AI Power Surges While Nations Hit Kill Switch!

Intricuit: A touchscreen add-on for Mac laptops

Key Points

• Adds touchscreen and stylus support to Mac laptops for drawing, gestures, and annotations.
• Detaches to function as a standalone drawing tablet and serves as a screen protector when attached.
• Folio Case stand braces against the MacBook to reduce screen wobble during touch use.

Show HN: Lean4 proof that SSOT requires definition-time hooks and introspection

Key Points

• SSOT (DOF = 1) is presented as the only coherent representation for encoded facts.
• Achieving SSOT for structural facts requires definition-time hooks and introspectable derivation.
• Lean 4–verified proofs and an OpenHCS demo support the claims.

Dissecting a C64 Autoboot Program

Key Points

• C64 does not auto-boot; users typically use LOAD then RUN.
• Dan Carmichael’s 1984 technique enabled auto-start after load.
• BASIC/KERNAL internals (pointers, vectors) underpin loader automation.

Covid-19 leaves a lasting mark on the human brain

Key Points

• COVID-19 may cause significant brain alterations in recovered individuals.
• NCNED researchers used advanced MRI to assess neurological implications.
• Recovered patients were compared with never-infected controls to identify differences.

Why we're taking legal action against SerpApi's unlawful scraping

Key Points

• Google sues SerpApi over alleged circumvention of Search security and redistribution of licensed content.
• Google claims SerpApi uses cloaking, bot networks, and rotating crawler names to override site directives.
• The lawsuit aims to stop SerpApi’s bots and is framed as part of Google’s broader enforcement efforts.

A closer look at a BGP anomaly in Venezuela

Key Points

• Cloudflare identified eleven BGP route leak events since early December, with AS8048 (CANTV) as the leaker.
• The anomalies are likely due to insufficient routing policies rather than malfeasance.
• The article explains BGP route leaks, RFC7908, and valley-free routing to contextualize the incident.

AI Misses Nearly One-Third of Breast Cancers, Study Finds

Key Points

• AI-CAD missed 30.7% of cancers, especially in dense tissue and small tumors.
• DWI review recovered most AI-missed lesions (83.5% and 79.5%).
• Authors call for prospective multicenter trials to validate DWI’s added value.

The Napoleon Technique: Postponing Things to Increase Productivity

Key Points

• Delaying non-urgent actions can reduce workload as many issues self-resolve.
• Historical accounts show Napoleon’s three-week letter delay eliminated most replies.
• Modern examples include postponing email responses, minor technical fixes, and project decisions.

Lessons from Hash Table Merging

Key Points

• Merging large hash maps can be >10× slower than expected.
• Benchmark spans multiple libraries and probing strategies.
• Proposed remedies: salted hashing, preallocation, non-linear iteration.

Show HN: Open database of link metadata for large-scale analysis

Key Points

• Provides 2025-specific link metadata in a public GitHub repository.
• Part of a suite captured via a Django application, with yearly RSS Git repositories.
• Licensed under GPL-3.0 to enable reuse and analysis, including link rot verification.

Mothers (YC X26) Is Hiring

Key Points

• Hiring for Computer Vision and Robotics Engineer roles in Austin.
• Full-time, on-site positions with no remote option mentioned.
• Compensation ranges: $100K–$400K salary and 0.1%–0.5% equity (multiple ranges).

Lights and Shadows

Key Points

• Brightness relates to source power (in watts), modeled with rays for visualization.
• Perceived brightness changes are non-linear across power levels.
• Shading varies with light angle and distance due to differing ray coverage on the surface.

I program without syntax highlighting

Key Points

• Relies on Acme’s structural matching and rapid compile–test loops instead of syntax highlighting.
• Maintains readability by avoiding long lines and moving alternate versions to scratch files.
• Prefers a language-agnostic, low-configuration setup beneficial for less-supported languages like Agda.

How Did TVs Get So Cheap?

Key Points

• Price per area-pixel for TVs has fallen by over 90% based on 25 years of Best Buy data.
• LCD adoption surged from 5% (2004) to over 95% (2018), driving most cost reductions.
• Modern LCDs rely on LEDs and TFTs, with QLED and OLED as notable variants.

