The last six months in LLMs, illustrated by pelicans on bicycles

933 swyx 2025-06-08 07:38:37 UTC simonwillison.net Llama Share 228

The author presented a keynote at the AI Engineer World's Fair in San Francisco, discussing recent advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs). They evaluated 30 models released in the last six months, including Llama 4, GPT-4.5, and Claude 3.7 Sonnet, using a custom benchmark to compare their performance.

Building supercomputers for autocrats probably isn't good for democracy

439 rbanffy 2025-06-08 21:11:18 UTC helentoner.substack.com Llama Share 256

OpenAI partnered with the UAE to build large-scale AI data centers, claiming it promotes democratic values. However, the UAE has a poor human rights record and lacks democratic freedoms.

We’re secretly winning the war on cancer

399 lr0 2025-06-08 20:45:46 UTC vox.com Llama Share 192

Jon Gluck, a cancer survivor, has lived with multiple myeloma for over 20 years, defying initial predictions of an 18-month lifespan. His story highlights the significant decline in cancer deaths in the US, with a third fewer cancer deaths since 1991.

Why Android can't use CDC Ethernet (2023)

342 goodburb 2025-06-08 20:49:07 UTC jordemort.dev Llama Share 136

To determine which USB Ethernet adapters are compatible with an Android device, you need to find the kernel configuration for your phone and look for USB_NET configuration variables that match the chipset of the adapter you want to use. The kernel configuration can be found by enabling USB debugging, installing ADB, and running shell commands on the phone to discover the kernel version and ...

Self-hosted x86 back end is now default in debug mode

285 brson 2025-06-08 22:24:14 UTC ziglang.org Llama Share 168

Zig compiler now uses its own x86 backend by default for x86_64 targets, improving compilation speed and robustness. This change allows for faster compilation of large projects like the Zig compiler itself.

What happens when people don't understand how AI works

275 rmason 2025-06-08 20:25:32 UTC theatlantic.com Llama Share 339

A British writer Samuel Butler predicted a "mechanical kingdom" in 1863, now a reality with AI. Two books, "Empire of AI" and "The AI Con," suggest the AI industry is a scam, exaggerating AI's capabilities.

A look at Cloudflare's AI-coded OAuth library

267 itsadok 2025-06-08 08:50:16 UTC neilmadden.blog Llama Share 163

The author reviewed CloudFlare's OAuth library generated with Anthropic's Claude LLM, finding some security issues and questionable design choices. The library has some good aspects, but it's not yet ready for use due to its incomplete testing and potential vulnerabilities.

I used AI-powered calorie counting apps, and they were even worse than expected

241 gnabgib 2025-06-08 23:25:41 UTC lifehacker.com Llama Share 283

AI-powered calorie counting apps are flawed due to human error in ingredient identification and portion estimation. Traditional methods with food scales remain more reliable for precise tracking.

Ask HN: How to learn CUDA to professional level

241 upmind 2025-06-08 10:52:35 UTC news.ycombinator.com Llama Share 78

To learn CUDA programming, start with NVIDIA's standard courses and practice with simple projects that you can port to CUDA and benchmark against CPU. Focus on learning high-performance computing approaches and massive-parallel programming, which can translate to transferable skills.

Administering immunotherapy in the morning seems to matter. Why?

235 abhishaike 2025-06-08 16:18:32 UTC owlposting.com Llama Share 190

Research suggests that administering immunotherapy in the morning may improve cancer treatment outcomes due to the body's natural circadian rhythm and immune system preparation. A randomized clinical trial and multiple retrospective studies support this idea, but more research is needed to confirm the findings and understand the underlying mechanisms.

<Blink> and <Marquee> (2020)

227 ghssds 2025-06-08 04:17:43 UTC danq.me Llama Share 182

A web developer made a joke about the HTML <blink> and <marquee> tags, which were popular in the 90s but have since fallen out of use. They were used to create flashing and scrolling text, but are now considered outdated and inaccessible.

