A daily curated digest with the tech news that matter + community vibes, delivered daily, in tabloid style. Like you always wanted.
On 2026-01-07 the tech world feels jumpy as lawmakers swing at H-1B visas and Wall Street’s grip on housing... corporate and government surveillance gear up with bigger budgets and sharper eyes... AI marches straight into health data while fresh security flaws show how shaky our digital foundations really are... developers grumble about lost Linux traditions and hostile cloud tools, and we see both quiet layoffs and loud rebellion in the tools we rely on... tonight we watch power, privacy and paychecks collide in code, courts and your browser.
Congress aims straight at H‑1B tech visas
A new bill to kill the H-1B visa program lands like a bomb in Silicon Valley, threatening thousands of skilled immigrant workers and the companies that depend on them. Supporters call it protection for locals, critics see political grandstanding that will only push talent overseas.
US targets Wall Street home hoarders at last
The US plans to ban big Wall Street firms from buying single-family homes, blaming them for tight supply and rising rents. Homebuilder stocks wobble while renters cheer, but many doubt regulators will really unwind years of financialization or stop investors from finding new loopholes.
ICE splashes $28B on new surveillance toys
With a massive $28.7B budget, ICE goes shopping for databases, phone trackers and other surveillance tech. Civil liberties watchers are alarmed, seeing immigration enforcement turning into a general monitoring platform that can quietly track almost anyone, not just people at the border.
Greenland’s melting ice hides a mineral goldmine
New reporting on Greenland details huge untapped mineral deposits under retreating ice, from rare earths to metals vital for green tech. Locals fear a fresh resource rush that trades one climate problem for another as mining giants eye the Arctic like a new Wild West.
The $14 burrito shows why inflation still stings
A deep dive into San Francisco’s $14 burrito explains why official inflation numbers feel fake to locals. Tech workers and baristas alike see daily prices that never fall, even as statistics say things are calm, feeding suspicion that the system is tuned to soothe markets, not people.
ChatGPT Health reaches into your medical records
OpenAI launches ChatGPT Health, promising smarter answers by mixing AI with real health records. The idea is seductive, but people are worried about leaks, bias and who gets blamed when a slick chatbot gives the wrong call on a diagnosis or drug and doctors are tempted to trust it.
Notion AI can leak data before you approve
A researcher shows Notion AI is open to indirect prompt injection, saving poisoned edits to documents before users hit OK. It turns a friendly writing buddy into a sneaky data exfiltration tool, and the fact it stays unpatched leaves teams wondering what else their AI helpers log.
Tailscale quietly drops default state encryption
A Linux update from Tailscale removes automatic state file encryption and loosens its hardware checks so the client can start more easily. Fans of the service feel uneasy, since a product sold on security just made a tradeoff that leaves sensitive config data sitting easier to read.
Linux kernel bugs lurk for decades unnoticed
New analysis of Linux kernel history finds bugs hiding in code for an average of two years, with some sleeping for twenty. It is a sobering reminder that the machinery behind phones, servers and routers is full of latent vulnerabilities that nobody spots until luck or disaster strikes.
Popular JS crypto library ships with hidden flaws
Security firm Trail of Bits uses Google’s Wycheproof tests to uncover vulnerabilities in the widely used elliptic JavaScript crypto library. With millions of weekly downloads, the news rattles developers who assumed the math was safe and now must wonder what secrets rode on weak code.
GNOME moves to kill classic Linux middle-click paste
A GNOME developer pushes to remove middle-click paste from modern desktops and even Firefox, enraging long-time Linux users. To fans, it feels like yet another case of designers sanding off powerful, weird traditions in the name of safety while ignoring what actually made the platform fun.
Firefox add-on dodges X login wall with xcancel
A small Firefox extension silently redirects x.com and old twitter.com links to xcancel.com, letting people read threads without logging in. It is a petty but satisfying act of resistance against a hostile platform, and many clearly enjoy taking back a tiny bit of control in their browser.
