, with configurable behavior and incremental sync.

Stop Doom Scrolling, Start Doom Coding: Build via the terminal from your phone

Key Points

• Step-by-step setup on computer and phone using Tailscale, Termius, and Claude Code
• Connection workflow: enable VPN, select Termius host, run “claude”
• Troubleshooting and best practices for previews, databases, and progress tracking

Why agents matter more than other AI

Key Points

• Agents remove human-in-the-loop constraints and scale with compute, not attention.
• Coding agents have rapidly advanced to delivering full small projects and websites.
• Market traction is evident at platforms like Cursor and Lovable, with high daily user spend.

Show HN: llmgame.ai – The Wikipedia Game but with LLMs

Key Points

• llmgame.ai presents an AI-assisted topic navigation game inspired by the Wikipedia Game.
• The showcased task is to navigate from “Piano” to “Volcano” by clicking related topics.
• No additional rules or technical details are provided beyond the core objective and interaction.

High-Performance DBMSs with io_uring: When and How to use it

Key Points

• io_uring’s benefits depend on workload-aware, non-drop-in integration strategies.
• Two evaluated use cases—storage-bound buffer manager and network-bound data shuffling—illustrate where gains appear.
• Applying the study’s guidelines to PostgreSQL’s io_uring integration yields a 14% performance improvement.

Video Game Websites in the early 00s

Key Points

• Curated list of early-2000s video game and developer websites.
• Links to individual exhibition pages for 2000 and 2001 entries.
• Covers major studios, platforms, portals, and popular game titles.

Show HN: Mantic.sh – Search 480k files in 0.46s without embeddings

Key Points

• Sub-500ms, local structural code search with no embeddings or vector databases, demonstrated on large codebases.
• v1.0.12 restores reliable scoring and fixes scanner and fallback issues affecting previous versions.
• Benchmarks show 2.7x–22x speedups over vector search; integrates with AI tools via MCP and offers privacy and token savings.

How Spotify Made Me Self Host

Key Points

• Self-hosted media setup on Hetzner (CAX21) with Storage Box, Jellyfin, and WireGuard.
• Motivation: Spotify price increase and limitations in the free tier as of late 2025.
• Broader streaming shifts: ads, UI changes, and password-sharing crackdowns (Amazon Prime, Netflix, Disney+).

Show HN: 48-digit prime numbers every git commit

Key Points

• Appends a nonce to commit messages until the SHA‑1 hash is prime.
• Uses a 40‑round Miller–Rabin test; typical runtime is 30–120 seconds.
• Integrates as a Git subcommand; install via curl or PowerShell.

Calling All Hackers: How money works (2024)

Key Points

• Hacking is presented as holistic systems understanding across technical and human domains.
• The author cites DRM, reverse engineering tools, and market microstructure as key knowledge areas.
• Author credentials: top-ranked CTF history and founding of security firm Zellic in 2021.

Oral microbiome sequencing after taking probiotics

Key Points

• BioGaia’s Prodentis uses two L. reuteri strains and is sold DTC for about $20/month.
• Plasmidsaurus’s ONT-based 16S sequencing provided ~5000 reads with ~99% accuracy and week-long turnaround.
• The experiment detailed costs, sampling protocol, and data outputs to assess probiotic colonization over 30 days.

Comparing AI agents to cybersecurity professionals in real-world pen testing

Key Points

• ARTEMIS placed second overall, finding 9 valid vulnerabilities with an 82% valid submission rate.
• AI agents excelled at enumeration, parallel exploitation, and cost efficiency in a live enterprise network.
• Existing scaffolds like Codex and CyAgent underperformed versus most human testers; AI agents still had higher false positives and GUI task challenges.

How HTML changes in ePub

Key Points

• ePub uses XHTML and strict XML rules, including namespaces and xml:lang.
• CSS support on e-readers is limited; prefer simpler rules and progressive enhancement.
• Namespaces enable embedding XML vocabularies like MathML and targeting with namespace-aware CSS.

Laylo (YC S20) – Head of Growth (Organic and Partners and Loops and AI) – Remote US

Key Points

• Role focuses on non-ad growth: organic social, creators, partners, and product loops.
• Requires SaaS growth experience, analytics proficiency, and active use of AI tools.
• Success tracked via KPI dashboards, repeatable motions, and improved funnel metrics.

Writing an eigenvalue solver in Rust for WebAssembly

Key Points

• Rust code compiled to WebAssembly powers the in-browser eigenvalue computation.
• The article explains and visualizes the Gershgorin Circle Theorem with concrete examples.
• Web UI (HTML/CSS/JS) complements the Rust/WASM core; web code was generated by an LLM.

CES 2026: Taking the Lids Off AMD's Venice and MI400 SoCs

Key Points

• Venice introduces advanced packaging, two IO dies, and up to 256 cores (8×32-core CCDs).
• MI400 features 12 HBM4 stacks and a chiplet layout with two large base dies and dedicated IO dies.
• AMD added MI440X and Venice-X to the lineup; launches are slated for later this year.

