Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
1025 by david927 | 2989 comments on Hacker News.
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New best story on Hacker News: Show HN: Term.everything – Run any GUI app in the terminal
Show HN: Term.everything – Run any GUI app in the terminal
1009 by mmulet | 136 comments on Hacker News.
I made a built-from scratch Wayland Compositor to display any GUI app* in the terminal! I think there is a lot of unexplored potential in custom Wayland compositors, a lot of really cool things you can embed existing applications into! So, I started with embedding apps into the terminal because that is the easiest input/output (output is just utf-8 and I use the great `chafa` library for that, and I just read from stdin for the input). If you have any other ideas for cool Wayland compositors, let me know. I purposedly wrote 80% the app in Typescript to appeal to the most developers and attract cool contributions (I do all drawing with the familiar Canvas2D api, so if there is interest, I can also fork this out into a cool Terminal canvas, let me know!) I have a blog post here about how I did it, but it’s pretty high level and non technical, so please ask if you have any questions. [How I Did It](< https://github.com/mmulet/term.everything/blob/main/resource... >) *technically only Wayland apps and x11 apps with Xwayland. But on Linux that’s mostly everything.
1009 by mmulet | 136 comments on Hacker News.
I made a built-from scratch Wayland Compositor to display any GUI app* in the terminal! I think there is a lot of unexplored potential in custom Wayland compositors, a lot of really cool things you can embed existing applications into! So, I started with embedding apps into the terminal because that is the easiest input/output (output is just utf-8 and I use the great `chafa` library for that, and I just read from stdin for the input). If you have any other ideas for cool Wayland compositors, let me know. I purposedly wrote 80% the app in Typescript to appeal to the most developers and attract cool contributions (I do all drawing with the familiar Canvas2D api, so if there is interest, I can also fork this out into a cool Terminal canvas, let me know!) I have a blog post here about how I did it, but it’s pretty high level and non technical, so please ask if you have any questions. [How I Did It](< https://github.com/mmulet/term.everything/blob/main/resource... >) *technically only Wayland apps and x11 apps with Xwayland. But on Linux that’s mostly everything.
New best story on Hacker News: NPM debug and chalk packages compromised
NPM debug and chalk packages compromised
859 by universesquid | 453 comments on Hacker News.
https://ift.tt/liPZ6I8
859 by universesquid | 453 comments on Hacker News.
https://ift.tt/liPZ6I8
New best story on Hacker News: The MacBook has a sensor that knows the exact angle of the screen hinge
The MacBook has a sensor that knows the exact angle of the screen hinge
801 by leephillips | 394 comments on Hacker News.
Alts: https://ift.tt/DonaZYs , https://ift.tt/FYZozxe Theremin Mode: https://twitter.com/samhenrigold/status/1964464940049453153 Github: https://ift.tt/Hqm6tZF
801 by leephillips | 394 comments on Hacker News.
Alts: https://ift.tt/DonaZYs , https://ift.tt/FYZozxe Theremin Mode: https://twitter.com/samhenrigold/status/1964464940049453153 Github: https://ift.tt/Hqm6tZF
New best story on Hacker News: Show HN: I recreated Windows XP as my portfolio
Show HN: I recreated Windows XP as my portfolio
806 by mitchivin | 252 comments on Hacker News.
Years ago I stumbled across a basic version of this concept and it stuck with me. I knew if I was ever going to take on such a project, it would need to be flawless, but without coding experience it was just another idea that would never happen. By the end of 2024, as AI coding tools exploded everywhere, I finally had a way to make it real. I started from zero knowledge and spent months collaborating with AI agents as a learning experience. Every pixel and every function went through me. The AI translated what I asked for into code, but every decision was human. I didn't use existing OS frameworks because the goal was learning how basic coding languages worked while also developing my skills with AI collaboration. Apart from basic libraries like xp.css and paint.js, it's all original code. The result is a fully functional Windows XP recreation running in your browser. Complete experience with sounds, animations, and working applications. Even works properly on mobile, which required rebuilding everything to maintain the authentic feel without becoming unusable on touchscreens. This project taught me more about coding and AI collaboration than I ever expected. Would love to hear your thoughts on the execution and any feedback on the technical approach.
806 by mitchivin | 252 comments on Hacker News.
Years ago I stumbled across a basic version of this concept and it stuck with me. I knew if I was ever going to take on such a project, it would need to be flawless, but without coding experience it was just another idea that would never happen. By the end of 2024, as AI coding tools exploded everywhere, I finally had a way to make it real. I started from zero knowledge and spent months collaborating with AI agents as a learning experience. Every pixel and every function went through me. The AI translated what I asked for into code, but every decision was human. I didn't use existing OS frameworks because the goal was learning how basic coding languages worked while also developing my skills with AI collaboration. Apart from basic libraries like xp.css and paint.js, it's all original code. The result is a fully functional Windows XP recreation running in your browser. Complete experience with sounds, animations, and working applications. Even works properly on mobile, which required rebuilding everything to maintain the authentic feel without becoming unusable on touchscreens. This project taught me more about coding and AI collaboration than I ever expected. Would love to hear your thoughts on the execution and any feedback on the technical approach.
New best story on Hacker News: Anthropic agrees to pay $1.5B to settle lawsuit with book authors
Anthropic agrees to pay $1.5B to settle lawsuit with book authors
719 by acomjean | 554 comments on Hacker News.
