Best stories

After the death of her father, the author discovers a box of love letters between her parents, providing insights into their relationship and a deeper understanding of her family history.

The article discusses how web browsers can be used to uniquely identify users through techniques known as 'browser fingerprinting.' It explains the various methods employed, the potential privacy implications, and measures users can take to mitigate against such tracking.

Meta (Facebook) allegedly buried evidence about the harms of its social media platforms, according to US court filings. The filings claim that Meta was aware of the negative impacts of its products but failed to address them.

The article discusses a customer's frustrating experience with Xfinity, where their internet service has been consistently unreliable for months, and the company has failed to provide a satisfactory resolution despite repeated visits and promises to fix the issue.

The article discusses the life and work of renowned graphic designer Fran Sans, exploring her unique approach to typography and her influence on the industry. It highlights her innovative typeface designs and her role in shaping the visual landscape of contemporary design.

This started as a reaction to a conversational trope. Despite being a tranquil place, even conversations at my yoga studio often start with, "Can you believe what's going on right now?" with that angry/scared undertone.

I'm a news avoider, so I usually feel some smug self-satisfaction in those instances, but I wondered if there was a way to satisfy the urge to doomscroll without the anxiety.

My hypothesis: Apply a 40-year latency buffer. You get the intellectual stimulation of "Big Events" without the fog of war, because you know the world didn't end.

40 years creates a mirror between the Reagan Era and today. The parallels include celebrity populism, Cold War tensions (Soviets vs. Russia), and inflation economics.

The system ingests raw newspaper scans and uses a multi-step LLM pipeline to generate the daily edition:

OCR & Ingestion: Converts raw pixels to text.

Scoring: Grades events on metrics like Dramatic Irony and Name Recognition to surface stories that are interesting with hindsight. For example, a dry business blurb about Steve Jobs leaving Apple scores highly because the future context creates a narrative arc.

Objective Fact Extraction: Extracts a list of discrete, verifiable facts from the raw text.

Generation: Uses those extracted facts as the ground truth to write new headlines and story summaries.

I expected a zen experience. Instead, I got an entertaining docudrama. Historical events are surprisingly compelling when serialized over weeks.

For example, on Oct 7, 1985, Palestinian hijackers took over the cruise ship Achille Lauro. Reading this on a delay in 2025, the story unfolded over weeks: first they threw an American in a wheelchair overboard, then US fighter jets forced the escape plane to land, leading to a military standoff between US Navy SEALs and the Italian Air Force. Unbelievably, the US backed down, but the later diplomatic fallout led the Italian Prime Minister to resign.

It hits the dopamine receptors of the news cycle, but with the comfort of a known outcome.

Stack: React, Node.js (Caskada for the LLM pipeline orchestration), Gemini for OCR/Scoring.

Link: https://forty.news (No signup required, it's only if you want the stories emailed to you daily/weekly)

The article discusses the challenges in building artificial agents, such as the difficulty in capturing the complexity of human behavior and decision-making, the need for better understanding of human cognition, and the limitations of current AI techniques in replicating the adaptability and versatility of human intelligence.

https://archive.is/DQpXM

https://www.stdaily.com/web/English/2025-11/17/content_43298...

The article discusses the ongoing debate over the potential threat of artificial intelligence (AI) and the need for robust governance and oversight to ensure the responsible development and deployment of AI technology.

New Mexico becomes the first U.S. state to offer free child care for all families, regardless of income, in an effort to improve access to early childhood education and support working parents.

The article explores the realities of being a pop star, including the intensive work, public scrutiny, mental health challenges, and the importance of maintaining a genuine connection with fans despite the pressures of the industry.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is facing a lawsuit alleging that its social media platforms are designed to be addictive and harmful to children's mental health, putting profits before the well-being of young users.

The article discusses the challenges faced by a Dutch software engineer in finding a job after being laid off, and how he eventually landed a new role through his own initiative and resourcefulness.

Racket, a popular general-purpose programming language, has released version 9.0 with new features such as improved error reporting, better integration with other tools, and enhancements to the core language and libraries.

The article outlines the areas of operation approved by the California DMV for Waymo, a leading autonomous vehicle company, to conduct driverless testing and deployment. It provides details on the specific cities and counties where Waymo is authorized to operate its self-driving vehicles without a human driver present.

The article explores Meta's research on 3D world generation using generative AI, aiming to create more realistic and diverse virtual environments for applications like gaming, architecture, and entertainment.

A recent study found that children who get their first smartphone before age 13 are more likely to experience worse mental health outcomes, such as increased anxiety, depression, and decreased life satisfaction, compared to those who receive a smartphone later.

The article explores the findings of a reverse engineering study on 200 AI startups, revealing that 73% of them are making false claims about their AI capabilities. It highlights the importance of scrutinizing AI-related claims and the need for more transparency and accountability in the industry.

This article explores unusual 386-based standard cell circuits, highlighting their unique design features and potential applications in the computer hardware realm.

The article argues that Markdown, while widely used, has limitations that hold back content creators. It suggests exploring alternative formats, such as Asciidoc or Commonmark, which offer more flexibility and advanced features for creating and managing content.

The article explores the concept of 'consumer debt' in the tech industry, where companies like Microsoft view consumers as a liability or 'tech debt' rather than an asset. It examines how this perspective shapes product development and customer relationships in the tech sector.

The article provides a comprehensive introduction to the Vulkan API, a low-level graphics and compute API designed to provide high-performance, cross-platform 3D and 2D graphics. It covers the basic concepts, components, and workflow of Vulkan, making it a valuable resource for developers interested in learning and implementing this modern graphics API.

The article provides a detailed factual report on an underwater camera used during an investigation, including technical specifications, functionality, and analysis of the recorded footage. It presents the findings and conclusions of the specialist's examination of the camera and its role in the overall investigation.

The article explores the third part of Mozilla's Cycle, discussing the company's commitment to transparency, collaboration, and continuous improvement in its software development process. It highlights Mozilla's efforts to foster a healthy open-source community and maintain the principles of the open web.

Google is reconsidering the inclusion of JPEG XL, an image format designed to provide better compression and quality than traditional JPEG, in the Chromium open-source project after previously removing it. This decision reflects the ongoing development and evaluation of new image formats to potentially improve web performance and user experience.

Researchers found that fragments of the moss Bryum argenteum were able to survive in the vacuum of space for over 9 months, demonstrating the remarkable resilience of certain organisms to the harsh conditions of space.