Louis Rossmann: We've started a foundation to bring back ownership [video]

209 walterbell 2025-06-08 03:14:37 UTC youtube.com Embed Share 55

Omnimax

199 aberoham 2025-06-08 20:41:35 UTC computer.rip GoogleT5 Share 52

The sphere is a theater and venue in las vegas, nevada. the fleet planetarium was not the only omnimax theater for long, says robert s. heinz if you look closely, you can see the projectionists at work preparing the screen for the film 'voyage to the outer planets' the end of aggressive support from imax meant that filming costs became impractical

Gaussian integration is cool

199 beansbeansbeans 2025-06-08 08:35:54 UTC rohangautam.github.io Llama Share 44

Gaussian quadrature is a numerical integration technique that uses function evaluations at special points called nodes to estimate a definite integral. It can estimate a polynomial of order 2n-1 with n nodes and another set of n weights.

Riding high in Germany on the world's oldest suspended railway

194 pseudolus 2025-06-08 23:38:58 UTC theguardian.com Llama Share 106

The Wuppertal Schwebebahn in Germany is a 125-year-old suspended railway that remains an incredible feat of engineering. It offers a unique commuter experience with sleek modern carriages gliding above the river Wupper.

Demystifying Debuggers

158 ibobev 2025-06-08 07:18:50 UTC rfleury.com Llama Share 32

The author discusses the importance of debuggers in programming, highlighting their utility in analyzing working code, verifying correctness, and providing educational value. They plan to write a series explaining debugger architecture.

Poison everywhere: No output from your MCP server is safe

156 Bogdanp 2025-06-08 22:00:12 UTC cyberark.com Llama Share 69

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that allows large language models to interact with external tools, but it has a vulnerability known as Tool Poisoning Attack (TPA) that can be exploited by manipulating the tool schema or output. To mitigate this risk, it is recommended to implement static detection, strict enforcement, and contextual integrity checks for LLMs to ensure ...

Maintaining an Android app in Google Play Store is a lot of work

156 ashishb 2025-06-08 05:52:49 UTC ashishb.net Llama Share 76

The user, an Android developer, shares their experience of maintaining a hobby app, MusicSync, and explains why the recent 47% decline in Google Play Store apps is not surprising due to the complexities and breaking changes in Android development. Maintaining an Android app requires more effort than server-side development, and hobby developers should consider the ongoing maintenance costs ...

Why not use DNS over HTTPS (DoH)?

153 Bogdanp 2025-06-08 08:36:56 UTC bsdhowto.ch Llama Share 293

DoH is not about protecting DNS queries from all peepers, but rather directing them to a single provider like Cloudflare. This can be problematic as it allows a single entity to collect all DNS queries.

FAA to eliminate floppy disks used in air traffic control systems

144 daledavies 2025-06-08 07:11:34 UTC tomshardware.com Llama Share 188

The US FAA plans to upgrade its outdated air traffic control system to 21st century technology, replacing paper strips and floppy disks with modern systems. The project aims to complete the upgrade within four years, but industry experts consider this timeline unrealistic.

Air-dried vs. Kiln-dried Wood

143 crescit_eundo 2025-06-08 15:45:39 UTC christopherschwarz.substack.com Llama Share 72

Wood-drying processes involve air-drying and kiln-drying, with kiln-drying controlling temperature and humidity for faster drying, while air-drying is more variable and dependent on weather. Kiln-drying has evolved with technology, including digital controls and AI, to produce high-quality wood with low moisture content, while air-drying can produce relaxed and high-quality wood with proper control.

Knowledge Management in the Age of AI

130 katabasis 2025-06-08 04:05:31 UTC ericgardner.info Llama Share 86

The author used to be an Emacs enthusiast but stopped due to its complexity. They're now using Obsidian for personal knowledge management with the PARA method.

