Using the railway network as a flatbed scanner

204 otherayden 2026-08-18 13:07:32 UTC philo.gay Llama Share 38

The author built a digital scanning camera to capture wide photos of moving vehicles, using an industrial linear scanning camera and processing the data in post-processing. The project involved overcoming challenges such as speed measurement, parallax correction, and displaying large images.

Fixing a Bricked Framework Laptop

144 jp_sc 2026-08-18 14:07:32 UTC quantum5.ca Llama Share 62

The user's Framework laptop failed to update its BIOS via the official framework updater, resulting in a "bricked" system. The user attempted to flash the BIOS themselves using a CH347 programmer and successfully restored their laptop, but encountered issues with customizations being lost during the process.

The Amazon Tax

317 herbertl 2026-08-18 14:07:32 UTC seths.blog Llama Share 243

Amazon's search ads distort results, prioritizing sellers' budgets over product quality and customer needs. This system creates a cycle of inefficiency, driving up costs for consumers and stifling innovation in the market.

Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM

387 flaburgan 2026-08-18 08:07:32 UTC pixelcluster.dev Full Share 153

Python Polars Cheatsheet (based on our O'Reilly book)

62 jeroenjanssens 2026-08-18 14:07:32 UTC opensource.posit.co Llama Share 8

Polars is a library for data transformation, analysis, and visualization with a fast DataFrame API. It supports various operations like filtering, grouping, joining, and plotting.

How I Under-Engineered My Book

18 goostavos 2026-08-18 15:07:32 UTC chriskiehl.com Full Share 1

In contrast to this maniac on the front page of Hacker News: How I Over-Engineered My Book I typed the first draft of each chapter into Obsidian. Then I copy/pasted it into Word. When it was done, I dragged and dropped it into Box, which is where Manning stores its author's manuscripts.

Teaching my kid to code with a modern MUD

129 andrewjanke 2026-08-18 10:07:32 UTC tau.dev Llama Share 42

The author created a text-based game called Canon, where players can build and interact with their own games using a simple scripting language called Cant. The game is designed to teach programming concepts in an accessible way for beginners.

Fairphone is now officially available in the United States

189 Vinnl 2026-08-18 13:07:32 UTC fairphone.com Llama Share 94

The Fairphone (Gen. 6+) is launched with upgraded internal hardware, including a Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 processor and up to 12GB RAM, for improved performance and smoother multitasking. The new device retains the original's industry-leading repairability standards while introducing features like Android 16 and exclusive colorways.

Composable Tests

34 vinipolicena 2026-08-18 14:07:32 UTC newsletter.kentbeck.com Llama Share 27

Isolation in testing ensures each test runs independently, while composition involves combining tests to maintain predictability and specificity. This approach allows for more efficient testing with fewer tests, improving overall code quality and shipping speed.

Babies born under sugar rationing grew into adults with lower cancer risk

73 zeristor 2026-08-18 15:07:32 UTC theconversation.com Llama Share 14

Researchers found that people exposed to less sugar in early childhood had lower rates of certain cancers and slower biological aging, even decades later. Those who experienced sugar rationing during their first 1,000 days had healthier diets and lower sugar consumption in adulthood.

Splitting a Git Commit

20 signa11 2026-08-18 15:07:32 UTC blog.gnoack.org Llama Share 11

The Git commit process is simplified by asking for hunk-by-hunk input and bringing up an editor for the first two commit messages. A Stack Overflow question discusses a simpler approach, but it has fewer votes than an older answer with a more cumbersome method.

Code-native generation of highly programmable 3D assets (2026)

11 baigy 2026-08-18 15:07:32 UTC arxiv.org Llama Share 4

Nova3D generates 3D assets as executable Blender source code, producing a programmable asset with named parts and articulation. It outperforms baselines in various metrics, including geometry quality and representational capabilities.

Meta Files Patent for Facial Recognition, Automatic Recording of People

147 DeepLogin 2026-08-18 13:07:32 UTC privacyguides.org Llama Share 96

Meta filed a patent for a "memory recall" system that uses facial recognition to record people automatically, raising concerns about privacy. The company's Ray-Ban smart glasses have been criticized for their ability to surreptitiously record people using the onboard camera.

How Bluesky draws its logo on screenshots

647 gavide 2026-08-17 23:07:32 UTC timmarinin.net Llama Share 411

User noticed a hidden Bluesky logo in a screenshot, which disappears when taking the actual screenshot. The logo is actually rendered as part of a secure text field that gets blanked by iOS during the screenshot process.

Google buys crashed airline Spirit's data at auction

411 pseudolus 2026-08-18 11:07:32 UTC theregister.com Llama Share 287

Spirit Airlines filed for liquidation and sold its data to Google for $10 million, which includes 100m emails, 500m Microsoft Teams items, and customer service records. The deidentified data will be used by Google to improve its AI services.