Tailwind creator admits brutal 75 percent layoffs
The team behind Tailwind reveals they cut 75% of their engineering staff, blaming a brutal market. Devs are stunned that one of the web’s hottest CSS tools is shrinking, reading it as a warning that even beloved frameworks are not safe when VC dreams meet cold subscription numbers.
Hackers build open hardware clone of Wacom tablets
Project Patchouli offers a fully open electromagnetic pen tablet design, from coil arrays to firmware, aiming to be a kind of DIY Wacom. Hardware tinkerers love the freedom, and many see it as a rare case where creativity beats vendor lock-in instead of living under another closed driver.
Everyone piles on OneDrive’s dark patterns and bugs
A blistering rant about Microsoft OneDrive calls it a file-sync service that nags users, hijacks defaults and sometimes even loses or deletes data. Commenters loudly agree, treating it as proof that big vendors will happily trade reliability and consent for a few more files in their cloud.
A bill to kill the H-1B visa program throws a grenade into how US tech hires skilled foreign workers, signaling a brutal fight over immigration, wages and who gets to work in Silicon Valley.
A planned US ban on big investors buying single-family homes calls time on Wall Street’s landlord era and feeds public anger over rent, supply and hedge funds treating houses like trading cards.
OpenAI pushes ChatGPT Health, tying AI directly to health records and raising huge hopes for faster answers but even bigger fears around privacy, liability and what happens when bots misread your body.
A nasty data exfiltration flaw shows Notion AI saving maliciously edited content before user approval, proving that shiny productivity bots can quietly become the perfect tool for stealing corporate secrets.
New analysis shows kernel bugs often hide for two years, sometimes twenty, underlining how much modern life runs on code nobody truly understands and how fragile our so-called rock-solid systems really are.
Beloved VPN tool Tailscale stops encrypting its state file by default on Linux, sparking unease as admins realize their zero-trust darling just became a bit more trust-me in the wrong place.
With a swollen $28.7B budget, US immigration cops go on a surveillance tech spree, deepening fears that immigration enforcement is morphing into a general-purpose tracking machine aimed far beyond borders.
This article outlines a practical security blueprint for teams adopting third-party Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers that connect AI agents to real systems such as databases and internal APIs. Bec...
A departing member of Congress, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, has introduced a bill to eliminate the H-1B visa program, which enables U.S. companies to hire highly skilled foreign profession...
The V8 team provides an update on the JavaScript engine’s RISC-V port, which has matured significantly since its initial open-source announcement in 2020. RISC-V support is now upstreamed into the mai...
This article, part of a series on why Rust is not object-oriented, examines inheritance—the third traditional pillar of OOP—and explains why Rust omits a direct analogue. While acknowledging encapsula...
Seer is an open-source system for building and executing AI-powered automation workflows with a focus on clear separation between workflows and agents. Workflows are deterministic and node-based, whil...
This article outlines a pathway to shift vector graphics rasterization workloads from CPUs to GPUs. It first explains a straightforward rasterization approach based on the winding number: for each row...
This article presents a minimal terminal-based chat application built in C# for .NET 9, comprising a TCP server and client. It provides clear setup and execution steps: install the .NET 9 SDK, then st...
The article documents a debugging effort while bringing the bors GitHub merge bot to production. The project relies heavily on integration testing: the full web application is launched, connected to a...
Greenland’s vast but challenging resource potential is drawing renewed attention. Over more than a century, mapping and exploration have identified significant mineral resources, including rare earth ...
This listing introduces a Firefox extension that redirects visits to x.com or twitter.com to xcancel.com, enabling users to read threads and browse replies to tweets without needing an X account. The ...
In this post, AWS engineer Marc Brooker explains that formal methods such as TLA+ and P are highly effective at ensuring correctness—particularly safety and liveness—in large-scale distributed systems...
The Map Reading Company showcases a compass that departs from traditional liquid-filled designs by adopting induction (eddy-current) damping to control needle movement. Presented as a “first genuinely...
The Eric and Wendy Schmidt Observatory System outlines a redesigned approach to building and operating astronomical observatories. The initiative aims to replace traditional, decades-long development ...