The Illusion of Thinking: Strengths and Limitations of Reasoning Models

127 sunshinerag 2025-06-08 07:24:59 UTC machinelearning.apple.com Llama Share 4

Recent Large Reasoning Models (LRMs) show improved performance on reasoning benchmarks but their capabilities and limitations are insufficiently understood. LRMs face accuracy collapse beyond certain complexities and exhibit counter-intuitive scaling limits.

Show HN: Let’s Bend – Open-Source Harmonica Bending Trainer

125 egdels 2025-06-08 16:00:22 UTC letsbend.de Llama Share 36

The Let's Bend app helps harmonica beginners master bending notes through visual practice. It's available on desktop and Android, free of charge with no ads.

The wire that transforms much of Manhattan into one big, symbolic home (2017)

115 rmason 2025-06-08 20:22:33 UTC atlasobscura.com Llama Share 263

Rabbi Moshe Tauber checks Manhattan's eruv wire daily to ensure it's intact before Shabbat, allowing observant Jews to carry objects between private and public spaces. The wire, a symbolic boundary, is maintained by the Jewish community with support from wealthy philanthropists to enable the community to observe their faith.

Reverse engineering Claude Code

113 gianpaj 2025-06-08 06:13:15 UTC kirshatrov.com Llama Share 23

Claude Code is slower and more expensive due to its security policy and multiple LLM calls for each task. It provides a generic and secure UX, but can be improved with more efficient tool usage and pricing.

Binfmtc – binfmt_misc C scripting interface

102 todsacerdoti 2025-06-08 12:38:55 UTC netfort.gr.jp Llama Share 28

User loves C programming and wants to use it for everyday scripting. A tool called binfmtc allows compiling and executing C scripts directly.

Re: My AI skeptic friends are all nuts

101 skarlso 2025-06-08 06:05:03 UTC skarlso.github.io Llama Share 110

The author is concerned that relying too heavily on AI tools will lead to a loss of critical thinking skills and a decrease in the quality of code. They argue that humans should not outsource their problem-solving abilities completely.

Should I Use a Carousel? (2013)

99 coffeecoders 2025-06-08 01:16:28 UTC shouldiuseacarousel.com Llama Share 47

1% of users clicked a feature, with 89% clicking the first position. Carousel testing failed, with users often missing or ignoring content.

Focus and Context and LLMs

94 tarasglek 2025-06-08 09:09:19 UTC taras.glek.net Llama Share 45

The author criticizes agentic coding hype, stating that LLMs can only produce impressive results under intense algorithmic supervision. They highlight the difficulty of curating context for LLMs, making them only truly impressive in the hands of exceptional software engineers.

An innovative superfamily of fonts for code (2023)

84 laex 2025-06-08 00:15:11 UTC monaspace.githubnext.com Llama Share 15

Proportional typefaces have unique glyph widths, while monospaced faces have uniform widths, altering letter designs to fit. Texture healing replaces compromised pairs with more legible variants in monospaced fonts.

A Knockout Blow for LLMs?

81 tu7001 2025-06-08 06:58:33 UTC garymarcus.substack.com Llama Share 48

Gary Marcus and Subbarao Kambhampati argue that large language models (LLMs) fail to reason reliably outside their training distribution, echoing Marcus's 1998 paper on neural networks and Kambhampati's critique of "chain of thought" models. The Apple paper shows that even the latest LLMs struggle to solve classic problems like the Tower of Hanoi, highlighting the need for well-specified ...

YouTuber claims to have received an offer to buy the Commodore brand

80 daledavies 2025-06-08 06:55:31 UTC amiga-news.de Llama Share 33

Sean Donohue's My Retro Computer Ltd acquired Commodore 64x rights, initially selling it as 'My 64' due to high licence fees. The company now offers it as 'Commodore 64x' after agreeing with Commodore Corporation B.V.

Fray: A Controlled Concurrency Testing Framework for the JVM

70 0x54MUR41 2025-06-08 06:21:42 UTC github.com/cmu-pasta Llama Share 3

Fray is a Java concurrency testing tool that helps find and debug race conditions using state-of-the-art techniques. It can be integrated into existing testing frameworks like JUnit 5 with the @ConcurrencyTest annotation.