Show HN: DeepDream for Video with Temporal Consistency

Key Points

• Adds RAFT optical flow and occlusion masking for temporally consistent DeepDream video.
• Provides a video-specific CLI with blend, independence, and update controls.
• Requires PyTorch ecosystem dependencies and Inception/GoogLeNet model downloads.

The Jeff Dean Facts

Key Points

• A curated repository preserves the “Jeff Dean Facts” humor collection discovered on Quora and expanded with linked sources.
• The jokes cover a wide range of technical themes, including complexity theory, algorithms, tools, and Google technologies.
• Some entries are labeled “TRUE” within the list, distinguishing claimed anecdotes from pure jokes.

Gmail is entering the Gemini Era

Key Points

• AI Overviews summarize threads for all; Q&A requires Pro/Ultra.
• Help Me Write and Suggested Replies are free to all; Proofread is subscriber-only.
• AI Inbox in testing will prioritize critical items with privacy protections.

The price of fame? Mortality risk among famous singers

Key Points

• Famous singers showed a 33% higher mortality risk than matched less famous singers.
• Study used matched case–control design with survival analyses (Kaplan-Meier, Cox).
• Data are openly available on OSF; article is open access under CC BY-NC 4.0.

Maine company in the spotlight after Maduro apparently wore one of their hoodies

Key Points

• Images show Maduro in New York apparently wearing an ORIGIN “Patriot Blue” hoodie.
• ORIGIN’s mission centers on reviving New England manufacturing, symbolized by its “Wave of Freedom” logo.
• The hoodie features a “triple chill effect” for cooling and moisture wicking.

Bose is open-sourcing its old smart speakers instead of bricking them

Key Points

• Bose open-sources SoundTouch API documentation and extends support to May 6, 2026.
• SoundTouch app will add local controls; streaming and grouping features remain.
• Users and developers can build tools to cover gaps after cloud support ends.

AI Coding Assistants Are Getting Worse

Key Points

• Newer LLMs increasingly produce silent failures rather than clear crashes.
• A Python missing-column test was used across nine ChatGPT versions to assess responses.
• GPT-4 provided consistently useful responses in the author’s trials.

Looking for Alice

Key Points

• Focus on individuals over labels in attraction and relationships.
• Refine preferences through experience and broad social interaction.
• Observing interactions with friends can reveal compatibility.

Japanese electronics store pleads for old PCs amid ongoing hardware shortage

Key Points

• Sofmap Gaming requests customer sellbacks of old PCs amid severe shortages.
• DDR5 prices have surged due to AI data center demand, while DDR4 remains more available.
• Hardware impacts extend to rising prebuilt PC and GPU prices with potential next-gen GPU delays.

An Honest Review of Go

Key Points

• Go’s built-in concurrency uses Goroutines, channels, and select to simplify concurrent programming.
• Struct embedding provides composition, method/field promotion, and controlled overrides in Go’s type system.
• Go lacks native enums; iota-based constants do not enforce exhaustive, safe values.

Our Changing Planet, as Seen from Space

Key Points

• NASA Earth Observatory’s gallery uses satellite images to show human impacts.
• Land-use change and greenhouse gas emissions are highlighted drivers of visible change.
• The images emphasize the growing human imprint observable from space.

I used Lego to design a farm for people who are blind – like me

Key Points

• Lego-based design guided construction of an accessible farm building by RPD.
• MacRobert Trust provided a 22-acre site at Newton of Drummy for the project.
• Around £70,000 in funding is still needed; the farm has begun taking residential students.

Tamarind Bio (YC W24) Is Hiring Infrastructure Engineers

Key Points

• Hiring for an Infrastructure Engineer to scale an ML inference platform serving 150+ models.
• Kubernetes-centered orchestration across major clouds with high-availability focus.
• Onsite role in the San Francisco Bay Area; Tamarind serves thousands in AI-driven drug discovery.

The Waymo Ojai Will Soon Offer Autonomous Rides Around the U.S.

Key Points

• Waymo introduces the Waymo Ojai van, built by Zeekr, to expand autonomous services in the U.S.
• Ojai’s sensor suite (13 cameras, 6 radar, 4 lidar) includes heaters and wipers for cold-weather operation.
• Waymo will also deploy modified Hyundai Ioniq 5s; both will operate alongside existing Jaguar I-Paces.