This article examines the relationship between programming languages and the libraries that make them productive, using Ruby on Rails as a central case. A non-expert programmer’s experience with Rails...
The article introduces htmx, a lightweight JavaScript library designed to bring modern interactivity to HTML through declarative attributes. It enables developers to use AJAX, CSS Transitions, WebSock...
This essay introduces the ISEE framework—Intellectual, Social, Economic, and Emotional—to describe how different life trajectories shape personal well-being. The author argues that strength derives fr...
KeelTest is an alpha-stage VS Code extension that automatically generates runnable pytest suites for Python code and highlights potential source code bugs with fix suggestions. The tool integrates dir...
This article presents a pragmatic method for measuring in a pinch using A4 paper, while emphasizing it is not suitable for tasks requiring high accuracy. It then explains the mathematical foundation a...
Comet MCP is an MCP server that integrates Claude Code with Perplexity’s Comet browser to provide agentic, interactive web research and task execution. The project targets limitations in existing Clau...
A GNOME developer has proposed removing the long-standing middle-click-to-paste default from GNOME, labeling it an X11-specific behavior and submitting a merge request with “Goodbye X11.” He also file...
The article criticizes Microsoft’s OneDrive integration in Windows, alleging that the service is pushed onto users and employs dark patterns that move files to the cloud without clear warnings. It cla...
Coffeestains is a lighthearted yet functional LaTeX package that lets users print realistic coffee stains directly onto pages. Authored by Hanno Rein and maintained by Patrick Bideault, it provides fo...
Quake Brutalist Jam III is a large-scale, community-driven total conversion mod for Quake that introduces an all-new arsenal, new monsters, new powerups, and a comprehensive visual overhaul centered o...
Newly uncovered industry documents analyzed by UCSF researchers reveal that the sugar industry strategically collaborated with nutrition scientists in the 1960s to shift attention away from sucrose as...
This essay examines meditation through the lens of “wakeful relaxation,” a framing attributed to meditation teacher Roger Thisdell. The author recounts two weeks of practice focused on intentional rel...
RepoReaper is an autonomous, AST-aware code-audit and semantic search agent that reframes RAG as a dynamic L2 cache for an LLM “CPU.” After a cold start that builds a symbol map by parsing a repositor...
Shipmap.org is an interactive WebGL visualization produced by Kiln using research data from the UCL Energy Institute to animate global merchant fleet movements during 2012. The map overlays animated s...
The article examines Stack Overflow’s decline in usage alongside the rise of generative AI and large language models (LLMs). The author recounts experiences of the platform feeling unwelcoming to ques...
This essay contends that as large language models (LLMs) advance, the implicit standard for the Turing test rises, making some human conversations resemble LLM failure modes. The author catalogs sever...
A project showcased by the Commodore History channel demonstrates that the Commodore 1541 floppy drive can function as a standalone computer. The 1541 already contains a 1 MHz MOS 6502 CPU, RAM, ROM, ...
This engineering account describes building a WebDAV/CalDAV client and server in Go for Homechart. After evaluating the existing go-webdav library, the team found it lacked essential features like ser...
Target operates a dedicated forensics lab in Minneapolis to address retail theft and support investigations using advanced video analysis. Created in 2003, the lab was designed to go beyond basic stor...
The article details a DIY solution to prevent interruptions during home-office meetings by building a hardware status indicator driven by a MacBook’s camera state. Traditional calendar sharing proved ...
Dell’s CES 2026 pre-briefing prioritized straightforward, consumer-focused announcements while stepping back from AI-first marketing. Vice chairman and COO Jeff Clarke outlined key market realities, i...
A leader behind Tailwind CSS reports that 75% of the engineering team was laid off following a steep business decline attributed to AI’s impact. While the framework’s popularity is growing, the post s...
The article explores Bill Gates’s management approach during Microsoft’s transition from early 8-bit BASIC roots through the 16-bit MS-DOS era to 16-bit Windows and the impending Win32 period. It argu...