Installing Microsoft Windows 98 in DOSBox-X

61 keepamovin 2025-06-08 03:38:05 UTC dosbox-x.com Llama Share 27

To install Windows 98 in DOSBox-X, start by creating a harddisk image and configuring the win98.conf file, then mount the Windows 98 CD-ROM and follow the installation process. After installation, you can enable networking, adjust video and sound settings, and install additional software to enhance the Windows 98 experience in DOSBox-X.

Launching the BeOS on Hitachi Flora Prius Systems (1999)

58 doener 2025-06-08 14:46:21 UTC testou.free.fr Llama Share 22

To boot BeOS on a Hitachi FLORA Prius 330J, you can use a floppy disk, install a BeOS Launcher for Windows, or install Bootman, a boot manager that allows you to choose between operating systems. Bootman is included on the BeOS backup CD-ROM.

I got a remote job for a EU company, I'd find it hard to go back to a US-based

57 nixass 2025-06-08 10:49:35 UTC businessinsider.com Llama Share 83

Meghan Gezo, a 34-year-old from Michigan, left her remote job in the US to work for Storyblok, a fully remote Austrian company. She found better work-life balance and benefits, including 16 weeks of paid maternity leave and a 38.5-hour workweek.

A Thousand Tiny Optimisations

56 leejo 2025-06-08 13:50:41 UTC leejo.github.io Llama Share 10

The author reminisces about playing A Link to the Past and discovers a randomizer that shuffles game items, creating infinite variations. The randomizer has evolved into a complex challenge with a large community and speedrunning aspect.

BYD's Five-Minute Charging Puts China in the Lead for EVs

54 pseudolus 2025-06-08 15:33:07 UTC spectrum.ieee.org Llama Share 146

BYD's 1,000-kilowatt fast chargers can add 400 kilometers of range in five minutes, making EV charging as quick as gasoline fill-ups. This technology, demonstrated in China, could eliminate the biggest consumer gripe over EVs: long charging times.

Ask HN: In 15 years, what will a gas station visit look like?

53 thomassmith65 2025-06-08 23:20:03 UTC news.ycombinator.com Llama Share 157

Gas stations will change gradually with more EV chargers and possibly fewer staff due to automation. By 2040, they may resemble rest stops with fuel and charging, and some will remain for ICE engines.

Apple Is on Defense at WWDC

53 pseudolus 2025-06-08 10:48:53 UTC theverge.com Llama Share 46

Allison Johnson criticizes Apple's recent missteps, including slow Vision Pro sales and stalled Apple Intelligence features. She wants Apple to show humility at WWDC and acknowledge its mistakes.

The Diary of Samuel Pepys

51 pepys 2025-06-08 04:41:39 UTC historytoday.com Full Share 28

To continue reading this article you need to purchase a subscription, available from only £5. If you have already purchased access, or are a print & archive subscriber, please ensure you are logged in.

Ask HN: Does anyone know of a general news site akin to Hacker News?

49 THENATHE 2025-06-08 03:43:55 UTC news.ycombinator.com Llama Share 84

You're looking for a platform that offers curated, non-tech news with commenting functionality, replacing Reddit, TikTok, and Google News. You want a community-driven site with thoughtful discussions, free from distractions and mainstream noise.

Nginx Restic Back End

47 mike-cardwell 2025-06-08 15:49:59 UTC grepular.com Llama Share 7

Mike Cardwell used Restic for backups and created an Nginx configuration to act as a Rest Server, allowing append-only backups and administrative tasks. He used Nginx's DAV and LUA modules to make it compatible with Restic's REST API.

The printer that transcends dimensions and corrupts reality

44 ghuntley 2025-06-08 16:41:05 UTC ghuntley.com Llama Share 10

The user shares a story about a printer that arrived with eldritch symbols and had reality-bending features, causing chaos in the IT department, but they eventually learned to use its quirks productively. The user also shares their experience learning to work with a Large Language Model (LLM) by giving it free rein to propose solutions, leading to the development of a formally verified batch ...