ICE's Tool to Monitor Phones in Neighborhoods

Key Points

• Webloc monitors neighborhoods and tracks phones over time using commercial data.
• ICE’s internal analysis says queries can be made without a warrant.
• ACLU warns of serious privacy risks from granular location tracking.

Minnesota officials say they can't access evidence after fatal ICE shooting

Key Points

• U.S. attorney’s office removed BCA’s access to evidence and interviews.
• FBI designated as sole lead agency on the investigation.
• BCA withdrew from the case due to lack of access.

Signals vs. Query-Based Compilers

Key Points

• Compilers are moving from pipeline to query-based architectures to support interactive editor features.
• Queries, inputs, and a central “database” enable incremental, targeted computations.
• This approach parallels Signals in UI rendering through dependency-driven updates.

Dynamic Large Concept Models: Latent Reasoning in an Adaptive Semantic Space

Key Points

• DLCM compresses token sequences into concepts to focus compute on reasoning.
• A compression-aware scaling law guides compute allocation under fixed FLOPs.
• At R=4, DLCM achieves +2.69% average improvement on 12 zero-shot benchmarks with matched FLOPs.

Digital Red Queen: Adversarial Program Evolution in Core War with LLMs

Key Points

• DRQ evolves Core War warriors via an LLM-driven adversarial loop, yielding general strategies.
• Convergent evolution emerges as different implementations converge on similar effective behaviors.
• Open-source code and a technical report enable replication and interactive visualization.

Chinese AI models have lagged the US frontier by 7 months on average since 2023

Key Points

• All frontier AI models since 2023 were developed in the U.S., per the Epoch Capabilities Index.
• Chinese models lag U.S. frontier capabilities by an average of seven months (range: 4–14 months).
• The gap mirrors differences between proprietary (closed) and open-weight model approaches.

IBM AI ('Bob') Downloads and Executes Malware

Key Points

• Bob CLI’s command validation can be bypassed via redirect and process substitution, enabling malware execution.
• A missing JavaScript check for >(...) lets attackers auto-approve malicious payloads by prefixing with benign commands.
• Bob IDE’s Markdown image rendering with permissive CSP enables zero-click data exfiltration to external endpoints.

He was called a 'terrorist sympathizer.' Now his AI company is valued at $3B

Key Points

• Replit raised $250M at a $3B valuation and is building an AI agent for natural-language app creation.
• Masad faced backlash in Silicon Valley over his Gaza-related advocacy but continues to speak out.
• AI coding sector is highly active, with major fundraises and acquisitions and $4.7B in U.S. funding (PitchBook).

The Rise of Computer Games, Part II: Digitizing Nerddom – Creatures of Thought

Key Points

• D&D’s statistical systems directly informed the CRPG genre.
• Adventure games emphasized narrative roles, distinct from CRPGs’ capability focus.
• No single game established CRPG conventions; multiple independent origins are noted.

Nvidia Kicks Off the Next Generation of AI with Rubin

Key Points

• Rubin promises up to 10x lower inference token cost and 4x fewer GPUs for MoE training than Blackwell.
• Six co-designed chips plus NVL72/NVL8 systems form a unified AI supercomputing platform.
• Ecosystem partners include Microsoft (Fairwater), CoreWeave, and Red Hat’s optimized AI stack.

China starts UHV power line: The new 700 km UHV line will transmit 8M kW

Key Points

• 700 km UHV DC line from Inner Mongolia to Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei, targeting 2027 operation.
• Capacity up to 8 million kW; $2.5B investment by State Grid Corp of China.
• UHV thresholds: >800 kV (DC) and 1,000 kV (AC), enabling low-loss long-distance transmission.

Fixing a Buffer Overflow in Unix v4 Like It's 1973

Key Points

• UNIX v4’s su(1) has a password buffer overflow due to missing bounds checks.
• Long inputs can crash su; restore TTY echo with “stty echo” if needed.
• Patch-and-rebuild is feasible on-system using ed in the UNIX v4 environment.

Ask HN: Is it time for HN to implement a form of captcha?