Also https://ift.tt/vjhnSc7... , https://ift.tt/dT10JcP...
719 by acomjean | 554 comments on Hacker News.
Also https://ift.tt/vjhnSc7... , https://ift.tt/dT10JcP...
New best story on Hacker News: Ask HN: The government of my country blocked VPN access. What should I use?
Ask HN: The government of my country blocked VPN access. What should I use?
702 by rickybule | 401 comments on Hacker News.
Indonesia is currently in chaos. Earlier today, the government blocked access to Twitter & Discord knowing news spread mainly through those channels. Usually we can use Cloudflare's WARP to avoid it, but just today they blocked the access as well. What alternative should we use?
702 by rickybule | 401 comments on Hacker News.
Indonesia is currently in chaos. Earlier today, the government blocked access to Twitter & Discord knowing news spread mainly through those channels. Usually we can use Cloudflare's WARP to avoid it, but just today they blocked the access as well. What alternative should we use?
New best story on Hacker News: Show HN: Base, an SQLite database editor for macOS
Show HN: Base, an SQLite database editor for macOS
675 by __bb | 176 comments on Hacker News.
I recently released v3 of Base, my SQLite editor for macOS. The goal of this app is to provide a comfortable native GUI for SQLite, without it turning into a massive IDE-style app. The coolest features are - That it can handle full altering of tables, which is quite finicky to do manually with SQLite. - It has a more detailed display of column constraints than most editors. Each constraint is shown as an icon if active, with full details available on clicking the icon. This update also adds support for attaching databases, which is a bit fiddly with macOS sandboxing. I'd love to hear any feedback or answer any questions.
675 by __bb | 176 comments on Hacker News.
I recently released v3 of Base, my SQLite editor for macOS. The goal of this app is to provide a comfortable native GUI for SQLite, without it turning into a massive IDE-style app. The coolest features are - That it can handle full altering of tables, which is quite finicky to do manually with SQLite. - It has a more detailed display of column constraints than most editors. Each constraint is shown as an icon if active, with full details available on clicking the icon. This update also adds support for attaching databases, which is a bit fiddly with macOS sandboxing. I'd love to hear any feedback or answer any questions.
New best story on Hacker News: Gemini 2.5 Flash Image
Gemini 2.5 Flash Image
726 by meetpateltech | 361 comments on Hacker News.
Also: https://ift.tt/B0f9Pnr , https://ift.tt/wELH9hv...
726 by meetpateltech | 361 comments on Hacker News.
Also: https://ift.tt/B0f9Pnr , https://ift.tt/wELH9hv...
New best story on Hacker News: Google to require developer verification to install and sideload Android apps
Google to require developer verification to install and sideload Android apps
828 by kotaKat | 649 comments on Hacker News.
Also https://ift.tt/VHbeoQg... (from merged thread)
828 by kotaKat | 649 comments on Hacker News.
Also https://ift.tt/VHbeoQg... (from merged thread)
New best story on Hacker News: Show HN: Kitten TTS – 25MB CPU-Only, Open-Source TTS Model
Show HN: Kitten TTS – 25MB CPU-Only, Open-Source TTS Model
818 by divamgupta | 328 comments on Hacker News.
Kitten TTS is an open-source series of tiny and expressive text-to-speech models for on-device applications. We are excited to launch a preview of our smallest model, which is less than 25 MB. This model has 15M parameters. This release supports English text-to-speech applications in eight voices: four male and four female. The model is quantized to int8 + fp16, and it uses onnx for runtime. The model is designed to run literally anywhere eg. raspberry pi, low-end smartphones, wearables, browsers etc. No GPU required! We're releasing this to give early users a sense of the latency and voices that will be available in our next release (hopefully next week). We'd love your feedback! Just FYI, this model is an early checkpoint trained on less than 10% of our total data. We started working on this because existing expressive OSS models require big GPUs to run them on-device and the cloud alternatives are too expensive for high frequency use. We think there's a need for frontier open-source models that are tiny enough to run on edge devices!
818 by divamgupta | 328 comments on Hacker News.
Kitten TTS is an open-source series of tiny and expressive text-to-speech models for on-device applications. We are excited to launch a preview of our smallest model, which is less than 25 MB. This model has 15M parameters. This release supports English text-to-speech applications in eight voices: four male and four female. The model is quantized to int8 + fp16, and it uses onnx for runtime. The model is designed to run literally anywhere eg. raspberry pi, low-end smartphones, wearables, browsers etc. No GPU required! We're releasing this to give early users a sense of the latency and voices that will be available in our next release (hopefully next week). We'd love your feedback! Just FYI, this model is an early checkpoint trained on less than 10% of our total data. We started working on this because existing expressive OSS models require big GPUs to run them on-device and the cloud alternatives are too expensive for high frequency use. We think there's a need for frontier open-source models that are tiny enough to run on edge devices!
New best story on Hacker News: Show HN: I spent 6 years building a ridiculous wooden pixel display
Show HN: I spent 6 years building a ridiculous wooden pixel display
989 by benholmen | 131 comments on Hacker News.
I built the world's most impractical 1000-pixel display and anyone in the world can draw on it. It draws a single pixel at a time and takes 30-60 minutes to complete a single image. Anyone can participate in the project by voting for the next image to be drawn, and submitting images. https://kilopx.com/
989 by benholmen | 131 comments on Hacker News.