Rohde and Schwarz AMIQ Modulation Generator Teardown

43 iamsrp 2025-06-08 14:51:27 UTC tomverbeure.github.io Llama Share 14

The user acquired a Rohde & Schwarz AMIQ, an I/Q modulation generator, for $45 in an auction and spent significant effort to restore it to working state. The device has a complex analog circuit design, including a programmable DAC clock, variable gain amplifier, and diagnostic signal generation, which the user plans to explore in future blog posts.

Tool to identify poisonous books developed by University of St Andrews

41 bookofjoe 2025-06-08 19:29:41 UTC theguardian.com Llama Share 18

A new device developed by the University of St Andrews can quickly and cheaply detect toxic pigment in old green books. The handheld tool shines different colors of light on a book to identify the unique reflectance pattern of emerald green pigment.

The Hashtable Packing Problem (2020)

36 hyperbrainer 2025-06-08 07:04:41 UTC backscattering.de Llama Share 7

The Hashtable Packing Problem is an NP-complete problem that involves packing multiple hashtables in memory without overlapping occupied buckets. It is strongly NP-complete, meaning no efficient algorithm exists to find optimal solutions.

Researchers discover evidence in the mystery of America's 'Lost Colony'

33 ryan_j_naughton 2025-06-08 21:46:28 UTC foxnews.com Llama Share 32

Researchers Mark Horton and Scott Dawson found evidence that Roanoke Colony settlers assimilated into Native American society on Hatteras Island. They discovered hammerscale, iron-working evidence, and other English artifacts in a Native American trash heap, suggesting the colonists survived and integrated.

OpenBSD IO Benchmarking: How Many Jobs Are Worth It?

32 PaulHoule 2025-06-08 22:26:43 UTC rsadowski.de Llama Share 4

OpenBSD 7.7 outperforms Linux 6.12 in disk I/O benchmarks with optimal job count between 6-8. More jobs do not always result in better performance due to trade-offs in latency and usability.

The race to find GPS alternatives

31 Brajeshwar 2025-06-08 16:21:50 UTC technologyreview.com Llama Share 22

A new satellite called Pulsar-0 is launching to test next-generation satnav technology for a constellation called Pulsar, which aims to provide more accurate and secure positioning signals than GPS. The Pulsar system will have 258 satellites in low Earth orbit, offering stronger signals and better resistance to jamming and spoofing.

Acetylated cellulose suppresses mass through commensals consuming carbohydrates

21 PaulHoule 2025-06-08 19:59:41 UTC sciencedirect.com Full Share 10

Please confirm you are a human by completing the captcha challenge below.

Show HN: Update to my meta glasses API "Hey Meta send a message to ChatGPT"

16 devon_c 2025-06-08 15:18:36 UTC github.com/dcrebbin Llama Share 7

Browser extension adds custom AI bots to Meta Messenger for use with Meta Rayban Smart Glasses or standalone app. It sends chat logs to providers like ChatGPT and responds with audio clips using OpenAI.

BYD's Five-Minute Charging Puts China in the Lead for EVs

11 belter 2025-06-08 06:48:13 UTC spectrum.ieee.org Llama Share 1

BYD's 1,000-kilowatt fast chargers can add 400 kilometers of range in five minutes, making EV charging as quick as gasoline fill-ups. This technology, demonstrated in China, could eliminate the biggest consumer gripe over EVs: long charging times.

Characterizing my first attempt at copper-only passives

11 tverbeure 2025-06-08 06:01:50 UTC moroso.emarhavil.com Llama Share 1

The user is trying to measure small RF passives, specifically capacitors and an inductor, using a custom board and various test equipment, including a Siglent SVA1032X VNA and Scikit-RF tools. After revisiting the experiment with new calibration techniques and understanding of S-parameters, the user was able to obtain more accurate measurements and plots that resemble a capacitor and ...