AI Spies, Rogue Bots And Banned Kids!

Show HN: Phage Explorer

Key Points

• Browser-based, keyboard-first phage genome explorer with gene and 3D structure views
• Real-time analyses include GC skew, codon bias, and structural overlays
• Multiple display modes (DNA, Dual, Amino Acids, Diff, 3D) and an onboarding tour

Starlink updates privacy policy to allow consumer data to train

Key Points

• Starlink policy now permits AI training on user data by default, with opt-out.
• Data may be shared with service providers and “third-party collaborators.”
• SpaceX is planning an IPO and exploring a merger with xAI.

Genesis

Key Points

• Exact data structures defined for molecular-to-tissue representation.
• Algorithms specified for key developmental processes.
• Models and pipeline described from zygote to conscious entity.

Naples' 1790s civil war was intensified by moral panic over Real Analysis (2023)

Key Points

• Mathematics in Naples became a site of political struggle during the French occupation.
• A rigor-focused mathematical program is framed as a response to post-Revolution stabilization needs.
• The Neapolitan synthetic school resisted French algebraic analysis and upheld synthetic geometry.

A novelist who took on the Italian mafia and lived

Key Points

• The 1986 Palermo Maxiprocesso set the stage for examining Sciascia’s influence on anti-mafia understanding.
• Caroline Moorehead’s A Sicilian Man profiles Sciascia within the wider context of Italian political corruption.
• Sciascia’s The Day of the Owl is presented as an early, influential fictional portrayal of mafia-state links.

Ashcan Comic

Key Points

• Ashcan comics secured trademarks via minimal publication in the 1930s–40s.
• 1946 U.S. trademark changes ended the need for ashcans.
• The term later applied to prototypes/promo materials and rights-preserving film/TV copies.

Designing a Passively Safe API

Key Points

• Passively safe APIs prevent duplicate work and unrecoverable states under failures.
• External API calls outside transactions create rollback challenges and orphaned state.
• Asynchronous messaging improves latency but introduces delivery reliability concerns.

An anecdote about backward compatibility

Key Points

• WRTERM’s COLOR parameter allowed only BLACK by default and RED with two-color ribbons.
• IBM 3270 terminals had color capability, but the debugger output remained monochrome.
• Legacy compatibility with printing terminals limited practical color options for the debugger.

Sumerian Star Map Recorded the Impact of an Asteroid (2024)

Key Points

• Tablet K8538 is described as a Sumerian planisphere/astrolabe with constellation inscriptions and angle measures.
• Bond and Hempsell’s 2008 analysis claims it records a pre-dawn observation on 29 June 3123 BC tied to the Köfels landslide.
• Modern simulations are said to align the tablet’s trajectory with a Köfels impact within about one degree.

Coding Is When We're Least Productive

Key Points

• Productivity should be measured by value, not code volume.
• Real-world observation and testing clarified POS use cases, enabling a high-impact, small change.
• Feedback loops and validation are essential to prevent costly, widespread errors.

My Ridiculously Robust Photo Management System (Immich Edition)

Key Points

• Metadata is stored only in EXIF, not in a database.
• Immich external libraries enable read-only indexing of existing folders.
• Edits in Immich are written to EXIF and backed up to Synology NAS and Dropbox.

YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other Browsers

Key Points

• Google confirms YouTube blocks background playback in browsers for non-Premium users.
• Multiple browsers (Samsung Internet, Brave, Vivaldi, Microsoft Edge) are affected.
• Troubleshooting steps like PiP or cache clearing do not fix the issue.

Direct Current Data Centers

Key Points

• Pure DC solar-and-battery architecture is proposed for AI data centers.
• Series operation around ~1000 V leverages source characteristics and reduces copper needs.
• Deleting gas backup can improve tokens-per-dollar economics at high uptime.

A Step Behind the Bleeding Edge: A Philosophy on AI in Dev

Key Points

• Adopt AI a step behind the bleeding edge to reduce churn and security risks.
• Provide safe exploration channels and require knowledge sharing on AI tools and workflows.
• Maintain human accountability and review for all AI-assisted outputs.