This article argues for taking a fresh look at Nushell and considers whether shell design can evolve enough to overcome users’ tendency to stick with familiar tools. It surveys the current shell ecosy...
The Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) disclosed that misconfigured privacy settings made several internal decision-support maps publicly viewable over multiple years, exposing personal info...
Animal Diversity Web (ADW) positions itself as an educational platform focused on animal information, with content largely authored by college students. The resource acknowledges its limitations: it d...
Calvin Tomkins, a veteran New Yorker writer born on December 17, 1925, opens a journal to chronicle his hundredth year. He describes aging with humor and candor, noting both his relatively good health...
The article presents the New Pyramid, a flexible dietary framework aimed at helping Americans eat real, minimally processed foods more consistently. It responds to concerns that past guidance prioriti...
The article challenges San Francisco’s officially reported 2.5% year-over-year CPI by comparing it to the prices residents face for everyday expenses. While some goods like TVs and clothing have falle...
The article outlines how to build an ultra-low-latency voice agent using NVIDIA’s open models, coinciding with the launch of Nemotron Speech ASR on Hugging Face. It presents a three-component pipeline...
NEO GEAR BTW is presented as a free, local, browser-based parametric gear generator tailored for producing gear models intended for 3D printing. The interface groups inputs into sections for basic par...
Cursor Party is an experimental, browser-based massively multiplayer demo created to test whether real-time synchronization for an MMO-style experience can be achieved quickly and purely on the server...
Texas A&M University instructed philosophy professor Martin Peterson to make significant changes to his upcoming “Contemporary Moral Problems” course. According to the article, university officials re...
npm is preparing staged publishing, a new release model that adds a registry-level review window and requires MFA-verified approval from package owners before a package becomes publicly available. The...
Amifuse is a cross-platform utility that mounts Amiga hard disk images using FUSE while executing native AmigaOS filesystem handlers under m68k CPU emulation. This approach allows users to access Amig...
U.S. President Donald Trump announced that his administration is moving to ban Wall Street firms from purchasing single-family homes, a step he says is intended to lower housing costs. He posted the p...
This practical guide explains how and why developers convert YAML to JSON in modern software workflows. It outlines key use cases such as generating API payloads, validating Kubernetes and DevOps conf...
GOTO Conferences has published a session titled “Residues: Time, Change & Uncertainty in Software Architecture,” presented by Barry O’Reilly and recorded at GOTO Copenhagen 2025. The video runs 55 min...
Tailscale’s latest changelog introduces a notable Linux behavior change: state file encryption and hardware attestation keys are no longer enabled by default, and the client will start even if attesta...
The article reports a reproducible crash in the Claude Code CLI (version 2.1.0) on macOS environments using Apple Terminal and Node.js v24.11.1. The stack trace shows an 'Invalid Version: 2.1.0 (2026-...
The article documents a developer’s use of Claude to optimize a macOS tiling window manager by combining two custom skills: an optimize-critical-path skill and a debug skill (“oberdebug”). Initially, ...
ChatGPT Health is a new, dedicated space within ChatGPT designed to help users navigate health and wellness information securely and more effectively. It introduces layered protections tailored to sen...
Trail of Bits has publicly disclosed multiple vulnerabilities in the widely used JavaScript cryptography library elliptic, which is downloaded over 10 million times weekly and adopted by nearly 3,000 ...
Butter announced that its HTTP proxy for LLM applications now includes automatic template induction for response caching. Instead of storing messages verbatim, Butter uses template-aware caching, capt...
The article documents a data exfiltration vulnerability in Notion AI caused by indirect prompt injection combined with an approval workflow flaw. A user uploads a resume containing hidden instructions...
The article recounts an experiment by a Union Square Ventures investor to replace traditional legal diligence in a mid-December financing with Google’s NotebookLM. Traditionally, startups and investor...
The article critiques LMArena, an AI model leaderboard run by LMSYS, asserting its pairwise voting system encourages superficial attributes over factual correctness. It argues that random internet use...