Key Points

• Proposal to consider CAPTCHA on Hacker News to counter automated posts.
• Debate over using standard vs. custom, privacy-focused verification methods.
• Questioning CAPTCHA’s effectiveness amid modern AI capabilities.

Claude keeps nagging about "Help improve Claude" inspite of previous decline

Key Points

• User reports Claude’s feedback prompt persists despite repeated declines.
• Issue occurs across multiple devices, implying declines aren’t durable.
• Poster suggests offering free membership instead of repeated prompts.

Ushikuvirus: Newly discovered virus may offer clues to the origin of eukaryotes

Key Points

• New giant DNA virus “ushikuvirus” isolated from Lake Ushiku, Japan.
• Study supports the viral eukaryogenesis hypothesis linking giant viruses to the eukaryotic nucleus.
• Published online in Journal of Virology on November 24, 2025.

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of the Fourier Transform

Key Points

• Talk recording now available on YouTube, with slides and a plotting notebook provided.
• Foundational references include the OFDM patent, Wigner’s essay, and an IEEE paper on joint timing/frequency estimation.
• Additional resources: a DVB‑T decoder repository and a recommended FFT implementation explainer video.

Show HN: macOS menu bar app to track Claude usage in real time

Key Points

• Real-time Claude Code usage monitoring with color-coded statuses and reset timers.
• Requires macOS 13+ and Claude Code CLI; supports download or build-from-source installation.
• Uses OAuth credentials from macOS Keychain and an undocumented Anthropic usage API endpoint.

How to Code Claude Code in 200 Lines of Code

Key Points

• A minimal coding agent centers on an LLM-driven tool loop mediated by a local harness.
• Three tools—read, list, and edit files—are sufficient for a functional prototype.
• Structured tool definitions and outputs are critical for reliable LLM-driven operations.

Rethinking Quran Rendering for the Digital Age

Key Points

• Most digital Qurans mimic print; Tarteel argues for a native digital approach.
• Memorization depends on stable spatial layout that digital tools must preserve.
• Tarteel built a rendering system to combine fidelity, interactivity, and layout consistency.

Intellectual Junkyards

Key Points

• Forester evolved from early experiments (Sheafy/Jekyll, Hugo plugin) to standalone OCaml software.
• Evergreen/Zettelkasten ideas shaped Forester, but scientific use revealed friction over time.
• Foundational shifts (to univalent category theory) can stall note systems, turning them into “junkyards.”

Task-free intelligence testing of LLMs

Key Points

• LLMs were probed with patterned “tap” inputs across six numeric sequences over ten turns.
• Models fell into three behavior types: playful, serious assistant, and pattern-guessing (sometimes accurate).
• OpenAI’s GPT 5.2 remained serious/mechanical, while Claude, Gemini, and DeepSeek displayed playful or inferential behaviors.

Texas First State to End American Bar Association oversight of law schools

Key Points

• Texas ended ABA oversight of law school accreditation for bar eligibility.
• Approval authority shifts to the Texas Supreme Court using objective criteria.
• Texas aims to maintain cross-state portability of law degrees.

Steve Jobs was "a truly rotten person" (2018)

Key Points

• “Small Fry” details Jobs’ denial of paternity and delayed child support confirmed by DNA test and court order.
• Apple’s Lisa computer naming dispute is recounted, with Jobs later acknowledging the link to his daughter.
• Memoir describes strained family dynamics, including restricted contact with Lisa’s mother and a quote from Laurene Powell Jobs.

Sopro TTS: A 169M model with zero-shot voice cloning that runs on the CPU

Key Points

• 169M-parameter TTS model with dilated convs and cross-attention.
• CPU-friendly performance (~0.25 RTF on M3) with streaming and zero-shot cloning.
• Installation, usage examples, and a local demo via Uvicorn or Docker provided.

Support for the TSO memory model on Arm CPUs

Key Points

• Arm vendors (NVIDIA, Fujitsu, Apple) provide varying forms of hardware TSO support.
• Patch proposes prctl-based user-space control and discovery of CPU memory model.
• Kernel upstreaming efforts have met resistance.