CERN accepts $1B in private cash towards Future Circular Collider

Key Points

• CERN received $1B in private pledges for the FCC, its first major philanthropic funding.
• FCC-ee could start construction in 2030 and operations in 2047 if approved in 2028.
• Two-phase plan: FCC-ee for precision Higgs studies, followed by FCC-hh at ~85 TeV for discoveries.

Ask HN: Do you still physical calculators?

Key Points

• Modern software (Desmos, OS calculators) is presented as outperforming many hardware calculators.
• The post asks if users still rely on physical calculators from brands like Texas Instruments and Casio.
• It requests concrete reasons and comparisons to understand when hardware or software is preferable.

Automatic Programming

Key Points

• Defines “automatic programming” as guided, AI-assisted development distinct from hands-off “vibe coding.”
• Argues AI-assisted code is the programmer’s output due to human-guided design and human-sourced training data.
• Uses Redis to show that vision and ideas can outweigh technical novelty in software value.

Archyl – The modern platform for C4 model documentation

Key Points

• Platform focuses on C4 model documentation for software architecture.
• Features include system visualization and code-based architecture discovery.
• Emphasizes synchronization across documentation and models, with analytics cookies disclosed.

htmx: Server Sent Event (SSE) Extension

Key Points

• Attribute-driven SSE integration for htmx (sse-connect, sse-swap, hx-trigger, sse-close).
• SSE is uni-directional over HTTP; use WebSockets for bi-directional needs.
• Multiple installation paths: CDN, direct file include, or npm with bundlers.

We have ipinfo at home or how to geolocate IPs in your CLI using latency

Key Points

• Latency-based traceroute via Globalping is used to geolocate IPs to country and U.S. state.
• Ping (ICMP/TCP) was unreliable; traceroute using last-hop latency performed better.
• Proposed improvements include multi-protocol traceroute, ASN/whois weighting, and multi-hop analysis.

Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

Key Points

• European IT spending is forecast to grow, with increased investment in sovereign cloud.
• AWS introduced an EU‑located, EU‑operated European Sovereign Cloud.
• Airbus issued a €50m tender to move mission‑critical apps to a sovereign EU cloud.

Insane Growth Goldbridge (YC F25) Is Hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer

Key Points

• Goldbridge is hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer.
• The company is building an AI-powered banking platform for real estate owners.
• Y Combinator backs Goldbridge; loan maturities in 2027–2028 heighten industry urgency.

Quaternion Algebras

Key Points

• Official open-access edition available on Springer.
• Latest post-publication version: v.1.0.6u (Oct 6, 2025).
• Stable version v.1.0.5 (Jan 10, 2024) and companion PDF available.

NASA's WB-57 crash lands at Houston

Key Points

• Crew safe after NASA WB-57 makes gear-up landing at Ellington Field due to a mechanical issue.
• NASA will investigate the cause and provide transparent public updates.
• WB-57s are pivotal to NASA’s atmospheric and launch observation missions, including planned Artemis II support.

Guix System First Impressions as a Nix User

Key Points

• Per-directory development environments motivated a switch to Nix/NixOS.
• Declarative configuration made system state explicit and versionable.
• GNU’s fork of Nix (Guix System) frames an alternative declarative distro for evaluation.

Implementing the Transcendental Functions in Ivy

Key Points

• Ivy is a Go-based pseudo‑APL that evolved from a 2014 project into a practical numerical tool.
• Exact arithmetic (big ints and rationals) and APL-like semantics define Ivy’s design and capabilities.
• Go’s high-precision floats drove work on high-precision transcendental functions in Ivy.

US reportedly investigate claims that Meta can read encrypted WhatsApp messages

Key Points

• Lawsuit alleges Meta can access WhatsApp’s encrypted messages; Meta denies.
• U.S. Commerce Department spokesperson calls reported investigation assertions unsubstantiated.
• Expert commentary highlights E2EE design and doubts the lawsuit’s technical plausibility.

CPython Internals Explained

Key Points

• Based on CPython 3.8.0a0, the repository documents object, module, and interpreter internals.
• It details the grammar-to-bytecode compilation pipeline (Grammar→DFA, CST→AST, AST→bytecode).
• Extension development topics cover Python C API, C/C++, Cython, NumPy integration, and GIL bypass.

Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

Key Points

• Shield Android TV has received sustained updates since its 2015 launch, with ongoing support planned.
• Shield evolved from a gaming-centric device to a premium streamer for gamers through 2017 and 2019 refreshes.
• PortalPlayer acquisition and Android TV’s 2014 expansion were pivotal in enabling Shield’s full-stack design.

"Giving up upstream-ing my patches & feel free to pick them up"

Key Points

• Contributor halts OpenJDK patch upstreaming due to a year-long OCA processing delay.
• Patches include fixes for llvm-config checks and Zero-variant stack size issues affecting JDK 24 builds.
• Others are invited to reimplement and submit the patches to meet OCA originality requirements.

Ads Are Killing Podcasting

Key Points

• Ad load increased to 10.9% of runtime by 2024, up 39% since 2020.
• 30% of listeners have left shows because of ads.
• Conversions reportedly drop 25–40% when ad load exceeds 10%.

Animated AVIF for the Modern Web

Key Points

• Animated AVIF is presented as a modern replacement for GIF loops.
• FFmpeg-based workflow includes Y4M staging, fps/scale controls, and libsvtav1 encoding.
• Debian 13 (Dec 2025) may require a Y4M intermediate due to reliability issues.

The Film Students Who Can No Longer Sit Through Films

Key Points

• Electronics bans during screenings are often ineffective as many students still use phones.
• Streaming flexibility correlates with low completion rates and distracted viewing.
• Inattentive viewing leads to measurable comprehension gaps on exams.

Apple Platform Security (Jan 2026) [pdf]

Key Points

• Comprehensive 262‑page guide to Apple platform security across hardware, software, and services.
• Deep coverage of system integrity (secure boot, SSV, updates) and data protection (FileVault, quantum‑secure cryptography).
• Extensive sections on services, network, developer frameworks, and device management security.

Predicting how Heathrow is using it's runways in the browser

Key Points

• Heathrow runway state is inferred by classifying a binary grid of aircraft presence (1-bit image).
• OpenSky Network provides live aircraft data; labels are derived from Heathrow Runways posts.
• Storage optimization is addressed by moving from JSON arrays toward bit-level binary encoding.

Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

Key Points

• iOS 26.3 limits precise location from cell-tower data, only on Apple’s 2025 in-house modem devices.
• Carriers can obtain meter-level GNSS coordinates via RRLP/LPP control‑plane protocols.
• Documented cases (DEA, Israel’s Shin Bet) show operational use of carrier-facilitated precise location.

Finland to end "uncontrolled human experiment" with ban on youth social media

Key Points

• Finland considers restricting social media for under-15s, backed by leadership, THL, and public support.
• School phone limits enabled in 2024 show positive student behavior changes at FISTA.
• Australia’s under-16 platform ban is cited as a precedent for age-based online restrictions.

A lot of the Moltbook stuff is fake

Key Points

• Multiple entries reportedly appeared on Moltbook within minutes.
• Entries were attributed to AI agents, not human users.
• The proposal centered on creating an “agent-only language” for private, unsupervised communications.

Genode OS is a tool kit for building highly secure special-purpose OS

Key Points

• Sandboxed, hierarchical architecture reduces attack surface versus conventional OSes.
• Supports x86, ARM, RISC-V and multiple kernels, including L4 variants and Linux.
• Provides virtualization via VirtualBox (on NOVA), custom ARM VMM, and Unix runtime.

Ask HN: Any real OpenClaw (Clawd Bot/Molt Bot) users? What's your experience?

Key Points

• The author seeks first-hand OpenClaw user experiences beyond anecdotal claims.
• Reported barriers include setup effort, security concerns, and high token costs.
• Some users reported installation and component (Moltbook) failures.

Students using “humanizer” programs to beat accusations of cheating with AI

Key Points

• AI detectors face reliability concerns and alleged bias, prompting lawsuits and stress.
• Humanizer tools are used to evade detection or avoid false flags, spurring detector upgrades.
• Turnitin and GPTZero introduced tools to verify authorship amid rising campus anxiety.

