Best stories

This article recounts the author's experience of being effectively 'kidnapped' by Deutsche Bahn, Germany's national railway company, after missing their train. It details the frustrating bureaucratic process they went through to resolve the situation and highlights the lack of clear policies and communication from the company.

The article discusses the decline of Google's dominance in the search engine market and explores alternative search platforms that may emerge as the next go-to options for users, highlighting the potential for decentralized and privacy-focused search engines to gain traction in the future.

GOG, the digital game store and distribution platform, is being acquired by its original co-founder, Marcin Iwiński. The acquisition is expected to strengthen GOG's position in the gaming industry and provide more resources for the platform's continued development.

Tesla's 4680 battery supply chain is facing challenges, as a key partner has written down a significant asset value due to delays and uncertainties in the 4680 battery program. This development highlights the complexities and risks involved in scaling up new battery technologies for electric vehicles.

Netflix's Open Content initiative provides open-source software and tools for content creators and developers, aiming to drive innovation and collaboration in the media industry.

The article provides a comprehensive guide on how to create custom HTML tags, including the steps involved and the benefits of using them to improve website organization and developer productivity.

How small can a language model be while still doing something useful? I wanted to find out, and had some spare time over the holidays.

Z80-μLM is a character-level language model with 2-bit quantized weights ({-2,-1,0,+1}) that runs on a Z80 with 64KB RAM. The entire thing: inference, weights, chat UI, it all fits in a 40KB .COM file that you can run in a CP/M emulator and hopefully even real hardware!

It won't write your emails, but it can be trained to play a stripped down version of 20 Questions, and is sometimes able to maintain the illusion of having simple but terse conversations with a distinct personality.

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The extreme constraints nerd-sniped me and forced interesting trade-offs: trigram hashing (typo-tolerant, loses word order), 16-bit integer math, and some careful massaging of the training data meant I could keep the examples 'interesting'.

The key was quantization-aware training that accurately models the inference code limitations. The training loop runs both float and integer-quantized forward passes in parallel, scoring the model on how well its knowledge survives quantization. The weights are progressively pushed toward the 2-bit grid using straight-through estimators, with overflow penalties matching the Z80's 16-bit accumulator limits. By the end of training, the model has already adapted to its constraints, so no post-hoc quantization collapse.

Eventually I ended up spending a few dollars on Claude API to generate 20 questions data (see examples/guess/GUESS.COM), I hope Anthropic won't send me a C&D for distilling their model against the ToS ;P

But anyway, happy code-golf season everybody :)

The article discusses how the creators of the hit Netflix series 'Stranger Things' have asked viewers to turn off their settings and watch the season premiere as intended, without adjustments to aspects like screen brightness or aspect ratio. This is to ensure viewers experience the show as the creators intended.

The article explores the future of software development, highlighting the increasing importance of software developers as the demand for their skills grows. It suggests that software developers will play a central role in shaping the technological landscape of the future.

The article discusses the sanctions imposed by the United States on French International Criminal Court (ICC) judge Nicolas Guillou, which have effectively blacklisted him from the global banking system. The sanctions are part of the U.S. government's ongoing efforts to undermine the ICC and its investigations into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

This article details the author's experience of moving away from big tech platforms and services, exploring alternative privacy-focused solutions and the challenges and benefits of this transition.

The article discusses the use of shebang lines in Go programs, explaining their purpose, how to write them correctly, and the implications of their usage in different environments.

The article discusses the rising prices of RAM (random access memory) and the impact of AI chips on the memory market. It explains how the increasing demand for AI-powered devices has led to a surge in the prices of memory chips, affecting consumers and businesses alike.

Manus, a leading hand-tracking and motion control technology company, has joined forces with Meta (formerly Facebook) to collaborate on the next generation of virtual and augmented reality experiences. The partnership aims to accelerate the development of innovative input and interaction solutions for immersive computing platforms.

NonZeroSum Games is an independent game studio focused on creating unique and engaging digital experiences that challenge traditional game design. The studio's mission is to push the boundaries of interactive entertainment and explore new frontiers in game mechanics and storytelling.

The article discusses how the rise of AI is pushing developers to write better, more robust code. AI systems require carefully designed and well-documented code, leading to improved coding practices and a heightened focus on software quality and maintainability.

The article discusses the importance of developers actively working on and using the software they design, arguing that it is essential for creating effective and user-friendly applications. It emphasizes the benefits of this hands-on approach, including a deeper understanding of user needs and the ability to make more informed design decisions.

The article explores the process of creating a virtual bookshelf using the Claude language, a new AI-powered programming tool. It discusses the challenges and techniques involved in building an interactive and visually appealing bookshelf application.

The article provides a comprehensive list of all the games that have been delisted from Steam, the popular digital distribution platform. It covers the reasons behind these delistings, which often involve licensing issues or the discontinuation of online services, and the implications for players who own these games.

Community, All the HN belong to you. This is an archive of hacker news that fits in your browser. When I made HN Made of Primes I realized I could probably do this offline sqlite/wasm thing with the whole GBs of archive. The whole dataset. So I tried it, and this is it. Have Hacker News on your device.

Go to this repo (https://github.com/DOSAYGO-STUDIO/HackerBook): you can download it. Big Query -> ETL -> npx serve docs - that's it. 20 years of HN arguments and beauty, can be yours forever. So they'll never die. Ever. It's the unkillable static archive of HN and it's your hands. That's my Year End gift to you all. Thank you for a wonderful year, have happy and wonderful 2026. make something of it.

The article discusses the high salaries of CEOs compared to the cost of automating jobs with robots. It suggests that in many cases, it would be more cost-effective for companies to automate certain tasks rather than pay such high executive compensation.

The article discusses the lessons learned from fighting internet censorship in Iran and Russia, and outlines strategies for staying ahead of censors in 2025. It emphasizes the importance of developing adaptable, decentralized technologies to circumvent censorship and empower users to access the open internet.

The article discusses the author's experience of switching to eSIM in 2025 and their subsequent regret. It highlights the challenges and limitations faced with eSIM technology, as well as the lack of flexibility and control compared to traditional SIM cards.

libgodc is a Go library that provides a simple and efficient way to interact with the Oracle Database Connection (ODC) library. It allows Go developers to access and manage Oracle databases directly from their Go applications.

Public Sans is a free, open-source typeface designed for use in US federal government websites and digital products. It is highly legible and optimized for screen display, providing a clean and modern aesthetic for government communications.

Nvidia has acquired a 5% stake in Intel under an agreement reached in September 2022, which will allow Nvidia to purchase up to $5 billion worth of Intel shares by 2025. This strategic investment highlights the growing collaboration between the two tech giants in the semiconductor industry.