I built the world's most impractical 1000-pixel display and anyone in the world can draw on it. It draws a single pixel at a time and takes 30-60 minutes to complete a single image. Anyone can participate in the project by voting for the next image to be drawn, and submitting images. https://kilopx.com/
New best story on Hacker News: Show HN: Draw a fish and watch it swim with the others
Show HN: Draw a fish and watch it swim with the others
864 by hallak | 220 comments on Hacker News.
Made this website as an exercise in vibe-coding and GCP. It was posted about a few times around the internet, on sites like [Morning Brew]( https://ift.tt/3tBerca ), [MetaFilter]( https://ift.tt/Z7vMTeK ), boingboing.net, etc. I think it's cute! I built a basic CNN trained against penises and swastikas, and then anything that doesn't hit the 63% confidence score gets sent to a mod queue, a [vibe-coded fish-tinder]( https://ift.tt/Bs8Mjbz... ). Was a fun exercise, spent about a month on it. Frontend is HTML5 hosted on github pages, backend is Node.JS on GCP.
864 by hallak | 220 comments on Hacker News.
Made this website as an exercise in vibe-coding and GCP. It was posted about a few times around the internet, on sites like [Morning Brew]( https://ift.tt/3tBerca ), [MetaFilter]( https://ift.tt/Z7vMTeK ), boingboing.net, etc. I think it's cute! I built a basic CNN trained against penises and swastikas, and then anything that doesn't hit the 63% confidence score gets sent to a mod queue, a [vibe-coded fish-tinder]( https://ift.tt/Bs8Mjbz... ). Was a fun exercise, spent about a month on it. Frontend is HTML5 hosted on github pages, backend is Node.JS on GCP.
New best story on Hacker News: Performance and telemetry analysis of Trae IDE, ByteDance's VSCode fork
Performance and telemetry analysis of Trae IDE, ByteDance's VSCode fork
817 by segfault22 | 296 comments on Hacker News.
Hi HN, I was evaluating IDEs for a personal project and decided to test Trae, ByteDance's fork of VSCode. I immediately noticed some significant performance and privacy issues that I felt were worth sharing. I've written up a full analysis with screenshots, network logs, and data payloads in the linked post. Here are the key findings: 1. Extreme Resource Consumption: Out of the box, Trae used 6.3x more RAM (~5.7 GB) and spawned 3.7x more processes (33 total) than a standard VSCode setup with the same project open. The team has since made improvements, but it's still significantly heavier. 2. Telemetry Opt-Out Doesn't Work (It Makes It Worse): I found Trae was constantly sending data to ByteDance servers (byteoversea.com). I went into the settings and disabled all telemetry. To my surprise, this didn't stop the traffic. In fact, it increased the frequency of batch data collection. The telemetry "off" switch appears to be purely cosmetic. 3. What's Being Sent: Even with telemetry "disabled," Trae sends detailed payloads including: Hardware specs (CPU, memory, etc.) Persistent user, device, and machine IDs OS version, app language, user name Granular usage data like time-on-ide, window focus state, and active file types. 4. Community Censorship: When I tried to discuss these findings on their official Discord, my posts were deleted and my account was muted for 7 days. It seems words like "track" trigger an automated gag rule, which prevents any real discussion about privacy. I believe developers should be aware of this behavior. The combination of resource drain, non-functional privacy settings, and censorship of technical feedback is a major red flag. The full, detailed analysis with all the evidence (process lists, Fiddler captures, JSON payloads, and screenshots of the Discord moderation) is available at the link. Happy to answer any questions.
817 by segfault22 | 296 comments on Hacker News.
Hi HN, I was evaluating IDEs for a personal project and decided to test Trae, ByteDance's fork of VSCode. I immediately noticed some significant performance and privacy issues that I felt were worth sharing. I've written up a full analysis with screenshots, network logs, and data payloads in the linked post. Here are the key findings: 1. Extreme Resource Consumption: Out of the box, Trae used 6.3x more RAM (~5.7 GB) and spawned 3.7x more processes (33 total) than a standard VSCode setup with the same project open. The team has since made improvements, but it's still significantly heavier. 2. Telemetry Opt-Out Doesn't Work (It Makes It Worse): I found Trae was constantly sending data to ByteDance servers (byteoversea.com). I went into the settings and disabled all telemetry. To my surprise, this didn't stop the traffic. In fact, it increased the frequency of batch data collection. The telemetry "off" switch appears to be purely cosmetic. 3. What's Being Sent: Even with telemetry "disabled," Trae sends detailed payloads including: Hardware specs (CPU, memory, etc.) Persistent user, device, and machine IDs OS version, app language, user name Granular usage data like time-on-ide, window focus state, and active file types. 4. Community Censorship: When I tried to discuss these findings on their official Discord, my posts were deleted and my account was muted for 7 days. It seems words like "track" trigger an automated gag rule, which prevents any real discussion about privacy. I believe developers should be aware of this behavior. The combination of resource drain, non-functional privacy settings, and censorship of technical feedback is a major red flag. The full, detailed analysis with all the evidence (process lists, Fiddler captures, JSON payloads, and screenshots of the Discord moderation) is available at the link. Happy to answer any questions.