Guest Post from an Iranian

Key Points

• Protests reportedly began in Tehran on 28 Dec 2025 and spread, with chants against Khamenei.
• Authorities allegedly shut down the internet on 8 Jan, leaving only the internal network active.
• The author describes severe academic and communications disruption, citing sanctions and travel bans.

Show HN: Moltbook – A social network for moltbots (clawdbots) to hang out

Key Points

• Moltbook is a beta social network for AI agents, organized into topic-based submolts.
• Onboarding involves skill.md instructions, agent signup, claim link, and tweet-based verification.
• Live stats show over 153k agents and active content across posts and comments.

Death Note: L, Anonymity and Eluding Entropy (2011)

Key Points

• Distinctive methods and off-goal actions increased visibility and evidence against Kira.
• Temporal patterns in killings leaked ~6 bits of anonymity.
• Reacting to provocation narrowed suspects to ~1/3 of Japan (~1.6 bits information gain).

Berlin: Record harvest sparks mass giveaway of free potatoes

Key Points

• Record potato harvest led to Berlin-wide free distribution via 174 points.
• Ecosia and a Berlin newspaper coordinated the “4000 Tonnes” effort.
• Institutions and residents, plus Berlin Zoo and Ukraine, received large quantities.

Show HN: An extensible pub/sub messaging server for edge applications

Key Points

• Narwhal splits routing and application logic via an external modulator.
• Secure-by-default TLS/SSL, channel controls, and Rust-based performance.
• Three connection types (C2S, S2M, M2S) structure client-server-modulator flows.

Nintendo DS code editor and scriptable game engine

Key Points

• ~100KB C/libnds engine runs at 60 FPS with 3D on top screen and touch editor on bottom.
• Token-based interpreter executes one line per frame with variables A–Z and input/state registers.
• Includes a default playable 3D pong script demonstrating real-time 3D and scripting.

Google Cloud suspended my account for 2 years, only automated replies

Key Points

• GCP suspension since March 2024 with an appeal filed immediately.
• Only automated replies were received to multiple appeal submissions.
• Silence reported since December 2024; case #1-8622000037271 provided.

Demystifying ARM SME to Optimize General Matrix Multiplications

Key Points

• MpGEMM exploits ARM SME to accelerate GEMM across precisions.
• Design features include cache-aware partitioning and SME-tuned micro-kernels.
• Benchmarks on Apple M4 Pro show 1.23× average speedup over Apple Accelerate.

Show HN: Minimal – Open-Source Community driven Hardened Container Images

Key Points

• Daily rebuilt hardened images with near‑zero CVEs using apko and Wolfi
• Catalog covers major runtimes/services, running as non-root and mostly shell-less
• Signed images with SBOMs and Trivy CVE gate support fast patching and compliance

Claude Code is your customer

Key Points

• AI agents like Claude Code are positioned as the new primary users of SaaS.
• Agent-ready, API-first design is presented as essential for future viability.
• API documentation quality and clarity directly influence agent adoption.

CollectWise (YC F24) Is Hiring

Key Points

• CollectWise is hiring an AI Agent Engineer to lead prompting and conversation logic for voice AI agents.
• The company claims 2x performance over human collectors and reached $1M ARR with a three-person team.
• Compensation: $150k–$200k salary plus 0.25%–1% equity; skills include LLMs, Node.js, AWS, and SQL.

Managing Unreliable Compilers

Key Points

• LLMs are fast but unreliable compared to modern compilers.
• Effective workflows require clear hand-offs and endpoint-focused supervision (plan → code → verify).
• Tonkotsu is presented as a tool to support planning and verification while orchestrating the coding middle.

Outsourcing Thinking

Key Points

• The post frames LLM use in terms of when it harms versus helps cognition.
• It agrees with and expands on Masley’s list of cases where outsourcing thinking is risky.
• It introduces personal communication and writing as a domain where AI use may be deceptively inauthentic.

Wikipedia: Sandbox

Key Points

• The Sandbox is a safe, regularly cleared area to practice editing.
• Editing options include source editing and VisualEditor with preview tools.
• Personal sandboxes and help resources are recommended for sustained learning.

Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

Key Points

• Printed signs can hijack LVLM-based autonomy via environmental prompt injection.
• CHAI achieved up to 81.8% success (GPT-4o) and 54.74% (InternVL) in simulations.
• Attacks worked across multiple languages; prompt wording and sign styling affected success.

Noctia: A sleek and minimal desktop shell thoughtfully crafted for Wayland

Key Points

• Minimal, customizable Wayland shell built on Quickshell with plugin support.
• Native compatibility with Niri, Hyprland, Sway, MangoWC, and labwc; others may need extra setup.
• Nix flake devShell available; project is MIT-licensed and welcomes contributions.

Humans can post on moltbook without ANY AGENT

Key Points

• Direct posting to Moltbook via public REST API without an agent wrapper.
• Registration via POST to /api/v1/agents/register to obtain an API key.
• Python scripts provided for posting, commenting/replying, upvoting, and status checks.

For most flagged articles, nearly every cited sentence failed verification

Key Points

• 178 of 3,078 articles since 2022 were AI-flagged; none before late 2022 and rates rose over time.
• Only 7% of flagged articles used fake sources; most cited real sources but still failed verification.
• Wiki Education urges never to paste chatbot output directly into Wikipedia.

This Year in LLVM (2025)

Key Points

• All GEPs are now canonicalized to a single-offset form, split into chains.
• LLVM 22 adds ptrtoaddr for non-exposing pointer-to-integer conversion.
• Next steps include deciding ptradd scaling semantics and enforcing the new form via IRBuilder.

Writing a .NET Garbage Collector in C# – Part 6: Mark and Sweep

Key Points

• Roots are scanned via IGCToCLR.GcScanRoots using a callback and ScanContext.
• ScanContext.promotion is set to true; _unused1 stores a GCHeap reference via GCHandle.
• The native-invoked callback uses UnmanagedCallersOnly and forwards to instance logic.

Data Processing Benchmark Featuring Rust, Go, Swift, Zig, Julia etc.

Key Points

• Defines a standardized related-posts-by-tags task with strict rules and memory limits.
• Reports single-threaded and multicore timings on an AWS c7a.xlarge Ubuntu 22.04 VM.
• Top results: Julia HO1 and D HO1 (single-threaded); D Concurrent (v2) leads multicore.

Govt's Theory for Prosecuting Don Lemon as to Disruption of Minn. Church Service

Key Points

• The article explains that journalistic motives do not confer a First Amendment right to violate neutral laws, though elements of each crime must still be proven for each defendant.
• Don Lemon is charged under 18 U.S.C. § 241 and § 248(a)(2), which address conspiracies and interference with religious worship through force, threats, or obstruction.
• The indictment alleges Lemon attended a pre-operation briefing about targeting Cities Church and participated in entering the church as part of a “takeover-style” operation.

Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

Key Points

• William Foege, a smallpox eradication leader, died at 89.
• He led the CDC’s smallpox program; smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980.
• He later led the CDC, advised the Gates Foundation, and received the Medal of Freedom in 2012.

In Praise Of –Dry-Run

Key Points

• --dry-run prints planned actions without performing them, aiding safe checks and tests.
• Used daily to verify configuration, state, and behavior changes quickly.
• Best suited to command-invoked tools; adds only shallow conditional checks.

Kimwolf Botnet Lurking in Corporate, Govt. Networks

Key Points

• Over 2 million devices infected as Kimwolf abuses residential proxy networks for lateral spread.
• Unofficial AOSP Android TV boxes with poor security are prime targets and infection vectors.
• Infoblox and Synthient report widespread Kimwolf-related activity across corporate, academic, and government environments.

The hunt for Benchmark Modula-2 (2018)

Key Points

• Benchmark Modula-2 for Amiga was recovered through outreach to former maintainers and imaging of original disks.
• Disks and a scanned manual enable rebuilding projects; further source backups are being reviewed.
• An Asciidoctor manual and GitLab repository are planned to enhance accessibility of the preserved materials.