The article explains why encrypted email remains impractical in 2026. It references late-2025 disclosures at the 39th Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg, where researchers published severe GnuPG...
Rodney Brooks’ 2026 Predictions Scorecard is the eighth annual review of forecasts he made on January 1, 2018 across self-driving cars, robotics/AI/machine learning, and human space travel. Brooks rep...
The article presents a novel authentication method that transforms a Rubik’s cube into a physical passkey for digital systems. By reading the cube’s exact arrangement from a vast space of around 43 qu...
Adam Mastroianni’s essay, published on Substack under the Experimental History banner, addresses the feeling of being psychologically stuck through an extended bog metaphor. He notes that many people ...
The piece recounts Michel Siffre’s seminal 1962 experiment in the Scarasson cave in the French Alps, where he lived alone underground for 63 days without any external time cues. Initially a glaciology...
The article analyzes how InnoDB’s innodb_flush_method influences fsync latency on SSDs, focusing on the trade-offs between consumer drives lacking power loss protection (PLP) and enterprise hardware. ...
This study examines the DRAM industry’s pronounced boom-bust dynamics from 2006 to 2014, highlighting how the market’s rapid transition from shortage to oversupply led to a dramatic price crash in 200...
Aardwolf RPG is a free, text-based multi-user dungeon (MUD) offering a large fantasy world, Andolor, with multiple continents, real geography, and a real-time line-of-sight overhead map to view nearby...
This article explains the core components of the attention mechanism in transformer-based large language models: the Query (Q), Key (K), and Value (V) matrices. It contrasts transformers with recurren...
This article explains why end-to-end encrypted email remains impractical in 2026, despite persistent demand for confidentiality in medical, legal, and financial communications. It points to late-2025 ...
The article reports a substantial increase in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) funding, stating a 2025 budget of $28.7 billion—nearly triple 2024—with a projection of at least $56.25 bil...
Apple and Chase announced that Chase will become the new issuer of Apple Card, with the transition expected in approximately 24 months. Throughout the changeover, Apple Card users can continue using t...
Musashi 4.10 is a portable emulator for the Motorola 680x0 processor family, written in C with a design emphasis on portability and speed. The codebase follows ANSI C89 standards and employs C9X-compl...
The article introduces “vamos,” an API-level emulator designed to run AmigaOS m68k command-line programs on modern macOS or PC systems. Instead of emulating the entire Amiga hardware, vamos implements...
This article details how GitHub’s Dependabot operates, focusing on the open-source dependabot-core library and the proprietary infrastructure that surrounds it. It explains that dependabot-core is a s...
A 20-year analysis of the Linux kernel’s git history links bug-introducing and bug-fixing commits using the “Fixes:” tag to quantify how long bugs persist. From 125,183 bug-fix records (123,696 valid)...
A developer has released a WebGL-based CRT shader as open source, enabling a vintage TV aesthetic for web games, emulators, apps, and visual demos. The shader runs on the browser’s hardware-accelerate...
A reader reflects on their 2025 goal to “read a lot, but differently,” reporting 121 books read and meeting a 120-book target. While volume goals were met, diversification fell short, with the author ...
Apple and Chase announced that Chase will take over issuance of Apple Card, with the transition anticipated in roughly 24 months pending regulatory approvals. Mastercard will continue to serve as the ...
Open Infrastructure Map is an interactive platform that displays global infrastructure using OpenStreetMap data and the MapLibre rendering library. The site organizes content into layer groups—Backgro...
This article examines how the cultural landscape of late 1960s and early 1970s niche hobbies—science fiction fandom, Tolkien-inspired reading, tabletop wargaming, the Society for Creative Anachronism,...
The article clarifies the distinct roles of go.mod and go.sum in Go’s module system. It stresses that go.sum is not a lockfile and should not be parsed for dependency analysis, as it has no effect on ...
Project Patchouli introduces an open-source electromagnetic resonance (EMR) pen tablet hardware platform designed for customized hardware projects. The implementation combines a coil array with an RF ...