Show HN: Shoehorn – Quantize any model down to run on your machine

7 rhgraysonii 2026-08-18 15:07:32 UTC notactuallytreyanastasio.github.io LocalLLM Share 2

shoehorn helps select Hugging Face models based on your hardware budget, using a local web app and llama.cpp. It quantizes models in Rust to GGUF v3 format for efficient inference.

The coolest anti-surveillance tools at Defcon [video]

24 neom 2026-08-18 15:07:32 UTC youtube.com Embed Share 0

Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

446 shdon 2026-08-17 23:07:32 UTC fabiensanglard.net Llama Share 189

id Software released Quake shareware on a CD-ROM in 1996, allowing gamers to buy the game and unlock it with a phone call. However, hackers quickly discovered that they could bypass the system by decrypting the full version of the game from the shareware CD using QCRACK.EXE.

Baking a Model: A Metaphor for LLM Training

22 KentBeck 2026-08-18 12:07:32 UTC newsletter.kentbeck.com Llama Share 1

The author reflects on their fascination with AI models, comparing the process of creating them to baking and understanding how a model is constructed. They break down the model into its user interface and core components, explaining that training involves tweaking numbers through pre-training, post-training, and mid-training processes.

Finger: Social network that never died

112 andros 2026-08-18 08:07:32 UTC en.andros.dev Llama Share 37

The first social network, Finger, was created in 1971 at Stanford University and allowed users to share their status updates with others. It remains a simple yet functional protocol that has been revived in recent years with modern implementations like Happy Net Box and plan.cat.

Israel creates fake think tank in likely attempt to dupe AI chatbots

910 DeepLogin 2026-08-17 21:07:32 UTC responsiblestatecraft.org Llama Share 529

The Hanover Institute for Public Policy appears to be a fake think tank created by the Israeli government to influence chatbots and AI systems, producing reports on Israel/Palestine issues. The organization's publications are designed to appeal to chatbots like Claude or Gemini, with formulaic questions and neutral tone arguments.

GPT-5.6 Sol Pricing Cut by 50%

581 Topfi 2026-08-17 21:07:32 UTC openrouter.ai Llama Share 385

OpenRouter compares different companies' models based on routing modes and metrics like price, speed, accuracy, and performance. It provides a ranking system to help users choose the best model for their needs.

Deus Ex creator Warren Spector is retiring from game development

84 danbolt 2026-08-18 14:07:32 UTC videogameschronicle.com Llama Share 55

John Spector, a renowned game developer, is retiring after a career spanning decades. He feels accomplished and ready to move on from the industry that has changed significantly over time.

Claude writing a macOS driver for my obscure HP printer built only for Windows

99 porridgeraisin 2026-08-18 13:07:32 UTC twitter.com/kuberwastaken Full Share 32

It's crazy to imagine that we can just do this if we feel like it, a few years ago no one would've even bothered to program this 😭

Rethinking Database Programming

169 honungsburk 2026-08-18 08:07:32 UTC acadia.engineering Full Share 80

What Happens If OpenAI Dies?

31 thelastgallon 2026-08-18 15:33:32 UTC wheresyoured.at Llama Share 10

OpenAI is struggling financially, with significant obligations and commitments that are difficult to meet. The company needs at least $100 billion a year to survive, but its actual cash position is uncertain due to inflated valuations and reliance on venture capital. If OpenAI fails, it could have devastating consequences for the entire AI industry.

The Size of the World Wide Web

4 1970-01-01 2026-08-18 15:07:32 UTC worldwidewebsize.com Prefix Share 0

The Indexed Web contains at least 3.98 billion pages (Wednesday, 15 January, 2025). The Dutch Indexed Web contains at least 2042.74 million pages (Wednesday, 15 January, 2025). Houston we have a problem:Since January 15, 2025 we cannot receive any data from Google. They make it very difficult to automatically retrieve data from the search engine. This means we can no longer retrieve numbers ...

Fairphone 6 and PostmarketOS working main camera

268 pizzaiolo 2026-08-17 22:07:32 UTC catcrafts.net Llama Share 68

The author has successfully integrated a wide lens camera into their Linux phone, improved image quality with color correction, and is now working on shipping the Fairphone 6+ worldwide except for US and Canada due to insurance issues. They are also planning to create a non-profit company to back their future projects, including making an RISCV-based Linux phone.

IBM Simon (1994): the original smartphone, explained in its own ad [video]

73 kls0e 2026-08-18 05:07:32 UTC youtube.com Embed Share 42

Muse Glimmer is a memory hierarchy disguised as a 30B Transformer

4 stepnivlk 2026-08-18 15:07:32 UTC abstractextraordinary.com Prefix Share 0

Meta pitches Muse Glimmer as an agent that runs on your device: autonomous, multimodal, no cloud required. That is an engineering problem as much as a product claim: fit a capable 30B-class model, a long working history, and a perception stack into consumer hardware. The answer turns out to be a memory hierarchy disguised as a 30B Transformer. Its model card is direct about the goal: Muse ...