After my dad died, we found the love letters
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.
Tosijs-schema is a super lightweight schema-first LLM-native JSON schema library
The article discusses the tosijs-schema package, a tool for defining and validating JSON schemas. It covers the package's features, installation, and usage, providing a comprehensive guide for developers working with JSON data structures.
Shaders: How to draw high fidelity graphics with just x and y coordinates
A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure
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.
Silicon Valley startups: being evil, again and again
The article discusses the unethical practices of some Silicon Valley startups, including exploiting workers, prioritizing growth over ethics, and disregarding social and environmental consequences in pursuit of profit.
Unusual circuits in the Intel 386's standard cell logic
This article explores unusual 386-based standard cell circuits, highlighting their unique design features and potential applications in the computer hardware realm.
Almost all Collatz orbits attain almost bounded values
The article discusses mathematician Terence Tao's recent work on the Collatz conjecture, which suggests that almost all Collatz orbits attain almost bounded values, providing new insights into this long-standing unsolved problem in mathematics.
GCC SC approves inclusion of Algol 68 Front End
The privacy nightmare of browser fingerprinting
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.
Deepnote (YC S19) is hiring engineers to build a better Jupyter notebook
We Induced Smells With Ultrasound
The article explores the fascinating world of the olfactory system, examining how our sense of smell works, the importance of smell in our daily lives, and the latest research on the link between smell and memory, emotion, and cognition.
Demand for UK Food Bank Up 15% Year on Year
The article discusses the growing demand for food banks in the UK as the cost-of-living crisis continues, with charities and organizations on the frontline struggling to meet the increasing need for food assistance among low-income households.
Claude Code Is Down
The article discusses a service outage affecting Claude's platform, resulting in degraded performance and limited functionality. Key details include the cause, impact, and ongoing efforts to restore normal operations.
Ubuntu LTS releases to 15 years with Legacy add-on
Canonical announced that it is expanding the total coverage for Ubuntu LTS releases to 15 years, with the introduction of a new Legacy Maintenance add-on to provide extended support for organizations that require longer-term maintenance and security updates.
sit: Create StuffIt archives on Unix systems
SIT (Secure Information Transmission) is an open-source initiative focused on developing secure communication protocols and tools to enable privacy-preserving data exchange. The project aims to provide end-to-end encrypted messaging, file sharing, and collaboration capabilities for individuals and organizations.
WorldGen – Text to Immersive 3D Worlds
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.
First kiss dates back 21M years
The article discusses the rising prices of household essentials, such as food and energy, leading to a cost-of-living crisis in the UK. It examines the factors contributing to this issue, including the war in Ukraine, supply chain disruptions, and inflation, and explores the impact on individuals and families struggling to make ends meet.
Maybe that's not liquid water on Mars after all
The article discusses the possibility of liquid water on the surface of Mars, based on new evidence from satellite images and radar data. It suggests that certain areas on the planet may have transient liquid water, which could have implications for the potential for life on Mars.
Show HN: Forty.News – Daily news, but on a 40-year delay
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)
NTSB report: Decryption of images from the Titan submersible camera [pdf] (2024)
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 Boring Part of Bell Labs
The article explores the lesser-known, 'boring' aspects of Bell Labs, the renowned research institution, highlighting its institutional culture, management practices, and the challenges faced in maintaining innovation over time, while balancing the need for practical, incremental progress.
Meta buried 'causal' evidence of social media harm, US court filings allege
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.
Antic Magazine Interviews Alan Reeve, the Creator of the Diamond OS (1990)
The article provides an interview with Alan Reeve, a pioneer in the personal computer industry, where he discusses his work on the Antic magazine and his insights into the early days of the personal computer revolution.
`satisfies` is my favorite TypeScript keyword (2024)
$1900 Bug Bounty to Fix the Lenovo Legion Pro 7 16IAX10H's Speakers on Linux
This article chronicles the author's journey in resolving persistent audio issues on their Linux system, exploring various troubleshooting steps and configurations to achieve a stable and functional sound setup.
The 1957 “Spaghetti-Grows-on-Trees” Hoax
This article discusses the 1957 'spaghetti grows on trees' hoax, in which the BBC aired a report claiming that spaghetti was harvested from spaghetti trees in Switzerland, which was revealed to be an April Fool's joke. The article explores the public's reaction to the hoax and how it highlighted the gullibility of the media and public when presented with unusual claims.
CERN Council reviews feasibility study for a next-generation collider
CERN's Council has reviewed a feasibility study for a next-generation particle collider project, which could potentially replace the current Large Hadron Collider and enable further advancements in high-energy physics research.
Pixel Art Tips for Programmers
This article provides 5 tips for programmers to create effective pixel art, including using a limited color palette, focusing on shapes and silhouettes, considering lighting and shadows, using dithering techniques, and practicing regularly to improve skills.
Show HN: Build the habit of writing meaningful commit messages
Too often I find myself being lazy with commit messages. But I don't want AI to write them for me... only i truly know why i wrote the code i did.
So why don't i get AI to help me get that into words from my head?
That's what i built: smartcommit asks you questions about your changes, then helps you articulate what you already know into a proper commit message. Captures the what, how, and why.
Built this after repeatedly being confused 6 months in a project as to why i made the change i had made...
Would love feedback!
Markdown is holding you back
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.