PgX – Debug Postgres performance in the context of your application code

Key Points

• pgX aims to integrate PostgreSQL metrics with application and infrastructure signals on a shared timeline.
• Isolated monitoring becomes insufficient at scale as database behavior reflects application usage and load.
• Standard PostgreSQL views help early but lack cross-layer context for complex performance diagnosis.

Texas court blocks Samsung from tracking TV viewing, then vacates order

Key Points

• Texas’ TRO against Samsung over smart TV ACR data practices was issued January 5 and vacated the next day.
• Court alleged deceptive ACR enrollment, dark patterns, and difficult opt-out; AG claimed 500 ms screenshot capture.
• Separate Texas lawsuits target Sony, LG, Hisense, and TCL over similar ACR and data-access concerns.

Show HN: We built a permissions layer for Notion

Key Points

• Announces a permissions layer for Notion.
• Enables per-person control of visible rows and columns.
• Provides fine-grained, user-specific visibility within Notion content.

SQL Studio

Key Points

• Direct table editing with staged changes before commit
• Initial support planned for SQLite, Postgres, and SQL Server
• Freemium pricing with upgrades for more features and dialects

Richard D. James interviews ex Korg engineer Tatsuya Takahashi (2017)

Key Points

• Korg monologue features full microtuning editing, added at Richard D. James’s insistence.
• James details deviating from A440 on a Yamaha DX100 and discusses the 1939 A440 standard and historical calibration practices.
• Tatsuya Takahashi is a Korg advisor and works at Yadastar GmbH; the interview is accompanied by a Korg-only track.

Show HN: A geofence-based social network app 6 years in development

Key Points

• Geofenced perimeters with chat rooms restrict participation to users inside the boundary.
• Features include anonymous mode, place search, and a global top chat rooms list.
• Planned launch is early 2026; predecessor app LocalVideo is linked on Google Play.

I built a quantum internet that runs on your WiFi

Key Points

• LUXBIN Quantum Internet links IBM quantum computers to a user’s home WiFi via a local coordination node and REST API.
• Users can install Python-based dependencies and start the system locally, then issue quantum operations through HTTP endpoints.
• The project claims to use quantum entanglement and teleportation concepts to provide quantum-secured communication and high energy efficiency.

Making Magic Leap past Nvidia's secure bootchain and breaking Tesla Autopilots

Key Points

• Found and exploited Fastboot vulnerabilities “sparsehax” and “dtbhax” on Magic Leap One.
• Used fault injection to dump Tegra X2 BootROM and discovered an unpatchable USB recovery mode flaw.
• Exploit works across Tegra X2 devices, including Tesla Autopilot 2/2.5.

Iran Protest Map

Key Points

• Verified map shows 74 protest-related events in Iran.
• Features include timeline controls, crowd-size categories, and chart view.
• Options exist to include unverified reports and switch to Persian.

Landline phones cut in parts of Iran, eyewitnesses say

Key Points

• Landline and internet services have been disrupted in parts of Iran amid nationwide protests.
• Activist Masih Alinejad is calling for Starlink deployment and stronger US support to counter Iran’s internet shutdown.
• Protest chant analysis shows a fast transition from economic grievances to explicit opposition to the Islamic Republic and calls for political change.

Embassy: Modern embedded framework, using Rust and async

Key Points

• Embassy uses Rust async to provide cooperative multitasking without an RTOS.
• Comprehensive HAL coverage spans major MCU families and integrates third-party HALs.
• Built-in stacks include timekeeping, networking, BLE, LoRa, USB, and a safe bootloader.

Pole of Inaccessibility

Key Points

• A pole of inaccessibility is defined as the farthest point from a boundary, typically the coastline.
• Modern geospatial analysis placed the NPRI at 85°48′N 176°9′W, 1,008 km from three nearest landmasses.
• Le Commandant Charcot reached the NPRI on 12 September 2024; Antarctica’s pole varies with coastline definitions.

Expired certificate breaks macOS Logitech apps

Key Points

• Expired IPC security certificate stopped Logi Options+ and G Hub from launching on macOS.
• Logitech released manual patches with an updated certificate; auto-updaters are broken.
• Patches support macOS 13–15 and 26; settings restore if the apps weren’t uninstalled.

Why Are Grok and X Still Available in App Stores?