New best story on Hacker News: CARA – High precision robot dog using rope
CARA – High precision robot dog using rope
710 by hakonjdjohnsen | 119 comments on Hacker News.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s9TjRz01fo
710 by hakonjdjohnsen | 119 comments on Hacker News.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s9TjRz01fo
New best story on Hacker News: Global hack on Microsoft Sharepoint hits U.S., state agencies, researchers say
Global hack on Microsoft Sharepoint hits U.S., state agencies, researchers say
611 by spenvo | 287 comments on Hacker News.
https://ift.tt/rIV2L7T , https://ift.tt/N7zTRvp... https://ift.tt/Pl0Gs1R https://ift.tt/nL7Nlvk... https://ift.tt/eI5Vrmn...
611 by spenvo | 287 comments on Hacker News.
https://ift.tt/rIV2L7T , https://ift.tt/N7zTRvp... https://ift.tt/Pl0Gs1R https://ift.tt/nL7Nlvk... https://ift.tt/eI5Vrmn...
New best story on Hacker News: Show HN: Ten years of running every day, visualized
Show HN: Ten years of running every day, visualized
845 by friggeri | 433 comments on Hacker News.
Today marks ten years, 3653 consecutive days, of running at least one mile every day under the USRSA rules [1]. To celebrate, I built an interactive dashboard that turns a decade of GPX files into charts you can explore. Running has truly changed my life: I've made lifelong friends, explored beautiful places, and more importantly invested into my own health and fitness, which I'm starting to see the positive benefits as I get older. The stack is pretty simple: a NextJS app, with a Postgres database to keep all my running data, and all the stats are pre-computed and cached in Redis, so I effectively only hit the database once a day when a new run is ingested. On the fronted, I toyed with the idea of using D3 or pre-existing data viz libraries, but ended up rolling my own using SVGs directly, it gave me more control on the visualizations. I used the Strava bulk export to pre-populate the database, and I'm using their webhook API to do incremental updates. I have to tap into OpenWeatherMap and OpenCageDate to enrich the running data a little bit. Happy to answer anything about the stack, data pipeline, or how I stayed motivated for 10 years! [1] https://ift.tt/f3lGK48 Run Streak Association rules: ≥ 1 mile per day
845 by friggeri | 433 comments on Hacker News.
Today marks ten years, 3653 consecutive days, of running at least one mile every day under the USRSA rules [1]. To celebrate, I built an interactive dashboard that turns a decade of GPX files into charts you can explore. Running has truly changed my life: I've made lifelong friends, explored beautiful places, and more importantly invested into my own health and fitness, which I'm starting to see the positive benefits as I get older. The stack is pretty simple: a NextJS app, with a Postgres database to keep all my running data, and all the stats are pre-computed and cached in Redis, so I effectively only hit the database once a day when a new run is ingested. On the fronted, I toyed with the idea of using D3 or pre-existing data viz libraries, but ended up rolling my own using SVGs directly, it gave me more control on the visualizations. I used the Strava bulk export to pre-populate the database, and I'm using their webhook API to do incremental updates. I have to tap into OpenWeatherMap and OpenCageDate to enrich the running data a little bit. Happy to answer anything about the stack, data pipeline, or how I stayed motivated for 10 years! [1] https://ift.tt/f3lGK48 Run Streak Association rules: ≥ 1 mile per day
New best story on Hacker News: Show HN: I'm an airline pilot – I built interactive graphs/globes of my flights
Show HN: I'm an airline pilot – I built interactive graphs/globes of my flights
697 by jamesharding | 123 comments on Hacker News.
Hey HN! Pilots everywhere are required to keep a logbook of all their flying hours, aircraft, airports, and so on. Since I track everything digitally (some people still just use paper logbooks!), I put together some data visualizations and a few 3D globes to show my flying history. This globe is probably my favourite so far: https://ift.tt/7kjdVIr If you’ve got ideas for other graphs or ways to show this kind of data, I’d love to hear them!
697 by jamesharding | 123 comments on Hacker News.
Hey HN! Pilots everywhere are required to keep a logbook of all their flying hours, aircraft, airports, and so on. Since I track everything digitally (some people still just use paper logbooks!), I put together some data visualizations and a few 3D globes to show my flying history. This globe is probably my favourite so far: https://ift.tt/7kjdVIr If you’ve got ideas for other graphs or ways to show this kind of data, I’d love to hear them!
New best story on Hacker News: Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)
Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)
789 by dang | 323 comments on Hacker News.
Companies building software in the US were hit hard a few years ago when the tax code stopped allowing deduction of software dev expenses. Now they have to be amortized over several years. HN has had many discussions about this, including The time bomb in the tax code that's fueling mass tech layoffs - https://ift.tt/yFtkLnu - (927 comments) a few days ago. Other threads are listed at https://ift.tt/fRTjsAO . There's currently a major effort to get this change reversed. One of the people working on it is YC's Luther Lowe ( https://ift.tt/PZCLXs5 ). Luther has been organizing YC alumni to urge lawmakers to support this reversal. I asked him if we could do that on Hacker News too. He said yes—hence this thread :) If you're a US taxpayer and if you agree that software dev expenses should be deductible like they used to be, please sign this letter to the relevant committee members: https://ift.tt/NL5UkVT... . (If you're not a US person, please don't sign the letter, since lawmakers will only listen to feedback from taxpayers and we don't want to dilute the signal.) I'm sure not everyone here agrees with us—HN is a big community, there's no total agreement on anything—but this issue has as close to a community consensus as HN gets, so I think it makes sense to add our voices too. Luther will be around to answer questions and hopefully HN can contribute to getting this done!