Show HN: Foundertrace – chain of YC startups founded by its employees

Key Points

• FounderTrace maps YC alumni-to-founder chains, powered by Crustdata data.
• Key metrics highlight top founder-spawning companies and acceleration rates.
• A 4-company YC lineage (Auctomatic → GoCardless → Duffel → Vizzly) exemplifies multi‑generation chains.

Show HN: Finding similarities in New Yorker covers

Key Points

• Covers are organized by decade-like ranges, with entries showing dates and credited artists.
• Multiple similarity modes (avg, diff, perceptual, wavelet, color) power the visual search.
• Hash methods are exposed as 32-bit implementations (e.g., p_hash_32, w_hash_32).

A 30B Qwen Model Walks into a Raspberry Pi and Runs in Real Time

Key Points

• Qwen3-30B runs in real time on Raspberry Pi 5 (16GB) at ~8 TPS with ~94% of BF16 quality using Q3_K_S-2.70bpw [KQ-2].
• Memory is treated as a budget; optimization focuses on TPS and quality rather than minimal size.
• ByteShape’s Shapelearn quantization shows better TPS/quality tradeoffs than Unsloth and MagicQuant in llama.cpp.

High-Performance GPU Cuckoo Filter

Key Points

• Large speedups over CPU and other filters at 80% load factor on NVIDIA GH200
• Configurable, header-only CUDA library with batch operations, multi-GPU, and IPC
• L2- and DRAM-resident benchmarks show slower inserts vs Bloom but faster/equal queries

Representing Hierarchies

Key Points

• Vector-of-children offers efficient indexed access but higher allocation overhead.
• First-child/next-sibling reduces allocations and suits intrusive designs, with linear index access.
• Mitigations like fixed-size arrays and small buffer optimization can improve vector-based layouts.

Are we tired of social media once and for all? On the downfall of social media

Key Points

• The author contrasts early internet communities with today’s consolidated social media platforms.
• Attempts to use Mastodon/Fediverse and Bluesky as alternatives yielded low perceived engagement.
• Commercialization, ads, misinformation, and AI-generated clickbait are cited as degrading the experience.

Hyundai Introduces Its Next-Gen Atlas Robot at CES 2026 [video]

Key Points

• Hyundai Motor Group and Boston Dynamics demo the next-gen all-electric Atlas at CES 2026.
• Atlas is positioned for factory work and industrial use.
• PCMag provides the video coverage of the demonstration.

Why the trans flag emoji is the 5-codepoint sequence it is

Key Points

• The initial PUA mapping caused cross-platform rendering failures.
• A five-codepoint sequence with U+FE0F selectors was required for a fully-qualified emoji.
• Early deployment on Messenger and WhatsApp preceded formal Unicode acceptance.

Space Forge plans to manufacture semiconductors from space

Key Points

• Space Forge created plasma aboard a commercial satellite as a step toward orbital semiconductor manufacturing.
• Microgravity is cited by NASA and industry as advantageous for semiconductor fabrication.
• Silicon’s improved behavior in microgravity supports forming critical semiconductor structures.

Vulnerability in Ruby that has existed since 2002

Key Points

• Signed/unsigned mismatch in Array#pack repeat count enables negative counts and OOB reads.
• X directive with negative repeat count grows strings, causing memory disclosure.
• Guard in rb_str_set_len limits leak size; fix tracked in PR #15763.

Building a rain predictor on a C64 with 1985's "XPER," expert system software

Key Points

• XPER (1984) is used as a case study to build a rain predictor on the Commodore 64.
• Historical context includes AI optimism and subsequent skepticism, featuring Kildall, Feigenbaum, and Dreyfus.
• The XPER lineage evolved to Xper2 (2010, Java) and Xper3 (2013, web) with expanded features and collaboration.

The Data Center Boom Is Concentrated in the U.S.

Key Points

• U.S. projected to host over half of upcoming global data centers.
• U.S. facilities are larger on average, intensifying power demand impacts.
• Grid flexibility measures like off-peak computing and on-site batteries are proposed to manage demand.

PassSeeds – hijacking Passkeys to unlock new cryptographic use cases

Key Points

• PassSeeds treats a passkey’s P‑256 public key as deterministic seed via ECDSA public‑key recovery.
• Passkeys’ secure storage, origin scoping, and cross-device encrypted sync make even public keys behave like secrets when confined.
• Enables deriving keys for non‑supported curves (e.g., secp256k1, BLS12‑381) to expand web cryptography use cases.

Website with a DMCA Takedown

Key Points

• Registrar disabled nameserver after a DMCA notice; DNS moved to Cloudflare restored access temporarily.
• Original developer’s DMCA escalations led to host cancellation and refund despite a later withdrawal.
• Client selected BlueHost for migration, acknowledging ongoing DMCA compliance risks.

Electronic Nose for Indoor Mold Detection and Identification

Key Points

• E-nose with UV-activated SnO2 nanowire chemiresistive sensors classifies mold odors using improved LDA at 98.37% F1.
• Targets two common indoor molds associated with water-damaged materials: S. chartarum and C. globosum.
• Novelty detection via decision boundaries supports recognizing unknown odor profiles.