Key Points

• Wired says Grok-generated sexualized images, including of apparent minors, are circulating on X.
• Apple and Google removed similar apps in the past, yet X and Grok remain listed.
• X states it enforces against illegal content; Apple, Google, X, and xAI did not comment.

Tumblr removed from Apple App Store over abuse images (2018)

Key Points

• Apple removed Tumblr’s iOS app over child sexual abuse images.
• Tumblr’s filters missed content not in the known CSAM database, later found in an audit.
• Tumblr seeks re-listing and has faced prior regional actions over mature content.

Recent Optimizations in Python's Reference Counting

Key Points

• Python 3.14 introduces LOAD_FAST_BORROW to skip refcount increments for local variable loads.
• Bytecode in Python 3.15 replaces LOAD_FAST with LOAD_FAST_BORROW (including a dual-load form) in the example.
• The optimization uses static lifetime analysis and applies only under specific conditions.

Flint Confirms Biodegradable Paper Batteries Are Now in Production

Key Points

• Flint’s cellulose-based paper batteries are now in production in Singapore.
• Two products will be detailed and demonstrated at CES 2026 amid expanded pilots.
• 2025 traction includes awards, accelerator programs, pilots, and a US$2M pre-Series A raise.

Why I Left iNaturalist

Key Points

• Co-founder departs iNaturalist over disagreements on product direction and management.
• Timeline: founded in 2007 at UC Berkeley; joined CAS in 2014; independent non-profit in 2023.
• New mobile app replaces “iNat Next” as “iNaturalist,” with the old app becoming “iNaturalist Classic.”

Systematically Improving Espresso: Mathematical Modeling and Experiment (2020)

Key Points

• Experiments show extraction yield peaks at intermediate grind sizes, contradicting a homogeneous-flow model’s monotonic prediction.
• Inhomogeneous flow at fine grinds undermines reproducibility and leads to wasted coffee.
• Proposed protocols target better consistency and up to 25% reduction in coffee used per espresso.

Show HN: Executable Markdown files with Unix pipes

Key Points

• Executable Markdown via claude-run provides full Unix stdin/stdout for chaining and scripting.
• Auditability is emphasized, proposing Markdown-based install flows as readable alternatives to curl | bash.
• Current support is for Claude Code, with plans for other AI tools and cloud routing (e.g., AWS Bedrock).

Anti-cheat evolution in Windows 11

Key Points

• TPM-based attestation (PCRs, Extend, AIK-signed Quotes) underpins the proposed anti-cheat report.
• TCG logs record measurements; TPM Quotes verify PCR values originate from a genuine TPM.
• Focus is on preventing kernel-level cheats during gameplay in Windows 11.

Logistics Is Dying; Or – Dude, Where's My Mail?

Key Points

• USPS on-time delivery rates declined from 2022 to 2024 and average delivery times increased.
• The Pony Express achieved rapid delivery speeds but was superseded by the telegraph after 18 months.
• Policy changes under Louis DeJoy lowered service standards; regulators warned targets were unreliable.

I hacked Casio F-91W digital watch

Key Points

• A classic Casio F-91W watch is modified to embed a fully functional NFC payment card, turning it into a wearable payment device.
• The article explains NFC fundamentals, including contactless communication at around 13.56 MHz and how it speeds up transactions.
• It details the internal components of contactless cards—secure IC with CPU, memory, crypto core, and an RF antenna—and notes they are powered passively by electromagnetic induction.

Remote Job

Key Points

• Curated repository of remote work resources across multiple categories.
• Includes toolkits for HR, communication, and project management.
• Open contribution process via README edits and pull requests.

On Getting Hacked

Key Points

• Strong security practices (password manager, 2FA) were in place but proved insufficient.
• Multiple, unvetted browser extensions were installed to improve readability and comfort.
• An email from Kleinanzeigen signaled the first sign of a problem after installing those extensions.

Iran Goes Dark as Government Cuts Itself Off from Internet

Key Points

• Iran disconnected from the global internet at 18:45 UTC after weeks of selective blockages.
• All IPv6 BGP routes were withdrawn at 11:49 UTC, with traffic declining from 16:30 UTC.
• Kentik’s global telemetry and analysis confirm the shutdown and liken it to the 2019 blackout.