789 by dang | 323 comments on Hacker News.
Companies building software in the US were hit hard a few years ago when the tax code stopped allowing deduction of software dev expenses. Now they have to be amortized over several years. HN has had many discussions about this, including The time bomb in the tax code that's fueling mass tech layoffs - https://ift.tt/yFtkLnu - (927 comments) a few days ago. Other threads are listed at https://ift.tt/fRTjsAO . There's currently a major effort to get this change reversed. One of the people working on it is YC's Luther Lowe ( https://ift.tt/PZCLXs5 ). Luther has been organizing YC alumni to urge lawmakers to support this reversal. I asked him if we could do that on Hacker News too. He said yes—hence this thread :) If you're a US taxpayer and if you agree that software dev expenses should be deductible like they used to be, please sign this letter to the relevant committee members: https://ift.tt/NL5UkVT... . (If you're not a US person, please don't sign the letter, since lawmakers will only listen to feedback from taxpayers and we don't want to dilute the signal.) I'm sure not everyone here agrees with us—HN is a big community, there's no total agreement on anything—but this issue has as close to a community consensus as HN gets, so I think it makes sense to add our voices too. Luther will be around to answer questions and hopefully HN can contribute to getting this done!
New best story on Hacker News: AlphaEvolve: A Gemini-powered coding agent for designing advanced algorithms
AlphaEvolve: A Gemini-powered coding agent for designing advanced algorithms
610 by Fysi | 167 comments on Hacker News.
See also https://ift.tt/NVaIrEd ( https://ift.tt/fTjLUdC )
610 by Fysi | 167 comments on Hacker News.
See also https://ift.tt/NVaIrEd ( https://ift.tt/fTjLUdC )
New best story on Hacker News: Show HN: I built a hardware processor that runs Python
Show HN: I built a hardware processor that runs Python
918 by hwpythonner | 241 comments on Hacker News.
Hi everyone, I built PyXL — a hardware processor that executes a custom assembly generated from Python programs, without using a traditional interpreter or virtual machine. It compiles Python -> CPython Bytecode -> Instruction set designed for direct hardware execution. I’m sharing an early benchmark: a GPIO test where PyXL achieves a 480ns round-trip toggle — compared to 14-25 micro seconds on a MicroPython Pyboard - even though PyXL runs at a lower clock (100MHz vs. 168MHz). The design is stack-based, fully pipelined, and preserves Python's dynamic typing without static type restrictions. I independently developed the full stack — toolchain (compiler, linker, codegen), and hardware — to validate the core idea. Full technical details will be presented at PyCon 2025. Demo and explanation here: https://ift.tt/xTnirpw Happy to answer any questions
918 by hwpythonner | 241 comments on Hacker News.
Hi everyone, I built PyXL — a hardware processor that executes a custom assembly generated from Python programs, without using a traditional interpreter or virtual machine. It compiles Python -> CPython Bytecode -> Instruction set designed for direct hardware execution. I’m sharing an early benchmark: a GPIO test where PyXL achieves a 480ns round-trip toggle — compared to 14-25 micro seconds on a MicroPython Pyboard - even though PyXL runs at a lower clock (100MHz vs. 168MHz). The design is stack-based, fully pipelined, and preserves Python's dynamic typing without static type restrictions. I independently developed the full stack — toolchain (compiler, linker, codegen), and hardware — to validate the core idea. Full technical details will be presented at PyCon 2025. Demo and explanation here: https://ift.tt/xTnirpw Happy to answer any questions
New best story on Hacker News: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal
Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal
965 by lleims | 771 comments on Hacker News.
All of Spain is without energy. All systems have shut down immediately and are not coming back. Apparently the same has happened in Portugal.
965 by lleims | 771 comments on Hacker News.
All of Spain is without energy. All systems have shut down immediately and are not coming back. Apparently the same has happened in Portugal.
New best story on Hacker News: Cursor IDE support hallucinates lockout policy, causes user cancellations
Cursor IDE support hallucinates lockout policy, causes user cancellations
801 by scaredpelican | 278 comments on Hacker News.
Earlier today Cursor, the magical AI-powered IDE started kicking users off when they logged in from multiple machines. Like,you’d be working on your desktop, switch to your laptop, and all of a sudden you're forcibly logged out. No warning, no notification, just gone. Naturally, people thought this was a new policy. So they asked support. And here’s where it gets batshit: Cursor has a support email, so users emailed them to find out. The support peson told everyone this was “expected behavior” under their new login policy. One problem. There was no support team, it was an AI designed to 'mimic human responses' That answer, totally made up by the bot, spread like wildfire. Users assumed it was real (because why wouldn’t they? It's their own support system lol), and within hours the community was in revolt. Dozens of users publicly canceled their subscriptions, myself included. Multi-device workflows are table stakes for devs, and if you're going to pull something that disruptive, you'd at least expect a changelog entry or smth. Nope. And just as people started comparing notes and figuring out that the story didn’t quite add up… the main Reddit thread got locked. Then deleted. Like, no public resolution, no real response, just silence. To be clear: this wasn’t an actual policy change, just a backend session bug, and a hallucinated excuse from a support bot that somehow did more damage than the bug itself. But at that point, it didn’t matter. People were already gone. Honestly one of the most surreal product screwups I’ve seen in a while. Not because they made a mistake, but because the AI support system invented a lie, and nobody caught it until the userbase imploded.