Most websites don't need cookie consent banners

Key Points

• Essential cookies generally do not require consent; tracking cookies do.
• EU rules require consent for non-essential cookies; U.S. states often use opt-out models.
• U.S. compliance can rely on a privacy policy, a do-not-sell link, and Global Privacy Control support.

The Agentic Self: Parallels Between AI and Self-Improvement

Key Points

• Agents use scratchpads, plans, and memory buffers to offset LLM context limits.
• Hidden internal monologue and iterative reasoning improve answer quality.
• Role prompting and multi-agent roles (Architect/Engineer/Critic) enhance outcomes by constraining behavior.

Microsoft (Probably) Killed My Snapdragon Dev Kit

Key Points

• Windows 11 security update KB5068861 repeatedly failed and triggered a problematic rollback.
• Recovery steps included UEFI changes and a clean Windows 11 ARM reinstall from USB media.
• Post-reinstall, the device froze during driver selection and then failed to boot past the Snapdragon logo.

How to Improve a Perfect Join Algorithm

Key Points

• Yannakakis’s algorithm’s semijoin passes can add significant overhead when no tuples are filtered.
• A worked example shows ~9n lookups and 6n inserts vs. hash join’s ~3n probes and 3n inserts.
• Bloom filters can replace semijoin hash tables to make membership checks and inserts far faster.

Study: Managers with first-born daughters, hire more women and pay more equal [pdf]

Key Points

• Women’s earnings and employment within firms increase after male managers have a first daughter.
• Shifts are driven by increased hiring of comparably qualified women, replacing male workers.
• Firm performance remains unaffected despite changes in workforce composition.

JavaScript Analyzer – Burp Suite Extension

Key Points

• Burp Suite extension analyzes JavaScript for endpoints, URLs, secrets, and sensitive files with noise reduction.
• Supports integration via a standalone Python engine and a Flask API, plus JSON export of results.
• Open-source under MIT with contribution guidelines to extend patterns and filters.

On the slow death of scaling

Key Points

• Scaling has dominated AI progress, concentrating resources in industry labs and reducing academic participation.
• The compute–performance relationship is uncertain, undermining assumptions that bigger always means better.
• The essay anticipates disruptions and argues for pursuing levers beyond scaling to drive AI progress.

Show HN: Make audio loops online

Key Points

• Browser-based loop maker with instrument selection and drum/melodic modes
• Step grid (1–16) with dedicated drum lanes and preview/clear/add-to-looper controls
• Includes Randomization, BPM control, and position readout for timing and variability

The Oddest Couple in American Literature: Part II

Key Points

• Mailer and Schiller’s “Marilyn: A Biography” outsold Mailer’s other works.
• Schiller played a behind-the-scenes role in the O.J. Simpson trial and covered the “Thrilla in Manila.”
• A planned Schiller memoir with the author did not sell despite multiple proposed titles.

One Hundred Years of Gossip

Key Points

• Eberhard Arnold’s 1925 “First Law of Sannerz” bans gossip and centers community life on love.
• Conflict resolution proceeds from direct dialogue to trusted third-party mediation, rooted in Matthew 18.
• The law was codified in the Bruderhof’s 1929 Foundations and Orders and remains central today.

The Manifold Mind of Saul Bellow

Key Points

• Personal discovery of Saul Bellow via Ravelstein in New Delhi catalyzes deeper study of his work.
• Overview of 2000s literary trends, including “hysterical realism,” bestselling nonfiction, and screen adaptations.
• Bellow is presented as an exemplar of literature distinct from television-influenced styles.

Show HN: VaultSandbox – Test your real MailGun/SES/etc. integration

Key Points

• Self-hosted, production-like email testing via Docker Compose inside a VPC
• Real-time deterministic testing with SSE-powered SDKs and a REST API
• Open-source core (AGPLv3), MIT-licensed SDKs/UI, and enterprise add-ons

Two ways to crack a walnut, per Grothendieck (2025)

Key Points

• Grothendieck contrasts “hammer and chisel” with a gradual “rising sea” approach to proofs.
• He emphasizes conceptual understanding, from which computations emerge naturally.
• The article notes limits to the method and contrasts it with Serre’s concise style.

Sergey Brin's Unretirement

Key Points

• Sergey Brin said retiring just before COVID-19 was “the worst decision.”
• Brin returned to regular work at Google, focusing on AI and contributing to Gemini.
• He cited Google Glass as a cautionary example of launching before a product is fully ready.

Show HN: SMTP Tunnel – A SOCKS5 proxy disguised as email traffic to bypass DPI

Key Points

• Masks TCP traffic as SMTP to bypass DPI, exposing a local SOCKS5 proxy.
• Secured via STARTTLS/TLS 1.2+, HMAC-SHA256 authentication, and IP whitelisting.
• Easy deployment on a Linux VPS via a one-line installer with systemd service.

What *is* code? (2015)

Key Points

• The issue contains a single explainer by Paul Ford demystifying code and developer culture.
• A narrative case shows why a WordPress-based system prompts a costly website re-architecture.
• Leadership change (new CTO from Adobe) triggers a reassessment of technical debt and legacy code.