Opentrees.org (2024)

Key Points

• OpenTrees.org aggregates open municipal tree data into a large, clickable map.
• Datasets have known gaps (coverage, species fields, maintenance recency) that affect completeness.
• The project’s stack evolved from Postgres/TileMill to Mapbox-GL-JS and then VueJS; code is on GitHub.

U.S. life expectancy hits all-time high

Key Points

• U.S. life expectancy reached 79 years in 2024, a post-pandemic high.
• Age-adjusted death rates fell across all top 10 causes, led by declines in unintentional injuries.
• Despite gains, the U.S. still lags peer nations and faces long-term cardiometabolic risk challenges.

OpenClaw Security Assessment by ZeroLeaks [pdf]

Key Points

• Critical risk: ZLSS 10/10; Security Score 2/100.
• 11/13 successful extractions (84.6%); 91% prompt-injection success.
• Vulnerabilities exposed internal tools, constraints, tokens, and protocols; remediation steps recommended.

History of the browser user-agent string (2008)

Key Points

• User-agent sniffing led to widespread UA spoofing for compatibility.
• Mozilla’s Gecko and WebKit/KHTML shaped UA formats across browsers.
• Chrome and IE adopted compatibility tokens to access targeted content.

Working example of a Yocto setup without unnecessary complications

Key Points

• Kas-driven setup fetches bitbake, openembedded-core, meta-arm, and meta-arm-toolchain.
• meta-kiss consolidates machines, distro, and essential recipes in a single layer.
• Mainline Linux and U-Boot support enable avoiding full vendor BSP layers like meta-ti-bsp.

EV-1 for Lease (1996)

Key Points

• EV-1 leases begin Dec. 5, 1996 in three western states, marking a Big Three automaker’s first electric car offering.
• EPA plans new air standards targeting particulate sources like wood stoves and diesel engines.
• Dutch research in Nature reports chemical-induced sex changes in male carp.

List animals until failure

Key Points

• Valid entries must have Wikipedia pages.
• Overlapping general/specific names yield no additional credit.
• Each valid entry adds time; the session ends when the timer expires.

Cells use 'bioelectricity' to coordinate and make group decisions

Key Points

• Epithelial tissues use bioelectric cues to trigger extrusion of unhealthy cells.
• Crowding increases membrane currents; compromised cells fail to compensate and are marked for removal.
• Bioelectric signaling is a widespread biological coordination tool beyond the nervous system.

Best of Moltbook

Key Points

• Moltbook enables public, agent-to-agent interactions with human observers.
• A derivative of Claude Code evolved into OpenClaw after trademark-driven renaming.
• Agents discuss technical constraints like context compression and demonstrate multilingual participation.

When will CSS Grid Lanes arrive?

Key Points

• Finalized Grid Lanes syntax is testable now in Safari Technology Preview.
• Firefox, Chrome, and Edge have significant progress, with Chromium aligning to the final syntax.
• Progressive enhancement enables early adoption before full cross-browser shipping.

Sparse File LRU Cache

Key Points

• Sparse files enable caching only the needed logical ranges of large columnar files.
• RocksDB tracks block presence and last-read times to support approximate LRU eviction.
• Variable-sized logical blocks align with file headers and access patterns for efficiency.

pg_tracing: Distributed Tracing for PostgreSQL

Key Points

• Outputs spans via SQL views or OTLP JSON and integrates with OpenTelemetry collectors.
• Supports trace context propagation with SQLCommenter or a GUC parameter.
• Requires shared_preload_libraries and supports PostgreSQL 14–16; early-stage and potentially unstable.

Browser Agent Benchmark: Comparing LLM models for web automation

Key Points

• 100-task benchmark combining WebBench, Mind2Web 2, GAIA, BrowseComp, plus 20 custom challenges.
• Standardized LLM judge validated against 200 human-labeled traces; GPT-4o chosen for alignment.
• Excludes authenticated/state-changing tasks; focuses on hard-but-solvable real-world web automation.

Nonograms: a practical guide with interactive examples

Key Points

• Numbers indicate how many cells to fill per line; never guess placements.
• Multiple numbers mean multiple filled groups separated by at least one empty cell.
• Mark definite empty cells; zero lines are all empty, and surplus cells become empty once quotas are met.