801 by scaredpelican | 278 comments on Hacker News.
Earlier today Cursor, the magical AI-powered IDE started kicking users off when they logged in from multiple machines. Like,you’d be working on your desktop, switch to your laptop, and all of a sudden you're forcibly logged out. No warning, no notification, just gone. Naturally, people thought this was a new policy. So they asked support. And here’s where it gets batshit: Cursor has a support email, so users emailed them to find out. The support peson told everyone this was “expected behavior” under their new login policy. One problem. There was no support team, it was an AI designed to 'mimic human responses' That answer, totally made up by the bot, spread like wildfire. Users assumed it was real (because why wouldn’t they? It's their own support system lol), and within hours the community was in revolt. Dozens of users publicly canceled their subscriptions, myself included. Multi-device workflows are table stakes for devs, and if you're going to pull something that disruptive, you'd at least expect a changelog entry or smth. Nope. And just as people started comparing notes and figuring out that the story didn’t quite add up… the main Reddit thread got locked. Then deleted. Like, no public resolution, no real response, just silence. To be clear: this wasn’t an actual policy change, just a backend session bug, and a hallucinated excuse from a support bot that somehow did more damage than the bug itself. But at that point, it didn’t matter. People were already gone. Honestly one of the most surreal product screwups I’ve seen in a while. Not because they made a mistake, but because the AI support system invented a lie, and nobody caught it until the userbase imploded.
New best story on Hacker News: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator
Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator
1054 by dang | 334 comments on Hacker News.
Hi all, Tom Howard is going public as HN moderator today. He has been doing HN moderation work for years already and knows the site and its practices inside-out, so the only new thing you'll see is mod comments from Tom showing up in the threads the way mine do. I'm not going anywhere, so you'll have two of us to put up with going forward :) I've known Tom since he was sctb's and my batchmate back in YC W09. Many of you know him as the kind and thoughtful community member tomhoward ( https://ift.tt/B9IEHKN ). He's still kind and thoughtful, but he's going to post as tomhow from now on ( https://ift.tt/hVw7fkB ), the same way I switched to dang when I went through this rite of passage years ago. Below is a bit from Tom about himself. Please join me in welcoming him to this new status which he was crazy enough to say yes to! --- YC and HN have been a huge part of my life for nearly two decades. I read pg's essay How to Start a Startup in 2005 after my friend (and later, co-founder) Fenn found it on Slashdot, and it opened our eyes as to how to go about building products and companies. I first signed up in late 2007, and since then HN has been the place I come to find interesting news and discussions. Hacker News gave me a window into the big wide world of technology and startups, that had previously seemed so remote and opaque from where I lived (and still live) in Australia. We were lucky enough to be accepted into the W09 batch of YC, and since then HN has been a place where we could share announcements about the startup, but also where I could share the challenges and struggles I experienced in the startup journey and other aspects of life, particularly to do with health and wellbeing. From the discussions that have happened about these topics I've ended up making enduring friendships with people all over the world, and have been able to learn many things that have improved my life in profound ways. I love HN's ethos - of being a place people come to engage their curiosity. That's what it's always been for me and what I hope I can help it to be for everyone! --Tom
1054 by dang | 334 comments on Hacker News.
Hi all, Tom Howard is going public as HN moderator today. He has been doing HN moderation work for years already and knows the site and its practices inside-out, so the only new thing you'll see is mod comments from Tom showing up in the threads the way mine do. I'm not going anywhere, so you'll have two of us to put up with going forward :) I've known Tom since he was sctb's and my batchmate back in YC W09. Many of you know him as the kind and thoughtful community member tomhoward ( https://ift.tt/B9IEHKN ). He's still kind and thoughtful, but he's going to post as tomhow from now on ( https://ift.tt/hVw7fkB ), the same way I switched to dang when I went through this rite of passage years ago. Below is a bit from Tom about himself. Please join me in welcoming him to this new status which he was crazy enough to say yes to! --- YC and HN have been a huge part of my life for nearly two decades. I read pg's essay How to Start a Startup in 2005 after my friend (and later, co-founder) Fenn found it on Slashdot, and it opened our eyes as to how to go about building products and companies. I first signed up in late 2007, and since then HN has been the place I come to find interesting news and discussions. Hacker News gave me a window into the big wide world of technology and startups, that had previously seemed so remote and opaque from where I lived (and still live) in Australia. We were lucky enough to be accepted into the W09 batch of YC, and since then HN has been a place where we could share announcements about the startup, but also where I could share the challenges and struggles I experienced in the startup journey and other aspects of life, particularly to do with health and wellbeing. From the discussions that have happened about these topics I've ended up making enduring friendships with people all over the world, and have been able to learn many things that have improved my life in profound ways. I love HN's ethos - of being a place people come to engage their curiosity. That's what it's always been for me and what I hope I can help it to be for everyone! --Tom
New best story on Hacker News: Show HN: Factorio Learning Environment – Agents Build Factories
Show HN: Factorio Learning Environment – Agents Build Factories
707 by noddybear | 204 comments on Hacker News.
I'm Jack, and I'm excited to share a project that has channeled my Factorio addiction recently: the Factorio Learning Environment (FLE). FLE is an open-source framework for developing and evaluating LLM agents in Factorio. It provides a controlled environment where AI models can attempt complex automation, resource management, and optimisation tasks in a grounded world with meaningful constraints. A critical advantage of Factorio as a benchmark is its unbounded nature. Unlike many evals that are quickly saturated by newer models, Factorio's geometric complexity scaling means it won't be "solved" in the next 6 months (or possibly even years). This allows us to meaningfully compare models by the order-of-magnitude of resources they can produce - creating a benchmark with longevity. The project began 18 months ago after years of playing Factorio, recognising its potential as an AI research testbed. A few months ago, our team (myself, Akbir, and Mart) came together to create a benchmark that tests agent capabilities in spatial reasoning and long-term planning. Two technical innovations drove this project forward: First, we discovered that piping Lua into the Factorio console over TCP enables running (almost) arbitrary code without directly modding the game. Second, we developed a first-class Python API that wraps these Lua programs to provide a clean, type-hinted interface for AI agents to interact with Factorio through familiar programming paradigms. Agents interact with FLE through a REPL pattern: 1. They observe the world (seeing the output of their last action) 2. Generate Python code to perform their next action 3. Receive detailed feedback (including exceptions and stdout) We provide two main evaluation settings: - Lab-play: 24 structured tasks with fixed resources - Open-play: An unbounded task of building the largest possible factory on a procedurally generated map We found that while LLMs show promising short-horizon skills, they struggle with spatial reasoning in constrained environments. They can discover basic automation strategies (like electric-powered drilling) but fail to achieve more complex automation (like electronic circuit manufacturing). Claude Sonnet 3.5 is currently the best model (by a significant margin). The code is available at https://ift.tt/ZR2piuf . You'll need: - Factorio (version 1.1.110) - Docker - Python 3.10+ The README contains detailed installation instructions and examples of how to run evaluations with different LLM agents. We would love to hear your thoughts and see what others can do with this framework!
707 by noddybear | 204 comments on Hacker News.
I'm Jack, and I'm excited to share a project that has channeled my Factorio addiction recently: the Factorio Learning Environment (FLE). FLE is an open-source framework for developing and evaluating LLM agents in Factorio. It provides a controlled environment where AI models can attempt complex automation, resource management, and optimisation tasks in a grounded world with meaningful constraints. A critical advantage of Factorio as a benchmark is its unbounded nature. Unlike many evals that are quickly saturated by newer models, Factorio's geometric complexity scaling means it won't be "solved" in the next 6 months (or possibly even years). This allows us to meaningfully compare models by the order-of-magnitude of resources they can produce - creating a benchmark with longevity. The project began 18 months ago after years of playing Factorio, recognising its potential as an AI research testbed. A few months ago, our team (myself, Akbir, and Mart) came together to create a benchmark that tests agent capabilities in spatial reasoning and long-term planning. Two technical innovations drove this project forward: First, we discovered that piping Lua into the Factorio console over TCP enables running (almost) arbitrary code without directly modding the game. Second, we developed a first-class Python API that wraps these Lua programs to provide a clean, type-hinted interface for AI agents to interact with Factorio through familiar programming paradigms. Agents interact with FLE through a REPL pattern: 1. They observe the world (seeing the output of their last action) 2. Generate Python code to perform their next action 3. Receive detailed feedback (including exceptions and stdout) We provide two main evaluation settings: - Lab-play: 24 structured tasks with fixed resources - Open-play: An unbounded task of building the largest possible factory on a procedurally generated map We found that while LLMs show promising short-horizon skills, they struggle with spatial reasoning in constrained environments. They can discover basic automation strategies (like electric-powered drilling) but fail to achieve more complex automation (like electronic circuit manufacturing). Claude Sonnet 3.5 is currently the best model (by a significant margin). The code is available at https://ift.tt/ZR2piuf . You'll need: - Factorio (version 1.1.110) - Docker - Python 3.10+ The README contains detailed installation instructions and examples of how to run evaluations with different LLM agents. We would love to hear your thoughts and see what others can do with this framework!
New best story on Hacker News: Show HN: Bayleaf – Building a low-profile wireless split keyboard
Show HN: Bayleaf – Building a low-profile wireless split keyboard
725 by sgraz | 245 comments on Hacker News.
Hey HN, I built a wireless, split, ultra-low profile keyboard from scratch called Bayleaf. As a beginner I learned all things electronics, PCB-building, designing for manufacturing, and many other hardware-related skills to put this together. This case study dives into the build process and of course the final result, hope you enjoy!
725 by sgraz | 245 comments on Hacker News.
Hey HN, I built a wireless, split, ultra-low profile keyboard from scratch called Bayleaf. As a beginner I learned all things electronics, PCB-building, designing for manufacturing, and many other hardware-related skills to put this together. This case study dives into the build process and of course the final result, hope you enjoy!
New best story on Hacker News: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
1103 by newobj | 255 comments on Hacker News.
I was at FB/Meta from late 2013 to early 2023, mostly working in the compiler/runtime spaces. I got hit in the spring 2023 layoff wave. I immediately started making games in my newfound free time (a lifelong interest, and I even worked in AA(A?) back ca. ~2000), and in October 2023 I stumbled upon the idea of a roguelike pachinko/plinko game inspired by Luck Be A Landlord. Things snowballed quickly, I started talking to publishers, then worked like crazy through all of 2024, almost the hardest I've ever worked in my career, and launched the game in December 2024. It's sold ~200,000 units in its first 10 weeks on Steam. So it's no Balatro, but I'd still say it did very well :) AMA? (my game is Ballionaire: https://ift.tt/gbS3krM... )
1103 by newobj | 255 comments on Hacker News.
I was at FB/Meta from late 2013 to early 2023, mostly working in the compiler/runtime spaces. I got hit in the spring 2023 layoff wave. I immediately started making games in my newfound free time (a lifelong interest, and I even worked in AA(A?) back ca. ~2000), and in October 2023 I stumbled upon the idea of a roguelike pachinko/plinko game inspired by Luck Be A Landlord. Things snowballed quickly, I started talking to publishers, then worked like crazy through all of 2024, almost the hardest I've ever worked in my career, and launched the game in December 2024. It's sold ~200,000 units in its first 10 weeks on Steam. So it's no Balatro, but I'd still say it did very well :) AMA? (my game is Ballionaire: https://ift.tt/gbS3krM... )
New best story on Hacker News: Show HN: I built an app to stop me doomscrolling by touching grass
Show HN: I built an app to stop me doomscrolling by touching grass
882 by risquer | 226 comments on Hacker News.
i wanted to change the habit of reaching for my phone in the morning and doomscrolling away an hour so i built an app to help me. now i have to literally touch grass before accessing my most distracting apps the app is built in swiftui, uses the screen time apis provided by apple and google vision to recognise grass or not i'd love to get your thoughts on the concept.
882 by risquer | 226 comments on Hacker News.
i wanted to change the habit of reaching for my phone in the morning and doomscrolling away an hour so i built an app to help me. now i have to literally touch grass before accessing my most distracting apps the app is built in swiftui, uses the screen time apis provided by apple and google vision to recognise grass or not i'd love to get your thoughts on the concept.
New best story on Hacker News: Google open-sources the Pebble OS
Google open-sources the Pebble OS
882 by hexxeh | 129 comments on Hacker News.
https://ift.tt/c6dh1iz
882 by hexxeh | 129 comments on Hacker News.
https://ift.tt/c6dh1iz
New best story on Hacker News: We're bringing Pebble back
We're bringing Pebble back
950 by erohead | 247 comments on Hacker News.
Thank you, Google. You didn't have to, but you did. We (the Pebble team and community) are extraordinarily grateful. I wrote a blog post about our plans to bring Pebble back, sustainably. https://ift.tt/o9bUjZI We got our original start on HN ( https://ift.tt/vfq0Azu ), it's a pleasure to be back.
950 by erohead | 247 comments on Hacker News.
Thank you, Google. You didn't have to, but you did. We (the Pebble team and community) are extraordinarily grateful. I wrote a blog post about our plans to bring Pebble back, sustainably. https://ift.tt/o9bUjZI We got our original start on HN ( https://ift.tt/vfq0Azu ), it's a pleasure to be back.
New best story on Hacker News: Thank HN: My bootstrapped startup got acquired today
Thank HN: My bootstrapped startup got acquired today
1114 by paraschopra | 164 comments on Hacker News.
Hello HN, I'm Paras Chopra, founder of VWO. We're an A/B testing platform that was born here as a Show HN in 2009: https://ift.tt/yIvS3lD Today, I sold the company to a private equity firm for $200mn. It's covered on TechCrunch: https://ift.tt/QmJ5fgS... I was a 22 year old fresh graduate when I launched VWO on HN and got initial users. Feedback from people like @patio11 helped me get to PMF. And now, 15 years later, "site:ycombinator.com" is what I appended when I wanted to search for advice on what to keep in mind while selling my company. Thank you HN for sharing inspiration and wisdom all along. I honestly don't think I would have been an entrepreneur had it not been for hacker news. Every single day, HN is the first website I open! I'm feeling very grateful towards the community. Thanks @dang, and thank you Paul Graham for your essays and for creating this beautiful corner of the internet!
1114 by paraschopra | 164 comments on Hacker News.
Hello HN, I'm Paras Chopra, founder of VWO. We're an A/B testing platform that was born here as a Show HN in 2009: https://ift.tt/yIvS3lD Today, I sold the company to a private equity firm for $200mn. It's covered on TechCrunch: https://ift.tt/QmJ5fgS... I was a 22 year old fresh graduate when I launched VWO on HN and got initial users. Feedback from people like @patio11 helped me get to PMF. And now, 15 years later, "site:ycombinator.com" is what I appended when I wanted to search for advice on what to keep in mind while selling my company. Thank you HN for sharing inspiration and wisdom all along. I honestly don't think I would have been an entrepreneur had it not been for hacker news. Every single day, HN is the first website I open! I'm feeling very grateful towards the community. Thanks @dang, and thank you Paul Graham for your essays and for creating this beautiful corner of the internet!
New best story on Hacker News: Show HN: I made an open-source laptop from scratch
Show HN: I made an open-source laptop from scratch
1033 by Hello9999901 | 139 comments on Hacker News.
Hello! I'm Byran. I spent the past ~6 months engineering a laptop from scratch. It's fully open-source on GH at: https://ift.tt/9nubqGd
1033 by Hello9999901 | 139 comments on Hacker News.
Hello! I'm Byran. I spent the past ~6 months engineering a laptop from scratch. It's fully open-source on GH at: https://ift.tt/9nubqGd
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